As much as I would have liked to take a second to fully digest the implications of four more Kaijus attacking all at once, I didn't really get a choice because the giant monster already here had taken advantage of everyone's distraction to start moving back towards the shore.

"What about locals?" Lady Photon demanded while all of us hurried to re-engage Godzilla. "Heroes, Independents? Hell I'm willing to work with more Villains right now! Where is Purity or Lung?"

I was only half listening to the conversation as I did my best to get the Kaiju's attention back on me instead of the city. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a losing battle because Godzilla seemed determined to use the city as cover from our attacks.

I wouldn't call the creature intelligent, but it definitely had some sort of animal cunning.

It still tried to smack us out of the air when it could, but it also realized that staying out in the open was a bad idea.

"Purity is preparing with the rest of the Empire," Militia said, some frustration leaking into her tone. "She's not willing to engage without support we can't provide. And according to Oni Lee, Lung isn't even in the city right now."

Several of us cursed at that. The one time the Asian gang lord would be useful, he wasn't around and the Nazi with energy blasts reportedly around the same level as Legend was playing it safe.

"And the others?"

"They're preparing to help out, but none of them are fliers. The Director made the call to have them group up with the Protectorate along the shoreline if you can't drive the creature back."

So we were basically on our own until Godzilla was pretty much inside the city. Fantastic.

I was really tempted to have Clover call the other girls and have them come help me out. A few Queen promotions would really help out with the issue of only a couple of us hitting Godzilla hard enough for it to care. Unfortunately, promoting to Queen would wipe them out in a few minutes and they were probably doing more good helping evacuate the civilians. Couldn't have them leave Gloria and Carl alone either if they decided to help out.

[Boost!]

To make matters worse, I was close to hitting the limit of how high I could boost myself.

…well, kinda.

I could definitely keep going, but at some point the trade off between more power and the stamina drain I had to actually hold and use it wouldn't be worth it.

I sighed. "Might want to tell them to get ready, MM. Cause I don't think we can stop it." Not before it hit the city anyway.

"Hey, don't give up Rias!" Paladin exclaimed. "We can still do it, I have a plan!"

Oh this should be good.

"Paladin, if this is any flavor of 'believe in yourself and hit him really hard'...I'm going to kill you."

"T-there's more to it than that!"

"We don't have time to argue kids!" Lady Photon broke up our budding argument. "Paladin, what's your plan?"

"Right! So we don't really have to beat him, okay? We just need to hurt him bad enough to leave."

"Hate to break it to you buddy, but we were trying that. It's taken everything we could throw at it and kept going." Glory Girl added her thoughts.

"Get to the point Paladin. We don't have time." Dauntless ordered.

"I use my Balance Breaker and weaken him as much as I can. Rias, you've got a bunch of Boosts, right? You transfer them to the person that can hit Godzilla the hardest in a place that will get him to back off. If we time it so both attacks hit at once it should be even more disorienting. I'm thinking back leg or hip would be good places. If he can't walk then he'll just swim away, yeah?"

"..."

I was stunned speechless.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Paladin? Had a legitimately good idea?

Oh man, today really was all kinds of fucked wasn't it?

"Transfer? You're saying Lucifer can empower others? Is that true?"

I mean…yeah, it was, but it wasn't like I'd shown off that ability outside of training.

Downside of Paladin being familiar with what the Boosted Gear could do, I guess. If anything I was surprised he hadn't blabbed about it before now.

"I can, but only one target and it's all or nothing. You're probably only going to get one shot."

That only left who would actually take the shot. In a perfect world, Purity would be the one considering she had the strongest blasts. But since she wasn't risking her ass until the last minute we couldn't rely on her.

Kid Win's guns were limited by what the Protectorate considered appropriate for a Ward so he was out.

Dauntless might have been a good choice, unlike my lightning his arclance had some physical force behind it and it was much more focused than if I used a Dragon Shot. But again it was just too weak at its base to be worth it.

I was out for the same reasons Dauntless would be a better pick if he was stronger. My lightning wouldn't cause enough physical injury to turn Godzilla away and my Dragon Shot wasn't focused enough.

That left New Wave.

And by that I meant it left Crystal.

She had the strongest beams in her family. Not using her for this would just be stupid.

And she was smart enough to figure that out herself.

"Lucifer, I'm on my way to you." Laserdream said.

"Hurry. Not much time before our lizard friend makes landfall."

While my friend made her way over to me, the rest of us were still trying to distract Godzilla any way we could. Not that it was doing much at this point. I felt like we were wasps trying to stop a bear from going after a hive. Too small to stop something really determined to break even if we hurt it.

And then things took a turn for the worse.

I don't know who did it. In fact I was pretty sure the PRT had told all of the capes gathering at the shoreline not to attack out of hope that the first group would be able to draw Godzilla away. But someone had apparently decided they didn't want to wait anymore.

A crimson energy beam shot from the city and nailed Godzilla in the eye.

Any other time, I would have been impressed by the accuracy of whoever did that. Right now? I wanted to tear their head off.

Godzilla instantly stopped paying attention to us as it roared in pain, the spines along its back glowing blue as it charged its breath attack.

Shielder and Lady Photon tried to put barriers up to mitigate the attack, for what little their shields would matter, while everyone else tried to distract the creature however they could.

Godzilla did not care.

"Paladin, forget the plan!" I shouted at the white clad hero. "You need to stop it before it hits the city!"

"On it!"

[VANISHING DRAGON! BALANCE BREAKER!]

The hero was engulfed in a bright white light as an angular suit of armor formed over him. And despite the seriousness of the situation, I was jealous.

Gone was the awkward, bumbling hero and in his place was a towering figure of white and gold armor with deep blue gems in various places that looked straight out of a mecha anime.

I wanted it.

I wanted it enough that I actually felt tempted to try forcing my own Balance Breaker. Even if this was a bad time to take unnecessary risks.

'Don't worry, Partner. You aren't far from unlocking Balance Breaker yourself.' Ddraig thankfully calmed me down. I sent him an impression of gratitude and focused on Laserdream, who had just arrived near me, instead while Paladin flew off to protect the city.

"How do we do this?!" She shouted as soon as she was close enough.

"Aim at its hip–" I started before Godzilla unleashed the breath attack it was charging. The beam almost effortlessly broke through the panes of colored light Laserdream's mom and brother threw up and looked like it was going to cut through half the city just as easily–

[Half Dimension!]

[Divide]

[Divide]

[Divide]

–only to shrink in size and intensity as Paladin's sacred gear halved its power over and over. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to completely negate the attack. And while the beam of radioactive plasma wasn't strong enough to cut through buildings with ease anymore, it was still strong enough to greatly damage the ones it did hit.

Some of them even started to collapse from the damage and I could hear Miss Militia shouting orders for Search and Rescue teams to make sure no one was caught in the attack.

I had to force myself to not listen in. I had my own role to play.

"Aim at the hip and hit it as hard as you can!" I continued, placing my hand on Laserdream's back. It wasn't strictly necessary but we had one shot. I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

"Okay, here we go!"

Laserdream fired a beam from her hand that by itself scorched the leathery skin of the Kaiju but it was so thick Godzilla basically ignored it.

At least until I took all the energy I had built up and dumped it into her.

[Transfer!]

Laserdream's palm sized energy beam quadrupled in size. The now massive attack that was barely a nuisance began to melt the King of the Monster's flesh like a blowtorch against butter. The resulting scream almost deafened me, but it was a good feeling.

Finally got you, you bastard!

But just as I started to celebrate, the beam dried up and shrank to its normal size as the Transfer was spent.

Godzilla was injured, but now I was back to my base state and the both of us had its full attention.

"Time to get out of here, Lucifer!" Laserdream shared my thoughts.

So both of us ran away as fast as we could.

Every few seconds I looked over my shoulder to make sure we weren't going to catch a laser beam in the back, and it was so far, so good on that front.

While Laserdream and I definitely still had most of Godzilla's attention, the introduction of a clear weak point meant that the rest of the defenders were causing the titanic lizard no small amount of pain.

The fact the Kaiju was now limping badly instead of its previous unstoppable stride meant it was hopefully on the edge of just cutting its losses and retreating back out into the ocean. If I boosted enough and hit it hard enough…

Before I could finish that thought a white flare rose out of the city and raced towards us. I had to hold back a snort because of course now Purity decided to get involved when it looked like Godzilla was going to retreat and was focused entirely on someone else.

I had no doubt the Empire was going to play up her role as the final cause that drove the Kaiju off, instead of the racist lightbulb just making a token effort after the hard work was done.

But nevertheless, the new addition striking at its wounds was enough for Godzilla to finally decide to leave. It waded out until the water reached its hips and with one final lunge forward…disappeared under the waves.

We followed after it for a bit just to make sure it wasn't going to turn around and come back, but eventually Dauntless made the call that Godzilla had retreated and the fight was over.

Laserdream practically cheered at the announcement, "We did it! We actually managed to drive it off!"

I smiled tiredly. "Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. Especially thanks to that beam attack from the city."

"You have any idea who could've done that? I keep trying to come up with a name but I can't think of anyone with powers like that besides Legend, and if it was him he would have been flying out here with us."

I shrugged. "New cape, out of towner just visiting, tinker with a new weapon? Too many possibilities to count. I'm sure the PRT is looking into it. Miss Militia sounded pissed."

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to be them. Do you think–" Laserdream agreed before the same hero we just mentioned interrupted.

"To all Capes, we just received word that the final attack from designation: 'Godzilla' buried the medical area. Anyone able to help with search and rescue needs to head to–"

I stopped listening and turned to my friend who had just gone pale white.

"Amy." Was all she said before racing back towards the shore, all of New Wave following suit and me trailing after them.