

DISCLAIMER: This story is much, much darker than my usual affair. It's the season for spooks so the typical Showa-Era fun will return shortly. For now, let the other aspects of the franchise have then fun...

A massive creature’s fiery orange eyes greeted the evening sky when they snapped open. A boxy head sporting a prominent chin was shortly raised by a long neck to swing to and fro to try and make sense of its surroundings. Though the only traits readily identifying it as a squamate (more specifically an iguana) were the curved, triangular dorsal spines, broad cheek scales, dewlap, and five clawed fingers and toes; the rest of the creature was far different. Eighty meters tall in a horizontal stance, ninety if he reared up, his mother would forever live on in infamy for a case of mistaken identity. During the initial journey through Manhattan seven years ago the headlines read, “Godzilla takes a Bite out of the Big Apple!”. After she was brought down by anti-ship missiles she’d been rechristened “The Iguana that Ate New York”. While his brothers and sisters- born premature and less developed -were all slain, his egg survived. Further mutated and finalized, history repeated itself from what happened at Kyoto Research Institute five years earlier when Dr. Tatopoulos was present when he hatched.

Docile and growing protective towards humans, ‘Zilla Jr.’ or just ‘Zilla’ as he’d been christened served much the same function as his Japanese counterpart, especially after the two met. And Zilla had long since become accustomed to defaulting to “if it’s weirder than invisible giant hummingbirds or tornado shrews, find Boss-Dino”. Like that time with the psychic, teleporting, electrical monster.

This seemed like one of those times given absolutely everything around him looked, smelled, and felt wrong. It was a forest by appearance, but the colors and textures were all off. The trees were massive, some so big he’d gander they’d make a redwood look tiny. But the most bizarre feature of the plants was the color. Everything was a dark gray and blue tint with only a moderately green sheen on what should have been leaves. While his hide was up to snuff as a kaiju, the fact that he could actually feel prickles when walking through some of the trees told him these leaves could cut a human to ribbons if they walked through it. Like a forest made of hacksaws. Even the air was wrong, reeking of radiation and extremely thick. He could breathe it fine, but it was in a manner a human might compare to breathing through a snorkel.

Zilla grunted, sniffing at the air and pacing off after a familiar scent of seawater, scales, and a lot of radiation. Yep, this definitely was a “find the resident weirdness magnet” kind of day. And that was without his magnetic pole-based navigation indicating he was somehow in east Asia after dozing off outside of Manhattan.

His only pause came when his thundering steps spurred a form to fly up before him. It wasn’t massive by his standards but easily had a wingspan over fifteen meters across. At first, he thought it might be one of those new bat monsters Gamera often dealt with, gyaos he thought the turtle called them. He hadn’t seen them himself, but based on what the massive Chelonii told him, this couldn’t be one of those. The neck was long and serpentine, ending in an elongated venus-flytrap like head that looked like it had sharpened jaws as opposed to teeth. It also lacked the distinct flathead crest Gamera drilled him into remembering should any gyaos make it to the States, instead sporting a spiny, whiplike tail that thrashed about as it flew. More specifically, flew directly at him.

Zilla was so confused by it he didn’t avoid its lunge and got bit on the nose. Shrieking sharply, he responded by swatting the Servum and smacking it to the ground. If he was surprised at the brazen attack, he was more surprised when the comparatively smaller creature managed to get back up after getting slapped into a tree. He didn’t give it much of another chance to attack, however. A glow trailed up his dorsal scutes, flashing across his eyes before a surge of green, napalm-like inferno spewed out of his mouth to flash fry the transgressor and some of the forest.

Inspecting the charred ash left behind, Zilla snorted flickers of green sparks out of his nose before continuing on his way. He hadn’t the faintest idea how he got here but he already really didn’t like it. Was Japan usually like this?

Godzilla had a distinct scent, both from where he’d been and what he was. If Zilla could place a claw on it, his cohort smelled like a bird dunked in seawater near a nuclear plant; which was what he was picking up now around a mountain. Rounding the bend, Zilla almost crooned in thanks when he recognized the distinct upright posture, maple-leaf shaped dorsal spines, and charcoal gray hide. The massive lizard barked briefly, happily running up to his ally but soon hit the brakes and skid across the ground when Godzilla turned around.

It was still Godzilla for sure, but it wasn’t Godzilla Junior a.k.a Godzilla III a.k.a BossDino. It was like Zilla got to see his leader’s appearance through a funhouse mirror. The face was flatter and wider, the teeth a bit smaller but more uniform in shape or size without Junior’s distinct double-canines. Its body color was more uniform all around, lacking the slightly lighter patch Junior had on his chest and stomach. Still a dinosaur, not a lizard given the finger count, though like Junior the mutation had given it a fourth claw on the fourth finger instead of just the usual three typical of archosaurs. Most distinctly, the dorsal spines lacked the jagged, keened edges and were much rounder and blunter with only the central row being large and the two flanking rows of spines being far smaller.

It was a Godzilla, but it wasn’t Junior. It looked directly at Zilla and grumbled lowly. Not necessarily as a threat, though it carried a tone of wariness, asking for identity. Zilla tilted his head and barked, casting out a familiar nickname while keeping his body language relaxed as not to threaten. This Godzilla kind of sounded like Junior, but deeper, older.

The nickname implying leadership just made the Godzilla confused. But before the Old Buck could ask the strange lizard more, his species sensory ability went off, indicating another of his kind nearby. A young male by the feel of it, approximately ten years old. They appeared out from behind another mountain and his arrival was noticed by more than just the other Godzilla. Zilla’s relief was palpable when those trademark jagged spines, golden iris on red sclera eyes, and powerful build came into view and he rushed over to his friend.

Thankfully Godzilla Junior returned the grunt Zilla cast, nodding to his compatriot in a friendly manner. Zilla barked and looked about at the surroundings in an inquiry. Junior just shook his head, no more familiar with this region than Zilla was, though he did nod towards a distant, tall mountain he could recognize. To his surprise, the older Godzilla also was looking towards it knowingly, leading to Junior addressing him.

The two Godzillas stood apart from each other, Zilla at the ready beside Junior in case a slugfest happened and his ally needed back up. Thankfully there wasn’t aggression in either dinosaurs’ eyes, just a wariness that ebbed into curiosity. The distance closed and sniffs were exchanged. The Old One rose back and started muttering a series of grunts, chirps, and low shrieks that might almost sound like a broken radio.

He first asked why he was suddenly near Mount Fuji and not Monster Island. The two younger kaiju shook their heads, unknowing. His introduction as ‘Godzilla’ caused his audience even more confusion, Zilla motioning towards Junior with a visibly perplexed motion. Perhaps seeing his reign need more introduction, tales of the past were cast. He awakened as he was now on the eve of his father’s demise in the year the humans called 1954, and the change of decades had been incurred. He cast his tale like an orator of old. First, he was a destroyer, then a neutral force against a dragon from space, gaining allies as well as a son. In time, he came to call mankind a friend in his most recent ventures against both a magnificent mechanical doppelganger and a final duel with King Ghidorah. The last time he’d been to Mount Fuji it was to destroy the base of those hated controllers called the Kilaak who’d forced him to act as he once did.

Zilla was both fascinated at the tales and wondering if the old dinosaur was off his rocker given he probably would have not failed to have noticed that many alien invasions in a row. Junior, however, was keying in on something else. He was recognizing a few features in this Godzilla, both physical and contextual. He had pieced together a sort of family history from both his father had told him as well as information told to him by the psychic Mysterian-Human hybrids Miki Saegusa and Io Shinoda. And the more he looked upon the old Godzilla, the more he noticed the senior male looking upon him.

The latter grunted a word and tilted his head. Junior shook his snout, not knowing who this ‘Minya’ was, but he was sure of one thing as he approached and tentatively tapped the other Godzilla like he was seeing a ghost. Unbeknownst how or why Junior was sensing familiarity. Of circumstances elusive to the kaiju, his audience looked different because, in that world, meddlers from the future didn’t transport the then-unmutated dinosaur away from Lagos Island, instead of leaving it in the South Pacific to become irradiated by the Bikini Atoll test in the 1950s alongside his father. Whereas in Junior and Zilla’s world, those interlopers had come and moved the injured dinosaur to the far north sea, where he’d be irradiated by a nuclear submarine crash over two decades after 1954. One way or another, just as Dr. Yamane predicted, a second Godzilla was inevitable; it was just a matter of which decade he was created in.

The older kaiju curiously gazed upon Godzilla Junior, seeing resemblances to how he imagined his son would appear in years to come as his successor. The younger Godzilla, heart pounding within his chest, bellowed quietly.

He expressed that he didn’t know what was taking place or how this was possible, but the son recognized his father, albeit a different version of him, when he saw him. This one smelled like Gojirin’s progeny much like Minya. A child not by blood, but a father recognized his son nonetheless. Pride bloomed, the old king seeing his successor in the peak of health and standing tall and mighty as the new King of the Monsters; the new king content in ways he knew not he wished for at hearing his father had, in some form, learned to forgive and align with humanity.

Named for the reign of the Japanese emperors of their first active decades, The Godzilla Senior of the Showa Universe and the Godzilla Junior of the Heisei Universe bumped foreheads. Zilla barked and got their attention, apparently baring his fangs at the two dinosaurs. Junior grunted, tilting his head at his ally’s antics with an inquiry as to what he was doing. Zilla however, showing no rage, just bobbed up and down and grunted to indicate he was doing what humans called smiling the best he could manage without any lips.

Gathered up and deciding it was best to stick together to figure out where they were, the three needed not journey far to reach the next introduction. With Mount Fuji only a few miles away and day ebbing away, the ground started to shake. Zilla, who’d been zipping up and down the shoreline while the two Godzilla walked the land, came rocketing out of the surf with a terrified look on his face.

The Old One was already disturbed by what he’d been seeing. This was Japan, he was dead certain of that based off both where his magnetic field navigation, a trait common to many animals, as well as memory on orientation relative to Mount Fuji after his many battles starting with the one involving that big ape he’d had on the slopes. This place should have been bustling with humans and yet he’d failed to see a single primate. In his younger years, that would have been a welcome discovery he’d be keen to celebrate. But it had been over forty-four years since he razed Osaka in a battle with Anguirus, and time had a way with remodeling views. Just as Anguirus became his closest ally, the Ankylosaur’s wounding by his mechanical imitation driving Godzilla to hunt Mechagodzilla down with a vengeance; in time humanity had helped him in victory after victory and he’d valued them. Be it against Hedorah, Gigan and Ghidorah, or Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus, he owed them for their aid and was keen to return it in kind. It helped that Minya was so fond of them, and if his son could end up as powerful as he sensed the other Godzilla was, who was he to argue?

So given the only trace of humanity, they’d found thus far were a few shattered machines of some sort and a petrified building in a forest full of monsters, honest worry was budding within the Monster of Justice, as Zone Fighter once called him. Something was very, very wrong.

The feeling was justified when Zilla came charging out of the surf frantically with a clearly frightful expression. The Showa Godzilla barked and glanced at the oncoming iguana, having been the one walking closest to shore, asking what in the blazes had gotten into the young kaiju. Zilla squawked and jumped an admittedly very impressive distance, turning about as he landed and looking to the shore.

The iguana snapped his jaws, indicating a name the Showa Godzilla didn’t recognize but Junior evidently did. The younger Godzilla was quick to form up beside his friend and brace, calling out to his father from another timeline to do the same. The older dinosaur was glad he did when a tsunami chased Zilla’s path to shore and slammed into him. Weathering the blow, the Showa Godzilla smashed his tail into the surf to bat part of it away and called out to the transgressor. The reply came in thundering footfalls that exceeded his own.

Each of the respective heroic kaiju was massive in their own right, Zilla being the lightest at 45,000 tons, Showa Godzilla at 55,000 tons, and Godzilla Junior at 60,000 tons. Which made the 90,000-ton footfall all the more noticeable. Dorsal plates broke the massive wave’s surface as the tsunami flooded much of the forest. While multipronged like the two Godzillas’, they were more akin to Zilla’s in coloration as they weren’t dissimilar in hue from the rest of the body. Medium in length and extending down the length of an extremely long tail, they were soon shown to crown a broad face and head which almost recalled the features of a bear with scales instead of fur. The body itself was burly, bulky, and simply massive, with noticeable scutes like those of a turtle or alligator studding the chest and belly. Armored gills flexed and closed down with Sauropod-like feet stomping ashore.

Showa Godzilla was certain of several things regarding this ‘Gojira’ as Zilla called him. He was ancient and angry.

The now second-oldest Godzilla cast an eye to his companions while standing up to the titan who towered over him by about 8 meters, grunting to inquire about anything else they wanted to tell him about this one.

Godzilla Junior and Zilla were both tense and almost on a hair trigger, clearly recognizing this Gojira of legendary status, but it seemed the recognition was not mutual as confusion was visible behind the rage present on Gojira’s face. An observation not lost on Junior when he muttered something to Zilla, Showa Godzilla thought he said something about Gojira evidently not trying to eat the iguana as a change of pace.

The Showa Godzilla smacked his tail against the ground, demanding the larger kaiju’s attention and making something clear to Gojira. Any quarrel he had with the young ones, he had with him, even the lizard. Zilla grunted nondescriptly.

Gojira grumbled, sniffing the air and nudging a tree with his foot to get it to release more of its almost metallic pollen. The disgust upon his visage was readily identifiable even before his growling demand to ask what they had done.

The Showa Godzilla grumbled back, motioning with his arms and pointing to the isolated remains of a petrified building, then sweeping that arm about to indicate what he’d been pointing too should be everywhere. Something was very wrong indeed, but they didn’t cause it.

Gojira snarled, dragging his tail across a swath of forest to level it with a sneer on his face. The world was very imbalanced, ecosystem turned on its head. His speech was hard to make out to the Godzillas and Zilla, almost like how someone from 2010s Mexico might have a hard time intelligibly understanding archaic proto-Spanish from over 1,500 years ago, but one word did stick out. Taint. This world seemed tainted from the sky to the forest.

Gojira grumbled something to Showa, starting again as if he noticed he wasn’t being fully understood, but paused when he saw Godzilla Junior stiffen up and look off into the distance with an expression almost like someone was calling him. After a grunt from his father and nudge from Zilla, he suddenly bolted and started sprinting directly towards the mountain. Baffled for a moment, Showa Godzilla looked to Zilla as the iguana sprang up and down to bark at the older kaiju before taking off after Godzilla Junior. His cohort always had a knack, a sense for when something was wrong and it could point him to it like a compass. And evidently, Zilla was gandering now was one of those times.

The Showa Godzilla turned to glance at Gojira, bellowing lowly with a simple proposition. If he wanted to know what had gone wrong with this place and who was responsible, following him and his son was a good idea. With that, the Monster of Justice ran along Zilla and Junior’s path towards the mountain.

An idea that was soon vindicated when, as the day turned to night, light and fire ignited the sky.

What was going on? That was a question given clear as day by Zilla as he ran alongside the larger kaiju, Godzilla Junior loosing a bellow as he kept his eyes transfixed dead ahead; running with such large strides he was covering hundreds of meters in a few seconds. His retort was a single word that made Zilla’s eyes widen. Human. A human had just called out to him, pleading for help, and he was closing in on her like a laser guided missile. If having a whole city of them behind him helped him fight harder or travel farther to protect them, sensing just one in such desolation was even worse. He didn’t know how she’d called for help in such a way, it felt similar but different to when Miki or Io would try to talk to him, so she wasn’t part Mysterian; but all of that mattered for naught.

Thankfully one thing Junior did know was his allies and the trust was mutual. He indicated towards the ridge up ahead and growled to Zilla, knowing the lizard was faster than he was and this was urgent. Zilla nodded and kicked to a higher gear, sprinting ahead. Coming around a mountainside and springboarding off a cliff, the athletic lizard soon beheld a hideous surprise. Finally, they’d found a city… of sorts. Most of it was on fire and something about it really, really didn’t smell right. Toxic even. No humans in sight there so he instead focused upon the ridge his leader directed him to.

Servum hissed and snapped at the air, one of them landing on and crushing the fallen ‘Vulture’ mech suit as the pack cornered their prey on the plateau’s edge. Four figures continually backpedaled from the advance, but only three were standing with the fourth being half carried and half dragged by the only unarmed member of the group. Two mild tanned girls with light, tattoo-like markings strung, fired, and reloaded arrow after arrow that shot into the forest. Bearing white hair that formed bangs resembling moth antennae and tribal attire, the two were effectively identical in appearance; The only way one could discern them was their typical expression. Miana was the one who carried herself more calmly and with a smile upon her visage, while her harsher sister Maina was typically stern in expression and less emotive. Right now, however, they were identical in shock and fright as every free and patch of forest threatened to burst forth with more servum.

Thousands of years ago, a Mountain that Walked lit the world of humanity on fire, leaving both the death of the old world and the tainted siring of a new world forged in its own image in its wake. The few of that creature called man that survived only did so under the protection and affliction of a slain goddess and her egg. Slightly mutated from their original state, the telepathic Houtua where all that remained of the old world in this Planet of Monsters… Until a ship from a bygone era returned. Bearing both humans of old and their alien comrades, having left before the final cataclysms, their return had been driven by an ambition of revenge and pride.

Pride in restoring humanity to its dominion of this world, revenge for a family slain by a walking mountain. The spearhead of which was tearfully carrying the body of his adoptive sister behind the twin’s protective fire. Haruo Sakaki, he didn’t feel he was worthy of his title of ‘Captain’ anymore. Haruo wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he was certain he was in literally Hell on Earth. The Bilusaludo had betrayed them, betrayed them to such a degree he was forced to choose between letting the monster who’s slaughtered his world destroy the one thing that could stop it and becoming like that monster himself with toxic nanometal to reign free over the world. Either way, his path to ruin cost the lives of most of his men and women, and not seemingly his last tether to that old, dead world. He could hardly talk anymore, having almost torn his vocal cords in his cries of anguish when he pulled Yuko’s half nanometal covered body out of her Vulture, unsure if she was dead or alive and in too frantic a state to be sure.

Cradling her, so that he might die first if she was still in the living and buy her another second or two to live, Haruo looked up at the forest of his demons as Miana and Maina continued to fire arrows that killed several smaller servum or kept the larger one at bay. He wished they’d leave. Take Yuko’s body with them if they could. Miana kept putting her hand to her head and letting out telepathic shouts. Hauro wasn’t sure what exactly she was saying but he thought he heard her project ‘Help!” ‘Danger!’ and almost a mental projection of their location. He wasn’t sure who she was calling out too. Maybe Dr. Martin and some of his team were still alive? Maybe to some of their tribe who might be nearby?

He didn’t know and in some ways, wasn’t sure if he could care. After having the world be killed in his life and having to go through not only experiencing that again but having to choose between what he’d always wanted and averting that with both choices resulting in Yuko’s demise… He was at the end of his rope.

Miana loosed her last arrow, backing up with his sister as one last, massive servum slowly walked out of the forest into the clearing with the cliff at the human’s backs. The malefic beast, spawned from that walking Mountain’s own cells, snapped its jaws and took its time approaching. It didn’t need to kill humans, it didn’t eat them. They weren’t part of this new ecosystem that had taken over this planet of monsters. That didn’t matter for a second.

Haruo sobbed dried tears and tried to push Yuko into Miana’s arms as he stood up.

“Get out of here! GO!” he barked as he strode in front of them.

The three women mattered more than he. Miana and Maina lived in this world he’d turned up on its head, threw into chaos in his quest for revenge. The Godzilla, Filius, that he slew was innocent of his quest aside from an ambition for dominion, and in doing so he awakened the creature that destroyed the original Earth out of revenge for its fallen progeny. And when faced with the reality he’d started to become what he loathed, he turned it a blind eye, trusted those he shouldn’t have too much and for too long. Now the rest of his forces might be dead, the Houtua put in dire risk, and he was still alive.

Even if his closest friend was dead, he’d die before letting a creature like this desecrate her body as well as claim two more innocent lives.

He shouted, waving his hands and running to the side to hopefully draw the Servum away from the twins. It did seem to get the monster’s attention, tilting its head and leering at him. It lunged and through the emotional and physical agony he was in, Haruo smiled. At least he could do one thing right.

The massive claws descending out of nowhere and impaling the servum on the spot with such force it died instantly, that was unexpected. Haruo stumbled, almost falling over as he let his gaze travel up the arm. They widened when he saw it.

It was!... No, no it wasn’t him…

“A-A Zilla?!”

The Zilla retracted its arm, seemingly to sneer at the servum impaled on his first two fingers and flicking it off with visible disgust. Haruo’s mind raced.

-Doctor Martin said it was probable Godzilla wiped out the other monsters! Scans showed nothing but him. Di-Did one survive somehow? Why did it only attack the servum?! Why even be here when Godzilla was so close?!-

Hyperventilating in his breath mask, Haruo looked the creature over. He was very young when he evacuated Earth, but he had looked through the old war profiles to familiarize himself with past kaiju. The Zilla might not have been as durable as some monsters, but spread rapidly through a sort of cloning-based egg laying. This one, however, looked slightly different. Thicker in build, with larger spines and teeth. The coloration was also a bit different and darker overall, with a much larger dewlap and dorsal spines. A new mutation? A different subspecies? The mind raced…

And proceeded to race itself into risking insanity when he saw what walked up behind the Zilla and vaporized several servum it had grabbed in its hands.

Zilla Junior tilted his head at the odd humans, looking them over to check and see if they were okay. Familiar footsteps and blue light spurred him to take a sidestep and make way for the king, Godzilla Junior coming around into view with several other servum in his hands reduced to ash. Godzilla’s titanic shadow loomed over the humans even as he kept his distance on account of his own radiation, oblivious to the fact Haruo and Yuko’s suits and the Houtua’s biology protected them. Inspecting the woods for more monsters, he was about to try and see if any of these four were the ones who called out and reached him when the ground seemed to explode out in the city behind him.

Godzilla Junior and Zilla Junior whirled around to face it, instantly feeling a massive surge of energy in the air that could only mean one thing. A kaiju, and a gargantuanly powerful one at that.

Bursting free of the rubble the explosion had encased it within, a living mountain slowly rose up and began to haul itself out of the crater it had created and let out an uproar of radiant energy into the sky.

The poison, the nanometal, was finally dying and the pesky human constructs had gone dormant. Dominion of this world was beginning to be reestablished, and this time it would make absolutely certain humanity and anything born from it or was like it would be extinct. Why it was driven to do this was a question many, human and monster, had posed to it over the centuries every time it slew a kaiju or slaughtered tens of millions of the primates. Millions upon millions of species, born of the same planet it hailed from, were extinct because of it. It wasn’t evil. That implied it thought on some level that what it was doing was wrong.

In the end the question as to “why?” was as simple as it was nondescript. Because it could. It was the mightiest life form to ever exist on this planet. What greater authority could there be to decide dominion?

This Godzilla had effectively tainted the entire world with its trace and spawn, coding the earth with its own image. And so, it could be called Godzilla Earth, lord of devastation and the mountain that walked.

And when its wise, blue eyes were trained upon the nearest humans it could sense within range, of which they were in the same direction as those meddling flying machines had flown off to, the killing intent was obvious.

A crackling set of lights danced up its body, collecting near the end of its snout. A small barrier became visible in front of its face before the energy condensed and sprang out in a ray. Even in such a small charge, it would’ve easily leveled a plateau and killed any humans upon it. Only it didn’t hit because twin streams of emerald napalm and sapphire plasma slammed into the side of its head. Godzilla Earth canceled out its beam and threw up its barrier.

The Mountain that Walked looked beyond the rays, seeing two forms that, while titanic compared to the humans, were minuscule compared to itself. Having circled around it to be wary, Godzilla Junior and Zilla had burst from their cover behind some of the ruined Mechagodzilla City structures and opened fire when the new kaiju made its intentions clear. Their audacity and keenness to put themselves between the 300-meter tall titan and the humans made their intentions clear, much to Haruo’s utter shock and the Houtua twins’ joy.

“They’re… standing up to Godzilla?!” Haruo muttered under his breath, seeing the smaller ‘Godzilla’ which seemed to be animal-like rather than plant-like, almost appearing to glance back at him.

Maina panted for breath as a smile started to grow across her face, resting a hand on her collar as she exchanged a mirrored glance with her twin sister. For the first time in a very long time, Maina smiled back. It had been over two hundred centuries since a giant of creation had stood up to the one the humans of the past called Godzilla, the last of which was their goddess before her demise to protect her sacred egg. Perhaps these two beasts who were obviously trying to protect them were her emissaries? Maybe their arrival heralded the predestined hatching?

One way or another, they had to be made aware of what they faced. Maybe it would motivate them to fight more in earnest? Maybe these possible heralds of their goddess already knew about the Monster King? One way or another, wouldn’t hurt they supposed. The elders always stated to fight the Mountain that Walked was a foolhardy gesture, but times have changed quite a lot recently…

Miana and Maina joined hands and cast both a prayer and plea to the young kaiju.

Zilla was a bit more startled by the images he suddenly saw in his head than Junior was, on account of the dinosaur already experiencing similar from the shobijin or psychics; but the end result was pretty much the same for both of them even if it didn’t tell much; just what the Houtua elders had passed down about the death of the old world. And who did it.

Godzilla Earth shattered the sky with its roar, physically blowing the air back around Godzilla Junior and Zilla even at a one-kilometer distance. It had been a very long time since it saw another kaiju, the first ones killed in the last century of the old world lost hope of fighting back at the mere sight of it; submitting to misery and death. Only the moth had the audacity to actually fight back on her own accord. It expected them to bow down and let themselves experience a quick cleansing.

It didn’t expect the roar of Odo Island’s sea god and the bellow that shook Manhattan to fire back. Facing a massive opponent almost twice their combined height and many times more massive, Godzilla Junior and Zilla Junior stood firm and in form as a unified front before charging. By method or means they didn’t know how they came here, but in some way, they knew for what reason.

Zilla rapidly sprinted forward into the side in a wide arch, using the decaying remains of the city for cover. Just as Godzilla Earth was beginning to track him the lineup an atomic breath, waves of blue plasma crashed into its chest and diverted its attention. Godzilla Junior advanced forward undaunted, firing salvo after salvo of his own plasma beam in quick bursts that were soon deflected by the shield but gave his ally plenty of cover fire. Raking his beam across the ground after seeing he couldn’t punch through the shield, Godzilla Junior launched a massive amount of debris and smoke into the air.

Forth from this haze, Zilla pounced after running full speed directly towards Godzilla Earth. The mutant lizard slammed his full weight into the plant-like monster’s back, actually managing to stagger it slightly thanks to momentum. Like a mountain climber, Zilla tried to dig his claws into the metallic, barkish hide of the Mountain’s back to gain a firm hold. Even swinging his talons in as hard as he could barely offer any purchase. The fact Godzilla Earth was beginning to turn about and slowly thrash to dislodge him wasn’t helping and in the end, he had to resort to clinging to the dorsal spines.

It was only by Godzilla Junior managing to strike the distracted titan dead in the face with a slightly more charged up plasma beam while the shield was down that his companion wasn’t thrown off. Godzilla Earth growled in response, its body crackling with energy that soon sprang forth from its face and raked across the terrain. Though Godzilla Junior dodged the best he could, he still felt the edge of the extremely powerful beam knife into his chest. It only cut down to the ribs, but the fact it managed to do that after only maybe a quarter second of exposure told a lot.

Zilla, doing his best to ignore the shocks it was getting while holding onto Godzilla Earth, was quick to notice and barked in worry. One thing was very clear now, they couldn’t risk taking any direct hits. And if this big bastard’s skin was too thick to dig through, he’d just have to go after something softer!

Zilla clambered up Godzilla Earth’s back, half climbing and half jumping from spine to spine until he reached its head. Almost wise-looking blue eyes gazed indescribably back at him. Zilla flexed his hand and brought back his all arm, which rapidly came for it in a swing. It was only by a last-minute jerk of motion by Godzilla Earth that his talons didn’t dig into the monster’s eyes, instead missing and managing to cleave into the skin around the cheek. Swinging its entire body about to bring up momentum, Godzilla Earth managed to throw itself sideways even in its comparatively slow motion and transfer its entire body’s inertia into Zilla. With so much momentum put into a much smaller body that couldn’t get a good grip on its foe, Zilla was sent flying off and past Godzilla Junior.

Crashing through a factory tower of decaying nanometal, the mutant iguana would have ended up sailing clean out of the valley had two pairs of arms not caught him. One of which he was relieved to see, the other would’ve reawakened a phobia had the situation not been a lot worse and Gojira not had his glare firmly affixed on Godzilla Earth.

It appeared the imbalance and taint the alpha predator had been detecting was now standing before him, drawing all of his ire. Usually, he’d frown upon less than an honorable combat between solo parties; but given the scale of this catastrophe against nature both figuratively and literally given the three hundred meter height, he was not opposed to these younger forms taking up arms alongside him.

And with his over four decades of experience battling kaiju ranging from giant crustaceans used by terrorist cells to repeated incidents with a three-headed space dragon to animate sludge to the myriad of bizarre opponents he faced alongside Zone Fighter, the Showa Godzilla hardly needed much introduction to know an enemy. Besides, he always did want to have the chance to fight alongside his son given such opportunities were so rare.

Godzilla Earth saw the three forms approaching it and the fourth rising back up, healing back the damage from its wounds, and its unemotive face inwardly sneered. A chorus of calls belonging to those who’d dethrone it called out into the night, roars that in their own respective worlds began to or already did bring hope to those under the threat of hateful giants these heroes would battle against. Intentional in their designation or not, four champions converged on the greatest dragon.

Father and son lit up the night in twins sapphire glows, vaporous and condensed beams of plasma spewing out that were absorbed by Godzilla Earth’s shield. While they failed to wound, they did provide covering fire for the two more melee oriented in their number. The kaiju associated with the Americas in their respective worlds managed to close the distance. Gojira didn’t even mind the iguana springboarding off his back and shoulder to gain some more height as they approached. With his boosted ascent, Zilla pounced for Godzilla Earth’s throat, digging his claws into the massive kaiju’s shoulders and stomach to try and keep a purchase while clamping his jaws down on where the windpipe should be. Godzilla Earth snarled, easily absorbing the impact of the smaller kaiju this time and slowly shifting to pry it off when Gojira slammed his full body weight into the titanic plantimal’s knee from the side.

Actually lighter than its size would indicate, even if it still outweighed the ancient alpha predator by a wide margin, Godzilla Earth stumbled backward several steps and stumbled a half-step more when Gojira spun around and slammed his mammoth tail into his foe’s other knee. Godzilla Earth groaned from reactive pain, dull as it was, shortening in height and slumping over slightly as it had to catch itself with one of its arms to avoid falling. It’s massive bulk but relatively long and thin legs made it top-heavy and having Zilla clinging to it while having its foundation struck only made it worse.

Zilla, failing to have his bite do any meaningful damage, decided to bite back the pain and try something possibly very very stupid. The dorsal scutes from his tail up to his head lit up in sequence before similar indication came across his eyes and dewlap. With his jaws still firmly affixed to Godzilla Earth’s hide, he fired his atomic breath point-blank into the shallow bite wound. Godzilla Earth actually reacted to this, letting out a bellow of pain from being unable to shield itself due to Zilla still clinging directly to his body, well within the shield’s minimum radius.

While the green atomic napalm didn’t do much in itself other than burn through some layers of hide- of which the level of damage was more related to Godzilla Earth’s massive durability than any lack of firepower from the iguana kaiju -it did lead to one promising observation that Godzilla Junior keyed in on.

He roared to his father and predecessor, regarding the abomination’s defenses. Or lack thereof, no shield to be seen! This times three series of azure glow filled the night, the Showa Godzilla’s quicker-to-fire vapor breath soon being followed up by a fully charged beam from his son and napalm-like torrent from his elder. Careful that aim so they didn’t hit Zilla, the three kings poured the burning sapphire upon Godzilla Earth while the Walking Mountain couldn’t put its shield up because of Zilla’s interference. It only lasted for a short while, as Zilla was soon grabbed by his shoulder scute and lobbed away by the angry titan, whom quickly corrected its shield as soon as the meddling lizard was away. Thankfully some damage had been done, large parts of Godzilla Earth’s left shoulder and back had been burned away. The tissue was regenerating, but the simple fact that it had been hurt in a straight-up fight brought shock to the Houtua.

Miana watched on, eyes full of hope between the battle and one of the elders saying the one Haruo called "Yu-Ko" might just live despite her nanometal poisoning! None had managed to wound the Mountain that Walked since the fall of their goddess, Mothra. Truly, these four heroic giants were blessed by her grace! Her goddess hadn't abandoned them!

Zilla skid across the ground, yelping in dull pain before coming to a stop. A pair of thundering footsteps approached him but thankfully it was neither Gojira, whom based on Zilla’s experience with his counterpart in his and Junior’s world the iguana wasn’t sure didn’t intend to eat him or not, nor the freaky-looking Godzilla-Shaped-Plant-Mountain they were fighting. The Showa Godzilla growled in thanks, helping the younger kaiju up while Gojira and Junior kept Godzilla Earth’s attention. The old warrior even helped dust some of the irksome tree shards off the lizard and asking if he was all right. The way he complemented Zilla’s courage that helped secure their first meaningful hit reminded Zilla a lot of an aged military commander, kinda like that Colonel Hicks his adoptive father Tatopoulos associated with. This world was freaky-deeky as Randy would put it, but he was actually beginning to really like this company.

When the Showa Godzilla saw Godzilla Earth firing off its own beam with such power that Gojira was sent sprawling backward and Godzilla Junior had to dodge out of a beam-lock he was being overpowered in, a play he had once used with Anguirus and Jet Jaguar came to mind. Pointing a way to the young iguana kaiju and growling an order, Zilla found himself wondering if he should imitate his father around Colonel Hicks and salute. One could practically swear they saw him smirking at the idea.

A loud roar caught Godzilla Earth’s attention, causing the titan to look up while charging its beam at the downed Gojira and refocus on an approaching Showa Godzilla. It fired true, but in utter defilement of physics, the old Godzilla launched his feet into the air and somehow managed to keep himself aloft using just his own momentum and tail, throwing off Godzilla Earth’s aim for a few moments enough to close the distance. Smashing his double dropkick into Godzilla Earth’s knee, the Mountain that Walked barely stumbled.

Loosing a low, rumbling growl that rattled the air, its body began to charge up now that it had one of the intruders directly in front of it and with no hope of dodging this. Showa Godzilla smirked, keeping his own beam charged and waiting for just the right moment. Zilla called out, having used his great speed to run up to a cliffside near Godzilla Earth at such velocity that between his acceleration and claws digging into the bedrock, he was able to run up a cliffside’s length sideways. Worked up in height, the lizard springboarded off the edge and came flying at Godzilla Earth’s face with his jaws alight with green flames aimed squarely at the monster’s eyes.

Showa Godzilla’s distraction worked beautifully, Godzilla Earth having no time to swing his head around and finish charging the beam to fire it in the right direction. The metallic plant monster might have been extremely distinct, but it was still a Godzilla, and that meant the beam came out the front end. Having a ranged attack come out of the maw was excellent for good aim, but it restricted your line of fire. Keep out of the straight line coming out out the mouth between the eyes, and it can’t hit you with the beam.

The charge on Godzilla Earth suddenly redirected to its tail, the tip of which was directly beside Zilla when the energy flew out of it’s swinging end. There was a bright flash that accompanied the shockwave and Zilla was sent flying into the cliffside with a sharp shriek. The Showa Godzilla bellowed in rage, unleashing his beam into Godzilla Earth’s chest for all it would do. Godzilla Junior was about to join in on the assault when a low growl came beside him. Gojira rushed forward to engage in close quarters, shifting his gaze briefly towards the cliffside and then back to Junior to tell him to get Zilla. He’d seen the strategy at play and while this latest one backfired because of a surprising ability they didn’t foresee, it was their best chance at beating this thing.

Godzilla Junior grunted back, still firing his own beam back Godzilla Earth as he ran past it to force it to put the shield up and focus on that so Gojira and his father could get in close. All four of them were a lot more agile than this living mountain up close, so as dangerous as it was to be there it probably still their best chance at dealing any meaningful damage. And to pull that off they needed their fastest member.

He ran to the rubble and started digging, soon seeing Zilla’s telltale shoulder scutes poking out from the rocks. He grumbled. Great, he’d been knocked senseless. He pulled more rocks aside to get him free, only to notice something else buried about eighty meters away. Something dark and scaly. It was mostly covered up by the rocks, which he nudged aside with his tail, only to feel something on his extremity tip. Something hot and wet. Had something else been buried in the cliff face and Zilla crashing into it accidentally uncovered it? He’d heard and seen weirder reveals. But one some rocks fell away, he found familiarity. Zilla’s tail and some of a hip exposed to the air. Far removed and pointing the other direction from his shoulder. Godzilla Junior felt more warped around his feet and looked up to see the fluid leaking from between the boulders. A hand on the scute, he pulled up.

If it hadn’t been for the scute, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize it as once being Zilla.

Gojira and Showa Godzilla, having been knocked back by a slow but powerful backhand by Godzilla Earth, heard and felt the air get divided in a soul-rending roar that threaten to tear the vocal cords of who screamed it. A large mass charged Godzilla Earth and tackled him, rapidly clawing and slashing into the monstrosity with furious abandon and crackling blue energy that conducted with every touch. The living mountain stumbled backward as Godzilla Junior latched onto his flank, charging up its ray and firing from the best angle it could get. It managed to completely vaporize a chunk of Junior’s shoulder, back, and left row of dorsal spines; but the young King of the Monsters was undeterred. Hatred and revenge for a fallen friend drove it upwards, jamming both his own claws into the metallic bark of a hide as well as stabbing at the titan’s neck with the scute he clutched in his other hand.

Godzilla Earth swung his body around, throwing Godzilla Junior off after the young kaiju managed to shiv Zilla’s shoulder scute into the side of its throat. Unable the fire its beam with the obstruction, Godzilla Earth crackled with energy and swung his tail around. Now wise to the tsunami of power coming at them, Showa Godzilla and Gojira ducked down. But Godzilla Junior surged forward, withstanding the blow despite his father’s urging to back off. It cut deep into his stomach, his regeneration working overtime to avoid being disemboweled. With the tail cutter bisecting two hills beside and behind him, Junior just kept coming, firing his beam with roaring hatred all the way.

Spiraling arcs of energy started to appear across the rays, dim white patches beginning to take hold over the young monster’s body. Craved vengeance for a fallen friend was driving his reactor of a heart into overdrive and the power was starting to show. Godzilla Earth’s shield cracked, some of Junior’s beams leaking through and lightly burning the titanic destroyer. Soon the distance was closed and he emulated his ally in a pounce. The nuclear pulse shockwaves that came off him on impact caused Godzilla Earth to backpedal and cry out in pain, getting shocked from every contact point as Godzilla Junior claw his way up the larger kaiju’s chest. Grabbing Zilla’s scute again, he wrenched it out of the throat and clawed higher with pure hatred in his visage. He’d never lost a friend before, not like this. And he was going to make damn certain with all the power he had that this demon would take no more from anyone tonight.

Godzilla Earth fired its beam, now free to do so with the obstruction removed. Even with part of the power venting off through the hole in its neck, it still struck home and dug into Godzilla Junior’s chest just above the heart. But with valiance that would stun anyone, Junior powered through it and swung the scute down as his entire body glowed with energy. Godzilla Earth experienced half of its vision going away from having the scute rammed into its eye socket and having almost the entire force of Godzilla Junior’s nuclear shockwave ability go off while being conducted through the scute and elsewhere arcing into its neck and throat.

Godzilla Earth roared in agony.

Godzilla Junior was sent flying back, smoking and bleeding from his chest to skid across the ground with his claws dig trenches to slow himself down. The same smoke obscured Godzilla Earth, who still stood... Before beginning to tip over. He wasn’t dying fast enough for Godzilla Junior. Exhausted as he was, damaged as he was, he wasn’t quitting. The glow about his spines had never dissipated and it and the similar brilliance appearing across his skin started to turn red. Searing malice formed and crackled between his fangs which reflected in the smoke around them.

A bright glowing circle appeared in the smog and rapidly condensed, a supercharged atomic breath spewing out and striking Godzilla Junior in the chest. The young kaiju was blown back, his head shooting up as a massive red torrent of spiral fire parted the sky but hit nothing. Godzilla Earth’s beam intensified with the pulse that traveled up its length and smashed into Godzilla Junior’s torso. Another, then another pulse. The beam shot out Junior’s back directly through his heart and proceeded to impale a mountain behind him with little effort, a show of how powerful it was. Godzilla Junior’s spiral fire slowly lost its red glow, turning white, then blue, and then simmering out. Light died away from his body as Godzilla Earth’s piercing ray cut off.

Azusa Gojo’s son slumped over, limpy falling to earth in a heap with a gaping hole in his chest that leaked radioactive ichors that also spilled from his mouth. Godzilla Junior closed his eyes for the last time upon the earth.

The smog dissipated around Godzilla Earth, who slowly rose back up to its original height. Most of the front of its body was covered in burns that carved into its flesh. Most of its left brow was completely gone from the top of the head to the cheek, a heavily burned but resilient scute still impaled into the eye socket.

It paid little heed to its injuries, silently glaring with its remaining eye at the Showa Godzilla and Gojira. The Youngblood was dead, time for their elders to join. Two down, two to go.

Gojira huffed for breath, still smelling his chest armor smoking from getting half burned through. He looked to the Showa Godzilla out of the corner of his eye. The wet glint coming from the other old soldier was read well, even if it was hidden behind ferocious resolve. He’d experienced the same when the parasites took his nephew. His time with the youngblood was brief, but he could respect them for what he’d seen, the young lizard’s bravado and willingness to aid them all and the young dinosaur’s sheer power for a noble cause as well as wounding their foe. A look of understanding came to the grieving father, one the Showa Godzilla nodded at with approval. They would not run, they would not submit to doom. They wouldn’t let this monstrosity chase them down and perish from being shot in the back.

The duo of legends would never show their backs to this opponent, even if it was their last battle. They charged.

Godzilla Earth was being pushed back. Gojira knew how they did it though. By getting killed in the process. Every scratch and wound they managed to inflict was met with biting agony from the return strikes. They fought with tooth and claw, tail and spike; often side-by-side or back to back. It didn’t matter how many dorsal spines were blown off, scales burned clean through, limbs knocked out of socket it forced back into place; if they were going to meet their demise, they were not going to be slaughtered, they refused it.

Gojira was thrown back in a smoking heap, cutting canyons into the ground below with his heels as he tried to endure the agony burning into his chest from Godzilla Earth’s beam. The stink of his own body armor melting and vaporizing filled his nose and blotted the senses. It was only by the Showa Godzilla continuously firing his own ray into Godzilla Earth’s face that Gojira was given a reprieve.

The ancient alpha predator stumbled, catching himself with a bruised and bloodied hand that had been burned to the muscle. If the pain hadn’t been blocked out earlier his incurred wounds probably would’ve caused him to go into shock. He already looked dead, to be honest. But rather than gaze at himself, he instead turned his focus to his opponent. Godzilla Earth grumbled and threw up its shield to silence the Show Godzilla's efforts rather than continue to use the beam.

Gojira’s eyes focused upon two details that caught his attention. The first was how the glowing brilliance encircling Godzilla Earth could only seem to focus and condense before its snout to form the beam when it wasn’t using its shield. Maybe it didn’t have enough power to do both at the same time and thus relied on its natural durability to defend itself when attacking, maybe the beam was actually the shield projected out in a specific direction rather than encircling the body as a barrier. He couldn’t be sure of which one but that in itself didn’t matter that much. What did matter even more was the crackling energy he glimpsed coming out of the dorsal spines. His eyes briefly acquainted himself with his own spikes, the plates that remained at least. Those were used to vent off excess internal heat especially when using the plasma flamethrower, hence why they glowed whenever he used the attack.

Without them, he wasn’t sure how effective is ranged attack might be. He could probably still manage it now with a lot of agonies, but for something with even more power and a larger size….

Gojira launched himself from the ground with force and speed surprising for his age and size. Putting all his power into his momentum, the ancient one stampeded towards Godzilla Earth before quickly turning about. 90,000 tons of mass going over 180 kilometers per hour in terms of forward acceleration before being compounded by the momentum of Gojira’s putting all that weight and speed into a swinging tail hit with the force of a not-insignificantly sized bomb.

Effectively taking the force of a large bunker buster to its knee, Godzilla Earth sprawled over with a large kink in its leg from the joint being warped. Gojira kept swinging, bellowing a loud phrase to his sole remaining ally. The spines.

The Showa Godzilla battered and burned across most of his body and bleeding badly from his mouth, didn’t even register the pain. For the first time in many many years, he absolutely hated something. At one time this is how he felt about humanity, after the demise of his father. In time he realized that was foolhardy and misplaced, not proud of the soul he once was. But he could never imagine in a million lifetimes the hatred he felt for this living mountain could be anything but justified. It killed his world. It killed anything around it. It killed the humans. It killed his newest ally. It killed his son. It did all this and refused to ever even say why. Did it think itself higher than everything else, and thus never accountable? Was it just another psychopath like Ghidorah but less chatty? At this point, he didn’t care what the answer was. All he wanted to know was how to hurt it.

And Gojira seemed to tell him the means. Seizing the chance as the massive ancient tackled the lowered Godzilla Earth’s head to continue to throw the larger kaiju off-balance, the Showa Godzilla clawed his way onto Godzilla Earth’s back. From there he went on a rampage. Firing his beam consistently, kicking and smacking the spines with his feet and tail to knock them off their bases, anything to damage the dorsal plates. Ignoring the shocks he was experiencing from Godzilla Earth charging up a beam the fire and frustration at Gojira, the old Godzilla grabbed onto the largest dorsal plate and wrenched back and forth. The sharp spine’s edges cut into his hands like serrated knives would to a man’s, but he never let go and only clutched harder with bone to grip. With a burst of his plasma ray raking across the base, he achieved his mission and toward the plate out of its foundations. Spying the open hole in Godzilla Earth’s back he wasted no time in taking aim and firing directly into it just as Gojira, holding Godzilla Earth’s jaws at bay with his hands, spewed his own assault down the monster’s gullet.

Godzilla Earth felted insides catch on fire. It felt agony, rage, and shock. It held dominion of this world, extinguishing life unfit for its reign as it saw fit. It was ordained by the processes that supplied it with power above any other. It was only natural for the mighty to purge the weaker, as its bloodlines had most life on this world. A wisdom sparked in its blue, philosopher eyes, or rather eye as it still had an overgrown lizard scute lodged in a socket; keeping its tissue from regenerating. Another note to add to the list of measures to undertake, after...

Oh yes, the burning.

Crackling its entire form with converted energy, building it up to the point its body glowed reds and whites, Godzilla Earth released it all in one burst; much of it flying out its maw but also venting out the hole in its back. Pressure waves, electrical pulses, and plasma spewed out in an oscillating roar that overtook both its attacker’s beams. They had wounded it, more than any other ever had, and it returned the favor in excess. Like loosing a torrent of cleansing, burning light upon a tank that was a mere annoyance at best; there was no sense of overkill when undergoing extermination.

The largest of the four attackers called out in defiance and pain, launched back under the continuous pressure wave to be sent hurtling through several hills until the assault pinned him down. Deeper and deeper the onslaught pushed him, keeping him pinned down as scales were flayed and flesh seared through. It kept going for a good thirty seconds or so, the Mountain that Walked didn’t care to note it. In the end, Gojira was entombed a thousand meters or more underground, a progressively deepening trench carved into the ground caked in crystalized blood, indicating its fate.

Godzilla Earth grumbled lowly, pleased. A fleeting moment of pleasure when a vaporous, weak spatter of plasma struck him in the face. Unfazed, it slowly turned to face the cause and bore witness to the last one opposing it. The Showa Godzilla huffed and swayed as he tried to remain standing, a massive burn across his chest from the energy burst Godzilla Earth had released from the hole in its back. Ichors oozed from almost every inch of hide and exposed flesh, one arm limply hanging at his side from the joint clearly knocked out of the socket by whiplash. Only a single eye glared back at Godzilla Earth, the other, as well as a portion of the brow, completely missing. The old warrior balled a fist with his good hand, refusing to fall despite the risk of losing his balance at any moment.

Godzilla Earth instead looked past the insignificance, at a monolith of charred scales and sharp dorsal spines behind him. Sending a small dispatch to the servum around that dinner was served, he focused on regrowing his dorsal spines and gathering energy.

The Showa Godzilla would have felt dead already had it not been for sheer force of will and burning hatred. The eager youth he’d taken a shining to was slaughtered, his son who he finally got to see in the prime of his life had been impaled, and the seasoned ancient who fought beside him until the end had been entombed. All while trapped in this decayed world that could only be compared to a corpse of his own. While the fact he’d traveled through time and dimension eluded him, one thing was clear. If he were a human and aware of such belief, he’d devoutly believe he was in Hell before his own personal devil; a twisted icon of everything he’d ever hated about his former self.

The flapping monstrosities swarmed out of the forests in droves, covering him in a cornucopia of gnashing teeth and stabbing claws that dug into exposed muscle. But the pain, the agony the old hero felt was all too brief. Through the swarm of wings and eyes, he saw his tormentor stride past him and take aim upon a very specific corpse. The old king felt his body become alight with rage, not at his enemy turning his back on him, but at what it was about to do. Pure rage overpowered everything else and he bit, clawed, smacked, and swatted to live one more minute, one more second to stop this evil. His dorsal spines flashed red and a power he’d witnessed his son employ but never used himself ran across his body. Servum shrieked their death wails as a massive nuclear pulse flash-fried them.

The Showa Godzilla, burning across his form with eyes glowing like the dawn, charged forward before suddenly turning around and firing a spiral fire into the ground. The earth exploded from the torrent of energy, sending its jumping user rocketing backward directly into Godzilla Earth just as the titanic monstrosity was about to fire upon Godzilla Junior’s corpse. Even as his last act, the Monster of Justice would never let the demon defile his son’s corpse.

His spines, glowing red hot, cleaved into Godzilla Earth’s chest to carve a massive gash into the torso easily two dozen meters deep. Godzilla Earth screamed, recoiling back from the grieving father’s wrath as its beam shot up uselessly into the sky to divide the clouds. Backpedaling and stumbling away, it collapsed into the forest with an explosive landing audible for miles.

The Showa Godzilla crash-landed not far away from where he’d made impact, skidding across the ground on his side. By the time he warily made it to his feet, toe claws struggling to keep a purchase over waves of weakness, the glow across his body had faded. All hearing went away, he lost feeling across his body, vision began to tilt and swish back and forth in vertigo, and the once proud monster king and defender of mankind could only stumble, then crawl forward. The only thing he could detect around him through failing sight was the pulsing of his heart pounding between his ears. It was getting slower, dimmer. For the first time in his life, even having experienced being entombed in ice, Godzilla felt cold. Hand after hand, knee after knee, foot after foot, he limped forward. A teary wetness he couldn’t feel, yet knew of its presence, came across his eyes as he clambered onto the corpse of his son. In some ways, it had been a dream to fight alongside his grown progeny someday, never a prouder moment in his life than when Minya assisted he and the others in finally bringing down Ghidorah or first battling Komunga.

But it had become a nightmare. His vision faded, his only sensory input being what little feeling he could detect beyond surface tactile sense. With his last remaining strength, the Showa Godzilla embraced his son’s body, hoping that in whatever place the young king had come from, that version of Junior’s father got the chance to hold him just once. His heart stopped.

Godzilla Earth slowly rose. Genuine hatred was a rare thing for it, but it felt that now. Even more so than when it felt the Filius meet its demise. The last annoying pest managed to catch it while it had its shield down, too busy firing its beam to ensure the other one was dead. Its hand inspected the glowing wound, molten flesh rubbing off on it. The extreme heat had cauterized tissue that could treat magma like a warm bath, an impressive feat; but clearly, a fluke given it could plainly see the corpse sprawled on top of the other one’s body with the servum eagerly closing around both.

Oh well, it need not harp upon details. Togetherness just made fixing this blemish upon its perfect world easier. A beam was charged up, but the arcs of energy that made up the rays that had slew hundreds of millions of sapient souls instead arched inside the chest wound and conducted off the charred flesh. Godzilla Earth grumbled in pain, canceling the charge to avoid harming itself as it hunched over from the short circuit with a groan.

Damn pest, daring to wound it like the moth goddess once had. In the end, they both paid for it with their lives; unfit for its world. Willing the regeneration to accelerate and close the wound over time, Godzilla Earth instead opted to slowly trudge forward and dismember the bodies by tooth and claw. It had been so, so long since it needed to do such. About 18,000 years in fact. The last was against the sole remaining creature resembling the lizard it smote with its tail earlier, that annoying race bred so quickly their youths could equal the servum’s numbers in some cases. The campaign lasted centuries and eventually devolved into a death march across the planet, Godzilla Earth steadily chasing every last Zilla down to bring their end. The last one, in a fit of maternal rage, pounced at it to protect or avenge her destroyed eggs. The Mountain that Walked crushed her head in its jaws, slowly.

Not out of annoyance at how long the extermination of the last kaiju took, but merely because it could. Supremacy had dominion in its very nature. Sapience mattered not to interfere with the natural order. It was not an aberration, it was progression. It was this world now, for the world was it. And in doing so, it was not just a king; but a god.

That was why anything not of itself must perish, their very existence was an act of unholy defiance.

Such was the nature of the lights before it. Godzilla Earth looked on, still mending its chest and unable to fire its beam, as the inexplicable occurred. The body of the last defier was slowly vanishing, turning into will-o-wisps of azure lights and sparks that began to churn around the form of its progeny. And it wasn’t alone. From the rubble of the shattered cliffside where the lizard’s bisected remains had come crashing down, green flickers raced across the ground. And brought forth by some slow wind, light sapphire sparks trickled up from the chasm that had been the ancient archosaur’s grave. They joined the azure orbs, creating sparks and embers visible for miles across the night sky. Something was happening to the body that remained. The snap of bones and writhing of sinew became a symphony of heinous across the killing field.

The ruler of this world wouldn’t permit such. Neglecting its own health, it stunted its pain from energy crackling across its chest wound and fired a massive, blue stream of smiting judgment upon the mass; enveloping it in repeated blasts whose energy reacted with the glowing embers of past heroes in a fantastic eruption that formed a mushroom cloud.

In a way, if fate were real it would be poetic as the blast repeatedly rained down upon the land. For in almost every world except this one so far, the billowous curtain of radiation by the act of man or depths of ancient nature, of which was such an affront to the normal order of the world, was the cradle for a Godzilla. This world had merely lagged behind by 20,000 years…

Godzilla Earth paused its fire for a moment, the searing feeling in its chest demanding it. Energy sparked between the open wound, sizzling metallic, root-like flesh inside the gash and threatening to burst it open. But it soon paid little heed to that and instead to the blinding image before it. Reaching up to tear out Zilla’s scute at last to free its eye socket, Godzilla Earth regrew the orb to better behold, or more aptly leer, at the transgression of life that refused to die.

A far distance away, a new set of non-human eyes regarded the emerging form with a mixture of awe and masked bewilderment hidden behind a stoic facade. Standing apart from the Houtua, the bleach blonde and skinned alien might have looked human, but the soul was anything but. This world never seemed to stop creating surprises, both before and after his people arrived there and encouraged an arrogant human to come back. He’d thought their divine judgment had been established, destined, and to make way for the planet eater. The future predicted by the Gematron said such, and their path of devotion had fulfilled it. The machines were perfect, they themselves were perfect. Impossibilities and chaos were myths and what fools who couldn't comprehend what lords of creation decreed called complexity.

But these four creatures wrought true chaotic madness to the ordained scheme, an affront to the order of the universe. Even the law of nature seemed broken so that chaos might reign. If the divine beasts predicted by the future were acts of the heavens to smite the wicked along perfect, numeric paths, any outlier of the system must be the oppose. Not devils, not demons, for those, were agents of the divine who ordained opposite; but an antithesis. Antimatter to the matter, Anti-gods to the gods. The figure he witnessed, barely more than a skeleton with ash and charred ligaments as its flesh and the fires of its cradle as its body, managed to stand. It took a step forward, a sack of organs and muscle regrowing and compounding atop each other.

Metphies witnessed the swaying tail, shielding armor joined fast to one another, how the mighty servum retreated in terror at its thrashing rise. Even at its shorter stature, it seemed to look down upon Godzilla Earth, a king over the proud.

A cold sensation crossed his back and encircled his eyes. Spreading his arms, his lips moved on their own as a poem, created by an ancient lance-bearing human philosopher, perhaps a prophet of chaos and the antithesis to himself, escaped his lips as he looked upon the blazing skeleton standing tall.

None are its equal, none can stand against its might

For it is a creature that knows no fear

And brings death and devastation to all within sight.

It advanced out of the destruction of its birth, a hateful mass of sinew and muscle spreading over bone. Rows of jagged plates bled glowing ichors and pauldrons resembling the lizard’s scutes sprouting from the shoulders.

Four voices each loose a noble roar

But unite into one howl of flame

As the Leviathan seeks to win its war.

Brilliant redness pooled in the eye sockets, inky sclera encircling blazing irises so bright their color was indistinguishable. Fangs lengthened in a disorderly manner, too many being crammed into the mouth to the point the lips never returned to make room. From the cheeks sprouted tusks and from the tail a span of spines.

Wounds do not harm it, its blood does not dry

Its hatred and anger do not permit death

It cannot be subdued, such hopes are a lie

Pillars for legs and dense armor plating of the ancient became apparent across broad arms from the old king. The burnt gray skin was perforated by raw power, bloody fires from within blazing between the scales. It was no King of the Monsters. Methpies felt cold, so cold and so frigid his mind seemed to suffer frostbite despite the forest all around him being ablaze. He dropped to his knees, unable to comprehend the chaotic force before him.

Its fury seems senseless, but the rage does have cause

Its bloody screams are filled with anguish and pain

For the chaos in its heart gives even nightmares pause.

And so it was called, this chaotic God of Destruction, Leviathan.

Jaws spread farther than they should have been able too in a roar that sounded like four of its kind twisted together atop the bellow of Tokyo’s destroyer, wreathed in a tide of flames that washed over it like a storming ocean, the Leviathan gave its intent. One hundred and fifty meters in height, it stomped towards Godzilla Earth undeterred. Almost healed enough to use its atomic breath, the titan of this world instead turned about and swung its tail as the extremity crackled with energy. A scythe of energy came forth with the swing, cleaving the air and several hills in two.

Flames were shouted out, the forest was obliterated, and an advance was paused. Godzilla Earth slowly looked back to observe, but much to its displeasure it did not witness the bisected torso of the new monstrosity joining the cleaved mountains and hills. The Leviathan still stood, its tail slowly swaying behind it with no heed paid to the gash across its chest that bled glowing, liquid light. It wasn’t a deep wound and it promptly shrank before the moment even passed, the blood that oozed out being recalled back into the body in a most uncanny display as the scales and sinew replenished and sewed themselves back together. The dense scutes from the Ancient sprouted across the chest to spread and thicken into a plastron shielding its chest.

Unblinking, stoic eyes dared the ruler of this world to try it again and such was done. The charge wasn’t as significant, owing to a quicker time, but the moment that followed could practically be heard across the span and time of this Terra. Godzilla Earth’s assaults had been resisted before, first by the heroic cyborg that battled against it in the long march, then by the moth goddess who managed to deflect one of its rays in ages past, and in the modern time of the future with the nanometal city just barely being able to dampen its beam of judgement. But the impossibility of an attack bouncing off a foe with barely a scratch had never once occurred. Yet that’s what seemed to happen, when the crescent wave of energy rocketed forward, made impact, and then careened off into the sky to explode somewhere in the high atmosphere.

After a passing gale blew past it, the Leviathan lowered its torso. Servum took to the air in droves to protect their master, flanking around to come up behind the Leviathan in a snapping horde numbering in the dozens as the call to arms was put out across the whole of Japan with more and more coming. A blinding light overtook the spaces between the Leviathan’s back plates. With eyes glowing like the rays of dawn to cast beams across the land, the hues of light went from fiery orange to mixtures of reds and purples. Thick geysers of plasma spewed forth from vents across the back situated between the plates, first rapidly spreading out into jets of fire and smog before condensing.

The servum were largely fried to shriveled masses of vaporizing eyes and charred flesh even before the intense beams of purple with encircling spirals of red and bolts of gold carved through the flock. Uproars of death shrieks and the sound of hundreds of tons of falling ashes filled the night. The emissions shifted again, reducing in number but increasing in size to incorporate traits of the Old King’s breath. The Leviathan extended its legs and launched itself from the ground. Pushed ahead with a force that far exceeded gravity, the composite saurian deity used the beams spewing out of it's back to rocket itself towards Godzilla Earth with a bloodthirsty roar of anguish.

The resulting crash sent forth a shockwave that leveled trees and shuddered hills, blowing back tons of debris and ash across the burning forest. Godzilla Earth’s jaws flew open in a mute roar, unable to call out when every fiber of its gargantuan mass was sent hurtling back. It struggled, grabbing and clawing at the Leviathan that held it around its chest to continue and drag it along for the flight. Hundreds of meters flew by in seconds and an impact into Mount Fuji did little to impede them. Ramming into the iconic volcano with the force of a nuclear warhead, the top of that ancient monolith stood no chance. Thousands of meters of rock were crushed, burned, and shoved aside until the two finally hit an open space, a hollow cavity within Mount Fuji.

Or at least it had been hollow until their entry all but tore the top off the mountain. Evidently, an eruption had occurred sometime between man largely leaving this world in the 2030s and the present year, dried, smooth, black magma rock encrusting the walls as well as once forming the roof. But light soon not of the stars or living occupants soon came upon Mount Fuji.

The Leviathan twisted around after Godzilla Earth bashed the smaller kaiju with its tail, batting the transgressor aside and loosening its grip. Knowing it was about to lose grip upon this titan anyways, the Leviathan almost seemed to smirk. Letting go of Godzilla Earth’s torso, it let it drop for a moment before snatching the living mountain’s throat with its arm. Elongated talons dug into the bark-ish hide. Feeling Godzilla Earth grip its forelimb with titanic strength and revving its afterburners to full capacity, the Leviathan cocked back its arm and dove forward towards the dried magma chamber wall. With an arm thrust, it shoved Godzilla Earth’s face into the wall and flew across it and the floors, carving a thick groove into the stone amidst a shower of sparks with its enemy’s face as the plow. Jostled by the impact explosion and with its casing fractured by the trench dug, the bubbling, burning mass beneath the surface stone sloshed up.

Godzilla Earth twisted its head around to avoid having its eyes gouged out by the passing stone, blue lights sparking across its body to condense around its head and face. Because the Leviathan was still holding onto it, however, the energy conducted between them both, building upon itself in a feedback loop to a brightness that outshone the waves of lava. Just as Godzilla Earth wanted when it opened its maw and roared an oscillating bellow.

The eruption and explosion were visible even back in the ruins of Mechagodzilla City and Houtua settlement. As baffled as the onlookers might be as to the nature of the four warriors from parts unknown and the nature of the ascension, they knew what was transpiring was the matters beyond mortals; into the realms of legend. The clash of a force of nature and something that exceeded nature, the question at hand was a matter of whom was who.

Godzilla Earth silently glared at the opposition, regenerating its missing tissue and absorbing the thermal energy and background radiation coming off the magma and combatants that remained contained within the chamber. It would have laughed had it ever truly emoted, as its photocells went into overdrive and absorbed the latent heat and light. The swell of energy had a palpable effect, causing The Burning Mountain as the Houtua called it, to darken in hues with molten light erupting between its fibers. If Godzilla Filius could be compared to a tree and its progenitor to a forested mountain when it first emerged, it could now only be thought of as a volcano molded into a saurian shape. It had tapped into a portion of this state in full against the humans and their constructed city, but not to nearly the same degree. There were no stops to be pulled out, just like when it slaughtered the insect goddess. In some ways, this opponent had earned that honor. And the living mountain’s disdain.

The Leviathan stalked about, slowly circling around the rim of the magma chamber shrouded in thick gouts of ash and smog, only the occasional breaches in the floor that spewed out more magma illuminated its form. With a sweep of its tail, it smothered the glow and vanished, thick smog blotting out even its own burning glow.

Suddenly, with barely any charge time, a magnificent burst of red plasma spewed forth and swept across the magma chamber. It impaled through the back wall and shot off into the night sky, easily cleaving a hole into Mount Fuji’s side in its wake. The beam seemed to spiral as it drilled through all matter, even reaching the upper atmosphere with no issue before it was cut off. The smog, having another means to be vented off and towed by the intense force, was partially pulled free of the chamber; and act that between itself and the intensity of the magma’s glow, more brightly illuminated the chamber.

Godzilla Earth fully canceled its assault, looking about for where its foe had gone. The chamber looked like something from the writings of Dante, but with nary a demon in sight. Privy to the Leviathan’s ability to fly or at least propel itself, knowing eyes gazed upwards as it kept at the ready.

The ground exploded in oncoming ferocity as if a tidal wave of lava had suddenly been summoned. The Leviathan, having almost dove into the chamber floor through a combination of its components’ ability to swim and Zilla’s burrowing skills, had dug under the chamber and swam through the magma to launch its ambush. Erupting from the ground in a sea of lithic hellfire, it smashed a crackling tail full of energy into Godzilla Earth’s midsection. The hyper-intensified nuclear pulse, gold in color, all but destroyed a large chunk of Godzilla Earth’s midsection. If it had organs, they’d have been disemboweled with ease. Undeterred, Godzilla Earth threw open its jaws and let free a massive roar. The oscillatory pressure wave needed no charge time in this state, and easily hit with the force of several kilotons to knock the smaller kaiju back and blast it back into the lava pools. For miles, the god of this world’s roar was heard continuously.

Unrelenting, Godzilla Earth continued the roar as it advanced forward, intending to entomb its foe within the fiery depths. With the Leviathan pinned down from the force, there’d be nothing to stop its red sparking dorsal spines from charging a loosed red charged particle beam again; this time the asteroid buster of a judgment was guaranteed to have a direct hit.

The tide shifted. A geyser of nuclear flames started to push the oscillatory waves back. It shifted, first turning green, and then blue, white. Intensifying in both blinding brightness and force, when the beam finally overtook Godzilla Earth’s attack it could most favorably be compared to a thin purple line of energy encircled in spiraling flames that had fiery lightning twisting around it. Overpowered entirely, Godzilla Earth felt the ray fly into its mouth and combust on impact. The purple ray shot out the back of its neck in a manner that, had it a skeleton, would have easily crippled the destroyer. But biology regardless, the fact the spiraling reds and sparking golds utterly destroyed the sides of Godzilla Earth’s face to the point its jaw was left dangling limply certainly hurt.

But as the beams of spewed ray died away, they returned in full as the entirety of Mount Fuji shook, as if Heaven and Earth both quaked. Exploding forth from its attempted tomb, fiery lights erupting from numerous places upon its loathsome form and wreathed in the tsunami of hurled magma. Godzilla Earth whipped around as its shattered jaw sparked and started to mend itself, the Leviathan doing the same. Energy waves roared across their bodies and into the two’s tails, two unstoppable forces colliding. All sound was shouted out, condensing before rapidly expanding into an enormous shockwave that tore the innards of the volcano apart.

Mount Fuji, that 120,000-year megalith of nature didn’t erupt. It met its end by exploding. Lava, burned rock, ash, and dust was thrown out every-which-way for kilometers in a fiery end that could be seen across the corpse of Japan and felt across the planet. The world never seemed to stop shaking, like it would be torn asunder from its core. The only souls who didn’t throw themselves to the ground in prayers or pleas for life were the two at the epicenter of the explosion.

Burning earth and ash constantly falling down as a hail of fireballs and exploding rocks all around it, Godzilla Earth took a blow to the stomach that reverberated through its whole body in a shockwave in such a manner that surely would have shattered bones if it had any. Its foe had morphed again, growing in size. Now it was closer to 200 meters tall and closing the gap between itself and its foe. Godzilla growled and withstood the tremors, returning form by swinging down with a taloned, burning paw that ended up only swiping at blazing magma when the Leviathan leaped up. The pulses of energy constantly radiating off the titan. Fiery ballistic projectiles still raining down from above, hundred-ton hunks of rock molten and solid, exploded on contact with invisible energy pulses radiating off the monstrosity. Activating its dorsal vents, it took to the air with purple rays and spiral fire beams constantly raining down on the ground. It twisted around while flying upwards, rending the landscape and setting swaths of forest on fire by radiating temperature alone.

Godzilla Earth erected its shield, a bubble of brilliance deflecting the rays with visible difficulty. The heat was so intense that just the convecting temperatures coming through the air were melting parts of Godzilla Earth’s hide and causing it to smoke. Eyes that had long held a stoic gaze for thousands of years widened in shock. It was at its absolute peak and yet one thing just became abundantly clear from both each successive beam becoming more and more intense and the radiating power it could sense coming from the Leviathan even as it hovered hundreds of meters above it.

The Leviathan, every minute, every second, every fraction of a moment that incalculable wrath existed, was getting stronger. It wasn’t as if it was the four intruders compiled together, but multiplied to one another in a gradually increasing factor.

Crimson and burning eyes loosed untold wrath at the world around it. An intense magnetic field was generated, a power gained from the slain Old King. As it ascended, intense heat and pulses of energy conducted off the God of Destruction, igniting the metallic spore and ash clouds that made up the upper atmosphere. A curtain of blazing light spread across the sky like a wave a fire, burning countless tons of altered tree pollen and particulates. The intense energy emission flash fried all but the metallic parts of the particles, creating a cloud of conductive matter the energy and magnetic waves worked off of. In a fantastic roar, a shockwave of red energy burst forth from the Leviathan.

Far above in the Aratrum, the last stronghold of the endangered species called humanity, the occupants gawked at their screens in a mix of awe and horror. The sensors had detected it before any eyes did, but the advanced monitors and gauges had suffered almost immediate overload and shutdown if the technicians could get to them in time. Many weren’t so lucky, fire extinguishers sounding off across the ship along with the warning sirens.

The captain, a prematurely aged man with gray hair, short beard, and a diagonal scar going across his left eye, manned an extinguisher to hose down what had been his helm computer. Former deputy captain of the Gotengo before it was brought down, Unberto Mori, had been put in charge of the colony ship when it frantically left Earth behind with the express purpose of protecting the last vestiges of humanity and their allies. And so far, the colony ship's mission had gone to Hell in a handbasket in two decades of voyage and especially in the last forty-eight hours. He knew it was a bad idea to come back to this forsaken planet, human pride be damned. He knew it was a horrible idea to send anyone down there when the sensors picked up a familiar roar he knew from experience. Right now he was deciding between who he wanted to throttle more, Haruo for being the catalyst of this return to the homeworld or Metphies for supplying Haruo the means to do so, assuming either of them was still alive.

“Sensors are all down!”, some helmswoman yelled out from a smoking room adjacent to the command deck.

Captain Mori looked to a technician fruitlessly trying to get a system computer back online across the room from him, “It’s no use! You, get the front windows open so we can see what in God’s name is going on down there!”

The young man stiffened but nodded, hitting the release button as Mori went to put out a bonfire that had once been their navigation computer. Finally getting annoying, beeping fire alarm off, he couldn’t help but notice that aside from the sounds of the fires dying away, he could’ve heard a pin drop in the room behind him when the metallic world of the window shutters pulling back stopped. Huffing and coughing from exertion and a bit of smoke inhalation, Captain Mori couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense of dread that had befallen him. He really didn’t want to turn around and look out the window to see what everyone was gawking at. But so far this job entailed a lot of things he really didn’t like.

“... What is it?!”

Only silence and muted swears floated across his back into his ears. The captain closed his eyes, opening into a broken stare and an even more broken, almost whispered command.

“What is it?....”

“S-Sir…” A tiny whimper came to him, “...the sky is on fire.”

When Captain Mori turned around, he didn’t know what surprised him more after this visit to a planet of nightmares. The fact some of the Exif were mysteriously sprinting off to God knew where, the typically battle hungry Bilusaludo looked as pale as sheets, or the fact that exactly what the helmsman had said was true. Evidently, more than just the mission had gone to Hell.

To any looking up into the sky or down at the planet from space, they’d see a curtain of fire spreading across Japan, being pursued by a shell of constant lightning, engulfing the sky. Like a spark in a tinderbox, the fire and electrical storm rapidly spread out in all directions. The inferno showed no signs of stopping its advance even as the lightning within it arced back to the epicenter. The Leviathan continued to rain down beams of plasma and shockwaves in every direction like living Apocalypse for this planet of monsters. And it wasn’t aimless. Everything Godzilla Earth had spawned or corrupted was burning. Even with the beams flying around seemingly at random, everywhere that the Leviathan sensed traces of Godzilla Earth was bombarded with unrelenting force, even down to the very genome of the plant and animal life. Those that tried to rise to the defense of their master were struck down immediately; Those that tried to hide did so underground and had the earth torn asunder around them, or in swaths of ocean that were vaporized, or in the heights of the sky where they met their end by fire and lightning.

What Godzilla Earth had taken centuries to do to the old world was happening in a matter of minutes and might be finished in a matter of hours to the new world it had forged in its own image. It might well be over by the day’s end if Godzilla Earth didn’t act.

The blinding light coming across its body was the stuff of magnificence, blotting out even the burning glow of the magma and firestorm it stood in. The metallic bonds that created its body started to warp and melt from the blaze, the crackling energy coming forth from them shifting from blue to red to white. It gazed upon the swirling mass of plasma, lightning, and fire that created a second Sun several kilometers above it. The Leviathan started to turn and rotate, the eye of its own monstrous hurricane. It began to descend with murderous resolve.

A roar heard around the world from its master rang out and the beam that would make all that came before it look paltry knifed into the air. Radiating splinters of energy shot out in a fan around the Leviathan when it was struck. They eviscerated the upper atmosphere, some raking across the Moon in such a way one could claim they saw the rays go right through the celestial.

And yet the descending funnel cloud from the hurricane of fire and lightning kept coming, its blinding eye spinning and charged with energy. When it struck, the Mount Fuji Plateau became the Mount Fuji crater when the Leviathan surged into it.

Godzilla Earth wasn’t fighting anymore. It was getting slaughtered. The impact force had destroyed much of its exterior body, physically shrinking it somewhat even as its regeneration worked on overdrive to mend it. Most of its dorsal spines had been completely blown off, half its face was missing as was all of its left arm with the accompanying half of the shoulder and torso, and it could barely stand on half crushed-in right leg and the chart mass that used to be its left leg. And it could feel the agony to a level it never imagined along with something else. A reverberating footstep, the booming echo that many worlds heard on Odo island in 1954.

Power radiated onto it, still increasing every moment. It was over 250 meters tall now, and scaling with mass to such a point the world shook with every step. Still every bit the wrath of an angry god. The Exif had prophecies about beasts of the great power that came upon the haughty and the arrogant, those who fancied themselves masters of their domain and abused that power. For the species who pronounce themselves as lords of creation, a divine avenger will pay them a visit.

Godzilla Earth felt itself being grabbed by the head and dragged out of the crater. It went airborne, thrown hundreds of meters and crashing back down upon the same mountain it had initially burst from. Its nest it reforged the world from to become the tomb in which its creation died.

Another roar was heard over the horizon. A being of blue energy stretched across the landscape and struck the Leviathan on the back. It was like shooting a tank with a water pistol, but it got its attention. Burning crimson eyes trained on a Godzilla Filius. The sole survivor of its brood, it had sensed the plight of its sibling and then parent and courageously stomped forward.

The Leviathan gazed upon the young monster prince. Its thoughts were impossible to discern, assuming it was thinking at all. If one were privy to the details of its components, one might wonder what might be going through its mind when it witnessed a child rushing to save their parent. Zilla might perhaps remember a chance meeting between a repentant scientist and a young lizard in the depths of the destroyed nest when the former took pity on the latter. Gojira might recall a calm time in the Permian period where he oversaw the hatching of both his nest and those of his sister, greeting the site of both his own progeny and the faces of his nieces and nephews. The Showa Godzilla could reminisce back to a chance journey to a distant island after receiving a call in the depths of his mind that led him to a son, perhaps the fond memory of embracing his child as the snow fell around them. And Godzilla Junior might get an eerie sense of déjà vu at the sight of a monster prince being near his dying father before a monstrous mutation snatched the young kaiju up and sent him to his doom.

Miana and Maina, safe back in the Houtua Caverns and hobbled up against their goddess’ egg, were stoic in shock and fright, almost catatonic after trying to connect with the sacred egg and look into the mind of the destroying god. Four souls screaming in agony. Out of control.

The Leviathan had none of it. It had no conscience. No reasoning. Just a need to destroy. To destroy anything and everything that bore Godzilla Earth’s taint. Upon the graves of four heroes was spawned a reincarnation of the vengeance that turned Tokyo into a fireball in 1954.

The monster prince was snatched off his feet when the monstrous mutation rocketed into him. It tried to fire its beam, tried to summon now virtually extinct servum to its aid. It didn’t get the chance as two arms shot towards it. Bladed spines burst from the tops of the Leviathan’s wrists and similarly burst out of Filius’ back. The Leviathan snapped its arms to the side and the prince fell down in three pieces that were probably vaporized under a roar and geyser of burning lights.

Godzilla Earth could only watch on as Leviathan, wreathed in flames and the ashes of Earth’s direct progeny, slowly turned around. It began to start forward, a dark mass with broad spines crowning its shoulders and eyes like the radiance of dawn.

Usually, in most worlds, nature has a way sometimes of reminding man of just how small he is. She occasionally throws up terrible offsprings of our pride and carelessness to remind us of how puny we really are in the face of a tornado, an earthquake, or a Godzilla. The reckless ambitions of man are often dwarfed by their dangerous consequences.

It still fought back, for every extra minute, extra second of life it might buy. Like the humans, it vanquished who threw themselves at it in their nuclear weapons and war machines. Like a kaiju as they tried to defend their nests and homes. Godzilla Earth never accepted any life form not like itself having any right to exist, and yet so many had resisted it. Now it was resisting its own grim reaper.

This world was an outlier. In this world, it was the reckless ambitions of a kaiju who were called to task and judgment. In some remote way, Godzilla Earth could understand why this had happened. All of the needless destruction, needless slaughter, and devastation it had wrought come back to haunt it. The Leviathan was its own personal Godzilla.

Godzilla Earth swung its tail with all of its might and energy. The Leviathan caught it and wrenched the titan around, shoving it into the ground. Stomping on Godzilla Earth’s back to shattered dorsal spines and dent its tissue, it started pulling. It only lasted a moment or two but Godzilla Earth was kicked away and rolled across the ground feeling much lighter. When a tried to rise it was struck down by a heavy force. Glimpses of sight were only begotten as parts of the body were bashed in. The Leviathan, whom could end it all in one gigantic burst of energy, was beating it to death with its own dismembered body parts. Taking the end of the tail with its sharp tip to bear, the Leviathan stomped onto Godzilla Earth’s chest to hold it still before driving the tail through its stomach. Jamming the tail into a gaping wound upon the stomach, it burst out Godzilla Earth’s back and pinned the living mountain to the valley wall.

Tossing the broken and charred upper half of the tail aside, the Leviathan pounced. It’s intense heat melted what it touched on contact and titanic strength tore hunks of flesh out. A chunk of the shoulder, a leg, one slash from a wrist blade emptied out Godzilla Earth’s stomach. The Burning Mountain that Walked pathetically grabbed at its assailants face, only to have its hand and arm bit into. With a yank of its neck, the Leviathan tore the arm off and jammed its own hand into the hole within the shoulder.

With a clench of the fist, the wrist spike returned while the hand was still inside Godzilla Earth, stabbing into more inner tissue. With jerks and twists of its arm, the Leviathan carved pieces out of their holdings. The Leviathan sensed the radiation and energy within and began to seize it. Blue sparks traveled up its arm and into its body, siphoned from Godzilla Earth. The Leviathan’s maw and eyes burned with blazing lights to end this. It only paused for a moment to glance to the forest around it at the notice of a particular detail.

The trees, hearty structures that incorporated Godzilla Earth’s genes so much they could bend steel and snap a knife, were largely ablaze and crumbling. But the ones only touched by the spreading flames rather than a direct impact were holding on, and there still existed patches of foliage saved from the inferno. If given time, th