The thing was as big as one of the bucket-wheel excavators Munsaint had brought to the island. One hundred and fifty meters long from the tip of its ophidian snout to the end of its long bifurcated tail, sixty meters high at its scaly shoulder. As it shook the loose earth from its body, Marcel could see that the monster was some sort of immense reptile, its scales possessing a dull cobalt hue along its sides and back but fading to a dingy yellow along the belly. Its build was lean, somehow conjuring the impression of a serpent despite the four clawed legs protruding from its bony shoulders. A bony ridge ran along its back, each of the triangular backplates showing black against its cobalt scales. At the ends of the bifurcated tail were two slender barbs of bone, conjuring to Marcel’s mind the incongruous image of an earwig’s abdomen. The head was an ugly wedge at the end of a long, snaky neck. At once both flat and elongated, the wide jaws supported an array of serrated teeth with a set of long, cobra-like fangs protruding from the upper jaw. The eyes of the creature were narrow, slit like the lenses of some great hunting cat. Those red eyes had an eerie awareness and malignance about them, betraying intelligence far more calculating than that of a mere animal. At the rear of the flattened, rattler-like head, two spikes of bone projected rearwards partially shielding the thing’s neck.
Marcel didn’t need an Ojibwa medicine man to tell him he was looking upon the great water panther, Mishipeshu. He didn’t need to be told the monster was a beast of evil. He could sense that in his bones, in his very soul. When the reptile reared back, when it opened its jaws in a primordial ululation that hissed across the island like a symphony of vipers, terror at last overwhelmed the shock and awe that had gripped Marcel and his miners. Almost to a man, the miners fled towards the docks, screaming and waving their hands at the ore barge.
Marcel scrambled down from the gantry. He didn’t shout a warning to his men, didn’t tell them that, as he leapt down from the gantry, he could see the barge pulling away from the island, retreating out into Lake Superior. He was too pragmatic to risk the advantage circumstance had gifted him. The Ojibwa said that Mishipeshu was a man-eater. Well then, the monster could glut itself on the workers. While it was busy gorging, Marcel would retreat across the island to the safety of the old lighthouse.
As he ran across the perimeter of the mine pit, Marcel could feel the earth shuddering beneath his feet. His ears rang with the ghastly hisses and growls of Mishipeshu as the enormous reptile lumbered across the island. Once, he risked a look towards the camp, watched as terrified miners began to throw themselves into the icy waters of the lake and try to swim to the quickly retreating barge. He could see Mishipeshu crawling towards them, its forked tongue flickering from between its jaws as it tasted their scent in the air.
A grinding roar, the blast of a steam whistle sounded from nearby. Marcel spun around, horrified to see one of the gigantic excavators crawling towards Mishipeshu, its cutting boom raised in the absurd parody of a knight’s lance. What were the idiot Germans doing? Why hadn’t they fled with the rest? Did the fools think they were Siegfried sallying forth to vanquish Fafnir? This wasn’t some Wagnerian farce! This was a living, breathing monstrosity!
Mishipeshu turned away from the camp as it heard the challenging blast of the excavator’s whistle. Hissing its own defiance, the reptile scurried across the piles of overburden, its mammoth claws punching into the walls of the pit as it crawled down to confront the excavator. For an instant, the monster hesitated, glaring balefully at the second excavator at the far end of the mine. That machine’s crew had been off duty when the water panther awoke. There was no one available to spur it into action.
The Germans drove their machine at full speed towards Mishipeshu. The monster whipped its tail at them, the bony spikes slashing across the side of the boom. Mishipeshu reeled back in confusion, surprised by an enemy that wasn’t a thing of flesh and blood.
As the water panther reeled back, the cutting boom came screaming downwards, crashing against the reptile’s flank and grinding against its scaly flesh. Mishipeshu writhed out from beneath the sawing blade. Sludge, which was too thick to ever be called blood, welled up from its horrendous wound. It roared angrily at the excavator and from each of its cobra-like fangs a stream of caustic bile was projected onto the excavator.
Steel bubbled and plastic vaporized as the poisonous slime splashed across the excavator. The crew screamed in despair as the boom’s weight was compromised. The front twenty meters of it sagged leftwards on what integrity remained in its frame. Unbalanced, the entire machine crashed onto its side.
Mishipeshu hissed again, but this time there was a suggestion of victory and satisfaction in the ophidian sound. The reptile lunged forward, pouncing upon the toppled excavator like some titanic catamount. The German crew’s shrieks became ever more intense as the water panther probed the control booth and maintenance cabins with its claws, digging the men out from their machine like a bear clawing termites from an old log.
Marcel fled, clapping his hands over his ears so he couldn’t hear the ghastly cries of the Germans as they were devoured by Mishipeshu. He knew the beast wouldn’t be long, and he also knew that it would take far more meat to ease the appetite of something so enormous. Still thinking of the lighthouse, of the security it could offer, he ran about the periphery of the pit. Desperately, he tried to ignore the quaking ground, tried to convince himself the gargantuan footfalls of Mishipeshu weren’t coming closer.
Ahead, Marcel could see the lighthouse rising above a stand of trees the miners hadn’t yet cleared away. He cried out in delight, fired his exhausted body for the final effort that would carry him to his refuge.
Then, overhead, he saw the flashing flicker of Mishipeshu’s tongue. Marcel spun around, throwing his arms across his face to blot out the awful sight, the vision of Mishipeshu crawling up from the bottom of the mining pit, its red eyes glowering hungrily at him.
It was the last thing Marcel Clerval would ever see. The next instant, the water panther’s immense jaws closed about him and the screaming executive was gone. Only the scarred landscape of Michipicoten Island remained as his legacy to the world.
The scarred terrain of the island, and the rampaging monster his greed had unleashed.
~
Alarm klaxons screeched across the concrete canyons of Chicago, civil defense sirens blaring from the rooftops of skyscrapers and radio towers. Beyond these, the crump of artillery lobbing shells into the cold waters of Lake Michigan rumbled throughout the city. Helicopter gunships circled above the brooding inland sea, their crews dumping depth charges into the lake. Jet fighters screeched across the skies, napalm bombs loaded on their wings. Columns of tanks roared along Lake Shore Drive, trundling past expensive high-rises, their armored advance cracking windows in luxurious condominiums. Mobile missile batteries followed the tanks, the box-like carriages for their weaponry trained upon the grim expanse of water eastward.
A terror inconceivable to the citizens of Chicago had descended upon them. Hordes of refugees choked Michigan Avenue and the other streets still open to civilian traffic. Ferries, tugs, motor launches—anything that could float—was drawn up in the Chicago River, assisting in the Herculean task of evacuating the city.
Destruction loomed over Chicago, annihilation both strange and inconceivable to the sensibilities of the scientific age. A monster from the mists of legend had suddenly erupted onto the modern world. Mishipeshu, the great water panther of the Ojibwa, a reptilian horror of gargantuan size and titanic strength. The beast had ravened down the length of Lake Superior, annihilating communities great and small. The militaries of both Canada and the United States had been helpless to stop the creature. Shipping in the Great Lakes had ground to a halt. Hundreds of thousands had fled their homes, retreating inland in an effort to escape the monster’s approach.
It was only recently, with satellite photos and orbital tracking of the monster, that the grim conclusion that its path would bring it to Chicago had been appreciated. Indeed,
there were some who claimed that, from the curious diversions Mishipeshu’s trail had taken, the water panther was deliberately making for the city.
Bombs, missiles, artillery of every caliber and description had been loosed against Mishipeshu. Whatever substance composed the creature’s structure, however, was impervious to the ordnance deployed against it. Injuries inflicted upon the beast healed at an astounding rate, regenerating with a speed directly proportionate with the severity of its wounds. The military was placed in the curious position of trying to inflict the minimal damage to the beast, hoping to weaken it by degrees and slow its advance without activating whatever biological system would throw its restorative properties into overdrive.
Briefly atomic and chemical weaponry had been considered, but the prospect of contaminating the whole of the Great Lakes and their tributary rivers was too hideous to contemplate. Similarly, germ agents had been dismissed. As long as Mishipeshu kept close to the waterways, only conventional ordnance could be deployed against it.
For all the artillery and depth charges, the bombs and missiles, Mishipeshu emerged from the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. The gigantic reptile, resembling nothing so much as some dragon of the Dark Ages, strode up the beach, wading through the desperate fire of the tanks arrayed along Lake Shore Drive. The brute’s tongue flickered from between its jaws, tasting the air, savoring the scent of the terrified masses trying to flee the city.
The artillery barrage, the direct fire from the tanks intensified as the water panther crawled over the greenery of Grant Park, its claws gouging great furrows in the earth as it propelled its reptilian mass towards the towers of the Loop, the commercial heart of the city. Again, the hideous tongue flickered from between its jaws, tasting the smell of panicked humanity in the air.
Hissing with the violence of a raging cataract, Mishipeshu charged towards one of the towering apartment complexes. The reptile’s claws gouged great furrows in the building, its tail lashing and stabbing at the structure to tear away great chunks of concrete and steel. The building, a weathered veteran from the Roaring 20s, was unable to endure the assault. Shuddering and groaning, it crashed against its neighbor, bringing both structures crumbling down in a cascade of dust and debris.
Vengefully, one of the circling fighters dove down upon Mishipeshu as the monster began to claw bodies from the rubble. Napalm cylinders flashed through the air, their silvery casings gleaming in the sunlight as they hurtled towards the water panther. Oblivious to the weaponry loosed against it, the monster continued to gorge itself on the inhabitants of the buildings it had demolished.
Mishipeshu vanished in a great ball of flame. The reptile’s anguished shriek rang through the urban canyons. The fighter swung back around to confirm the kill.
As the plane swept down towards the fire and smoke, caustic slime came shooting out from the destruction. The pilot had time to shriek once as Mishipeshu’s venom melted through the canopy of his fighter, and then proceeded to corrode his flesh. Unguided, the fighter careened onwards, smacking into the side of the hulking Trump Tower, shattering its mirrored façade.
Mishipeshu came crawling from the flames, fingers of napalm still clinging to its scales, charred bones standing naked and exposed where the reptile’s regeneration had yet to repair its injuries. Maddened by pain, the water panther aimed its fangs skyward, projecting venom at the circling helicopters and fighters. It hissed in frustration as its poison failed to strike down any of the swift-moving craft. Lashing its tail, the monster leapt upon the side of a skyscraper, scrambling up its height in an effort to close with the circling planes.
As it neared the summit of the tower, however, Mishipeshu’s eyes narrowed, its entire body shivering in agitation. It leaned its head back, gazing away from the planes and helicopters, looking up into the sky itself. A sky that had been clear minutes before but which was now rapidly darkening with thick clots of cloud.
Mishipeshu hissed angrily, its tongue again flickering as it picked the scent of its ancient enemy from the air.
Animikii, the mighty thunderbird, was coming.
~
The vibrations of the water panther’s essence attracted Animikii’s attention, resonating even in that higher plane of existence to which the thunderbirds had ascended ages past. Mishipeshu’s presence could be perceived as a shadow, a blot shifting across the harmonics of that alien dimension. Only the interference of water could shield the monster from the notice of the thunderbirds, but in seeking prey Mishipeshu had cast aside such protection.
It took Animikii some time to restructure its substance and awareness into a state that could penetrate into the purely physical constraints of three-dimensional aspect. The breech between existences was preceded by the rapid cloud formations. When Animikii actually penetrated the dimensions, the violation was announced with a deafening peal of thunder, a sound that boomed across half a continent.
The thunderbird soared high above the urban sprawl of Chicago, its sharp eyes piercing through the veil of clouds that swirled about it. Slowly, gradually, its body took on tangible shape, diminishing into the confines of physical matter. Half-forgotten sensations like temperature, smell, and sound impacted upon Animikii’s mind, forcing its mentality to reduce and adjust to the demands of this new existence.
Far below, Animikii could see the blotchy shadow of the water panther. Mishipeshu was far greater in size than any of its breed had ever been before. Of all the thunderbirds, only Animikii had the strength and power to challenge such a monster.
Challenge it Animikii did. Hurtling down from the sky, soaring through the circling aircraft, the mighty thunderbird cackled its threat to Mishipeshu. The slipstream caused by the giant’s flight sent helicopters hurtling earthward, sent fighters spiraling out of control. Cars were buffeted across the streets, trees and lampposts were uprooted. Before the hurricane force of Animikii’s wings, Mishipeshu was forced against the ground, digging its claws into the asphalt and cement to stabilize itself.
Animikii swept past the crouching water panther, climbing skywards and ascending to the vantage presented by the megalithic Willis Tower. Radio and television antennas snapped beneath the thunderbird’s weight as it settled upon the tower. The glass sides of the skyscraper reflected Animikii’s terrifying shape as it flew past. The thunderbird was a featherless creature covered in dark red leathery skin that faded to a dirty brown at the wings. Its legs were short and coated in a scaly texture such as might grace the tail of a rat. Massive talons tipped each foot, each individual claw ten meters across and a third again as wide. Animikii’s leathery wings stretched to encompass a span of several hundred meters, and each pinion was ribbed after the fashion of a bat. A short stump of neck rose from above the creature’s torso and atop this rested a small head with an elongated beak. Horns curled away from either side of Animikii’s skull, framing its stormy eyes while its beak was rendered grotesque with a profusion of jagged fangs.
Flapping its wings, Animikii sent a thunderous clamor rolling across the city. The monster turned its head from side to side, cackling menacingly at the water panther down in the streets below.
Mishipeshu responded to the thunderbird’s goading. Lunging to its feet, the water panther charged along the street, its lashing tail battering the shops and offices arrayed along the boulevard and swatting the vehicles that had been abandoned everywhere. The primordial hate between its kind and the thunderbirds sent a bestial fury surging through its cold reptilian heart.
Animikii cackled again and came hurtling downwards. The thunderbird’s stormy eyes blazed, bolts of lightning flashing from each orb to sear down into Mishipeshu’s body. The reptile hissed in pain as the electricity scorched its scales, yet still it charged onward in a bounding lope that combined the scurry of a lizard with the pounce of a cat.
The thunderbird’s lightning flashed again, blackening Mishipeshu’s back. As Animikii went soaring past, however, Mishipeshu’s bifurcated tail whipped upward, the great bony prongs stabbi
ng into the leathery flesh. The water panther’s tail lodged in Animikii’s body and, as the thunderbird’s momentum carried it onwards, Mishipeshu was dragged after it, pulled back down the street.
Impaled by Mishipeshu’s tail and overcome by the beast’s dead weight, Animikii’s flight ended in a devastating crash against the side of an office building. Glass and concrete rained down upon the thunderbird and its adversary as the structure collapsed beneath their weight. A cloud of dust billowed away from the destruction, for a moment obscuring the two monsters from those men still able to witness their conflict.
As the dust cleared, the mammoth shapes of the monsters could be seen. Animikii, injured and bleeding, swatted at Mishipeshu with its wings, using its pinions to pound the water panther against the ground. Mishipeshu responded by raking its claws across the thunderbird’s breast and spitting its caustic venom across Animikii’s body. The water panther’s tail, the bony spikes ripped away by the calamitous impact, swatted at Animikii, trying to bludgeon the flying monster.
Lightning again flashed from Animikii’s eyes, searing into the face of Mishipeshu. The water panther yowled, hurling itself back in an agonized sprawl, sludge streaming from the scorched ruin of its eyes. Allowed a respite, the thunderbird lifted itself back into the air. It circled the prostrate water panther once, then dove down and sank its talons into Mishipeshu’s flank.
The blinded water panther flailed and thrashed at the end of Animikii’s talons, spitting venom from its fangs in every direction in a futile effort to strike its foe. The weakened thunderbird carried its prey across the city, crashing to earth in Daly Plaza. Mishipeshu struggled even more fiercely as it slammed into the ground, cracking the cement and rupturing water mains. Its claws raked across Animikii’s hide, tearing great furrows in its enemy.
Those gunships yet airborne streaked towards the plaza, loosing a steady barrage of missiles into both of the weakened monsters. Animikii reared back, shrieking angrily as it sent lightning from its eyes crackling towards the helicopters. Three of the aircraft were burned from the sky before the others escaped into the man-made canyons of Chicago’s Loop.
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 45
