Atomic Rex_The Conquest of Chimera

by Matthew Dennion

  Luke blinked several more times and then he stared at the Kraken in awe. While not as tall as Chimera, the Kraken’s overall bulk was nearly twice that of Chimera. Luke doubted that even if Chimera had not been stunned by the blinding light of teleportation, the kaiju was strong enough to push the Kraken off of him.

  Chimera could feel his airway being closed off as the Kraken’s claw dug deeper into his throat. The hybrid monster reached up and grabbed the Kraken’s claw in both of his hands. Chimera pushed back against the Kraken’s claws and for a moment, the kaiju could feel the claws sliding away from his neck. As Chimera slowly forced the Kraken’s claw off his neck, the monster could feel the Kraken’s sharp pincers slicing into his throat. Chimera blinked his eyes several more times and slowly the Kraken came into view. Chimera could see the two large black eyes of the sea beast staring down at him. Chimera snarled and then he unleashed a tightly focused sonar blast at the crustacean.

  The Kraken’s tentacles all flailed wildly and the monster fell onto his side as his central nervous system was disrupted by Chimera’s blast. Chimera stood up and shook his head a few more times as he continued to recover from the effects of being teleported. Chimera looked down at the temporarily disabled Kraken. He was about to attack the mythical beast when he sniffed the air and turned his head to the side. Chimera roared in the opposite direction of the Kraken and then he began running away from the downed beast.

  Luke couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had never seen Chimera run from a fight, let alone a downed opponent. Luke could only guess that there was a second monster nearby that he hadn’t noticed previously. Luke darted to his left so that he could see around the fallen Kraken. Once Luke had run far enough to see past the Kraken, he could see Chimera chasing after a thirty-foot-tall giant in a toga. Luke shook his head in surprise as he mouthed the word, “Zeus?” It then struck Luke like one of the thunder god’s lightning bolts. Zeus was supposed to teleport he and Chimera to Baltimore if Chimera was successful in defeating the Kraken. In his weakened state, Zeus must have needed to be close to them in order to pull off such a feat.

  Zeus was still running when Chimera’s massive fist struck him across the side and sent the former king of Olympus flying through the air. Zeus crashed into the upper floors of a still-standing building several blocks away. Luke watched as the Olympian’s body slowly slid out of the crevice it had created forty stories up and then fell to the street below.

  Chimera turned to pursue Zeus, and Luke watched as the Kraken regained his sense of balance and stood up. Chimera was still making his way after Zeus when the Kraken began chasing the kaiju. Luke grabbed his megaphone and he started running after the two monsters. The rain and wind were pushing against his body as he tried to get close enough to Chimera to call out to him. Luke not only needed Chimera to re-engage the Kraken for his own sake and for the sake of the people still alive in Boston, but he also needed Chimera to leave Zeus alive so that if they defeated the Kraken, he could transport them to Baltimore while there was still time to try and save at least some of the people there from the Hecatonchires.

  Luke guessed that if there was ever a time that all of the jogging he was doing was going to pay off, it was now. Luke had never tried to run in the middle of a storm before, let alone through the debris field that was downtown Boston. He tried not to think about the obstacles he was facing and instead tried to focus on running. Luke looked at the Kraken and he could immediately see that the monster’s thin crab like legs were not suited to moving through a city. Luke realized that Chimera was going to reach Zeus before the Kraken reached Chimera. Luke lifted up his head and ran as fast as he could. While he was in decent shape, he was still pushing forty years old and his body could only give him so much. Luke could feel his hamstrings tightening and he knew that at any second he could pull one of them which would stop him dead in his tracks.

  Luke looked toward Chimera to see the monster standing next to the building that Zeus had crashed into. Chimera was looking down at the street and Luke could see the rage in the monster’s eyes. The former teacher knew that he was out of time. He brought his megaphone up to his mouth and screamed into it, “Chimera, stop!”

  The kaiju turned his head away from the fallen, and Luke hoped, still alive Zeus. Chimera saw the Kraken approaching him and the kaiju looked toward Luke for directions on what to do with the approaching monster.

  Luke pointed at the Kraken and he screamed into his megaphone, “Chimera, attack!”

  Chimera turned toward the Kraken and charged. The hybrid drove his spermaceti reinforced head directly into the Kraken’s mouth. The impact rocked the Kraken and forced the beast to take several steps backward. Chimera stepped forward and delivered a straight fist between the Kraken’s eyes, staggering the shelled monster. Chimera moved in closer to the Kraken, dropping his arms low to ground as he approached the beast. When his arms were underneath the Kraken, Chimera brought up both of his fists, hitting the Kraken with a double uppercut. The blow was so powerful that it lifted the mythical beast’s front two legs off the ground.

  As the front half of the monster’s body was falling back to the ground, the Kraken lifted his right claw into the air. The monster then brought his claw crashing down onto Chimera’s head. The blow struck Chimera with such force that it drove the hybrid face first into the street. Chimera’s lower jaw slammed into the street, causing a large portion of it to collapse into the subway tunnel beneath it.

  Chimera was attempting to pick himself up when the Kraken’s tentacles wrapped around his body. Chimera struggled to break free of the Kraken’s grip but the tentacles that had dragged thousands of ships to the bottom of the ocean held fast. The Kraken turned and started dragging Chimera back toward the ocean, hoping to drown his opponent.

  Luke watch helplessly as the Kraken continued to drag Chimera toward the Atlantic Ocean. Realizing that the most productive things he could do was to try to get Zeus back on his feet, Luke started running toward the building that the thunder god had crashed into. For Luke, it was a fifteen-block jog in the rain and around debris created by the warring monsters. When he finally reached the street where Zeus had crashed into, Luke slowed down to a walk. He was breathing heavy and his clothes were soaked. Luke was in the best shape he had been in years, but he was pushing his body to its limits and it was starting to take its toll on him.

  He looked down from the spot where Zeus had crashed into and at first he could not see the Olympian. Luke walked forward and put his hands over his eyes to try and shield them from the non-stop rain. As Luke continued walking forward, he saw a subway tunnel entrance and at the top of the stairs, he could see a giant sandaled foot. Luke walked up to the fallen god as quickly as he could. He found Zeus laying across the stairs to the subway completely unconscious. Luke walked over to the god and leaned down next to his mouth.

  Luke threw his hands up into the air and shouted, “Great, now you’re not breathing! An hour ago, nothing would have made me happier than to see you dead. Of course, when I need you, you crap out on me.”

  Luke climbed on top of Zeus’ chest and he started jumping up and down on the god’s sternum. Luke groaned when he realized that even bringing down his entire weight onto Zeus’ chest was not enough to get the god breathing again. He screamed in Zeus’ face, “What in the hell am I supposed to do to get you to wake up?”

  The former teacher clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. “Okay, yelling at you isn’t going to help the situation. What do I have around that I can use?” Luke looked around the subway entrance. When he did not see anything that could help him revive Zeus, he ran down into the subway. The first thing that he saw was a group of people huddled together in a corner. Luke guessed that the people had made their way underground in an attempt to find some kind of shelter from the Kraken’s attack.

  Realizing that there wasn’t much that he could do for the people at that second, Luke continued to look for anything that he could use to revive Zeus. Luke scann
ed the subway and his eyes came to rest on a sign above the third rail on the tracks that read Danger High Voltage. Luke shrugged. “Well, he is a thunder god, and if nothing else, it may shock his heart back into beating. Now all I need is something to carry the current from the rail to Zeus.” Luke ran back over the still-form Zeus and into the storm.

  He closed his eyes as he tried to think about all of the stores he had passed on his run to the subway station. In his mind, he was slowly going back through the streets he had run past. Luke was nodding with each store that he came across when he suddenly stopped moving his head. “A Home Depot. I passed a Home Depot three blocks back. They have to have something that I can use as a conductor!”

  Luke took a deep breath and then he began slowly jogging back through the wind and rain.

  Chimera unsheathed his lion claws and dug them into the street. His thick claws punctured the street into the sewer system, sending a geyser of filth shooting into the air. Despite the extra resistance, the Kraken continued to drag Chimera toward the ocean as if he was weightless. The Kraken climbed into the harbor, pulling Chimera after him. When Chimera initially entered the ocean, the water reached the kaiju’s chest but as the Kraken pulled him farther into the ocean, the water was quickly approaching Chimera’s face. The hybrid took a deep breath as the ocean water rolled over his head.

  Once he was in the water, Chimera stopped resisting the Kraken’s pull. When he was being dragged on his back through the city, Chimera had been unable to fight back against the Kraken’s grip. Now that he was in the water, Chimera knew that once he was deep enough, he would be able to use the ocean to his advantage.

  The Kraken continued to drag Chimera deeper into the ocean in an attempt to drown his terrestrial foe, but unbeknownst to the Kraken, Chimera was as equally adept in water as he was on land. When they were deep enough in the water, Chimera began flapping his fluke and pulling back against the Kraken’s pull. Remembering a tactic he had used in his battle with the Scylla years earlier, Chimera waited until he stretched the Kraken’s tentacles to their limit. The kaiju then switched the direction that he was flapping his fluke and in doing so, he used both his strength and the Kraken’s own might to send his body hurtling toward the ancient nightmare. Chimera’s thick head slammed into the top of the Kraken’s shell, driving the beast into the ocean floor. Before the Kraken was able to stand up, Chimera latched his jaws and hands onto the base of the Kraken’s left claw. The kaiju began to chew and pull on the claw, causing the Kraken to instinctively pull away. Once more, Chimera had caused the Kraken to use his own strength against himself. Under the strength of the two giant monsters pulling on the appendage, the Kraken’s claw tore free from its body.

  Chimera held the severed appendage in his mouth as the Kraken scurried away from him. Ichor poured out of the Kraken’s shell from the joint where the claw had been torn free and it shrouded the water in a thick black cloud. The Kraken spun around to face Chimera only to find himself blinded by his own bodily fluids. Chimera sent out a wide sonar blast and when it bounced off the Kraken and returned to him, he knew exactly where the monster was in the pitch-black water.

  Luke was panting when he reached the Home Depot. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the doors were unlocked. He had been in enough Home Depots to know where he needed to go. Luke ran along the front of the store until he found multiple rolls of chains rolled up on large wheels. He found the lightest chain that he could carry and said to himself, “I guess I need about fifty feet.” He then pulled out the chain to a little past that length and used the bolt cutters hanging on the wall to cut it.

  Luke then grabbed a shopping cart and began loading the chain into it.

  He heard a voice yelling out from the dark isles of the store, “Looting is illegal! I am calling the police!”

  Luke threw his hands in frustration. “The hell with the police, call the Army! Ask for General Sam Parsons and tell him that Luke Davis commandeered this chain to save Zeus’ life.” He then placed both hands on his shopping cart and jogged back out into the rain.

  The Kraken was spinning around on the ocean floor, trying to clear his vision from the cloud of black ichor that was pouring out of his body when Chimera slammed into the side of his shell head first. The blow pushed the Kraken along the ocean floor, but the monster was able to lash out with his tentacles and wrap them around Chimera. The Kraken pulled Chimera in close to him and then closed his remaining claw on Chimera’s throat.

  Chimera unsheathed his own claws then drove them into the Kraken’s mouth. Once his claws were embedded in the monster’s mouth, Chimera pulled down as hard as he could, ripping off the bottom portion of the Kraken’s maw. The Kraken tightened his grip as he writhed in pain and more black ichor poured out of his body. Chimera drove his right hand back into the hole where the Kraken’s maw had once been and used his claws to tear the Kraken apart from the inside.

  The Kraken’s grip on Chimera slowly loosened and then went completely limp when he finally inflicted enough damage on the crustacean to end its life. Chimera felt the Kraken’s dead body drift away from him and then he headed back toward the surface.

  By the time Luke had made his way back to the fallen body of Zeus, he was exhausted and could barely breathe. Several of the people who had been hiding in the subway were now gathered around the unconscious Zeus. Luke was too tired to explain what was going on so he just shouted, “US military! Get away from that thing; he is under quarantine!” The crowd quickly backed away as Luke pushed his shopping cart up to the giant. He grabbed one end of the chain he had stolen and he wrapped it around Zeus’ wrist. He then grabbed the other end of the chain and immediately dropped it to the ground as he realized he was too fatigued to carry it. He looked around at three twenty-something men with Boston College jackets on and he shouted at them, “You guys! Help me carry this chain into the subway.”

  The college students looked at each other for a second and then one of them said, “But you just said that thing was under quarantine?”

  Luke pointed at them. “I know what I said! I also said I was US military! Now if you don’t want to go to federal prison for obstructing a federal mission, come help me!”

  The college kids gave Luke a strange look as if they knew there was no way that not helping him would put them in jail. Luke thought that his bluff had failed until the three young men started walking toward him. They all grabbed the chain and then Luke led them to the subway rails. He stopped short of the third line and looked at the college kids. “On three, throw this chain onto the third rail and then get down and cover your head.”

  Luke could see the fear in their eyes. In his head, Luke silently prayed that he was not about to get these kids and himself electrocuted to death. Luke counted, “One, two, three!” Then he and the students he drafted into helping him tossed the chain onto the third rail. None of them hand the chance to duck before sparks lit up the subway and electricity caused the chain to flail. Luke heard a crashing sound at the top of the subway stairs. He turned to see Zeus sitting bolt upright at the subway entrance with a huge hole in the ceiling above his head from where his skull had crashed through it.

  Luke motioned for the college kids to back away from the chain then he walked up to Zeus. The god looked beaten and broken but alive. There was a roar from the harbor and both Luke and Zeus looked toward the water to see Chimera standing at the shoreline. Luke panted out, “Good boy, Chimera. I knew you would crush that giant crab.”

  Zeus looked at Luke. “Mortal, thank you for reviving me.”

  Luke held his megaphone against his chest as he continued to try and catch his breath. “Shut up. Just get us to Baltimore.”

  Chapter 7

  Fort Hood, Texas

  The soldiers of Fort Hood were dashing around the base in preparation for two major events. The first was Atlas. Atlas was a giant far larger than any of the kaiju they had seen in the war with the gods. Atlas was making his way across the state and wrecking ev
erything in his path. The titan had laid waste to the entire city of Dallas in less than half an hour. The soldiers of Fort Hood were put on immediate alert that they were going to intercept Atlas before he made his way to the city of Waco. The thought of battling a giant that was over one thousand feet tall was nearly incomprehensible to the men and women of Fort Hood. Despite their trepidation, the men and women of Fort Hood were soldiers and they were more than ready to carry out their duty to protect not only their country but their planet.

  The second thing that the soldiers were preparing for in addition to the battle with Atlas was the coming of the legendary General Sam Parsons. Parsons was the man who led the armed forces in the war with the gods and they hoped that when he came he was bringing Chimera with him. Some of the soldiers at Fort Hood had actually seen Chimera in person and they stated that as massive as Chimera was, pitting him against the approaching Atlas would be akin to sending out a Chihuahua to fight a Great Dane.

  Parsons had ordered jet fighters and attack helicopters to be ready to take to the air and attack Atlas. The last of the helicopters were fueling up when a huge storm cloud suddenly appeared in the middle of the base no more than a few feet off the ground. Lightning shot out from the cloud and somehow managed to streak off into the sky without hitting any people or buildings. The soldiers of Fort Hood watched as a giant bird with blue flames dancing around its body burst forth from the storm cloud, took to the sky, and began circling the base.