I watched the massive lizard rise out of the water with the sort of detached calm of someone who had completely lost control of the situation. At no point today did I expect to come face to face with a kaiju. Let alone arguably the most recognizable of the bunch. I was so out of it I barely flinched when the massive beast roared again.

Besides…Paladin was freaking out enough for the both of us.

"Oh my God, is that freaking Godzilla?! Like the real one?! Holy crap that is so COOL! I mean we're probably fucked because he's the goddamn king of the monsters and all. I wonder which one he is? Oh god, I hope he isn't Shin. We'd be even more–"

"Paladin." Miss Militia tried interrupting the word vomit coming out of his mouth with little success.

"–like we could use a giant robot. Does Dragon have a giant robot?–"

"Paladin!"

"– could use Juggernaut Drive, but I barely pulled off Balance Breaker…–"

I decided to ignore her trying to wrangle the local idiot and turned to Dauntless. "So any chance we can call for reinforcements now?" I asked. "Cause if that is really what I think it is, a handful of fliers isn't going to be enough to send it packing."

"What you think it is? You mean it isn't an Endbringer?" he asked.

I blinked. Right, giant monster movies probably weren't super popular when there actually were three of them running around destroying cities every few months. If they weren't an old movie buff, most people on Earth Bet probably had no idea what Godzilla was.

Which is why it was surprising that Clover was the one to answer him.

"Godzilla. Big radioactive lizard monster from some old movies that came out in Japan in the 'Fifties. Basically Behemoth if he just had a hate-on for one city in particular." She said before noticing me staring. "What? I like old movies, okay!?"

I mean, I didn't have much room to judge.

"Okay, so maybe not an Endbringer." Dauntless collected himself. "Definitely not something we can handle alone though. I'll have Militia make the call to the Director for reinforcements, I hate to ask but are you willing to help us stall until then?"

"Sure, not sure how many other times I'll get to fight a giant lizard monster."

'Thanks for not saying dragon, Partner.' Ddraig said. 'I'm not sure what that thing is, but it isn't a dragon.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Of course it isn't a dragon. They shoot fire from their mouths. This one shoots radioactive lasers. He's much cooler than a random dragon.'

'WHAT?!'

'Oh, relax. You're still my favorite either way.' I teased.

'Hmph…'

"Great. If that thing really is radioactive we can't let it get into the city." Dauntless nodded, unaware of the conversation between me and the voice in my head. "We'll use comms channel, uh, you don't have a headset do you?" He finished sheepishly.

Guess he wasn't used to working with people on the fly.

"No." I replied bluntly. "But I've got something that should work anyway." I raised a hand and pointed at each of the Capes here. A small magic circle appeared next to their heads.

"What's this?" Miss Militia demanded, apparently done from wrangling the white annoyance for now.

"Communication spell." I replied. "Basically a magic walkie-talkie. It's intent based so you can send messages to one person or everyone connected through the spell. I managed to get it so you know when someone is about to say something so people don't talk over themselves. It's still kinda rough but–"

"Just think really hard about who you want to hear you and talk normally. Using hand motions helps if you need it." Clover interrupted me. "What? You ramble when talking magic. It's kinda cute when you do it, but yanno, giant lizard right there?!"

I fought down a blush and turned back to Miss Militia. "Yeah, what Red Devil said."

"Range limits? Duration?" She asked. "And can you add the rest of the responders to it?"

"Uhm, I haven't really had time to test range limits but it should be fine anywhere in the city. It lasts until either the person it's cast on dismisses it or I stop the spell on my side. And yeah, but they have to be close for me to target them. Twenty feet or so."

Militia repeated back what I said through her normal comms and waited for a second. Probably listening to the Director.

Eventually she sighed and lowered her hand from her ear.

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"Director Piggot has declared this an A-Class threat. All Capes capable of flying are to confront the creature in the bay and keep it away from the city. Everyone else will either be fire support or help evacuating citizens." She turned to me. "Lucifer, your communication power will be needed to coordinate between the three teams until a better system can be brought in. The Director also wants you to know that if you leverage this to somehow control or spy on two hero teams you may be sent directly to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center."

"What!? She can't do that!" Clover shouted, outraged at the threat. "Can she?" She asked the surrounding heroes.

"...I think so." Dauntless admitted. "A-Class threats are really serious."

"That's really fucked." Paladin murmured.

"Then it's a good thing it does exactly what I said it does." I shrugged. Honestly I was one of maybe a handful of people that the Birdcage, as it was nicknamed, had no real chance of holding.

It was built for Parahumans and even then there was a way out built into it.

I wasn't a Parahuman and could teleport. I liked my chances.

"I'm guessing we'll meet up with New Wave a bit before where Godzilla is, I'll cast the spell on them, and then we try holding it off until help comes?"

"Close, two of the Wards will be meeting you on the way also."

Did the Wards even have a way to contribute? No, there was no more time to ask. Godzilla was making his way closer already.

"Fine," I said, spreading my wings. "Red Devil, call the others."

"You want us fighting a Kaiju?"

"No, I don't think you guys are ready for that kinda thing. But even our newest two - if they want to help - should be able to help evac people." They could also help patch people into the comms spell too.

"Kay, boss, I'll get right on that!" She said, pulling out her phone and making a call.

"You have two new members?" Paladin pried as we all flew away from the boardwalk. "Are they Pawns too?"

"I'm not talking about that." I glared at him. "Besides, we should focus on the fifty foot lizard. I don't want to get vaporized because we were distracted."

"Uh, yeah, sure." He stuttered. "But, like, afterwards, do you think you could give me a hand with magic? Cause I've been trying, but I'm not getting it. Albion isn't much help either."

"There's New Wave." I said to Dauntless, ignoring the other hero entirely. "Looks like they met up with the Wards alre– what the hell is Aegis doing here?!"

I couldn't believe my eyes at the sight of the red-suited Ward flying towards us alongside Crystal, her brother, her mom, her cousin, and Kid Win. When I heard two Wards, I assumed they were tagging along because they could fight at range. Aegis was only harder to put down than a normal person because his biology was weird and slightly stronger. He had absolutely no reason to be here.

"He's one of four fliers we have and he volunteered." Dauntless defended the stupidity I suddenly found myself dealing with.

"And he's useless here." I snapped, casting the comms spell on the group as they came in range. "I'm not saying it isn't heroic and all that, but unless he can punch out a dinosaur he doesn't belong here. No offense." I nodded to the Ward when he was in earshot.

"I'm the leader of the Wards," He said back. "Even if I'm just a distraction, I can help."

I really didn't see how he could.

At least not in a way that outweighed how useful he would be somewhere else. But I didn't have the time to argue.

"Hey guys, might wanna cut the chatter!" Glory Girl called out. "I think that thing just noticed us!"

Sure enough, I turned to see the giant reptilian head looking right at us and a blue glow building up in its throat.

"Scatter!"

I followed Lady Photon's order and from then on I didn't really have time to worry about the others.

We got lucky that the first breath attack was angled up and away from the city, but if we did nothing then that was going to change quickly.

I circled around to the right with Laserdream and Shielder while the others went other directions. My gauntlet appeared on my arm and started boosting while the other two started pelting the Kaiju with their beams. If they were doing anything besides annoying the giant lizard, it wasn't showing it.

And then Dauntless hit it with his Arclance.

"SKREE-EEONGK!!"

Godzilla went ballistic as the weird electro-spear jabbed into its side and a distant part of me remembered Godzilla didn't like electricity. That was good because it stopped the lizard's slow advance towards the city. And it was very bad because Dauntless now had the creature's undivided attention.

"Dauntless, move!" Paladin yelled as he slammed into Godzilla's body. It didn't do any damage, but the Kaiju seemed to stumble a bit as his Sacred Gear stripped away its strength but the blue light in its mouth continued to build.

"Dammit." Shielder cursed as he broke off, flying closer to the giant's head.

"Eric!"

While Crystal called after her cousin who was getting ready to throw up a shield right in front of Godzilla's face and Dauntless raised his own shield while trying to shake off the lizard's aim, I finished my third boost, the absolute minimum I felt would be worth a damn, and fired the most powerful blast of lightning I could at the beast's head.

I shifted it just enough that the beam missed vaporizing the Protectorate hero by feet after it broke through both shields anyway.

"Holy fuck…" I cursed. Two shields, my most powerful electric attack Boosted three times, and Paladin's Divine Dividing. And we still couldn't stop the attack.

"So, uh, we have an ETA on reinforcements?" I asked. "Cause I think we're going to need them."

"No word yet." Militia replied seriously. "Just do what you can."

"Fantastic." I muttered as the Kaiju turned to look at me, clearly not happy about my attack.

Thankfully it looked like it couldn't fire off another breath attack back-to-back or just decided not to for some reason and instead just tried swatting me out of the sky like an annoying fly.

It sounded like it should be funny, right? A fifty foot lizard ineffectively trying to swat the Devil blasting it with lightning? Wrong. It was fucking terrifying.

For one, Godzilla was way faster than I expected something that big to move and even though I wasn't having trouble keeping ahead of it, even the near misses caused massive gusts of wind that knocked me around anyway.

[Boost!]

[Divide!]

On anything else, the combined focus of the Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing would have put our opponent at a severe disadvantage. On the King of the Monsters? We were still trying to level the playing field.

And to make things worse, Paladin and I weren't on the same level.

"Rias! I'm at my limit, I can't Divide it for a while!" Paladin called out, his wings bleeding energy. Damn human limitations.

"Already, are you kidding me!?"

"Hey, it's freaking Godzilla! I'm surprised I managed to do it twice!"

I dodged another claw and took a moment to glance around to see how the others were doing.

Crystal's family was doing their best to distract and annoy with their beams, but they simply weren't big or strong enough to do any real damage so Godzilla was seemingly ignoring them for now. Dauntless was at least getting flinches when he attacked but since my lighting was more powerful, I still had the lizard's attention. Or at least the majority of it. Glory Girl tried going for its eyes and was backhanded halfway across the bay with a well timed claw. And I don't think poor Aegis's punches were even noticed.

"Can't you use Balance Breaker?" I barked at the White Dragon while flying back to avoid another claw and lure the creature further back into the water.

"I'm waiting till the other heroes get here! I can only hold it for five minutes!"

'Careful, here comes another breath attack.' Ddraig warned.

I didn't see a blue glow or any other signs but if anyone here was an expert it was him, so I dodged without a second thought. Sure enough, a massive beam of radiation erupted from its maw and unlike the other times Godzilla decided to sweep the beam to follow me.

[Boost!]

The extra burst of speed let me keep ahead of the beam but there were only so many places I could go. Too far in one direction meant the city could get hit, too far the other and it would be the PRT's stupid oil rig base.

"Shut it, Lizard Breath!" Glory Girl cried as she inserted herself back into the fight by dropping on the top of Godzilla's snout like a ballistic missile. The Kaiju's head snapped down and the beam cut through the bay waters before cutting off entirely.

I had to admit, that was some damn good timing.

"Lucifer, you need to force it back out towards the ocean. That last attack almost hit the city!" Militia's voice rang in my ear. I turned back to look and, yeah, part of the north side of the city had gotten clipped. Luckily that part was mostly abandoned trainyard and the Ship Graveyard. Still, not good.

"I'm trying okay?! But we need more heavy hitters to drive it back, when are the reinforcements getting here?!"

"..."

"Not liking the silent treatment, MM." Glory Girl added in.

"Miss Militia, me and my family are fighting a pseudo-Endbringer with barely any help. What is going on?!" Lady Photon demanded, and boy did she sound pissed.

Not that I blamed her. We were supposed to be delaying while help was organizing behind us, but a single mistake would mean someone could die. And even if the whole battle was only going on for a few minutes, someone should have shown up to help by now. Legend at the very least considering he was in New York and could fly at near light-speed.

"...reinforcements have been delayed." Militia finally admitted. "They might not be coming at all."

"What, why?!"

"Because four more creatures have been spotted attacking at the same time…"