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"It's awake... it's awake!"
"Run!"
The personnel from Outpost 56 had barely boarded the transport plane when that ferocious roar hit them. They were screaming at the pilot before the door even closed , go, go, get us out of here.
As Rodan's designated observers, they knew exactly what this beast could do.
The explosion smoke from the outpost and the volcanic ash from the eruption surged into the sky together, turning what was already a near-dusk sky into something closer to midnight.
In the distant city, the citizens who hadn't believed the Titan alert were believers now. The roads clogged instantly. Cars started ramming each other as people abandoned vehicles and ran on foot, everyone pushing, everyone screaming. They didn't know what Rodan could do specifically , but San Francisco had been on every screen in the world. That was enough.
"Calm down! Stay calm!"
"Evacuate in an orderly fashion!" The Mexican police officers directing the evacuation were terrified too, but they kept their voices hard and their arms moving. If the crowd fully broke, no one was getting out.
"It's coming!"
"Move!"
"MOVE!!"
Under thousands of terrified eyes, the Titan standing atop the volcano spread its wings. The crater smoke exploded outward in all directions, whipping into spiraling columns that scattered across the horizon.
Even from ten thousand meters away, watching that smoke told you everything you needed to know about the force behind those wings.
"SCREEEEE!!"
Rodan's crimson eyes locked onto the city. One roar, then its wings drove down , and forty thousand tons of ancient predator defied gravity. The wreckage of Outpost 56 directly below didn't survive the shockwave. The steel didn't just bend. It came apart.
Like something ripped from mythology, Rodan tore into the sky and came straight for the city. A hundred and forty-two meters tall. Wingspan exceeding three hundred meters. From the ground, it didn't look like a creature. It looked like the sky itself was falling.
The barren outskirts beneath its flight path erupted in rolling dust clouds, the shockwave alone shredding the terrain as it passed.
The closer it got to the city, the worse it became. That was what Mach 3 did to the air around it.
WHOOSH , then the pressure wave hit, and the booms came rolling after it, one after another.
As Rodan closed on the city, the ocean on the coastal side suddenly swelled. A hundred meters of seawater rose and split apart. A massive black shape walked out of it — thick tail dragging behind, dorsal fins pulsing with blue light , and stared across the rooftops at the incoming Titan.
"HRRAAAOOO!!" Godzilla had arrived.
The sound wave rolled through the entire city.
The people trapped between them felt it in their chests like a death sentence.
A diving Titan in front of them. A Titan rising from the sea behind them. This city was about to become the next San Francisco.
"Vanguard One is above Mexico City. Target Rodan has left the volcano and is inbound. Godzilla has made landfall and is also approaching." The pilot's voice crackled through military comms. "All missiles are ready. Awaiting orders."
A flat sky carrier cut through the clouds overhead, two columns of F-35s flanking it on either side.
"Hold. We need a window to take them both out at once." The order came down fast.
Two Titans were about to tear into each other. Jumping in now would just burn ammunition. Let them wear each other down first , then strike. That was the optimal play.
They would remind these Titans who actually ran this planet.
While the military positioned itself with Monarch's equipment, a lone Osprey helicopter came in from another angle entirely.
Next to the carrier and the F-35s, it looked like a gnat.
"Damn it!"
"There are still people down there!" Jared was staring through the window at the chaos below. He slammed his fist into the cabin door, jaw tight.
The Titans didn't care about human lives. He'd already made peace with that. What he couldn't stomach was that the military didn't seem to either.
At a moment like this, people were just numbers to everyone involved.
Rodan was almost on top of the city now. The supersonic shockwave from its approach was already toppling buildings on the outskirts, already sweeping civilians off their feet and into the air. Jared grabbed a rocket launcher, braced it on his shoulder, and reached for the cabin door latch. He shouted forward to Old D: "Get closer! We'll pull it off course!"
If anyone in this fight still gave a damn about the people down there, it was these old men in a helicopter.
Old D didn't hesitate. He punched the throttle and angled straight toward Rodan.
Jared waited for the door to swing open.
BOOM!!
The floral-shirted Ultraman old-timer put his boot through the cabin door first. Wind screamed into the cabin. Then he stepped off the edge and dropped , and light detonated around him.
"WTF!?" Old D flinched hard, half-blinded by the flash. The curse came out before he could stop it.
Then he remembered. His mouth pulled into a slow grin.
"This time I actually get to watch..."
"YEAH! Get it!" Jared had already figured it out. He was screaming at the light before it even finished forming.
---
RUMBLE , and Rodan came in from the southeast, and the city started dying before it even arrived. The shockwave alone was enough , buildings cracking, windows shattering, people getting hurled off their feet and into the air.
"Help!"
"AHHH—"
"RUN!"
The wind picked people up like they weighed nothing. Cracks split across building facades. When that enormous shadow swept over the streets, it felt exactly like the end of the world.
And then , nothing.
The people who'd been launched into the air were still in the air, but the wind wasn't tearing them apart. Debris was still flying everywhere, but when it hit them, it barely left a mark. Something was wrong. Something had changed and they couldn't figure out what.
Then, from mid-air, they saw it.
A streak of light, blazing toward the sky-blotting shape of Rodan. Moving fast. Moving very fast.
"It's Ultraman." The F-35 pilot's voice came over comms, clipped and disbelieving. "He's appeared above Mexico City. Closing on Rodan — speed is nearly double the target's."
The light crossed the city in a flash. One moment it was distant. The next it was right there, directly in front of the Titan.
A giant emerged from the light , red and silver, fist already clenched. Rodan was bigger. Rodan was much bigger. He threw the punch anyway.
BOOM!
"SCREEEEE!!"
The shockwave cracked across the sky. Rodan had no time to react. The punch landed clean, full force, and the dive stopped dead. The Titan went backward, tumbling end over end, crashing down toward the volcanic terrain far outside the city.
"That's... a giant?"
"Is he... is he here to help us?"
"Oh my god..."
The people who'd been suspended in the air drifted slowly back down to the ground. They stood there, staring up. The giant hovered in the sky above them, and for a moment none of them could speak.
Every single one of them had been certain they were dead.
Every single one of them was still breathing.
One punch. Rodan, gone. The giant was already turning.
Godzilla was still coming.
The giant's body lit up , light blazing across its surface, pulsing once , and then it was gone, crossing the entire city in an instant, appearing directly in front of Godzilla with its fist clenched tight.
➤ Next: Because He Is Ultraman
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