Breathing out a plume of scalding steam, I slammed my mouth shut and switched from gills to lungs in one violent surge—vaporizing every drop of seawater that still lingered in my throat. My dorsal fins flared scarlet, each spine igniting in a glittering cascade from tail to crown. I snorted, nostrils flaring, savoring the tang of iron in the humid air. Below me, tiny humans scattered, their panicked cries drowned out by the rhythmic clicks of the male MUTO's bioelectric field. I glanced back at Mother, then dropped onto all fours, heart pounding, and sprinted toward the emanating threat.
"Too eager, son," Amaterasu's voice thrummed in my mind as she hovered behind me, her massive form a living shield. "But enjoy your hunt. I'll cover our rear."
"Thanks, Mom," I called back, claws gouging deep trenches in the asphalt as I charged into the city's shattered streets.
Glass and concrete crunched beneath me as the chase unfolded in a blur—like that first fateful movie, yet infinitely more visceral. I weaved between overturned cars, my tail lashing out to send a cement bus hurtling into a crumbling skyscraper. At the center of the chaos, the MUTO's glowing carapace flickered in warning. I focused my atomic energy, magnetized and twisted by gravity, and unleashed a searing scarlet beam through its right ocular socket. The blast missed its brain by mere millimeters—shattering the adjacent buildings instead and burying the parasite in a cloud of collapsing masonry.
A guilty shock rippled through me. "Mom… I didn't mean to level those blocks. I just wanted to kill the parasite."
Amaterasu's reply was gentle warmth. "You're fine, child. Our mission is the hunt."
I nodded, tail twitching with restless energy, and turned our pursuit back toward the outskirts—where the MUTO writhed free of the debris.
Three POV
Far above the pandemonium, the Avengers were locked in combat with a resurrected Ultron, while the Justice League repelled an interstellar siege at Earth's far pole. On the brass deck of a SHIELD command carrier, Nick Fury's dark eyes darted between monitors.
"What the hell are those?" he barked. "I thought we neutralized them. And now there's a second one? Get me casualty reports—damage estimates, stat!"
Isawa, monitoring satellite feeds, frowned. "I was skeptical, but it's Godzilla—and that smaller kaiju must be its offspring. She was literally hovering over it."
Fury slammed a fist on the console. "That child alone killed a hundred thousand people and caused over a trillion in losses. File it under Codename: Red Death. Send everything to Stark and the League. They may not report to us, but they need the intel."
That night, Mother and I cut across the Pacific under a baited nuclear device. Our advance was halted by a battered battleship weaved into the channel—remains of the bridge she demolished earlier. We dove beneath her hull, dorsal spines carving twin trails through the moonlit waves. Emergent onto the American coastline, one black-and-one-red back breached the ocean like a two-headed island. We thundered eastward, churning white spray, until New York's skyline loomed.
Helicopters swarmed, searchlights carving paths across the roaring titans. I fixed my gaze on the descending rotorcraft, baring my teeth in a low, reverberating growl that rattled the Hudson's piers. Then, coiling my legs, I launched—tail smashing into the concrete wharf like a jackhammer. I rocketed forward, arms winding around the male MUTO's sleek exoskeleton, hurling him skyward in a dizzying spin. Mid-air, I ignited a condensed laser along his thorax: the beam cleaved through chitin and muscle, and he fell in two lifeless halves.
A moment's triumph—then the female MUTO charged, ramming me with a thunderous crash. Mother answered with a titanic lash of her tail, flinging her adversary into a looming skyscraper. The tower exploded in a geyser of flame and debris, a blast ring that sent the female MUTO staggering back toward her ruined nest.
I roared in frustration—an angry vibration that thrummed the very bedrock—before unleashing my first alpha call. One by one, my dorsal spines flared in searing white-hot crescendos until the world brightened in an enormous atomic flash. The female MUTO, battered and broken, let out a pained screech and detonated in a bioelectric burst of steam and gore. Silence fell.
I collapsed against Mother's flank, every cell alight with spent energy. She curled around me, warm and protective, and I drifted into oblivion.
When I awoke, the air trembled with cheers. Seagulls scattered as I exhaled, steam spiraling from my nostrils. Before me stood three figures: a man in red and blue, another wielding a hammer, and a third encased in sleek armor. Above, an enormous airship dipped from the clouds, cloaking itself in the colors of Superman and Thor.
Mother rose with a low, warning rumble. The crowd parted like reeds in a storm as we—kaiju and guardian—turned to face Earth's greatest heroes. With a soft grunt, she led me toward the water, each of my heavy steps marking the boundary between two worlds: ours and theirs. I tucked my head beneath her fin, hiding my shame—and my awe—as we faded back into the brine, hearts still echoing with the night's thunder.