“Watch out!” Peter screamed, burying himself into Ichi’s skin.
It was already too late – Ichi’s horns glanced the hidden machine, ripping the external fabric to shreds. The blimp lost all buoyancy and fell, scratching Ichi’s back before making a splash hundreds of meters below.
“Shit!” she hissed, her face distorting in pain. “Are you alright Pete?” she almost snapped from anxiety.
“I’m… still here…” he confirmed, checking if his limbs were still attached to the rest of him. “And are you…”
“I’m… fine… I think…” she huffed, failing to hide pain.
That was the exact reason why he didn’t want to fly above the rain – they couldn’t see anything. He prayed to all non-existent gods that the blimp wasn’t carrying any people…
No. It was clearly a cargo blimp. No one would stuff people into them, no matter how desperate the situation. And on top of that, they were so out of the way of Japan that it couldn’t have possibly be carrying refugees, just some goods from India that were now lost forever.
He curled inside his cocoon and tried to ignore the piercing cold. He couldn’t imagine how terrible the cold was for them though…Well, he couldn’t do anything about it so there was no point in beating himself over it. After all, they were almost there.
From their isle to Hawaii, then to Marshall isles, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and finally Taiwan. With rests between the most brutal distances, it took them a week to fly here.
“To the right! Land!” Ni’s voice pushed through the thunderclaps of wings and lightning below them.
How she spotted it was a mystery to all, even her sisters. Somehow, she always knew where she was, often to an uncanny degree. They hit the ground on a beach and… almost collapsed from exhaustion. Fighting the storm took its toll. Good thing the monsoon wasn’t here… yet.
He untied himself and slid out from between Ichi’s horns onto her snout. She grabbed him and took off the pouch from her chest, constantly panting.
The island’s landscape was a mirror copy of every place they’ve stopped at along the way – sickly, desolate, and dead. Looking north, mountains circled the seaside valley, nearly isolating the peninsula from the rest of the island and the flattened ruins of a small town that once stood here. Everything was dead… No grass, no birds, no trees… Except those few dead, black trunks sticking out of the mountainside that were not crushed by enormous monsters. It made for a nightmarish visage, and the fact that not all buildings were flattened, but merely trashed somehow added to that… A glimpse of light reflected straight at him from a piece of broken window made him squint and look away from the ruins. He felt like the end of the world happened.
And technically, it did. It was underway. They just managed to stall it.
Looking around and squinting, he corrected himself – it wasn’t entirely dead. There were a few insects scuttering around, all from species known for their ability to survive and feed on Kaiju blood and tissues. It was hard to tell from such height, but they seemed to form black, scuttering highways all over the place. There weren’t any Kaiju corpses around though… So what they were feasting on? Not each other for sure. Were they feeding on oxygen bacteria from the water?
Well, that was a thesis they would never bother to check.
“That’s the place?” Ni asked, making a show of how not exhausted she was.
“Well…” he huffed, trying to fit anything to the old recordings. “… I-I don’t know.”
Her head snapped to him. “You DON’T KNOW?! The fuck you mean don’t know?!”
“Ni…” He raised a finger. “… It is on this island… Probably at least. I just do not know where exactly. We’ll have to search the shoreline.”
Ichi finally straightened, forcing herself to stop gasping for air, and gestured to Ni to calm down a bit.
Ni closed her eyes and exhaled, tinges of blue flames slipping out. “… The shoreline of an entire island? This island?” Ni facepalmed. “Do you know how big this island is?” She looked at him, still annoyed, and continued without waiting for a response “Pretty bloody big, even after it shrank a while ago. It could take literal weeks to check the coast.”
Choosing not to focus on the realisation that she had memorised not only the current, but also the past map of earth, he sat down in Ichi’s palm, causing her fingers to instinctively close around him.
“Look Ni, I’ve told you that the plan is the least trash. Not that it isn’t trash.” He shrugged. “If it’s any consolation, it’s probably on the side facing the continent… And most likely near a city… Though the entire shore was basically a city… So, like, that way.” Peter pointed vaguely north-west. “But that’s the most I can give you right now.”
She opened her mouth but closed it again before making a sound. Not because she chose against mouthing off. No, she was not nearly above that. Something was… off. And it just occurred to him that Ichi got suspiciously tense as well. Ni and Ichi locked eyes and nodded at the same time.
Ni stomped three times. The sand next to her exploded. Kendall screamed, and Ichi instantly shoved Peter into a small pouch, then jumped, sending him ragdolling around his prison. He landed on a pile of cloth and after a second, got a grip on the thread holding the leather together. Through a tiny gap between leather he saw…
A gaping, toxically turquoise hole in the beach, with a massive Kaiju next to it, sand rolling down from it’s creaks and crevices.
Not as big as the blackscale he exploded – not even close. A regular Kaiju, just walking on all four and from its unique… design… he figured it was a remnant of the pre-horde batch. From before the months long pause in attacks.
Ni slowly circled it, stone knife in hand, withe the thing clearly not liking it – its head snapped between the two sisters, its body constantly adjusting position to not lose track of either.
Ni’s eyes snapped to Ichi for a split second and she faked an attack. Kaiju swung its paw at her, but she didn’t commit, jumping right back instead. What it did do though was give Ni an opening. She leapt at the monster, latching onto its neck and shoulder.
The Kaiju roared and struggled, trying to throw Ni off its back. To no avail – the dragoness had her forearm wrapped around its neck as she viciously stabbed the monster’s weak points between the bony armour. Thankfully, the centrifugal force of a quick turn was not enough to throw her off. Kaiju flailed its arms around wildly, preventing Ichi’s approach with her own knife.
Finally, after a few very intense seconds Ni understood it wasn’t working, the relatively small wounds closing themselves nigh instantly. She dug her knees into the ground and lifted the kaiju’s torso by gripping the beast under the armpits and pulling backwards, her wings flapping in an attempt to help her straighten.
And it was enough – with reduced paw mobility, the kaiju wasn’t able to defend itself from Ichi. One deep, powerful cut through the exposed neck was enough to disable it, even if just for a second. The monster gagged and nearly broke free of Ni’s grip, but she knew what she was doing. The moment the outburst ended, she strained herself and lifted the monster, then suplexed it with a strained huff-growl
From there it was over. The two sisters jumped at the struggling monster and eviscerated its soft underside until their hands and knives dug into the back armour from the inside.
Ichi stood up, looming over the massacred carcass, panting from adrenaline. Kaiju blood tainted the usually splendorous, golden bodies of Titans, giving them a sickly look of a tropical skin disease.
Ichi anxiously ran up to Kendall and embraced her. “Shhh… It’s gone now… It can’t hurt you no more…” she whispered. Suddenly remembering about him, Ichi’s hand twitched and pulled his cowering form from the bag, pressing him against her snout. “Are you okay?” she asked, flooding him with hot air and painting his pants blue with Kaiju blood.
He shakily nodded, taking comfort in the closeness.
They remained like that, nearly frozen for minutes in the motherly embrace of the dragoness, with only the waves, the wind, and their breaths disturbing the silence. Well, and a strange, regular thumping sound…
His head snapped to the source, fully expecting to see another monster. Ni kept kicking the carcass in sheer frustration while lobbing insults at it. She came to her senses long after her feet changed colour from brown to blue. The insects began swarming the carcass like a disturbing wave of chitin.
“I…” He swallowed when his voice broke. “… I d-didn’t know they c-could… hibernate…”
“Only the big ones,” Ichi whispered. “We have to move in-land before we attract more…”
***
But they could not do that. It was the only thing they could not afford to do. They moved north-west through a road that for the three Titans was nothing but a narrow passage and after around fifty kilometers found an actually big city… Or at least what was left of it.
Clear signs of fighting from long ago were visible here – craters, giant skeletons, old vehicles… They set up a camp on a relatively large patch of earth east of the city. A good vantage point, one far enough from the shore to feel at least somewhat safe. Feeling guilty about it, he stayed behind to set up his stuff while Ni and Ichi went out to search the shore. He could of course see glimpses of their titanic silhouettes trodding in the toxic waters and checking the seabed… with what he assumed were very displeased expressions.
Once again bending his back over the screen, he tried and failed to triangulate possible locations of eternal rest. All recordings were shaky at best, with reference points that no longer existed, or looked so different that they might as well have not existed. Looking north it was just one titanic city… well, rubble… reaching over the horizon. No way in hell he could get a reference from this place.
He looked at Kendall busying herself with setting the black, ripped out trees in a perfect pile of jenga. Maybe she could… No, she would not. She was here for babysitting purposes… Though he couldn’t decide who was babysitting who.
Lots of old recordings. Old livestreams, both professional and casual. Decades old tapes of dubious quality. Almost too many to analyse all of them alone. He sighed and gave into procrastination by checking if his dubious machine was still intact after transport. It was – the foam and leather they wrapped each part in prevented any noticeable damage… though the casing of some parts might have been bent in some places. Nothing a few hammer strikes wouldn’t fix.
With the second strike something… exploded. Not in the machine mind you – the rumble came from the campfire. Looking over there, he saw wood raining around Kendall as she held onto her right hand, quietly sobbing. He quickly regained his composure after getting startled and thought for a moment. She must have punched… or slapped the pile.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelPhoenix; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
As he struggled with making sense of it, she lied down on her bedroll and curled into herself, still sobbing. Fantastic. Exactly the last thing he needed right now… And the worst part was that ignoring her would just make him feel like shit.
“Hey Ken…” he muttered softly, sitting down next to her forehead.
Her eyes snapped open at his touch, full of concern and anxiety.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, caressing a few of her bronze-like scales.
“Uhmmm… Yes… J-just…” She glanced at the pile and sighed. “I don’t k-know… It j-just… I don’t…” She rubbed her eyes, trying to wipe away tears.
“Just passing the time?” he helped.
Kendall looked at him through fingers. “I don’t know… I just…” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Why?”
“Why what?” He cocked his head.
“Why i-is… Is this happening?” she blurted out. “All of… t-this.”
Peter nodded before pressing his forehead against her, causing her to tense up. “Why are the monsters invading? Why do we have to fight them?” he asked, looking for confirmation. “Truth is Ken… I have absolutely no idea.” he finished a little too bluntly.
She stared at him, scared, and upset, clearly expecting a different answer.
“That is the truth, Ken. Maybe there is someone who does know… But if he or she does and we still do not, there must be a good reason for them not sharing it,” he continued, surprising himself with his defense of potential government overreach. “I do not know everything.”
Her confused gaze would be funny if it wasn’t lined with desperation. And then… tears rolled again. This time true waterfalls of salty marbles, accompanied by nearly silent sobbing. For the first time, he truly regretted his inability to lift people up.
“I know Ken. I’m scared too,” he whispered, gently caressing her scales. “And it’s true that I don’t know why it’s happening but… Does it matter?”
Her normally blue, but now decisively reddened eye blinked, forcing another batch of tears out. “Why are these m-monsters everyw-where? I j-just want to… I just w-want ev-very thing t-to be… n-normal again…” her speech was rapidly turning into rambling. “D-did I do something wro…” she hesitated and instantly cut the sentence.
“Bad things just sometimes… happen, right?” he asked, trying to wipe a tear, which only resulted in his entire arm getting flooded. “You just have to go through them. WE just have to go through them. And we will.”
He tried to cuddle her, but the blue Sauron above him made it a point of honour to flood his head no matter where he put it. Still, he could stomach drowning if it meant her feeling a bit better.
“Little one…” she whispered. “I’m just s-so… tired… All of it…” her eyes closed. “Too long… I j-just… want e-everyt-thing to be back t-to normal…”
Normal. Wasn’t that funny? For him, the kaijus were always here. He didn’t know a world before that – for him, this shithole was the norm… For her, it was just an episode. Or blink. So maybe… comparing it to something fleeting would work?
“Being hungry is bad, right?” he asked.
Evil overlord gazed upon him once more. “Huh?”
“Being hungry. It’s bad right?” he asked again. “But when you are hungry you can eat something tasty. And that is good. Like a… grilled dolphin. Right?”
That mention seemed to work well enough for her to stop dehydrating herself. Her tongue moved for a few seconds.
“So when something bad happens, often something good will happen soon after. Correct?” he nagged.
His tortured logic strained her, but it seemed that thinking was tiring enough for the stupidity of it to get lost on her.
“Even when that blackscale appeared on your island. That was pretty bad, ey? But then you met me… And that was pretty good, right?”
Her brain was overheating from thoughts. Connecting bad things with good was apparently a novel concept for her… Or maybe she was just putting thoughts in their boxes – he wasn’t willing to apply his lackluster psychoanalysis to anyone anymore.
“I… I guess y-you’re right… T-there is always s-something… g-good after bad,” she replied, a bit calmer than before.
“Exactly Ken.” He nodded approvingly. “Who knows what that good thing will be? Maybe we will find something cool? Maybe we will make new friends? Learn something? And at the very least, we have a nice camping trip…” He glanced at the desolate landscape around them. “Well… maybe not the nicest place, but it is different than home, right?”
She closed her eyes and slightly shook her head. “I d-don’t like this place…”
“Yeah… me too…” he sighed and scratched his head, trying to think of something… and surprised himself by actually having an answer. “Ken… can you keep a secret?”
Her eye slowly opened. “Secret?”
“Yes… promise me you won’t tell Ni or Ichi. Okay?”
“Uhmmm…” She hesitated. “S-sure, little one… I w-won’t tell anyone…”
“Great…” Peter took a deep breath, trying to assemble bullshit into at least somewhat believable form. “Would you like to meet my family?”
She stirred and a few seconds later raised her head. “Family? Y-you mean you… have s-sisters too?”
Her bizarre train of logic disrupted his pre-planned speech. It took him a while to understand why she defaulted to that, but once he got it, it was so obvious it hurt.
“No no Ken. I don’t have sisters. I have my parents… you know, mom and dad… and I have my brother…” he said that last part, proud of himself to refrain from adding ‘unfortunately’.
“Oh… Yes, I would… l-love to…” she responded, with a faint smile appearing on her face.
“Good. You see Ken… Me and my mom planned a meeting in around… two weeks. In a nice place on the continent… With forests, mountains, and waterfalls… It was supposed to be a surprise.”
Her eyes – though still reddened – began glowing. He couldn’t tell if it was excitement or something else, but it didn’t matter right now. The baseline of ‘stop Kendall from crying’ was achieved.
“But remember – not a SINGLE word about it. Okay?” He tapped her scales.
She nodded, earning a kiss on tip of her snout like the ones Ichi usually got.
“So stop worrying so much and go make us some dinner. Your sisters will be starving after an entire day of running around in water.”
She considered his words and nodded again, then pushed herself up and looked at the scattered firewood, which seemingly dampened her resolve for a second. She got up and began assembling the stack once more.
Satisfied with his work, he returned to his makeshift workstation. Kendall’s steps proved a bit distracting with how much everything shook, but he was used to it at this point. He heard a few rocks and some sand slide behind him, but turning to check it, saw nothing unusual.
Just another tiny distraction from his work. He sat down, stretched, and tried to hype himself up. Looking at the images made him remember why he was procrastinating in the first place…
***
Sure. This would absolutely look like that. Good job AI.
The automatic reconstruction before him was bad enough to make him laugh – buildings leaned as if they were trying to cosplay italics, while the most important reference point was deemed to be a flat picture in the sky.
Well, he couldn’t blame the algorithm – this recording was both distant and in particularly bad quality… On second thought, he could absolutely blame the algorithm – after all, there wasn’t anything it could do, and it sure as hell wouldn’t get mad over it.
“Bad AI. Trash AI,” he muttered at the computer and ordered it to reconstruct from another recording.
In the meantime, he once again opened his own visualisation. The model was compiled from hundreds of manually adjusted recordings and reconstructions. Rough and untextured of course, but it didn’t really matter all that much. The main reference point – an enormous vista tower resembling flight control – made him start recognising each street and building from memory. A few days of this would make him a local.
He looked at the city flanked by the setting sun. The model was really good but had one glaring issue. The tower didn’t exist anymore.
It must have been leveled along with the city. His only real hope right now was reconstructing as much of the city as possible and figuring out where the tower was via proxies.
That is, if they even were in the right city. It was equally likely that the tower was located further north.
“F-food is ready… I-if you want…” said Kendall, looking at him expectantly.
Peter raised his eyes, deciding that he indeed felt hungry – he was just too focused on work to notice. He stood up, stretched and walked up with his bowl to Kendall.
Now the tricky part – how to fill it without breaking it, drowning it, or burning him by accident. It was always a circus. Kendall opted for the stick route – she dipped a piece of wood in the goulash, pulled it out, and let the food drip into the tiny bowl.
He sat down next to her and started cutting the slab of meat he got into more manageable pieces. The food was strange but splendid as usual.
Just as worry began appearing in his mind, a familiar quake shook the earth. And another. And another…
He stood up with his bowl and ventured out to greet them. Both dragons climbed uphill from the northern side, each carrying some relatively small, unidentifiable object. From that he concluded the search was a failure – what he needed would be big, easily larger than their torsos. He rolled his eyes and continued stuffing himself with the goulash until they were merely a hundred meters away. Suddenly it occurred to him that going alone in twilight was not the smartest idea…
He quickly swallowed and waved at them. “Hey! Over here!” he yelled just before the danger became more than theoretical.
Their heads snapped to him, confirming his fear that they had not noticed him before.
“Yes, we fucking know midget,” Ni huffed, taking a step above him. She sat down next to the campfire and groaned.
Ichi on the other hand stopped and squatted in front of him, then presented him the object she carried. “I found something like this in the water.”
He strained his eyes to see what she was carrying, but the object was too dark and corroded to make out what it was in this light. “Put it near the fire love. I will be there in a second.”
He walked up to his table, set down the half-eaten goulash, and joined the rest. The yellow light revealed severe discolouration of their hands, calves, and feet – they were turning blue… or purple.
“Aight…” He rubbed his hands. “Show me what you got.”
Ichi glanced at him while chewing and poked the – still nearly black – object on the ground. It was… peculiar. It resembled a clawed hand, even if vaguely, and overall seemed robust. He saw remnants of wiring and driver transmission… It was huge… But also, clearly not a Jaeger part. After a few seconds it hit him.
“It’s an industrial crane… Maybe from a shipyard or something…or what is left of it.” he announced.
A glimmer of hope evaporated from Ichi’s eyes, before she sighed with defeat.
“And mine?” asked Ni, spitting out bits of meat as she waved her find.
Ichi took Ni’s find and placed it next to him. Now that was something even stranger. Very complex, with interlocking pieces in various colours. He couldn’t make out what it was from its peculiar shape, but…
A mirror. He noticed a piece of mirror in a plastic casing that looked strangely familiar… His instinct ordered him to look a bit lower, and he instantly recognised what it was. “That’s just a few cars… smashed together and flattened.”
“Oh come ON!” Ni almost yelled, Ichi grinning at her mockingly.
“Don’t worry… Like I said, it will take some time to find… unfortunately,” Peter sighed, before climbing into Ichi’s lap.
Honestly, it wasn’t the best idea – her scales were covered in the sickly, mildly toxic grime of the ocean. No matter – he could live with being dirty, and cuddling against her belly was certainly worth it. On her part, she displayed greater wisdom, choosing not to pet him with dirty hands.
“I don’t mind,” Ichi said after swallowing. “You… prepared me mentally that this will be hard.”
“Too bad no one prepared ME for it,” Ni grumbled.
“Ni, we’ve literally told you this like, four times,” Ichi replied. “You were just too busy digging ditches to care.”
“FORTIFICATIONS, damn it!” Ni huffed.
“Whatever you call them does not change the fact that those ARE ditches,” Ichi retorted.
“Callem ‘ditches’ one more time and I’ll make yer arse-ditch reach yer forehead!”
Despite how threatening she tried to sound, the threat made him crack up. Ichi also chuckled, though he suspected it was mostly because he was laughing.
“Fuck you. Both of you,” Ni hissed, pointing at them, her eyes resembled that of a furious puppy.
His laughter turned into a chuckle, then into a snicker before fading completely. He wiped his face with both hands and looked up at his girl… or at least at her dewlap. Suddenly guilt hit him – he was being useless right now and it only meant more unpleasant work for them. A deep breath was all it took to gather willpower. He slid down and went back to his workstation. He set aside the empty bowl and cracked his knuckles, before looking at another reconstruction.
***
Food. Surely no one would hold it against her if she took a bit more… right? After all, Ni used more water than she should just to wash her hands… She understood her of course – the grimy-slimy-sludge was horrible and disgusting… But she could have done the same as her and simply wiped it off into the sand…
But just because her idiot sister was irresponsible as usual didn’t mean Ichi should be too… She was the responsible one. Not because she liked it but… because someone had to be.
Come on… You know you want to.
You again? Really?
Yes, me again. It was getting a bit cramped in my corner, so I went sightseeing.
Ichi rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, but they suspiciously ended up on the pot again.
See? A bit of food wouldn’t hurt you. At worst you would gain some weight…
For fuck’s sake, really? You really came out to nag me about a bit of soup?
Like I said, it was getting cramped over there without the daily fun.
Ichi pinched the base of her snout at the explanation. Yes, she was missing their usual… ‘playtime’… But to think she was that needy to…
Hmmm yes… You could also put the boy in his place. That would do.
I am NOT going to do that now. He is busy.
Yes, he is… He is showing how much he likes you by working himself to death…
That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you thi…
You should show him how much you like him too.
Ichi huffed and sat up, deciding that overeating was the easier and… more acceptable solution at this point. She made sure that her sisters were asleep and silently filled her bowl with more goulash.
It tasted better than before – better than it had any right to. Forbidden fruit as usual… Ah, who cares? She needed something from life too…
A thought occurred to her that Peter probably saw everything. Well, that ship had sailed, but again – who cares? At most he could try blackmailing her with it, and they both had better sins and material to do it with.
Nevertheless, she turned around to see his inevitable mocking smirk.
But instead of cute little man, she saw nothing. He wasn’t there at his workstation. There were no lights, no sounds, no…
“Pete?” she mumbled, anxiety mounting behind the floodgates.
No response. She stood up without bothering to be silent and approached. The table was empty. Even the things that were supposed to always to be there were gone. No computer, no notes, no… nothing really.
“PETER?!” she yelled into the darkness with dread.
There was no response.
***