Blood poured out of the base of the neck that Atomic Rex was attacking and his claws were tearing long strips of flesh from Tiamat’s torso. Tiamat could sense that he was about lose another of his heads so he used the remaining five to wrap around Atomic Rex.
With Atomic Rex in the ever-tightening grasp of his heads, Tiamat lifted the kaiju off the ground. The Dark One then threw Atomic Rex to his right. The saurian monster flew for several hundred feet before he hit the icy ground and slid along it for another hundred feet.
When Atomic Rex finally stopped sliding, he looked up to the see the blood-soaked form of Tiamat coming toward him. The dragon stopped just short of Atomic Rex’s reach and then all six remaining heads opened their mouths and together unleashed a wall of flames.
Atomic Rex’s scales began to crack and peel away from the intense heat that was assaulting them. The monster’s body was in incredible pain, but his mind was overrun with anger. Atomic Rex had been taken from a world in which he was the undisputed ruler of two continents and placed on a similar but vastly different version of his home. The monster’s mind was then assaulted by a creature who sought to dominate him for his own ends. These were offenses that Atomic Rex would not abide. With Tiamat’s mystical flames burning his body, Atomic Rex roared and stood up. He then took one agonizing step forward after another forcing his way through Tiamat’s barrage. When he had closed half the distance between himself and Tiamat, Atomic Rex leapt forward.
Tiamat’s eyes went wide with fear and disbelief when they saw Atomic Rex’s jaws coming out of the maelstrom of flames. The mutated tyrannosaur crashed down into Tiamat with enough force to knock the Dark One onto his back. Atomic Rex was standing on top of Tiamat with the dragon pinned beneath him. Tiamat’s heads were flailing and spewing flames in every direction in an attempt to force the monster off him.
Atomic Rex roared as he stood atop of the fallen dragon and then he lashed out with his claws and tail. Atomic Rex spun from left to right, swiping at Tiamat’s heads and necks with his claws and swatting them aside with his tail. When Atomic Rex had first pinned Tiamat to the ground, he was still being sprayed by the flames emitting from the dragon’s mouths. As Atomic Rex continued his attack, the flames died out and were replaced by blood flying out of the wounds Atomic Rex had torn open with his claws.
Tiamat abandoned his flame attack and once again used his remaining heads and necks to wrap around Atomic Rex. Two of Tiamat’s heads wrapped around Atomic Rex’s arms, restraining the monster from using his claws to cause further damage. The dragon then used two more of his heads to ensnare the nuclear theropod’s tail and prevent it from striking him. With his final two heads, Tiamat reached up and latched his jaws onto Atomic Rex’s neck.
Blood poured out of the kaiju’s neck as Tiamat tried to rip out his jugular and cut off his oxygen supply. Atomic Rex shook his head and pulled with his arms in an attempt to free himself from Tiamat’s necks, but the Dark One’s grip held firm. Atomic Rex continued to struggle against Tiamat’s grip until blood loss and an inability to breath caused the kaiju’s head to slump down. The monster was blacking out when his eyes fell upon his clawed feet pressing down into Tiamat’s stomach. Seeing his chance of breaking the dragon’s hold, Atomic Rex lifted his foot into the air and then he drove his clawed toes into Tiamat’s stomach. Blood gushed out of the gaping wound in Tiamat’s gut as all of his heads released their hold on Atomic Rex and hissed in pain. With his arms and mouth free, Atomic Rex lashed out.
His jaws shot forward and closed on one Tiamat’s heads that had the visage of a moray eel. With two quick bites, the nuclear theropod crushed the skull of the eel head and then let it slip lifelessly from his mouth. Another head with a hood like that of a cobra around it sank its fangs into Atomic Rex’s leg. The saurian monster retaliated by slashing at its neck with his claws and decapitating the hooded head.
With half of his heads gone and massive amounts of blood being lost from various wounds, Tiamat tried to free himself from beneath the crushing weight of Atomic Rex. The dragon first attempted to throw Atomic Rex off of him by rolling to his side. When Atomic Rex felt the dragon’s weight shifting beneath him, he lifted his leg and drove his clawed foot into the dragon’s torso for a second time. With his claws embedded in the Tiamat’s stomach, Atomic Rex pushed his foot forward and then pulled it up.
As Atomic Rex’s foot lifted up from within Tiamat’s body, it pulled most of the Dark One’s intestines out with it. Tiamat’s remaining heads all shot straight up into the air where they wailed like the sirens of myth for several seconds before they fell to the ground, devoid of any life.
Once Atomic Rex felt that Tiamat had finished struggling beneath him, the mutated dinosaur lifted his head into the sky and roared. Atomic Rex climbed off Tiamat with blood still oozing out of the wounds from his jugular. The kaiju took several off-balance steps and then he finally collapsed onto the ice. Atomic Rex closed his eyes and fell asleep which allowed his nuclear powers to focus on healing his badly damaged body.
Captain Travis flew over the remains of Tiamat and the resting Atomic Rex. He radioed back to Chimera Base, “General Parsons, Atomic Rex has slain Tiamat. I believe that he’s resting now. It appears that the Arctic is safe for now.”
Parsons’ voice came back over the radio. “Excellent work, Captain. We are sending coordinates to the nearest base. You are to refuel there and then head home.”
“Copy that, sir.” When the coordinates for the refueling base reached Travis, he forwarded them to the rest of his squadron and then flew away from Arctic.
Several minutes after the jets had sped away, Cronus opened a portal above Tiamat’s body and consumed the ancient dragon’s lifeforce, adding the creature’s power to his own. With the power of his fellow Dark Ones infused in his body, Cronus opened a portal to the Atlantic Ocean. He gazed down at the water. “I underestimated Atomic Rex’s will power. I will never be able to control that creature, but there is still a beast whose power can be unleashed that is greater than Atomic Rex or Chimera. Once I locate and set him free, it will be the end of everything. Men, monsters, gods, only the creature will be left. We have feared him in the past as none of us possessed the power to stand against him. With your energy added to my own, I might possess the power to survive the creature’s rampage across the planet long enough to absorb the lives of those he kills. Once I have absorbed enough life energy to surpass the creature’s power, I shall slay him and take his strength as well.” Cronus then stepped through his portal and began walking along the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Chapter 16
Boreal Forest, Ontario, Canada
The sun was setting as Luke and Diana finished setting up camp. They had flown to a nearby military base with Chimera following them at a much faster pace than he was able to while carrying Luke in his hand. After covering several hundred miles, Chimera was tired and in need of rest. While the Canadian government was fairly accommodating to having Chimera within their borders, both the base commander and Luke felt that it would be better for all parties if Chimera slept in the nearby woods instead of on the base.
Luke, of course, decided to camp out with Chimera as a precaution against the monster inadvertently causing damage to an area that he was unfamiliar with. Diana offered to accompany her friend so that he would not be alone with the fate of the world once more resting heavily on him. The two of them packed up two tents, amongst comments from several of the soldiers who were with them that only one of the tents would be set up, and headed out into the forest in a jeep with Chimera following them.
When they were several miles away from any populated area, they set camp. Once Chimera saw that Luke was resting, the exhausted monster wandered off into the woods and quickly fell asleep.
Luke and Diana could hear Chimera snoring through the woods as the last rays of the sun slid away. Once the sun had completely set, Diana built a fire that she and Luke sat around.
Diana could see that Luke was nearly
as exhausted as Chimera, but she could also see that her friend needed to talk. “Parsons is still going with what the gods had suggested about Atomic Rex coming to North America?”
Luke nodded. “I don’t know if Parsons believes the gods or not, but at the very least he thinks that Atomic Rex is too dangerous to run free. He figures that Atomic Rex and Chimera are bound to be on a collision course at some point and better to have it happen in an area with as few people as possible. Having Chimera take on Atomic Rex and hopefully send him to Asgard to either take out what’s left of the gods, or have them send the monster after Cronus, is the best way to kill three birds with one stone.”
Diana nodded. “We will reach the Hudson Bay tomorrow and the Argo’s sister ship, the Hudson. The Hudson will allow us to move Chimera to an intercept point for Atomic Rex fairly quickly.”
Luke turned away from Diana and stared blankly at the fire.
Diana moved over next to Luke and placed her hand on his shoulder. “You miss Melissa and the girls, don’t you?”
Luke smiled. “I am easy to read as an open book, I suppose.” He shrugged. “I really hate downtime like this. At least when we are fighting monsters, I don’t really have time to think about it. When we are trying to get to the next fight is when I miss them.” He turned his head away from the fire. “It’s not just that I miss them. It’s that I feel like I am robbing them of time with me. I mean, what if I die while Chimera is fighting Atomic Rex? What if he walks across the world laying waste to it as he did his own and I am not there to protect my family? What if we stop Atomic Rex, but it still costs me my life and the girls never see me again? I have always told myself that when I died, if I did so with my girls around looking at me as if they were going to miss me but that they enjoyed our time together, then I would know I gave them all that I had. I want them to be sure that I loved them more than anything. That even when it didn’t seem like it, they were my first priority.” Luke began to tear up. “If I die in this battle, will they think that, or will they think their dad preferred to be out playing hero with his monster rather than spending time with them?” He shook his head. “When I first agreed to train Chimera, I honestly thought it would be a one-time thing. That we would fight the gods and it would be over. I didn’t think that we would have to fight the Dark Ones, that monsters from parallel worlds could be an issue, and then there’s Allison and Toombs still out there with twenty-some demi-gods and the brains to make a new monster.” He held out his hands. “Is this going to be my life from now on? Leading Chimera into fight after fight until we come up against something that he cannot defeat? All at the expense of my relationship with my wife and daughters in an attempt to make the world safe when now it looks like it will never be safe?”
Diana leaned over and hugged her friend, and then she put her hands on his cheeks and looked him in the eyes. “I can understand your pain and fears. Please understand that while I understand them, I can assure you that they are groundless. You and I have been friends for two years now and the main thing you have learned from me is what good comic book stories are.” She smiled which caused Luke to smile. “You have taught me so much more. You taught me about your vast knowledge about how to shape behaviors and how to set up a situation for the best possible outcome. You have taught me that being proactive and looking for ways to address a problem before it happens is the best way to deal with issues.” Diana started to tear up as well. “You have shown me not only that there are still good men in the world, you have shown me what it means to be one of those men.” She placed her forehead against Luke’s forehead. “Before I met you, I would never have thought that I could be this close physically or emotionally to a man, without him thinking that I wanted more from him. I never would have thought I could feel so close to a member of the opposite sex without having sexual feelings toward him. The reason that we can be such good friends without any of that tension is because of the love that you have for your wife and kids.” She pulled away from him. “That love and knowledge is why you are out here now. The best way to protect your family is by stopping something horrible from happening to them when you can. The girls and Melissa know this. They know how much you love them. They know that you are out here fighting for them. Most of all they know because you spend as much free time as you can with them. They know because you listen to them.” She pulled her hands away from his face. “I am sure that they know this because it’s the same things you do for me. I don’t get to spend as much time with my best friend as I would like but when I do, you make sure it’s worthwhile.”
Luke reached out hugged Diana. “Thanks. I needed that.” He pulled away and smiled. “You know, this whole saving the world thing takes its toll. Even the few perfect men like me are affected by it.”
Diana punched him in the arm. “All right, don’t let that all go to your head.”
The two of them laughed. They didn’t laugh at Diana’s meager joke. It was more a laugh to release the stress and tension that was building inside of them from being on the front lines in war with gods and monsters.
Luke cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. He then leaned back a little and smiled at Diana. “Enough about me sobbing and feeling sorry for myself. What’s going on with you? Parsons mentioned something about getting a good Fantastic Four movie made so you could go on a date with a helicopter pilot?” Diana’s face turned a bright shade of red and Luke laughed. “I am sure that he over exaggerated the story. So please fill me in on what really happened.”
Diana smiled and shrugged. “No, that’s a pretty spot on account of what happened.”
Luke sat up in surprise and laughed. “Really! Now this is a story I need hear.”
The Arctic
Darkness had fallen over the now refrozen Arctic and the slumbering kaiju. The lights from the Aurora Borealis cascaded over the unconscious form of Atomic Rex. The polar lights bathed the monster in their shimmering luminescence, giving his radioactive scales a neon appearance.
The monster had been asleep for roughly twenty hours when his eyes suddenly snapped open. Atomic Rex’s amazing healing abilities had repaired all of the damage done to his body in his battle with Tiamat. The nuclear theropod stood and roared at the lights above him. He then turned and began walking south back to the closest thing this Earth had to his home. Atomic Rex began making his way back to North America.
Atomic Rex walked along the coastline for nearly an hour before he finally stepped into the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. The kaiju slipped beneath the water and immediately picked up speed. The reptile’s powerful lower body and streamlined form allowed him to move through water with much greater speed than he could on land. At the speed he was moving, Atomic Rex was less than twelve hours from making landfall in Northern Canada.
The Atlantic Ocean
Cronus had walked for hours before he found the spot that he was looking for. The mad titan stood on the surface of the ocean and he looked down through miles of water to see the seal that held that creature he was looking to free. Despite his arrogance and vastly increased power, Cronus stopped for a moment to reconsider what he was doing. Cronus ran his fingers through his beard as he considered if even he would be capable of surviving the wrath of the creature that he was about to unleash. The creature fed off life energy just as he did, but the beast would not be satisfied with the life force from this Earth or countless others. The monster would destroy every Earth that he could access. Once he had exhausted all of the life energy from the various Earths, he would seek other dimensions and other forms of life. Cronus knew that even if he was able to survive the monster’s initial release, that at some point it would come after him.
When the beast was first located millennia ago, it took the combined power of Cronus, Surtr, Tiamat, Atlas, the Kraken, and countless other Dark Ones and monsters to seal the beast away. Many of the Dark Ones and their monsters died in the war with the creature. It was the losses from the battle with the creature that made it possible for the g
ods to defeat the Dark Ones. Now as Cronus was considering releasing the creature from the cell he had sealed it in, he had to consider if he would be able to siphon enough life energy away from those the beast killed to challenge the monster at some point.
Cronus silently shook his head as convinced himself that he would be capable of meeting the creature one day and killing him. Cronus knelt down on the water and he used his mystical powers to reach deep into the ocean and below it.
At the bottom of the ocean, a colossal metal symbol that stretched for several miles began to glow a bright yellow as Cronus exerted his will upon it. Cronus continued to stretch his power down to the symbol, causing it grow brighter and finally to crack in several places. The seal that Cronus and his fellow Dark Ones had placed over the primordial beast was potent. Even with his enhanced powers, the titan knew that it would take him several hours to crack the seal and release the horror held within it.
Chapter 17
Boreal Forest Ontario Canada
It was five a.m. when Luke’s cellphone woke him up. He rubbed his tired eyes and looked down at his phone to see that the call was coming from Parsons. Once he saw that it was Parsons who was calling him, any drowsiness that Luke was experiencing immediately faded away. He answered his phone as Diana was crawling out of her tent. Luke switched his phone to speaker. “Go ahead, Parsons, I have you on speaker with Diana.”
Parsons’ voice sounded even more ominous than usual. “Atomic Rex has left the Arctic. It seems that Zeus and Odin’s predictions were correct. The kaiju is swimming across the Arctic Ocean and heading toward North America. We predict that he will make landfall on Baffin Island in roughly eighteen hours. If we can get Chimera onto the Hudson in an hour, we can intercept Atomic Rex on the northern part of the island where there are fewer civilians.”
Atomic Rex_The Conquest of Chimera Page 17
