Megadrak: Beast Of The Apocalypse

by Christofer Nigro

  “What?” the strange man in the dark glasses said. “Oh, wait, this must be a point in time before that slang term came into vogue.”

  It was then that the stranger saw the towering reptilian form of Megadrak standing just several meters behind Ren.

  “Whoa! Is that a daikaiju I see looking at you like you’re its next meal, mister? Very cool creature to behold! But I think we had best get out of wherever here is, don’t you think?”

  Ren responded in coherent English. “Cool? My gods, first you sound like I don’t know what, and now you sound American! Who the hell are you? And what are you doing inside… that?”

  “It’s a long, complicated story, and it doesn’t look like you’ll live long enough for me to tell you if you stay here with Puff’s evil big brother on your tail.”

  “Is Puff some American slang for kaiju?”

  “Just hurry up and jump into this portal before that monster stomps you flat! These rifts in space-time do not tend to stay open for long!”

  Megadrak finally ceased its confused glaring at the rift in space-time and began scampering towards its sole remaining prey, determined to crush the little man into a little bloody mess.

  “Oh, hell! I guess I choose the weird white guy with the black glasses instead of the giant monster!” the reporter yammered as he dashed towards the about-to-collapse portal.

  Ren’s adrenally fueled legs helped him move towards the whirling steel-blue gateway with the speed of a trained athlete. The strange man grabbed the journalist’s outstretched hand and managed to pull him into the spatial rift just a few seconds before it collapsed in on itself with a sound resembling that of a blast of compressed air. The fate of Ren Honda, let alone the identity of the strange individual who appeared in the spatial rift—and the effect each would have on the future of the world—were destined to remain a mystery for the immediate future.

  Megadrak’s enormous foot came crashing down on the now empty area of grass before the temple, failing to splatter its intended prey, which had vanished into seemingly nowhere. The mighty kaiju bellowed with a fearsome rage at its inexplicable lack of success. But as its keen olfactory senses could no longer detect the presence of its target anywhere within a mile radius, the kaiju soon lost interest. It began moving its enormous dragon-like head around, sniffing the air and looking about for signs of more prey to slaughter.

  It wasn’t long before the dragon-like titan’s über-keen sense of smell detected the scents of more human beings in its near vicinity. These scents were familiar to it, and the beast turned and headed back in the direction from which it had recently come, its maw salivating with what humans may call sadistic anticipation.

  ***

  Just over half a mile distant, the shattered remains of the prime minister’s residence lay scattered about the government-owned acreage, not far from the equally smashed remainder of the once proud Diet building. The only sounds were those of a few birds chirping as they went about their business, and the wind blowing slowly about the ruined infrastructure. Metallic wind chimes connected to a still standing fragment of a wall clanged melodically as the wind blew its various sections against each other, pleasantly breaking the otherwise eerie silence that pervaded the demolished area of government land.

  This remained the status of the vicinity until the noise of large pieces of plaster being kicked aside suddenly became audible. In the skeletal section of the building that once served as the prime minister’s personal restroom, two sets of human legs kicked the various fragments of rubble off the top of the sturdy bathtub.

  Within about a minute, Goro Takiguchi and Risa Kimura emerged from the porcelain basin. The two were covered with small pieces of wood filing and dirt as well as being a bit bruised, but were otherwise in one piece.

  “It… worked,” Goro noted aloud as he coughed some of the dust from his throat. “You… know your thing, Risa-san.”

  “I studied architectural design at the university,” she said. “I knew there was a chance that if we lay tucked together inside the type of high-quality porcelain tub that the prime minister was likely to have, the restroom could possibly weather the destruction just enough for the tub to shield us from falling debris when the kaiju smashed the building. Thankfully, my theory proved correct.”

  “Your studies truly paid off,” the man mused as he wiped dirt and tiny spirals of wood from his clothing. “That was all very impressive. I did not expect to survive, but if I had to spend my last moments with any lady other than my sister, well…”

  “Thank you for saying that, Goro-san.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  The man looked directly into Risa’s light brown eyes as he said that, which enabled him to notice they were a lovely auburn-beige in hue.

  Goro Takiguchi also remembered how safe he felt in her arms as the world literally came crashing down around them. Despite his typical lack of nerve when confronted with women due to a lifetime of failures to attract the opposite sex, he felt the circumstances coupled with this moment gave him no better opportunity to act. He moved forward and touched his lips against those of this beautiful young woman to experience the kiss he had wanted from the moment he first laid eyes upon her.

  The moment was disrupted not even a second after he initiated the move by a brusque shove, followed by a painful slap to his face.

  “How dare you!” Risa grumbled angrily. “Goro-san, you knew that I was married! I know you heard me say that back at the Diet!”

  The stunned Goro held his hand to his now red-marked face while his stomach felt as if it were being twisted in knots, like a cloth someone was squeezing the excess moisture from. “I, I know that… but I thought, after all we went through together since we met…”

  “That I would suddenly switch my love from my husband to you? I love Aoki for many reasons, Goro-san, and having suffered traumatic circumstances together is not one of them! It takes more to forge such a bond between two people than even something such as this! Love of a romantic nature does not necessarily follow camaraderie and respect!”

  “Risa-san, the last thing I ever would have wanted to do… was offend you. I thought… I just thought…”

  “You have not done much thinking at all since I have met you, Goro-san! Now, we need to get out of here, find the others, and see about getting our families out of Japan until that infernal thing is dealt with.”

  Goro’s heart sank even further as he heard the distinctive hissing sound that signaled the nightmarish presence of Megadrak. He and Risa looked up to see the kaiju fast approaching them from the direction which it had previously pursued another faction of their split party.

  “Oh no,” Risa said. “There may be some government vehicles in this area, but I am not certain we can get to them in time.”

  It was then that another distinctly familiar sound began reverberating through the air. The two humans and the kaiju alike looked up to see a squadron of a dozen F-51 fighter jets arrive to again challenge Megadrak.

  Captain Kenny Sterns and Lieutenant Arnold Lemke flew out of their high-altitude vantage point to join the other fighters, thus increasing the number of the squad to fourteen. The great beast roared angrily at this new flock of airborne assailants, and the fight for territorial supremacy of Japan resumed.

  Only this time Goro and Risa would be caught in the middle of the deadly fracas. There would be no gods coming along to save them; they had just their own wits and the legs beneath them to rely on, but only so long as these remained intact.

  Both found themselves wondering if they could possibly escape alive this time. Would the generosity of the gods reach its limit?

  CHAPTER 19: Apocalypse… Again

  Dr. Daisuke Sato pushed the speed of the purloined government vehicle to its limits as he sped down the road leading out of the Tokyo Prefecture to escape the disaster area that was once the center of Japanese parliament. His cohort Koji Sagawa had a glum expression on his face as he leaned back in the passenger side,
his mind clearly sailing on troubled waters.

  “Be at ease, Koji-san,” the zoologist attempted to reassure the young island son. “The kaiju is otherwise occupied at the Diet, and at this rate we should make it out of the prefecture before long. The ordeal is over for us now.”

  “Is it?” Koji finally responded after what seemed like an eternity of contemplation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when our escape party split into three groups, we were lucky enough not to be the one that the kaiju happened to follow. Now that airstrike is starting, and some of the people in our group are likely trapped there without a vehicle to escape in.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. I am not certain how I know, but somehow… I do.”

  The young naturalist deliberately avoided mentioning the odd, apparently female voice that informed him of this—a voice that reminded him of Keiko Takiguchi, a young woman he barely had the chance to know. The voice had seemed to echo the following “message” in his mind with strong psychic passion:

  “My brother remains imperiled, as does another in our group. I cannot help him at this point. You can, but I shan’t attempt to push you to do so. That would be dishonorable. The choice to help must be left to you alone, and I must allow you to consider the danger to your own life if you do choose that path.”

  Koji was always a rational man, but the experiences of the past few days had caused him to realize that he lived in a universe that harbored phenomena unlike anything he and the rest of civilization ever imagined to be real. At least not since the advent of the scientific revolution a few centuries earlier.

  If a daikaiju straight out of world mythology could exist, was it not possible that more forces beyond everyday understanding could likewise be extant in the world? If the gods and ancestral spirits of his faith could be perceived as real despite they’re being normally hidden from direct human experience, then why not extra-mundane phenomena such as psychic abilities and even ghosts?

  Koji poured over the decision presented to him on a wavelength beyond human ken, with only his personal honor being the deciding factor. When the decision was finally made, he clenched his eyes shut in momentary anguish and pounded the dashboard of the truck with his fist.

  “Damn it,” he said. “Sato-ka, I must go back. I cannot leave those people behind. They never became close friends, but they were in this situation with us, and I believe that constitutes an unspoken obligation to look after each other. Also, after what happened to Greene and Akira… I cannot let any other suffer in the same way if it is even remotely in my power to prevent it.”

  “Koji-san, I know you are a good man, but please be reasonable. There is nothing more we can do. We need to let that airstrike by the Self-Defense Force play out, and its occurrence only magnifies the already immense danger presented by Megadrak. Any civilians remaining on the premises are as good as dead. It is simply not within our power to prevent that.”

  “But maybe it is. I will not forget that obligation to others, even if the path of flight would secure my survival. And even if it is the path you happen to choose for yourself.”

  “Please listen, my friend. We are just two mere men who have no way of affecting the outcome of what is now taking place there. This matter is in the hands of the gods now.”

  “Perhaps. And perhaps we—or at least I—was so appointed by the gods to act on behalf of others now in danger. Do they not tend to act indirectly, by manipulating natural phenomena—including individual people—to exert their will on the world we know? I need this vehicle now, Sato-ka.”

  “Koji-san, your heart is very much in the right place, but you need to listen to me…”

  “No, you need to listen to me, Sato-ka. Get out of this vehicle and leave me the keys, or I will be forced to remove you myself.”

  Sato could clearly see that the young man meant business, and any attempt to resist would be more likely to result in a serious vehicular accident than a successful suppression of Koji’s determination.

  “So, you would just leave me stranded here?”

  “As you said, Megadrak is occupied back at the Diet for now and will not be heading in this direction for some time, if at all. And that sign over there indicates the Akihabara Station is just over three kilometers down the road to the east. The exercise of such a walk may serve you well.”

  Sato sighed loudly and pulled the truck to the side of the road, putting the vehicle into neutral. He then exited and was swiftly replaced in the driver’s side by Koji.

  “Are you certain you know how to drive this truck?”

  “I have some experience with driving such a vehicle. Thank you for offering no further resistance. You had best begin your trek to the station, as I am heading back now.”

  “Ganbatte ne, my friend.”

  “Arigato, and may fate allow us to meet again one day, Sato-ka.”

  The middle-aged scientist watched with despondent concern as Koji took the military issue truck out of neutral and U-turned on the double-lane road leading back to the chaos-ridden area that was (formerly) the heart of Japan’s government.

  The scientist watched until the truck disappeared into the horizon before beginning his walk to the train station that would hopefully still be operational and actively spiriting passengers far away from the Chiyoda ward.

  ***

  “All right, Lemke and I are gonna fly over that bitch and drop a payload on its big, ugly head,” Captain Kenny Sterns barked into his helmet mic. “Then I want the first unit in this squad to follow up with missile strikes to the upper body. And for God’s sakes watch out for the corrosive mist that bastard can spew from its mouth!”

  Sterns and Lemke flew a mere twenty meters over the massive creature and dropped a load of bombs from their crafts’ fusillade platform. They then veered off in opposite directional formation as the explosive objects bombarded the kaiju’s head with their rapid successive detonations.

  The great beast roared and waved its massive arms about with indignation at the assault, but displayed no signs of actual injury. A few of the bombs missed their target by a slight margin, and exploded on the ground within several meters of the kaiju.

  These ground detonations resulted in numerous pieces of mortar debris from the remains of the buildings being blown up. These chunks of the building, along with rocks and pebbles being blasted out of the ground, were transformed into dangerous shrapnel that sprayed about the heads of Goro and Risa as they ducked down in the small crevasse that was once the location of the prime minister’s residence’s restroom.

  Goro’s face was sliced in several places as numerous pieces of this ersatz shrapnel embedded into the flesh covering his right cheek and jawbone. Right beside him, Risa screamed as numerous strewn pebbles bombarded her right arm and shoulder to leave multiple bruises and cuts.

  As the captain ordered, a second unit of four jets zeroed in and released two missiles each. All of them struck true, and the stream of simultaneous explosions pounded against Megadrak’s ultra-thick reptilian hide, sending the mighty kaiju back several steps. The monster’s following roar-hiss was filled with burning rage, and it was clear the beast’s efforts at retaliation would be immediate.

  By now, however, Sterns was familiar with the wide gape evinced by the kaiju a few seconds before it projected a stream of its lethal oral mist.

  “Evasive maneuvers!” the captain shouted into his mic about two precious seconds before the torrent of acidic radioactive fog was disgorged from Megadrak’s gullet sacs.

  Thanks to this warning, all four jets veered away in time to avoid the destructive oral mist.

  Nevertheless, Megadrak seemed to look at the ground, and then glare back up at the offending aerial attackers, as if “sizing up” his opponents for what humans would call a change in tactics. The reptilian titan followed this curious gesture by picking up a few dozen tons of large debris in its massive hands and hurling them into the sky, all in the g
eneral direction of the next quartet of attacking F-51s.

  “Holy jeez!” yelled Dackett, one of the pilots in the formation, as he hastily pushed his joystick to one side in the hope of evading those heavy chunks of airborne rubble.

  He succeeded, but his abrupt reflexive move caused his jet’s starboard wing to clip the fuselage of the jet closest to his left in the formation. Almost half of the wing broke off Dackett’s aircraft upon impact, while the punctured hull of the craft flown by fellow pilot Manson sent that vessel careening out of control.

  “I gotta eject!” Dackett bawled in startled frustration as he realized his jet would be going down.

  The hard glass covering over the jet canopy was jettisoned and Dackett’s seat was projected from the craft as intended. His parachute opened on schedule, and he did his best to direct his descent at least a half a mile away from the combat area. Unfortunately, the enraged Megadrak’s acute eyesight spotted the plunging pilot and the billowing parachute connected to him.

  The kaiju judged the distance with impressive acuity and strode towards Dackett’s trajectory with terrific speed. The pilot used his final moment alive to scream in horror as the giant beast slammed its cerulean hands together over the tiny human, splattering his fragile little body between the monster’s palms.

  As for Manson, he had no possible hope of ejecting, since he was quickly overtaken by severe vertigo as his craft began spinning in a downward spiral towards the ground.

  While recovering from being struck by bits of shrapnel, Goro and Risa could hear the incredibly loud whining of the fast plummeting jet and realized it would likely land perilously close to their makeshift trench.

  “We need to get out of here!” Goro exclaimed in a panic as he stood up. “The jet is going to land on us!”

  “No, you fool!” Risa insisted as she grabbed the fisherman by his collar and forced him back down into the ersatz foxhole. “Cover your eyes and keep your head down!”