Next was the newcomer, a fellow titan that she had not been expecting. He seemed to be made, at least in part, of the same stuff as the floating object and the towers that covered the battlefield. What remained of his flesh had an air of familiarity to it, yet Andrea could not quite place where she had seen his kind before. It was a memory from ages ago, long before the human-creatures came into being.
Whatever they were was unimportant. They were fighting her enemies, and that made them allies.
Purple light flared behind her. Kozerah and Armadagger were still in the water, and the former was unleashing his own fiery breath on Barracudasaurus. The fish-lizard ducked under the water to escape the terrible heat, then reappeared at the shore, leaping out like the fish that shared his name.
It was not quite a retreat. Barracudasaurus had not given up. He was hoping he would be followed, and he would regain the advantage with the support of the others.
Andrea sensed commotion beneath her. There were Kaiju scaling her perch, hoping to catch her off guard.
She dug her talons into the tower’s roof and spread her wings to their full span, easily large enough to blanket a football field. She raised them slowly, the tightening of her muscles visible beneath her leathery skin.
With a sudden burst of speed, her wings came down, slamming against the sides of the tower. Hurricane-force winds shot towards the street, knocking most of her enemies back to Earth. The few that held on followed their fallen comrades when she flapped her wings again.
Andrea noticed a nearby black thing that looked like an insect made of stone wobble and spin as it was caught in the current. Sparks flew from its wings, and a large housefly burst into slime.
Andrea decided that the black stone bug was no threat to her, so she left it alone.
On the Akira’s observation deck, Nancy slammed her fist against the wall as she silenced her portable communicator. She had just spoken to Michael Sun, who had called her directly from Groom Lake. He had told her about the launch of Panzer Indigo, and she knew what a horrible mistake that was. All that would accomplish was the undoing of everything Operation Red Dragon had worked to accomplish.
On the other hand, Richard, who had only heard parts of the conversation, was clueless. “Hold on,” he said. “What’s a Pansy Indian?”
“Panzer Indigo,” Nancy corrected. “A machine commissioned by the boys at Gr-” She cleared her throat, catching herself before she gave away too much about America’s biggest secret. “That is, the boys in the military,” she continued. “It’s a robot designed to kill Daikaiju.”
“I thought that was impossible,” Richard said. “All I’ve heard since Kozerah showed up was how godlike the Daikaiju are compared to humans. Doesn’t that mean a robot made by humans would be completely ineffective?”
Nancy tuned her communicator to radio her superiors. “That’s the prevailing theory, but humankind doesn’t like being told it’s not in control. Even worse is that Panzer Indigo is programmed to kill Daikaiju indiscriminately.”
She brought the device to her lips. “X, General, you there?”
“We’re a little busy!” X growled. His voice was followed by a rumbling through the device, which was timed perfectly with a bright explosion somewhere out in the city.
“Panzer Indigo is inbound.”
There was a two second pause before X responded with an urgent sounding, “ETA?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
On the streets, X immediately terminated communication with Nancy and blasted like a Fourth of July rocket into the sky, shooting and slicing any bug that got in his way.
“Hey!” shouted General Tsujimori as he watched X’s departure. “Where do you think you’re going?!?”
In an instant, he was surrounded by a horde of vicious-looking Spinosaurs and bus-sized iguanas, all looking for a shot at killing him.
Tsujimori adopted a strong fighting stance as his fists crackled with electricity.
His eyes narrowed defiantly as he stared down his reptilian adversaries.
“Bring it on.”
“I still don’t see what the problem is,” Richard said. “If manmade weapons can’t hurt the Daikaiju, why not just let them deal with this robot? They should have no problem destroying it, right?”
Given that this was a serious emergency, the last thing Nancy wanted to do was answer more of Richard’s questions, but making sure he understood what was happening was just as important as saving the world. In fact, the two went hand in hand. Even so, she had places to be. What could she say that would get the point across quickly and clearly?
A perfect analogy formed in her mind.
“Look at it this way, Richard,” she said. “Suppose there are a bunch of spiders living in your home. You don’t mind them, since they eat other bugs, so you leave them alone. Then, one night, an especially large, especially toxic one bites you while you’re making dinner. How would you respond to that?”
“Easy,” Richard said. “I’d kill each and every one of those little pests.” An instant later, he got it, signified by his utterance of, “Oh…crap.”
Nancy nodded. “Oh crap is right. If Panzer Indigo attacks Kozerah, Andrea, and Armadagger, and they make the connection that humans built him, they’ll enact some Old Testament wrath on us. Now, as much as I’d love to stay and chat some more, I’ve got to get to the bridge. You may as well stay here. It’s as safe as anyplace else on the ship right now.”
With that, she left as quickly as she could.
Richard turned back to the window, watching the battle as it raged outside.
Mankind now faced extinction on two fronts: one by nature’s hand, another by his own.
From where he stood, he had no idea how this could possibly end well.
CHAPTER 19
Armadagger stomped into the heart of Tokyo, the street cracking at his every footfall. Despite the wounds inflicted by Barracudasaurus which still trickled blood, he was as determined as ever to win the fight.
He broke into a jog, then a run, and finally leapt into the air and curled into a ball. The different segments of carapace on his body locked together like puzzle pieces, and the beast was transformed into a massive spike-covered wrecking ball.
He fell back to Earth, and his momentum carried his rolling body down the street, crushing and impaling enemy Kaiju beneath him.
Andrea swooped in from behind, releasing a stream of fire that incinerated any survivors, then gave an extra flap of her wings to propel Armadagger with greater speed into Allorex’s exposed side. The spikes dug in, and the pair continued forward for several city blocks, none of which were left unscathed by the time they came to a halt. Clouds of debris rose into the air, causing the Red Dragon shuttles to swerve in order to avoid disaster.
Armadagger uncurled and stood, a mistake he regretted immediately.
In the blink of an eye, Allorex sunk his teeth into the fleshy part of Armadagger’s upper arm. He came from behind, a smart move that made retaliation nearly impossible. The spiky beast could not reach over his shell, and his tail was too short to deal any serious damage in defense.
With great effort, Allorex swung his body around in a spinning arc, then opened his mouth, releasing his foe.
Armadagger was lifted off the ground for an instant, then stumbled as he returned to Earth, plowing into buildings and collapsing onto his back. In similar fashion to a turtle, he was now stuck, and though this would not suffocate him, it did leave his more vulnerable parts completely exposed.
Allorex charged, teeth bared, and bit down hard.
X came to a stop beside the Kuroga, which was hovering close to CIGOR as his scissor hands snapped at Exoskel. Chakra was aiming the Kuroga’s guns at the divide between the giant insect’s thorax and abdomen, which had been theorized to be a weak point.
X had no time to wait and see if it would work.
He fired a shot at Exoskel’s right eye. It probably did not do any real harm; to the insect, it most likely fel
t no worse than dust that could be blinked away. However, since Exoskel had no eyelids and thus could not blink, the irritation stunned him long enough for CIGOR to knock him aside with a roundhouse kick to the cheek.
Before CIGOR and Chakra could press their attack, X swooped in front of them. “The bug can wait,” he said. “Panzer Indigo is inbound.”
“Oh shoot!” Chakra exclaimed. “Are we gonna fight it?”
“If either of us do that, Chakra, it’s an act of treason against the United States, and that’ll be harder to justify than giving a journalist a front row seat to this wrestling match.”
“Yeah, but if he attacks the others, we’re all dead.”
X nodded, silently cursing himself for letting his monitoring of the robot’s construction fall to the wayside. He maneuvered up to CIGOR’s eye level. “CIGOR, we need you to handle this. You’re not subject to the Law like we are.”
CIGOR chirped with an audible hint of doubt.
“That oversized refrigerator is programmed to attack every Daikaiju here. If he attacks you first, that gives us the moral high ground, and you can fight back.”
CIGOR growled indignantly.
“This is all Sigma’s doing, and you know it as well as we do,” X said. “The whole of humanity shouldn’t suffer for one man’s misguided ambition.”
Off in the distance behind the half-mechanical cyclops, X could see a faint glint of light against the black of the night sky, signaling the approach of the robot.
CIGOR slowly cocked his head to the side, thinking.
Both X and Chakra held their breath as they waited for an answer.
Without another word, he turned and launched into the sky, aimed right at Panzer Indigo.
“So,” Chakra said over the com. “Wanna help me kill some bugs, honey?”
X grinned. “Thought you’d never ask.”
It is a scientific fact that the muscles which open an alligator’s jaws are far weaker than the muscles which close them. They are so weak, in fact, that an average human could hold a gator’s mouth shut with his bare hands, if he were brave enough to get that close.
A similar principle applied even when the alligator in question was scaled up by several hundred feet.
Kozerah and Andrea had thrown themselves full into battle, and while the latter was engaged in fisticuffs with Barracudasaurus, the former was engaging Wanirah by keeping his enormous jaws sealed tight with his hands. The gator thrashed violently, his claws raking impotently against Kozerah’s armored torso while his tail slammed into buildings. The sight was very nearly comical.
A fireball burst close to Kozerah’s eye, making him flinch, though he did not release Wanirah. It kept him distracted long enough for Exoskel, who had recovered from CIGOR’s kick, to charge, the tines of his spork-like hands jabbing at the red giant’s side, which was not as well protected as his back and front.
Kozerah tried to turn, but Wanirah’s thrashing was working against him, and the gator knew it. He struggled against his captor more fiercely than before, fighting his every attempt to turn his armored back toward Exoskel’s onslaught.
Exoskel grew more fervent with each strike. It was working. He was drawing blood from the strongest of his foes. If Kozerah fell, the battle was all but-
The sudden sensation of talons digging into his shoulders interrupted Exoskel’s thoughts, and before he knew it, he was in the air, being carried away and tossed by Andrea.
Determined not to be beaten so easily, Exoskel spat a fireball that clipped the Pterosaur’s wing, sending her into a plummeting tailspin as she dropped him.
Meanwhile, Kozerah released Wanirah from his grasp with a judo flip. The crimson titan paused, taking heavy breaths as he prepared to fire his heat ray at his opponent’s soft, pale underbelly.
Barracudasaurus was not about to give him that chance. The fish-lizard appeared from nowhere, slapping his fin-tipped tail against Kozerah’s fresh wounds, then tackled him into a nearby skyscraper.
By this point, there were very few Kaiju left in Tokyo, but the Red Dragons were also dwindling in number. Since the masters had begun their struggle, things had only gotten worse, as not even the protectors of mankind were taking any special care to avoid friendly fire.
Panzer Indigo’s arrival would not improve that.
As lightning flew from his fingers to scorch his prehistoric opponents, General Tsujimori shouted into his communicator. “All shuttlecraft withdraw to the Akira at once! There’s nothing left for us to do now. Repeat, return to the Akira immediately!”
He stayed behind, eyes scanning the sky which now glowed red and orange from both the spreading fires and the rising sun.
The glint of metal above him signaled the location of the approaching machine.
It was already here.
To CIGOR’s eye, Panzer Indigo was a ridiculous thing to behold, even compared to himself and Exoskel. It might have been his own bias, though; perhaps it looked perfectly fine to its makers.
The war machine looked exactly like a human made of metal. Its sleek body was a shiny, almost mirror-quality silver, broken up by thick lightning-shaped streaks of glossy indigo which created the illusion of a superhero costume. All it needed was a cape and the image would have been complete. The face was a set mask, sculpted with almost the same level of detail as a Bunraku puppet, only with a large shark-like fin in place of hair. The mouth – which seemed like a useless addition to CIGOR – was permanently twisted into a sadistic grin, and the deep-set, featureless, glowing white eyes bulged out slightly. CIGOR noticed that the eyes were distinctly almond-shaped, the corners set at opposing forty-five-degree angles. They reminded him of the Japanese humans’ eyes. It was an oddly specific design feature, one he could not fathom the purpose of.
CIGOR knew that some humans regarded his kind as gods, and this machine had been built to kill them.
Man creating a god in his own image for the sole purpose of slaying gods.
It was a strange inversion that made CIGOR sick.
This false idol had to be destroyed.
Panzer Indigo paused in front of CIGOR, his frozen face making it impossible to read his intent. CIGOR did nothing as he hovered, waiting for the machine to make the first move.
Panzer Indigo raised his hands, extending his thumbs and index fingers the way humans did to simulate guns, and pointed them at CIGOR. Holes opened in his fingertips, and a burst of smoke from each hand was instantly followed by dull pain in CIGOR’s body as the missiles fired by the robot impacted on his exposed skin
A second burst of smoke signaled another volley of missiles, but this time CIGOR put up his defensive shield. He flew forward, slamming his shield into Panzer Indigo’s upright frame. The robot tumbled backward, regained control after three flips, and executed a diving kick to CIGOR’s face.
CIGOR spun on impact, bringing his tail around to slice at the offending appendage with its sawblade.
Sparks flew, and the metal was scarred deeply.
Panzer Indigo had no reaction, for it could not feel pain.
It continued pushing the cyborg back down to Earth, not even noticing that a tiny ship and even tinier man had begun flitting around it.
CHAPTER 20
Armadagger was injured.
Badly.
He had been unable to prevent Allorex from sinking his teeth and claws into his unprotected abdomen. It was lucky that Exoskel had landed nearby, as the impact had distracted the massive dinosaur long enough for Armadagger to curl up and shift his center of gravity, allowing him to roll away and recover.
When he uncurled, he saw that things were looking dire. Andrea was down, the newcomer – CIGOR, if he had heard correctly – was fighting some strange metal thing in the sky, and most harrowing of all, Kozerah was bleeding.
This had to end soon.
He turned at Exoskel’s chattering roar. The bug seemed to think that he had an easy target to kill, and given Armadagger’s current state, he was probably right.
His only advantage was knowing that Exoskel always led his attacks by spitting a fireball to stun his opponents.
The bug did not disappoint.
Exoskel hocked his flaming phlegm and took a step to begin charging.
Just as the fireball was about to hit, Armadagger swung his fist in a backhanded strike, his built-in armored gauntlet connecting with the projectile and protecting him from harm.
Luck was with Armadagger in that moment.
The fireball flew back like a tennis ball, returning to Exoskel’s mouth, where it lodged itself and burst.
The explosion engulfed the bug’s head, and within seconds, his entire body was completely aflame. Exoskel panicked, flailing his limbs and slamming his body into buildings in the vain hope of smothering the fire.
Armadagger simply stood and watched as his opponent succumbed to the immolation.
Within a minute of the explosion, Exoskel slowed and finally collapsed, all the life having been burnt out of him.
At first, General Tsujimori was surprised when the swarm of giant orchid mantises which had surrounded him suddenly froze, screeched in abject terror, and fled with incredible speed. Indeed, every insect in Tokyo was fleeing in a panicked retreat. Even the flying bugs had pulled away from the murmuration of pterosaurs above him.
He heard Armadagger roar, and curiosity overwhelmed him. He had to see what had happened.
Arcs of lightning pulled him up the side of one of the few buildings which still stood. He settled on the rooftop and located the spiky synapsid.
Armadagger was standing over the burning corpse of Exoskel. He pushed over a hotel, and the debris smothered the flames.
Behind him, Andrea spread her wings and returned to the sky.
Victorious, almost psychotic laughter escaped General Tsujimori’s lips as he drank in this glorious sight.
Operation Red Dragon: The Daikaiju Wars: Part One Page 16
