Entry #4

Subject Classification:

Aliases & Subtitles:

The Second Plague

Gimantis

Dual Blade Monster

Desert Ghost

Statistics:

Height: ~2 meters (~6 feet, 7 inches) to ~50 meters (~164 feet)

Wingspan: ~2.4 meters (~7 feet, 11 inches) to ~60 meters (~197 feet)

Mass: ~63 kilograms (~139 pounds) to ~7,400 metric tons (~8,200 short tons)

Destruction Scale: Category 1.5 (mature nymph)

Height: ~65 meters (~213 feet)

Wingspan: ~78 meters (~256 feet)

Mass: ~17,200 metric tons (~19,000 short tons)

Destruction Scale: Category 2.0

BIO:

The Middle-East was subject to many ongoing proxy wars and conflicts, including the rise of the Yemeni Civil War by March of 2015 and followed by a controversial Saudi Arabian-led intervention, codenamed Operation: Decisive Storm, in the subsequent May. Be that as it may, the working of a dangerous international dispute was stirring. By June of that year, Jeddah, the capital of the Saradia Republic, fell under siege by the Islamic State in a catastrophe that hadn’t been seen since the BioMajor bombing of the Saradia Institute of Biotechnology in 1984.

A series of elaborately planned explosives crippled the Jeddah Air Base, a military facility operated by the Saradian Air Force and used to station US troops. The US forces tried to take counterterrorism measures, as mass destruction broke out in the area. The attack moved out of Jeddah’s perimeters and into the Hijaz Mountains, where the pursuit continued. It wasn’t until a suicide bomber detonated that hollow grounds were unearthed, turning the situation from bad to worse.

Released from their ancient tomb, the ISIS and US led forces witnessed the rise of grotesque monstrosities. Emerging from the mountainside, the gigantic mantid creatures crushed and slaughtered every soul present. From there, they quickly spread across the region, most of them being led by the largest member of the species. Though initially reported as “GIMANTIS” by Peter Fernandez, a journalist for PPC News, these anomalies were later identified as KAMACURAS by Hachiro Jinguji, a Japanese paleontologist who survived the Jeddah attack.

With the Air Base in disrepair, Jeddah was vulnerable to the pressing attack by the Kamacuras. The Saradian Navy and Ground troops, backed by the United States, waged war against the abnormalities of nature. The casualties in the crossfire combined with those devoured by the Kamacuras accounted for nearly 1.6 million of Jeddah’s 4.2 million populace. Although military force proved effective against the Kamacuras nymphs, the adult was resilient to conventional fire. Thereafter, the Kamacuras swarm began to spread out all across Saradia and invading parts of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It was a grueling and tedious 72 hours after the attack on Jeddah that the United States deployed a pair of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to deal with the adult Kamacuras. Even with the mantid’s camouflage ability, the US was able to land a direct hit (after crippling one of its wings) with the Massive Ordinance Penetrators (MOP), killing the gargantuan insect out in the Arabian Desert.

Unfortunately, the struggle only continued. As Saradia licked its wounds and tried to cope with the following economic freefall and displaced survivors, its Yemeni and Saudi neighbors were hard pressed against the remaining nymphs. With the undeveloped armor of the Kamacuras nymphs and the majority of the swarm being spread thin, the battle slowly turned in favor of humanity, axing the mantises off one by one.

Days after the fall of the adult Kamacuras, an unexpected nightmare scenario came to fruition. During the Battle of Sana’a, Yemen against the last of the nymphs, another adult Kamacuras and its brood broke free from Jabal an Nabi Shu'ayb, one of Yemen’s tallest mountains located nearly 41 kilometers west of the city. The following attack was nothing short of a ruthless display of primal savagery; not a single person of the approximate 4 million people was spared during the Kamacuras takeover. All US forces deployed to deal with the Kamacuras were destroyed, including the B-2 bombers used to kill the first one. This horrific event would be later known as the Second Plague, named after the biblical plagues inflicted upon Egypt.

This crippled Yemen’s infrastructure, leading to a nationwide collapse. Civilians from the surrounding cities were forced to migrate to Saradia, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. Without treatment and humanitarian aid, the tribulation took the lives of over 10 million people; most of whom died from prolonged heat exposure, starvation, and viral diseases. The surrounding countries struggled to care for the refugees as resources were sparse and lay thin in the wake of the Kamacuras uprising. All the while, the remnants of ISIS in the Arabian Peninsula retreated, using the publicity as a means to spread the message of the oncoming apocalypse and that the End of Days was drawing near.

Over time, Yemen would eventually become a no-man’s land, with the entire country flooded with Kamacuras and its nymphs. Congruent to this, Saudi Arabia and Saradia were unable to export oil and goods overseas, causing massive hyperinflation across the globe. The United Nations proposed the usage of chemical warfare against the Kamacuras swarm in hopes of extermination, though even this would prove to be a divisive split among the UN council.

Months after the fall of Yemen, classified information began to circulate across the Internet regarding prior knowledge of the existence of these monsters and scarce details concerning [REDACTED]. According to the leaked intel, the team involved with the 1967 Solgell Island deep freeze experiments reported of mammoth fossilized mantids that were scattered across the lonely island. In addition, they also noted of potential human activity merely decades old, implying then-recent activity that had gone unreported.

No comments have been made by the higher ups and no evidence can prove whether the leaks have any validation or not.

Adaptations / Characteristics:

The wings, normally tucked in its sides, can unfurl and grant Kamacuras the ability to fly at incredible speeds. They can also arrange their body in a specialized “attack mode” when using their guillotine claws. Specialized patterns on the wings are often used as a warning in the event they are spotted.

Unlike most insects, the Kamacuras lineage has camouflage characteristics more in line with the chameleon or cephalopod, being able to alter its chromatophores to match its surroundings. Being able to blend in to any environment, this form of camouflage can be used to spring coordinated group assaults. They are also born with natural camouflage prowess, being able to hide in mountainous terrain until they develop their more advanced methods.

Kamacuras and the brood are all equipped with armored forelimbs that are incredibly hard-hitting and simultaneously resilient to close-quarter attacks and conventional weaponry. Kamacuras is able to wield these deadly scythes as a guillotine when in “attack mode,” a specialized flight pattern using built up speed to gore the target (potentially snapping them in half or cut clean through). There exist pivots in the pincers that stiffen upon collision, acting as shock absorbers and prevent serious self-inflicting injuries.

All Kamacuras have two large compound eyes and three smaller simple eyes. This grants the mantids extraordinary vision, and according to several popular hypothesis among the scientific community gives Kamacuras an over 270 degree view of its environment. They are also highly reactive and hypersensitive to the subtlest of movement, often giving them a chance to avoid serious injury in most conditions.

A distinct physiological trait is the sensory organs that are often correlated to antennae in modern mantises. These parts double as olfactory and auditory receptors which can retract into the head and sprout out of two sets of specialized pores. The first set are located under the compound eyes, most commonly used when a Kamacuras is grounded and not in flight or attack mode; the second set are closer to the upper part of the head, echoing what’s seen in modern mantises.

The main brain of a Kamacuras is located where the thorax and abdomen connect, whereas the lesser brain is found in the head. Very few reports from the initial wave indicate that a Kamacuras could survive headless until death by starvation, so long as the main brain remained intact.

KaijuX’s Notes:

First off, major props if you can guess where Kamacuras’s turquoise eyes and the name Peter Fernandez derive from.

Granted, a minor alteration to the eye color, but it still exists in the family nonetheless.

Kamacuras was definitely a fun one to design, taking from the Showa incarnation (with a nice dash of the GFW counterpart in there). While I originally envisioned Kamacuras having asymmetrical claws like the Showa one, it was SeaGuns’s idea to make them into a guillotine-esque in nature. This decision just all around helped streamline the design into something that hits like a truck but maintains a sense of maneuverability. Any similarities to the original Megaguirus may or may not be coincidental.

Though because our Kamacuras serves as the “speedy hard hitter” that the original Megaguirus was, definitely expect a radically different Megaguirus (and family) that’s less speedy and highlights more vampirism qualities when we get to her.

SeaGuns96’s Notes:

Credits:

The following is a collaborative effort between

and

and is not affiliated with Toho Co. Ltd. Godzilla and all related characters and designs are trademarks and property of Toho Co. Ltd. These are works of fan art / fan fiction and not for commercial use. This is a non-profit project to express our love for the franchise. Any commercial uses of these artworks are strictly prohibited.

Honorable mentions to

,

,

,

, and

for the tips, suggestions, and proofreading--extra ideas and input are always appreciated!

Also be sure to visit

, where you can help support his long-term career as an artist!

Given how diverse the mantid family is, Kamacuras has definitely been the most interesting kaiju to tackle so far. Most mantids have evolved to resemble foliage, so I thought it would be interesting to speculate what Kamacuras would look like if it had evolved in a desert terrain. We wanted to base his head off of a ghost mantis from the very beginning of the conceptualization phase. However, the challenge came in making it practical for a kaiju that's intended to fly at high speeds to have such a large head. Therefore, I came up with the idea that Kamacuras could tilt his head crest back so that it fits into a groove on his thorax, lock his hind and front limbs together, and spread his wings to fly almost like an organic jet. And if you think that's cool, wait til we get to Battra