The GNP Presents:
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
From the Screenplay by Wataru Mimura
Novelization by Daniel DiManna
PROLOGUE
JAPAN, 1999
(TATEYAMA, CHIBA PREFECTURE)
My day had begun as any normal day might. It ended as a nightmare.
We were all aware of the impending storm, and had spent most of the morning and afternoon preparing for its arrival. It wasn’t the kind of work that my unit was used to doing; typhoons weren’t exactly our area of expertise. However, as an extension of the JSDF, it was still our duty to ensure the safety of the people, regardless of the threat in question.
As per our initial commands, we were to remain on standby at Narashino, awaiting any emergency that might require our deployment. The worst we expected were downed power lines, maybe a flooded street or two. The wind continued to pick up speed as the day passed, and the sun disappeared from the sky far earlier than it should have, lost behind a looming wall of dark clouds moving in from the south.
Ominous, perhaps, but not unexpected. And certainly not frightening.
As the evening wore on, I sat alone in one of the base’s many conference rooms, as I often did while on duty awaiting orders. There was no single mandatory place for us to be during such times, providing we didn’t leave the premises. Given the choice, I always preferred to wait alone. It was what I was used to. Solitude meant comfort on that night as much as any night; I saw no reason to change this way of thinking for as trivial a thing as a typhoon.
And so I sat, with only the sounds of the wind and rain raging outside the base to keep me company. For a time, I stood and paced, but ultimately returned to one of the many chairs surrounding the room’s large central table. I fidgeted with my uniform, loosened my collar, untied then retied the laces of my boots to stave off boredom. At a certain point during the wait, my eyes began to grow heavy, and I closed them for the briefest of moments…
It was then that I heard my name shouted from the hallway outside the room. Shouted loudly. Worryingly loudly. My eyes shot open.
I have no memory of who called to me, or of what time it was when my visitor arrived. But I do remember being rushed out of the room, the panicked faces of colleagues passing by me as I was forced into another conference room and shoved in front of a TV screen. And I remember what I saw on that screen…
A reporter stood in the rain, his coat doing little to keep him dry as Typhoon 13 lashed out angrily behind him. The ocean seemed intent on sweeping the poor man off the dock, but he continued to hold his ground, screaming out his report as the storm continued. The slew of numbers, locations, and statistics he yelled out were barely audible over the crashing of waves and the pounding of the rain. As he continued, the sea seemed to bubble up behind him, rising as if pushed up from beneath and surging forward toward the dock. The reporter ducked to avoid the resulting cascade of falling water, and then rose up, shaking off the impact as if it were nothing, to continue delivering his report.
And then, something else rose behind him.
The violent seas behind the reporter vanished, replaced by a growing mountain of dripping, scaly flesh. A low rumble shook the camera as two clawed hands came into view. The reporter finally stopped yelling. He turned as the camera, still shaking, rose to focus on the thing he gazed upon. His scream filled the conference room, followed by a single, terrified word:
“Run!”
The screen went black. The report was over, but we had seen all we needed to see.
Within mere minutes, my fellow soldiers and I had sprung into action. The necessary orders were given, and we prepared to move out.
This is what we were trained for. In the face of a typhoon, there was little mere humans like us could do to halt its destruction. But this was something different. This was something that could be stopped. Something that could be defeated.
Something that could be killed.
And killing monsters was our specialty.
This operation was no different than any of the others the Anti-Megalosaurus Force had carried out in its more than 30 year history. Many a fearsome beast had fallen to the might of my fellow warriors both past and present. There was no reason that this creature, whatever its origin or nature, shouldn’t meet the same fate.
But we had no idea what we were about to face. No idea that our enemy was no mere monster, but a God. A ghost of our past made flesh once again.
A nightmare.
At the time my unit finally departed the base, the creature had not yet been identified. We had no idea if the beast was one familiar to the ranks of the JXSDF, or a new anomaly yet to be recorded. But regardless of its nature, we had our orders: defeat it by any means necessary.
What we did know was that the monster stood anywhere from 40 to 60 meters in height, and that it had rampaged through Tateyama before continuing on into the nearby forest between our position and MIsawa. This was to our advantage; with the creature out of the populated area, we would have no reason to hold back. There would be no civilian casualties, no infrastructure brought down by our Maser fire. We would trap the beast, fire upon it as we had done to similar beasts many times before.
And we would kill it.
I remember feeling little fear as my Type 90 Maser Tank rolled down the streets of Tateyama, joined by a convoy of three fellow Masers and a battalion of Type 90 MBTs. The soldiers and vehicles in our company had proven themselves time and time again in past confrontations; there seemed little reason to be frightened in the least. I was confident in our success; although my time spent in the ranks of the AMF had been brief, I trusted the abilities of my fellows. What’s more, they seemed to trust me, too. After less than a year in the unit, I had become the AMF’s first female Maser operator in the history of the Self Defense Forces. My superiors had believed in me enough to honor me with the position, and I had no intention of letting them, or my comrades in the field, down.
The remainder of the trip passed in a blur of thoughts and mental preparation. I knew I was ready. I wanted to fight, to win. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I belonged somewhere. That I was needed. I concentrated on suppressing my anxiety; I might not have been afraid of losing to a monster, but the thought of failing my fellow AMF members threatened to ruin my focus. I continued to breathe, to concentrate on the task at hand. There wasn’t much time left. Soon, we’d be staring down a creature that likely wouldn’t be thrilled when we began firing upon it…
At last, we arrived. Orders began to blare over our radio: “All troops, gather around Route 89. Concentrate your firepower and stop the beast.”
My tank came to a halt on the highway, the curved road slicing a path around the diameter of a tall hill. To my right rose the grass and rocks of the inclining land. To my left lay a forested valley that rested several dozen meters down the continuing hillside.
And rising above the trees, the nightmare loomed, gigantic and darker than the night that surrounded it.
My breath caught in my throat for the briefest of seconds. But I shook off the momentary hesitation. I had a job to do.
The tanks fired first. The battalion had split in two, with one half positioning themselves further down the highway from our position, and the second half maneuvering down into the valley. Their booming shots lit up the sky, illuminating the silhouette of the beast as it moved slowly through the torrential rains toward the highway. The tank’s shells seemed to have no effect, but this was expected. It was a rare day when a tank served any other purpose than to distract a giant monster, and that was exactly what was happening here. The tanks were to draw its attention, lure it to the highway where the next attacks could take place. So far, it was working.
Next came the missiles. Nearby vehicles fired a bevy of warheads into the creature’s black hide. This time, the only apparent effect was irritation. I and my co-pilot watched in horror as a swift kick from the creature’s massive foot sent a retreating tank flying through the air, only to crash onto a second tank, engulfing both in flames. As the fireball rose, the face of the monster became visible for the first time. I looked into its eyes, took note of its reptilian head and sharp teeth…
And then came a roar. A roar that I knew I had heard before…
Surely, it couldn’t have been…
I shook the thought from my mind. I had to stay focused. After all, it was my turn to fire…
The order came for the Masers to move in. The Jeep in front of our tank jumped to life and cruised further down the highway, and we crawled after it. Within seconds, we were in position.
“Activate, raise turrets! Link with target system!”
I heard the mechanical sound that accompanied the swiveling of the Maser Cannon on its mount, and then the sound of the turret lifting. I looked through the viewfinder to activate the Maser’s advanced targeting, maneuvering the screen until I caught sight of the beast. I felt the cannon move with me, adjusting as I focused in on the monster’s left side.
“Maser C, locked on!”
The order to fire came.
This was it.
“Maser… fire!”
My viewfinder was filled with the jagged blue light of the cannon’s energy. As the tank rumbled around me, I watched the beam find its target, sending sparks flying from the beast’s scales. The forest between my tank and the monster suddenly grew shorter, the tops of the massive trees sliced off by the Maser’s sizzling power.
The creature turned toward us.
A second Maser shot hit the giant square in the chest. More sparks flew, and were quickly extinguished by the rain. We definitely had its attention now.
Suddenly, there came a new voice, that of my Maser’s cab driver: “The rain has reduced our firepower to 70%!” I quickly moved my head away from the viewfinder to focus on our nearby computer screen. Sure enough, the energy output of our Maser was holding at a mere seventy..
I had been afraid of this happening. Such losses of power in rainy weather were not unprecedented, and in all likelihood the weapon would still get the job done with 30% less power, but it was still a setback. Defeating the monster would now be harder, especially given that our Maser attacks thus far had seemingly had little effect…
But I knew what needed to be done. Monster or not, it was a living creature. It could be killed. It had weak spots, just as any other living thing. I knew exactly where I had to fire next…
I returned to the viewfinder, and raised the cannon even higher. My target was the monster’s right eye. Blinding the beast might not kill it, but it would definitely slow it down.
I fired.
The Maser blast missed the monster’s eye, grazing its cheek instead. Sparks flew once again, and the beast’s face was again visible for a brief moment. A look of anger seemed to irradiate from the very eye that I had missed. For that instant, I saw the face of a monster pushed to the limits of its tolerance. By the time its face had receded back into the darkness of the rainy night, I knew exactly what was coming.
Its retaliation soon began to manifest itself in a brilliant blue glow that dwarfed that of the Maser beams. The light emanated from its jagged dorsal spines, around which formed a haze of rapidly evaporating rainwater that briefly obscured them like a reflection in a foggy mirror.
What happened next seemed to simultaneously last for an eternity, yet occur in the blink of an eye. But such is the way of nightmares.
The beast’s mouth opened, and from it came a blast of blue light that pounded into the cliff to our right. The hill began to crumble, a rockslide threatening to sweep my Maser from the highway and into the valley. Instinct took over. I began to swivel the tank in perpetration to reverse and flee the battlefield.
By the time I realized that the Jeep in front of my tank was reversing toward me, it was too late.
My cab smashed the Jeep on its right side, pushing it over the highway rail with a sickening effortlessness. There was nothing I could do. I watched as the car rolled end over end down the hill, coming to a rest on its roof at the bottom of the valley.
I heard their screams as the monster’s foot came down upon them. The car was crushed as if it were made of nothing. As if it hadn’t been there at all.
I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. I felt nothing as my eyes locked with those of the creature. I did nothing as its tail swung toward me, bashing the cannon off the back of my tank and sending my cab rolling off the highway. I said nothing as I tumbled inside the cockpit, my body slamming against the metal walls and protruding equipment as I fell.
When the tank finally came to rest, I lifted my head toward the window. The rain was still falling, but through the fog and clinging water droplets I could still see the form of the beast. It stood larger than life – larger than death – above its defeated enemy. Above me. Above humanity.
As I watched, the night was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant flash of lightening that seemed to split the darkened sky wide open. The bolts raced down from the heavens, striking the spines of the creature again and again as its back arched toward the light above.
The nightmare roared.
And my eyes finally closed.
Chapter 1 Coming Soon.
The Godzilla Novelization Project 