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Chapter Text

The clock on the wall in front of him was ticking, without disturbance coming to or from it, and only emitting that classical tick tack as if to fill the silence in the room.

The long, rectangular tablet, on which there was the promise of some snacks, was empty, save for the boots of one of the many, many inhabitants of the room, all of them guests unintended of the person at one of the table's heads, one facing the window, her peers, and the mysterious group for which they work for.

The aformentioned window, however, was the more interesting thing in the room: Not because of itself, but because of the dream-like visage of what he could only describe as a massive "cavernous jungle", as if of a Hidden subterranean Paradise it were.

Taking into account this and his past encounter with the impossible, Koichi Shikishima wouldn't be surprises if this was indeed Heaven, and he died.

Maybe such past encounter was the reason why he and Noriko weren't that surprised or amazed by the whole situation they were currently in, at least not as much as their fellow strangers in this stupidly big, weird, and yet somehow homelike room.

Both the walls, the floor and the ceiling were made of wooden boards, probably mahogany, almost giving the impression of being one of those classic forest cabins. There even was a chimney right on the wall that was facing the window. On the walls were paintings and photos depicting rural fields, meadows and valleys next to great mountains, geese flying in the moonlight over a lake, and the typical scenes of a family playing and having fun.

He was starting to consider getting one himself with his family. A precious memory that would last for a long time.

Most of the furniture was also made of wood, but some were a darker color, probably oak, and others were painted white or black, while a few were made of metal and painted black. There was a shelf with many, many books right behind the couch on which he and Noriko where.

That was, however, where the similarities ended, and the weird started to take a hold upon it all.
Koichi was able to barely recognize the strange device on top of a piece of furniture as a TV, but unlike the ones back Home, this one was entirely black, safe for a red light under the Dark screen. It had no antennae, no buttons that could be seen, and it was practically flat, with no "back box" behind storing al the cables and other mechanisms that helped TVs to operate.

Then, there was the clothing of everyone in the room, the hosts included. While their clothing wasn't that different from his and Noriko's, and thankfully unlike some of those weird silver, one-piece costumes wore in movies about time travelers from the future and aliens fron other planets, they were still somewhat weird in comparison: The most familiar clothing belonged to what Koichi supposed were either a couple or siblings and an older, well suited man in his late 40's and early 50's.

From there on, similarities began to slowly fade, as there were a few but noticeable groups of people that had lighter clothing, or what he recognized as a leather jackets, or... Where those three from some tribe or something? Maybe villagers from some island in the pacific. That would explain the twin sisters' curious tattoos. Wait a minute... Is- Is that guy's hair blue? And his partner, the girl with big glasses, had golden eyes...

Golden eyes...

He had for a moment forgotten why he wasn't that impressed with the situation he and Noriko and even Akiko were currently in, why he didn't gave a greater interest in everyone else in the room (Is that NATURAL blue hair?), and why he has a suspicion that he was in some weird version of Heaven.

Because of Gojira.

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It had been 2 months since he had faced that thing, that monster, that nightmare from the older legends of Odo Island, that had brought to him waking and dreaming visions of his comrades, the ones that he couldn't save out of fear, and the horror that came back 2 years later, divinified by humanity's key to it's own self annihilation: The atomic bomb.

Gojira, now a 50 meters tall god of rage and death and deathless scars of wars, had chosen the entire country as it's territory, and it had almost took everything not only from him, but from everyone in Ginza and the entirety of Japan as a whole, with the usage of a new, deadly power and expression of it's fury and wrath: An azure heath ray, from which the result was a recreation of it's rebirth, and a ghoulish callback to Hiroshima and Nagasaki's destruction.

He... He almost lost Noriko... He BELIEVED he has lost her during Ginza's destruction, that she was now a disgusting mess of blood and flesh and bones and tattered clothes amongst the debris, and that now the girl who he has lived with for two years now, that he respected, cared for and, as he had realized to late, loved, was gone, GONE at he claws of Odo's Hell God.

He didn't want anyone else to suffer this. He has planned to sacrifice himself to at least stop Gojira from destroying the country and killing any more people. He wanted to give them a Future, give his friends Yoji, Shiro and Kenji, a future, give Akiko a future... Alone...

He thought about Akiko, about her wellbeing and her life and happiness, of which he and Noriko were the reason for. He wondered and pondered about what she would do if he died. Yes, Sumiko would take care of her as she grew up, but even then.. Would she ever smile again? Would she develop some psychological issues because of not having any parents? Would she... Would she become like him? A coward, a self-degrading girl that would end her own life because of the pain of losing people close to her... Would she... No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!!

He would NOT let that happen to her, to his little Akiko!! He would be there for her, just as Noriko had begged him one night. He would be with her. He would help her. He would be there...

He would live... And, if it wasn't clear, he lived.

Gojira resurfaced, this time going straight to Tokyo, and everyone was ready to fight to the death to defend their country and their loved ones from Gojira's wrath. He himself, with the usage of his plane from the end of the war, became the bait to being Gojira to the sea, to the trap that, if done correctly, would kill the beast with help of the deep's pressure.

Gojira, whoever, managed to survive the sudden pressure change, and resurfaced above the dark waters in order to destroy everyone, to kill everyone, just like that night 2 years ago in Odo. And Koichi wouldn't let that happening. Never. EVER. Again.

The plane was filled with explosives. He planned to ram the plane into Gojira's mouth, and let the nuclear power flowing through it's veins become is karmic and ironic Demise. For a moment, he thought that he would only find peace in death, taking his demons, his Demon, GOJIRA, down to the abyss with him. But the memory of Noriko's wish argued in his head from the bottom of his heart, begging him to live. It was accompanied by memories and please from Akiko, and then... From a memory, and a petition... From Tachibana...

Tachibana, the man who Koichi had condemned to seeing his troops and friends die, and who in return condemned Koichi to remember their deaths and the reason why they died, was the one who ended up saving him. When repairing the plane for the last battle against Gojira, Tachibana had revealed he has included a lever that would eject the Pilot when pulled. And he, amongst a solemn darkness, gave Koichi an order... No, a petition, a favor, a wish: Live.

He did so. He pulled the lever right before the plane crashed in Gojira's mouth, and in the air Koichi saw how the blue power, the atomic power, the very weapon of Gojira, became it's doom, as it began to literally fell apart, sinking under the sea. And after that, he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time... He was calm.

When he arrived to mainland, he received Akiko in his arms with great joy... Only for that joy to be replaced by confusion by a letter... And then shock by the contents of the letter. He rushed to the hospital as fast as possible, Akiko in arms, and then began searching through every room untill... He found Noriko, in bed, bandaged, alive... She was alive. His Noriko was alive!! He cried out of joy and happiness, for his family was with him, and he was with them. Unspoken mothers and Daughter hugged the father. Alas... His war was finally over.

Things went smoothly the next 2 months. Tachibana became another uncle-like figure for Akiko, and she began talking a bit more. He has also become pals with the others, specially with Kenji, though it would be hard to not like the guy anyways.

Noriko's job was, Indeed, able to fill the bills in no time. For some reason, Noriko always wore a scarf or a turtleneck or something else that covered her neck... Meh, no big deal. Plus, they fit her very well, and she even looks cute in those... Hopefully this doesn't wake up something strange in him in the future. Koichi's job also came in handy with the money, disarming and destroying sea mines, and his position as one of Japan's heroes became... nothing short of a bonus. Of course, soon his importance would be forgotten, just like with any other "Hero", and the sea mines are not limitless. He was seeing getting a job in case of any of the two or both events happening anytime soon.

A little concerning thing for everyone, that had become the only nagging thing in these 2 months, was the fact that Akiko was starting to draw... And she was drawing, out of everything that could exist on the face of the planet, Gojira itself. Of course, she told everyone that she Saw a few images and survivor's drawings and sketches of the beast on the news, and she liked "The Big Man-Lizard". She's not a bad kid, not at all, but she doesn't realize that this could trigger something in many people. Besides that, She's a happy sunshine for everyone.

Oh, and he and Sumiko are, officially, at last in good terms. Yey!!

Everything was going well... Until last night.

He awoke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, an up from the usual nightmare-waking from the last 2 years. He had a little lamp to help him travel the dark corridors of the house, a gift from Yoji, and one that he was thankful for. He was coming back from the bathroom, and he was about to turn the lights of, but he decided to appreciate Noriko a bit before going to sleep... That's when he saw it.

On the right side of her neck was a black mark, similar at first glance to some of the burn scars in many victims of the atomic bomb, a mark that they had the cruelly ironic misfortune of surviving the explosion but not by default the radiation. So many were lost even days after the disaster. But the closer Koichi's was and the better he looked, he realized that it wasn't as much of a superficial scar, but rather one under her skin, almost looking as if her heart was pumping death itself through her veins.

If this was getting Koichi nervous, what came next took it to the next level: The mark, even if just a little, expanded and grew through Noriko's pallid neck at least a few millimeters under the candle's light, until it stoped as suddenly as it started. That moment gave away to a deadly trauma trigger Inside Koichi's mind, for the mark had turned into a dark callback to the one thing that everyone was moving on from: The mark in Noriko's neck resembled Gojira's dorsal plate.

His mind was in utter chaos and confusion when he saw this. 'Wha- Why does Noriko have THAT on her neck? Why does it look like Gojira's dorsal plate? When did this black mark appeared'- An idea popped in his head when he connected the dots: Dorsal plates. Black. Noriko. Gojira... Black... Black Rain... Black Rain! Gojira's Black Rain in Ginza two months ago!!

When Gojira destroyed Ginza, black rain began falling upon the ruined city, and the news said that shards and bits from the monster were scattered amongst the debris. This, right after Gojira uses his Heat Ray to cause a nuclear explosion... The same that dragged Noriko and many others to what everyone assumed was an assured death. And yet, days later, everyone is informed that many civilians survived, Noriko included.

God, did Koichi felt like an idiot right now!! No one simply survives such an explosion to the face unharmed, no one, and yet besides some bruises, Noriko was fine, unharmed, and perfectly well. He had even heard that many people also survived the blast, even some who were many streets closer to the explosion.

How could no one notice this?! How did no one realized it, or questioned this miracle?! And to top it all, there where tests to see if anyone had radiation on them, and yet, despite there being clear signs of a light illness or two, there was nothing. Nothing!!! Even those who drank some of the Black Rain where fine!!! How many could have the same mark, or something similar? What was going on anymore? This, and the fact that this came from a 15 meters tall, dinosaur-like creatures, mutated by bomb testings in the Pacific into a 50 meters tall, radioactive nightmare, it just... just...What even WAS Gojira?

So many questions, and yet Koichi knew that he wouldn't get any answers to all of them, specially now, in the middle of the night, in his and Noriko's bedroom, while everyone else was sleeping... But that didn't mean he couldn't question Noriko tomorrow. She had all day free, and Sumiko offered herself to take Akiko to some playgrounds nearby so she could get some friends. So, tomorrow morning, he would ask Noriko about her mark, and see what to do about it.

But that was tomorrow, this is now, now is nighttime, and Koichi needed his, specially after this. So, he jumped into the bed, turned off the lantern, hugged his Sweet Noriko, and fell asleep...

But little did any of them know that, after getting ready for the day and having a nice breakfast, still waiting for Sumiko to arrive and take Akiko to the playgrounds, and with Koichi preparing himself for the discussion he would have with Noriko, that their plans for the day would be interrupted in a very, very peculiar way.

They were finishing breakfast when suddenly, through the Windows and doors, the whole house began to be filled with a blinding white light that began to creep slowly through the corridors, and reaching where the three of them were. When they realized, Koichi tried to find an exit while trying and failing to keep Noriko and Akiko calm. He had hear Noriko scream before, thanks to Shiro's pranks, but Akiko? That would haunt him in his nightmares.

There was, to their dismay, no visible way out of such dire situation. The light was filling the room fast, becoming brighter and brighter by the second, and their hope to get out of that situation was nonexistent at this point. All that Koichi could think of doing was to hug his family, both to try and protect them, and in case this was the last he would see of them. The light finally reached them...

And what happened next was confusing at best. He remembered being half conscious enough to feel himself on the earthy ground, his body in a not deadly but still irritating pain that made movement not an option, or at least not for one to pick immediately. He remembers the muffled sound of a large group of people shutting orders and running around, dividing into progressively smaller and smaller groups, until only what he supposed were 4 people came to where he was. He felt being put into one of those emergency stretchers, and being carried into the direction from which the group of men came from. He then remembers waking up in a hospital bed, a bandage on his forehead, and the curtains blocking his view of whoever were on the bed's sides. However, he heard someone behind the curtain on his left, probably a doctor, asking questions to someone else if they remembered what happened. When that someone answered, Koichi immediately recognized that voice, and with a mixture of relief, worry and happiness, he pulled away the curtains.

"Noriko!!"

"... Koichi..." Akiko responded, as if processing what she was seeing, before tears began to fall down her cheeks, and she screamed his name in joy and relief. Both of them jumped out of the medical beds and hugged each other, in the verge of crying. "I-I thought that I- That you were... That i dreamt these last two months, and that you- That you were-"

"But I'm not. I'm here, Noriko. I'm here, I'm with You. Until they very end." Koichi reassured her. Promised her, to be with her no matter what. He and-

Wait... Where's Akiko?

"Mommy, daddy?" Akiko's voice asked behind the other, still-closed curtain, with a mix of curiosity and worry on her voice.

The couple run in a matter of seconds towards the other bed, and they found an innocent-looking Akiko, thankfully unharmed, and they couldn't be happier to see her, their sweet daughter, safe from harm. They hugged Akiko with all of their love as strong as they could, though not to the point of harming her, and they rejoiced for being together, the three of them. Together until the very end. Together no matter the time or place.

"Oh, Akiko, sweetie! I was so worried about you!!" Noriko said, tears rolling down her face.

"Are You ok? Do-Do You free well, Akiko? Does anything hurt-" Koichi began asking her, a bit worried that she may be hurt or scared, or both! But suddenly, Akiko cut him off with a question of her own.

"Mommy, daddy... Where are we?" Akiko asked them both, this time more out of curiosity than fear, and looking towards a window.

For a moment, they didn't understood why she would ask that, as they where clearly in a hospital. The beds, the curtians, the monotone mixture of white and blue, it all screamed hospital. Maybe she was asking where this hospital was. It should be near their house, that should explain how they're here even after... After... That mysterious light appeared. And right after, Koichi remembers being half-conscious on the dirty, earthy ground... The muffled sound a large group of people arriving and... Maybe something happened that left them in the backyard? And someone must have noticed the light and called medics and the police and rescued them and brought them to the hospital and-

Koichi's thoughts were cut dry the moment he and Noriko looked out the window. They hadn't taken any care to look outside during the whole situation, subconsciously thinking that it just led to a nice view of the city, maybe with the sun setting judging by the orange colored light that came through. However, when both of them look out the window, they realized how wrong they were:

Instead of a beautiful view of Ginza, drowning in orange light and deep shadows thank to a wonderful sunset (Or maybe a sunrise, Koichi thought as a second option), what laid behind the glass was an immense expanse of rock, dirt, flora and many-colored crystals, all of it placed in such a way that the best way to describe it would be "A Titan of a cavern, many times bigger than Ginza alone". The orange light was nothing more than the result of the brown and orange colour of the cave, lighten up and reflected by some crystals nearby. And that's accompanied by giant, orange crystals on the cave's ceiling, which seemed to be darkening slowly but surely, as if it were imitating the darkening of the sky during dawn.

This... This is... What the H E L L is this??!! This wasn't Ginza, this wasn't Tokyo and it definitely wasn't Japan... Were they still on Earth even?! Were they still... alive? They had to be... THEY ARE ALIVE. He can feel Noriko and Akiko, feel in a way that no dream could replicate, ever. And it wouldn't make any sense for them to wake in an afterlife shaped like a hospital, bandaged, and being watched by-

"Ahem."

As if his thoughts were read aloud by a third party, the Doctor, who had decided to stand by and watch the whole family's reunion-turned-into-revelation play out, called their attention to remind them of his presence. He looked... like a normal person really, with the most interesting and distinctive thing about him being, besides his face-mask, his short blonde hair, brown eyes and a scar on his left eye and eyebrow, with the eye being intact. He was putting something red, flat and rectangular on one of his pants' pockets.

The three of them stared in silence at the doctor, who seemed to be calm, as if he was seeing a bunch of kids to babysit, with him being in control, and Koichi couldn't hold the burning question any longer.

"Where are we?"

Even when covered by the face-mask, Koichi could tell very well that the doctor's mouth was turning into an uncannily friendly smile, as if saying 'Hey, it's ok, I'm your friend'. That's when suddenly, the door behind the doctor's back was opened, and 2 figures appeared: A young girl, around 12 years old, dark Brown to dark hair tied in a bun, and wearing a necklace with a small crystal on ir. Then, grabbing the girl's shoulder in a protective manner, a woman appear behind the girl. She had short, brown-to-blond hair, and her face showed... Worry? She was putting the girl behind her, so she may or may not be her mother.

They all stared at each other, Koichi and Noriko with Akiko behind them, and the woman with the girl her, companied by the smiling doctor. It was so quiet...

Who the Hell are these guys?

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Koichi snapped back from his memories to reality, Noriko grabbing and shaking him by the shoulder softly to make him come back from 'memory lane'. She was worried about the whole situation, and so was he. How could he not be?

After the silent stare contest, they all managed to calm down a bit and the woman, their new host, asked them to accompany her when they felt physically and mentally prepared. She told them that there would be a reunion with a whole lot of people, and that there would be snacks to make things easier for everyone. And so, they rested, then prepared, and ask the doctor to call the host to inform her that they were ready. He did, using the weird, rectangular device from earlier.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to bother you with anything trivial, but... What is that... device?" Noriko asked, maybe to calm herself through understanding her surroundings. She was such a clever girl, and Koichi was happy to have her as her wife.

"... It's a cellphone..." The doctor said as of a matter of fact. That was a phone? But it was so... so different from one. And the screen... It remind Koichi to a TV more than a phone. "You guys do have cellphones back at your place... Right?"

"We have phones, but they're bigger, and smoother, and have a funny cable." Akiko replied, her innocence almost palpable to even the doctor himself, as shown by his whispered 'aww'.

Their host arrived and, alongside the girl and the doctor, guided them trought the complex, that became more and more different than a hospital, and more similar to some kind of facility. They reached a door, a metallic one with a scanner on the left side of it. She put her right hand on the scanner, and after a confirming 'beep', the door opened.

And so, here he was, accompanied by Noriko, surrounded by a myriad of people, the host and the doctor, now in a more formal attire, acting as the hosts. Akiko was brought by the young girl to a room next to this one, in case that she either gets bored or scared by such a Big amount of people. They where followed by one of the guest: A girl, around her 16's, with tribal attire, white hair and blue eyes, with her body being covered head to toe with white and brown tattoos. At first the young bun girl didn't looked sure about this, but her face changed seconds later from distrust to shock, and then joy. The three entered the room, under the promise of letting Noriko go and check every 15 minutes.

Koichi saw a girl surprisingly identical to the tribal girl, except she didn't seem very fond of the place. Maybe they where twins.

He looked back at Noriko, and smiled to reassure her that everything would be ok. This moment of reassurance was interrupted by the grunt of one individual: A man, around his 40's, with black short hair, a dense mustache, a black leather jacket, and two boots that where currently on top of the table. He took his boots off the table, sat properly on the couch, and looked with a mixture of boredom, irritation, determination, calmness and suspicion towards the host.

"So... When shall we start?"

Koichi begged God for a peaceful conversation, and yet he knew that's wishful-thinking.

Chapter Text

Ilene Andrews was NOT having a good day. Not at all.

Hell, Monarch's anthropological linguist, leader of Hollow Earth's Outpost 333, and Amazing Adoptive Mother No.1™ wasn't having a good WEEK at that, and she had the wackiest and yet most understandable reasons why: Monarch, and excuse her french, fucked up. Royally... Maybe... Somehow.

It's been 4 months since the nicknamed 'Battle de Janeiro' took place, a battle in which Godzilla and Kong, working together thanks to Mothra calming Godzilla down, and being aided in battle by Kong's newly adopted son Suko, fought side by side to save the planet from the tyrannical Skar King, a crimson Great Ape with the mind of a dictator, and the mind-controlled Titan Shimo, who is currently speculated to be the oldest and most powerfull Titan of all and the one responsible for the Ice Age.

The battle was, by all means, ferocious and destructive, with casualties reaching the millions, as well as becoming one of the many Possible Economic Crisis Startpoint, or PECS, that has come up in the last 14 years because of Titans. However, everyone knew that if Godzilla was one of the fighters, then it means that this is a somewhat preferable outcome in regards to whatever extintion event he's trying to save everyone from.

Ilene felt Bad for the Big G, to be homest: Trying to take a nap just to be interrupted by some end-of-the-world scenario? Feel ya, buddy, feel ya.

Fortunately, and as evidenced by everyone still alive, the GK Duo and Suko saved the world!! Turns out that Skar King was using the crystal in the tip of his whip to control Shimo, so Suko used Kong's axe to destroy it, freeing a very confused and absolutely pissed off Shimo from mind-control, who decided to help by freezing Skar King so that Kong could bring the final blow and destroy the Titan Dictator once and for all. There are still car-sized shards of frozen flesh and bone and flood scattered around Rio de Janeiro, but they're being taken care of.

And so, everything went back to their wacky normal: Godzilla's been sleeping in the Roman Coliseum since then, and is currently visited by Mothra, agents of Monarch, and both locals and tourists that want to see their reptilian savior while he sleeps like a cat.
Meanwhile in Hollow Earth, Kong, Suko, and Cinnamon Roll™ Shimo came back to Skar King's lair to bring the good news to the enslaved Great Apes, who rejoiced and welcomed Kong not only as a new member of their family, but also as their new leader.

Of course, they all leaved that fiery place ASAP, and they all reached the higher levels of Hollow Earth in which Kong lived, and now they all enjoy their new home away from hardships. Of course, Kong has a few trainning sessions with most of them in order to survive the many dangers that they would love with from now on. This also had the secondary mission of having Kong interact in an active manner with his new family, something that he couldn't for more than 55 years.

On the human side of things, The Brazilian and French gobernments weren't happy with what the Titans have done, with Godzilla absorbing all the energy from one of France's nuclear reactors, and it's not needed to explain the whole 'Battle de Janeiro' again. The Italians, however, weren't that bothered, as they began to proclaimed that if Godzilla chose the Roman Coliseum as his resting place it was for some good reasons. Self-entitled morons... So yeah, there was yet another 'Titans and Socials & Economics' debate ever since the Mechagodzilla incident in Hong Kong 3 years ago.

Monarch, meanwhile, had been somewhat buisy: Thanks to their somewhat competent performance during Skar King's attack, both Trapper and Bernie became new Monarch members, with Trapper becoming a vet for Titans, specially the Great Apes, and Bernie became the secret public voice of Monarch, letting him reléase certain footage to certain loyal followers of his podcast in order to spread rumours that, in the end, put Monarch in a more benign light.

This was, however, also a way to keep an eye on these too, as they could be the start of a catastrophic domino effect. Trapper knew and was half-bothered but understood, and Bernie... Ok, nobody knows what's going on with him, but he hasn't caused any problems, so... Yay?

Jia and the Iwi where a whole new sector for many, but a very personal one for Ilene: Jia had decided to be with both her adopting mother and her new found family, as contact with her people was something she had missed for 3 whole years, and it helped hee with her humour at school. Now she has new friends, who had began to learn sign language to communicate better with her. Ilene was so happy for her little girl.

The Iwi were adjusting quite fast to this peacefull new chapter in their civilization's history, taking residence in proximity with the Great Apes, as well as interacting with any agents and representatives of Monarch in a friendly manner, though Trapper, Bernie and she herself are the ones they are interact the most with. In particular, the Leader seems to have taken a particular interest on her and, while Ilene cannot properly process the telephatic chat that the Iwi matriarch thinks and sends to her, she gets the idea as of why: The Leader wants to be some kind of guide to Jia, as well as to the current Monarch residents, in regards to their relation and views on Titans, as well as having good relations to the 'Above World Leaders'.

Those are the Main reasons, the one she explained to everyone working there and in her reports, but there's a more personal one in the middle of it: The Leader cannot bear children, and taking care of her people wasn't just a hard job, but also a cold one. A coldness that has begun to diminish every time Jia was with her in the weeks following the Battle de Janeiro.
Even without such emotions on the way, there was fear in Jia's future: She was the representation of balance, equilibrium and peace between two worlds: Iwi and Modern civilization, The Surface World and the Hollow Earth, blood and found relations... But such relations could be very easily broken by either or both sides, and it could affect anyone that lives as a messenger of both. Jia is happy now, yes, but there's always a looming danger that may seek to break her in more than one way...

Ilene and the Leader reached to the same conclusion: They HAD to be there for their little sunshine, help her through any hardship that she may go through, and make sure that her future is a peacefull one, wherw she could keep those she loves and cares about close to her. They would do that, and whatever that requires, for Jia. They would do it for her...

Also, she needs to clarify something: No matter what the recruits, agents, investigators, Bernie or Trapper, or anybody else at that may say... The Leader and her are NOT in a romantic relation of any kind. No, the fact that there's still no info regarding the Iwi's view on sexuality, gender, and relationships with people of the same biological sex is not an argument in favor of such notions. Neither is the fact that she herself doesn't know if She's bisexual, nor that she likes the Leader's company a whole lot. Theirs is a strictly formal, diplomatic and cooperative companionship that tries to secure Jia's future, as well as that of the entire planet.

Besides that misconception, everything has been going smoothly, fine and dandy, without any-

"So... When shall we start?"

Aaaaand there goes her little illusions of a peacefull present.

Right, the 'guests'... This is the reason why Morach royally-somehow-maybe fucked up. Big time.

Around 3 weeks after the Battle de Janeiro, Monarch's Search & Discovery Department found near the Great Apes' home a new energy center very simmilar yet different from the one in the 'Great Throne Room', the one where Kong found his axe, and a facility was made as soon as possible in order to analyse it. In less than a month, they discovered that this white glowing energy, surrounded by a few red particles, has gravitational properties and can use these properties and tipe into time itself reuse and reenergize itself, making this energy perpetual and eternal, as well as working as an accelerator or a primitive "teleporter" under certain circunstances.

This was the basis for Project Hermes, supervised by Deputy Director of Special Projects Mark Russell. The idea was to duplicate/reproduce such energy to not only make all their vehicles eternally functional and capable of taking 'jumps' from point A to point B in a matter of seconds, but also acelerate the advance of technology to help in the research of Titans before bringing it to the public, acelerate the growth of recourses, and in general terms end many of the world's problems caused by limitations...

Of course, the first 53 tests weren't successful, with neither a new discovery or tragedy made. But the 54th test, made around a week ago, was different... The red particles that usually surround the white energy began to act erraticly, with the computers showing at least 10 possible outcomes per particles, and the white energy began to distort time and space in the facility: Hallways became time loops, people did things 45 seconds before even thinking of doing them, and many object began to divide themselves or 'join' with others. The camera feeds of the event were a whole mess of their own.

It was around 32 minutes and 34 seconds after the incident began, that the entire facility was swallowed by the white energy in a manner simmilar to that of an explosion... But there was no boom, no shockwave. Just the looks of an explosion that, as suddenly as it ocurred, it stopped. The energy became dormant according to the readings... Readings which revealed that, during 0.0000006845 seconds, the radiation levels peaked to an absurd level before disapearing alongside the white explosion, leaving no trace of radiation behind.

And yet, the weird thing that has been bothering Ilene the most wasn't was happened for an instance before it stopped existing, but actually what was left behind:

In the surroundings of the facility, Monarch's Task Forces found an odd scene, or rather a bundle of scenes joined together as a warning of something to come, as in the ground, unconscious, were a myriad of people that clearly didn't belong to Monarch, some closer to others, almost indicating which people belonged to each group.

Ilene informed Mark through a message about the situation, but for some reason the message took 5 days to reach him. The white energy was most likely to blame here. He would arrive in two days to see what was going on. Meanwhile, the unconscious people would be resting in the medical bays of Outpost 333.

What was the most interesting thing about them, besides the state in which they appeared, was the clothing, with some wearing clothes reminisent of the 50s and forward, up to some wearing uniforms that didn't match any gobernment or organization known to the public or Monarch. And then there was that guy and girl... How does one have natural blue hair?! NATURAL. BLUE. And the girl had brown-to-golden eyes. Alongside them there was some kind of square-y Orange drone that was currently turned off.

And so, they all waited one week... Before they woke up.

Oh, right, she has people to attend.

Looking at the myriad of people, she noted that some were closer to others, indicating that they were not one group but a bunch of them, and their proximity at the time of finding them unconscious was an exact match:

- A man and twin sisters, from a tribe according to their clothing.
- A couple and their 3 year old daughter.
- Another couple, accompanied by what she supposed was a professor.
- A lonely man.
- A guy who claimed to be a captain of a spaceship.
- A lonely girl.
- A quite large group of 7 people, 2 of them being of French descendanse.
- Yet another couple, with a girl around... 5 to 8 years old.
- A lone woman in a somewhat weird blue military uniform.
- Another couple and someone who seemed to be from the Japanese Military, alongside a doctor and his daughter.
- 2 women, also wearing strange uniform.
- A doctor, her partner in some kind of... Kamen-Rider cosplay, and their friend with the mustache... He looked a lot like a WWE fighter, but she couldn't remember which one.
- 2 members of the Japanese Bourocracy, plus a woman who claimed to be of the United States', but of clear Japanese descendanse.
- And last but not least, the 'naturally weird' duo, plus a more normal looking guy.

She could do this... Deep breaths...

"I'm sorry for keeping You all waiting, but I was hoping for some coaleges of mine to arrive with some snacks for this meeting. It seems like they'll be late." Where in the name of God were Bernie and Trapper?! The storage room was literaly 20 meters away from the Outpost, it was a few seconds worth of a walk, WHY WEREN'T THEY HERE???!!!

DEEP. BREATHS... Deep breaths...

"I'm Ilene Andrews, anthropological linguist and leader of Hollow Earth's Outpost 333. As You may have noticed by the cavernous landscape outside the windows, you're far away from home and anything remotly normal on Earth. To summarize everything, you're on Hollow Earth, the birthplace of the giant organism known as Titans that the organization for which I work for, Monarch, has the mission to discover, study and, if possible, keep under control. Right now, we are about 10 kilometers away from the current home of a group of Titans, nicknamed 'Great Apes', who are accompanied by the primordial Titan Shimo, believed to be the First one."

She paused, giving everyone in the room some time to process this infodump, and giving herself the chance to breath and ready the next part.

"You somehow appeared here right after an experiment of ours went rouge, an experiment that so happens to be playing with space. Because of this, Deputy Director of Special Projects Mark Russell will come to join us in a few minutes. I'm sorry to expose You all to so much information, but I thought that it would be better to tell the truth than to hide it. So... Any questions?"

She did mean that, the exposure part. It was such a mess, and she didn't feel well after this whole incident began to taken place, fewling tired, streased, wanting to smash her head on the wall... If this is what Godzilla felt like since 2014 then DAMN she would also kill anyone who dared to fuck shit up.

Looking back at the groups, she found in their expressions the expected combination of confusion, surprise and rejection of such scenario. She couldn't blame them, as she herself found this weird, and she wasn't the one teleported from whatever convention or arg they came from one the Surface World. That was the logical explanation she had regarding their clothing choice... For most of them, at least. Looking at youe, blue boy.

"Well, that was... A whole lot for sure" One afroamerican guy from the 7-people group spoke up, maybe stating the obvious in order to lighten the mood. "Oh, by the way, I'm Randy Hernández. A pleasure."

Ilene could only smile and nod slightly. GOD, this was akward.

A gloved hand was raised up, making everyone pay attention to it and it's owner: The mustache guy, who was looking at Ilene with untrustiness and doubt. She understood that he wanted to ask, but before even opening her mouth to give him permision, he asked:

"These 'Titans' that you speak of... What's the difference they have, besides comming from this place,... with the Kaiju?"

... What?

The... Difference between Titans and Kaiju- What? What did he meant by that? What Kaiju?

Yes, she heard the term 'Kaiju' before, meaning 'Strange Beast', but as a second term for the Titans, not as something different. Why would he remark such a thing? Maybe he belongs to some shadowy organization? Maybe he's confused...

"I'm... I'm sorry, but could you define 'Kaiju'? It's not that I don't know what it means, but it's just that not in a context that it may describe something different from Titans." She explained as best as she could.

Before Mustache guy could retort, the lone blue military woman from before spoke in a somewhat strick tone, almost filled with... She couldn't tell if it was actual despise at the idea of 'Kaiju' or not.

"Kaiju are giant monsters of varying origins, thought they're usually prehistoric beasts that one way or another were mutated by radiation, causing them to grow to enormous sizes, adquiring strange habilities, and expanding their lifespan for decades." She informed. "Their size also varies, but maximum they reach 50 to 60 meters tall."

That almost sounded a lot like Titans. Almost. Of course, the key difference was the afformentioned origins of such creatures, being common creatures irradiated into behemoths if she understood right.

Mustache guy's friendly look at the woman changed to confusion at the size bit. But someone else interjected.

"Or from space!! Like the Millenians... Wait... Can a colective hivemind be considered a Kaiju, dad?" The 5 to 8 years old girl ask her father, a man of Japanese descendanse and with a dark, short beard, who just asked her to sit down, calling her 'Io'.

"Or from ancient times of forgotten myths. The Guardian Beasts are such example" One of the women said. "Yuri Tachibana. This is my father, Taizo Tachibana, and my boyfriend Takeda Teruaki." She presented herself and the other 2 who were accompanying her.

"Guardian Beasts? Like King Caesar?" The lone man asked Yuri. "Like, the one from Okinawa?"

There's a Kaiju in Okinawa?! And nobody has Even whispered about it?! How-

"That's impossible. King Caesar died fighting against Megalon. The reports said so at least." The tribal guy said, in perfect english and not some other tongue mind you... On another note: THE HELL'S A MEGALON?!

"There are yet more monsters?! How?!" The girl accompanied by her partner and the professor asked in terror. The professor, however...

"Another monster... Dead, you say?" He asked the tribal guy, as if looking to understand this situations as much as Ilene and everyone else wanted. However, the tribal guy was cut off by Mustache guy, who was clearly pissed off.

"King Caesar is NOT dead." He look at the guy straight in the eyes, and then at the military woman from before. "And he's not 50 meters tall..." After earning a confused look from her, as well as making the faces of most of the guests palé a little, he then looked at Ilene. "He's about 100 meters tall. Now, tell me something, Miss Andrews: How can a organization, in charge of looking out for monsters, not only go unnoticed by the Earth Defence Force, but also not noticed not one, not two, but at least a dozen monsters destroying the planet?"

'... Excuse me, but I think I'm speaking in the name of everyone else when mentally asking myself, THE FUCK?!'

That... Just... what... HOW?! A DOZEN MONSTERS -Kaiju, mind you- DESTROYING THE WORLD?! Either this guy was confusing events with the one in 2019 with the Mass Awakening, or he was on drugs. There was no other explanation. Thank God that Jia was babysitting the 3 year old baby alongside one of the twins, and good thing that she didn't said that outloud, or else this would go beyond bad...

Sadly, medical doctor David, had the same thought, but not the same realization.

"Ok, You must be on drugs. Those were Titans, buddy, and the Mass Awakening was, like, 9 years ago." The faces of everyone were... Surprised for some reason, as if they didn't know that a horde of primal creature woke up one day and killed millions under the command of an alien hydra.

David extended his hand to Mustache guy in a calming, yet pridefull manner."I think it's best for everyone if You calm down a bit and-"

David's arm was suddenly grabbed by the Kamen-Rider cosplayer, who in a matter of seconds took a grip on both of his arms, securing him in place. Meanwhile, Mustache guy stood up and, to the shock of everyone on the room, took out a gun from one of the jacket's inner pockets. Many stepped back while he hold the gun about 20 centimeters from Ilene's face. How did he got a gun?!

"H-How? David took your-"

"You really thought that I would reveal when I would wake up in any place but my home? Besides, the idiot had guns under one of the desks. Only had to be sneaky enough." He explained, not with smugness but seriousness. "Now, I don't know how any of you Alien freaks survived, nor how You captured us again, of even why you would put this sort of play. To mess with our minds? Brainwash us? Some cartoony vengeance, perhaps?"

He took one step closer.

"Or maybe... Maybe you're telling the truth, and I'm doing something crazy. But there's something that You must remember, in any case: One of the two things of Earth that You don't know about... Is me...So tell me, Andrews..."

One step closer...

"Are You who You really are?"

He put his finger on the trigger.

He looked at her right to the eyes, as if seeking confirmation of any of those crazy ideas. The eyes are the windows of the soul, Ilene remembered. Maybe this guy had some sort of trauma-induced hallucinations? That must explain everything, because the only other option for his answers and attitudes is... Is...

"... Are You?" She asked back.

The tension and the silence were almost tangible for everyone on the room, specially between the host and the crazy guest. David tried to free himself, but the cosplayer held him in place, almost as tensed as everybody else. It was clear that this could be a massacre if the trigger was pulled.

And yet, the biggest confrontation was being held in the eyes of the two. Two people, seeking to know the truth and the trust it comes with, and fearing that the next move could be the last one. They wanted to understand what was going on and if the other was trully who they claimed to be. How many times has such a thing ocurred between 2 people? How many times did one of them die? Would any of them die?

...

No, she wouldn't die. Not only because she has a daughter to care for, and an Outpost to lead, but also because she knew he would see not lies upon lies, but the honest truth: That she was being honest. And she would believe in him, that he was... Whoever he would say he us, and the crazy things he was taking about mey be truth. And he would know, that she believed him... And he would believe her... There was one stupid way to find out.

Ilene just close her eyes, and everyone jumped with a yell right when the sound of the gunshot was heard...

And with it, the sound of the bulled impacting the floor causing a hole in it.

Ilene opened her eyes to see that Mustache guy had lowered the gun to shoot at the wooden floor, right in front of her feet, while still stating at her. But this time, there was no doubt or hatred, but rather... Understanding. Respect... Trust. He believed her, and thankfully he would believe in everyone else... Hopefully.

"Hey, Shinichi!" He called out the cosplayer. "Let David go. He hasn't done anything wrong. Besides, he did gave us candy."

The cos- Shinichi let go of David, who only had to take a few deep breaths before regaining his composture. Everyone else, while still tense, loosened a little bit, while staying away from the protagonist of this thing.

He put the gun back in his jacket, and extended his hand in a more friendly manner, or as friendly as a guy like him could be.

"My name is Douglas. Douglas Gordon" He introduced himself, before doing so with the other two without looking at them. "The one who hold David in place is my friend Shinichi Ozaki, and his girlfriend, Doctor Miyuki Otonashi. Sorry for the mess."

There was a few seconds of silence before Ilene smiled a bit and shaked his hand.

The silence reigned supreme once more... Before the doors opened, revealing Bernie and Trapper carrying lots of bags of snacks in their arms.

"Sorry for the delay! Couldn't find the key for around 10 or 20 minutes, until Bernie used some clips to open the doors. Also, there are some Leafwings with cat attitude making a nest in there, so..." Trapper began explaining until he and Bernie stopped in place, seeing not only everyone awake, but also somewhat tensed up. "Umm... Anything happened?"

"Hey, look!" Bernie shot out while pointing to the window, in which everyone saw a small airship approaching the Outpost from the horizon, blue light flowing behind it.

"Mr. Russell, I suppose?" Asked Douglas.

"Yeah." Was the only answer she could give him.

Suddenly, on the microphone on her ears, a loud pitch was heard, causing her to take it off before putting it on back when it stopped. An angry voice came in.

"Hello, this is Alpha-9, calling Outpost 333, please responde, dammit!!!"

"Alpha 9, this is Ilene Andrews, whats going on? Change."

"Not to sound rude or anything, but where the Hell where you? We've been trying to contact everyone at Monarch for a week now, but there was no response!"

"There was an incident here, and we think that it may interfered with communications. It took me five days to finally contact Mr. Russell. Change"

"... You did some experiments? With what? Change?"

"Some kind of new energy source- This is confidential information, what are you-"

"Litsen up: You gotta evacuate everyone NOW!!! Get everyone down there and get the Hell out of there!!"

Why was he so... Scared?

"What's going on, Alpha-9? Change."

"About a week ago... He woke up and left Rome... Miss Andrews...

Godzilla's going down there."

R U N

Chapter Text

"Everyone, follow me outside!" Miss Andrews asked everyone on the room, her coaleges included.

"But what about the sna-"

"Outside, now!!" She cut of one of them, the one called 'Bernie' if she remembered perfectly.

Emiko didn't know why The sudden change in attitude in Miss Andrews, and neither did her father or Ogata. All they know is that, after challenging at gunpoint and earning Mr. Douglas' respect and trust, she pressed on her right ear and began talking to nobody, as if she was talking to a ghost or someone invisible.

What was she so afraid of so suddenly?

Emiko began to think in simple, not so horrible options in a way to distract herself from having a panic attack alongside everyone else: It must be that the Big Heads of 'Monarch' are using the 'Outpost' as a meeting facility, and they want to see everyone there as confirmation of this 'experiment gone wrong' that Miss Andrews spoke about in her briefing/Info dumpt. Yes, that must be it, that's why she's NERVIOUS, not scared.

Because the only other option would be that... That a 'Titan' is on it's way to them.

Miss Andrews never explained what a Titan is, or at least their characteristics. Was it a whole species of giant creatures, or a conglomeration of many species? How old were they: Thousands of years old, millions or billions? How tall were they, 50 or 60 meters tall or... A few hundred? Were they... radioactive?

A shiver ran down her spine while she, her father and her boyfriend, and everybody else followed Miss Andrews through the corridors. The memory of radioactive nightmares is still a fresh one in her mind, as well as in her father's, and in Ogata's, and in everyone else's for a matter of fact, a memory that still haunted her in the dark of the night even 7 moths after it ended. How could she or anyone else don't? Those weeks. Those horrible, horrible weeks, left a scar on the Japanese people that would never fade. Specially because the three of them were there, in the middle of it all, when it happened and when it finally ended...

Or, well, the four of them... Daisuke...

Everyone, which included the 3 year old baby, someone who she supposed was Miss Andrews' daughter, and one of the quiet twins, the one that seems nicer to people, finally reached what was supposed to be the main gate to enter and exit the Outpost, two metallic doors joined together, each one with a frame of 3 meters tall X 1,5 meter wide, giving a overall frame of 3X3 meters of pure metal. At the right side of the frame was a pannel with buttons under a horizontal glass screen with 5 white '_'s, and Ilene was the one to enter the code. She used her own body to hide it, so the only confirmation was a small 'beep' comming from the pannel, and the following sound of the complex mechanism used to open the gates. It took about 8 seconds of mechanical sounds to finally 'unlock' and open itself to the outside.

Emiko noticed that the twins seemed distressed when the doors' mechanism began to work, almost as if of a strange predator it was. Now that she began to think about it, they were almost always distressed with the surroundings, a bit less than at this momment, but still. She could only guess that this was a result of them belonging to some reclusive or yet to discover tribal civilization, one far behind in technological terms, to the point that even the steel staicase could be considered a result of magic... Or sorcery.

The only counterargument would be their compannion, a strong man who, during their discussion regarding a Kaiju called King Caesar, he spoke in perfect English. She didn't want to sound... rude... But his lighter skin tone, different from the darker tone that the twins have, indicating a more tropical climate, and the lack of the brown and white tattooes may indicate that he could actually be a shipwreck or survivor, or simply an explorer, who was accepted by the tribe to which the twins belong to.

When everyone got outside, they found themselves surrounded by big, lively-green treen, giving a more tropical or forestal vibe to the environment, that is if one didn't take into account the entirety of the cavernous landscape and the many crystals of all sides protruding from the cealing and the ground, or the massive hangar and the 'stotage' container at the left side of the Outpost. If it weren't for Miss Andrews' current mood, one could certainly call this place 'Paradise'. This was only fueled by the sudden appearance of the strange Monarch airship that they all saw from the window. It was a strange contraption, somewhat oval with pointy ends in the front and back, with 4 'spikes' on it's back, and 2 'arms' that seemed to proppel the ship with the help of turbines through the air while emiting that hypnotic blue energy, of which traces were left behind for a couple of seconds before disapearing.

"Trapper, go to the hangar, and prepare all the HEAVs. David, make sure all personnel have been informed and are ready to evacuate. Bernie, take Jia with You to the Iwi and stay with them until further news." Miss Andrews ordered the three men who followed through, with Trapper heading to the hangar, Doctor David grabbing his ear and asking for someone's status, and leaving a beffudled Bernie and a confused and scared Jia looking at Miss Andrews.

Miss Andrews kneeled before the girl, and began to talk with her while using sign language. "Jia, listen. Momma's gotta save these people, and I need You to stay with the Iwi for a while, ok? I'm not leaving you, I promised. Please go with Bernie, and do not leave his side, understood?"

Jia just looked at her mother in the eyes for a couple seconds, before just nodding and surprise-hugging her. She released her after another couple of seconds, and began to use sign language aswell. Miss Andrews kissed her on the forehead before looking at Bernie. "If anything happens to her, or if you lose her, the deletion of your podcast will be the least of your problems."

"U-U-Underst-t-tood." He said, scared for his life, before leaving with Jia at hand towards the hangar, probably to take another one of the 'HEAVs'.

Speaking of which, the HEAV that arrived finally reached the ground, with it's arms stadying it like some kind of living creature, while the spikes lowered down like the spikes of a porcupine or a hedgehog, and the blue energy began to descrease it's luminocity, yet not no the point of dissapearing.

When it finally seized all movement, a door opened on the side of it while a staicase began to extent itself to reach the floor, which did put the twins in alert before the black and blue monster of steel, while impressing most of the ones present, Emiko herself included. When the doors' opened up fully, a man with short hair and a shaved, now-begining-to-grow beard came into view, on his jacket a weird symbol simmilar to that of infinity. Or was it a reflected M?- Ow. This must the Mr. Russell, Deputy Director of... Special Projects, was it?

The man look a bit happy to see Miss Andrews, as if of an old friend it were, but still retaining some professionalism.

"Miss Andrews, it's good to see you. And it seems that everyone has gathered here to-" He was cut of by Miss Andrews, who walked rapidly towards him when he reached the staircase's end.

"Mark, You must get on the HEAV and leave inmediatly! This place is gonna be nothing but rubble any second now!! We must leave!!"

"Woah, calm down. What's going on? What do You mean 'nothing but rubble'? Ilene, what's-"

"He's comming down here."

The face of Mr. Russell turned into a shocked and almost horrofied one at the mention of 'Him'. Who was 'Him'? This is gonna sound weird, but Emiko hoped it was some leader of a shady terrorist group, humans, people that could be stopped with common weaponry and human will, unlike Kaiju and Titans.

Specially unlike the 'Him' of 7 months ago.

"What?! But how?! There's been no reports about Him leaving Rome-"

"We believe that the experiment somehow affected all of Monarch's communication devices. We've got informed about 7 minutes ago, and we began the evacuation preparations."

"Hey!!" Shinichi called out to someone, looking at the HEAV. "Are you supposed to be here? Or why then are you sneaking like an intruder?"

Everyone turned to look at the HEAV's door, just in time to see a young woman, around 20 or so years old, with long, curly dark-brown hair, who seemed to have been sneaking behind the doorframe and failed.

Mr. Russell didn't seem bothered by this, however, and after taking a sigh, he turned towards the public.

"Sorry about that. She, right there-" He pointed to the young woman, who was just waving akwardly. "Is my daughter, Madison. She convinced me to bring her along, as the more 'open-minded, and friendly' diplomatic face of Monarch. I told her to wait inside until further notice, but I forgot how adventurous and curious she can be." He said with a smile, while Madison turned a bit red, clearly embarassed by the complement. Emiko found this kind of cute. Too bad that it would last just a couple seconds.

"Introductions later, Mark, we gotta leave, NOW!" Miss Andrews reprimanded, just in time to Doctor David to arrive. "David, status."

"All personnel is ready and currently abording all HEAVs, minus the 6 we wil use to leave, and Bernie and Jia took theirs." He reported. Just the, one of such HEAVs rose up in the air, and in one of the window everyone could see Jia looking over. Miss Andrews could only wave at her daughter, as the HEAV leaved the scene behind.

"Alright everyone, go to the hangar and follow Trapper towards the HEAVs you're gonna travel in." Miss Andrews ordered, and so everyone went towards the hangar.

There, right at the entrance, was Trapper waiting a bit impaciently for them, a piece of paper in his hands. When he saw them, he encouraged them to come in. When they entered, Emiko saw how everyone working at the Outpost entered many of the HEAVs as fast as possible, with some already taking off to the air through the open roof. Emiko and the group tried to focus on the mission at hand, and moved along following Trapper to the far part of the hangar, where 6 HEAVs were waiting for them, each with a pilot ready, except one that, thanks to the 'T' painted on one side, it indicated it belonged to Trapper.

"Ok ok everyone, as You have noticed the HEAVs are not that Big to carry all of You in each one." He said quite fast, as if trying to explain everything quick enought to avoid disaster. "So I decided to separate everyone into groups, noted down on this paper." He said as he flung the paper on his hands.

Emiko managed to see what was written in it and, more curiously, how they where described as:

1. Couple and professor + Couple and baby + lonely girl + Me and Steve and Meggy and nest.
2. Lonely guy + Space Captain + Father and daughter and maybe step-mother
3. Amazing 7!!! + Duo and drone.
4. 3 politics+ Redhead, father and boyfriend.
5. Mustache and co. + Twins and Fellow.
6. The ass kicking women + Doctor and daughter.

Emiko didn't understood the 'Steve and Meggy and nest' part, but she was midlly impressed bh Trapper's deduction skills. Though she didn't know what to think about the 'ass kicking women' part, both because of the description itself and the implications of it.

"Imma call all of You now per group and tell You in which HEAV to jump in, ok?" They all noded in agreement, and Trapper began call each group and pinted them to their respective HEAV.

When it was their turn, her father was the first to go in, claiming that he wanted to see some of the aircraft's Unique inner structure, something that was a red flag for Emiko as his father was a biologist, not an engineer. She realized that this was a bit of his wariness and protectiveness showing, and couldn't help but smile.

"Ah!" His father screamed and jumped in surprise from whatever was inside the HEAV, and Ogata went to help and see if his father-in-law was ok, only to stand still, Emiko's father holding himself in Ogata's shoulder while steadying, and looking too at whatever was inside.

"What- What kind of creatures are those?" Ogata asked, and Emiko slowly but surely stepped in closer and closer to look at the 'creatures' that her family saw, the couple and their baby daughter, and the lonely girl following close behind.

Right there, at the very far back of the interior of the HEAV and at distance from the passangers' seats, was a Big metal cage with bars as witded as a mans arm, and inside of it, on a small platform connected to the roof by two steel arm, were 2 middle-sized winged creatures sitting on some nest made out of leads, branches, and plastics. The creatures ressembled a cross between a bird and a bat, with leathery, membranous wings and elongated mouths with razor sharp teeth. Of a greenish yellow color and dark gray faces, the most peluciar thing was the elongated protrution that grew from where the nose should be. It remined Emiko of a swordfish, only if it were a bird. Though now that she thought about it, they reminded her more of the 'pterosaurs' of some of her father's expositions.

"Cute, aren't they?" Asked Trapper, who entered the HEAV towards the pilot's seat, just pausing to look at the creatures with pride. "These are Steve and Meggy. They were in the storage containment were all the food and snacks is saved in, and they even have 2 little critters in the way- Well, when they hatch, I mean."

He went to the pilot's seat, and he began preparing everything to take flight. "I suggest You all take your seats now. If we've lucky, only the first couple of minutes will be stressfull."

Everyone took their seats, with herself, Ogata, her father and the lone girl on the front row, while the couple and their daughter took the seats behind her and Ogata.

"What kind of species are 'Steve and Meggy' exactly? The resemble pterasaurs." Her father asked Trapper from his seat, his interest in the prehistoric creatures shining once more.

"They are Leafwings. We're not too sure of their exact genealogy, but we theorize that they may be pterosaur descendants that avoided extintion by accidentaly entering one of the Hollow Earth's many vortexes." Trapper explained from his seat, still preparing the HEAV as fast as he could. "They're probably and most likely of the Rhamphorhynchoidea suborder, judging by the presence of teeth and a notorious tail. Some of them have returned to the Surface but in smaller groups, probably by accident, like in Skull Island."

"Amazing... There are still surviving dinosaurs..." Her father muttered under his breath in utter amazement. This has been a problem back home since the tragedy 7 months back, with his father becoming an insomniac that all he does at night was staring at the window, to the night sky, as if waiting and hoping for an answer, a revelation, something! He didn't stopped loving her, not at all, but he just began hidding his sadness in the middle of the dark, and it broke her heart not only for happening overall, but because of knowing the reason why...

The horror. The nightmare, the Beast that came from the sea, wreathed in radiation and white fire, that came to Tokyo in order to bring death and destruction, that reminded the World of the power unleashed in 1945 over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that wounded all of Japan forever more, was an ancient creature: A jurassic behemoth, who's species worked as an intermediary between land and matone reptiles, and that was feared by many islanders throught the Pacific even before it was reborn as a monster by the Atomic and the Hydrogen Bombs.

Her father, being a biologist, wanted the creature to live, to be studied and understood, as it could very well be the only one that remains of it's species. 'The Last King' the world called it. Didn't anyone see what was going on, what was happening?! People died by this animal- This monster, scarred and heartless, that just moved forward and only responded with rage and terror towards outer stimulae. Did nobody get that? Didn't her father get that?

Daisuke DIED sacrificing himself, bringing his dreaded creation and the hellbeast to the seabed grave with him!!

Daisuke... Sacrificed... Himself... And yet, only the three of them, alongside a few people would remember him. He would not be honored. He would not be remembered... He would not exist for Japan. Not anymore.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't-!!

"Hey."

Emiko snapped out of her rage-filled thoughts, and looked back at who was talking to her: It was the lonely girl, who was looking at her with worry.

"It's ok, Miss Yamane. Everything will be alright, don't worry... Oh, sorry, I forgot: Hi, I'm Miki Saegusa." The girl, Miki, introduced herself as she extended her hand towards Emiko. Emiko smiled back, and shook Miki's hand. There was something reasuring about her, something calming, serene, like nothing was going to go wrong... Wait... How does she know her name-

"Alright everybody! We're taking flight in 3..." Trapper began the countdown so everyone would prepare themselves, Emiko forgetting her question.

"2...". Everyone looked at their loved ones, and yes, that included Steve and Meggy.

"1!"

In seconds, the arms of the HEAV preppeled themselves from the ground, and the turbines kept it in the air for a few seconds before starting to elevate itself through the air. Soon enough, Emiko could see from her seat through the pilot's windows how they were exiting the hangar, with the other 5 HEAVs, plus the one where Mr. Russell came in, being right ahead. She then saw something in the left corner of the window, up in the cavernous cealing: A giant vortex of blue energy, shining ever so bright, around hundreds of meters in diameter. Yet another crazy surprise from this 'Hollow Earth', she supposed.

"WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!! That's it baby, now this is what I'm talking about!!" Trapper said with joy and adrenaline, driving the HEAV to join the other 6 HEAVs ahead, and soon enough leaving behind the vortex. This gave everyone the chance to look at the dawning horizon in front of them, green crystals and big extentions of vegetation ruling over the scenery.

"It's so... Beautifull." Miki said in amazement and wonder. Emiko could only reply back with a 'Yeah'. This was Paradise indeed...

Another HEAV came into view from the right.

Trapper looked at the HEAV with confusion, and Emiko saw him grab some old Radio communicator.

"Bernie, what the Hell are You doing? Didn't Ilene told you to go with Jia to the-" He stopped. Emiko decided to get off from her seat and have a better and closer look at the airship. Her father and Ogata called her out, but she didn't looked back. She stood up, walked towards the pilot's window and try to discern what had confused him: Right there, on the intruding HEAV's pilot seat was not Bernie, but a woman. Long black hair, with strange, red and yellow tribal clothing, and yellow.

"What the..." Trapper muttered under his breath, before grabbing the radio again. "Miss, what the Hell are You doing?! Take Jia away!!! Don't You get it?! If Ilene send her with you, it's because-".

There was a deep, animalistic growl...

Everyone stood still as silence took over, everyone at the edge of their seats. Even the Leafwings began to screech at the air, as if something was comming. Something big and dangerous.

Trapper pressed some buttons on the panel at his left, and the screen above the wheel turned on, showing what Emiko supposed was the back of the HEAV, as she recognized the Outpost that they were leaving, and the giant vortex in the cealing... But something was wrong about the vortex itself, as there were now pink or violet sparks of energy emerging from the insides of it.

Trapper must have noticed this too, as he muttered "Oh God..."

Suddenly, from the insides of the vortex, something spitted out of it, something enormous, surrounded by smoke and blue energy, and going at stupidly high speeds, almost mimicking a meteor or a comet. Emiko feared that the thing and the growl were connected, and that the thing about to strike down to the floor was one of the Titans Miss Andrews spoke about. She prepared for the worst...

As the dark mass hit the ground with great force, an enormous shockwave appeared as it came closer and closer to the HEAVs. When it finally reached them, however, something worst than a simple need for reorientarion happened: The electronics on the aircraft began to malfunction, the lights began to flicker, and everyone was scared and terrified as they began to fall down. With the turbines gone, the next destination would be the ground.

"EVERYONE, GRAB ONTO SOMETHING, I'LL TRY TO STEADY THIS!!!" Trapper screamed.

Emiko tried to return to her seat with the help of Ogata and her father, who were trying to stadying themselves. Miki, meanwhile, went over to the back of the ship, reaching to the Leafwings' cage. She found the lock, and from one of her pockets she took out a clip. The couple held their daughter tight, and tried to move to the other seats when the mother began to scream in apparent pain whike holding her neck.

"Everyone, to the back!!" Miki screamed as best as she could with all the noise of the malfunctions. When everyone looked at her, she was still on the far back, using the clip as some sort of clip to try and open the Leafwings' cage.

"Are You crazy?! Why would we do that?!" The father, still holding to his daughter, screamed at Miki.

"We have a better chance at surviving the crash!!! The front of the ship will be the one to strike the ground!!!" Miki responded, her logic being very convincing. "We have to be on the back, now!!!"

"But what about the Leafwings?! You're going to-" Emiko's father was about ask when he was cut off.

"They won't care about us!!! They'll take the eggs to safety and leave us alone!!" Miki said as she finally opened the cage. The Leafwings realized this and got up from their nest, took one egg each in their mouth, one took the nest, and flew out of the cage without taking notice of Miki. They passed by the others until reaching the pilot's window, where they began to try and break it over and over with their nose-sword, and after 5 times of doing so, they managed to break a hole in the window, and escaped through it with the eggs intact.

"THANK YOU!!" Trapper thanked Miki from his seat. That's when they all remembered he was still trying to stady the HEAV, which was going to crash about 35 seconds.

"Sir, You must get to the back, now!! Please!!" Ogata asked Trapper while grabbing his shoulder from behind. Trapper shaked t off, however.

"GIVE ME 25 MORE SECONDS!!" Trapper insisted.

Everybody began to move to the back of the HEAV, holding themselves to the walls as best as they could, and with the baby hugging and clinging to her father's troath. They eventually managed to reach the back, with Miki extending her arm so they could reach it faster, and helping the others to do so. Trapper was still on the pilot seat, trying to stady the ship through all of the malfunctions. He didn't need to steady it completely, just enough for the crash to not be lethal. Emiko begged God that Trapper realized this too.

Just about when the last person, the wife, managed to grab the back of the ship, did they all looked to the window and realized that they were about to crash now.

"SIR!!!" Miki screamed to Trapper.

"OK, THAT'S ENOUGH." Trapper said to himself as he rapidly got up from his seat and turned around to run towards the back of the HEAV. He screamed as he reached the back, and right then was when the ship began to jump on the ground's surface, akin to a rock being thrown in the water. They all tried to be still and firm to the back as the HEAV jumped once, twice, thrice, and then...

It all went black for Emiko.

Emiko had trouble opening her eyes the moment she felt hands pressing down and up on her chest and a mouth on her's, and the sound of people talking in a rather desesperated tone. She felt a sharp pain on the back of her neck and throught all of her body.

"...miko..."

It was very, very hard to open her eyes, for the darkness was soothing and calming, lacking all of the horror and chaos that was the real world. She was at peace, and she wanted nothing more and nothing less.

"Emi...!!"

... But... She was being selfish, wasn't she? Leaving Ogata, her father, Miki and everyone else behind just for the joy of peace in the form of nothing but the color black, while they might be facing what could very well be the worst nightmares they could be going through? No. That was not anything like her at all. She cared for her loved ones, and she would not let them behind because of something that was now less than a bad memory.

"EMIKO!!"

She opened her eyes at last, inhaling deeply for the air to come into her lungs, while her father and Ogata looked down at her with the joy of not loosing her, hugging her tightly. Above them, she could see enormous clouds of smoke and dirt rising, covering most of the bits of cavernous cealing she could see in that position. She tried to stand up, but her body screamed at her to not do so, but her father and Ogata decided to help her slowly.

Soon enough, she was able to stand on by herself, as she took a good look at the surroundings: It was all a mess, with pillars of dirt and smoke covering most of the view, pieces of rock and vegetation scattered here and there, with small metalic bits appearing once every 10 to 15 meters. She saw Miki trying to calm the couple's little baby daughter with the help of the mother, while the father was currently helping Trapper to get up and out of a very damaged HEAV, about 30 meters awas from them.

In a couple of seconds, right after freeing Trapper, the smoke cleared out to show that in the proximity, the other HEAVs had also crashed nearby, some in better shape than Trapper's, others worst, but fortunately without any casualties as seen with everyone getting out of the ruined ships.

However, one in particular was of interest not only for her and Trapper, but also a very mad Miss Andrews: Bernie's HEAV, of which Jia was helping that same strange woman from before to get an unconscious Bernie out. Emiko managed to hear Trapper curse under his breath, while Miss Andrews walked towards the woman and began talking quite agressively with her, the mysterious one never flinching.

After a few seconds of silence, or rather the lack of human voiced and the company of the blowing wind, Emiko and everyone from Trapper's HEAV reunited and, with only a look back at the other groups, decided that reuniting with the other groups would be a good idea, starting to walk towards them a little bit tired. She decides to look back at the dark mass' impact zone, from which a large cloud of dark smoke and pink bolts of electricity was comming from.

They arrived just in time to see Mr. Russell try to get everyone's attention.

"Alright, everyone, we must regroup and continue on foot, just in time to-" Mr. Russell, accompanied by his daughter, ordered the already rejoining group of people when suddenly...

Thump.

They all heard the sound of a very big explosion in the distance. They all looked towards the sound's origin, and realized it came from the dark impact zone itself. Right in front of her and her family was Miss Andrews, Jia and the mysterious woman, and she saw that in their faces, even in the strange one's, there was pure fear. Emiko didn't understood why-

Thump.

Until she heard another explosion, this time a few tens or dozens of meters closer to them than the previous one. The smoke mountain seemed to also began to move towards them at a moderate speed, and an idea appeared in her mind regarding the explosions and the giant cloud... But she didn't want to accept it, for that idea meant that her initial fears were on the right from the moment they leaved the Outpost. She refused, and decided to go with the idea that it was just some strong wind that was moving the smoke, and that the explosions... Well, if they don't get any closer, then surely they cannot be-

Thump.

... Footsteps... Those are footsteps, footsteps that belonged to some titanic entity, shrouded in darkness and pink lightning, and it was comming right towards them while the smoke began to slowly disperse by the second. Emiko's fears were right: This must be a Titan, one of the great creatures mentioned by Miss Andrews.

Thump.

The more the smoke began to disipade, the more disernable was the figure of the behemoth inside of it, and it almost gave Emiko a trauma trigger, for what it looked like was simmilar to some sort of gian man, with a great hump on its back with some weird irregularities and a long pointy tail. And when she thought it couldn't get worst, two pink lights cut through the darkness of the cover right where the head was at. It was the Titan's eyes, and it was looking right at them, while that same pink light began to appear in the back of the neck of the creature and run down it's back towards the end of it's tail, with the irregularities finally making themselves be more clear, not as simple deformations, but as spikes.

It was... It was almost like...

THUMP.

With that last step, and with a huff from the creature's shaking head, the cloud dispersed totally from the entity's upper torso, and finally let everyone take a clear look at it.

About 120 meters in height, the creature looked like a semi-antropomorphic reptile or crocodile with grey skin. It's arms consisted of three fingers and one thumb on each hand, all of them black-clawed and with pink-glowing spikes on the elbows. The neck was bearer of gills that, alongside the fact of walking towards them, indicated some sort of amphibious nature. It's head was square-y, with a somewhat partially long snout and sharp teeth on it's maw. And on it's neck's back, running down the back ultil the end of it's tail, lighten up with a pink luminocity, and freezing Emiko to the core, there were... Mapple Leaved-shaped dorsal plates.

... No. No... No, no, no, no, no, no, nO, No, No, No, NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNONONONONONO!!!! NO!!!

IT CANNOT BE ALIVE!! IT DIED 7 MONTHS AGO, SHE SAW IT!!

She saw it rise to the surface of the bubbling waters as the Oxygen from both the sea and of it's body began to be liquified, taking away bit by bit any trace of life from it's body while it roared in pain... Pain? PAIN?! After it had KILLED hundreds of thousands innocent lives while it marched upon Tokyo?! After it made so many women and men widows, and the young and small children ORPHANS, because of that invisible touch of death it carried with??!! NOW IT DARES TO SHOW PAIN???!!!!

Many people suffered.

Way to many innocents DIED...

DAISUKE SACRIFICED HIMSELF TO TAKE IT DOWN TO HELL!

... Daisuke... He wouldn't be remembered...

He would only be something in the eyes of few, and even then he wouldn't be remembered the same way she and her family did remember him as... A coalege. An friend. A... A brother, even if not by blood, but by care and frienship and love... He...

His sacrifice couldn't have been in vain... It cannot BE in vain. He used that infernal creation to take the Beast down, destroying it's body to an atomic level... He had killed it... So the Beast in front of her, in front of everyone couldn't be...

It can't be Gojira...

The creature, the Beast, took another step closer towards the scared expectators, who just stood there in complete silence. What's the point in running at this point? Not only was the creature big enough to crush them even while walking slowly but, and if it was trully the same horror from 7 months ago, the same Gojira, or a member of it's species or a related subspecies, then it would also be contaminating the surroundings with the cancerous touch of death known as radiation. Escaping was foolish when it was already to late.

The Beast, this new or reborn Gojira, stopped and looked down at them. And then, Emiko had to ask herself the question of what was more terrifying: Gojira's lack of feelings in it's eyes from 7 months ago, or the current display of confusion, disgust and primal rage it was showing right now at them. She knew that it was a matter of perspective and morbid liking at the end, but it's better to distract oneself from the pain and terror that comes next.

Then, a sound was heard, one that she could only describe as energy or a related machine charging, that began from the tip of Gojira's tail, running through the dorsal plates on it, going up through the back and up to the back of it's neck, while the pink light it had began to increase at the same time, on that same order. She knew, somehow, what was going on the moment she saw strings of pink energy flow from Gojira's mouth.

"MADISON, RUN!!!"

"K-KOICHI. TAKE AKIKO. RUN, RUN AWAY, PLEASE."

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, TAKE JIA AND GO AWAY, PLEASE. MONARCH DID THIS, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DIE!!

"EMIKO!!" Her father screamed out to her. "WE MUST GO. IT'S CHARGING IT'S HEAT BREATH, SO WE MAY HAVE A CHANCE AT GETTING AWAY!!!"

The energy in Gojira's mouth began to intensify.

"YOUR FATHER IS RIGHT!!" Ogata screamed as well, grabbing her right shoulder."WE MUST GO WHILE WE STILL CAN!!"

"We can't... We won't make it...." She... Never expected herself to sound so cold, so empty of emotions. No hatred, no fear... She was devoid of such things, as the Monster's charging seemed to began to finish. She had accepted that she would die... Who knows, maybe She's been dead and everything else might be her dreaming one last sweet dream of a lovely life before leaving the mortal plane. Maybe since that white light filled her house, with everyone inside. Maybe since Daisuke's sacrifice. Maybe since Odo.

At least she would meet mom and Daisuke again.

But the universe seemed to have something else in mind.

.

She managed to see Miki run towards the front of the group, right towards Gojira, while the Twins did that from her right side, and Jia and the mysterious woman from the left, before stopping in front of the Beast.

Just what was she and the others doing?

They just looked at eachother, hesitant from doing something, until the strange woman noded to Miki, who noded back and looked at Gojira, worry still on her eyes. And then, the 5 of them did something 'out of nowhere': The twins, one in the other's side, holded their hands, while the free ones rose towards the monster in a manner as if to stop or appeal it. Jia and the woman did so too, holding hands while the free ones were towards the Beast, and Miki just took a deep breath while closing her eyes and joined her hands together in a preching manner.

Emiko couldn't understand what the hell was going on.

But right there was when the charging stopped and Gojira shook it's head in apparent confusion, growling and stratching and taking a step back, as if something had entered it's head. And soon enough, they all heard voices... But not from someone nearby, but on their minds, and Emiko managed to recognize one of them. But it was impossible. How could she be hearing Miki right now?

'... Stop, please...'

'... We're friends, not the enemy...'

'... Balance can be achieved in more than one way...'

'... The crows are lost, and we must go home...'

'... You are not alone, Warrior of Ages...'

It was hard to hear the voices, as if they were trying to tune into another conversation. It was hard, and tiring, and more so with everything going on.

As soon as it began, it stopped. Emiko took hardly a look at the scene in front of her: Miki, the twins, Jia and the woman, were on their knees and breathing heavily as if they went through Hell and back. Right in front of them, was Gojira, who was taking a few seconds to process what just happened... Did Miki and the others... Talk telepathically with Gojira? But how-

Gojira looked at them once more, and walked towards them.

"Everyone, stand still!!" Maddie screamed to everyone, who either stood in place because of 'Cannot outrun death', to show that they're neither afraid nor some sort of enemy, because of the mind-reading thing, of a combination of the three options.

Gojira began to lower it's head towards them, towards the 5... Telepaths, and the group as a whole, and just looked at them in silence, watching them, analizing them, and showing on it's eyes curiosity, confusion, anger, doubt... So many human-like characteristics, that Emiko couldn't do anything but be compelled to look back at the creature, with those same emotions at it's core, plus some hope that at least Ogata and her father would suevive whatever next move it makes. She prepared herself for everything...

Except for Gojira to just growl a bit, and turn around to walk away from the group.

Emiko was at a loss of words right now, as she looked how the demon from her psst not only came back, but also leaved them be, even after threathning to kill them on spot. What... What did just happened? How is Gojira back? Why's it so different? Is it even the same Gojira? How did Miki and the others do that? Why didn't it just killed them in the act? Just... Just... Why?!

"So there's One here too, huh?" She heard Mr. Gordon ask outloud.

"One what?" Asked Miss Andrews, confused clearly at the question.

"One Godzilla... And I know for a fact that THAT Godzilla-" He pointed towards the giant behemoth that was leaving them behind. "-is not the same one that we helped to save the world."

What was he even talking about?

She saw how, on that dawn-like horizon, 7 HEAVs began to fly right towards them, probably to see if there are any survivors. Gojira walked towards... Somewhere. Probably towards some energy center to recharge, or towards some body of water, if there is one in Hollow Earth.She heards a groan, and saw Bernie waking up from his 'nap'. "W-Wha... Ugh, what just happened?"

Trapper just claped his hands together, calling out everyone's attention.

"Sssssssssooooooo who wants velvet cakd?

...

Fuck it. She's tired, scared, stressed beyond believe and in the need for something to eat, so she's taking all the cake for herself.

Chapter Text

This had been one Hell of a day for Miki to be sure, as well as for everyone involved, mainly for the strange situation and close encounter with death they all had, and of which a part of her knew that it would be hard to get out from. And yet, she didn't feel quite as scared or weirded out by the strange happening currently going on, or not as much as she would have been 7 of 8 years ago before she ended in the middle of, quite literaly, battles upon battles for Japan and Earth's future. This was strange and weird and scary, she doesn't deny that, but she just feels less weirded out or scared as she should.

And, as much weird this sounds even with context, she could only thank Godzilla and Jr for that.

Or, rather HER Godzilla and Jr of her... Her... Ok, she was kind of having a bit of a problem right now deciphering a new puzzle that was revealed to Jia and the Iwi Matriarch, the twins, apparently Captain Gordon, and herself of course: The five of them, minus Gordon, joined together to try and telepathically convince this... she could only call the creature that they were facing as an 'Other Godzilla', to not kill them, just spare them and take his wrath upon whatever force brought them here.

The weird thing though that made this whole situation the more confusing was when she, and the other 4, entered the Other Godzilla's head.

When they got in, they were exposed not only to glimpses of eachother's memories, but also those of this Godzilla which, while it answered some answer, if also caused more questioning regarding this place: Jia, the Leader and Godzilla's memories showed what was nothing more than a life filled with battles upon battles amongst the epochs, a duty of keeping the world in balance from anything that could disturb it, and the connection this creature had to the planet itself in order to presence the danger even from across the globe.

The confusion was because, if this was true, then why didn't this Godzilla, or at the very least Monarch, came to aid the other one and Jr with the threaths that appeared ever since 1989 with Biollante? Even more so, why was there no knowledge Godzilla or His adopted Godzillasaurus 'cub', or even the other 7 or so Kaiju that he fought? Where was Jr? But what got Miki to the core was the date that she was currently in, for both Jia and the Leader's memories revealed the year in which they were in, and it wasn't 1996 as she had tought up to that moment, from which Tokyo was nothing but debree and dust and molten steel, and from which she saw the last fight of her Godzilla...

Right now, she was on Hollow Earth Outpost 333, on the year of 2028.

2028... 32 years in the far, far future, and thousands of miles away from Jr.

She knows Jr is alive... She knows that he is, for her telepathic connection with him remained even after he had... Died... It was like the psyche's equivalent to white noise, the death of another who one has a telepathic connection to, and it had remained like that for half an hour or an hour. She wasn't to sure. Her sence of time had almost banished alongside Jr's life. She had leaved the room in which she saw everything go down on the screen, and she had wepted. Wepted, for both father and son died in very gruesome and horrific ways, and she had felt their pain even a little.

She wepted for them in a janitor's closet near the large conference room she was in when the felt and heard it: The roar, the vitals, the confusion and the heartbeat of what she at first thought was Godzilla, but soon she discarted that option as fast as she remembered the gruesome, flesh and bone melting death he had meet, and finally identified the owner of such roar. And she almost wepted yet again, but out of joy this time, for she was hearing Jr coming back to life. His father avenged his son, and the son would honor his father's memory.

That's when the white light appeared -

"AAAAAND HERE WE ARE!!!" Trapper announced as he and Bernie appeared once more in the room, this time with snacks in their hands, David with a very big velvet cake on a wheeled table entering the door, and bringing back Miki's attention to reality.

Oh, right... They're back at the Outpost. The rescue team was send to check if there was any survivors and, in the case there were, bring them back to the other Outpost, about 13.5 miles southeast from where they were. However, once Mr. Russell and Miss Andrews explained that Godzilla had change course 'very likely towards Project Hermes's Test Facility', they managed to convince the Rescue team to bring them all back to Outpost 333, where everyone could have a good rest for the next 4 to 5 hours. Some had decided to sleep, others to wander the place, Trapper, Bernie and David began preparing a Velvet cake with what they had, and she could feel Steve and Meggy once again inside the Food Storage Container.

And so, here they are once more, this time with snacks and a huge Cake being put on the table, the little baby girl Akiko in her mother's lap, and hopefully with a more calm, reasonable conversation amongst everyone reunited... Still, one or two inner prayers wouldn't do any harm, just to be sure.

"Well, first of all, sorry for the 'surprise visit' from Godzilla. He usually sleeps nowadays, but it seems that our little project caught his attention and his rage."Mr. Russell said in a half-apology, half-joke in order to ease any tension that may linger amongst everybody. The silence and akward stares were enough for him to move on. "Well, now that he's ignoring us thanks to... Whatever You did,-" The pointed Miki out. "-now we can finally talk and find out where you're all from so we can send you back home."

"So... Anything to say? Any questions?" Miss Andrews asked, the Leader and Jia at her side, who looked at both Miki and the Twins with a bit od nerveousness. They must have also seen the years from which the Twins and herself came from, and are worried this may Intel that there's no way back home.

"Wait... You're saying that THAT giant monster... Was Godzilla?" Randy asked towards the hosts, in a very confused tone. Hopefully he would be thinking of the 90s Godzilla and Jr, or so Miki hoped... Ok, maybe another inner prayer will do the trick.

"Uuuhhh... Duh?" David replied with a bit of sarcasm mix with his confusion at Randy's very own. "Who else do You think it would be? Big, reptilian, walks in 2 legs, 4 digits per extremity, dorsal plates..."

"Horizontal posture, 55 meters in height, dromeosaurid-like body shape... Green Atomic Breath." A redhead with glasses spoke up, interrupting David with her own, weird description. "I'm Dr. Elsie Chapman, H.E.A.T.'s paleontologist, and sorry if I come up as skeptical but I simply cannot take as face-value that the 120 meters tall monster is the same one my team and I have followed and interacted with for these last months since the attack to New York."

"... New York..." Mr. Tachibana asked in a low voice, as if recalling some info from the back of his mind, before he looked up towards Dr. Chapman. "I think I know what you're talking about, You and your group. A giant reptilian monster appeared one day in New York, bringing chaos and laying hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs that meant a possible dominance shift and plague scenarios, that would more than likely mean the end of the human race in about 1 or two years. The United States called this creature Godzilla, in honor to ancient myths from Odo Island..."

Dr. Chapman smiled at the apparently correct and precise description that Mr. Tachibana gave of the incident. He, however, changed the tone of his voice to a more serious and semi-militaristic one, while looking at her right in the eyes. Miki's prayers have doubled both in numbers and speed.

"... Without knowing that Many decades ago, Gojira appeared in Japan and brought great destruction. In order to differanciate both creatures, the JDF decided to call the creature 'Zilla'." Miki saw the Yamanes and Shikishima families's expressions pale a little at the mention of 'decades'. She could feel Hell was about to break loose. "So, if You are telling the truth about this... American Godzilla of yours being alive, then explain to me why hasn't been reports of it, or even it's progeny, in the last 3 years since it's attack in 1998?"

1998.

With that year mentioned, Hell finally broke loose in the room.

"1998?"

"That's still 44 years away!!"

"What do You mean '3 years since'?!"

"Did anyone drink alcohol before comming or...?"

"SILENCE!!! THERE'S A BABY IN THE ROOM!!!" Dr. David screamed, distracting and silencing everyone from the temporal debate pandemonium that had taken over. Miki saw Akiko's ears being covered by a clearly distressed Koichi, with his daughter seemingly at the verge of crying, a view at hopefully calmed everyone down a bit. Dr. David took a deep breath, and nodded towards Miss. Andrews for her to take charge.

However, a very worried Ogata spoke up before Miss Andrews.

"That... That simply cannot be... Miss Andrews, Mr. Russell, please tell us which year we are in. Please."

"Are... Are You for real?" Dr. David was, by all means, beffudled by the apparent statements that this and the others's phrases seemed to imply. "Did you hit your head or something, or are you just crazy? We're in the year 2028."

While Dr. David being reprimanded by Mr. Russell for his attitude, Miki saw the surprised behind almost everyone's eyes at the mention of the year... Except for the Twins, who already must have known that from Jia and the Leader's memories, and strangely enough the 'Weird Hair Duo' and one of the apparent diplomats, a woman with short hair and with the looks of have seen many things in her life and not been paid enough. The there of them just looked... Midlly surprised and confused. If only she could only also read people's minds...

"That would actually explain a few things..." One of the women with militaristic clothing, a mostly blue-colored special gear, said to herself outloud.

"What do You mean?" One of the diplomats, a man around his late 20s and early 30s, maximum his early 40s, asked. She stood up and, in a firm military-typd of salutations, explained herself.

"Kiriko Tsujimori, leader of the G-Graspers, a JSDF unit created with the purpose of finding a way to defeat and, hopefully exterminate Godzilla, also known as Gojira since the events in 1954. What I meant was that this whole event seems to be time-travel related, explaining mainly both the clothing and the fact that Godzilla seems to look quite different. The only explanation I can come up with would be that it has absorbed large quantities of radiation, and for that to happen in just the blink of an eye it would require the subjects, us, to have been knocked out from propper orientation of time, whenever bia simple forced hibernatior, or time travel."

Miki had to give Miss Tsujimori some credit for comming with such an almost detailed and satisfactory explanation... 'Almost' being the key word, for it did not explain the apparent hystorical contradictions, the main one being some actions and knowledge from previous Godzilla encounters... And, of course, this 'Other Godzilla' s past.

"Then why- Sorry, my manners. I'm Akira Ichinose, Marine Biologist... From 1975..." Mr. Ichinose added a bit akwardly and with some doubt of his own in his voice. "Although your explanation was somewhat helpfull, I still have trouble understanding how is this possible, or why would the JSDF try and kill a creature that's bassicaly become a hero for Japan... Nor why You seem a bit calmer with the posibility of time travel being the source of our problem, Miss Tsujimori."

Whenever Mr. Ichinose was aware of not of the many stares directed at him the momment he said that Godzilla was a 'hero', Miki didn't know. She understood that people would be mad at such statement though, as Godzilla didn't save humanity for the sake of humanity: He did it in order to defend his territory and his son. While she had to admit that he was intelligent, Godzilla was still ruled 50% of the times by his instints, and did not care about alll the people he has killed. Yet, this status as 'hero' properly began in 1995 in his battle against Space-Godzilla, and this man from 2 decades prior is speaking of Godzilla as if he was active since before then.

"The reason as to why I'm certain that there's a time travel aspect to all of this, is because in the year 2000 we had to face a Kaiju from prehistoric times: The Meganulon and their queen, Megaguirus, a giant species of dragonfly that rulled the skies in the Carboniferous period." Miss. Tsujimori began explaining. "The Meganulon arrived to modern times because of a time-space anomaly left behind by one of our test of the Dimension Tide, an orbital weapon that was created to destroy Godzilla by shooting a miniature black hole."

The girl with purple hair and glasses spitted out her drink at that last bit. And to be honest, Miki would have done so too. The girl replied after coughing a little.

"YOU WANTED TO DO WHAT?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

"Mei!" Her blue haired partner reprimanded her in a surprising calm, almost monotonous tone, while the other, more 'normal' one simply sighed..

"O-oh, sorry if that came our wrong. I'm Mei Kamino, and these are my friends: Yun Arikawa and Haberu Kato." Mei presented herself and her friends, with the blue haired guy replying with a simple "Hello." at the name of Yun Arikawa. "What I was trying to say is that You cannot shoot a black hole at anything on Earth without it absorbing the whole planet."

"Yes, precisely what Mei said here. Even if it wasn't a massive black hole, it would still be enough to absorb a good chunk of the Earth. A human sized black hole is enough to swallow the planet whole." The man in tribal clothing said, before presenting himself to Mei. "Oh, by the way, I'm Martin Lazzari, and these are Miana and Maina of the Hotua. Mia is the friendly one, Mai the serious one.They recieved me and my crew after... Some incidents."

Miki could see Miss Tsujimori's expression change to that of surprise and a bit of horror. Did... Did she really did not know that? She really thought that shooting a smaller version of something capable of devouring entire stars in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, towards the Earth was actually a good idea?! It's not common for her to loose respect for many people... But it wasn't uncommon either.

"But that doesn't explain something..." Said who seemed to be a professor. "Why call Godzilla a hero. And 1975? Godzilla, or at least the one we've faught in 2003 and 04 was just a destructive creature. We actually had to fight him with Mothra's help and-"

"Mothra?" Miana asked with surprised at the mention of the giant moth. Now that Miki took a closer look at their tattooes' colors, she realized something: Their brown and white markings not only seemed natural, but also were similar to Mothra's overall body colour of white and dark brown. Could they be...?

"So You know about Mothra too?" Shinichi asked the twins and Martin.

"Hotua God... Goddess?" Maina replied, although apparently the correction in relation to Mothra's overall gender seemed confusing even for her, although that confusion was driven back by Martin's thumbs up. "20.000 years ago, the Goddess and her brother, Bathra, fought the Mountain to defend humans. But the Mountain was stronger, and both gods were killed. However, Mothra managed to leave behind an egg, from which she could be reborn. Mothra, the world's peace."

"She sounds just like a guardian angel." Emiko said, hopefull that at least some of these Kaiju were benign with humanity. Miki had a good idea as to why, after all, as she was one of the few people that saw Gojira's destruction over Japan and it's death at hands of the Oxygen Destroyer...

Now that she looked around, she found herself not the only one looking at the Yamanes with some interest, or with the same vibes of seeing a ghost: 12 people were looking at them with certain caution, Mr. Ichinose, the well suited Captain, The couple with the possibly 8 year old girl, the Tachibanas, the professor and his daughter, and the women in grey special gear. Maybe they know about them?

"Wait, you're saying that Godzilla killed Mothra in the past? That's impossible." Mr. Russell replied with confusion and incredulity. "They have a simbiotic relationship, in which they help eachother in order to save the world."

"That's not true!" Yuri Tachibana replied back at him. "Godzilla is a destructive creature. Japan needed to stop him from killing everyone, and we needed the help of the Guardian Beasts: Mothra, Baragon and King Ghidorah!"

...

Say what now?

Did... Did she just...

Did she just said that King Ghidorah... Was a Guardian Beast... A GUARDIAN...

Besides being shown love and care, and being out of anybody's control, Miki had a hard time of thinking how King Ghidorah could become one of the good guys. No, scratch that. HOW is King Ghidorah alive once more?!

She seemed to not be the only one with that thought, as she saw many people's faces turn towards Yuri with varying expressions: Maddie and Jia looked at her like she just swore at them, and not in a good way. The Captain, Mr. Ichinose, and Mr. Douglas and his friends were looking at her like she escaped from a mental hospital. And the usually friendly looking Miana had in her eyes a mix of 'Vietnam Flashbacks' and the looks of having seen and heard the most disgusting and offending heresy that demanded for her to kill at all cost. And while Maina was also looking at Yuri with incredulity alongside Martin, at least they held Miana in place before she could do anything crazy.

"Miss Tachibana, I'm Katsuo Yamabe, captain of the spacecraft Moonlight SY-3, from 1999, and I don't want to spark any conflict as of now, but... Are You implying that King Ghidorah not only returned from the grave, but also became a 'Guardian Beast' like King Ceasar and Mothra, and helping the latter and Baragon to fight an 'evil' Godzilla?" Captain Yamabe asked Yuri. It's good that there are people here that don't want anybody to be on eachother's throaths.

"Well... He was aggresive towards the Japanese people in ancient times, when he still had 8 heads, so... Yes?" Yuri responded.

"8 heads? Like Yamata-no-Orochi?" The diplomat man asked intrigued.

"Precisely, Mr..."

"Rando Yaguchi, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, from 2016." He introduced himself before nodding to his coalege on his left, the woman with short black hair.

I'm Hiromi Ogashira, Deputy Chief of the Wildlife Division from the Ministry of Environment, 2016." She replied in a monotonous tone, somewhat fitting of her looks. Not that Miki was a 'Book cover judge' kind of person, but still.

"Hi! I'm Kayoco Anne Patterson, and I'm the American government liaison and the Special Envoy for the President of the United States from 2016!! Pleasure to meet You all!" Miss. Kayoco replied in a very... Calm and happy tone? Either She's naturally like this, or she's simply pulling an act to look at peace, specially after the Other Godzilla almost kill them.

"Going back to the Main topic- Or, rather, second topic, there's no way that Godzilla could be in anyway a 'hero'." One of the gray gear-wearing women said towards Miss Andrews and Mr. Russell. "A force of nature? Sure. A hero? No. Hell, it even tried to kill everyone here. I'm Akane Yashiro, and my partner here is Yoshito Chujo, and the professor and his daughter, Tokumitsu and Sara Yuhara, are close friends of mine."

"Well, Miss Yashiro, the reason as to why Godzilla tried to kill us is for the same reason you're here: Project Hermes." Mr. Russell began to explain. "Monarch has found a new type of energy unlike anything that we've found before. A perpetual, gravitational, biuluminicent energy that was theorized to be capable of making large jumps from point A to point B in seconds, and maybe even travel at faster speeds than imagined with a bit of temporal manipulation, under the right circunstances. However, the latest test went off the rails and brought You all here from supposedly different time periods."

"And as for how Project Hermes relates to Godzilla, it's simple: We played with the natural order." Miss Andrews said, continuing. "Godzilla is the planet's natural and most effective way to restore balance in nature when it is threathened, usually from other Titans like the Mutos or Ghidorah, for millions of years. Us playing with a power that could manipulate time and space was a red flag for him, and he decided to restore balance the usual way: Destroying the perpetrators and those working or related with them. That was, until Miki, the twins, the Leader of the Iwi and Jia intervened."

Miki felt like she knew what was comming up next for her and the twins: An interrogation about how they have telepathic powers, and how did they convinced the Other Godzilla to leave them all be. But then she realized something about Miss Andrews' explanation, and while she had impressions about such info thanks to the Other Godzilla, she still had to ask.

"Whatever do You mean 'for millions of years'?

The room was, by all means, frozen by that question of hers. They hadn't noticed that phrase amongst all the info given by their hosts. She knew this would be the trigger of another pandemonium if it weren't for Akiko being in the room. Although it didn't make sence for her to be here, Miki still was thankfull for it.

"And THAT is why your stories are hard to believe in the first place..." Trapper spoke up, with a face that said 'you're all in big trouble' by just the looks. "... The Timeline that you've gave us doesn't add up. Godzilla, an ancient Titan, only became public in 2014 when fighting the Mutos in San Francisco. That was 14 years ago, by the way, now we're in the wonderfull year 2028 baby!!"

"And that's without taking into account how ya'll contradicting eachother. Even more so, there's no data about anyone here existing, like our Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary here. So, I think that, in the name of truth and of everyone present in this room right now..." Dr. David said, before taking a few steps and towering over Miki. "... I want You all to tell me the truth. And if You don't, well... I will make sure You all regret not saying a word."

He was a very menacing and terrifying figure when mad, and Miki consideres herself quite terrified right now. The worst part of it all is that not only were they right about the inconsistency between eachother's stories, but also because Miki could confirm that both her narrativa and Monarch's are right. And yet that didn't make sence... How could that even be possible? Could it be that something larger was at play? She knew it had to be, but the only thing that she had any knowledge of now was... Project Hermes' Energy...

"Could... Could it be that this energy of yours has something to do with it? The inconsistencies, I mean." Miki asked David straight to the eye. She couldn't hide her fear of course, but she could also try and make thing easier and as pacific as possible.

"That thing was for moving faster through time, not alter it. That's all that it did: Play with time and space to a limit, and glow white with red particles around it! That's. IT." He replied back with exasperation...

Welp, at least she tried.

"Red particles?"

Everyone turned towards the questioner, and found themselves looking at Yun, Mei and Haberu, who looked like having their own war flashbacks on their heads. Maybe they know something?

"What's wrong, boy? You look like you've seen a ghost." Captain Gordon said with a bit of humour.

"We... We had a bad experience... With red particles." Yun replied. "About a month ago, 2030, the world was being invaded by Kaiju, the Main one being Godzilla. Whenever they went, red dust followed, killing all flora and fauna and taking it's place, as if terreforming the planet. To summarize our red nightmare, we found out the truth of the origin of Kaiju."

"They're, as far as we can understand, 3D shadows or overlaping parts of higher dimensional results from natural, higher dimensional 'computers' called Singular Points, made of a red material called Archetype." Mei continued. "Each Singular Point creates a simulated world in order to reach the ultimate result for the advance and completions of the Catastrophe, that is, create the perfect Kaiju in order to become more and more powerfull in our world until they achieve a space-time bending nature, destroying all periods of time from one place, and erasing the entire universe.

"We we're capable of defeating the Singular Points, specially Godzilla, with the help of the Orthogonal Diagonalizer, a device created in order to manipulate Archetype and paralize, invalid and exile the Singular Points, and with the sacrifice of Jet Jaguar PP, the Archetype manipulating fusion and descendant of the AIs known as Jet Jaguar and Pero 2. Fortunately, me and Mei recieved a message each about 3 days ago with a download link... It was JJ2 for me, and P3 for Mei, and it was the last gift that Jet Jaguar PP gave us bia time-space manipulation thanks to Archetype."

"Pero 3 asked me to meet with Yun and Haberu to talk about something. Haberu brought Yun with him to the meeting place, but then the white light appeared and... Well, we're here!"

... Holy... SHIT. That was the craziest, horrible and metal story that Miki, and by the looks of everyone on the room, EVERYBODY has ever heard. Higher dimensions? Time-space manipulating 'Archetype'? The erasure of the UNIVERSE?! These kids looked like being around their early 20s, and they had to fight what she could only describe as a Godzilla-shaped CTHULHU??!! Her maternal instints reeeeeeeeaaaaaaally wanted to hug them to ease their worries about red dust and-

Red particles... Oh.... OH!

"Wait, but how does any of this relate to Project Hermes's Energy? I mean, yeah, maybe it has some of this 'Archetype' thingie, but even then your description so far only talks about the timeline of the Universe being in danger." Trapper asked. He clearly was as shocked as the others, but he knew that someone had to ask the important questions. Mei, meanwhile, just took a deep breath.

"Not only does Archetype manipulate the laws of physics, including time itself, but it also breaks them. It plays with improbability, that's actually just the laws of another, theoretical reality, and makes it exist in another one without any of them destroy eachother inmediatly. That's how Kaiju worked, as they could be as heavy as they could be and still be capable of moving. These alternate laws come from what is bassicaly another reality, whenever real or not, and the Singular Points used these 'what ifs' in order to reach an optimal option. Different laws, different events..."

"Different worlds..." Koichi said from his seat, in apparent realization of what Mei and Yun were trying to explain

"And if Archetype and Singular Points are capable of creating simulations of what ifs, inspired by elements from the lower dimensional universe, then maybe these what ifs can be formed naturally" Yun added... Wait...

... That's it!! As crazy as it is, this has to be the answer. That's why these stories contradict eachother, why the Other Godzilla corrovorates Monarch's narrative, and why she can't feel Jr right now...

"Wait... Are... Are You saying that we... We..." Emiko asked, a bit worried about this possibility...

Miki looked at Mei's golden eyes, the purple haired girl staring back at her with worry. Miki simply ended Emiko's question... But as an affirmation.

"We are on another universe."

Chapter Text

"We are on another universe."

That phrase catched Mark offguard to be completely honest. True, he didn't have any idea of what to expect really, but that? That was one hell of an option of things to say or conclude.

Another universe... Were these people crazy? Maybe they were desperate to not face whatever punishment Monarch would uphold upon them all, seeing as their versions of Godzilla seemed to be very, very contradicting with the real one. And not just Godzilla, mind you, but also other creatures and even their respective years were separated one another.

Still, their reactions to, well, everything around them seems too... Real to be just an act, and that includes the contradictions amongst the groups, including years and roles... Guardian Ghidorah? Really? That had the same ring to it than it does with 'Save Satan!' or 'Hail Hitler!' for crying out loud!!

He could see from his position how Maddie, despite moving on from the Boston Battle 9 years ago, seemed to be slightly taken aback when Yuri said that, and he understood why. Emma had freed that three-headed devil from the ice, left him to die with other, right in front of Maddie no less, and only decided to do some good after their daughter was in the middle of the final Battle of Godzilla and Mothra against Ghidorah and Rodan, before sacrificing herself to save them. Being in the eye of a storm, one that's sentient and sadistic, and worst, aware of you, does have an impact in one's psychology after a while. And that's without mentioning how that three-folded horror came back in the iron-clad shape of Mechagodzilla 3 years ago where, while not chasing her like before, it did kill Simmons right in front of her.

Calling Ghidorah a good guy in front of her is like saying that Kim Jong Un is a good leader even if he killed your family right in front of you. It's sick and twisted. He would have some words with Yuri later.

But first, he needed to... Express his thoughts on the whole situation in a very... 'professional' manner.

"Another universe. Really? Look, it's clear that you're all nice people and all, specially Miki here, she and the Twins, thank you for your aid,-" He pointed out to the mentioned trio, who looked at him with clear understanding of his disbelief in their stories. "- but I don't think that we can simply... believe what you are saying, not without any proof that corroborates any of your stories. We simply cannot."

Jia looked at Ilene and the Leader with worry, clearly believing in these people's stories. Why though? It was clear that they were desperate and trying to avoid further problems by diverging attention to this Multiverse theory bullshit. Yes, it's clear that the Twins and Miki -he thinks that's her name- have simmilar telepathic powers as the Iwi, but they were still involved with these bunch.

The blue haired man, Yun, took out his wallet from an inner pocket on his jacket, and from it he took out his ID and a folded photo, as well as an old ticket, before giving it to Mark.

The ID was... Very believable, almost realistic even. An overall white colour with tints of orange, with a photo of the guy on the left side of the card while the right side was filled with the general info. The problem with such info, however, was the fact that it was in Japanese, something he should have expected from the facial characteristics of Yun, as well as most of the people present. The only info that was clear as day was a date. 2006. So around 22 years old.

The photo was recent, about 2 weeks old at least. It was a photo of Mei, Yun and Haberu, right in front of a TV, with Yun taking holding the camera selfie-style while Mei was doing a pose that screamed 'YES, IT WAS I!!!' in a comical manner at the left side of the TV while pointing right at it, and Haberu just stood at the right side of the screen. The screen showed a news broadcast on which the blue-haired man's face appeared, accompanied by a date on the left side of the head title: 2030/08/20.

The last thing on hand was a ticket, or rather the torned half of it. Probably a bus ticket. It was also in Japanese, so he couldn't understand anything from it, save from a possible seat number and a date on it: Seat 19, 2030/08/23.

Both the news and the ticket repeated the same date, the year of 2030. And it all looked very, very real. Could it be that Yun is really who he claims to be?

Dr. David took the ID, photo and ticket from his hands however, inspecting it himself for a couple of seconds before taking out his cellphone and typing on it. After a couple of seconds, David gave the ID back to Mark, while he looked at Yun with critical skeptism.

"This ID was manufactured, and there's no registration of it." He was clearly suspicious of the man. "The photo has been manipulated, Mei's hair is cut in one side, and the date seems to be a few centimeters off from where it should be. And anyone with a printer can replicate a bus ticket."

Although nobody said anything, Yun's look at David alas showed a bit of defiance and determination, somewhat different from his indifferent demeanor from before. Mei and Haberu, on the other hand, were clearly insulted at the implicit meaning behind David's analysis. Mark didn't like this a bit.

"It is not manufactured, it's all true! In our world, there is no Monarch, no Mark Russell, no anybody in this room." Mei began to object against David's judgement. "The Kaiju appeared in 2030 and almost end the world, and there was no protecting Godzilla to stop ours from almost destroying everything. Our Godzilla-"

"Mei!" Mark had to cut her off before she say anything that could piss of David even more, and make him a headache for everyone, more than he is now. "Look. I'm not saying that you are a bad person, or that you are lying. But we cannot trust just the guts and stories of a group of people over verifiable information, even if those stories are all we've got at the moment. We need solid proof, proof that cannot be denied in any shape or way."

Many of the present looked at each other or at him and his colleagues with fear and nervousness. Others, like Maina or the french members of H.E.A.T. looked displeased. But what could Mark do if not trust in solid proof. He's trying to help them, yet they are making it hard for him or anybody to help without recurring to punishing them. Yet, Mark could not do anything else but wonder as to why, when defending their stories, they seemed to actually... Believe in them. As if they truly believe they're from 50 years ago or from 2 years in the future, and that Godzilla is not the ancient protector of the planet.

But belief and trust are not negotiable as of now. He needs actual, verifiable proof.

The sounds of a low hum interrupted his thought process. It was the sound of energy flowing through circuits, of machinery coming to life, akin to the sound that a computer may give when turning on. Everyone turned to look at the strange device that was standing at Mei's left side, the weird, wheeled rectangular cube of a machine that she's been carrying around since their arrival. It was red, with a white '3' on the front, and a peculiar antenna on the top, orange in colour and consisting of a cone and 2 spheres at it's pointy end. From what Mei and her friends said, Mark assumed this was some weird vessel for her 'Pero 3' AI.

The damn thing was a nightmare during the last week since it's appearance, refusing to turn on and not letting any technician or available hacker to gain any ounce, any bit of data that may help shed some light into this mystery. Turning on now was like the machine's, if not the universe's, version of a very, very smug smile. The Twins seemed to have a somewhat similar opinion, as he saw from the corner of his yes how they were staring daggers at the device. He supposed it had to be because of this maybe being their first time facing the unknown outside their tribe.

The machine stoped emitting the noise, and stood still in silence for a few seconds, everyone's stares focusing only on it. The silence was broken, however, when Mei asked with a mix of hope and fear to the vessel.

"Pero 3?"

Using the wheels it has under it, the vessel turn around and 'faced' the girl, before replying with it's own, child-like voice.

"Oh, hi Mei!" The reply was playful, as if it didn't just turn on in the middle of a room filled with tens of strangers.

Mei then lunges herself towards the machine, just enough to embrace it in a tight hug and not drop both of them to the ground. Almost invisible, Mark saw a small tear began forming in the corner of her eyes.

"P-Pero!!! Thank God that you're ok!! You weren't t-turning on and I thought that- I believed t-that- That you were-"

"Dead? Offline? Terminated? Verifying if there is an actual afterlife for AIs?" Pero 3 asked with reassurance and with a bit of an ego, as if death was but a thing of every day. "It will take way more than reality colliding on itself and disrupting the causal flow of time and space to take me down!"

"Y-You crazy dog... Don't you EVER do that again, please!"

"I promise. Besides, worst case scenario, I would create a copy of all my data and transfer it to a drive or memory card so I can accompany you even after my termination. Just like I've said: I'm not going anywhere, as it will take a lot more than this to take me down-"

"'Us'. To take us down" A mechanical, older voice cut Pero 3's speech short, and with it the overall touching moment.

This time, the voice turned out to be coming from where Yun was currently sitting on, surprising even him in the process. He shifted a bit in his place in the couch and took out his cellular phone, a design that Mark didn't know it it already existed and was public or not.

"JJ2!"

"Hello, Yun. Hi, Haberu, Mei, Pero 3." The voice, now identified as 'JJ2' saluted it's owner/master/friend/whatever Yun is towards the other AI, and his friends.

"You're finally awake!" Haberu exclaimed at the AI in Yun's phone. "What happened? Why didn't neither of you wake up? We were sick worried about you!!"

"Forgive us, Haberu. It seems that neither Pero 3 or myself were prepared properly to face the reality displacement event that we calculated would take hold around a few days ago. That, and trying to connect and recompile data from this universe without getting the attention of any of it's leaders was, as Mei once put it, "A pain in the butt".

Wait, what? Not get caught? Recompile data? Reality displacement? Was that AI stealing data through illegal ways-

A sharp, pointy rock flew by and missed both Yun and the phone by mere centimeters, before landing on the wall behind them.

Miana jumped from her seat before Martin and Maina could react, and run at incredible speed towards Yun. He barely reacted in time and took a defensive posture when she jumped over him, causing the 2 to fall to the ground. She went and tried to grab the phone, her eyes showing an aggressive and quasi-murderous dislike and intent towards it, but Yun strengthen his hold on the device and put it on his chest as if his life, or rather JJ2's, depended on it.

It became clear soon enough that Miana was very, very strong, as she almost managed to grab hold of the phone, and probably break Yun's arm in the process, if it weren't for Mark himself and Captain Gordon coming to Intervene, grabbing Miana as strong as possible an arm each.

"Poison! Poison! Danger!!" She began to scream, in perfect English, while kicking in the air and trying to release herself from the two.

"Calm down dammit!!" Mark managed to verify the girl's strength as he had to use both of his arms to try and keep hold of a single arm while checking that his owns will not break. How in the ever loving hell did she got this strong?! Maybe it was some genetic trait that everyone from her tribe had?

"The damn phone's not gonna bite you!!" Captain Gordon seemed to have a bit less of difficulty than Mark, but still having nonetheless.

They finally separated the blue haired man and the tribal girl from each other, the former bearing a very messy hair and a few red marks from Miana's grip on his arm, and the latter still struggling to release herself. Maina approached her sister and stared right into her eyes in what one would assume at first glance was a 'I don't need words to express my disappointment' type of understanding, but Mark could feel it. He could feel that pinch, that fractal ring in the back of his mind, that felt like if it didn't come from his head truly, but rather from someone else's. Taking into account what happened before, he wouldn't be surprised if they were having a telepathic conversation, just like the Iwi did. Maybe they're an offshoot of the main Hollow Earth Iwi civilization?

Whatever happened, it was enough to calm the restrained girl down, her relaxation being enough for the 2 men to let her go. Still, she wore that same angry and distrustful look on her face, with her sister having a similar, yet calmer look. Yun's expression, however, was one of calmness and a bit of confusion that maintained while he was reassuring Mei and Haberu that he was fine.

"Why the hell did you attacked him like that?! Are you crazy!!!" A blond woman, a member or friend of the H.E.A.T. Team if her closeness to said team was anything to go by, shouted at what just occurred. "He didn't do anything and you almost broke his arm!!"

"Yes, what you did could have ended gravely for Mr. Arikawa." Tsujimori joined the conversation. "Just because you may not be familiar with technology, it doesn't mean-"

"Poison." This time, Miana was the one to speak up, interrupting Tsujimori's verbal reprimand. "Not the same, but... Similar. Conscious. Intelligent. Not alive. Like False Mountain, from Poison Valley."

"What is she talking about?" Kayoco questioned with confusion and interest at the girl's words. Martin seemed ready to explain, but JJ2 cut him short.

"She's comparing my nature as an AI with that of Mechagodzilla and Mechagodzilla City from her world. I can reassure you, Miana and Maina, that I'm not an all consuming machine built for conquest, but one that wants to help it's friends."

"Me too, me too!! I want to help Mei and the others as much as possible!! Besides, Terminator is way to overuse, and at this point humans have more chances of terminating themselves up than by AI." Pero 3 retorted with a bit of humour at first, ending in a flat and somewhat neutral tone at the ends, gaining a few looks from the others.

However, Mark noted something peculiar from what the mature AI just said.

"'Mechagodzilla City'? 'Her world's?"

"Kiryu is alive?" One of the white, grey and black uniformed military women spoke up in surprise. What the hell was a Kiryu?

"For the love of GOD CHRIST IN HEAVEN!!! STOP!!!" Dr. David was clearly tired from this discussion' main topic, rising up from his seat and approach Yun with speed and a serious case of 'You'll be next to be sent to the sun'. "There is no Multiverse, you are not who you say you are, and Godzilla is not a brutal monster of death nor the friend to all children or whatever! This game of yours ends now!!!" He extended his hand towards Yun's phone, tension visible in his hands.

A light shone from one concentrated point in Pero 3's vessel however, turning Dr. David's attention, as well as everyone else's, towards the red drone. It seemed that a small compartment opened on the upper front of it, revealing a lens similar to that of a projector, as indicated by the square image that appeared now in the TV screen. The light from the lens reflected in the surface of the TV screen, so in the middle of the projected image of a download waiting screen, currently at 76 %, there was a white glow.

"Could someone turn the lights off, close the windows and cover the screen with something, please?" Pero 3's begging tone was like that of a child wanting for their parents to let them go play outside. In an instant, Jia left the room towards the one where she had entertained the 3 year old originally, while the Iwi Leader went to turn the room's lights of, and Madison began closing the windows.

"Madison..." Mark wanted to get his little baby daughter to stop, to not follow what could very well be another trick or lie about the messed up situation they were in.

"I know what you are thinking, but at least let them have a chance to explain themselves. Besides, watching a movie could be very relaxing in comparison with all of... This." Madison pointed to the whole room, some of the guests looking at the pair nervously. "And it's not like they can run now. We have guards, remember?"

He looked once more into his daughter's eyes, ans saw the light of trust she was asking him to give her. The same look that she had given him in 2014, in order for her to explain Emma that it was alright, that her brother would love for them to stick together as a family. The same look that she had given him in 2025 when Godzilla began attacking the cities, telling him that something was provoking him and that Monarch had to investigate.

2 times did he rejected it, that begging for him to listen to her.

2 times did everything turned itself apart.

2 times that almost costed his baby's life, and that of everyone around them.

And as small as this petition was in relation to the other ones... He knew that it would be better to accept these terms than to tempt destiny for a third time.

So, he began to help Madison to close the windows just as Jia arrives with a large piece of black paper and tape.

Everything was set up and ready, everyone's focus being directed towards the screen, the downloading process reading 99.99997% completion. The Twins were in clear discomfort, Miana's left hand holding Maina's right hand in the search of reassurance and calmness. The Iwi Leader, on the contrary, seemed quite curious and interested in this sort of 'man-made magic iconography' that this intelligence of numbers was showing them but Mark supposed that it may had to do with her interactions with Monarch agents, staff, and thanks to Ilene Andrews' help as her guide in the facility as part of the Diplomacy & Research operations... Those two are very good friends...

Speaking of Ilene, she was being accompanied by both Jia and the Iwi Leader, the 3 of them on his right while on the left were Trapper, Bernie and Dr. David, the latter crossed armed with skepticism as clear as day, with Maddie sitting right next to him. If he was honest, he was beginning to like this scenario a lot more if this was the setup, all of them sitting around watching some 'big revelation' in a very cinematic way. It reminded him a lot of when he, Madison and Emma enjoyed of a very well deserved Family Friday Movie Night, popcorn and snacks included, all of them together as family...

He misses Emma quite a lot. Yeah, she may have turned out a bit crazy after 2014, but she wasn't an absolute monster as everyone on Monarch seems to believe. Very, and he meant it, very few people knew what Emma was truly like before and after 2014, and specially during 2019. He knew that she had good willed intentions, but also awfully lost and misguided by her own pain and by external, backstabbing forces. If he could have been there for her and for Madison, if he could have just stayed a little more, or even paid occasional visits he-

... Would any of that even mattered? Would Emma stayed far away from these ramblings and ideas of a 'Titan Reset', even without Jonah's influence? Would she... Would she...

He took a small breath and readied himself for the show. He needed to pay attention to what was gonna be either a shocking surprise of great magnitudes... Or one floppy, yet entertaining disappointment. He needed to be here and now, and give a small reflection of the past later. He would be here. Here for Madison, for everyone, and he would make things right.

"This better be worth it. Otherwise, I'll fishish Miana's job myself." Honestly, Dr. David was coming off as very irritating and bothersome, with his grumpy and aggressive attitude, his bitter sarcasm and his obnoxious, quiet but ever the present ego. Mark needed to talk with him ASAP... Later though.

"Chill down Dave! This could be quite entertaining too. You need to let go of the stress and entitlement, and enjoy the moment!" Trapper laughed while eating his popcorn with extra butter, and Mark had to be with the mad veterinarian in this one. Not that he would ever admit it though.

At last, the downloading process reached 100%, and the screen instantly went black for around 4 or 5 seconds before a white, red, purple, green and blue tittle card appeared, with the tittle itself being black with a white aura around it.

"Data Compilation of Variants of... THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS!!! - By JJ2 and Pero 3."

The tittle card disappeared after a couple seconds, being replaced by an explanation card of sorts, similar in appearance to the previous image.

"The following recordings, as well as the compiled data regarding the nature of Subject G, is possible thanks to the use of an Archetype based improvised super computer, created 4.50806 seconds right after the defeat of Variant: ULTIMA, and with a higher-dimensional duration of 5.411 seconds of usage before it's elimination from accessible higher dimensions. As such, The data may come as 'lacking' regarding certain areas, specially because of the apparent lack of awareness and presence of ULTIMA-PRIME in relation to these alternative realities as of August 18, 2030, Universe: 5P-ULT.

Also, it contains imagery of a creature responsible in many worlds for causing countless deaths and lots of trauma (duh).

Discretion is advised."

Another pause, with the message disappearing and being replaced by 9 seconds of darkness, and this time Mark looked towards Yun, Mei and Haberu, just to find them looking rather... Nervous. Unprepared even, for what may be about to be shown. Either they're good actors, or they truly believe all of this. He went back to look at the screen...

And only God knows how much his face turned pure white in that instant.

Right there, on the screen, in a 20s to 50s black and white filter, and with deep, orchestral music in the background, was a creature of great proportions. It looked a lot like Godzilla himself, but also very, very different: It's charcoal black skin was grotesque at first glance, wearing a terrifying semblance to burn marks that Mark had briefly seen in photos of survivors to the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 2 eyebrows-like structures were located on top of 2 big, somewhat soulless eyes, both of them situated in a head filled with a fanged maw and... Ears? It's overall body shape was still similar to that of Godzilla, although the legs were shorter and buffer, and the arms looked almost uncannily human. The dorsal plates, similar to those Godzilla had for the last 9 years before evolving, were white in colour in the spiky outside and black on the inside.

The creature was walking slowly amongst a nighted city, only illuminated by the lights of the nearing structures and the bright flames that followed it, accompanied by the sounds of evacuation sirens and the screams of hundreds, thousands of innocent people, the beast's face keeping a blank look as it marched over the rumbling place.

Many of the guests looked appalled by the scene, himself included. This... This wasn't right. This is all wrong, it's all wrong!!! This beast, this burned lookalike of Godzilla... It couldn't be Godzilla. Godzilla didn't look nor acted in the same strange, stiff manner this creature was. And yet, he couldn't deny the fact that this film looked very, very real, with the beast beung very much alive. But if this happened... Why didn't Monarch had any info of it?

The filmed reduced it's sized relating to the overall screen size by 2/5 of it's original/overall size, now being locked to the upper left corner, and with the free space now being filled with information about it.

"Name: Gojira.

Codename(s): Shodai, Gojira.

Species:

•  Working taxonomic name: Gojira atolonia.
•  Speculative overall taxonomy: Archosauria (Cocodrilomorpha)

Height: 50 meters.

Length: 100 meters.

Diet: Omnivore, mainly carnivore.

Appearance: 1954.

Nature: Organic, aggressive.

Status: Dead (Bia Oxygen Destroyer).

Universe: CORE-5OG4.

^Recording of SHODAI arriving and destroying Tokyo. It is to note that the initial destruction of infrastructure is incidental, with the following attacks being in response to human weaponry."

Gojira.

Serizawa had called Godzilla like that in accordance to testimonies and private oral folklore that spoke of the giant Titan. And to see this creature, this monster wearing that name of the Alpha while trampling over the Japanese population, burned, stiff, with such a lack of moral awareness of it's surroundings felt like a stab to all that Godzilla has done for the planet, and to all that Serizawa studied.

Maddie, his baby daughter, must had a similar yet more personal thought and feeling, if her agape expression was anything to go by. She was saved by Godzilla back in 2019 during the Battle of Boston, and had somewhat saved him and Kong from Mechagodzilla in Hong Kong 3 years ago. Seeing this bastardized version of Godzilla must be a hit to her hearth, to what she fought for and almost died for. Jia wasn't doing so well either, hugging Ilene tightly, and being petted by the Leader. Even 50 meters smaller than Kong, it's appearance was enough to make many of the viewers try and look at the other side, including David surprisingly.

The ones who looked the most affected, however, were the Yamane family. Both Mr. Yamane and Ogata were hugging young Emiko while she was profoundly crying at the scene, her hands covering her face and tears but not the sound of a trauma filled pain.

"It's ok, Emiko." Ogata began reassuring her in a whisper. "It's alright. It's gone now, Emiko. It's gone now."

Mark watched the trio holding each other when a thought came forth in his mind. Only now did he realized that their clothing was classy, he would say around mid to late 50s, something that he would had discarted as them being quite classy in their taste, if it weren't for the reaction they all had to the video. They couldn't possibly be actually from 1954, right? That was over 74 years in the past! This had to be some sick joke... But the video and it's realism, the details, everything on footage said otherwise... Is this trully happening?

The footage and data faded to be replaced with a new recording and info. The recording was of a tropical shore during dawn, with the most interesting bit being the other Godzilla lookalike that was walking forwards, being filled with the last bits of sunshine. This creature was similar to the previous one with the burned skin and black and white color palette, but this one seemed... Slimmer. Slimmer and frendlier looking even! The big eyebrows and the protruding fangs were no longer visible, and the eyes seemed a bit larger by some inches, but otherwise it was similar to the previous one. New data appeared at the side and bottom of the recording:

"Name: Godzilla.

Codename(s): Showa, Gojira 2, Godzilla 2.

Species:

•  Working taxonomic name: Gojira atolonia.
•  Speculative overall taxonomy: Archosauria (Cocodrilomorpha)

Height: 50 meters.

Length: 100 meters.

Diet: Omnivore, mainly carnivore.

Appearance: 1955-1999.

Nature: Organic, aggressive (Formerly), protector.

Status: Alive.

Universe: 5H0W4.

^Recording of SHOWA walking along the shores of Monsterland, 1 day after the failed Kilaak Invasion and the termination of Operation: Destroy All Monsters (DAM)."

Bernie and Trapper looked at each other in shock, as if sharing the same idea, before leaving the room in a rush without any care for their food nor the amount of noise. Not that anyone was neither paying atention nor care for their doings, as everyone was seeing in amusement and wonder the image of this protector, Showa as it was being called. Mark even heard Doctor David let out a low "Dear God" under his breath, schock clear in his voice and, for this one, Mark had to agree with the irrational Hollow Earth Head of Healthcare and Medicine: This was something out of some acidic dream, born from the minds of some mad producer from the 60s or 70s or something. This was crazy... But... Could it be? Is there even more to prove more of this.

The replacement of Showa's recordings confirmed that this would go on a little bit longer. But as the friendly looking Godzilla was replaced with a bulkier, more aggressive looking individual, wearer of some feline characteristics on its face...

"Name: Godzilla.

Codename(s): Heisei, Second Godzilla.

Species:

•  Working taxonomic name: Gojirasaurus lagonsis.
•  Speculative overall taxonomy: Ceratosauria (Abelosauridae)(?)

Height: 12 meters (Non irradiated)/80-100 meters (Irradiated).

Length: 200 meters (Irradiated).

Diet: Omnivore, mainly carnivore.

Appearance: 1984-1996.

Nature: Organic, aggressive, neutral.

Status: Dead (Bia biological reactor Meltdown).

Universe: H31531.

^Recording of HEISEI reemerging from a volcano, 1989, showing his incredible durability and resistance to great temperatures."

And with the advance of every new footage and data...

"Name: Godzilla.

Codename(s): Junior, Rebirth, Baby, Little, Third Godzilla.

Species:

•  Working taxonomic name: Gojirasaurus lagonsis.
•  Speculative overall taxonomy: Ceratosauria (Abelosauridae)(?)

Height: 1.6 meters (Non irradiated, Baby)/30 meters (Irradiated, Little)/40 meters (Irratiaded, Juvenile)/100(?) Meters (Rebirth).

Length: 200 meters (Irradiated).

Diet: Omnivore, mainly carnivore.

Appearance: 1994-1996.

Nature: Organic, friendly, neutral.

Status: Dead (Formerly), Alive.

Universe: H31531.

^Recording of JUNIOR after coming back to life bia Radiation Absorbtion. While it's currently impossible to get better footage, the sillohuete indicates a 95% simmilarities with HEISEI."

Mark was convinced...

"Name: Godzilla.

Codename(s): Junior, Zilla, Second Godzilla.

Species: Amblyrhynchus cristatus (Irradiated)

Height: 55 meters.

Length: 100 meters (aprox).

Diet: Piscivore.

Appearance: 1998.

Nature: Organic, friendly, protector.

Status: Alive.

Universe: G98TS..."

Little by little...

"Codename(s):Millenium...

Species:

•  Working taxonomic name: Gojira atolonia.
•  Speculative overall taxonomy: Archosauria (Cocodrilomorpha)

...

Appearance: 1999.

Nature: Organic, aggressive, neutral.

Status: Alive...

Universe: M1LL3N1UM..."

That maybe...

"Codename(s):Mega...

...

Appearance: 1954-2000.

...

Status: Alive...

Universe: XMGG1R5..."

This was true...

"Ghoul... 2001... GMKb..."

"Typhoon... 2003-2004... XM6T505..."

"Final... 2004... FN204..."

That their Godzilla...

"... SHIN..."

"... EARTH..."

"... ULTIMA..."

Was not...

"... MINUS..."

The only one.

"LEGENDARY - TITANUS..."

A powerful roar came from the speakers of Pero 3's vessel, potent enough to make everyone cover their ears as soon as possible, while some stared at the screen that was showing their pink fella himself, roaring in a recording of his reemergence in Antartica. The guy, the Alpha, the King that saved their asses. Their hero. Their Godzilla.

The Godzilla from Monarch... From Hollow Earth... The Godzilla from this universe...

They were right.

"Ok... Now we believe you." Mark said with a shaken tone in his voice, the whole experience still in the deepest and clearest sections of his brain, while seeing the presentations coming to a close. "We all believe you now. Right guys? Right?"

Ilene nodded slowly alongside the Leader who, unlike her friend, had a smile on her face. Madie, Jia and David joined, with David drinking from a opaque steel bottle as if his life depended on it. This time, Mark may ask for one drink of the obvious beer.

"Good. Now we need to get moving. Fast." Yun answered, making a few to look at him.

"Why?"

"Because, as you said, Godzilla left us to look for the root of the problem and destroy it." Captain Gordon stood up from his seat, looking at Mark straight in the eye."And that same root is what we need to find a way back home."

Oh... OH... How could he forget?! The White Energy! Project: Hermes! Godzilla is going to destroy it all, and left everyone stranded here forever!! They need to get going.

"Very well." He began to take a deep breath while analyzing the situation. "Me, Trapper, Captains Gordon and Yamabe, Yun, Mei and Haberu, Tsujimori, Miki and the Twins we'll get going to retrieve as much as we can of the dormant energy's Containers, while the rest will stay here in case of an emergency. Ilene and David will help you if you need. Is that clear?"

"But how are we gonna get there so fast?" Miki look with worry at Mark in the eyes. "None of the HEAVs are that fast, and they're all out of service for an hour or two more."

"NOT. All of them!"

They look behind Mark at the voice's proclamation. Mark himself turned around just to find the room's doors quite open, Bernie and Trapper at the doorframe smiling smugly with the latter holding some keys in his lifted left hand. Mark instantly remebered the duo exiting the room in a rush during the presentation, and now he realized that they must had reached the same conclusion as Yun and Gordon about the urgency of the situation. As such, he could do nothing but partially smile at the 2 of them.

"So..." Trapper asked. "Who's ready for a ride?"

Chapter Text

There were very few things that could faze him in the entire world, as far as he can remember, and even then they were quite simple enough for him to shrug it off in an instant: A neighbor's suspicious mount of dirt in their backyard? Mildly expected. Terrorists? Simple enough. Secret government operations and plans? Quite the obvious thing. Giant monsters? The bread and butter of every day. Aliens, like, the invader type of aliens? Sure, why not? Time travel and Multiversal encounters with people from different times and realities? Meh.

But there was indeed one simple thing that he would never admit having no self control over, and that he would take in complete secret to the grave. A thing that, even though it has troubled billions of people throughout the entire history of the planet, it almost felt personal with him, as if the very concept was in some kind of war with him with the only purpose of making him say 'I give up'.

Captain Douglas Gordon had quite the dislike for a boring, 'dead' life, and the notion of a meaningless death.

But specially, he loathed the idea of such thing coming from the idea... of failure.

These 3 ideas have been a nagging crap sack in the back of his mind for a long, long time. 35 years to be precise. Now, it would be the proper thing for people in situations of life and death to reflect on these kinds of things, how it all began, why it began and had such an impact of their lives, wonder if things would have been different if they went to therapy or something, if they'd be were they are and had done the same things if they had only taken a different route in life, amongst a loooooong etcetera...

But he didn't had neither the time nor the necessity to do any of that crap as of now. Of course, he does recognize that therapy, self reflection and a good emotional support of sorts are very helpful, and he would even recommend many people to get some as soon as possible. However, he wanted to do all of that when things were calmer and less 'kaiju-ey'... 'titan-y'? Bah! When he wasn't dealing with giant monsters.

That's why he was onboard with Mr. Russell, Trapper, the telepaths and the bunch in Trapper's own personalized HEAV, in a race against Godzilla in arriving to this "Project: Hermes" facility before Godzilla -This universe's Godzilla, mind you- decides to blow it the hell up. Get to the place, get a hold of the energy there, get the fffffffUCK out of there, get somewhere safe, go back home and then, right there, he will think about everything in the safety of a tree's shade, in the middle of a forest Infront of a lake, with a nice and snowy mountain on the horizon.

... He really needed a break.

In order to avoid encountering this Godzilla and making him mad for any reason, Mark proposed to use an 'inner portal' that was discovered recently. Apparently the giant vortex above Outpost 333 is a portal that connects Hollow Earth, the place they were all in, with the surface world, with these inner portals being a recently discovered shortcut that could be used by smaller creatures to travel around HE. Fortunate this Godzilla, Titanus, was too big to get inside one, meaning that he would travel on foot in order to get to the facility, and the HEAV would use the shortcut to get there first.

The HEAV, to give some merit, was quite faster than the ones that he and the rest of visitors had been on when escaping this Big G, with Trapper claiming that he wanted the vehicle to be as fast as possible in order to surpass any Titan that may want to attack them in any possible case, as well as to make a certain 'Fire Demon' jealous. Gordon needed to ask Trapper about this Demon and what it is capable of, but he knew that it would be better to wait a bit.

"How are we holding, everybody? All's good, all's good?" Trapper asked from his pilot seat in the cockpit, a small mirror on the front of the console helping him to look at everyone else nodding despise the clear nausea caused by the vehicle's speed. "Great! You'll like to know that we're about to use the shortcut, so we may have a better chance at getting to Hermes' Testing Facility minutes before Godzilla. Before going in, I must warn you: If you convulse at the sight of flashing lights, close your eyes as hard as possible."

"Flashing... Lights?" The nicer Twin, Miana, seemed confused about that concept, though being from an aboriginal future explained the confusion. Miki took Miana's and Maina's hands while closing her eyes for a couple of seconds before the Twins faces expressed realization and comprehension regarding such phenomenon.

"Epilepsy... Convulsions." Maina worded out slowly, with Miki nodding in conformation regarding the Twins' understanding. "No. Miana and I... Saw the Mountain's Azure Wrath... Many times."

Well, that was pretty much an obvious fact, right? If they'd had epilepsy, they wouldn't had seen Godzilla's Atomic Breath in action.

Regarding that Maina was talking about, she must be referring to her Godzilla, the one 3 times larger than his own. To believe something that large, even larger than Keizer Ghidorah, could even walk with no problem and with the power to destroy at least the planet in the blink of an eye, was one of the few things that did impressed him quite a lot. As well as worrying him. Who knows what would happen if such a creature appeared back home... Oh who's he kidding, he knows what would happen: Death and destruction on biblical proportions!

A small alarm was heard, three tunes accompanied by a blue light above their heads. From his seat, Gordon could see that they were heading towards a blue vortex, around 40 to 50 meters in diameter.

"That's the shortcut, I presume?" Fellow Captain Yamabe asked right behind him.

"Precisely." Mr. Russell turned to look at them all, weariness about what would go down next clear as crystal. "Everyone, grab as hard as you can to your seats, keep the belts on, and don't try to get out or run or anything at all. What's gonna happen next... Will be trippy."

"What do you mean 'trippy'?" Tsujimori look with a bit of doubt at the blue vortex. They were heading faster and faster towards it, the speed increasing bit by bit, slowly but surely, and Gordon saw how Mr. Russell and David grabbed the edges of their seats with apparent strength, so he decided to follow in a more calmer way.

They were around 30 meters in front of the portal. 25 meters...

"Ready or not-" Trapper began.

20 meters...

"- Here -"

10 meters

"- WE -"

5.

"- GO!!!"

0.

Darkness.

Then, a blue aura surrounding the vehicle, giving the general impression of a ghostly or astral presence, an angel's covering protection from whatever crawled in the midst of the void.

Just for it to be replaced by madness. Madness of neon ambience, crimsons and azures and violets sprawling all around the HEAV, as if the multicolored energy tunnel they were in not only demanded such great reality-defying velocity, but also for the colors to become part of them, and them to be part of it. An acidic vision turned reality, with them at it's center.

Gordon could feel it. He could feel the speed of the vehicle pushing him towards the back of his seat with logical and illogical motives. He could feel the tension that was forming his muscles, his flesh trying to keep up with the speed and keeping it's form as best as possible. He could feel his bones somehow showing a sign of sentience, as they began to harden and not crack under the pressure of the multifaced gate they were in, dust being not an option.

He turned around, and has the displease of beholding how in the midst of the neon Tartarus, everyone had shut their eyes and was ignorant from the horrible sight of the flash images of their muscle and bones and the likes overlapping or replacing their actual bodies, a ghoulish event that he realized soon enough that he was experiencing. 

And yet... He couldn't feel any sort of pain. He didn't feel his flesh boil nor his bones turn to dust, and not even did he felt as if they were tearing themselves out of his body. No pain at all, but rather he felt... Tickling. Like, a funny feeling creeping throughout all of his body, akin to a thousand fingers, or being on one of those vibrating chair that he had seen before in malls.

If he would had jut kept his eyes shut, avoiding to look at the horrific and ghoulish scene that he and everyone onboard were going through, maybe he could have thought that this was overall a funny experience thanks to the tickling sensation, weirded out only by the painless feeling of bones and flesh fighting for uniformity in his body, but alas he had to think of himself as momma's tough boi, and had to pay the price for that.

Not that it would take that long though, as the nightmare fuelled scenery disappeared after at least 20 seconds, and the only lights in the HEAV were the vehicle's blue lights and purplish and blueish outer light provided by the Hollow Earth's crystal. The sudden change from neon hell to nighty night was so fast that it took Gordon a couple of seconds to process that it was over, something for which he was ever so thankful. He took a few breaths while everyone let go of their seats and opened their eyes.

"That... was... Amazing!!" Mei's enthusiasm, while cute and all, was not shared by everyone right now. "Can we do that again when we go back to the Outpost?"

"Oh, why, absolutely NOT! Rather death than any of that." Dr. David barked from his seat, displeasure being clear by his own tone of voice. Either he had seen those bone-chilling visions before, or he simply had a certain dislike for these portals. Trapper just looked at him with smugness and hilarity

"Common Daves, it was fun, admit it!"

Tsujimori and Miki let out a sigh at the sight of those two man-children -For that was the simpler explanation for their attitude- and Captain Yamabe adjusted himself.

They had clearly made it to somewhere, hopefully the Test Facility, and he decided to ask.

"So, are we here? Did we arrived in time?"

Mark stood up and walked towards the pilot's cockpit, holding himself with the sealing and seats to stabilize his balance, and looking alongside the crazed pilot through the window the outside. "Yeah! We are here."

"Going down..." Trapper began to slowly lower the HEAV to the ground, and Gordon could't wait to touch the ground after... That experience... Seriously, what was wrong with this universe. At least it's not as bad as the 'Future Earth' or the 'Archetype' ones. Speaking of which, it seems that Mei and Yun are talking to the Twins while Haberu had a small chat with Miki, a pleasant one judging by the girl laughing. The Twins clearly had a bit of distress towards technology, as they were practically jumping on their seats to get out of there, and remembering the phone incident of course, but sadly there was no explanation yet for why that is besides JJ2's mention of a "Mechagodzilla City".

What even is a Mechagodzilla? Some crazy robot version of Godzi... If there's no punchline there, then it's gotta be one of the worst jokes he has ever heard of in his entire life.

"We should prepare ourselves in case of anything." The voice of Captain Yamabe suddenly came from behind him, weariness in his tone.

"For what exactly?" Gordon questioned him.

"For any human-sized creature, of course. In Miss Tsujimori's world, as well as my own, there were a firefly-like species of giant insects called the Meganulon, or rather the Meganula in their imago stage: In my world, the larvae were big enough to be capable of eating an entire person with no difficulty, and they were great in number. Thank god that one of the Kaiju in my world likes to feed on the maggots."

"Besides," Tsujimori came in and began. "If the presence of the smaller creatures like the Leafwings is anything to go by, we need to prepare ourselves. Preferably with fire weapons."

1. She has a point, need to be prepared.

2. She, sadly, has a point, so there goes the 'peaceful and somewhat fast recovery' mission.

On the plus side, she let him have an open window for one of his favourite hobbies: Cool one liners.

"Please, Miss... I AM a weapon."

...

"... I think you're going a bit too hard there-"

"Black Hole Space Gun."

Can't please everyone nowadays though.

When they finally reached the ground, they began to get up from their seats as fast as they could, with the notion that, any second now, a giant beast of more than 100 meters tall will arrive to either chew gum or destroy their asses, and Gordon knew that Godzilla never had any gum to begin with. The doors of the HEAV opened and everyone walked out toward the facility under the night-cealing. The facility, built on the side of a mountain, had the lights off, with a bit of dust begining to crept here and there because of the abandonment this place has, and it was small in comparison to the Outpost they came from, but he supposed that maybe most of the place was inside the mountain. They were currently at the facility's aerial vehicle's platform, the mirrored M insignia of Monarch being at the center of it. Mark and Dr. David walked out, with Trapper staying in the vehicle, while everyone else began taking with them whatever guns there were on the ship, as per Gordon's and Tsujimori's request.

"Ok everybody, we have to do this right!" Mark began instructing them. "We have about 30 minutes before Godzilla appears, so we gotta do this fast: While it is not radioactive, we have a procedure when going in proximity with the Hermes Energy, located in a containment chamber in level -10. Dr. David will go to find the emergency generator just to make sure nothing goes array. We go down there, Me and Dr. David use our credentials to enter the chamber, go through the procedure, take at minimum 3 of the Energy Containment Capsules, go back up and enter the HEAV before Godzilla even appears in the horizon. To make it faster, we will have a group on the surface level to be ready to bring the containers back to the HEAV. We get the containers, we send it, it's carried to the HEAV while the elevator goes back down, repeat. Understood? Let's go!"

With everything clear, they all began to follow the two men towards the doors of the communication tower, Mark holding and searching through a few labeled keys he had with him. It only took about 20 seconds to find the right one, and he opened the door for everyone to get in, him being the last one and leaving it open, probably in case they need to run.

They had brought some flashlights in case of an emergency, something Gordon was grateful for as all that he could see, besides a few of the smaller lights connected to the walls and ceiling, was imperious darkness and the echoes of everyone's footsteps. They were now traveling through the corridors, Mark being ahead of them now, and with Dr. David having separated from the group as per plan's precautions. About a minute and a half, all lights turned back on, and a voice came from Mark's radio.

"- Found it. Elevator's on good conditions. Going back with ya.-"

The man simply nodded and continued walking, everyone else following suit. After another 20 or 30 seconds, they all found the elevator, a white paint over the sliding metallic doors, and a sign on it's left reading "Max: 6 people." Soon enough, they all heard the sound of someone -Dr. David- running down the hallways towards them, somewhat "stoic" even after reaching them in such a small window of time. Pressing a button, the doors opened up almost instantly, and Mark, Dr. David, Gordon, Tsujimori, Haberu and Yamabe entered the relatively big elevator, the latter being the one to press the "-10" button. The tension began to slowly form as the doors closed once more and began descending towards the underground.

"Do you really think that we'll need these weapons? If people worked here, then nothing should be down there, right?" Haberu questioned Gordon, before pondering a bit more now towards Mark. "Actually, why didn't anyone take the energy samples before leaving? So far there's nothing going array now."

"Well..." Dr. David began. "There was this incident about a week or so, you see? The one that brought you all here. Whatever space-time warping anomalies the energy has, a bit of it remained active even after the energy itself became dormant, making it impossible for anyone to get in and get out without consequences. As about whatever may be down there, there's a chance that, just like your Kaiju, some Titan species may be attracted towards the Hermes Energy, and we don't know what would result of such interaction. Better be ready for the worst." 

"Oh... Great."

They all stayed quiet afterwards, all being tense from that little exposition by David. Just how much of that energy was used to even tear down the barriers between reality down to have such anomalies happen in the first place? Will there be any anomalies down there? Or maybe a Kaiju? A Titan? A conglomeration of the three? Hopefully, Gordon thought, the least of their problems would be ruble. He was an action guy, sure, but even action guys want some peace and quiet every once in a while, and in a world with giant monsters, that was more than anything a right rather than a petition.

... Oh, cool, there's music too. Sounds like some kind of "home-made" opera, something from the 50s for some movie... It's quite catchy.

After a minute of silence the elevator stopped, a small monitor above the closed door showing "-10" on its screen, before the aforementioned doors finally opened and everyone got out. As the doors closed and the elevator ascended back to the surface, they all turned towards a great multitude of consoles, with glass windows and a door in the very front of the room. This allowed everyone to see not only the dark, metallic room beyond the windows, but at the very sides of the room were strange containers, similar to tanks of gas or even those "Scream Tanks" from Monster Inc -A funny movie, Gordon thought-, overflowing with an ethereal, white energy. As if heaven itself was contained inside such metals. They were, however, kept inside some advanced mechanism in the walls, only being visible thanks to a glass panel on each side.

Mark immediately went towards a series of unlocked lockers, while Dr. David began explaining the next part of the plan.

"I suppose that it goes untold that one must be a retard to not think that it may be a bad idea to go into contact with strange elements and compounds without protection. The plan is that Captain Gordon, Haberu and Tsujimori will enter with anti-radiation suits into the decontamination cabinet and enter the room with the containers. There's a cart at the sides of the door that can carry 2 containers each, and every cart with containers counts as 3 people, so we'll have to do a few here-and-there walks in order to get enough containers in the ship in time. Any questions?"

When no word was given, and Mark came back with 3 anti-radiation suits on hand, the scarred doctor continued. "Good, now while the three get ready, I would need Yamabe's help with the consoles here. I'm kinda rusted on my binary."

No time was wasted, as Gordon and co. got into the suits quite fastly, while Yamabe began to play with the console and get everything back online and under control, and Mark went towards the elevator to drop in it another 4 suits, a small note on top of the bundle of clothing.

"Sadly, there's a malfunction with the container room's lights, so you will need to use the container's lights as your only flashlights for now."

The trio had finally got on suit, weapons at hand, and waited for Mark and Dr. David to take out their credentials. The two men walked towards the sides of the door, a small panel on each side, and they put their credentials at the same time. After a few seconds of wait, tension hovering on the air, the lights around the door turned green before it began its unlocking process, the two men stepping back immediately.

"Are you ready guys?" Gordon asked his companions, the time of being big heroes alas coming back to him after a good while, a small but nice tommygun at hand.

"Although nervous, I'm in." Haberu gave his sincere answer, holding a simple rifle close.

"Always ready." Tsujimori replied with determination, a flamethrower at hand.

"Good. We don't have much of a choice otherwise." 

The steel doors began sliding towards either side, and the Trio of Big Damn Heroes (BDH) entered. The doors closed once more, and a good amount of decontamination gas began filling the small chamber they were in. It took a few seconds, but just like it started it ended, and the second pair of metallic doors opened up, allowing them to enter the testing/containment chamber.

Gordon's first thought was, of course, 'Why didn't I brought a flashlight?', seeing as he, without the tanks, couldn't see anything. And it was no joke, as the tanks filled to the brim with this white, dormant power couldn't even help that much in illuminating the stupidly enormous room, with their still radiating, dim light only reaching so far as a few centimeters. But besides that, there was no trouble as far as he could see, just had to stick very closely to the tanks and everything else could go smoothly.

He turned around to look at Tsujimori and Haberu following closely, the latter soon transfixing his attention to something on the left nearby wall: It was were 3 carts, obviously the one used in this place for the tanks, and each one seemed to have 2 hollowed spaces to fight them inside. While Haberu went straight for one of the carts, Tsujimori and Gordon heard a solid second of white noise coming from a darkened corner of the room, before being replaced by the voice of Dr. David.

-"Its this-god dammit, do you hear me? Hopefully you do. I managed to barely bring back the communication and radio system, but just barely. Right now, from the right side of the chamber's entrance doors, 3 tanks will be released for you to take to the cart your friend brings. Try not to ruin anything and everything."-

With that said, the sound of electricity and mechanical clanking and turning and pushing resounded from their right side, and soon enough part of the glass panel began to rise up slowly, just as the tanks began moving outwards. Gordon and Tsujimori went towards them, and waited for the panel to be out of the way and for the tanks, or rather the holding mechanism their bases were attached to, to stop moving, something that took about 5 second for the duo.

After a bit of vapor was released from the bottom of the tanks, the two took the handlers of each tank, Gordon taking the third one after leaving the first one besides him, and that's when Haberu appeared with the sound of small wheels acompannying him as he drove the small cart. As soon as the two tanks were put into the cart, they heard the same mechanism from before, indicating that soon they would have to retrieve the second batch of tanks.

While Haberu went for the second and third carts, the tank hatch began to open once more, and the process was repeated, leaving the first-ergh, fourth tank besides the first, and putting the second pair inside the second cart. And so he and Tsujimori went to retrieve the fifth and sixth tanks from their position.

At this point, as they were taking the containers of this literal violation of all known laws of the space-time continuum, Gordon realized that he hadn't taken a good look at what little this pair illuminated, so he decided to look up from the sixth one towards the now illuminated mirage in front of him.

He froze as he mentally uttered a few good curses.

There was something there. Something porous, wrinkled, barely noticable from the distance that it had from him and the tank. It look quite organic, and he knew that there was no reason for biological experiments to appear in a chamber meant for energy-based operations. And he managed to hear a simple, almost silent fleshy sound from within whatever laid there in the darkness.

He really hated being right.

By the sound alone, he knew that it would take a good 2 minutes from now to reveal itself, so he decided to make a safe and, paradoxically, risky move: Not tell the others until it was loud and clear that thing was there and about to wake up, or be born,or whatever. He knew from experience that the waking a sleeping beast was just gonna make its inevitable wrath even worst, and even more so with weapons. And, although this may sound insulting for his current comrades, but Haberu looked like the type of guy to shoot out of fear, and Tsujimore out of precaution and, out of a small theory of his, a little bit of disgust and possibly hatred.

No. The only way to have a better chance at killing these things was always after they emerge or are born, because when they reveal themselves, they also reveal the weak spots to attack: Eyes, mouth, sides of the head and body, and sometimes the paws or the joints of the extremities. First the head to disorient it, and then left if incapable of moving by shooting at the legs, so aiming at its heart isn't so hard.

So, as Haberu and Tsujimori took the carts inside the cleaning chamber, he went for the third cart to put the tank in hand inside. It took a bit of trouble, seeing as the tank is like holding a double and half of his weight with your own arms, but soon enough he managed to get the damn thing inside the cart, grabbing the wheeled thing and heading towards a now free-of-use chamber. He could hear the whispering noise of the organic invader moving a bit more than earlier, sensing it was slowly waking up. Don't utter a word until you are outside of this place. He could even imagining hearing its faint moving even with the sound of the chamber's cleaning gas filling his ears to its entirety.

Once the doors opened up, he saw Haberu and Tsujimori leaving the two carts inside a closing elevator, the sound of the thing ascending reminding him that it would take it's time to rise to the surface to come back, and by the time it comes back... Boi was it not going to be pretty.

He and the other two began to take off the anti hazard suits, and that is when the thing finally made a loud noise, stopping everyone's movements out of shock. A small shrip, almost insectoid or even reptilian, the former being more likely.

As everyone turned around towards the darkened chamber, Gordon went straight towards Mark. "Put this on."

"Wh-what are you-"

"We both know that there must be - is - a living, energy-eating creature inside there, and it's either bigger than what it sounds like, or not alone. God forsakes it's both. You, the Doc and Yamabe are the really important ones, and if you want to make sure the plan goes smoothly, then you will put this on, wait for the elevator to come back, and get in with the others and the tanks."

The shriping sound grew a bit louder than before, the fleshy movement resounding once more.

"And don't worry about us. Worst case scenario, that thing doesn't kill us fast. I am prepared for this, and that's without the others."

Mark just looked at him in the eyes, Dr. David and Yamabe seeing him from behind, and Tsujimori and Haberu from his left, still besides the elevator doors with the suits on hand. Mark then took the anti hazard suit from Gordon's hands and began putting it on, while the other two BDHs headed to give theirs to the other two men on the panels, while the sounds of whatever the creature was began to increase in volume.

"I hope there's some sort of plan right now." Haberu stood at Gordon's left side as he looked at the darkness behind the glass, Tsujimori joining them by his right. "No pressure..."

"I can conform with just shooting at the creature with all we have, but I would be lying if i said that's even a plan." Tsujimori replied, taking her flamethrower off her back and getting ready alongside Haberu and his rifle.

"When that creature shows its ugly face, shoot at the head area first, preferably the eyes, nose and insides of the mouth. Then legs, and at the chest when we crippled it."

"... How many kill counts?" Haberu asked him, leaving open for Gordon to make his move.

"If I was called by how many monsters I've killed... You may as well call me Extinction."

Weapons at hand, and the 3 big people in their suits, everyone stood there, ready for the beast to emerge from the darkness...

The sound that filled the air was biscuous, breaking, as if it were emerging from some egg or pupa. It was clear that whatever it was, it was big, enough for the following steps of footsteps to sound as if a man wore an armor of sorts, implying for Gordon that it must be some kind of arthropod, probably a native one from Hollow Earth. The number of steps increased in number, soon becoming clear that whatever it was, it was adapting very fast to whatever new sensations it had to be getting after being after a good while inside it's organic capsule, while emitting some of the same shriping sounds from before. Then, the darkness was filled with silence, only interrupted by the few forward footsteps from the BDH. 

Then suddenly, the glass belonging to the cleaning chamber's doors from the containment side were shattered by a massive, blue and orange pincer, the size of a man's forearm. Backing away from the chamber, everyone could see the pincer retracting once more to the shadows, the cleaning chamber turning red as the sirens began.

After a few seconds, the creature stepped towards the crimson light, revealing itself at last: While the red light could make one wrongly guess the beast's colors, Gordon knew from the pincer it must had been mainly of a blue color, with red stripes and patterns and black sections, specially in the abdomen for the latter. It was a little bit taller than a human, about 2 meters in its current stand, resembling some sort of giant mantis with apparently pitch black eyes three times larger than his own. Two antennae became 4 at the base, with the larger ones curving behind the insect's head while the shorter one stood in a more common manner in the front, a large, 2-pointed hood covering most of the creature's neck. Strong legs, and two retracted, powerful pincers, the beast was almost a perfect echo of Gordon's Kamakuras, although it had a more refined and elegant posture and morphology.

As Mark and the others began to back toward the elevator, currently in level -5, He and his comrades pointed their weapons towards the insect as it entered the cleaning chamber with some difficulty, the gas annoying it as it fastly broke the glass of the doors on their side.

"Remember to shoot at the head first! Go for the eyes!"

"Sir, yes sir!!"

"On it!"

As the creature forcefully began to exit the chamber, Haberu and Gordon aimed their weapons for the creature's eyes, actually being of a dark purple coloration. Surprisingly, and probably as a result of being in proximity with a natural "fuck you" towards time, it managed to move and shake quite fast as it tried to exit and attack the people in the room, causing the duo to miss a few shots, with the bullets that hited the exoskeleton flattening on contact while a small, insignificant dent was left behind, causing the creature to open its mandibles to shriek in pain.

"Hold on!" 

Tsujimori stepped forwards and aimed the flamethrower at the creature's face, and so released a big cloud of fire upon it as if of judgement day it were, the beast crying out of pain as the few exposed muscles and, specially, the eyes were burned asunder by the soldier with little to no hesitation. Gordon almost felt bad for the beast. Key word being "almost" as, after stopping burning the creature, Gordon went straight for the left eye, 3 bullets blowing the shrieking creature's sight while Haberu took care of the left.

The creature still had some fighting spirit in it, however, as it began to use its pincers in order to get at them even from a good distance from it, It actually managed to release itself a bit more from its prison, accidentally or otherwise, but thankfully the next depended on Tsujimori rendering the pincers' muscles useless with the flamethrower without getting caught. 

The sound of a bing and the metallic slide of doors behind them was a weight lifter for the moustached man, as he heard wheels and feet rushing towards the elevator.

"We'll send the elevator down here once we reach the surface, just hold on a bit longer!" Yamabe's voice rang in his ears as the doors closed and the elevator began its ascension once more.

Gordon, although at first thinking that it wasn't necessary, knew that he would be a big, fat, moustacheless bastard if he said he didn't want to rest in a nice sofa, inside a cabin alongside a lake and a mountain, in the middle of the forest right now. And besides, who was to say that the others didn't want to go back home? So he understood the assignment.

The creature did something that, in hindsight, they should had all expected when dealing with an actual insect monster, although not a moth or spider for that matter, as it spitted something similar to a ball of silk towards Haberu, glueing his legs in place, before it fired another one towards the rifle, sending it towards the other side of the room. As a response, Gordon began firing towards the beast's now closed mouth while reaching for the rifle, with Tsujimori still burning the creature's arms and legs as she tried to avoid getting hit by it's pincers and silk.

As he finally took the rifle, thankfully with the silk only on the side and not glued to the floor, Gordon decided to change a bit the strategy as he fired his shotgun once more, this time on the exposed, almost damaged muscles of the extremities. The insect, likely hearing the gunshots and locating them, began spitting more of that silk in the man's directions while he began changing from firing the legs towards the mouth and so on.

"We're almost there!" Tsujimori shouted, just as he gave Haberu his rifle back while firing at the monster, who was begining to get on its knees as the burned and wounded flesh of its joints began collapsing on themselves, now only relying on its silk as its last offence-defense mechanism. It fired with more intensity now, rage clear in its movements as it followed the sound of Gordon's footsteps from one side of the room to the other, confused and enraged by the man's erratic pattern, without knowing that said man was currently smiling at it in a taunting manner. He was just waiting for the right moment.

1, 2, 3, Spit!

He barely avoided that one by the foot. He had to be extra-

-3, Spit!

He couldn't dodge the next one, this time blinding him completely. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't do anything without the risk of harming Haberu or Tsujimori.

He could feel it, however. He could feel the sneer that the beast was giving him right now as it realized it caught him. A tiresome sneer, akin to catching the kid who had stole your hat and ran through the entire place for hours without end. A nice memory... He wonders if the two lovebirds would play his favourite song during his funeral.

1...

He would be pissed off if they didn't... But maybe a niece or a nephew could fix that headache...

2...

The creature prepared one final spit, this time a hardened one, just to end this pest's life once and for all.

3... SPI-

"Surprise, motherfucker."

The rifle entered the insect's mouth fast and smoothly and, with one quick pull of the trigger, shot the inside of the head in one huge "bang!"

The creature stopped all movement, and fell to the ground...

Haberu was thankful that the plan worked. Get one to piss of the bug while another one released him from the silk on his legs, and he took a headshot at the bastard. He even said the line! This was... This was incredible! Traumatizing, crazy, but still incredible, he killed a monster, rifle and all, and said a classic one liner as a send off for the beast! The elevator is currently in level -5 now, and they already killed the monster, they-!!

"Ugh... I think I'm about to vomit any moment now. Let's get that thing off his face and get out of here."

"Wait... We must verify if it still has pulse." Tsujimori said, before taking the rifle out of his hands and placing it over the mantis' exoskeletical back, firing once, twice, trice on the same place, making a hole through which she put the flamethrower's nozzle and fired the thing from withing, burning its insides with what was left of the tank.

"No pulse."

She handed Haberu the rifle while she went to help Gordon with the silk on his face, a bottle of water at hand to make it easier. it took a few moments, but soon enough the silk melted away from the Captain's face, who slowly opened his eyes and smiled at them.

"So how was the experience?"

"Quite challenging. A bit entertaining though."

"If this is what Ellen Ripley felt while killing Xenomorphs then I both want and don't want to feel it again!"

"Trust me kid, you haven't even seen nor feel anything yet. Although I must say that killing this one was... Cathartic."

A few laughs were exchanged between them, as they saw the elevator reaching level -8. This had been-

A wet sound was heard from the containment chamber.

The three of them had their blood run cold at the sound of some sort of cracking taking place, their eyes moving towards the same chamber from which the mantis emerged. The same sounds as before, the shriping and steps and mucous sounds began to ring from behind the blackness, as something began to slowly stand up from whatever cocoon it laid dormant in. And worst of all? The same sound of emergence, of a twisted butterfly rising from her chrysalis, repeated itself over and over and over again within the shadows, with pointed or smooth silhouettes becoming visible once near the lights of the contained tanks as they began to shrip in a way that indicated a sufficient level of cognition for communication to take place.

There were more than one in there. And they had just killed one of them with certain difficulty.

Haberu began pressing the elevator's button, uttering "common" over and over again in clear desperation, while Gordon and Tsujimori looked at their remaining munition, a bit of hidden worry filling them from within.

"I have 27 seven bullets. You?" Asked Gordon to his companion.

"16, and my flamethrower is out of fuel. Any ideas, sir?"

"... Heh. Please, Sir it's... to refine. Captain could be enough, if you want to give me authority without making me old."

"... Do we have a plan, Captain?"

Gordon looked back at Haberu, who had given up on the elevator and decided to join them in their small chat. It was clear he wanted to live, but was at a certain peace with the prospect of death. Whatever was it because of the idea that he helped give everyone some time to get a chance to get back home, or if his encounters with the Archetype Kaiju gave him some revelation of sorts that he accepted, Gordon couldn't know, but he knew a man as a true warrior and an exceptional person when their eyes showed neither fear nor hatred of death when being the only option.

"I suppose... That we can see if we can piss them off enough before commiting seppuku."

"You know it's name?" Haberu asked.

"I have to basically live with a pair of lovers from Japan, of course I have to know what I'm saying before looking like and idiot."

A small smile formed on their faces at the funny idea, before taking a hold of their weapons once more and looking back at the chamber. The footsteps of the giant bugs began nearing the chamber, one of the things already appearing under the crimson light. They might die here, yeah, but at least the other could be closer to coming back home, and they could live this world as Big Damn Heroes. This had been a great adventure-

"BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!"

The sudden sound of gunshots filled the air from above their heads, at the same time the creatures began to stepped back from the firing, one already falling to the ground but still very much alive. As the three of them turn to look above them, they saw that from small capsules in the sealing emerged a good number of miniguns that were currently aided towards the containment and cleaning chambers. The security system was turned back online, but how-

Wait... the voice!

From the panels, a voice rang out with a playful tone.

"-This is just like Mei's zombie movies!! This. is. so. COOL!!!! You are saved now guys! Please do not resist!!-" The voice of Pero 3 rang out, before another one joined in. JJ2

"We're sorry for not helping sooner. The facility's firewall was a lot harder to get trough than expected. We followed Mr. Mark's instructions as according to his note when he send us the anti hazard suits. We had been informed of the situation as soon as the three of them return to the surface, and we made it our priority to help you get back to the surface while we slow down the unidentified fauna, until TITANUS GOJIRA reaches and destroys the facility. Now, get inside, please."

A bing sounded from behind them and they turned around just to see the doors of the elevator opening at last. They wasted no time and ran inside the elevator as fast as they could, the surface button already selected by the AIs, and could only see the mini guns wiring at what they assume was maximum capacity at the giant bugs, slowing their advance as much as possible, as the elevator's doors finally closed, and the elevator ascended back to the surface.

Trapper was almost living the life that any man in the United States wanted to live: Hearing a nice bit of 70s music, legs crossed above the camera/monitor and the control panel, eating some fries and drinking from his good old bottle of cold beer in the middle of the night, in this wacky world known to many as "Hollow Earth".

Key word is "almost". And that's because he was quite worries by the fact that three people under his wing are fighting for survival down in a facility that's about to be destroyed by the King of the Monsters himself for containing tanks and tanks filled to the brim with a reality altering power that they are now carrying on his HEAV in order to send back a group of people to their respective universes!

... Another day working for Monarch. What could he say?

"Pero 3, any news?" The purple haired girl, Mei, asked to her AI friend through a laptop she had brought with her, the physical body of the dog-shaped coded algorithm laying besides her.

"They have already reached the first floor., and just in time! The Makutas - My personal name for them - have already taken care of most of the weapons in floor -10, and they're currently trying to open the elevator's shaft doors! On the plus side, now I know what was Mr. Serizawa's favourite color, and it's not blue."

"Oh, are we getting ready, are we getting ready? Good, good, veeeery goood." Trapper got off from his relaxation position - Maybe next time - and began preparing the HEAV to take off any second now, hoping for the other to make it in time-

"WAIT FOR US!!"

"TAKE OFF, TAKE OFF, WE HAVE COMPANY!!"

"WE GOTTA LEAVE NOW!!"

... Oh, there they are.

As they entered the HEAV, Gordon looked back at the Facility before the vehicle's door closed, thanking God, the AIs and his companion in this one hell of a fight, and thankful for-

"What about Godzilla?" He asked Mark and Trapper, masking his worries under a veil of interest and boredom. The two checked whatever data and numbers they needed to look at for a few minutes before having an answer.

"He's here."

As soon as he heard Trapper mutter the words "camouflage", probably a mechanism the HEAV has in case of aggressive or studied Titans, on the horizon beyond the window, he saw a bright pink light emanate from some mighty, larger-than-life figure, moving closer and closer towards them. The HEAV took a turn around the closing mass of Godzilla, trying as much as possible as to avoid the Alpha Titan.

It took a good minute or two, but Godzilla finally reached the facility, standing over the man-made architecture as if of a dollhouse it were. The pink radioactive glow from his Dorsal Plates began to intensify from the very tip of his tail, and it slowly crept up towards its back, the charging sound of what was coming growing loud enough for everyone to hear even from inside the HEAV. As soon as it reaches the back of the neck, they all knew what was coming, as they had seen it before, just... Not like this. Never like this.

The amusement turned to shock when they all saw it actually happen. The pink, super charged Atomic Breath of the Alpha Predator stepped out from his mouth, and soon it began to consume the entire place in magenta and rose fire. Even thought it was pretty much like the same Atomic Breath from their Godzillas back home but in pink, it still leaves quite the impression of power such a creature as the King should have, specially when dealing with this natural order of the world.

That was something that Gordon could respect and enjoy.

He turned back towards Haberu and Tsujimori. Haberu was being hugged by a clearly distressed Mei and an apparently calm but very likely sick worried Yun, the robotic body of Pero 3 going in for a hug for the black haired kid... Nah, that doesn't sound cool... Maybe man? Whatever. With Tsujimori, she only stared at space, the face of those lost in thought being something he, apparently, couldn't escape from. But soon she turned around, looking at him in the eyes... And smiling. It was reassuring, a subtitle for "The worst has passed. Thanks, Captain" and something that eased his mind a bit more.

After all of this, he needed to take some good vacations, and he wanted a living bear to be his relaxation buddy in the forest.

"Finally... It's over..."

...

"Huh... That's weird..."

Those fucking words made him groan and want to smash his head on a concrete wall for the next couple of hours.

"What is it, Trapper?"

"Well, you see Mr. Russell, the Earth-HE portal scanners detected some kind of anomaly in a yet to identify portal around this sector."

Gordon saw Trapper and Mark move a little over some image in the panel, a bad feeling creeping over his back.

"Could it be a Titan? Maybe Barb?" Asked Dr. David.

"No, it can't be. All the other Titans of the surface are in big slumber after 2025, remember? No. These signatures are somewhat similar, yes, but if you look closely here..."

Whatever it was that Trapper was showing the other 2 was very interesting and worrying, as Gordon could see them shift uncomfortably in their seats in the cockpit.

"... Trapper... Could you show me the signature files from a week ago? You know... From the incident."

After a pause, Trapper began typing something on the panel before something come up. Another pause, and then Mark asked Trapper for something... Ominous...

"Trapper, I need you to take as many shortcuts as possible, we need to reach the others, now!"

"What's going on? What's happening?" Miki asked, a well deserved worry filling her face.

"We must get all the others out of the Outpost and out of Hollow Earth. Now."

"Why? Is a Titan nearby?" Gordon asked, seriousness in his voice.

"No. Not a Titan... I think..."

...

"I think a Kaiju is coming."

Chapter Text

This whole ordeal, she realized, wouldn't end any time soon, for better or for worst. She didn't have any evidence, not any clues or the likes to validate this claim. It mas more of a gut feeling that she always had when there was a big event going on everywhere around here, and this was clearly one of them. Just like the 2019-2020 pandemic, that had started as a simple case of stomach pains in China. Just like the many celebrations and anniversaries that took place in her university, most of them causing her to leave her work behind just to stay and play along with faces that she barely recognized. Just like a few months ago, when she was sent in place of her professor to answer an emergency transmission, something that would lead her to-

"Mei?"

Yun's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to their current situation.

They were heading towards Outpost 333 to retrieve the others, not only to reach the surface and have some peace and quiet in the surface world, but also to avoid whatever it may be coming from another reality through these "Earth-born Wormholes", something which would have been of interest for her in the past. Luckily Trapper had send a message to his friend Bernie, who had looked at the message but did not replied, with Trapper assuming that the man had gotten into action immediately. They had left that abandoned facility behind it, bringing 6 tanks filled with a dormant space-time altering energy in a back compartment of Trapper's HEAV, and hoping that the insect infestation that was brooding in the containment chamber of level -10 was by now nothing but radioactive dust thanks to... Thanks to Godzilla.

Ugh... She hated it.

Now, don't get her wrong! She LOVES the Kaiju-Eiga films, being one of those kids that made sure to get their homework done, or almost done sometimes, in order to get the remote, turn on the TV and watch an entire episode focused on everyday people, soldiers and the likes fighting against the giant behemoth that was destroying the city. Heck, she remembers that she had made a custom, cheap monster movie with her own toys. Even better, she knows that she wouldn't be where she stands if it weren't for them! It was her love, her passion for these creatures of horror and wonder that lead her to study the metaphysical, hypothetical nature of powers that defied the very order of things in reality just to exist. She is the monster nerd!!

... She was, actually. She was until the Kaiju began emerging. She thought that it would be just an attack on one or two cities. But-

"Are you ok?"

Oh, right! Reality to Mei, reality to Mei, do you copy?

"Oh, yeah, I'm alright Yun. Thanks."

She put on her mask and gave the blue haired guy a big smile of hers, trying to avoid any notions of worry from reaching her friends and current companions in an already dire situation, seemingly working as Yun gave her a soft, reassuring smile of his.

"If there's anything you need to say, you can tell me and the others. There's no problem."

She felt it then. Right now, she could feel the many eyes that were inspecting her from behind. From the seats besides her, from the cockpit, from everywhere in the HEAV, all looking at her and her hidden, yet ever so present weakness, and her deplorable state that she fought to ignore for so long now, intensified my her recent Archetypal nightmare. They thought she was weird, that she was weak in comparison to the others, just a doll trying to be as important as her friends. Why was she here with them? Why would she accompany them to something so antithetical to her persona, as if she was trying to be more than a meek shadow? Maybe it was because she was indeed that, and her presence was a small but fixable mistake. She wasn't THAT important, so she won't be noticed. She will not slow anyone down.

She had always felt the urge to scream at the stares around her ever since she was a small child. Every time she made a small mistake, every single moment when there was a small hole or imperfection on her plans or work, she felt the entirety of nearby reality reaching a consensus of leaving whatever else it was doing and focused all of its attention upon the purple haired girl. They were judgemental, merciless in their silent opinion, seeing not a simple kid, but a strange, out of place entity that could very well be akin to a fool most of the time. Very few times did she heard their mental snarls finally vocalized themselves, whatever it was in the form of many laughs calling her a dummy, an idiot, an ass, or as a reprimand for whatever action she did, demanding her to control herself and never do such thing again. It was ever so painful to have such stares confirm their despise towards her, but it was even worst when they kept silent, quietly holding a small grudge at her and her actions, their stares being like a knife being encrusted with great intensity in her back a thousand times, at the same time.

A stab to the front left room to scream, call out for help. A stab on the back, even when it wasn't there? There was no sound, no calling out for someone to help her. Her pleased were stuck in her lungs and in her throat as air, a ball to big for a hole so small. She hated it. So what did she do?

"No problem..."

She avoided failure to avoid the stabs. Only God knows if she failed to help stop Godzi- Ultima, and lived. The stares, the insults and anger and backstabs she would received from whatever survived of humanity... Rather death than failing, am I right?

And yet... There were times she felt ok with failing once or twice, the stares somehow not hurting as much as they should be -were- doing, and it made her feel safe, free, somehow comfy with herself and glad to be there, to be herself and, as she soon realized was the common element between such scenarios, to not be alone. That was it. She felt safe in company of someone that she considered, whenever unprofessionally or not, as a friend, as someone she could rely on when things didn't look too pleasing, just like they could rely on her whenever they had a bit of a problem. Haberu always defended her from bullies in college. Pero 2 and 3 took care of whatever groomer was following her online. Her professor, although quite old, was there to help her mature trough some interesting mental exercises. Yun, although meeting him recently, kept her mind at peace and ignoring all troubles that may be going, helping her find a solution with calmness. And professor Li-

It's all your fault.

"How long do we have?" The voice of Miki asked, snapping Mei back from... from... where did she go? 

"Well, if this little friend of mine is right, which is always the case..." Trapper began from his pilot seat, pausing for a few moments before continuing. "... We have about 3 minutes to reach the Outpost, hopefully 6 or 7 minutes before Godzilla arrives to see what's going one and about 8 before we find out if whatever comes out of the portal is a boy, a girl, both, none or a destroyer of cities... Bet's on the latter. Daves, any bet?"

"Yeah, that your death will be you crying out your boyfriend's name or some shit, and hopefully I'll be laughing, so please shut up"

"Ok, first, Bernie is my bro, understood? He's my friend, and only my friend. He had a wife, he only will ever love and sleep with his wife, and I like Hellsing Abridged over Romeo and Juliet." Trapper explained, offended by Dr. David's rude comment. "If we die for each other, it will be because of our bromance- NOT ROMANCE!! Bromace, which are two completely different things, ok? And in second place, Why are you so snarky all the time? What did your momma gave you vodka instead of milk or-"

"Trapper, David, shut up. Irritating." Was all that that Maina had to say in order for the two men to stop their bickering, with Mr. Mark exchanging a smile of gratitude towards the native of a future era. Mei couldn't help but give a snort at the scene that took place just now, Pero 3 joining her.

So, they waited in their seats with anticipation and tension lingering on the air, both inside and outside the HEAV, as they got closer and closer to were the Outpost was. They were... well, Mei didn't per se if they were all ready for whatever was coming their way, usually the first plans being the first to be ruined by anything monster related and thrown out the window, but she was sure that they all had something prepared under their sleeves. She just knew it that they were more capable than her.

She hadn't tried to be that much of a friend to Haberu back at college, and she didn't see him nor contacted him again after she entered the big leagues until she went back to help with that beeping alarm. Pero 2 was nothing but a tool for her to use, hell, it was the actual hero who stopped Ultima from killing everyone, while she took it around the entire world. And Yun... he was the one who gave her the answers. Without him, she would have disappointed Li sooner than she did, and she would have been the reason as to why her entire universe no longer existed. They were the ones capable here, not her. She was just their little jester, nothing-

She took a deep breath, the truth thoughts leaving her head at the retrospect of leaving this hell paradise behind just like Li.

She felt the HEAV descend into the ground, indicating their arrival to the Outpost. Just as she clenched into her seat, she felt a hand wrap around her right one, turning to see Yun holding her hand and smiling at her reassuringly. This made her feel safe, happy and sure that there would be no backdrops... Huh... that's strange. Did she also felt this tingling in her stomach with Haberu or Pero 2 and 3 or-

"What in the..." They all heard the head honcho of the place mutter in clear confusion. Mei could barely see what was outside from her position in relation to the cockpit's window, so she had to assume that maybe there was some sort of thing out of place. Maybe a HEAV in the ceiling or everyone bringing ridiculous things inside the about-to-be-used vehicles? It may sound farfetched, but so does the idea that monsters,and now the multiverse, existed and were both big and destructive.

A small shift in the HEAV's movement and its sudden halt indicated that they had reached the ground, so most of them began taking off their seat belts right before the doors on the side of the HEAV began opening up. Mr. Mark, Dr. David and Trapper were the first ones to leave the vehicle in quite a hasty pace, with caught the attention of many of the passengers that were standing up after so long. They all began to exit the vehicle one by one, with the twins practically running out of the metallic contraption as if escaping from the belly of a beast they were, and everybody else going at a more normal, yet quite nervous pace, looking around the place in search of whatever was troubling the agents of Monarch. When she was out in the clear of the outsides of the Outpost, Mei saw... nothing.

Like, there was nothing out of place right now. The trees were there, the crystals were there -Gotta look into those later if she gets her hands on some-, the storage and the hangar of the place were there and in one piece, and nothing looked broken. Why was Mr. Mark so worried about nothing. There were no Kaiju, at least not yet, there was no fire breaking out, there were no people running and screaming for their lives, there were no HEAVS in sight, there were no mosquitoes, there were...

Wait a minute...

"Uhh... Guys... where are the others and the... evacuation HEAVs?" Mei noticed quite worriedly, the others soon realizing the conundrum of the sight, or rather lack of there of, of any evacuation taking place. 

A shout from Trapper rang through the entire place, however.

"BERNIE!! WHAT THE HELL, MAN!?"

The crowd of people went straight towards the entrance of the Outpost, and looked right at the 3 big men ready to scold the guy at the entrance's stairs for the lack of evacuation, confusion being formed in his face.

"Uhh... Did something happened?"

... Mei didn't like where this conversation was heading to. At all.

"No, that's why your boyfriend shouted- YES, SOMETHING HAPPENED, YOU PIECE OF-"

"Calm down, David, let me handle this." Mr. Mark told the doctor, who simply grunted at that, before the attention turned back at the guy on the stairs. "Bernie, Trapper send you a message with details of an incoming Titan- Kaiju arriving any second now to the Outpost and you saw it. Where's the evacuation now, where's everybody and why aren't the HEAVS out and ready?"

"There's a Kaiju incoming? Oh god- Mr. Russell I'm so, so sorry, I didn't know, I- N-No message have appeared on my phone sir, I was using it to update my daily audio log and I looked at everything a-and there was- there was just nothing and-"

"What?"

"I began doing audio logs ever since the incident in Brazil, I, uhh, realized that maybe I could leave a more exciting legacy behind if I had a record of everything that went on down here-"

"Bernie, man, you're my bro, but Mr. Russell was asking about you having no new messages. I send one just 5 minutes after leaving the facility with tanks of "fuck reality" in the back of my baby HEAV."

"No, you didn't, and if you did I would have heard our ringtone, and so would have everybody else-"

"YOU LITERALLY SAW IT, IT HAS 2 BLUE MARKS!!"

Bernie reached for his pants' back pocket and took out his silver cellphone, waiting a few seconds before showing the 3 men the screen, a little bit nervous judging by a single drop of sweat running down his forehead. They all stood there for a couple of minutes before Mei could hear a single "Oh god" coming from Mr. Mark.

"Wh-what is it, sir?"

"It's like what happened with Ilene again. The message, the transmission, both of them had a delay between being sent and reaching the device. But Trapper's phone shows that you did saw the message... Just not yet."

"The Hermes Energy!" Mr. Yamabe exclaimed suddenly, as the dots began to connect inside Mei's, and maybe everyone's, heads.

The Hermes energy was somehow affecting with the time flux of the electrical devices, at least the ones pertaining to communication and that had been nearby it. Mrs. Andrews's, as well as everything in proximity of the Testing Facility, was exposed and had to wait one week to receive news of Godzilla moving towards them. And now, with 6 containers of that same energy, even though dormant, still had enough effect as to cause a time dilation amongst the devices: The message will reach Bernie, and he'll see it immediately. Just not yet. What else would be affected by this power from below their feet?

"Bernie read the message, just not yet." Was Mr. Mark's definitive conclusion to such mystery, before turning back at the large crowd and Trapper. "Trapper, I need you to get us, Maddie and the tanks out of here as soon as possible. Dr. David, get the HEAVs ready while Bernie gets everybody else out of here."

"Of course my horse." Trapper replied as he walked towards the large group at a quick pace. "You all heard the man, we have to get moving now!"

"But Martin-"

"I'm sorry girl, and this is no offense or anything, but you're a bit more important than him. And have some faith on the guy. He looks to be capable of himself." Trapper cut Miana's argument short, the girl looking down in uncomfortable acceptance.

They all entered the HEAV once more except for Trapper, who decided to stay at the door while looking at the Outpost entrance. Mei knew that the man wasn't only waiting for Mr. Mark and Madison to arrive, but he was there to check and verify if the others would evacuate soon which, yeah, it was clear that they would run like hell to get out of here before mystery guest appeared, but even logic could not have always a fair fight with something such as care and worry for others, especially those closest to you. She had experienced that a few times in her life and-

"Pero 2!!" Was all she could scream as SHIVA, the hyperdimensional supercomputer born from a Singular Point, was surrounding itself in giant explosions as it was destroyed by that beast, that jade colored monkey-reptile hybrid named as Salunga, dreaded bow and arrow of many-armed Vishnu. And in the control panel of SHIVA, a square vessel laid immobilized, inert, ignoring the chaos of its surroundings as it searched for an impossible answer to stop the Red Death. Mei could only cry out the name of her friend, banging the elevator's doors as she-

"Everyone, follow Bernie into the hangar, now!" Mr. Mark ordered.

Mei could see the man and his daughter heading towards them, just as Bernie exited the building and headed towards the hangar while being followed by the rest of the fishes out of temporal and spatial water. One of the twins, Miana, ran out of the HEAV and followed Martin towards the hangar alongside the others, and just as Maina was about to follow her sister, the strange tribal woman from before appeared. They just stared at each other for about 6 seconds, before a resigned Maina turned around and entered the vehicle once more, with the woman leaving towards Bernie's group, Mr. Mark and Madison entering soon after.

"Who is she?" Captain Yamabe asked Mr. Mark, a curious look on his face when referencing the woman.

"She's the Leader of the Iwis here on Hollow Earth. She has telepathy, so she must have convinced- uh- Miana of staying with us."

"Why does the fact there's a human civilization down here not surprise me?" Mrs. Tsujimori asked herself, getting the attention of Captain Gordon and Captain Yamabe respectively.

"Tsuji, if that doesn't surprise you, then wait to hear of those from other planets. Fucking hate Xiliens."

"Oh? Your world also met the Xiliens? Tell me, what about the Kilaaks, or maybe the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens?"

... God, why didn't she brought her sleeping pills for this one occasion? And the others for that matter.

The door shot closed, the engine roared to life, Miana grabbed her seat with her nails with strength, and the lights of the panel in the cockpit were brought to life once more, with everyone and Mr. Mark and Madison ready on their seats for another flight for survival. Hopefully this won't end as badly as before. Not that Mei would ever mutter those words out loud though. Those words always jinxed any and everything no matter what, and things were looking dire enough so thank you but no thank you.

"Going up!" Warned up Trapper as the HEAV began rising from the ground.

Just as it did, Mei had a few brief moments to look at 2 things in particular:

Just as the HEAV was a good 10 to 15 meters off the ground, she saw the hangar's ceiling doors wide open, and through them she saw everyone separating into 4 groups and entering into one of 4 large, black HEAVs, with Mrs. Andrews, Dr. David, the Iwi Leader and Bernie standing outside, clearly being the pilots. Mei moved into the back of her mind how a woman from a tribe that must have met modern civilization not so long ago had learned to pilot their equivalent of a working replica of an iron dragon, and instead focused on how almost everyone had already entered their respective vehicle, with only 6 people waiting to enter. She recognized Mr. Tatopoulos, Mrs. Patternson and Dr. Yuhara and his daughter. This made her feel happy, reassured that things might go well.

When she looked at the cave's ceiling no less than 15 seconds later, however, her fears came back.

She saw one of the giant vortices of blue energy, probably the same one that Titanus Gojira used to enter Hollow Earth, begin to writhe and swirl around with a voracious strength and might, its blue color slowly having some imperfections appear out of the, well, blue. But the color of those imperfections was what rang warning and alarm bells in her head, as they were small dots and blots of a pure and shiny white, ethereal in general appearance and texture, and causing the closest bits of blue of the vortex to act erratically, as they were progressively overtaken by the growing whiteness. It was just like she feared. The Hermes Energy was affecting the environment, and now one of the portals was slowly becoming nothing more than a gateway to another reality, a new universe filled with monsters. And if she closed her eyes for a bit and focused intensely on the white blights, she could swear she saw tiny particles surrounding the borders, as if of a cartoon's contour it were.

And they were deep, bloody red.

They need to get out of here, now.

They began circling the hangar from above however, Mr. Mark demanding Trapper to leave already, but the latter man denied the order with a bit of hesitation. It was clear and understandable that he wanted everyone to stay together, but Mei had to be with the Monarch operative on this one. If they were to live they first had to leave. Who would want to stay behind during a catastrophe just for a... a friend... Well, she would. Aaaaaand now she was being hypocrital. GREAT.

"Trapper, I know you and Bernie are friends, but dad's right, we have to leave!"

"Like hell I'll leave my homie behind. If I were to die here just for have been waiting for him then-"

Trapper stopped talking. Mei noticed he was looking out the window towards the ground, very likely the hangar. Did something happened or-

"- We can leave right now, let's go everybody."

OR Bernie and the others were leaving the place in the HEAVS as well. Yeah, that made sense.

The HEAV finally started moving towards what she supposed was this place's version of the east, the dawning lights moving towards the west's horizon and enveloping the tectonic kingdom in an orange light. The other HEAVs were most likely right behind them, following them towards... She didn't know exactly, but everywhere else is currently better than this place, and only a mad man would stay behind to check the newcomer. They were likely going to use one of the vortexes in order to get to the surface world, or at least use a shortcut to get to the other side of the Earth. Hollow Earth actually. The birthplace of Titans, the nest of monsters... How many Titans and the likes are there? Like, sure, she saw this world's Godzilla, but what about other Titans? Are they different or similar to her world's Kaiju, and if so, how much? How much radiation do they feed upon, and how fast did they metabolized it before needing to eat more? Was it literal eating or more similar to photosynthesis? Would they be actually plants, or would that be convergent evolution? If the latter, would they be even related to whatever species they morphologically resemble the most, would they be even of the same kingdom as animals and plants and the like? Or-

She was overthinking stuff too much, she needed to distract herself with something else that isn't monster-related for once. Besides, she could ask all her monster-related questions once they were all out of danger, preferably in a luxurious suite with about 40 rooms with 4 beds each, with a glass of soda at hand and her laptop on her lap, and in company of her friends. Yeah, she can be pecky, but just when she felt she deserves it. Now, onto something that doesn't relate to behemoths and leviathans...

HMMMMMMMMM...

"Hey, uhh... What's a "Ghidorah"?"

Heh. Nailed it... Why is everyone looking at her like that?

Trapper came in with an answer...

"Well, you see... when a daddy Satan and a mommy Hydra are deeply in love-"

That he never had the chance to finish.

A loud buzzing sound began suddenly from everywhere on the HEAV, loud enough that everyone covered their ears just to avoid them from hurting and going deaf, with poor Maina looking frantically in search of whatever demon must have entered the ship. Only thing missing for the twin to believe that hellish powers were at play was a red light of warning or alert filling the interior of the vehicle in conjunction with some kind of alarm, like in movies and series, but... That was a strange thing, as it was only that loud sound that was causing problems and indicating that something may have gone wrong, but besides that, there was no other signal or warning. Just the loud, irritating sound of a glitch in the system.

But soon enough, something somewhat worst happened.

Mei, in her intent to diverge her attention from the stressful situation towards something a tad bit more relaxing, decided to focus all her attention into a green light that was entering the cockpit's window and slid its way into the main passenger's section, filling one of the walls with an almost jade hue. She had started to get as transfixed as she could even with her hands on her ears when she notices something somewhat weird about the light and its movement. During the entire time they were leaving the Outpost, the light had began to move from the utter back of the passenger's section towards the front, indicating they were getting closer and closer towards the light source. But now, not only was it moving towards the front, but also towards the ceiling, rising bit by bit in a now inclined route towards the cockpit. And if the light was rising up, that only meant that they-

"Trapper, what are you doing!?" Mr. Mark shouted immediately, the buzzing noise gone at last.

They slowly took their hands off their ears and centered their attention towards the 2 men at the pilot's seats, and with that they noticed a few things wrong: First and foremost, the partially digital panel was somewhat glitchy, but somewhat alright as well. And the second thing...

"Trapper, why are we descending!?"

"I don't know, I'm trying to fix it but it's unresponsive. It took life of its own!"

No. No no no, why!? Why this and why now!?

"Why are we going down?" Captain Yamabe asked the duo upmost front.

"I am trying to find out I... Oh dear..."

The green light was getting closer and closer to the cockpit and to the ceiling to Mei's dismay, as it only made her heart beat faster and faster in dread and fear of the situation. She could feel both Yun and Haberu's hands holding hers, but even that wasn't of much help right now.

"It says it's following tomorrow's path travel..."

Oh.

Oh...

Oh you gotta be fuCKING KIDDING!!! It was that stupid Hermes Energy again, except that affecting the time displacement of communications, it was altering the chronology of the HEAV's operations!! They wanted to go back home, and yet they are all at the mercy of the one thing that could help them in the entire universe.. Why, just why?

"We have to get this thing on the air!"

"Why do these things happen to me so often?"

"There has to be a code, a plan, something, right?"

"Oh Father on Heaven..."

She was hyperventilating, the damn light already leaving her sight as it entered the cockpit with a phantom pace and a grim implication that could very well signify their deaths at the hands of some monster. She was scared, she was terrified, she wanted to cry and scream and punch and beg for her life, but the fear that was overfilling her wasn't allowing her to do anything but simply stare, as the air of her lungs began to feel heavy and her heart pounded with greater force than before. It was almost like drowning. She never liked drowning, nor the sea since Ultima... and since her 9th birthday.

Halt.

That's all it takes her to snap out of her constricting state, or at least enough to realize that the HEAV stopped all movement. It was all quiet now, with not even the engine making a single sound to indicate its activity. The light was gone, now only the orange of the horizon filling her vision from the cockpit. The worst had happened: The vehicle had reached the ground.

The door opened up. The belts unplugged themselves with the seats' automatic mode. The lights of the HEAV turned off.

There was this gut wretched feeling in her stomach, in her head and in her being as she looked at the dawning lights. It was familiar actually, being the same feeling she had whenever she used the bathroom and had to turn off the lights in her way to her bedroom. It was the same when she entered a darkened alleyway, Haberu not so far behind. It was that same feeling when she arrived that day at the city's plaza, and looked at the winged corpse of her soon-to-be nightmare fuel. It was the feeling of something so small, so little and nonexistent that would become something greater than expected, and of which she would be nothing but the victim.

They all knew that with the HEAV turned off for God only knows how long, there was nothing much to do other than taking a stroll outside, something that Captain Gordon decided to do against Mr. Mark's orders. One by one, all the other passengers stood up from their seats and leaved the vehicle, with even the 3 people of Monarch reluctantly joining them under the excuse, or rather belief, of "Verify the statues of the other crews". Mei herself didn't want to take a single step outside, and she knew that Yun was there with her just to keep her from having a heart attack, just like Haberu and Pero 3 who-

"Pero 3, Haberu!?" Mei asked in shock as she saw her other 2 friends stepping towards the door. Haberu was the one to explain his perception of things.

"Well, we can't so much right now. If there is a Kaiju coming our way, I don't think standing inside black, shiny and kinda bug-looking ships would be a good idea. There might be a cave or tunnel on which we could hide."

"And we're right now besides a giant crystal! Who know whatever its composition and properties are? We. need. a. sample!" Pero 3 shimmed in.

"You don't have to come with us now. But if you 2 sense any trouble coming your way, I'll run as fast as i can to get you two to safety."

"See you later guys!"

She could only watch as the duo leaved, no worries over them that she could notice. She wanted to beg them to stop from leaving, that she didn't wanted them to suffer an accident or something while going outside. She didn't knew if they had noticed the infected vortex, but she knew that whatever kind of Kaiju came out of it, it would begin searching for intruders or food, if not both, starting by the open fields of its surroundings. And were was everyone right now? In an open field.

But... she had to give it to Haberu: The HEAVs were also in the open, and they could quite resemble a giant insect for the semi-primitive mind of a giant animal, abnormal or not. And who knows, maybe she could find a hiding spot for about 20 or 30 people.

With her mind made up, she took off the safety belt and stood up from her seat, her mind now focused on finding a place where everyone could hide.

"Mei?" Yun asked, a bit of worry on his voice, which was, quite honestly, a bit odd and weird.

"We can't leave the others alone. Something could happen, and we need to stay together. Besides, maybe Haberu's plan isn't so bad."

"Are you sure about this? I know that all of this could be too much for anyone our age, let alone those in the middle of a quantum apocalypse, so-"

"Yun, trust me. Everything is going to be ok... I promise."

Yun just stare at her, little emotions creeping trough his stoic face like always, but soon enough the blank expression changed to a trusting and relaxed smile.

"Very well." Was all he said before taking her hand to stand up. Mei felt that same unique and weird bubbling sensation within her. She would need to ask Pero 3 about it later.

As they exited the HEAV, the 2 teenagers looked at their current environment and were quite surprised by it: The entire place resembled a forest or a jungle of sorts, the trees reaching a size of 20 to 30 meters for the tallest ones, and the vehicle stood right next to a wide plain of green glass that allowed a good vision of the west horizon and its orange glow, somehow warming them for until it was night time. The duo turned around to look at the vehicle and realized it was currently having its left side facing a large, bright and beautiful green crystal, about 50 meters tall and casting a bright green light from its interior, being one of the only sources of light for the approaching nightly darkness. It was hypnotizing, magnificent even.

The sound of two small wheels got their attention, and saw that coming from behind the vehicle was Pero 3, a green shard in a closing compartment on his vessel.

"Pero 3!" She smiled at her robotic friend.

"Hi Mei, hi Yun! Hey, have you seen where did Haberu went? I was too focused on getting a sample that I lost sight of him. I should reeeeeeally get his number sometime."

The purple haired girl shake her head before looking at the forest that was nearby, and saw some members of her group standing at the border as if waiting, plus a sick worried-looking Noriko who was holding her daughter in her arms, looking at the plain's direction. When she looked back at the plain, she noticed that the other HEAVs had also landed and that their crews were leaving them, helped by the remaining members of her's. This earned a simple sigh and a smile. She was glad that there was nobody hurt or in trouble, and that they were all helping each other despite only meeting for a little bit more than 24 hours by now. However, she noticed that neither Haberu, Mrs. Andrews, the Leader and Jia were on sight, so she supposed they had followed the Leader in search of a hiding place where they could stay. But why didn't they wait for the others to-

A rumble began out of the sudden, a few rocks falling from the cave's ceiling and almost hitting everyone on the head, leaving at impact craters the size of watermelons. They all began to run towards the forest when a giant, powerful shockwave reached them and send everyone present flying a good few meters before hitting the ground.

The ringing in her ears was irritating and deep, nausea inducing even, with her body her body feeling a good amount of pain in her legs, arms, back and, most worrisome for her, a tiny bit in the back of her head, while the taste of iron filled her mouth from a small wound on the inside of her right cheek. The pain was cause enough for her body to instinctively keep her eyes shut for a couple of seconds, as if facing whatever would come next would be one of many bad desicions, something she relate to her biology and psychology studies regarding trauma, death and near-death experiences and "one's whole life before their eyes". But even then, it was only for a few seconds that she had to wait for the ringing in her ears to begin to leave and for her to slowly open her eyes.

It was a bit like what happened with Titanus Gojira in retrospect, seeing a few clouds of dirt rise up higher and higher, with the HEAVs either on their sides or directly upside down, but mostly intact surprisingly. The others were ok too as far as she could see, and even Yun was... mostly alright, as a bit of blood was currently running on his forehead's left side, but otherwise he was alright. She turned around, and she saw that not only was Pero 3 send back inside the HEAV, but that the ones that were by the forest had hide behind the trees as a hiding place and a way to avoid being blown away.

"... I! Are you alr..." The muffled, worried voice of Yun reached her ears. The ringing had stopped, but not its effects, something she hoped wasn't also affected by the Hermes energy.

A low, animalistic grumble got everyone's attention towards the horizon. On the giant cave's ceiling, a white vortex began to writhe erratically, slowly changing colors back to its original blue colours and dissipating the few red particles that remained. However, it wasn't that what had caught their collective attention. It was was had been spewed out of it.

Right besides the now destroyed remains of Outpost 333, shrouded by a titanic cloud of smote and barely made visible by the dawning light, was a Kaiju. Because of the smoke, only its silhouette was visible, giving the impression of a barely humanoid or anthropomorphic morphology, but 2 things on what Mei supposed was the back of its head differentiate it from any hominid category of creatures, alongside that growl that reminded her of some eagles and falcons, as well as recreations of extinct pterosaurs.

The crowd was large, and the sirens were loud. She made her way through the masses, and reached the scene. In the middle of the plaza was a-

Mei's heart began to pump faster than before at the memory. But she knew it was impossible. It had to be impossible. But so is the concept of Kaiju and the Multiverse, and even then they were indeed a fact.

Soon enough, the giant mass began to slowly stand up, revealing to have some kind of mass or mantle around the area of the arms, giving it the appearance of a cloaked figure, a large spike emerging near each of its shoulders. Just as the creature moves alongside its avian sounds, the cloud began to dissipate, revealing that the strange mass or mantle wasn't any of that at all, but large and smooth membrane.

The creatures began attacking mercilessly against the machine that Pero 2 had used as a portable camera/vessel today. At least they had managed to help the others escape, but the fury and violence of the creatures was unlike anything she has seen before. But what more should have she expected from-

The feet and legs of the creature were revealed then, being of a crimson color orange and golden plate-like scales covering them on the front, having a very big and pointed one around the knees, and pale orange talons. 

And through the dissipating dust around the head area, the eyes of the beast were shone upon by one of the crystals that were reflecting the dawning lights, causing the eyes to grow a phantom green from amongst the shadows of the cloudy coverage. And through those same lights did Mei know, as much as she feared it, that the creature was looking right at them.

Then the Kaiju crouched a little bit while covering itself with its massive wings. Although not a proper attitude from avian creatures, she remembered seeing such a similar pose done by many actors in winged monster costumes as to know what it was about to do, in what it felt for her as a punch and mockery to her old love for Kaiju-Eiga films: It would reveal itself.

The sky was slowly turning crimson, an infernal mirage made possible by a dark red cloud that was moving at incredible and terrifying speeds above the heads of the citizens, going from left to right, from down to up. And then it chose a single route, falling downwards against the expecting and scared crowd, that called out over and over the name-

And so it happened: With one swift move, the creature opened its wings, dispersing the cloud that had hidden it and alas showing its visage amidst a shrieking roar. It was of a blood red color over most of its body, with the same golden plate-scales covering its torso's front, now spikier in shape. The membranous wings were truly like those of pterosaurs but of a deep and bright red colour with orange hues at the borders, and possessing 3 clawed talons each one. and its head, supported by a somewhat long neck, was like a mix of falcon and pteranodon, with a long beak that almost curves at its pointy end, two crimson horns that grew from the back of its head. And its eyes... The eyes alone expressed a certain disdain for other species, yes, but its face somehow managed to capture what Mei could only describe as rage, unbound and primal, formed through years and years of pain and destruction. It was too human on that regard. 

But what terrified, what paralyzed in sheer horror young Kamino was its roar: A deep shriek, one that sounded like the monstrous son made bastard of a falcon and Quetzalcoatlus. 

It was, ultimately, what confirm her fears, and the identity of the monster. She knew it. She remembered vividly. 

The nightmares never stopped. They were a reminder, of pain, of loss... of failure.

"-And on other news, more corpses of these 'pterosaurs' have been found all over Japan, as well as in other countries-"

Mom, what is that bird?

Get inside, now!!

In summary, it communicates bia radio signals.

The radio monster! The radio monster!

One of the radioactive isotopes found on the creature's body was-

If it's the Radio monster, how about-

It's a pteranodon, right? Pteradon? Then-

"Radon..."

The creature soon stopped its roar and instead looked at the current crowd of humans that laid on the plains 1 kilometer away from it, a mix of curiosity and discomfort visible trough its expression. That's when everyone woke up from their stupor and began running the other way from the pterosaur as it took one step forward, crouching a bit when it did. Yun decided to join the scared group of runners and begun running towards the treeline as well, but he stopped soon after when he saw that, out of everyone escaping the verdant eyes of the crimson demon, Mei stood there without even flinching.

"Mei, we have to run!" Yun screamed at her, trying to get her out of her shock and run. But there was no answer.

No... no... NO...

"RUN!!"

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO-

"I-I'm sorry..."

"MEI!"

Yun had run back to get her, wasting no time on checking what exactly was going on with her and just grabbing her by the wrist to run away, just for her to stumble into the ground when Yun took just 2 steps. With part of the problem clear, the blue haired guy grabbed Mei and took her in his arms bridal style, and taking off as fast as he could.

But what only Mei saw in horror was that Radon had taken another step forwards and, after crouching a bit more and getting into a one knee position, it opened its enormous wings as high and wide as it could and, with the power of a 100 meters tall collosus, impulsed itself with its wings off the ground in one second, now being 150 meters up in the air. It swinged its wings a second time, and now it rose up to a height of 300 meters. It took one big and deep breath-

"Mei?" Yun asked in confusion, as one single tear ran through the girl's right cheek...

And the pterosaur Kaiju roared as it propelled itself forwards.

Yun had turned around when he saw Radon glide at great and impossible speed towards them. He knew that it would be futile for them to even reach the forest even when they were at no less than 15 meters. This massive version of the Kaiju he saw was way to fast for anyone to outrun, and he suspected that it had no need to feed upon them, so it would not get rid of them one by one at a normal pace. For pests like them, one aerial strike with its massive body would do the trick. 

Yun knew it was very likely the end of the road for them. So, in one last try to keep Mei safe, or at least not as horrified as she was now when she dies, he hugged her tightly as best as he could, her head on her chest, and both of their eyes shot, ready for the painful but quick death to come.

The last thing they heard of the beast was its roar...

And the sound of something flying and cutting through the air, followed by the sound of something impacting with the Kaiju, and the sound of a large body stumping into the ground, all of them in quick succession.

After a few seconds of nothing else happening, the duo decided to open their eyes and look at the direction of the impact. 

They were caught off guard by the scene before them of Radon currently being down on the floor a good 3 kilometers away from all of them, trying to stand up as much as it could and shaking away not only the dust of the ground, but also the object that had been thrown at it with irritation: It was, by the looks of it, a giant axe made out of blackened bones of great proportions, with red growing cracks here and there on its surface. 

Before they could process what had just happened and asked how that was possible, a more guttural and deep roar resounded from the north, right about 1 and a half kilometers left away from them.

If they had the chance and had expected anything, it most definitively wasn't a giant, muscular ape. Standing upright with 100 meters tall of pure muscle, it was covered in dark brown hair all over the body, minus its feet, hands, chest and face, all of which leaned more into a grey tone of skin, with the chest being covered in white claw-like marks implying previous fights with other creatures, and orange eyes. Most strangely of all, however, was that its right arm was covered by what could only be described as a yellow mecha-like arm glove, almost making it seem like it was wearing a golden gauntlet from afar.

The giant ape turned towards them and looked at them with something that surprised both Yun and Mei, as well as everybody else present: Worry. There was a softness in the behemoth's eyes when looking at them, in contrast with the rage it had when glaring at the flying nightmare. And it would just remain as something weird if it weren't for it, moments later, doing some strange mimicry or gestures with its arms and hands. At first, Mei didn't understood what it was doing, but then she realized that it was using some form of... sign language? How was that even possible!?

'Jia called. Go hide. Be safe! was what the giant ape communicated.

Radon roared in indignation and challenge against the assailant, the ape's axe left forgotten on the side while the red beast opened its wings, the roar a calling for battle. The ape looked back at the other monster, and answered the call for battle with another roar as it beat its chest repeatedly with force, now its enraged look back. Mei knew what this meant: They were about have a monster battle like those from the old movies, with everyone staring in awe as 2 creatures fought for dominance, survival and the likes. A battle of the ages, a clash of titans as it were. Kaiju against Titan, which one is the mightiest amongst world? She wanted to see this...

But... She was so tired... So much has happened in the last 24+ hours she's been here, and these memories and thoughts haven't been of much help. Besides, she really didn't want to see it again even if it is just a variant or not. It has been just a bit more than a month for crying out loud!! ... And her head is reeeeeeeally hurting right now. Hopefully she doesn't get... brand damage or something... She will ask Pero 3 to show her the recordings of the battle when she wakes up... For now, she needs to... rest for a while. She needs it, right?

And so, with the defiant roars calling for an inevitable fight, Mei had only one thought before falling into Morpheus' arms: Yun's a great friend... He really has soft hands...

I... like...