ACT 2: FLAMES OF OBLIVION
“Okay... Now see this?” He pointed at a large metal ring with a screwdriver.
“I... guess?” Ni squinted, focusing on it with one eye.
“This thing is a commutator. When the generator rotates, it generates a positive charge on one brush half the time and a negative during the second half... So to speak. Now because each section borders two sections connected to the opposite side...”
“Then it always puts each brush in the correct spot,” Ni finished, shifting a bit to get a better look. „Smart.”
“Yeah. And we get a stable voltage out of it... Well not completely stable, since there are tiny gaps between sections, but the pause is so short that the devices do not even notice.”
“Hmmmm...” Ni blinked, before leaning back. ”You know midget, I honestly thought your stuff would be way more difficult to grasp,” she commented, a miniscule tinge of disappointment in her voice. “You just... Spin shit...”
He laughed, kicking off the dead... rat? The dead rodent off the platform. The fact that the creature not only bothered, but actually managed to reach the generator AND decided to nest in it was mind boggling... But it also validated the logic behind his purchasing choices. “Spinning shit is the cornerstone of civilisation, Ni,” he proclaimed, sitting down on the edge of the platform. “Spinning shit AND throwing shit, to be precise. It usually boils down to it at least. Even fusion reactors rely on it.”
“The what reactors?”
“It’s a machine that makes a small sun inside of it,” he explained nonchalantly. “And that sun is then used to boil water which turns to steam and spins turbines. Not exactly like this one...” He patted the platform. “But the principle is the same.”
Ni looked at him with a frown as if he was insane. He withstood her gaze and nodded, signaling that he was indeed serious.
“Sure, whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Is it fixed?”
“Give it a spin.”
She slowly rotated the wind turbine, making his multimeter’s readings spike.
“Yeah, it’s fixed,” he yelled, before closing the mechanism’s shield.
Next thing was to disengage the brake and wait for the mechanism to reach its working speed. Afterwards just reconnecting the wiring with a lever and… Judging by the fuses not snapping and the generator not exploding, everything was fine.
“We have saved the house,” he announced.
Ni looked at two other wind turbines to her right and scratched her neck, a clear fascination still present in her red eyes. It kept surprising him. She finally snapped back to reality, focusing on him again.
“What will you give me for not leaving you here?” she asked, a mocking smirk creeping onto her face.
“For starters, I will tell Ichi not to kill you for asking that,” he countered, staring at her defiantly.
“Hmmm, not a bad offer, midget... But I will make you a better one – teach me more about how your stuff works. Then, she can kill me.”
“Well, it’s not like I have much to do anyways,” he answered truthfully.
It was true. It took them all nearly eight months to set up everything he could think of, but they were FINALLY done with work. Only inconsequential tasks remained, which in his mind read as ‘ignore them until he felt like it and enjoy the spoils in the meantime’.
Ni picked him up and stood up, towering over the three turbines that barely reached her stomach. She took a few steps back, trying to avoid wrecking another turbine with her tail and...
“WATCH THE INVERTER!” he snapped, seeing her right foot land uncomfortably close to the plexi-glass shed painted in the ugliest, most eye-soringly atrocious colour he found in the store.
Ni froze mid-step, foot twitching anxiously, the memory of seven-hundred-volts shock still fresh in her mind.
“You should put this somewhere else, midget,” she huffed, placing her foot further to the right.
“No. You should just be more careful. You want to work with this after all. It really won’t get any easier for your huge ass.”
Monstrous fingers closed around him, squeezing his comparatively tiny body in a steel grip and likening him to a tube of toothpaste about to burst.
“You realise I can glaep you, midget?” she muttered, a few fangs flashing under he lips.
“Consider me... Trembling in fear,” he huffed with as much sarcasm as his compressed lungs allowed.
Before he really transformed into something worthy of brushing teeth with, the grip loosened, leaving him sitting on her palm again.
“I swear, you have a fucking death wish...” she scoffed, making her way down the hill.
Well, a hill for her and a mountain for anyone else, but still. She walked along their rudimentary power grid towards a place he came to call his home.
“Hey midget... Shouldn’t that turbine be like... Ripping itself all the time?”
“What?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“I mean... I mean that the friction would be constantly wearing the thing down, right? It’s heavy and spinning all the time.”
“Ohhh. You are right.” He nodded. “It normally would be wearing itself down. But I specifically replaced the bearings with magnetic ones. There is no connection between the base and the moving parts. It just floats.”
“Floats? On magnets?” She eyed him from above. “And it isn’t too heavy or something?”
“Normally, that would be the case. To be honest, those turbines move too slowly for standard magnetic bearings to work properly... And that’s exactly why I imported von Neumann’s bearings from Germany. Expensive as hell... But now the turbines will basically never break. Like, at all. It’s magic what the guy did.”
Ni blinked, a look of pure concentration on her face. “Like the guy that’s gonna ruin the economy?”
Peter opened his mouth and froze when her words finally registered. “What?” he asked, completely lost.
“You know, Neumann. He wants to give people free stuff for... Well, free. But it’s gonna be taken from people’s taxes. And it’s gonna crash the economy,” she replied without a hint of irony.
He stared at her in utter disbelief for a few seconds, before taking one of the deepest breaths of his life and putting his hands together. “Ni...” he began slowly. “You don’t live in America. You’re not a citizen. You don’t pay taxes. You’re not even a HUMAN... Why the FUCK do you care about our politics?!” he ended with his mental strength completely drained.
Ni eyed him for a split second. “Well, I don’t care... But he’s still gonna do it...” she muttered.
Taking a lesson from his pre-kidnapping self, he dropped the subject, vowing not to ask her about it ever again. It made him consider putting a parental block on the computer though.
Soon they reached the entrance of the vast cave near the shoreline. She opened the huge doors, stepped inside and with clear satisfaction watched as they closed on their own thanks to the self-made counterweight going through a wooden roller.
He didn’t really believe it at first, but surprisingly, among the three of them, she was the one responsible for most of the pots, baskets, furniture, cutlery, weaponry, tools, and even the occasional piece of clothing they used. Once he taught her basic mechanics, Ni became obsessed with carving pieces of wood, stone and bones into parts for her contraptions, and proceeded to stuff them into every reasonable and unreasonable place she could think of.
The smell of meat flooded their senses, making Ni subconsciously lick her lips. She went deeper into the dim cave until they’ve reached an almost round room illuminated by sunlight through the small opening in the ceiling.
“I’m home!” Ni exclaimed loudly, startling Kendall, whose attention was focused on the pot in front of her.
“O-oh... H-hi...” Kendall replied shyly.
Ni walked up to her, squatted and took a deep whiff of the stew. “Ohhh that’s some good stuff...” she commented, with her eyes closed.
“T-thanks,” Kendall whispered with a small smile.
“Here, brought you ingredients.” Ni smirked, extending the hand he was sitting on.
Peter ignored the jab and friendly waved at the girl, which she reciprocated with an anxious smile. After a few seconds Ni rolled her eyes, before placing him on Kendall’s thigh.
“You kids have fun. Am gonna bath now,” Ni announced, before leaving into one of the adjacent rooms.
Kendall quickly pressed her hands and wings against her torso, nothing but pure distress in her eyes. He sighed and stood up, looking for the most feasible way down. Asking her for help was pointless – she refused to touch him under any circumstances. Locating the least precarious way, he carefully slid down her thigh, landing on a thick piece of leather she was kneeling on.
A sigh of relief filled the room once he was firmly on the ground, prompting her to grab her long, wooden spoon.
“Ichi’s home?” Peter asked, looking at the towering titan.
“Y-yes... She said s-she had a headache a-and... Went to lie down... F-for a bit...”
He nodded and briefly looked over at the cooking place he made for her by scrapping hundreds of kitchen tiles from a junkyard. It was seemingly working at full power, which served as the final confirmation that the generator was working again. He turned around and walked straight forward until reaching a wall. Following along it was how he got around, but even that method was still a pain. Unlike most of the floor, the corners were not smoothed by millennia of walking, dragging, and rolling stuff on top of them - instead, it was that same uneven rock that made up the walls. The only realistic solution would be constructing balconies along every wall – something requiring far more time and effort than he’d bother to put into it. A faint echo of water pumps engaging rolled through the cave, followed by a low, mildly annoyed dragon grumble.
Finally making it into the smaller room, he saw Ichi lying on a pile of leather on the opposite end of the room. Covered by a sewn-together leather blanket, she made the wise strategic decision of facing away from the entrance to claim just a little bit of peace for herself. He looked around and jolted straight towards her, increasing the risk of getting stepped on by several orders of magnitude, yet reducing travel time by a solid three minutes. Climbing on top of the pile of leather, his suspicions were vindicated.
His girl was taking a little beauty nap.
He smiled, barely containing the urge squeak at the cuteness in front of him. After a split second of consideration, he lied down, cuddling against the top of her snout. Her usual warmth invaded his form, but his body couldn’t help but comment that her leathery scales were a bit too rough to be considered cozy with their very noticeable edges... He did not care – it was all just minor things. The mere fact that it was her… made it the most comfortable spot in the universe.
Closing his eyes, he entered a dream-like state, where everything that existed was her. All wants, needs and desires were instantly fulfilled, because he was with her. His entire world was her… Quite literally, as he couldn’t see anything but her. With his head pushed against her, he enjoyed the overwhelming warmth that began radiating from his heart and stomach. Even the fact that she most likely hasn’t even felt his presence couldn’t ruin it.
Minutes passed, time stretched and went by unnoticed. Seconds and millennia with her would feel the same – each moment an eternity, each eternity a blink. Bliss evaded timescales.
Faint echoes of disengaging pumps and the distant tremors that followed confirmed that Ni had finished her bath. “I turned on the heating!” she yelled from the main room.
Ichi’s breathing suddenly changed, making him instinctively brace as the slight shift of the dragon’s head pushed him around as easily as a leaf. Her head stopped after a few meters and he quickly pulled his leg from under her, happy for not ending up rolled into the ‘bedsheets’ like usual.
She let out a deep, thundering sigh and opened her eyes with zero coordination. He quickly grabbed onto her scales and climbed on top – or rather, on the side – of her snout, before lounging on it. Her right eye began following him, the huge iris trying to focus on his tiny form. Once it did, the corner of her mouth curved upwards, a single eyelid smiling at him softly.
“Whatcha dreaming about?” he asked, resting his head on his hands.
A deep purr left her throat before he could finish the sentence, as if even hearing his voice was enough to release dopamine. He realised that he was unconsciously kicking his feet in sync with the rhythm of her purrs.
“I was…” She hesitated and lazily blinked. “I was dreaming about pale bugs crawling all over me…” she whispered sleepily with a hint of mockery.
“Were they at least pretty?” he asked, cocking his head.
“Hmmm… Nah… rather ugly… but in a cute way,” she winked teasingly.
He snickered and placed a kiss on the scale in front of him. “Good that you have at least one thing in common with them.”
The ‘ground’ beneath him quivered when a stronger than usual gust of air left her nostrils. She shifted and gently stroked his head a finger, before pinching him, shifting her chin flatly on the ‘bed’ and placing him on her snout again – this time facing both yellow, affectionate Saurons at once.
“I just might like having things in common with cute little bugs…” she whispered.
“Ohhh! Now that’s interesting! An oversized gecko fraternising with its own food?” he retorted and quickly blinked several times.
Ichi huffed and rolled her eyes, then caressed his back some more. “You’re lucky I like playing with my food,” she sneered and tapped his cheek with the tip of her tongue.
“And you are lucky you are such a sexy gecko,” he replied without a hint of irony.
“At least on that we agree…”
Ichi picked him up and made him fall into her palm, before delicately nuzzling him, tremorous purrs escaping her throat the entire time. After an extensive session of affection she sat up, the falling blanket revealing her full form.
She was always beautiful yet somehow grew prettier every time he laid eyes on her. Her light-golden scales scattered the sparse light, silk-like wigs larger than the sky itself, spectacular horns adorning her like a crown, her magnificent, curvy form forged from the very essence of femininity… And her deep, marvelously yellow eyes one could drown in.
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She subconsciously pushed him against her chest and yawned, before lifting him to her eye level and so he could hug the tip of her nose.
“Is my gurl feeling better?” he asked with genuine care.
She blinked and focused on something for a few seconds, before slowly nodding. He smiled and kissed her snout right between her nostrils, summoning the slightest hint of a blush to her cheeks.
“What a relief,” he sneered. “It means it was not a brain worm after all…”
“Mhm. Sure, Pete.”
“Or…” His expression turned into one of fake shock. “Oh no… Oh NO! The brain worm already ate everything! Ichi, are you still there?” He dramatically waved at her. “Quickly, say something not-stupid!”
Her expression instantly shifted from affectionate to tiringly annoyed. Hand disappeared from beneath, leaving him dangling.
“Aren’t you forgetting your place, little one?” she asked, a hint of threat in her voice.
“And what would that place be, love?”
Her cheeks flared up at that last word. “A place of a tiny little thing I could wrap around my finger?” she asked undeterred and pushed said finger against his back.
“Wouldn’t that be kinky...”
“Cocky bastard… Careful, or you will spend the night in the ‘fun’ place again,” she teased, grin slowly forming on her face.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he mouthed off.
She gasped and theatrically scratched her chin, pretending to consider his words. “You might be right. I should threaten you with a bad time instead.”
“Aight. Try me,” he replied, almost falling off of her from trying to cross his arms without having anything to stand on.
Luckily, he had gotten quite adept at dragon mountaineering and quickly recovered.
“Feisty. And foolish. You will regret this,” she responded with a deeply patronising tone.
“Bet.”
A slight pause. “Okaaay… You asked for this…”
She shifted before grabbing and placing him on the bedsheets… right in-between her paws. In all honesty, he expected to end up balancing on some precarious, most likely compromised spot… But it wasn’t anything like it. He looked up at her, slightly confused. The corner of her mouth twitched.
“Your tongue. My foot. Now,” she commanded, crossing her arms.
He looked at her sole and… instantly regretted his bravado. It was huge of course, but that wasn’t the main issue. Dirt, pieces of earth, sand and crushed vegetation all over it, never mind in the recesses of her toes… And that wasn’t including the… ‘mystery’ substances. It seemed that she went straight for the nap after coming back from hunting and left bathing for later…
“What’s the matter Pete? Getting cold feet?” she mocked, bringing her other foot closer to trap him.
He crashed into the sole, pressing against it with his elbows, but the other paw was a literal wall pressing against him. He looked at her with genuine distress… until she laughed. Just heartily laughed, but not without a hint of sadism and satisfaction.
“Awww…” She shook her head. “If you could see your face right now darling…”
A simple pluck was all it took to free him. He found himself in his usual travelling spot on the top of her head.
“Very funny…” he huffed, getting comfortable between her horns.
“You bet it was. I’m kind of sad I didn’t get a picture. Would look great on the drawer,” she mocked, petting him again.
Quite a weak consolation for losing the exchange… but he did like it. And even if he didn’t, there wasn’t much he could do to stop her.
“Stupid titans… Thinking they can do anything…”
“What was that?” The petting suddenly stopped. “I can still make you do this, if you misbehave.” His head got a slight pat as she finished the sentence. “Don’t tempt me~”
“You’re turning into Ni,” he scoffed, dropping the subject to preserve what was left of his pride.
“Two Ni’s in one cave? Wouldn’t that be…” Her eyes snapped to something to the right. “Can I help you?”
Two dragons were peeking through the ‘door’, trying to remain… about as sneaky as two titans could be. Which was surprisingly so, but still not enough to hide in plain sight. Kendall froze, while Ni’s face turned into panic, before she scrambled for a way out. “Ken! I’ve told you not to peek at them!” she shouted, slapping the smaller dragon over the head, causing her to squeak and turn completely red. “It’s their private business, you creep!”
He couldn’t exactly see Ichi’s face but was nonetheless sure that she was as unconvinced as he was. A thing they’ve found out quite quickly in their relationship – they often had similar thoughts… Even the stupid ones. Or maybe especially.
Once her sisters escorted themselves out, Ichi once again began petting him. “Guess I owe you something now…” she mused, humming a tune. “Care to bathe with me?”
“Yes,” he spouted without, guided by pure male instinct.
Ichi grinned and stood up, stretched her legs and made her way through the main room, into the small, adjacent cave lined with several enormous clay pots connected by crude pipes and wires. He quickly took off his clothes, tangled them up into a single ball and dropped everything into her hand for her to set aside.
She pulled a lever in the room’s corner, activating the pumps submerged in pots. After a second, streams – or rather, waterfalls – of hot water poured from above, making her let out a satisfied sigh bordering on a moan.
“How did I live without this…” Ichi mumbled with immense satisfaction, letting the water spill all over her face.
Ichi took a handful of soap from a smaller pot and began applying it all over herself. Not the usual soap for obvious reasons, but a bit of internet research revealed that there was a traditional form of soap made from grease and lye – both of which easily accessible on the island.
She picked him up and set him up on a small wooden shelf next to her head, ensuring that he wouldn’t fall to his doom while she applied it.
He also began washing, using the tiniest bit of the grey paste snatched from her. Ichi hummed a simple tune, slowly but surely breaking into a clumsy dance. She looked so… happy. So pretty. And rubbing soap and water into every recess of her body made her so incredibly appealing as well… All he wished to do in that moment was to grab her by the waist, lift her up, kiss her, and make love…
He shook his head, reminding himself that he was barely thumb-sized to her. Peter pushed the encroaching wave of sadness and inadequacy away by reminding himself not to focus on the things he – or no one else for that matter – could change. It was better to focus on things that were right. And there were a lot of them.
She picked him up without a warning and began rinsing him in warm water, all the while humming and jiggling. Once the remains of foam left his body, she brought him down and placed him in her palms, fingers interlocked behind his back. His hands got pinched between her thumbs and fingers and kept-on dancing, eyes focused on him this time.
It was – for all intents and purposes – the closest thing to dancing together they could have. And he liked it. He really did. It just… felt right. Minutes passed, filled with nothing but her loving gaze, centrifugal force pushing him into her palms and waterfalls that were getting less and less warm…
In the end, he was brought to her face… and kissed. Which predictably ended with his head getting nearly sucked inside. She ended the kiss, letting him fall into her palms again.
The bud he sensed when they first met had fully blossomed. She blossomed. No longer only her sisters’ anchor, Ichi was that beautiful, delicate flower she was always meant to be – radiating new energy, sharing her happiness with all.
“I love you,” she whispered with a soft smile.
“I love you too…” he responded, caressing the tip of her nose.
“Yes… I’ve noticed,” she said teasingly, glancing down at his hips.
***
Goulash. Or soup. Gravy perhaps? Even after all this time, he still couldn’t make up his mind about what exactly Kendall’s dishes resembled. Borderline non-Newtonian fluid – it had a strange consistence that evaded proper description… a quality shared with its taste. Kendall was a good cook – nobody could deny her talent – but the seasoning she was working with was beyond unusual. A range of leaves, bark, dried fruit, oils and seeds did not resemble anything that was used in human… well, American cuisine. Eastern heresies were a separate matter after all.
Tasty, but strange – a slight tinge of bitterness prevented the dish from getting annoyingly sweet, which itself prevented it from getting tiringly sour. A careful balance of interlocking tastes – the only apt description of it. Deciding not to push any further into it as to not smash into a wall of his own cooking incompetence, he simply enjoyed the meal.
Looking up from Ichi’s thigh, he witnessed how three dragons destroyed their meals like animals, often forgetting to even use spoons. The purifier working at full capacity meant they once again had access to salt… And it awakened something in them. Could he really blame them though? Spending years or even decades without salt would make anyone insane.
There was just one problem with the food – the utter and complete lack of anything but meat. Not surprising, considering who – or rather what – they were, but it got painfully tedious regardless. He bit a carrot and stuffed himself with a few leaves of lettuce – the only as of yet untrampled vegetables.
Ni finished first, wiped her mouth with her forearm, and stretched. “What are we watching today?”
He swallowed a spoonful of goulash and looked at her. “Any suggestions?”
“Hmmmm… Nah, I dunno. Something fun.” Ni shrugged.
He looked at the rest for any help at all, but Ichi shrugged as well, and Kendall… for whatever reason blushed and hid her face behind her hands. He rolled his eyes and tapped Ichi’s thigh, signaling to be put in the control ‘room’ on the drawer. Once there, he pondered for a bit, enjoying the comfort of his chair in the meantime. Something fun… That they haven’t seen already… And in the best case, fun for all their different tastes. Suddenly he remembered something. A movie that was pushing seventy years at this point, but that nearly every TV station still showed with the stubbornness of a maniac. A cult classic from before the kaiju fiasco that resonated with people even more now that the oceans were all but inaccessible.
Yet for the life of him, he could not remember the title… Just that it had… hex in the title… Probably at least.
Remembering that he watched some clip from it on BlueSky about a year back, he decided to look into it in his search history. He opened it and…
Girl stroking a huge cock, girl get pummeled by big man, girl and huge man… Those were the last search results and he sure as shit wasn’t the one who typed them. He glanced downwards and noticed that the rudimentary mouse he made for the sisters was in a different spot than in the morning. He silently eyed them, trying to figure out which one had… No, on second thought, maybe he didn’t want to figure that out.
Narrowing the search between eight and sixteen months ago allowed him – after digging through his old shitposts – to locate what he was looking for. Okay, it was curse, not hex.
“You can turn it on now,” he announced, putting the movie on.
Ni switched the lever and the projector came to life, displaying the image on a screen made out of old sails. They all quickly took their usual spots on a pile of leather, with him set on Ichi’s belly – also as usual.
The movie began with a shot of an old, wooden ship and a dirty sailor talking with a young girl about pirates.
“Oh, I remember when those were around!” Ni exclaimed enthusiastically.
He relaxed, put his head on his forearm and enjoyed the movie everyone but those three had seen a million times. A few seconds later Ichi’s hand covered his lower body like a blanket, essentially trapping him… not that he minded.
Suddenly, a small bird flew into the cave through the celling’s ‘window’, beginning to circle around in a suspiciously repetitive pattern.
Very sneaky, as expected. He pulled out his phone, connected it to the computer through the wi-fi and began moving a camera to focus on the bird… Before took a photo. Or rather, he hit the button that would normally do so. His ‘slight’ modifications to the computer’s camera fired a coaxial EMP at the ‘bird’, making it instantly fall and crash.
The girls haven’t noticed, too busy laughing at a man perfectly reaching the harbor on a sinking boat and stepping out from the tip of the mast at the last second.
No matter – government drones trying to spy on them were not exactly a rare thing these days. Hell, he was certain that the entire island was teeming with them at this point – after all, the armoured kaiju’s corpse hasn’t disappeared on its own… But the house’s interior was a line he would not allow anyone to cross. He put the EMP on stand-by and disconnected from the computer, but just before putting the phone away, it beeped with a text message. From his mother.
Hey Peter. Are you alright?
It read, as nearly all her messages did.
Yes mom. Everything’s fine. Why?
Andrew told me that your still homeless.
He huffed and once again wished a swift and painful end upon his brother.
*You’re. And no, I’m not homeless. I sold my flat to live with my girlfriend.
Honey, please…
Please what? It is the truth.
We both know it’s not.
Want a picture?
He typed and before she could reply, took a sneaky photo of unaware Ichi, his own face visible in the corner.
I don’t want your photoshopped images. I’m just worried about you.
A reply came a split second after he sent it.
This is what I mean – stop sending me this crap.
You know what? We can all meet. Pick some nice, secluded place so she won’t get shot at and you’ll see for yourself.
Meet her?
Came a reply after which a long pause followed.
Fine, I’ll play your game. Is Yellowstone trip good?
He quickly considered her offer and checked his calendar Their next supply run was scheduled to take place in roughly three weeks, at the end of monsoon season. They could simply take a… ‘small’ detour.
In the regular spot?
Yes.
Fantastic. Is March 24 okay?
I think yes.
Then that’s that.
I guess.
Another long pause.
Your father and Andrew wish you good luck and health. And a job.
Kiss dad from me and tell Andrew to go fuck himself as well.
With that, he ended the exchange and put his phone away.
The movie was good. Genuinely good. Even the effects didn’t look that dated, though the skeleton pirates were somewhat goofy. Eh, whatever. You couldn’t have everything in life.
And so, they watched, the three dragons enthralled by the movie. At the very end he even heard them make audible gasps at the injustice as one of the characters was about to get hanged… Only to be saved by an unlikely sword throw, followed by an escape scene… Just get captured again, along with his saviour. And then end up being saved by a display of defiance from a young noblewoman.
“Is there a second part?” Ni asked with wide eyes as the credits rolled.
“Yeah… I think they made like… seven of those?”
“Then what are you waiting for midget?!” she nearly shouted at him.
He looked back at Ichi who quickly confirmed that watching more was absolutely necessary, before putting him back in the ‘control room’. He closed the tab out of instinct, rolled his eyes and began opening it again… But something caught his eye. In the new tab, there were news as usual… Just that they were all the same today – every single tab. Curiosity got the better of him, and he clicked on a live feed.
”…own. Despite our efforts, we were unable to get a comment from the military,” said the familiar female WZN reporter.
“What is this?” asked Ni, anxiously eyeing him.
“As we await an official statement from the President General, we have received expertise from independent experts that suggest a so-called change of kaiju tactics. Instead of launching frequent attrition attacks, they have been accumulating their numbers for the past months to achieve a breakthrough. This theory is however contradicted by similar reports from China, Japan and the FEU who are also struggling against…” A jetfighter flew over the building, drowning the reporter’s voice for a second. “In any case, we remind our viewers that before any official statement is given, all citizens are advised to follow the standard pro…” A building behind the reporter violently collapsed. Her usual, calm expression shattered in an instant, her head snapping to stare at the dust cloud. And then a sleek kaiju emerged from it. “OH GOD, THEY’RE HERE!” she screamed, running off the stage in terror, with normally non-visible staff following.
The video feed cut as the monster accelerated towards the WZN building.
Peter stared at the screen that cut to the WZN’s logo. Wiping the cold sweat forming on his forehead, he searched for more results…
A video feed from China showed a sprawling city getting overrun by hundreds, if not thousands of kaijus tearing through, collapsing, and flattening buildings as they ran, leaving only dust and red stains in their wake. Bombs and missiles constantly pummeled a select few monsters, but it all seemed insignificant in the scale of the attack. He couldn’t understand anything from the screaming mandarin speaker, but he really didn’t have to…
A white fireball appeared on screen, quickly beginning to form into a characteristic mushroom cloud just before the drone feed cut.
He hid his face in his palms, trying not to roll into a ball from sheer dread.
“Peter…” Ichi whispered with palpable fear.
He looked at her with a pale face. Behind her Ni, cradled sobbing Kendall, both still focused on the now empty screen.
He gathered whatever remained of his willpower and checked another feed. From New Angeles.
The same as the Chinese one. Thousands of titanic monsters leveling the ground and leaving bloody rubble behind. But they differed from the regular kaijus in that they were all identical. Smaller – category five specimens perhaps – sleek, and extremely fast in comparison to what he was used to seeing, running both on two and on four with equal ease. All of them with reinforced necks and skulls made for slamming into buildings, with large, boney ‘eyebrows’ extending from their skulls to protect their eyes from above.
He saw specks running on the ground – some of them firing drill rockets at the closest targets with mild to moderate effects – most hits resulted in spurts of blue blood and ripped chunks of meat. One man nailed a monster in the knee, destroying the leg completely… and was rewarded with the kaiju falling right on top of him.
That was when his previous observation was revised – not all Kaijus were the same. One monster – hulking even in comparison to all others – entered the picture. Standing upright like a stack of pure muscle, with a weird, but eerily familiar bump on its back… And even more familiar obsidian-black scales. It followed behind the main wave, keeping its distance from anything that could threaten it. Missiles and bombs directed against slammed against it to no effect, withe even a drill rocket from a surviving infantryman exploding on the outside, instead of cutting into flesh.
A kaiju corpse flew through the screen, completely split in half along the spine – and right behind it, a Jaeger entered the frame.
The titanic machine seemed to move in slow motion – an illusion caused by its size. One of three Jaegers of the west coast, and the only mark seven among them – USJ Paladin.
One of the smaller kaijus leapt at him. The mech moved with uncanny precision and elegance, dodging out of the way, grabbing the monster by its neck with one hand and slicing it in half with the forearm blade of the other. The machine braced itself and threw the carcass at another assailant, causing the kaiju to collide with it mid-jump and crash to the ground. The mech accelerated into a full sprint and crushed the kaiju’s head with one of its pseudo-digitigrade feet, and in full sprint began slashing his way through the mob forming in front of it with almost unsettling grace, all the while approaching his real target – the black kaiju.
The monster seemingly understood it, accepting the challenge. Its ‘forearms’ unhinged and extruded, revealing two blade-like spikes that opened like switch-knives – made of the same, ptich-black substance.
The mech engaged its reactor, fumes surrounding it as vaporized coolants escaped from within. Then – in an instant – the edges of his blades flared with white light, plasma coursing along their circumference.
“Yes... Yes! Fuck him up! FUCK HIM UP!!!” Ni screamed so loudly her voice broke.
Despite the vapours acting as a smoke screen around them, the blades were still clearly visible – in mere seconds, the immense heat radiating from them made the light punch through the mist.
The obsidian monster charged the machine and the machine charged it. They both moved with disregard for the remnants of what was once a city, for it was beneath them now. The distance closed, revealing just how much the beast towered over the mech, despite the machine measuring over ninety meters itself.
The black blades descended onto it... And were slashed in half with simultaneous motions, showing little more resistance than unarmoured flesh before. The Jaeger dodged an arm swing and in one, swift motion grabbed the monster’s shoulder. Using the Kaiju’s own inertia, it jumped on its back, a flash of anger appearing in the monster’s otherwise empty eyes. From there, a scissor-like slash with both blades was all it took to remove its head, proving that it had truly earned its nickname ‘The god-machine’.
“YEAH!!!” Ni roared triumphantly, jumping just as the Jaeger lifted the Kaiju’s head, purely for style points.
But Peter was not nearly as enthusiastic, more focused on the swarm that remained. Still ravaging the city... Just in a less ordered fashion. For the fleeing populace, it made little difference how they got turned into stains.
He turned in his chair, hoping against hope that he was about to wake up and witness the pirate movie’s ending...
But all he saw was Ichi. She stared at him with crushing fear, her joyful persona erased from existence. Yes, he knew exactly what she thought – already searching for a way out, already desperate… They both could look past the ‘victory’ they’ve just witnessed… See the true meaning of what they saw.
In simpler terms, they knew how utterly fucked they were.
“I need to think...” he mumbled, turning away from her desperate gaze.
***