~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
Two hours later, General McCarthy boarded the aircraft out of Monarch Outpost 54.
"General — are we really just walking away from Monarch?" Inside the transport helicopter, his young adjutant couldn't keep the frustration out of his voice.
They had already absorbed most of Monarch's departments. Now they were handing all of it back, personnel included, straight to Dr. Serizawa. That sat wrong with the military's whole approach.
They represented the face of the armed forces. This wasn't how things were supposed to go.
"The risk has far outweighed the gain." McCarthy's weathered face showed the same frustration, but he kept his voice flat. "We have no choice."
His original plan had been simple enough. He assumed Dr. Serizawa and that alien wouldn't resurface from the Hollow Earth for years. Plenty of time to fold Monarch completely under military authority.
He hadn't counted on them coming back this fast.
And he'd misjudged the alien entirely. The man had no interest in cooperating, hadn't even tried to hide it. Every word out of his mouth had been soaked in contempt, and his relationship with Dr. Serizawa ran deeper than anything McCarthy had accounted for.
The military could have offered far more. They had the infrastructure, the resources, the backing. The alien should have been glad to work with them. Instead, he'd shut the door without hesitation and handed the keys back to Serizawa.
Then there was the problem that couldn't be argued away: the power gap.
On Earth, no individual was supposed to be stronger than the machinery of a nation-state. That was just how civilization worked. But an alien from a higher civilization didn't follow those rules. One person , one individual , had enough raw force to crush everything they could throw at him. The initiative was never going to be on their side.
"If we come into direct conflict with him, we're the only ones who'd take losses." McCarthy said it quietly. He hated that it was true.
Mexico had already proven it. They'd tried to detain him in his human form. The result was a complete write-off of their equipment. He'd shrugged off their weapons without breaking a sweat. If he ever went to full size, the damage wouldn't be worth thinking about.
The Oxygen Destroyer was lethal enough against the native Titans. Whether it would do anything to an alien giant was a different question entirely, and not one McCarthy was willing to test.
"So we just let an alien do whatever he wants inside human civilization?" The adjutant's jaw was tight. This was a matter of principle, of dignity, and he wasn't wired to let it go. In his mind, humans were the dominant intelligence on this planet. No one, alien or otherwise, got to walk through human society and ignore the law.
McCarthy turned and looked at him, gaze sharp.
"I'll give you five divisions. Full equipment. How confident are you?"
The message was plain. If you think you can win, then go win.
The adjutant said nothing.
"Not enough?" McCarthy added, almost as an afterthought. "Tell me, and I'll put in the request for more."
McCarthy himself had zero desire to fight that alien head-on. Negotiation was the only card he was willing to play. But even that had its limits.
"I think..." the adjutant finally said, forcing the words out. "We should look for other options."
He knew what the gap looked like. He wasn't blind.
"Other options." McCarthy didn't soften his expression at all. "How much patience do you think he has left?"
Mexico was strike one. Today was strike two. They'd already pushed their luck twice.
He wasn't about to find out what three looked like. During that conversation back at the outpost, he'd heard it clearly , the patience on the other side of that table was nearly gone. The next confrontation wouldn't end with broken equipment and a warning. It would end with a Spacium Beam or a light wheel, and neither one was survivable.
"I... understand." The adjutant accepted it, finally, with nothing left to say.
...
Below Outpost 54.
A submarine cut down through pitch-black water, descending into the deep.
"You sure you don't want to head back first and take charge of things?" Natsuki asked from the rear seat of the cockpit, watching Dr. Serizawa work the controls.
McCarthy had read the situation correctly, at least. Once he understood where things stood, he'd handed Monarch back without a scene , and thrown in all the military-appointed department heads as a bonus.
By any reasonable logic, Serizawa should have been up there dealing with them. Those people had come in to overhaul Monarch top to bottom. They needed direction, a plan, a clear chain of command going forward.
Instead, the man was piloting a submarine into the abyss.
"Vivienne is handling all of that," Dr. Serizawa said. The corner of his mouth twitched. "She's an extremely capable assistant."
"And honestly..." He kept his eyes forward, on the dark water ahead. "An opportunity to get close to Godzilla like this — that's more important to me."
The organization would hold together for a few hours without him. But a moment like this didn't come twice.
He'd spent nearly his entire career studying Godzilla. This creature , this living symbol of the natural world , was something else entirely.
"Fair enough," Natsuki said, and found himself smiling too.
He'd seen it before, across other worlds. A guardian beast tied to a planet's will almost always found its counterpart , one individual from an intelligent species who could form a genuine bond with it. This looked like exactly that.
And if the future of this Earth depended on humans and Titans learning to coexist, then Serizawa and Godzilla were going to need each other. Nudging that connection along cost Natsuki nothing. He wasn't staying here forever.
The submarine kept sinking.
Then, out of the dark water, something emerged.
An ancient temple, rising from the seafloor. Massive. Silent. Worn smooth in places by countless centuries of current, its stone etched with the slow patience of the deep.
"According to every legend and record we've gathered," Dr. Serizawa said, "these structures were built by the Atlanteans to honor Godzilla." His voice carried a reverence he didn't try to hide. "Godzilla has been protecting humanity since before recorded history."
No one on Earth knew more about this than he did.
"The Iwi murals tell the same story," Natsuki said, thinking back to the images carved into rock. "Godzilla is treated as something singular — not just another member of the species. Something apart."
"Exactly." Dr. Serizawa leaned forward slightly, his eyes fixed on the viewport. "The atomic dinosaurs are a species. But Godzilla..."
Through the reinforced glass, the altar came into view.
Godzilla lay coiled around it, still and massive, resting in the quiet dark of the deep.
Dr. Serizawa's eyes burned.
"There is only one Godzilla."
➤ Next: Gaia??? — A New Beginning
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
Enjoying the story?
📚Read 35+ chapters ahead on Patreon.
💎Join the free community tier for early access to the latest updates:
🔥patreon(.)com/DarkGolds