I tried to explain and they tried to understand. Considering I barely understood it myself it was not an easy process.
As far as Hardass and I could understand from our communications with Abnor HQ combined with what pieces of information Hawkeye could provide, we had determined two things. First, the scars on my chest were an indication of the level of Kaiju activity. The more sand in the lower area, the more activity. The second thing we discovered was the true power and horror of the book as well as its name, Chtholous . By touching the Chtholous I had released some of the power inside into myself, the power of the Elder God, Chthulu. Yeah. That one took some getting used to. I can assure you there were some objections to that explanation. Godzilla is hard enough to accept, but Chthulu?
The Chtholous, to our best guess, was created to prevent the Kaiju and Elder God from achieving complete dominance over humanity. How Hawkeye came to have it, I will never know since he refused to speak on the subject, but now that we had it, it didn’t matter anymore. I touched it, I released some of the power essentially turning myself into a crack in the defenses of the book. It would never have happened except for the radiation. The Fukushima spill so many years ago had been leaking radiation into our water for decades, eating away at all of the precautions that had been put in place to prevent the weakening of the book’s shields. A perfect storm of radiation over time combined with our location, near the highly radioactive Japan Sea, between two countries that had both done thorough nuclear testing underground brought us to the moment when the shields had come down for a just a moment, turning the book green, giving the power a tiny chance.
I had unleashed the power. Cracked the defenses permanently. It was leaking. Now what once had been a long, arduous process of slow decay, allowing the appearance of Kaiju infrequently, a drip of power, had turned into a stream. We could no longer count time among our allies.
So we trained.
Twelve days we drilled formations, strategies, targeting. Hawkeye oversaw the instructing of the gunners and Hardass the drivers. I read. I read everything I could get my hands on through our pathetically slow internet connection. I read everything I could find on Kaiju, on Chthulu, on anything I could find to give us an edge. I watched all the old movies, hoping for a hint of truth in the methods used to kill the monsters, praying that there was some way to undo the damage which I had done. I couldn’t find a way to halt the flow.
On the 11th day, we received the first confirmation of Kaiju sighting. Godzilla, off the coast of Taizhou, China.
On the 12th day, we received the first confirmation of engagement. Godzilla, Wenzhou, China.
On the 13th day, the casualty list came in . Wenzhou: Gone, decimated. No confirmed survivors. Second confirmation of Kaiju Sighting. Rodan, Chorwon, North Korea. The Donkeys needed our help.
Being deployed about 20km northeast of Cheorwon, SK, we were the closest confirmed Abnor group. We received our orders. 40km to engagement across the border and rough terrain. I gave the order, and we packed up.
We left at 11:20am, approximately 4 hours of travel to achieve engagement due to the terrain and the limiting speed of the Titan. The Scout rode 2km ahead, Dee and Dum sending back reports every 10 minutes on the layout of the terrain. That was the longest time that I’ve ever experienced, an eternity passing between every report. The radio sat silent during that time as did we, the Titan filling with Cigar smoke and that of Ceilidh’s cigarettes. Normally I would have called them on it but when you’re driving to what is likely your death, things like that don’t seem to matter as much.
I remember watching the scenery go by, the couple of lakes that we passed, the trees, rocks, small animals… and I remember so much clarity in them. Never had a lake looked so blue, the surface a sheet of glass in the mid-day calm that reflected the foliage around it, colours appearing so vibrant as to have come from a little child’s painting. As we passed, the Titan sent out shockwaves through the ground which flowed out into the water, disturbing the perfect tranquility and obscuring the reflections, transforming them into disfigured abominations of their previous selves. Textures jumped out at me off of otherwise uninteresting rocks, demanding my attention. Every motion, every new colour, new rock, new tree was a distraction by my senses, desperately trying to ward off the despair that sought a crack in my mental defenses.
Each of us in the Titan were lost in our own thoughts when the call came in from the Twins.
“Titan this is scout, respond, over.”
Ceilidh jumped out of her reverie and spit a cigarette across the tank as Zon, sitting beside the still barely coherent Gaga, flicked the com switch.
“Scout go for Titan, over.”
“Feckin’ gart me spit mah fag, th’ bastards.”
“Ceilidh, can it.” spat Hardass, leaning back and looking up, his eyes glazing over. I’m sure his mind took him back to his time fighting the monstrosity whose bigger badder brother waited for us ahead.
“Titan, we have confirmed visual on one giant flying dinosaur looking… thing. Approximately 1.8km from your current position. Permission to engage. Over”
“That’ll be Rodan.” said Hardass, closing his eyes. “Keep those two away from that damned bird.”
Amazon looked at me, and at my nod of confirmation spoke into the microphone again. “That’s a Negative Scout, repeat, do NOT engage. Confirm. Over.”
There was a moment of radio silence before a somewhat disheartened voice came in across the speakers. “Confirmed, Titan. Orders? Over.”
I raised my pointing finger and crooked it towards myself. Zon nodded. “Get back here yesterday Scout. Titan out.”
Looking outside for a moment, I slowed my breathing. Sunlight shined through into the Titan, wisps of cigar smoke wandered out and faded from view, dissipating as it floated into the clear sky. The whole world slowed down and I could feel my heart rate dropping as the beating filled my world. Thump thump… thump thump. It rang out, echoed across my senses, vibrating against my chest. Thump thump… …. Thump thump. My gaze broke, became unspecific and unfocused, fuzzy, the environment blurring and merging together as it flowed by. That was my time, my moment. That was the moment before I fell back on my training, before I became a Captain and no longer a person, no more an individual; a trained, perfect military killing machine. The moment died and I let my weaknesses go with it.
“Accelerate the Heavy 2 degrees north by northwest, Titan will engage first. Get the Scout coming round from the south. Zon, get Hawkeye on the com and tell him that he’s going to have a giant aerial moving target doing a Mach and a half. Twins need to know as well. SNOW!”
“Captain?”
“You and Twinkle better be on your best behaviour up there, I want that thing down before the other two have a chance to touch it.”
A giggle came from up top. “You betcha Cap, we’ll drop it before the Heavy boys even see it.”
“Good. Zon, open com at all times. Hardass,”
“Cap?”
“Keep them in line and Ceilidh?”
“Whit ye need Keptin?”
“Fucking step on it.”