The kaiju emerged from the ocean once more, but it was not of the same species as the first.
It was nearly the same in size, sure, but rather than a hulking green reptile, this second kaiju was an amorphous pink-purple blob with a dozen tentacles protruding from all over. Upon first glance, it didn’t appear particularly threatening, and even seemed a bit on the cute side. It was so round, so soft, and so shiny, and its body was almost completely featureless.
However, when the tentacle kaiju began its gallop towards Redvein and stumbled across a herd of pegasi, the smooth ball of pink-purple flesh suddenly peeled itself open, and the most horrendous assortment of sword-like teeth and a barbed tongue merged, devouring the flying horses in a mist of blood.
Back in the city, Captain Carmine had called for the city to go on lockdown, and for the militiamen to man the railguns. Ultimately, of course, she knew she needed to bank on Rocky and his powerful mech in order to halt the massive monster.
When the front door of the hotel opened and the gargoyle strolled out, she stepped up to him, bowing her head. “My apologies for asking this of you, Mister Roran, but Redvein is in need of your services once again. A kaiju is approaching the city from the ocean, just like before.”
To her surprise, Rocky responded not with a heroic affirmation, nor did he race towards the Rosso Woods where Rakshasa’s mech body was. In fact, when she raised her head up, the gargoyle was simply yawning and lazily looking over the streets. “Eh, a kaiju again? I already fought one of those. Doing it again would be pretty borin’.”
The captain was taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
Rocky shrugged his shoulders. “You guys got those big guns in the walls, right?” he asked, referring to the railguns the militia had used during the first encounter. “You can handle it this time. There’s still some stores I wanna check out.”
“I-…I don’t understand. You’re refusing to help?”
Another shrug.
Carmine clenched her jaw, and nearly reached for the forcepistol at her hip. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing! How could someone just refuse the call to action like that? Sure, he was an outsider and didn’t have any particular ties to the city, but-!
[DID YOU SPEW OUT WHAT LITTLE BRAIN MATTER YOU HAD LAST NIGHT?]
Rocky glanced down at the glowing key on his neck. “Huh?”
[JUST KILL THE DAMN THING AND BE DONE WITH THIS.]
“But we already fought one. It wouldn’t be any fun fightin’ another one. It’d just be a repeat. You actually wanna fight one again?”
[I RUN FROM NO ONE! ESPECIALLY NOT A MINDLESS ANIMAL!]
The gargoyle sighed. “Alright, fine. Guess we’ll get it done quick.”
From Carmine’s perspective, Rocky had been having a one-sided conversation with himself, and looked like a right loon. But upon hearing him change his mind, she eased up, and pulled her hand away from her holster. “Thank you. My men can escort you back to your mech via hoverbike.”
“Whoa, a hoverbike?! I’ve always wanted to try one of those! Why didn’t ya say so sooner?! I would’ve agreed right away!”
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
“WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!”
[GRGH….]
Rocky blazed through the Rosso Woods on the hoverbike, narrowly avoiding collision with the thick trees and brush. The militiamen had actually intended for him to simply be a passenger while one of their own did the actual driving, but Rocky refused, and demanded he get one of his own.
To his credit, he’d taken to the vehicle quite well on such short notice. Of course, he’d had some experience with motorcycles, which had certainly helped, although the freedom granted by the hoverbike of flying through the air, twisting and turning, even in full circular motions, made for an all-new experience of its own.
In fact, Rocky had gotten so caught up in the thrill of enjoying the hoverbike, that he’d actually zoomed right past Rakshasa’s mech body to prolong his ride.
[YOU PASSED IT, YOU FOOL!]
“I know, I know! But I’m not done ridin’ yet!”
After taking one long roundabout lap around the area, Rocky begrudgingly returned to the mech. There were militiamen posted around it, presumably to keep anyone other than Rocky from tampering with it. Many of them had donned masks of confusion when they noticed him flying past them earlier, but there really was no time to stand around questioning everything.
Rocky climbed inside the giant mech, and plugged Rakshasa’s key into the console. The glowing red lights in the interior activated, and the GODBREAKER began to rise to its feet.
“Let’s make this one quick, Rak,” Rocky said, not even bothering to take hold of the controls. “I wanna get back to the hoverbike.”
[USELESS MORTAL….]
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
While the city’s railguns had proven somewhat helpful against the first kaiju, slowing the beast down just long enough for the militia to scoop up the civilians outside the wall and bring them back inside, they were proving far less so against this new enemy.
While the kaiju was just as big a target, it moved at a much quicker pace than its reptile predecessor, and the amorphous shape of its body made it practically impossible to decipher its movement patterns. The blob at the core would bounce, roll, fling, and stretch in all directions while its arsenal of tentacles flittered as it carried the body towards Redvein at a startlingly quick pace.
Only one of the shots thus far had managed to make any contact, just barely nicking one of the tentacles, and that hadn’t slowed the beast down at all.
Carmine’s brow furrowed as she watched the tentacled kaiju approach her beloved hometown. Fury boiled within her at the inability of the militia’s defenses to protect the town. That told her that there was a hole in their capabilities; a weakness that kept her from guarding Redvein. A weakness that could be exploited by the enemy.
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A weakness that she would stamp out, no matter the cost.
Just as the captain began to ponder what that could be, the shining red mech flew in from the other side of the city, charging towards the mech and launching a punch at the blob.
Its fist thundered into the pink-purple flesh, halting the kaiju’s progress and flinging it backwards several dozen yards.
Carmine focused her eyes on the mech. The efficiency, the power….
Interesting….
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
“Whoa, this thing looks pretty neat!” Rocky commented as he stared out through Rakshasa’s eyes at the tentacle kaiju. “Where’s its face? Does it even have one?”
[I CARE NOT! CARVE IT UP ALL YOU WANT WHEN IT’S DEAD!]
Rakshasa launched a left hook at the body of the monster, but the blob distorted its shape, bending itself out of harm’s way.
The kaiju whipped at Rakshasa with two of its tentacles, landing nasty scrapes against the shining red metal of his shoulder.
With a guttural growl, the GODBREAKER spun around and whipped his two right arms around, landing two sharp elbow strikes right into the body of the beast.
The monster let out a deep cry in pain, almost as though it were trying to scream whilst underwater. One of Rakshasa’s strikes had managed to open a cut in the surface of the body, and pink blood squirted out from the wound, dotting the grassland around the two combatants.
But rather than fall back and onto the floor in pain, the kaiju instantly planted two of its tentacles into the earth, and flung its body back at the mech like a slingshot.
Rakshasa nearly toppled over backward from the sudden collision, but maintained his balance in the end.
The inside of the cockpit had been shaken quite strongly by the clash, to the point that Rocky had fallen out of the pilot seat, toppling onto the floor. “Whoa! Didn’t see that comin’!”
The kaiju’s other tentacles engaged in a wild dance, landing whip shot after whip shot upon Rakshasa’s body. Though most did not deal any noticeable damage to the GODBREAKER, his anger quickly bubbled with each hit. It was an utter embarrassment for a divine being like himself to do anything less than smite whatever foolish creature dared challenge him.
[TO HELL WITH YOU!]
Rakshasa lunged forward, ignoring the tentacles that struck at his now-opened guard. He suffered a few cracks in his visor, but pushed forward, thrusting his knee into the blob body, lifting the monster up off of the ground.
Two of his hands grabbed hold of a tentacle each, holding the monster in place, allowing his remaining two fists to explode in a barrage of point-blank punches.
Each strike released a burst of force in a wide bubble around the point of contact, lifting dirt and grass from the fields below, and shaking nearby trees until they were shedding leaves in tune with each blow.
Rocky, managing to get back to his feet, took a look through the glass of the cockpit. He could see Rakshasa landing punch after punch into the kaiju, but it was difficult to tell how effective the strikes were. The beast would let out a muffled gurgle and grunt every now and again, and more pink blood would splurt out from its wound whenever a punch struck that area of its body, but there weren’t any other tells that Rocky could pinpoint. “Is it dead?”
He didn’t get a response from the mech, however, as Rakshasa was roaring out in anger as he unleashed his flurry of strikes.
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
Back at Redvein, Captain Carmine had climbed up to the ramparts of the wall in order to get a better look at the battle happening in the distance.
It appeared to be going quite well; better than the previous encounter, in fact. The shining red mech had locked the kaiju in place, and was striking it repeatedly with no resistance or response. Even the men accompanying her made a comment or two about the threat being over and done with.
But something told Carmine that that couldn’t possibly be the case. While the strange mech had proven itself incredibly powerful, kaiju were amongst the most dangerous creatures to be found on Planet ULTRA — threats that certainly couldn’t be dealt with so simply, could they?
After all, during the first encounter, the mech had had to use some powerful energy blast to suppress the reptilian beast. Basic punches didn’t strike Carmine as remotely on the same level of power, and even if this second kaiju was a step down in threat level from its predecessor, surely it had more fight in it than this, yes?
And on the final and admittedly most important note to the captain on a personal level, she refused to accept the fact that Redvein could ever be threatened by a monster as weak as what this new kaiju appeared to be. It would be an insult to her hometown, and to the Redvein Militia. Being helpless to stop a fearsome kaiju was one pill that she begrudgingly swallowed; being helpless to stop a pathetic kaiju like this was one she outright refused to even acknowledge.
And so, in order to confirm her hunch, Captain Carmine moved over to one of the mounted telescopes. However, before she actually positioned herself to see through it, she brought her hands up to her forehead, and formed a triangle using the three inner fingers on each hand. A loud voice echoed from within her body, screaming out:
EYE!
A translucent sheet of violet light danced across her skin, emanating from her forehead and washing over her face. Her irises took on the purple color, simultaneously giving off a bright glow.
When she looked through the telescope, it was as though she’d teleported herself far across the open range of miles from the Redvein wall to where the battle took place; it was as though she were right in the middle of the brawl itself.
Not only that, her visual capabilities had been enhanced as well, allowing her to see colors normally impossible to discern, radio waves, infrared light. She could see the bacteria lining the mech’s metal frame, she could see through his armor and into the interior where Rocky was. She could see where his fists had been moments ago, and she could see where they were going to be momentarily.
It was an utter onslaught of visual stimuli that would ordinarily be far too much for an ordinary ultranian to take on, but with Carmine’s mastery of the Eye Install, as well as the fire-based ULTRA Force particles that flickered within the souls of those who called Redvein their home, her mind was able to “burn away” all of the useless visual information, ridding her of all distractions and keeping her concentrated on what she wanted to see.
Her eyes focused on the kaiju; the strange, gelatinous pink-purple blob. Though it appeared featureless from afar, she was now able to see the strange textures of its skin; scales, pores, bumps, hair follicles, and veins. Her eyes moved to a deeper level, piercing through the flesh and into its innards.
There were no bones other than its sharp fangs to be found within. Instead, there was a seemingly random assortment of pulsating organs, and not in the most sensible arrangement. Three different hearts of various sizes and colors, an extra half of a brain, four functioning eyeballs that certainly couldn’t see anything being buried deep within the beast’s flesh. It was an utter mess, really.
But Carmine’s eyes scanned even deeper, focusing solely on the energy that coursed through the kaiju’s body — the ULTRA Force particles that danced in and around the creature.
All things born of Planet ULTRA carried these particles in an assortment unique to the individual entity. These particles came in a multitude of colors, each one corresponding to one of the many fundamental concepts that were reflected in nature and Installs. Fire, water, metal, wolf, eye, anger.
Individuals produced particles on their own, but they also gathered particles from the world around them as they breathed, ate, fought, learned, and grew. This led to a unique combination — an individual’s force frequency. Reading one’s force frequency was an important element in many facets of life; medical care, dieting, training, education, relationship development, and, of course, fighting.
Getting a read on an opponent’s force frequency was, in the hands of the right fighter, a trump card unlike any other. Knowing what particles flowed through the opponent and in what shape allowed you to counter powerful attacks, and even redirect that power back at your opponent. With the right tools and technique, force frequencies could be momentarily jammed, cut off, rerouted, and even outright stolen, shifting the tides of battle.
Carmine’s eyes, enhanced by the Install she’d used, were now able to read the tentacle kaiju’s force frequency. As expected, the particles that flowed through the beast were massive; gigantic orbs of multi-colored light that in and around the beast’s body in tumultuous ebbs and flows, each one fit to burst.
Looking deeper at the particles, she noticed that many of them were of a silvery-blue color, and as the mech’s punches blasted into the beast’s body, these particular particles were of the “mirror” attribute….
Carmine shut off the Eye Install and backed away from the telescope, immediately turning to her men. “Get me in contact with Mister Roran. He needs to be warned. That kaiju is going to throw all of that damage back at him.”