"Godzilla Vs Godzilla" - Part Seven

 

Part Seven

            Shikishima’s hands could not stop shaking. They haven’t been able to ever since the night he first encountered that giant reptile monster on Odo Island – the monster whose name he learned to be ‘Godzilla’ from Satoshi and Suri. He glimpsed their way every few seconds, trying to understand what it was they were doing near that unusual, hexagonal control console. Shikishima had never met women like them before, not even counting Noriko, who herself was baffled by their female rescuers. Neither of the Ginza survivors could comprehend the strange vessel they sat in or how its interior space transcended beyond its exterior space.

            It didn’t ease Shikishima’s nerves any with A.J. constantly staring at him and Noriko. The boy just stood across from them, not turning his eyes away for so much as a millisecond. It drove Shikishima to the point of lashing out at him. “Nani wa mi te iru n desu ka?!” (“What’re you staring at?!”)

            A.J. flinched and backed up slightly when Shikishima stood up and advanced.

            Noriko grabbed his left arm in a gesture of restraint. “Sheen wa tsukuru no wa yamero, orokamono me!” (“Stop making a scene, you fool!”)

            Shikishima refused to listen to reason. He kept his threatening gaze on A.J., inching closer to the frightened child, who verged on tears. It looked as if Shikishima would have put his hands on him, if Satoshi had not suddenly blocked Shikishima’s way and shielded A.J. Her chocolate-brown eyes meeting with his, she strictly (and boldly) told him, “Kono shou sanako wa chigai masu.” (“Not this little one.”)

            The fire in her eyes struck Shikishima cold. He had seen that fire before – in his mother’s eyes, whenever he did something that displeased her. It was enough to make him yield, cowering back to the corner where he and Noriko sat. He didn’t dare look A.J.’s way again afterwards.

            Satoshi huffed, grateful that she didn’t have to physically force Shikishima to submit. She recognized that the man suffered from PTSD, either from his service in World War II or from his latest encounter with Godzilla…or both.

            Hearing her great-grandson sniveling, she turned to him and knelt down to his level. “Hey now, it’s okay,” she cleansed the tears from his face with the back of her delicate hand. “Your great-granddad’s here to look out for you.” She reached into one of her rear pockets and retrieved a portable tablet with a multi-touch screen; attached to the sides of the tablet were red and blue controllers. “Your grandmama told me that it’s Christmas in your world, so I got ya this.”

            A.J.’s face beamed from the cool-looking tablet, which automatically switched on from the moment that he took it from Satoshi. There was a game preset to the device – a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

            “Did you know that your grandmother and I once met this lil’ fella?” she told A.J., who was already too engrossed to listen to her story. Snickering at her great-grandson, Satoshi gave him a peck on the cheek and left him to his game.

            She returned to the console where Suri half-noticed the gift presentation. “You’re spoiling him,” she teased her father.

            Satoshi shrugged with a smile. “It’s what we grandparents do.”

            “Well, I just hope Alan and Erica will be O.K. with it,” Suri said whilst dialing on the console keyboard and setting their destination for the New York Shatterdome. “I also hope we get back before that Savage Godzilla does…and that Pentecost hasn’t killed either of the other Godzillas yet.”

            Satoshi nodded in agreement. “Yeah. They’re our only hope.”

            No less than a moment later did they arrive at their destination.

            Disembarking from the Type-X TARDIS, they walked into the aftermath of a rather chaotic scene. All personnel rushed about, alarms blared from all directions, and there were substantial damages from what was supposed to have been a fortified pen, now left with a massive hole torn through one of the walls, offering a majestic view of New York island.

            “What happened here?!” Satoshi exclaimed.

            “Godzilla,” the shaky voice of a woman told them. Turning in the direction they heard it come from, they saw a disheveled Mako approach. She looked right at Suri with relieved eyes. “You’re alive.”

            Suri nodded. “Yes. Where’s my son?”

            “With a recon team,” Mako informed. “We found the nest belonging to the other Godzilla in Madison Square Garden. We were about to destroy it, until a third Godzilla emerged out of nowhere! Where are they all coming from?!”

            “Probably from the same place where our newest Godzilla came from,” Satoshi presumed.

            Mako regarded Satoshi’s presence with confusion. “Who’s this?” she asked Suri.

            “Remember my father?” Suri returned. “The curly-haired redhead who Dr. Geiszler had a huge crush on?” She nodded to Satoshi. “Now she’s the woman you see in front of you.”

            Satoshi waved with wiggling fingers to Mako. “Nice to see ya again.”

            Mako didn’t have time to process this. “Too much is happening as it is,” she huffed. “My father…”

            Noticing how distraught she was on the mentioning of the marshal, Suri grew concerned. “Nani ka mondai ga ari masu ka?” (“Is there something wrong?”)

            Overcome with emotion, Mako couldn’t answer outright.

            Instead, she brought them to the infirmary. There, Suri and Satoshi were disheartened to see a bedridden Stacker Pentecost. He looked much weaker than when Suri had last seen of him, having lost much of his color. Her Minion companions – Kevin, Stuart, and Bob – were at his bedside, acting like the incapable nurses they were and trying to nurse the marshal back to health, to no avail.

            With a single whistle, Suri called the trio’s attention away from Pentecost and on her. Kevin, Stuart, and Bob were elated to see her back, all of them shouting, “TO’RE KOI!” Suri figured that to translate as “You’re alive!” She shared in a brief group hug with her small yellow pals before tending to the gravely ill marshal, along with Satoshi.

            “You’re alive,” Pentecost rasped, looking on Suri with weak eyes. “I dreamt that I was surrounded by yellow Jelly Bean men in overalls.”

            “You were,” Suri tittered. “They were only trying to help.”

            “Your radiation poisoning has returned, hasn’t it?” Satoshi gathered.

            Pentecost gave a feeble nod. “Since a year ago.” He then realized how he was responding to what he perceived as a complete stranger and inquired, “Who the devil are you?”

            Satoshi smiled. “An old friend.”

            Stacker chuckled and coughed. “I don’t have very many of those left, do I?”

            “What can we do for you, Marshal?” Suri asked. “We were certain that sedative would work!”

            “And it did, Miss Neas,” the marshal reassured. “You gave me ten good extra years to see my children become the heroes of humanity… and I couldn’t be prouder of them!”

            Suri and Satoshi could hear Mako sniffling in the corner, no longer able to maintain a brave face in front of her dying father.

            “Now,” Stacker continued, “get out of here and help my son…and your son. They’re both in serious danger right now.”

            Suri didn’t want to leave his side, but she knew he was right.

            After entrusting Shikishima and Noriko to look after A.J., both Suri and Satoshi (with Kevin, Stuart, and Bob) departed in their TARDISes – Satoshi’s orb-shaped Type-X model and Suri’s domino-shaped Type-Z.

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            Jake was indebted to the emergency protocols in New York City, in which citizens were required to take cover in underground shelters in the event of a kaiju attack. The sudden fight he was locked into with the new Godzilla had taken its toll on his Jaeger. Gipsy was ravaged by every blow from the savage monster, ultimately robbing the last of the Jaegers of its right arm. A single swipe from its spiky tail brought the mechanical behemoth down, shutting all of its systems down and effectively killing Jake’s copilot.

            “I’M DOWN!” Jake cried into the comms, his face caked with his own blood.

            Through the cracked Conn-Pod viewscreen, he saw the Savage Godzilla loom over him, opening its mouth wide. The bluish-white glow manifested from the back of the monster’s throat, ready to finish off Jake and Gipsy with the fiercest of atomic breaths.

            Thankfully, they were spared by the only ally they had in this fight: Nick’s Godzilla.

            It clamped its jaws down on the Savage Godzilla’s throat, wounding it.

            Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be enough. The Savage retaliated by slamming both of their bodies through the Empire State Building. Nick’s Godzilla was forced to disengage from the unrelenting impact, as the building came down on them. Only the Savage emerged from the rubble, shrilling victoriously.

            It then made for the Madison Square Garden nest.

            Alan, Goku, Willys, Nick, and the rest of the Shatterdome team witnessed its gargantuan head peering through the hole and looking over all the eggs situated along the auditorium.

            “It sees the eggs!” the mortified Nick exclaimed.

            “Does it know that they belong to your Godzilla?” Willys asked him.

            “I think your question’s about to get answered,” Alan indicated from the Savage Godzilla’s opened glowing mouth, primed to eviscerate the nest and, by extension, the Shatterdome team.

            Willys gulped. “Well, you guys did want this nest destroyed!”

            “Yeah, but not with us up in it!” Alan griped.

            Suddenly, both men detected a bright glow from the corners of their eyes, followed by an intense heat that irradiated near their bodies. Before either them or the soldiers could figure where it came from, something shot up like a rocket from their position, moving faster than the blink of an eye until it stopped right along the path of the Savage Godzilla’s atomic breath.

            The blast was deflected by a streaming, powerful beam of energy…

            …that was unleashed by Goku!

            The explosive reaction from the connected energies was immense, rocking the Savage Godzilla back from the MSG nest. Dazed and infuriated, it looked on the hovering Goku, whose spiked hair glowed blue in correspondence with the powerful aura that enshrouded his body. The Saiyan was soon flanked by Nick’s Godzilla, emerging from the remains of the ESB.

            In a voice that echoed through the heavens, Goku proclaimed, “YOU AREN’T DESTROYING THIS NEST!” And on that declaration, the Super Saiyan and Nick’s Godzilla joined forces in fighting against the Savage Godzilla.