Patience has never been one of my virtues. Call me crazy, but when you make an appointment to meet someone, both parties should arrive on time. In this case, the meeting place is the docks of Tokyo Bay, where we are supposed to meet Professor Hank Taupier.
I look down at my watch and sigh, as if that will make Taupier arrive any earlier. I can’t help but feel like this isn’t where I am supposed be. I feel like I’m wasting my time on a wild goose chase in Japan, when I should be searching the Atlantic Ocean for Nemesis. But when the President of the United States tells you to go and investigate something, you do it - no questions asked. Even if he’s sending you halfway across the world.
The sun is just starting to rise, and I divert my gaze from my watch to the boat Taupier has chartered to take us to our, as yet undisclosed destination. My partner and girlfriend, Ashley Collins, is standing on the boat. She’s talking to the captain and some of the crew members, trying to find out our destination.
As the sun rises over the sea behind her, the first rays of the morning outline her figure. I wonder how, by just standing there in her field clothes, she manages to create a scene that looks like it should be on the cover of a magazine. I can’t really hear what she’s saying to the men on the boat, but they are enthralled by her every word. They keep their eyes fixed on her, and I can’t blame them. Collins is a strikingly beautiful woman by any standard, but I would imagine that a tall red head is a particularly rare commodity in Japan. She finishes talking with them, smiles at the crew, and then walks toward me. One of the crew says something in Japanese and the rest of them laugh. I’m sure the comment was directed at Collins, and I’m also sure that if I understood Japanese, I’d be jumping on the boat right now and handing out haymakers. Of course, if Collins spoke Japanese, she’d probably be onboard herself, kicking more sailor butt than I ever could. I shake my head to clear my thoughts, and I catch myself staring at her as she’s walking toward me. I try not to look like a gawking schoolboy and check my watch again.
Collins walks up to me and grabs my hand to look at my watch also. She looks up, then fills me in on her conversation with the crew.
“We’re heading to a series of islands known as the Ogasawara Islands. You’ll love this next part. The sailors call one of the islands ‘Monster Island,’ because back in 2005, the first actual footage of a giant squid was filmed off the shore of the island.”
A sarcastic smile creeps onto my face. “A giant squid. Really? That’s what used to qualify as a monster?” I shake my head. “I guess our perceptions have changed regarding a lot things since Nemesis.”
Nemesis is the monster that changed the world forever, in the span of a few short days. I take a moment to recall the events of the past few months. I work for a branch of the federal government known as Fusion Center–P. The ‘P’ stands for Paranormal. My team and I would investigate everything from UFOs to Lizard Men. I held the position for several years, and for the most part it was an easy job, because we never found anything. At all. All I had to do was put up with X-Files-related puns from the other agents at Homeland who tracked drug lords and terrorists.
Until one day, when I was called to check out a Bigfoot sighting. My investigation was aided by the local sheriff: Collins. The two of us stumbled onto an off-the-books project by a large corporation. They had found the body of a dead kaiju and had tried to replicate it, by bonding it with the DNA of a deceased young girl. I suppose in the eyes of the corporation, the project was a success. The girl’s DNA merged with the monster’s. The girl escaped from the compound that was holding her, and she began to grow and change into a monster at an alarming rate. Collins and I tracked the creature, and we tried to stop its rampage across New England, as it destroyed anything in its path and devoured anyone it came across.
The monster eventually grew to a size of 300 feet tall. She had become a massive bipedal thing with an armored carapace covering her body. Her arms and feet had mutated into massive claws, while a tail protruded from her back, ending in a spiked trident. As if her sheer physical presence wasn’t destructive enough, at various points on her body are numerous fluid-filled, orange membranes. Now, if every Godzilla movie ever made has taught us anything, it is that you hit a monster with as much firepower as you can in an attempt to turn it away. In this instance, that was a big mistake. Each of those orange membranes is filled with a flammable liquid that explodes on contact with air. We found that out the hard way when the membranes were ruptured by heavy cannon fire. While the explosions did little to harm the creature, they caused massive damage to the surrounding areas.
We called the monster Nemesis, after the goddess of vengeance. The creature seems to have some innate sense of when a great wrong is committed and an overwhelming compulsion to exact vengeance on the perpetrator of the misdeed. The little girl, who’s part of the monster, had a very specific vengeance to carry out, which led her to Boston. To save the city, I helped Nemesis carry out her vengeance. God help me, I can still see that man as Nemesis shed her carapace, revealing wings that would let her focus the very power of the sun on her victim.
“Jon. He’s here.”
Collins’s voice snaps me out of my memories to see a conservatively-dressed short man wearing round, decidedly nerdy glasses, walking up to us. He bows and then extends his hand as he introduces himself.
“Agents Ashley Collins and Jon Hudson, I presume? I am Professor Hank Taupier. Thank you for responding to my request for assistance in investigating this phenomenon. In the wake of the Nemesis tragedy, it seems you two are the world’s foremost experts in daikaiju.”
I grab his hand and shake it firmly. Since I don’t really have time to screw around with this guy, I cut to the chase. “Look professor, we appreciate your concern over a reported sighting of a kajiu. But I have to be honest; since Nemesis, we’ve been getting reports of all sorts of crazy things. Most of them turn out to be people’s imaginations running away with them. It’s almost like Nemesis created a worldwide mass delusion since she appeared. Everyone’s minds are seeing monsters where there aren’t any, like kids, but instead of Boogeymen under the bed, it’s kaiju in the ocean. If there’s even the slightest chance that whatever you saw could actually be something mundane, please let us know now.”
Taupier calmly readjusts his glasses. “I assure you, Agent Hudson, that what I saw was no trick of the mind. It was real, and it is as deadly a threat to the human race as Nemesis herself. I can appreciate how busy you are, so please let us enter the boat, and I will give the details of my experience as we travel to the island.”
After the ship clears the harbor and enters the open ocean, Taupier sits down at a table with us. He almost falls over as the ship rocks underneath him. I would laugh if my own stomach wasn’t doing cartwheels inside of me. This is why I hate traveling by boat. Give me a helicopter any day of the week over a tin can on the water.
Taupier takes a deep breath and then relates his story. “Several weeks ago, the editor of one those tabloid magazines was sent to investigate the cause behind the explosion of an experimental solar plant. I went with him. When we were flying over the site, we found a massive creature wandering through the debris. The beast’s frame resembled a dinosaur, except it was far larger than any dinosaur in the fossil record. I estimated it to be at least 55 meters long. It had yellowish scales, spikes on its head and back and a massive crescent-moon-shaped horn at the top of its head. While it initially walked on four legs, when it saw our plane, it stood up on two legs and began to follow us. When we flew back out over the sea, it waded into the water and disappeared.
“Having been the first to see the creature, I named him Gigantosaurus fantasticus. However, when the editor ran the story in his tabloid, he shortened the name to Gfantis, and that name seems to have stuck with most people.”
I stare at the guy for a minute, and then calmly remove the red beanie cap from my head and run my hand across my cleanly shaven dome. “You have us out here chasing a tabloid monster?”
Taupier sighs in frustration. “The fact the monster was first reported in a tabloid is irrelevant. It’s a real creature, and the US government needs to be aware of it. How were your claims met when you first reported Nemesis to your superiors? Did everyone run out to help you fight the giant monster, or were you met with skepticism at best?”
I nod in reply. “Fair enough. We’ll keep an open mind about ‘Gfantis.’”
Collins interjects. “So why are we going to investigate the Ogasawara Islands? What makes you think Gfantis will be there?”
Taupier looks her dead in the eyes. “Two reasons. First, I suspect Gfantis feeds off energy, hence his appearance at the solar plant. The Ogasawara Islands are home to an active volcano, so my theory is that Gfantis might use a place such as this as both a nest and a readily available food source. Second, three days ago a fishing vessel reported seeing a golden dragon swimming off the coastline of those islands.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s go see if there’s a second giant monster roaming the planet. Hooray!”
Collins slaps me on the back of my head, and I decide that it’s probably in my best interest to remain silent until we reach ‘Monster Island.’
Deep in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Nemesis was slowly closing in on a massive albino sperm whale. Moving through the water had become much easier since her wings had receded into her body and her sleek armored carapace had grown back.
While she had spent most of her young life in the Atlantic Ocean, if she wanted to continue to eat, then she needed to follow the whales around the tip of South America and into the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the lone whale, Nemesis could sense that numerous other whales, as well as giant squid, were in the area. The whales followed the squid, and Nemesis followed the whales. It was a pattern as simple as nature itself. Creatures went to where their food source took them.
As she was closing in on the whale, she felt a shockwave travel through the water. Her mind and body quickly processed the information and determined that the shockwave was a volcano preparing to erupt. This fact meant nothing to Nemesis. Even an erupting volcano did not present a threat to her.
She continued her pursuit of the whale, when suddenly her body went rigid as it was overcome by a new sensation. Her mind flooded with images of the ‘light man.’ She could sense that the man who had helped carry out her vengeance was in terrible danger. In her mind, she could see the man near the volcano as it erupted. She could also sense another dangerous presence near him.
Nemesis did not understand what these feelings meant and she did not know from where they had come, but just as she felt the need to destroy the dark man who had wronged her in her previous incarnation, she felt the need to protect the light man. He had aided her in exacting her vengeance. Nemesis turned away from the whale, and began swimming toward the Ogasawara Islands.
When we reach the island, there’s no dock on the uninhabited strip of land, which is roughly 10 miles wide and 25 miles long. So it’s a quick a ride in a dinghy from the larger ship to the island’s northern shore. As we disembark from the ship, I make a quick joke to Collins about taking her to an island paradise. She smiles briefly, but she knows that we’re working, and she’s getting her game face on, just in case we do find anything.
When we reach the shoreline, the volcano at the island’s center dominates the horizon. From the beach, you would think that half of the island is volcano. As we’re walking toward the center of the island, I feel overwhelmed by the heat. Granted, we’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, only a few degrees off from the equator, but this seems excessive.
Suddenly, Collins stops right in front of me. She sniffs the air and crinkles her nose as she turns to me. “Is that sulfur?”
The smell of rotten eggs quickly assaults my nostrils as well. I’m about to confirm her assertion when the ground begins to shake beneath us. A cold shiver runs down my spine. The thought that Gfantis might be real and is heading toward us, crosses my mind.
The fear of Gfantis is put to rest when an equally terrifying thought is expressed by Taupier, instead. “Earthquake!” he yells. “We need to get off this island! This kind of localized seismic activity can mean only that the volcano is going to erupt.”
We start running through the jungle, back to the dinghy, when I swear I can hear a familiar roar from the far side of the island.
Nemesis waded ashore onto the southern tip of the island, as the volcano let loose another shockwave, indicating that it was preparing to erupt. Sensing that the light man was still on the island, she roared defiantly at the towering volcano, challenging the object that would endanger the him. The volcano itself made no reply to Nemesis’s threat, but deep within the bowels of the volcano, something did hear Nemesis’s challenge.
Gfantis’s eyes snapped open, as the roar woke him from his slumber. To a creature that could wade through magma as if it were water, the erupting of a volcano was of no consequence, but an intruder into his territory was something Gfantis could not tolerate. The kaiju shook his body, loosening his massive muscles. He walked to the cave wall of his lair and lifting his massive claws, the giant began tunneling through the mountain itself.
Birds took to the sky in front of Nemesis as she approached the volcano in the center of the island. When she reached the base of the formation, she stopped. She could sense something, but she was unsure of exactly what it was. She could feel vibrations coming from the cliff wall in front of her, but these vibrations were steady, unlike those generated by the pressure building in the volcano. Nemesis watched in confusion as pieces of the cliff wall exploded into the air. A massive saurian head covered in golden scales broke through the side of the mountain.
Gfantis crawled out of the side of the volcano, walking on all four legs. He glared at the creature that had dared to enter his territory. He then bent his head down for a moment and unleashed a deafening roar at Nemesis.
Nemesis stood staring at the golden monster. While she was larger than the creature, it was nearly as big as she was. In her short existence, she had never faced anything like this creature. This beast represented a legitimate challenge to her. Her thoughts quickly shifted to the light man. She could sense that he was still in the area and that the golden monster was a threat to him, as well. Nemesis’s mind focused on the sole task of destroying this creature and protecting the light man. She roared at Gfantis, and then she charged at the beast.
Gfantis quickly gauged that Nemesis was larger and probably physically stronger than he was. As such, he opted to not stand up and grapple with the invader. Instead, he ran toward Nemesis on four legs, keeping his body close the ground. When he was within reach, the intruder swung her long claw at him. The reptilian kaiju ducked under the blow, stepped forward and closed his jaws around Nemesis’s thigh.
Nemesis roared in pain, as Gfantis’s teeth penetrated her thick armor and sank into the soft tissue beneath it. She shook her body from side to side, however the action only caused Gfantis to tighten his grip. Lifting her claw above her head she brought the massive weapon crashing down into Gfantis’s back. His entire body slammed into the ground from the force of the blow.
Gfantis struggled to maintain his grip on her leg as a second and a third blows came crashing down onto him. When the fifth blow landed, his head was wrenched free from the leg. Another blow was quickly delivered to his head, driving it into ground.
The larger kaiju looked down on her tenacious opponent, as the golden dragon shook his head, trying to shrug off the blows she inflicted on it. When the creature attempted to lift his body from the ground, Nemesis drew back her leg and delivered a vicious kick to the golden dragon’s midsection, which sent the monster soaring through the air.
Several hundred feet from where he was launched, Gfantis came crashing back to earth. Trees were both flattened and sent flying into the air, as his body skidded through the jungle. Once he stopped sliding, Gfantis rolled off
his back and returned to his quadruped stance. He saw the massive form of the intruder charging him at a speed that seemed impossible, given the beast’s size. Gfantis turned his gaze downward and began digging into the ground at a fantastic pace.
Just as Nemesis was upon him, Gfantis had completely burrowed into the ground. Nemesis shifted her head from side to side, searching for the creature, when she suddenly felt a sharp pain at the base of her tail. She turned to see the golden creature attacking her from behind. The lower portion of his body, including his back legs and tail, remained underground, but his torso, arms and head were above ground. His teeth had stabbed into the base of Nemesis’s tail and his fore-claws were tearing into the backs of her legs.
Nemesis roared in pain as the creature began to pull backward on her legs and tail, causing her to come crashing down onto her back. She was the larger of the two creatures, but Gfantis was by far the quicker and more agile beast. Nemesis had no sooner realized that she was on her back than Gfantis had leapt onto her chest. Gfantis’s claws raked Nemesis’s face, and then he clamped his powerful jaws around her neck.
The armored carapace that encased Nemesis’s body made a sickening crack as Gfantis’s fangs penetrated it and sank into the jugular below. Nemesis struggled to shake Gfantis loose, but with her own blood pouring down her throat and choking her, she was quickly losing consciousness. In an act of desperation, she lifted her tail into the air and brought the trident shaped horns on the tip of it down on Gfantis, slicing through the creature’s leg and impaling it on the spiked appendage.
Gfantis howled in pain as Nemesis swatted him off her chest. He tried to put distance between himself and the larger intruder, but with one of his hind legs impaled on Nemesis’s trident, all he could do was limp from side to side as the mighty tail held him place.
Nemesis spun around, facing the smaller monster, and then she yanked her tail from his body. Gfantis roared once more as blood came gushing out of the wound, covering the tree tops below him in a crimson rain. His roars of pain were drowned out by the earth-shattering sound of the top of the volcano exploding. Nemesis forgot about her opponent for a moment and looked up the mountain. A pillar of ash was flying into the air, covering the northern side of the island in darkness. Simultaneously, molten lava slowly poured out of every crevice on the mountain and into the jungle below it.
I lift Collins out of the dinghy and back onto the charter boat, just as the top of the volcano erupts. The sound is deafening. I’m the last man in the dinghy, and I can see the captain screaming at me. I can’t hear a word he’s saying, but the message is clearly for me to climb aboard ASAP. I throw myself onto the deck. The captain then immediately throttles the boat to full speed, in an attempt to put as much distance between us and the mountain of doom as possible. The boat is faster than I would have thought. We seem to be making good time getting away from island. The problem is that the projecting cloud of devastation is coming directly at us. If the ash hits our boat, not only will it suffocate the engines, leaving the ship dead in the water, but the burning hot chunks of rock mixed in with it will roast us where we stand.
Once the ringing in our ears subsides to the point where we can sort of hear each other again, the captain shouts in Japanese. Thankfully, we have Taupier to translate. “He says we can’t out-run the ash cloud.”
I take a moment and look over our very limited options. A rough plan quickly comes together in my mind. It isn’t much, but it’s better than standing on the boat and waiting to be burned to death by smoldering death falling from the sky.
I shout to Collins and Taupier. “I have an idea, but it’s a longshot.” Neither looks convinced, but they wait hear it. “First, get one of the crew members to bring the dinghy aboard. The other two crew members need to cut up any thick rope they can find. We need one piece for each of us that’s at least 20 feet long. Tell the captain to get the emergency GPS locator and keep it with him. We’re gonna need it.”
Collins nods. “Okay. What can we do?”
I point to several small buckets on the deck, typically used for holding fishing bait. “We need to fill those buckets with water and bring them next to the dinghy, along with every fire extinguisher onboard.” Collins doesn’t question my plan, she just grabs the buckets and starts filling them with water, while I track down the fire extinguishers.
Taupier translates the instructions for the crew, who carry out their orders. Once the rope is cut and the dinghy is onboard, I have everyone tie one end of their rope around their ankles and the other end to the interior of the dinghy.
I then shout to Taupier and Collins. “Now everyone grab the dinghy and flip it over.” When the three of us reach down and start to flip the dinghy, the crew follows suit without the need for Taupier to translate. Once the dinghy is upside down, I pick up a bucket of water and pour it over the bottom of the dinghy. Once more, everyone else follows my lead. Soon the bottom of the dinghy is soaking wet. After all of the water has been poured onto the dinghy, I take one of the fire extinguishers and hand the other one I found to Collins. We empty them on the bottom of the dinghy as well. The smell of the fumes from the extinguishers burns our eyes and nose, but it burns a hell of a lot less than the hot ash and rock that will be falling on us in a few minutes. I toss the fire extinguisher aside and explain the last part of my shoddy plan to Collins and Taupier.
“Translate for me,” I ask the man. “We’re going to pick up the dinghy and jump into the water with it. Make sure they understand that we need to keep the dinghy upside down when we put it into the water. We’ll need to hold onto the dinghy and tread water for a few minutes. And for God’s sake, make sure that the captain has the GPS locator!”
Taupier quickly translates, and then as one we pick up the upside down dinghy and jump into the water as a team. Once we settle the dinghy on the water, I go over the last part of my ridiculous plan with everyone.
Gfantis once more attempted to limp away from the towering form of Nemesis, but his retreat was in vain. Their battle had carried them back to the beach. Gfantis was trying to reach the ocean, but Nemesis was on the injured monster before he could crawl into the water. As Nemesis reached down, Gfantis brought his whip-like tail snapping across her face. Were it not for the protective armor encasing her body, the tail would have created a deep and painful gash, but in this instance, it simply smacked ineffectively across her thickly plated brow.
Nemesis swung her arm upward, tearing a massive wound into Gfantis’s ribs. He was thrown onto his side. He attempted to roar defiantly at her, but the sound was cut short when she wrapped one of her massive claws around the dragon’s neck. Nemesis lifted the smaller monster off the ground and held its limp body at eye level. She lifted her other claw, preparing to swipe it across Gfantis’s body, gutting the creature and ending the battle.
But the crescent horn atop Gfantis’s head began to glow.
Before Nemesis could react, a searing beam of white light shot out of the horn and burned through the front of her shoulder. Then it exploded out of her back. Nemesis stumbled backwards and dropped Gfantis to the ground.
Gfantis regained his footing and then unleashed a second blast of his crescent horn in conjunction with opening his mouth. A blast ray of terrible heat shot out of his throat at her. Gfantis focused his attack on Nemesis’s face, keeping her off balance and disoriented. Nemesis stumbled backwards and once more fell onto her back.
With Nemesis down, Gfantis attacked. He placed his body on Nemesis’s tail, pinning the dangerous appendage to the ground. He then bit down hard onto Nemesis’s right foot while simultaneously using his claws to tear at her calf. Gfantis was determined to tear Nemesis’s foot from her body, crippling the beast and turning her massive size into a disadvantage.
Nemesis forced her body into an upright position and then backhanded Gfantis off her leg. Gfantis went skidding along the beach, but managed to maintain his footing this time. Nemesis stood up and t
hen attempted to walk, only to fall onto her side. She lifted herself and again attempted to walk toward Gfantis, only to feel her injured ankle giving out underneath her once more.
Gfantis stood watching her. While his own injuries likewise hampered his ability to maneuver, he was still more than capable of attacking Nemesis. The crescent horn atop his head began to glow, and again a beam of white hot light pierced Nemesis’s chest, narrowly missing one of the glowing orange membranes. The beam of light exited through her back.
Nemesis roared in pain and rage! She was determined to destroy this creature. She shifted her skin within her armor, causing the shell to begin to slide away from her body. Within moments, she had shed her armored exterior. Nemesis arched her back, causing her massive wings to unfold behind her. Her body was much lighter now, and her injured ankle was able to support her weight without issue.
Gfantis fired another of his crescent beams at her and without her armor to protect her body, the blast caused even more damage than it had previously. She staggered backward and then turned, so her wings were catching the full effects of the sun, which was slowly fading behind a cloud of ash. Nemesis’s body began to glow. As the light surrounded her, she looked almost like an angelic creature bathed in the luminance of heaven itself. When her wings had managed to catch the sun at the correct angle, she turned toward Gfantis, and the light that had been creating an aura around her, started to cover Gfantis.
The ocean water boiled and the sand on the beach around the golden creature turned glass. The seaweed that had washed up on shore caught fire. It was as if hell itself had been unleashed on ‘Monster Island,’ and Gfantis was at the heart of it.
We’re holding onto the capsized dinghy as the larger boat drifts away from us. Despite it being the middle the day, the ash has caused the sky to look as though it’s the middle of the night. I look up to see the ash falling toward us. Now it’s time for the part of my plan that relies entirely on hope. We did all that we could to fireproof the underside of the dinghy so that hopefully the falling ash and rock won’t cause it to burst into flames. When the cloud hits the water, the surface of the ocean will be boiling hot, hence the ropes tied to our legs and the dinghy.
We’re all going to swim as deep as we can in hopes of avoiding the heat. The ropes will keep the dinghy from floating away from us while we’re submerged. One of the many downsides of this plan, is that if the dinghy catches fire, we’ll be tied to a bonfire in the middle of the ocean. I’m about to give the sign for everyone to dive, but first I turn to Collins in case this is the last chance I get to express how I feel about her. I’m about to speak when she pulls me close to her and kisses me. God in heaven, if I am about to die, there are certainly worse ways to go.
Collins releases me and we both take a deep breath. I lift my hand above my head and then bring it down, giving everyone the signal to dive. We swim as deep as we can, and then I turn to look back up at the surface of the water. All I can see is pitch black. I literally can’t see my hand in front of my face. The complete darkness is not a bad thing. At least it gives me some hope that the dinghy didn’t catch fire. If I saw a bright orange flame above my head, we’d literally be sunk. I can feel the water heating up around us. It’s getting hotter, but at this depth it feels like lying in a Jacuzzi. It almost feels kind of nice.
What I hear is the scary part. The water on the surface is turning into steam as the ash and small flecks of burning, liquid rock hit it. The transition of ocean water from liquid to steam is making a terrible hissing noise. Sound travels much better underwater than it does on land. As I float in the darkness, it sounds like I’m surrounded by a thousand angry snakes.
Finally, the water around me cools, but my lungs feel like they’re about to burst. I wait as long as I can, and then I swim to the surface. My head breaks the water to see that the dinghy is still intact. Within seconds, Collins, Taupier and the rest of the crew come to the surface as well. We work quickly to flip the dinghy right-side up, and then we each climb into it. Once we’re all onboard, we can see that the larger ship we abandoned was turned into a blazing inferno from the rain of searing debris that fell onto it. The captain says something in Japanese while looking at the ship, and then he switches on the emergency GPS locator. With most of the ash in the water, the sun starts to break through the darkness and light up the ocean around us.
Collins hugs me and gives me a quick kiss. “Wasn’t such a bad plan after all.”
I smile. “Thanks. But listen... back on the island I thought I heard…”
She holds up her hand. “I know. I thought I heard it, too. Once we get picked up and the ash clears from the sky, we’ll get a helicopter and fly over, to see if ‘Monster Island’ lives up to its name.”
Nemesis continued to focus her solar beam onto Gfantis, but instead of being consumed by the attack, the golden creature seemed to be getting stronger.
Gfantis’s body was solar powered. He took his energy directly from the sun. Nemesis’s attack was infusing him with a power that he had never felt before. His wounds healed almost instantly. He stood on two legs, raising his body to its full height. Then he unleashed a furious roar at Nemesis.
Nemesis cut off her beam and answered in kind.
The magma from the volcano was flowing down onto the beach, as the two monsters plodded toward each other. Gfantis struck first. His swiping claws dug deeply into Nemesis’s now exposed hide. She shrieked in pain and then raked her massive claw across Gfantis’s face.
The two monsters continued to exchange blows as the magma flowed around their feet, hit the ocean water and solidified in a billowing cloud of steam. The hardened magma created a natural wall, causing the still flowing magma behind it to pool around the battling monsters. The magma rose to the point of reaching Nemesis’s knee.
After delivering a back hand swat, Nemesis, knowing she was more vulnerable, did the unthinkable. With squinted eyes that said Gfantis was in trouble, she plunged her claws into her own chest, rupturing two of her bright orange membranes. When she withdrew the giant talons, the liquid came into contact with the air and exploded with a force equivalent to the volcano itself. Gfantis, wrapped in a blistering wash of light, was lifted off the ground and flung out to sea, stunned and scorched, but cooled by the deep water. Nemesis took stock of the island. The light man was gone. Safe. And with the light man no longer in danger, there was no reason to battle the other creature. Nemesis spun her massive body around, entered the ocean and swam out to sea.
Minutes later, Gfantis waded ashore and surveyed his island. He was unable to find Nemesis anywhere, concluding that the other beast had either retreated or been destroyed in the explosion. Gfantis roared triumphantly and then lumbered back into his volcano.
It took the Japanese Coast Guard only ten hours to find us after the volcano had erupted. Overall, not a bad response time, considering they had to wait until the all of the ash had cleared from the air. After we reached land, got looked over by the doctors, and had a chance to eat and change our clothes, I called in a few favors to get us a helicopter flight back to the island, for observation.
As we’re flying over the island, all we can see is devastation, but that’s exactly what you would expect after a volcanic eruption. The disappointment must show on my face, because Collins grabs my hand.
“I thought I heard her, too, but volcanoes make all kinds of strange sounds before erupting. With nothing but Nemesis on our minds, it’s no wonder that when we heard the volcano, we associated it with the monster.”
I want to tell Collins that it was more than just hearing Nemesis. It’s almost like I could feel her in the area, and more and more, I find myself thinking of her as a little girl who was wronged, rather than as a malevolent monster.
I can’t explain the feeling, and honestly, it kind of creeps me out. I’m trying to think of the words to express what I experienced when an alert pops up on my phone. I look at it
quizzically and then turn to Collins.
“Looks like our next case just came in. A cat-woman on the Ute reservation.”
“Sounds like a date,” Collins says, while I get the pilot’s attention.
“Take us back to the mainland,” I say. “We have a plane to catch. Duty calls.”
Gfantis, The Duke, Zargatron: POWER STRUGGLE
Story by Matthew Dennion
Art by Alan OW Barnes