Gfantis vs the Guest Monsters

by Matthew Dennion

CASE REPORT: Oversized Fish Food Sprinkled Across Damaged Newly Leased Storage Units and Warehouses.

  This… this was the case for me. I just knew it! It was meant for me, destined for my very specialty -- private investigation.

  The very essence of hard research and detective work… finding out the cause of fish flakes entering and leaving a warehouse. How galvanizing, how invigorating to prepare one’s self for physically demanding aptitude! It’s not like there’s a kaiju out on the loose a few towns down, no.

  It had been given to me the week before my time to hand in background searches and recent purchase records of a, seemingly idiotic, teen who had threw away thousands to run away with her boyfriend. Usually, a case like this requires nothing more than a little profiling and on-the-surface research. If I had a larger income every time -- no, I take that back. Almost all clients who consult me have never cared to do the, rather easy, digging that I do on the daily.

  The best part of my job? When the real baddies come in. When the real calls come on, when I don the suit. The suit, given to me by an extraterrestrial being, rearranges electrons and expands my human proportion to that of Godz-- er --  a non-trademarked character that is very, very, big.

  One thing to note, however, is that, I live by a moral code. To which I never use the suit, unless absolutely a necessity.

  One thing I’ve learned over the years, actually, I don’t know what I’ve learned. But the moral code I live by, still stands. Rarely does the time come to rise to the challenge, pun intended. And hopefully it remains that way.

  4:56 PM - Main and Oakland

  I had followed these fish flakes for quite a while, and discovered something, rather, intriguing. I had been going in circles for two hours! My face grew long as I wiped my face in disappointment. Hundreds of people walked by as I gawked in awe at stupid oversized fish food. I pull up my phone, slicing my fingers on the cracked screen. You’d think a job like this pays for your phone plan.

  Then it happened, what I didn’t expect to happen in all my years. An army of stray, and domesticated, cats came running down the street in one single filed line. Then my mind connected the two amongst the smell of cat urine. Cats, giant fish flakes, destroyed warehouses, my mind clicked. I need to get off that heartburn medication!

  But this was no hallucination, I stood my ground as cars began to hop slightly from an impact only something that likes an entrance could make. Water rushed in like a flood, soaking my pants.

  Ripping away at the pants, my Sade suit had glinted through by the glare of the sun. My helmet folded over my head and clicked shut. “HUY!” I seemed to had yelled from my voicebox in the helmet compartment. That’s not right, I had this issue all week. When I would have to announce the area to evacuate, my voicebox could only spew out the awful sound “HUY!” in a loud mannerism. Or even, the smallest grunts can come out to “HUY”.

  5:10 PM - Main and Betton

  I suited up, my suit clenching to my skin. The cool air rushing through my body from the air filtration cooling system. I slammed my belt and began to tower above the city buildings. I could see further out into the distance, and was shocked at what I saw heading my way.

  In the faded distance, a giant round tank of water sitting on a mechanical body had limped its way towards me. Its body looked like that of crane parts and spare car parts. Rusted, and creaky, it lunged towards me with a burning claw waiting to tear into me.

  I prepared myself, looked for civilians to make sure I wasn’t killing anybody today.

  Then it really hit me, like, the claw. I stumbled back onto what seemed to be a bush, but it is in my giant state that I forget trees are not shrubs. They poked and stabbed my back with prickly hateful branches. I pulled myself up and gave the mech a “what gives?” gesture.

  The tank of water that sat upon the mech body carried a goldfish inside. A giant, derp-eyed, deranged, fish. It snarled at me, almost with a small snicker of achievement. I began to question the heartburn medication even more.

  ‘Bubbles’ was the name on the mech’s plating. What a cute name I thought as I was tossed across the street. I’m really not feeling this fight. A goldfish? I stood up now, confident. Back leaned shoulders puffed. I shot my finger out at him, waving it saying “No.”, but then I remembered.

  “HUUUUUYYYY!!” shouted my helmet.

  Bubbles became upset, picked up a tree and smashed it on my head a couple times to get the message through.

  As I sat on the streets, feet out in front of me, head splitting with a migraine, I could feel the earth moving again, this time stronger. I began to feel my incompetence surging through my body. Beat down by a fish.

  Bubbles seemed to take his cross-eyed gaze off of me, his head looked up past me. Letting out a muffled roar, Bubbles clouded his tank with air bubbles. And with that, he stormed off past me and slammed against something else. Being a curious giant defender of earth, I got up and began to sniff my way over there.

  Good god! Gfantis, the infamous monster known for pillaging cities and reducing the population to devastating levels of insecurity, had picked up the poor little bugger and flung him with the flick of his hand. Gfantis looked smug for what he had done. Who did he think he was? I marched up to Gfantis and pulled out my devastating sticky bomb. With one hard smack to the face, Gfantis seemed unfazed by this, the impact of the explosion clouded his face and he hadn’t flinched the tiniest bit.

  I placed my hands on my hips, “Well, I’ll be. That usually works”, I thought to myself.

  Gfantis crossed his arms. What more did he want? I had no more utilities on my belt. On a regular day, my belt was brimming. Today I turned up empty. And Gfantis didn’t wait around for me to check, because I was already tossed far into Avalon Lane.

  Gfantis charged Bubbles, who, to be quite honest, seemed to enjoy watching Gfantis pummel me. The muffled underwater chuckle was odd coming from a seemingly unintelligible animal. Or so I pondered. At this point, Bubbles was ready, stood his ground and took the impact of the raging bull. Bubbles slid further down the streets, still holding the weight of a clawing Gfantis. Bubbles snarled at Gfantis through his tank (who knew fish could do that) forcing air bubbles through his mouth. Bubbles placed his foot around Gfantis, did the merengue dance around him, and slammed him over his shoulder. I was impressed by Bubbles’ strength. I finally picked myself off the floor and walked over to the chaos. I looked for any civilians in the area, my job was to minimize damage and costs of damage during an event of city disturbance. But I have to stop these two before I end up getting the blame for city destruction.

  The sun began lowering, which isn’t good for me. Low visibility makes for a harder job. The two were clawing at each other like two teenage girls slap boxing. I intervened and shoved them in opposite directions. Bubbles’ tank was starting to reflect most of the sun into my eyes, and I think he noticed too. A devilish goofy grin grew on his fish face. With the raise of his shiny metallic claws, he directed the sunlight right into my eye. I held up my hand as the claw glinted in the sunset. Just then, a big heap of air rushed out of my chest as a raging Gfantis tackled me into the air and threw me on his back. I was now a ball in this sick game of catch. Gfantis gave Bubbles a look of mutual sentiment, and Bubbles returned that look. I winced as I knew what was happening. With the swing of his bulky, scaly, arms, I was thrown backwards onto Bubbles’ steel hooks. My back squished into his hookshot. Unfortunately for them, I had tricks up my sleeve. A quick instinctual jump off his hookshot was enough to yank his whole body forward. I gave a big ol’ smack right in the face to an unexpecting Gfantis. Bubbles picked himself up and ran for the coast. Gfantis shoved me back and chased after Bubbles, leaving a fiery trail behind him.

  6:30 PM - Boston Logan International airport

  It got intense now, for me at least, I could only imagine how much fat I burned off running to the airport. The bad part about this whole ordeal was that it had leaked into the airport. Bubbles became dramatic now,
expressing more emotion than any other kaiju I’ve ever seen. He had torn off aircraft engine covers and tried to wear it as a cape. He knocked down all the U.S. flags and kicked the wings of each plane in sight. Patriotic. He took one foot and stepped on the boarding bridge, with one confident chin (tank?) to the sky, he roared in quiet fish victory. Gfantis stomped forward, rolling up his invisible sleeves. I leapt forward, smashing the floor, hard, I grabbed Gfantis’ tail. He slowed down, but came to look down at a guilty man-giant holding him back. Still holding on, I was swung erratically from left to right and every direction possibly conceived. I finally gave in and rolled on the ground, letting go of the massive spiked tail. A glorious stomp revealed Gfantis was proud of what he had accomplished, and so forth he continued.

  “I got a bone to pick with you” shouted Gfantis’ eyes.

  Bubbles turned around with a face molded in disgust. I had to warn everybody of the impending destruction of the airport, so I had shrunk down to normal size in front of the airport and ran inside as quick as I could. People had already been screaming and running the opposite direction that I had just ran through. I rushed through police and civilians, heading to the second floor. The escalator pushed me to a completely evacuated floor now. I sprinted down the long hall as I looked through the huge window to see Gfantis smacking Bubbles in the head with a plane, which had been crumbling like a cookie every hit Gfantis gave it. I rushed through the fire exit and ran as fast as I could through the runways. I gave myself enough space and shot back into my larger form.

  As I began to grow larger, a mechanical foot tripped me, face first, into a plane, inhaling plumes of smoke. The engine had blown in my left eye as I screamed, “HUUUUYYYY” in pain. I sloppily slid into a laid out dead position. I didn’t want this job anymore. My arms managed to pick myself off the floor, but midway came Bubbles falling onto me, crushing me into the cement. I had to wait until the damn fish got off my crooked spine. I was getting enraged at this point. I shot up, dusted myself off and pointed my finger at them, waving it back and forth as if scolding a dog.

  “HUUUUYYYYY!” I furiously swore at them.

  They stood and stared at me for a few seconds, then resumed their destruction.

  I took the plane’s wing and shoved it against Gfantis’ soft underbelly and pushed him further out to the water. If I could get them both in the water, I could stop this path of chaos. Gfantis’ pathetic reach could only scratch so far past the wing I was shoving him with. I laughed as Gfantis squirmed about in front of the wing. I kept advancing towards the coast. But my eyes started to squint as a bright glow began to erupt from his crescent shaped rhino horn. One minute I was holding onto the wing, the next I’m flying backwards as a convulsion in my body occurred after a gathering of heat blasted my abdomen inwards.

  I was done. I laid in my own debris and failure. My body ached, my stomach churned from the blast. I couldn’t get up. Gfantis roared in anger and didn’t feel like the job was finished. I could hear him stomp towards me, a repulsive smell came with him, a stench of dried blood accompanied a wounded monster. His hot breath lingered over mine, a puff travelled up his chest and out his nostrils as he picked me up. My body now laid limp as I wrapped around his arms. He brought me higher into the air, ready to send me down into the earth. But someone stomped in front of Gfantis -- Bubbles.

  “BLOOP BLOOP BLOOP”, masterfully said the giant goldfish mech. It stood unfazed by Gfantis’ presence.

  Gfantis dropped me to the side. Bubbles didn’t give him any chances, he tackles him, gets the higher ground and pushes Gfantis into the ground. He slowly aims his right arm, a click is heard and his torpedo gun arm goes stiff. Suddenly, smoke fills the scene as harpoons rapidly fire from Bubbles and stab into the fleshy chest of Gfantis. Gfantis fires his horn at Bubbles, causing him to be blinded and forced backwards. Gfantis stands up, dusts himself off, and pulls out the harpoons from his body. Now a distance away from each other and amongst a partially damaged city, Gfantis and Bubbles stare each other down.

  ‘But Big Champ Sade isn’t done with these two’, I pride to myself.

  I urge myself to stand up fully now. The blood has been soaked up by my suit now, creating a drag in the material.

  The final showdown, I had 5 minutes left to kill both of these kaiju. I grabbed my head and shook off the debris from my helmet. Bubbles saw me up now, he charged towards me headfirst, his derpy eyes growing further apart as I took ahold of his tank-head and directed him in the opposite direction. A confused Bubbles now charged off into the distance, not really questioning if he was even close to hitting me, whatever.

  It was Gfantis and me, alone. I stood in my defense position and got ready to block his hits. Gfantis, however, kept looking confused at how far off Bubbles kept going. I walked up to where Gfantis was standing and looked off to the distance.

  We both cupped our hands around our eyes to see Bubbles slightly circling around now and heading towards the coast. He skidded to a halt and tried to balance himself at the tip of the ledge. I walked over to him and gave him the push he needed. Bubbles flipped around and lost his footing on the edge, and as he turned and fell into the sea, he gave me a look of great sadness, years of deserved life, great knowledge, and a derpy cross-eyed look. But got up right after to realize the water only went up to his knee joints. Bubbles stared at me, his eyes, sort of, coming together, became furious. He attempted to swing directly in my face, but I swiftly grabbed his arm and pushed it back towards him, smashing a large hole in the bottom of his tank. He gobbled and screamed in shock, that I would attempt such an act, gave me the “you’re a jerk” look and flopped into the sea accompanied by large heaps of water pouring out of his tank.

  I now turned to face Gfantis, who by this time, was walking off into the distance. I screamed as loud as I could to intimidate him. Still walking away, he shrugged off my “Huy”, his tail dragged, he was done with me. I scratched my head nervously, was that all? I really didn’t know what to say. My badly bruised arm just hung limp at my side, I looked up to the sky and sighed, what would I tell the office now? I then directed my attention down below me, trucks smashed, cars turned to dust, planes sliced up, planes upside down, fire spreading, cranes tossed. I turned to see Gfantis heading back towards the bay. Before he dipped his head into the waters, he turned to look at the destruction and then to me. I looked at him amongst the burning heaps of planes and buildings. He motioned his head to his back and I hastily accepted. I shrunk down onto his back and he dipped his head into the rough waters. Slicing through the waters, I sat on a giant monster ship.

  I’ll call in sick to work this week, I thought, as I hitched a ride on his back and swam out to god-knows-where. I took off my helmet, patted his tough hide, laid down, and bled out small portions. I hope we’re heading towards the Bahamas, bud.

  The End