Your Kaiju — Chapter 318 - First Meeting — Clash

"Damn it!"

"What the hell is that thing!?"

"Didn't they say there were no Titans here?"

In X-Harbor, a crimson Proton Scream blasted through the mountainside and shot straight into the sky. The ground heaved. On the city streets below, everyone saw it at once: the steel beast tearing up through the earth. One hundred and forty meters tall. Twenty meters taller than Godzilla himself. Its aggressive silhouette, paired with that earth-shattering entrance, hit like a cold fist closing around every throat in the city.

Three Titans had already appeared today. This was the fourth.

"Run!"

"A Titan! There's a Titan!"

Civilians closest to the APEX mountain base bolted. Alarms screamed across the city. The thing had come out of nowhere, far too fast, far too sudden.

There was no Monarch outpost here. No Titan had ever slumbered beneath this ground. But the steel beast had charged straight out of the APEX facility, and that was a connection nobody would miss. Once the chaos settled, everyone would know exactly who had built it.

Evening was closing in. The sky was already thick with clouds, the city sunk in an unnatural dusk. The Proton Scream pillar cutting up through the dark was impossible to ignore.

"ROOOOAR——!!!"

Mechagodzilla stepped out of the half-collapsed mountain, crimson mechanical eyes blazing, and advanced on the city. One roar. That was all it took to push a panicked city straight into full-scale terror. Fear printed itself on every face.

Its super-alloy frame weighed a hundred and sixty thousand tons. Each step caved the ground in. Tremors rolled outward in waves toward the city. The nearest buildings were already swaying.

"Unbelievable!"

"Using high-purity Hollow Earth Energy as its power source — the output is even higher than our projections!" Inside the mountain base, APEX's technical director watched Mechagodzilla tear its way out and couldn't keep the fanatical excitement off his face.

The product of their greatest minds. Stronger than any Titan alive.

"But if it keeps advancing like this..." A technician watched Mechagodzilla step onto the nearest city street and couldn't stop himself. His voice came out quiet and uneasy.

Mechagodzilla's behavior had already gone beyond what they'd planned. The destruction ahead was unavoidable.

This wasn't what he'd signed up for.

"It doesn't matter."

"Every Titan causes casualties when it awakens. This one is the strongest Titan ever created. The people who die out there only prove how powerful it is."

"This is a masterpiece worthy of having our names written into history!" Not every scientist in that room cared about lives. The technical director only wanted to see his life's work become the apex of all Titans.

He was sure Dr. Jefferson felt exactly the same.

"And this is only the beginning."

"The meddlesome pest will show up any moment now." Maia Simmons turned to another screen and looked at the technician there. "Current location of the Ultraman?"

He was still the biggest problem.

"...The Ultraman is directly above Mechagodzilla. One thousand meters up!"

"He's here!"

The technician's voice cracked as he shouted it.

...

"Look!"

"The Ultraman actually showed up!"

"He's really here!"

"We're saved!"

The images were still burned into their minds , the giant of light driving back Titans one after another, pulling city after city back from the edge. He'd already fought so many battles. And now he was here again.

The moment that light appeared, something in them just let go.

It came down on the street directly opposite Mechagodzilla. Behind it, people were running in every direction, screaming, stumbling. The giant's massive form planted itself between them and the danger like a wall that had always been there.

"The Ultraman is... going to fight Mechagodzilla?"

"Do we really have to do this?" The dissenting voices inside APEX's technical department had been building for a while. Now one technician stood up, looking from the director to Maia Simmons with open confusion on his face.

Wasn't their intelligence supposed to protect people?

"That's not your concern."

"The salaries we promised have already cleared into your accounts. Everything that happens from here is none of your business." Maia Simmons held the technician's gaze and tilted her head toward the guards beside her.

The guards didn't hesitate. Weapons came up immediately, all of them aimed at the technicians. Fingers on triggers. One word from Maia Simmons and the room became a morgue.

"From now on, there is one voice in this room."

"Mine. Are we clear?" She said it without any heat at all, which made it worse.

She wouldn't tolerate dissent. Not now. The only outcome for anyone who pushed back was death.

She held off on the order. She still needed these people operational , Mechagodzilla was mid-fight and required active support. But once this was over, well.

The fanatical ones, meanwhile, were practically vibrating. Maia Simmons' iron grip only excited them further. They wanted to see Mechagodzilla unleashed. Against whom was irrelevant. Science at this scale shouldn't have limits.

...

"No meaningful drop in stamina."

"You're different from an ordinary Ultraman now."

Inside Mechagodzilla's cockpit, Jefferson studied the giant standing on the street below , more than sixty meters shorter than the machine surrounding him , and spoke through the internal audio system, his voice carrying out into the open air.

"And this is our first proper meeting, isn't it."

Jefferson understood the power gap between Mechagodzilla and the Ultraman better than anyone. But he didn't look worried. He looked satisfied, like something he'd suspected had just been confirmed.

"You're..."

Natsuki watched Mechagodzilla, the thing practically a mobile fortress, and frowned at the sound of Jefferson's voice.

He's seen me before?

No question about it. Dimensional traveler.

And across every world Natsuki had worked, only one had ever actually gotten away from him.

Gendo Ikari had mentioned there might be a traveler embedded inside the Human Instrumentality Committee. But before Natsuki could close in, a Super Gorb got dropped into that world and blew everything apart. The remaining travelers scattered and left before he could reach them.

"I remember you," Natsuki said, looking up at the machine. "Zao Jefferson."

"I'm flattered."

"Didn't think you'd kept that." Jefferson heard his own name in the giant's voice and let the corner of his mouth pull upward. He glanced back at the city behind him , people running, sirens, buildings swaying , and when he looked forward again, he was almost calm. "If you fight me here, the consequences are going to be severe."

➤ Next: Who's the Hostage Now?