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(Continuation of the previous post, originally meant to be part of one larger entry until the character limit set in: www.deviantart.com/105697/art/… )

Raija, Kimera, and the humans eventually arrived at a more well-lit part of the cavern system, snaking their way through tunnels. The streams continued to flow through the cave floor as hundreds of bioluminescent bugs buzz in the air, attracted to the lights of illuminating fungi and glowworms now surrounding the cavern walls as well as ceilings. The team had gotten comfortable in their position. Well, as comfortable as you can be when you're stuck in a metal canister carried by an armored lion beast.

"Ugh. I think I'm going to throw up," Akilah said, with Rick pulling out a paper bag and giving it to her as a precaution.

"Well, good news," Houston said, dragging several canisters from one of the G0H-Ten's engine rooms. "Seems like we still have some reserves to keep the Goh-ten going for another dozen miles. I’d be cautious for its use at the moment, though."

"I’d say that’s necessary, honestly," Rick said, motioning out the window to the various giant teeth sticking into view. "We already got perfect transport currently."

"Then I hope you won’t mind if we stay like this when they’re fighting," Houston shot back.

"I mean…" Rick motioned his head over at Jelena sitting in the pilot seat.

"Look, Jelena may be a bit angry and reckless at times. Her attitude towards the engine's fuel is evidence of that," Houston admitted "But she is the best pilot we have here."

"Not really by choice. Admittedly, Jelena did run with a bunch of dinosaurs which is pretty awesome. But ever since I’ve known her, she has been passive aggressive and stubborn about putting herself into the fray of monster battles," he whispered. "Plus, we don’t know her deal, considering it’s all, ya know…classified by her government."

  "You know I can hear everything you’re saying, right?" The two jolted as Jelena stared daggers at Rick.

  "Do you have anything to say, Ishiro?" Rick asked.

  "You won’t get anything out of him," Jelena said. “He’s barely said anything this entire trip.”

"Besides, Ishiro doesn’t like gossiping, you know this," Houston added on.

"Either way, it was insensitive to bring up his father like that," Rick added.

  Ishiro didn’t say anything about that as he glanced at Jelena before the two broke the gaze, the head of the expedition looking over his broken watch and Jelena back to staring out into the brightening cavern through the window. The beeping of the radar and signals were the only noises within the G0H-Ten, periodically interrupted by the rumbling noise of the daikaiju. It was a bit too quiet, at least for Akilah. Seeing Jelena looking blankly into the dimness, she decided to take her chances at a conversation.

  "Hey uh," she started. "Sorry for not backing you up back there at first-"

  "Don't apologize if it isn't genuine," Jelena flatly said.

  "But I am being genuine," Akilah retorted, but it was clear Jelena didn't seem to think so. The biolinguist sighed, and tried to restart the conversation with something different.

"So…" she walked on over with a bit of anxiety, "How were the last few days for you?"

"You’re starting with that?" Jelena didn’t even look at her.

"Just trying to get a conversation going," Akilah said. "Isn't that how people interact and what not?"

  Jelena looks over to Akilah with a half-lidded expression, “Judging from that, I assume you don’t have many friends do you?”

  Akilah reeled back at that out-of-nowhere accusation, “Excuse me?! I’ll have you know I have a lot of friends.”

  Jelena raised her eyebrow at that. “Name one.”

  Akilah just looked at her with the same offended stare, but her gaze broke away, her awkward silence, and slinking into her chair confirming Jelena’s suspicions. The soldier went back to looking out the front window, but seeing the dejected Akilah still seated in the corner of her eye, she eventually relented. “If it’s any consolation, the same goes for me.”

  “Really?” Akilah realized, with the conversation starting to pick back up again. “What about all your fellow soldiers?”

  “That's just work. I don’t interact with my colleagues outside that,” she elaborated. “Not much to talk about anyway.”

  Akilah passively took that in as it fell silent again, both women looking out the window for a few moments, the outside getting brighter and brighter with the growing amount of glow worms and now glowing fungi filling the cavern walls.

  “What’s your excuse then?” Jelena suddenly said.

  “Hm?” Akilah started.

  “Why don’t you have friends?” She said.

  “Oh, well, that’s a whole other issue,” she casually said before. “But let's just say Rick is far from the first person to call me snarky and obnoxious. A lot of my classmates back in the day said the same thing. The same goes for college and work as well.”

  “Well, you do brag a lot,” Jelena said. “I thought that’s unbecoming of a naturalist such as yourself.”

  “Naturalists are people too,” she said. “People like it when things they say end up as right. It is just basic human nature.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Jelena said, with Akilah sighing as she turned the subject, “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you haven’t bragged at least once in your life.”

  Jelena didn’t answer. And this time it was her silence betraying her true nature to Akilah as the Apex biolinguist began to press further with a smug attitude, “Jelena.”

  The Adversary soldier looked over to Akilah, her smug look and glinting eyes pressing her for an answer that she couldn’t hold. Finally, she admitted, “Fine, I do brag a little. But I don’t make a habit of it.”

  “I'm not saying you should. But you could at least talk more about it,” Akilah smugly said. “People are always impressed with war stories. It's a fundamental fact. You should try it more often. Provided, of course, it’s not too, ya know…personally traumatizing.”

  Jelena thought about it for a moment. She knew this was useless show-off banter to indulge Akilah’s bragging notion. The soldier told herself not to give in, but alas, something about Akilah's words seemed to resonate with her. With a hesitant look, Jelena caved in.

  “Alright then,” The pilot pulled up the sleeve of her left arm, several straight scars running across the skin, “This is from getting grazed by shotgun shrapnel back in Argentina when I was raiding one of André’s camps. Sucker got me good on that end.”

  “Ouch,” Akilah hissed.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t worry. Austra gave him a nastier one on my behalf,” she said with a smirk. “Oh! And this one at the back of my neck was from three years ago. Got into a run-in with, how would you put it, a rodent of unusual size? It dug its incisors down here, but I managed to down it with a pistol shot to the skull before it could do any real damage.”

  “And what about this?” Akilah pointed to the faded burns on Jelena's right arm. “How’d you get those?”

  Jelena remained silent as she shifted her gaze down before covering the sleeve of her right arm. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

  “Really? But it looks so-“ Akilah is suddenly stopped when Jelena snapped at her. “End of discussion.”

  “S-sorry,” Akilah decided not to press further on that tangent at the sound of Jelena’s coldness. Nor continue the story as well, with Jelena’s hardening expression was more than enough warning for that. “Alright well…do you wanna talk about something else?”

  “Like what?” Jelena annoyedly stated.

  “Like…WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” Her tone suddenly shifted. Jelena noticed it and immediately looked up, seeing Akilah pointing to a giant beast standing some distance ahead. “GUYS!”

  Ishiro, Houston, and Rick walked up to the front of the G0H-Ten, “What is it-HOLY MACKERAL!”

  A gargantuan quadrupedal beast clad in crimson armor and a row of plates running down its back stood, back-turned to them as it was busy excavating the rock ahead. It was huge, even when hunched over. It was then that the team noticed they had stopped moving forward. Kimera and Raija had frozen in their tracks, eyes locked on the monstrosity ahead. The beast didn’t attack, just watching them blankly from their position. Its eyes are cold, unblinking, and like its previous forms, always unsettling.

  The beast paused from its work, a rumble reverberating from its body. It slowly turned towards Kimera and Raija, rearing up on its hind legs. And it was then that the humans realized the true gravity of what they were dealing with. The titanic beast had each of its feet end in tentacle-like appendages. Its massive head sported snaggled jaws along with a curved horn. Its crimson armor shined more brilliantly under the light, but most signifying of all were the rows of eyes running the entire length of its body, arms, and legs.

  "Impossible,” Ishiro realized.

  “Someone, please tell me that isn't what I think it is,” Akilah said, heart racing as the beast's eyes seemed to gaze into her soul.

  “Alright, we won’t,” Houston said, frozen as the beast eyed the intruders. “Your eyes are doing that job anyway.”

  “The shoggoth,” Everyone turned their eyes to Rick momentarily. “What? It’s fitting.”

  “Houston,” Ishiro quickly said, not daring to take his eyes off the monster. “The fuel reserves.”

  “Already on it,” Houston backed away and began hastily putting the fuel reserves in the engine on the lower level.

  “Everyone else, buckle in,” Ishiro calmly commanded, the entire team fastening their seats as the tension grew. They are still stuck in Kimera’s jaws, but perhaps that might be the safest place for them. Serpent and Shisa glared at their enemy, who still stood silent in a menacing fashion. Dripping water from stalagmites and the low hum of mesmerized bugs in the air. The humans held their breath as the silence permeated, not noticing Houston slipping back into his seat quickly and silently. It was that dead silent and dreadful.

  Even their heartbeats sounded deafening in the silence.

  Suddenly the air ripped apart as the shoggoth roared a horrid, demonic screech as a stream of sludge billowed from its maw. Raija and Kimera back up immediately to alarm as the sludge begins to eat through the ground and set the surrounding air alight with bursts of fire.

  “Acid sludge, are you kidding me?” Rick exclaimed.

  Raija took to the air without a second thought, the space large enough to spread her wings and keep herself airborne. She rained down a lightning bolt upon the shoggoth but was retaliated back with several laser beams. Meanwhile, Kimera trotted around the still-active acid sludge and slashed at the beast with his claws. But they merely made scratches in the armor as the beast let its beams fire upon him. Kimera took the hit in stride, scales absorbing the energy as he tilted his head back to shield the humans in his jaws from the onslaught. Then he was bulldozed into the wall by his much larger opponent, pinned against the bedrock as the beast’s tentacled arms morphed into gripping claws to pin his arms down. Staring eye to eye, the two beasts rumbled and snarled at one another.

  “Engaging flares!” Jelena flipped the switch and sent several flares shooting out towards the shoggoth. The beast was momentarily surprised and irritated by the sudden flash of light, followed by a proper attack by Kimera when he gives the lovecraftian beast a taste of its own medicine with the absorbed laser attack. Raija joined in succession, grappling the back of the beast with her claws and firing lightning upon them. Kimera joined in, grappling the shoggoth around the jaws with his arms, trying to pin it down with his strength and weight. But the beast lifted its head and seized Kimera with one of their taloned hands. Then it blasted Raija off its back with the lasers from its row of side eyes before throwing Kimera into her. The two young gods are sent into a wall, and the human team is barely able to stay in their fastened seats. With both monsters down, each of the shoggoth’s eyes glowed

  Baragon ducked back into his burrow, the shoggoth slamming its jaws into the ground only to receive a mouthful of rock. It looked down into the hole, eye peering for any movement. Then in a sonic shriek, the ground below it gave way as Anguirus crashed through and grappled the shoggoth’s head in his arms and jaws. Using his strength, he wrestles the beast to the ground, jaws around its muzzle and claws digging in. The shoggoth’s beams blasted his adversary. But Anguirus’ armor is far too resilient to give way so easily. Resorting to different tactics, the shoggoth exudes some acidic sludge, forcing Anguirus to let go in a brief bout of pain, and both monsters pull back in a standoff. Anguirus roars at the intruder, guttural rumbling shaking the cavern. But his enemy remains unperturbed, giving its deafening roar back that sounded like half thundering earthquake and half-demented demonic laughter. The shoggoth then positioned several of its eyes behind it, sighting Raija and Kimera getting back up. With a vicious roar, it lurches toward Anguirus with sickle claws morphing in its hands. Anguirus backs up to avoid the lunge before turning and cocking the head of the plague-bringer with his spiked tail. A rumbling from below signals Baragon at work, and the ground beneath one of the shoggoth’s feet breaks away.

  Trapped for the time being, the other three beasts charged their attacker, but even with their quarry pinned, this didn’t yield the result they intended. With all its eyes, the shoggoth fired in a laser lightship, scoring direct hits on each of his enemies. Each of them was taken aback by the onslaught long enough for the shoggoth to crawl itself out from the pit. It focused most of its firepower on Anguirus, multiple crimson beams trying to melt through his armor. Anguirus braced against the attack, digging claws and tail into the ground to fight against the force of the onslaught. The shoggoth continues until a stray fireblast from its periphery forces it to redirect some of its lasers. It turned one of its eyes to glare at a vicious Baragon, smoke still rising from his jaws. That gave Anguirus enough of an opening to launch himself towards the larger monster, wrestling with the fungoid in a shoving match as they locked arms and pushed against one another. Raija and Kimera rushed in but are kept back by the beams of lasers erupting from the rows of eyes running down the shoggoth's back. Raija flew as well as she could in the confined space to avoid the strikes, while Kimera pushed through the brunt of the lasers with his armor taking in the energy. Charging at full speed, he managed to pin down the head of the shoggoth again, this time with Baragon helping as his bulldog jaws and excavating claws pin the head down. With the enemy sufficiently stuck, Anguirus roared to Raija. The Thunder Serpent obliged, and her flurry of lightning at the shoggoth’s neck was a guaranteed bullseye by all means. But instead of hitting its target, the lightning ricocheted in the nebulous cloud surrounding the daikaiju before hitting the cave wall, causing some of the cave ceiling to come down on the battling monsters. Taking advantage, the shoggoth pushed Anguirus off, toppling him towards Kimera and Baragon where the two are pinned down by his mass.

  “Everyone saw that right?” Akilah was death-gripping the handles of her seat but was very much aware of the battle going on. “Since when can Raija’s lightning bounce around like that?”

  “It can’t,” Rick said. “The only time it’s ever done that before is-“

  “When it hits a cloud of Mothra scales,” Houston realized. “You don’t think.”

  Ishiro contemplated the possibility, “It’s…possible. But in all its previous stages, the shoggoth hasn’t displayed any sign of gaining the abilities of other daikaiju. If it had, it would have shown them already. This could be a case of convergent evolution.”

  “Is that also a case of convergent evolution?” Jelena said, and everyone was silent at what she referred to. Ahead, the shoggoth’s plates began to glow. An unmistakable wind-up whirr followed as each plate across the titan's back lit up with an azure glow. The neck plates splay out as hot steam pours from their openings. As Anguirus got to his feet with the other two monsters, they all had front row seats to the beast opening its maw and unleashing a spiral ray of azure radiation billowing towards them. Anguirus and Kimera instinctively hunker to take the brunt of the blast while Baragon is shielded behind them, the attack hitting their armor in a concussive force.

  "Ishiro..." Houston said to his friend companion as the whole of the G0H-Ten rumbled.

  Ishiro sat shocked at the azure display of atomic fire. Everything about it. The glow. The mechanism. The ultimate discharge of concentrated radiation. It is so rightfully familiar to everyone. Him especially.

  Which means things just went from bad to worse.

  But Baragon didn’t seem as phased as the others. Hunkered behind the two larger beasts, he saw Raija to the side blasting her lightning at the foe, but each of her beams ricocheted into the walls and met with lasers from their enemy. Taking matters into his claws, he went underground again, tunneling quickly beneath the earth and out of view of the shoggoth. Again the shoggoth notices too late when its foot crashes through the ground, ending the atomic barrage. With the opponent trapped, Raija quickly took to an attack, crashing into the shoggoth as she pushed through the laser beams. Anguirus and Kimera dog-pile the goliath, their armor holding up even against the constant barging of lasers. Baragon lept from the ground and sunk his teeth into the shoggoth’s head again, gnawing and biting at the armored exterior with all his ferocity and strength. For a moment, it looks like they are about to prevail. But then shoggoth’s body began to pulsate in a deep blue glow, plates crackling with electricity and eyes glowing crimson red. Before any of the titans could pull back, a concussive pulse of atomic energy emanated from their opponent, crashing them through the wall and into the outside world. Colossal beasts left dunes flattened in their fall, as the force of the blast was enough to knock the G0H-Ten out of Kimera’s jaws and onto the sandy dunes.

  “That’s our cue!” Houston flipped the reserve power to the engine with Jelena heeling the accelerator. “GO! GO! GO! GO!”

  The humans got out of the quarrel. And not a moment too soon. The titans were beginning to get back up, and they all face the gaping entrance in the side of the rock formation. The shoggoth steps outside, far more comfortable out in the open with the sun high above its head. It quickly observes its surroundings, sighting nothing but open desert for miles. It roared, not to the other monsters, but seemingly to itself. As if it was genuinely amused at the situation it is in. The others didn’t seem to share such an attitude, all snarling and hissing at the beast. Raija was the first to attack, finally being able to take the air permanently and rained down her lightning upon her enemy. The first few managed to land hits on her enemy’s armor, but the shoggoth’s cloud quickly grew in cover to block the fulgur fury. The others charged for a physical confrontation, Kimera speeding ahead and around the shoggoth to divert its attention away from the charging Anguirus. It didn’t work. The shoggoth still has eyes to spare and catches Anguirus in his claws before he rams into him. Baragon swam through the sand and nearly lunged at the shoggoth until a laser beam forces a temporary retreat. Anguirus continued stubbornly to push forward while the shoggoth attempted to blast Raija out of the sky with spiral rays of atomic breath. Kimera and Baragon stay to the sides, wanting to get into the fight, but unable to sneak up on their opponent even with their numbers.

  But fortunately, such a commotion is bound to attract additional attention. As the shoggoth and Anguirus pushed against one another, the shoggoth didn’t notice the hidden threat in the dunes. But Baragon could. He could feel the tremors through the ground, sand shifting as a slithering form moved its way beneath the surface and raced towards the shoggoth. Then two horns give away its position, and out comes a striking Garasharp with fangs wide open. The shoggoth barely had time to react, unleashing its lasers which Garasharp was equally quick to retaliate against with a swing of her sonic rattle, the airburst powerful enough to break the deadlock between Anguirus and his enemy. Momentarily dazed, the shoggoth was then beset from above by Monga, having perched on the rock formation for the right moment to strike. Again the shoggoth fired its beams, but they were all redirected into Monga’s mace as he brought the weapon down, and the sound of shattering armor rung through the desert air. For the first time, the shoggoth seemed to roar in genuine pain, jostling with the primate riding it like a bucking bronco before it manages to reach over and fling him off. Monga landed on his feet, mace readied in his tail as Garasharp slithers next to him with fangs bared and rattle shaking.

  "Monga and Garasharp!" Akilah cheered when she recognized the beasts. The great serpent rushed again over the dunes in a side-winding motion, moving full throttle at the monstrous fungoid. The shoggoth was hit with a rattling shockwave before the serpent launched at its face with fangs wide open. But the lovecraftian goliath grabbed the serpent in mid-strike by the head with newly formed claws, throwing Garasharp aside before she could unleash another attack from her rattle. Monga was quick to do the favor for Garasharp as he decked the living pestilence in the head with a tail swing as his mace battered the armored "skull". Though this seemed to enrage the shoggoth more than hurt it as it swung its shifting arm right at the primate, Monga ducking beneath the swing and prancing some distance away. The shoggoth's "eyes" followed Monga, a knowing grumble echoing from its throat at the sight of the primate. Particularly the mace. Monga rushed towards the shoggoth, confident in his agility and speed over his slower enemy. But the shoggoth's eyes locked on to his position, blasting the ground beneath him to lose balance right into the waiting claw of the pestilence grabbing him by the neck. With mace in their tail, Monga attempted another swing. But his enemy grabs the hilt of the club and part of his tail with the other arm.

  Right as the shoggoth was about to unleash hellfire upon the mammal, its eyes quickly picked up on a leaping Kimera, the stone lion pouncing on its head. The shoggoth shook their heads in surprise for a moment but knocked the Shisa off with a crimson laser. But Kimera seemed to have been working as a distraction, blinding the shoggoth temporarily for a striking Garasharp to ram into its head with a faux strike before releasing toxic vapor from her maw. Monga was quick to retreat the moment the shoggoth let one of its arms go of him, Garasharp covering his escape with a spray of poisonous gas that blinded the enemy again for a brief moment. The serpent and primate regrouped some distance away, with the lovecraftian beast's "eyes" following their movements. They also noticed the other monsters regrouping, Raija, Anguirus, and Baragon getting back on their feet to resume battle. Sensing itself in a disadvantageous position on the shifting dunes, the shoggoth turned to climb up the top of the rocky escarpment it broke out from, tentacles forming into hooks until it finally pulled itself up the peak. The beast looked down on all its enemies on the dunes below. Monga, Garasharp, Anguirus, Raija, Kimera, and Baragon all converged some distance from the base of the outcrop. The daikaiju didn't pay much heed to each other, not when they had a far greater foe standing ahead of them. The shoggoth unleashes a light show of laser beams from the eyes running down its body and spiral radiation raging from its jaws right into the sky, the heavens torn apart from the sonic cacophony of ionizing radiation.

  "An intimidation display," Ishiro answered.

  "Well, consider us..." The G0H-Ten shook as the very rock formation rung with the tremors from the shoggoth's blasts interrupting Houston mid-sentence. "...Very intimidated."

  "So...what's the game plan right now?" Akilah asked, all of them now safely away from the carnage on a large dune.

  "Oh, I know the drill," Rick sat back in his seat and pulled a beer from the cabinet beneath the control set of the G0H-Ten. "We sit back and enjoy the show."

  "I don't know what's stranger," Houston began. "The fact you're looking at this like a spectator sport or the fact you already have a beer ready at hand."

  "I have gotten this down to a science.” Rick retorted. "Hey, Ishiro. Think you'll say the line to set us in the mood."

  "I don't believe that is appropriate right now," Ishiro looked on at the prelude to the titanic battle about to commence.

  "Well, I'm radioing reinforcements," Jelena dialed the comm. "Houston, how many squadrons are heading to our location."

  "Three at the moment," Houston looked over the nearby activity of Apex aircraft.

  "Notify them to send six," she corrected. "With their strongest bombers."

  "Sure, let's add the bunch of jets with missiles that are gonna bounce off their armor like toothpicks," Rick sarcastically said.

  Raija snarled at the shoggoth perched on the mountaintop, the whirring of lightning dancing across her back. Garasharp joined in, flaring her hood and shaking her tail to the point of a droning buzz that disoriented the team's hearing. The other titans simply snarled and rumbled with Anguirus beating his tail against the ground. The shoggoth responds in turn, lifting its head and roaring in a follow-up to goad them into attacking. For hot-headed Raija and Garasharp, it works. The Thunder Serpent launches herself into the air as the Amphithere slithered beneath her, the two serpentine reptiles rushing towards their enemy with unfiltered rage. Kimera and Monga followed in suit, Anguirus and Baragon staying on the ground assessing the situation.

  “Well, I think we can all agree this isn’t gonna end well for it,” Rick seemed confident in the titan’s victory.

  "It chose its fighting spot well," Jelena said.

  "It's stuck on the top of a mountain," Rick pointed out. "It's made itself a standing target.”

  "The cliff is too tall and too steep for Anguirus to ascend fast enough before being knocked down," Ishiro clarified. "And it put itself uphill of the rest of its enemies where it can fire down on them easily. Only Raija will be able to nullify that advantage."

  "If she's smart enough," Jelena added on.

  Sure enough, Raija soared over the shoggoth, the dragon spewing lightning down upon her enemy only for it to be redirected by the spore cloud. Frustrated, Raija beat her wings to gust away the cloud, but the shoggoth continues spewing out its forcefield barrier. Seeing the other daikaiju, it beams lasers from the eyes independently to deal with them, breaking the rocks beneath an ascending Garasharp as she scales the incline as Kimera and Monga shuffle down and to the sides as the lasers come raining on them. Still, lightning struck the beast's head as Raija keeps beating her wings to spray away the spore cloud. But being left stationery in the air, she is a sitting target as the shoggoth unleashes its atomic breath on her. The dragon barely manages to dodge the brunt of the attack, tail and wing edge smoking from radioactive fire. Garasharp clambers up the summit, blasting noxious gas at the shoggoth in a smokescreen of verdant poison. It didn't do much to dissuade the monster, but it did provide enough of an irritant for Garasharp to strike with her saber fangs. Unfortunately, they only managed to scratch the armor before she made a tactical retreat as the beast charged up its lasers again. That's when Monga comes in with a mace swing, but the shoggoth manages to evade in time to avoid another head bash before blasting its laser to push Monga back down the mountain right into Kimera.

  Peaking back up to the summit, Garasharp swings her sonic rattle. But the shoggoth ducks in time. A swooping Raija instead receives the attack and coincidentally, the Thunder Serpent was about to score a lightning bolt to the shoggoth until the sonic blast diverted her aim and sent the fulgur fury striking Garasharp instead. The two serpents hissed and snapped at one another for a moment, briefly forgetting the common enemy they were facing. The shoggoth is quick to take advantage of the hostility as it grabs Garasharp's tail and hurls her towards Raija with surprising aim. The bronze dragon falters in the air before going down with the Garasharp as the shoggoth blasted atomic fire at her once again with several laser beams to boot. Both monsters tumble through the sky until both crashes into the dunes below. As the dust settles, Garasharp stirred, shaking her still smoking head in momentary disorientation. With their head lying on the sand, she takes notice of deep rumbles through the earth right next to her and notices the bronze dragon having fallen as well, sneering and groaning from being hit by the spiral heat ray. With a low rattle from her tail, Garasharp expresses her adamant frustration with the bronze dragon, bearing her fangs with a deep hiss from her throat. Raija, in a characteristic manner, replied in tune as she pulled her lips back as violet electricity danced between her horns.

  Meanwhile, things still were not going well for the remaining monsters. Kimera and Monga are still shuffling across the rocky terrain to dodge the lasers. Nimble hands grappled the gravel, allowing them to get to the top of the escarpment. But they didn't stay long as the shoggoth forces them to descend. As Kimera takes the brunt of a laser beam, Monga gets a brief opportunity to ascend, managing to get on the shoggoth's position. He bashed his mace on one of the beast's feet, trying to destabilize its stance. The shoggoth slipped, but it didn't tumble as its claws grew thicker and recurved to keep it balanced. Blasting a laser at Monga, the primate managed to block the blast with his mace, but the force behind it still forced him to descend. Back on the ground, Anguirus attempts to scale up the hill to join the battle, but he is too slow to climb before being met by beams striking his armor. As unrelenting as he can be, Anguirus knew he was not getting up there anytime soon. If he couldn't come to the shoggoth, he'd need the shoggoth to come to him.

  Exactly what Baragon intends to do. The Rose Dragon eyes the lovecraftian monstrosity keeping the synapsids at bay at the summit and the armored reptilian below. No matter which way they attack, they cannot land a mortal strike. The eyes all over their enemy's body simply prevent a sneak attack. So he needs to get out of sight. The Baragon grumbles to Anguirus, flashing his ears and pointing his horn to the ground. Anguirus obliges with a knowing rumble of his own, attempting another charge of the escarpment. Again he is met by beams blasting from the eyes around the shoggoth's head. But this time, the attack was to prove a distraction. Baragon begins digging, shoveling away sand, and eventually meeting bedrock and submerging himself under the crust of the earth. Making his way to the escarpment, he is careful to keep himself between the walls of the hollow pocket of the rock formation. He could feel the battling giants right on top of him, the tremors of his tunneling disguised by the constant battling above. On the surface, Anguirus roars up to Kimera, with the Shisa following the command and clambering behind the shoggoth. The lovecraftian beast didn't lose sight of its opponent, blasting with the laser beams through the scale cloud to land a hit on the Shisa. Kimera's armor absorbs the impact, drudging along with a snarl. The shoggoth increased its power, keeping the Shisa at bay.

  But its focus on the stone lion proved to be a lapse in concentration. The shoggoth's realization came too late, as Monga's mace cut through the laser beams and scored a devastating strike to its head, armor cracking and splintering from the impact. Making his way quickly to the back of the shoggoth, Monga grabs the fungoid's tail with his jaws and front claws as he positions his mace with his prehensile tail to block any incoming beams. Even with the scale cloud, the lasers seem attracted to the weapon, allowing for Kimera to join as he grabs the titan's tail as the two try to drag their enemy down. With its advantage in jeopardy, the shoggoth frees its tail and turns around to face its enemies with a spiral heat ray. But before it could unleash its fury, the ground beneath it exploded in molten lava. Like a great white shark charging from the depths of the sea to snatch a seal, Baragon swims through the melting bedrock to ram full speed into the shoggoth's head, his momentum and the resulting instability and precariousness of the perch causing the shoggoth to slide down the escarpment on Anguirus' side. When the shoggoth hits the dunes, Anguirus immediately tackles the larger opponent. The two tumbled through the dunes, haphazard lasers firing into air and sky alike as both wrestled for control against the other. Monga and Kimera charged downhill in pursuit, bounding in leaps across the rock and sand. Just as the shoggoth might be gaining the upper hand, Kimera unleashes his beams, releasing all the stored energy in a laser blast that nearly cuts through its armor. Monga charges in with his mace, bashing the beast's head again and toppling it off Anguirus. The three giants wrestled with the shoggoth, and despite its larger size, their combined strength seemed like it was beginning to wear it down.

  "They got it on the ropes!" Akilah exclaimed.

  "Welp, time to add another tally to the death list," Rick joked. "What do you say, Ishiro?"

  But Ishiro wasn't so sure. The shoggoth sprayed acid from its jaws, nearly caking the Monga and Kimera as it dissolved the sand, with Anguirus ramming into its side but failing to bring it down. "Even against three daikaiju, it's still holding its own."

  “Not for long, it won’t,” Rick said. “That thing isn't going to withstand the attack of six daikaiju of this caliber for long.”

  “It’s been pulling out unexpected move after move. I wouldn’t bet on anything yet.” Jelena said. “Houston, where are the air reinforcements?”

  “E.T.A in ten minutes,” he responded.

  A roar pulled their attention back to the battle. Sure enough, even after fighting several daikaiju at a time, the shoggoth still had more than enough steam to throw down with the armored veteran and gargantuan synapsids. Whatever injury they make is quickly healed, and the lasers from its eyes still blasted around at full force. Eventually, their suspicion proved correct. After the three monsters seemingly had the advantage on the shoggoth, the tentacles on the beast's right arm morphed into a spike-like mace structure before the whole limb began crackling with electricity. Before the Fierce Dragon could retaliate, the shoggoth landed a devastating uppercut to his jaw, knocking the armored behemoth onto his back and pinned down by the clawed foot of his aggressor. Quickly, it also grabs Kimera in one of its hands, re-forming into a crab-like pincer to keep him at a distance. Monga was the last beast left, dodging lasers and deflecting them with his mace as he circled for a good angle to attack. But his opponent had already figured out a good plan of attack. The shoggoth aimed for the sand beneath Monga's feet and knocked the titan off balance, the weapon slipping from his grip. For safe measure, the shoggoth grabs the mace in its jaws and flings it as far it can through the sky, tumbling across the dunes. With Monga's deadliest weapon now out of play, the primate took evasive action, bounding across the sand and ducking behind dunes from lasers and atomic fire until he was far away enough. A rumbling from below called his attention as Baragon came launching from the sand like a ground-to-air missile. Quick with its hand, the shoggoth luckily managed to grab Baragon with a triple-clawed hand, angling those jaws away from its body. Despite all three daikaiju trying to break their way out of shoggoth's grip, the multi-eyed goliath kept them pinned.

  The sound of thunder rang through the air as the clear sky begins to fill with storm clouds. From below, the shoggoth could see Raija rising into the air on thundering wingbeats, lightning outlining her silhouette in the sky as she divebombed towards them. From the same direction, a pair of horns rushed through the sand as Garasharp's slithering form swam through the dunes before breaking into a sidewinding gallop towards her enemy. Monga game charging back as well bounding and zig-zagging behind dunes to avoid any incoming laser blasts from the shoggoth. The three titans converged on their enemy, seemingly confident that it is too preoccupied with the three monsters it is dealing with currently to fight back against them at once. But the shoggoth proves to be far too formidable of an enemy. As the daikaiju closed in, all of its eyes
suddenly and independently fixated on each titan, and the crimson beast responded accordingly. Kimera and Baragon were thrown at the charging Monga and striking Garasharp. All the titans sent tumbling back across the dunes moments before they could even touch the fungoid, while the divebombing Raija got point-blanked by a blast of atomic breath, blasting several scales off and pushing her through a dune as if it was water. In an instant, nearly all the shoggoth's enemies were down, and the advantage now heavily leaned back in their favor. Anguirus, still pinned beneath their feet, furiously continued to lash out. He scores a disorienting hit to the enemy's face, knocking its head close enough to be blasted by a sonic roar from the fierce dragon. The shoggoth stumbled off Anguirus, the fierce dragon flipping back onto its feet just in time for the shoggoth to unleash its full fury upon him. With atomic breath and lasers converging on a single point on his carapace, the Fierce Dragon was pushed back meter by meter as pieces of his carapace splintered and cracked. But as his armor smoldered, Anguirus did not relent, trying to persevere through the immeasurable power of the combined assault. Switching tactics, the shoggoth suddenly ceased its attack, Anguirus lurching forward haphazardly before the shoggoth grabbed his weakened body and knocked him back into the cave. Before Anguirus can get to his feet, the shoggoth brings down the entire rock formation upon the armored dragon with its lasers, burying Anguiurs under a mountain of shattered rock.

  With the most experienced opponent down, the shoggoth turned to the others, one by one. Raija's chest smoldered from the point-blank blast of atomic fire, snarling as she bull-rushed the fungoid with lightning. But the scale dust deflects it, and she is met again by a pinpoint blast of the lasers to the chest, ripping off more scales as it continues its approach. Resorting to physical strength, she lashes out like a cornered animal and rakes her spurs against the lovecraftian beast's head while kicking with her sickle claws and striking with her jaws and horns. But the shoggoth simply grabs the leading edge of her wing finger which snaps beneath the immense force of those fanged jaws. With their greater bulk, the fungoid dragged Raija along before shaking their head hard enough to rip a part of her wing off and dislocate her shoulder as he tossed her into a collapsing dune. Kimera launched themselves at them, pouncing upon the goliath's back, and at first, was out of range of the lasers. But the shoggoth simply released more of its spores into the air before firing beams that ricocheted off the reflective particles and knocking Kimera off. The stone lion fell but got up at a moment's notice unscathed. The shoggoth grumbles at his enemy's refusal to lay down and die as he leaped back on. Until it took advantage of the Shisa's armor's one weakness. It grabs the stone lion in its newly formed claws, and the shoggoth pinned Kimera to the ground to redirect the stored energy in his scales. Then it clamps his sharpened claws hard around his neck and chest. Shisa armor evolved to withstand sudden strikes. But not slow, sustained pressure. Especially if it's behind a sharpened point. Kimera roared as the spiked claws slowly punched through the armor as he attempts to break free. His talons slashed at the eyes of the shoggoth, managing to poke through one with his thumb. But this didn't discourage the other titan as it pressed down with its weight and strength, the stone lion beginning to weaken with his enemy on the verge of finally taking him down.

  But Kimera is saved when a wounded Monga leaps from a dune and plunges the sharpened end of his mace through the enemy's side, the crimson goliath shrieking in surprise as it locks its gaze on the primate and lets go of the nearly unconscious Kimera to the ground. The blade pierced through one of the shoggoth's eyes, right where the armored plating meets. Using his remaining strength, Monga pushes on the handle of his mace, the armor beginning to pry as he does so. He doesn't get far when the shoggoth's arm smacks Monga away, sending him through a dune in a flurry of sand and fur before firing his lasers for good measure. Despite being taken out of the fight, Monga's stray hair began to irritate the new wound in the lovecraftian beast's armor. It's so irritating and painful that the shoggoth wasn't focusing on its environment as smog and sand dust swirl around it. And that's when Garasharp comes striking from the dust, saber-fangs digging right into the central eye of the goliath and pumping her venom into the newly inflicted injury. Demented laughter turning to pained shrieking, the shoggoth wrastled and struggled like a bucking bronco as the toxin eats through its exposed wound. Now rampaging like a wild animal, the shoggoth grabs the serpent in its hands and pries her off. Garasharp attempts to escape, but her enemy clamped their jaws around her like a beartrap, keeping her restrained. As the serpent lashed in its jaws, the shoggoth began repeatedly shaking and bashing Garasharp against the ground like a crocodile trying to dismember its prey. Garasharp lay limp and knocked out in its jaws, but before the fungoid could tear the serpent in two, a blast of fire hurtles into the side of the giant and nearly cuts through its dorsal armor.

  Baragon is the last daikaiju standing, his Inferno Beacon having managed to scorch the behemoth's armor. But even his attack failed to cripple the shoggoth as the goliath rose on two legs and fired their atomic beam. Baragon submerged himself in the ground, digging out of the way of the spiral heat ray as he tunneled beneath the shoggoth. The lovecraftian monster's eyes now had nothing to lock on with an invisible threat, only relying on the tremors felt beneath them to figure out where the Rose Dragon would emerge. It proves ineffective as Baragon bursts from the ground in a molten explosion, ramming into the compromised armor of the shoggoth before digging back. Baragon continued to pace beneath the shoggoth, tremors rumbling beneath his larger opponent until the ground finally collapsed beneath the fungoid. With his enemy trapped in a pit, Baragon burst from the slopes of the trap and attempted a throat bite on his larger opponent. But the spiked dewlap of the shoggoth prevented him from getting a good grip, stout fangs punching through flamboyant armor instead of doing any real damage. And before he could dig himself back into the earth, the shoggoth's tentacles grabbed his tail and pulled him out of his burrow. With the Rose Dragon out, the shoggoth wrapped its tentacles around Baragon's mouth and began slamming him against the ground repeatedly. Over and over again, the Rose Dragon's head met the hard bedrock. Finally, the shoggoth inspected his body and plopped him on the ground, now unconscious.

  As the other beasts lay defeated on the ground, only Raija has the energy to get back on her feet. If only barely. She may be injured, dragging her wing behind her as blood dripped and smoke rose from her chest, but she wasn't out. Coming up the edge, she arrives just in time to strike a lightning bolt to the shoggoth's face. At this point, the lovecraftian nightmare appears more annoyed than threatened as it half-mindedly chucks Baragon's unconscious body at the Thunder Serpent. Raija attempts to get back up despite her ailing strength as the shoggoth begins scaling up the side of the pit and grabs her foot with its clawed hand. As the smog emitted from its body rises into the air like an ominous vapor, Raija takes one look and is eye to eye with shoggoth. Raija still snarled at her foe, but there was a faltering sense in her aggression. She had thrown everything she had at this beast. All her rage. All her recklessness. But her enemy still didn’t fall. And now it clawed its way towards her, the spectre of death feared by all living things...

  Before it could do anything else, a slob of mucus to the eyes blinds it in surprise. Cresting over the hill, Raija and the humans see the old serpent Vellaraka having arrived, sensing the tremors from the other monsters. Raija improvises and swiftly kicks with both her legs to back the shoggoth into the pit. From there, Vellaraka has an easy time nailing the lovecraftian giant. Each shot of mucus venom lands a direct hit on the eyes, impairing the shoggoth's main attack. Atomic fire bellowed from the beast's jaws, but with each mucus shot from Vellaraka, the shoggoth's aim further degrades. Vellaraka is scoring direct hits on each of the eyes and putting enough distance between herself from the edge in case any stray energy attacks are hurled at her. With armor still scorched and splintered from Baragon's hellfire, Garasharp's venom still coursing through the behemoth's body, and pinned against a tight spot, the shoggoth decides to cut its losses. The titan dug down through the pit's bottom, hands forming into massive claws as the ground seemed to give way to its submerging body, leaving behind its enemies in the dust.

  Anguirus finally manages to pull himself from the rubble, ready to throw down with the fungoid again. But in their stead, the other daikaiju bar Vellaraka lay on the ground, defeated and wounded. Baragon and Garasharp were unconscious. Kimera was coming to but groaned as he got up. Monga trekked towards him, fur scorched as the trail of the laser beam was visible in the lines of smoking skin along his chest. Raija limped towards where the beast had burrowed, ready for another go, despite panting and wheezing as she dragged her mangled wing across the ground. The human’s air reinforcements finally arrive, but the attack has long since passed. And now all the team could do was watch on as a newly dreadful feeling begins to well up inside each of them.

  "Well...we might be screwed now."

Description
(Continuation of the previous post, originally meant to be part of one larger entry until the character limit set in: www.deviantart.com/105697/art/… )

Raija, Kimera, and the humans eventually arrived at a more well-lit part of the cavern system, snaking their way through tunnels. The streams continued to flow through the cave floor as hundreds of bioluminescent bugs buzz in the air, attracted to the lights of illuminating fungi and glowworms now surrounding the cavern walls as well as ceilings. The team had gotten comfortable in their position. Well, as comfortable as you can be when you're stuck in a metal canister carried by an armored lion beast.

"Ugh. I think I'm going to throw up," Akilah said, with Rick pulling out a paper bag and giving it to her as a precaution.

"Well, good news," Houston said, dragging several canisters from one of the G0H-Ten's engine rooms. "Seems like we still have some reserves to keep the Goh-ten going for another dozen miles. I’d be cautious for its use at the moment, though."

"I’d say that’s necessary, honestly," Rick said, motioning out the window to the various giant teeth sticking into view. "We already got perfect transport currently."

"Then I hope you won’t mind if we stay like this when they’re fighting," Houston shot back.

"I mean…" Rick motioned his head over at Jelena sitting in the pilot seat.

"Look, Jelena may be a bit angry and reckless at times. Her attitude towards the engine's fuel is evidence of that," Houston admitted "But she is the best pilot we have here."

"Not really by choice. Admittedly, Jelena did run with a bunch of dinosaurs which is pretty awesome. But ever since I’ve known her, she has been passive aggressive and stubborn about putting herself into the fray of monster battles," he whispered. "Plus, we don’t know her deal, considering it’s all, ya know…classified by her government."

  "You know I can hear everything you’re saying, right?" The two jolted as Jelena stared daggers at Rick.

  "Do you have anything to say, Ishiro?" Rick asked.

  "You won’t get anything out of him," Jelena said. “He’s barely said anything this entire trip.”

"Besides, Ishiro doesn’t like gossiping, you know this," Houston added on.

"Either way, it was insensitive to bring up his father like that," Rick added.

  Ishiro didn’t say anything about that as he glanced at Jelena before the two broke the gaze, the head of the expedition looking over his broken watch and Jelena back to staring out into the brightening cavern through the window. The beeping of the radar and signals were the only noises within the G0H-Ten, periodically interrupted by the rumbling noise of the daikaiju. It was a bit too quiet, at least for Akilah. Seeing Jelena looking blankly into the dimness, she decided to take her chances at a conversation.

  "Hey uh," she started. "Sorry for not backing you up back there at first-"

  "Don't apologize if it isn't genuine," Jelena flatly said.

  "But I am being genuine," Akilah retorted, but it was clear Jelena didn't seem to think so. The biolinguist sighed, and tried to restart the conversation with something different.

"So…" she walked on over with a bit of anxiety, "How were the last few days for you?"

"You’re starting with that?" Jelena didn’t even look at her.

"Just trying to get a conversation going," Akilah said. "Isn't that how people interact and what not?"

  Jelena looks over to Akilah with a half-lidded expression, “Judging from that, I assume you don’t have many friends do you?”

  Akilah reeled back at that out-of-nowhere accusation, “Excuse me?! I’ll have you know I have a lot of friends.”

  Jelena raised her eyebrow at that. “Name one.”

  Akilah just looked at her with the same offended stare, but her gaze broke away, her awkward silence, and slinking into her chair confirming Jelena’s suspicions. The soldier went back to looking out the front window, but seeing the dejected Akilah still seated in the corner of her eye, she eventually relented. “If it’s any consolation, the same goes for me.”

  “Really?” Akilah realized, with the conversation starting to pick back up again. “What about all your fellow soldiers?”

  “That's just work. I don’t interact with my colleagues outside that,” she elaborated. “Not much to talk about anyway.”

  Akilah passively took that in as it fell silent again, both women looking out the window for a few moments, the outside getting brighter and brighter with the growing amount of glow worms and now glowing fungi filling the cavern walls.

  “What’s your excuse then?” Jelena suddenly said.

  “Hm?” Akilah started.

  “Why don’t you have friends?” She said.

  “Oh, well, that’s a whole other issue,” she casually said before. “But let's just say Rick is far from the first person to call me snarky and obnoxious. A lot of my classmates back in the day said the same thing. The same goes for college and work as well.”

  “Well, you do brag a lot,” Jelena said. “I thought that’s unbecoming of a naturalist such as yourself.”

  “Naturalists are people too,” she said. “People like it when things they say end up as right. It is just basic human nature.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Jelena said, with Akilah sighing as she turned the subject, “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you haven’t bragged at least once in your life.”

  Jelena didn’t answer. And this time it was her silence betraying her true nature to Akilah as the Apex biolinguist began to press further with a smug attitude, “Jelena.”

  The Adversary soldier looked over to Akilah, her smug look and glinting eyes pressing her for an answer that she couldn’t hold. Finally, she admitted, “Fine, I do brag a little. But I don’t make a habit of it.”

  “I'm not saying you should. But you could at least talk more about it,” Akilah smugly said. “People are always impressed with war stories. It's a fundamental fact. You should try it more often. Provided, of course, it’s not too, ya know…personally traumatizing.”

  Jelena thought about it for a moment. She knew this was useless show-off banter to indulge Akilah’s bragging notion. The soldier told herself not to give in, but alas, something about Akilah's words seemed to resonate with her. With a hesitant look, Jelena caved in.

  “Alright then,” The pilot pulled up the sleeve of her left arm, several straight scars running across the skin, “This is from getting grazed by shotgun shrapnel back in Argentina when I was raiding one of André’s camps. Sucker got me good on that end.”

  “Ouch,” Akilah hissed.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t worry. Austra gave him a nastier one on my behalf,” she said with a smirk. “Oh! And this one at the back of my neck was from three years ago. Got into a run-in with, how would you put it, a rodent of unusual size? It dug its incisors down here, but I managed to down it with a pistol shot to the skull before it could do any real damage.”

  “And what about this?” Akilah pointed to the faded burns on Jelena's right arm. “How’d you get those?”

  Jelena remained silent as she shifted her gaze down before covering the sleeve of her right arm. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

  “Really? But it looks so-“ Akilah is suddenly stopped when Jelena snapped at her. “End of discussion.”

  “S-sorry,” Akilah decided not to press further on that tangent at the sound of Jelena’s coldness. Nor continue the story as well, with Jelena’s hardening expression was more than enough warning for that. “Alright well…do you wanna talk about something else?”

  “Like what?” Jelena annoyedly stated.

  “Like…WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” Her tone suddenly shifted. Jelena noticed it and immediately looked up, seeing Akilah pointing to a giant beast standing some distance ahead. “GUYS!”

  Ishiro, Houston, and Rick walked up to the front of the G0H-Ten, “What is it-HOLY MACKERAL!”

  A gargantuan quadrupedal beast clad in crimson armor and a row of plates running down its back stood, back-turned to them as it was busy excavating the rock ahead. It was huge, even when hunched over. It was then that the team noticed they had stopped moving forward. Kimera and Raija had frozen in their tracks, eyes locked on the monstrosity ahead. The beast didn’t attack, just watching them blankly from their position. Its eyes are cold, unblinking, and like its previous forms, always unsettling.

  The beast paused from its work, a rumble reverberating from its body. It slowly turned towards Kimera and Raija, rearing up on its hind legs. And it was then that the humans realized the true gravity of what they were dealing with. The titanic beast had each of its feet end in tentacle-like appendages. Its massive head sported snaggled jaws along with a curved horn. Its crimson armor shined more brilliantly under the light, but most signifying of all were the rows of eyes running the entire length of its body, arms, and legs.

  "Impossible,” Ishiro realized.

  “Someone, please tell me that isn't what I think it is,” Akilah said, heart racing as the beast's eyes seemed to gaze into her soul.

  “Alright, we won’t,” Houston said, frozen as the beast eyed the intruders. “Your eyes are doing that job anyway.”

  “The shoggoth,” Everyone turned their eyes to Rick momentarily. “What? It’s fitting.”

  “Houston,” Ishiro quickly said, not daring to take his eyes off the monster. “The fuel reserves.”

  “Already on it,” Houston backed away and began hastily putting the fuel reserves in the engine on the lower level.

  “Everyone else, buckle in,” Ishiro calmly commanded, the entire team fastening their seats as the tension grew. They are still stuck in Kimera’s jaws, but perhaps that might be the safest place for them. Serpent and Shisa glared at their enemy, who still stood silent in a menacing fashion. Dripping water from stalagmites and the low hum of mesmerized bugs in the air. The humans held their breath as the silence permeated, not noticing Houston slipping back into his seat quickly and silently. It was that dead silent and dreadful.

  Even their heartbeats sounded deafening in the silence.

  Suddenly the air ripped apart as the shoggoth roared a horrid, demonic screech as a stream of sludge billowed from its maw. Raija and Kimera back up immediately to alarm as the sludge begins to eat through the ground and set the surrounding air alight with bursts of fire.

  “Acid sludge, are you kidding me?” Rick exclaimed.

  Raija took to the air without a second thought, the space large enough to spread her wings and keep herself airborne. She rained down a lightning bolt upon the shoggoth but was retaliated back with several laser beams. Meanwhile, Kimera trotted around the still-active acid sludge and slashed at the beast with his claws. But they merely made scratches in the armor as the beast let its beams fire upon him. Kimera took the hit in stride, scales absorbing the energy as he tilted his head back to shield the humans in his jaws from the onslaught. Then he was bulldozed into the wall by his much larger opponent, pinned against the bedrock as the beast’s tentacled arms morphed into gripping claws to pin his arms down. Staring eye to eye, the two beasts rumbled and snarled at one another.

  “Engaging flares!” Jelena flipped the switch and sent several flares shooting out towards the shoggoth. The beast was momentarily surprised and irritated by the sudden flash of light, followed by a proper attack by Kimera when he gives the lovecraftian beast a taste of its own medicine with the absorbed laser attack. Raija joined in succession, grappling the back of the beast with her claws and firing lightning upon them. Kimera joined in, grappling the shoggoth around the jaws with his arms, trying to pin it down with his strength and weight. But the beast lifted its head and seized Kimera with one of their taloned hands. Then it blasted Raija off its back with the lasers from its row of side eyes before throwing Kimera into her. The two young gods are sent into a wall, and the human team is barely able to stay in their fastened seats. With both monsters down, each of the shoggoth’s eyes glowed

  Baragon ducked back into his burrow, the shoggoth slamming its jaws into the ground only to receive a mouthful of rock. It looked down into the hole, eye peering for any movement. Then in a sonic shriek, the ground below it gave way as Anguirus crashed through and grappled the shoggoth’s head in his arms and jaws. Using his strength, he wrestles the beast to the ground, jaws around its muzzle and claws digging in. The shoggoth’s beams blasted his adversary. But Anguirus’ armor is far too resilient to give way so easily. Resorting to different tactics, the shoggoth exudes some acidic sludge, forcing Anguirus to let go in a brief bout of pain, and both monsters pull back in a standoff. Anguirus roars at the intruder, guttural rumbling shaking the cavern. But his enemy remains unperturbed, giving its deafening roar back that sounded like half thundering earthquake and half-demented demonic laughter. The shoggoth then positioned several of its eyes behind it, sighting Raija and Kimera getting back up. With a vicious roar, it lurches toward Anguirus with sickle claws morphing in its hands. Anguirus backs up to avoid the lunge before turning and cocking the head of the plague-bringer with his spiked tail. A rumbling from below signals Baragon at work, and the ground beneath one of the shoggoth’s feet breaks away.

  Trapped for the time being, the other three beasts charged their attacker, but even with their quarry pinned, this didn’t yield the result they intended. With all its eyes, the shoggoth fired in a laser lightship, scoring direct hits on each of his enemies. Each of them was taken aback by the onslaught long enough for the shoggoth to crawl itself out from the pit. It focused most of its firepower on Anguirus, multiple crimson beams trying to melt through his armor. Anguirus braced against the attack, digging claws and tail into the ground to fight against the force of the onslaught. The shoggoth continues until a stray fireblast from its periphery forces it to redirect some of its lasers. It turned one of its eyes to glare at a vicious Baragon, smoke still rising from his jaws. That gave Anguirus enough of an opening to launch himself towards the larger monster, wrestling with the fungoid in a shoving match as they locked arms and pushed against one another. Raija and Kimera rushed in but are kept back by the beams of lasers erupting from the rows of eyes running down the shoggoth's back. Raija flew as well as she could in the confined space to avoid the strikes, while Kimera pushed through the brunt of the lasers with his armor taking in the energy. Charging at full speed, he managed to pin down the head of the shoggoth again, this time with Baragon helping as his bulldog jaws and excavating claws pin the head down. With the enemy sufficiently stuck, Anguirus roared to Raija. The Thunder Serpent obliged, and her flurry of lightning at the shoggoth’s neck was a guaranteed bullseye by all means. But instead of hitting its target, the lightning ricocheted in the nebulous cloud surrounding the daikaiju before hitting the cave wall, causing some of the cave ceiling to come down on the battling monsters. Taking advantage, the shoggoth pushed Anguirus off, toppling him towards Kimera and Baragon where the two are pinned down by his mass.

  “Everyone saw that right?” Akilah was death-gripping the handles of her seat but was very much aware of the battle going on. “Since when can Raija’s lightning bounce around like that?”

  “It can’t,” Rick said. “The only time it’s ever done that before is-“

  “When it hits a cloud of Mothra scales,” Houston realized. “You don’t think.”

  Ishiro contemplated the possibility, “It’s…possible. But in all its previous stages, the shoggoth hasn’t displayed any sign of gaining the abilities of other daikaiju. If it had, it would have shown them already. This could be a case of convergent evolution.”

  “Is that also a case of convergent evolution?” Jelena said, and everyone was silent at what she referred to. Ahead, the shoggoth’s plates began to glow. An unmistakable wind-up whirr followed as each plate across the titan's back lit up with an azure glow. The neck plates splay out as hot steam pours from their openings. As Anguirus got to his feet with the other two monsters, they all had front row seats to the beast opening its maw and unleashing a spiral ray of azure radiation billowing towards them. Anguirus and Kimera instinctively hunker to take the brunt of the blast while Baragon is shielded behind them, the attack hitting their armor in a concussive force.

  "Ishiro..." Houston said to his friend companion as the whole of the G0H-Ten rumbled.

  Ishiro sat shocked at the azure display of atomic fire. Everything about it. The glow. The mechanism. The ultimate discharge of concentrated radiation. It is so rightfully familiar to everyone. Him especially.

  Which means things just went from bad to worse.

  But Baragon didn’t seem as phased as the others. Hunkered behind the two larger beasts, he saw Raija to the side blasting her lightning at the foe, but each of her beams ricocheted into the walls and met with lasers from their enemy. Taking matters into his claws, he went underground again, tunneling quickly beneath the earth and out of view of the shoggoth. Again the shoggoth notices too late when its foot crashes through the ground, ending the atomic barrage. With the opponent trapped, Raija quickly took to an attack, crashing into the shoggoth as she pushed through the laser beams. Anguirus and Kimera dog-pile the goliath, their armor holding up even against the constant barging of lasers. Baragon lept from the ground and sunk his teeth into the shoggoth’s head again, gnawing and biting at the armored exterior with all his ferocity and strength. For a moment, it looks like they are about to prevail. But then shoggoth’s body began to pulsate in a deep blue glow, plates crackling with electricity and eyes glowing crimson red. Before any of the titans could pull back, a concussive pulse of atomic energy emanated from their opponent, crashing them through the wall and into the outside world. Colossal beasts left dunes flattened in their fall, as the force of the blast was enough to knock the G0H-Ten out of Kimera’s jaws and onto the sandy dunes.

  “That’s our cue!” Houston flipped the reserve power to the engine with Jelena heeling the accelerator. “GO! GO! GO! GO!”

  The humans got out of the quarrel. And not a moment too soon. The titans were beginning to get back up, and they all face the gaping entrance in the side of the rock formation. The shoggoth steps outside, far more comfortable out in the open with the sun high above its head. It quickly observes its surroundings, sighting nothing but open desert for miles. It roared, not to the other monsters, but seemingly to itself. As if it was genuinely amused at the situation it is in. The others didn’t seem to share such an attitude, all snarling and hissing at the beast. Raija was the first to attack, finally being able to take the air permanently and rained down her lightning upon her enemy. The first few managed to land hits on her enemy’s armor, but the shoggoth’s cloud quickly grew in cover to block the fulgur fury. The others charged for a physical confrontation, Kimera speeding ahead and around the shoggoth to divert its attention away from the charging Anguirus. It didn’t work. The shoggoth still has eyes to spare and catches Anguirus in his claws before he rams into him. Baragon swam through the sand and nearly lunged at the shoggoth until a laser beam forces a temporary retreat. Anguirus continued stubbornly to push forward while the shoggoth attempted to blast Raija out of the sky with spiral rays of atomic breath. Kimera and Baragon stay to the sides, wanting to get into the fight, but unable to sneak up on their opponent even with their numbers.

  But fortunately, such a commotion is bound to attract additional attention. As the shoggoth and Anguirus pushed against one another, the shoggoth didn’t notice the hidden threat in the dunes. But Baragon could. He could feel the tremors through the ground, sand shifting as a slithering form moved its way beneath the surface and raced towards the shoggoth. Then two horns give away its position, and out comes a striking Garasharp with fangs wide open. The shoggoth barely had time to react, unleashing its lasers which Garasharp was equally quick to retaliate against with a swing of her sonic rattle, the airburst powerful enough to break the deadlock between Anguirus and his enemy. Momentarily dazed, the shoggoth was then beset from above by Monga, having perched on the rock formation for the right moment to strike. Again the shoggoth fired its beams, but they were all redirected into Monga’s mace as he brought the weapon down, and the sound of shattering armor rung through the desert air. For the first time, the shoggoth seemed to roar in genuine pain, jostling with the primate riding it like a bucking bronco before it manages to reach over and fling him off. Monga landed on his feet, mace readied in his tail as Garasharp slithers next to him with fangs bared and rattle shaking.

  "Monga and Garasharp!" Akilah cheered when she recognized the beasts. The great serpent rushed again over the dunes in a side-winding motion, moving full throttle at the monstrous fungoid. The shoggoth was hit with a rattling shockwave before the serpent launched at its face with fangs wide open. But the lovecraftian goliath grabbed the serpent in mid-strike by the head with newly formed claws, throwing Garasharp aside before she could unleash another attack from her rattle. Monga was quick to do the favor for Garasharp as he decked the living pestilence in the head with a tail swing as his mace battered the armored "skull". Though this seemed to enrage the shoggoth more than hurt it as it swung its shifting arm right at the primate, Monga ducking beneath the swing and prancing some distance away. The shoggoth's "eyes" followed Monga, a knowing grumble echoing from its throat at the sight of the primate. Particularly the mace. Monga rushed towards the shoggoth, confident in his agility and speed over his slower enemy. But the shoggoth's eyes locked on to his position, blasting the ground beneath him to lose balance right into the waiting claw of the pestilence grabbing him by the neck. With mace in their tail, Monga attempted another swing. But his enemy grabs the hilt of the club and part of his tail with the other arm.

  Right as the shoggoth was about to unleash hellfire upon the mammal, its eyes quickly picked up on a leaping Kimera, the stone lion pouncing on its head. The shoggoth shook their heads in surprise for a moment but knocked the Shisa off with a crimson laser. But Kimera seemed to have been working as a distraction, blinding the shoggoth temporarily for a striking Garasharp to ram into its head with a faux strike before releasing toxic vapor from her maw. Monga was quick to retreat the moment the shoggoth let one of its arms go of him, Garasharp covering his escape with a spray of poisonous gas that blinded the enemy again for a brief moment. The serpent and primate regrouped some distance away, with the lovecraftian beast's "eyes" following their movements. They also noticed the other monsters regrouping, Raija, Anguirus, and Baragon getting back on their feet to resume battle. Sensing itself in a disadvantageous position on the shifting dunes, the shoggoth turned to climb up the top of the rocky escarpment it broke out from, tentacles forming into hooks until it finally pulled itself up the peak. The beast looked down on all its enemies on the dunes below. Monga, Garasharp, Anguirus, Raija, Kimera, and Baragon all converged some distance from the base of the outcrop. The daikaiju didn't pay much heed to each other, not when they had a far greater foe standing ahead of them. The shoggoth unleashes a light show of laser beams from the eyes running down its body and spiral radiation raging from its jaws right into the sky, the heavens torn apart from the sonic cacophony of ionizing radiation.

  "An intimidation display," Ishiro answered.

  "Well, consider us..." The G0H-Ten shook as the very rock formation rung with the tremors from the shoggoth's blasts interrupting Houston mid-sentence. "...Very intimidated."

  "So...what's the game plan right now?" Akilah asked, all of them now safely away from the carnage on a large dune.

  "Oh, I know the drill," Rick sat back in his seat and pulled a beer from the cabinet beneath the control set of the G0H-Ten. "We sit back and enjoy the show."

  "I don't know what's stranger," Houston began. "The fact you're looking at this like a spectator sport or the fact you already have a beer ready at hand."

  "I have gotten this down to a science.” Rick retorted. "Hey, Ishiro. Think you'll say the line to set us in the mood."

  "I don't believe that is appropriate right now," Ishiro looked on at the prelude to the titanic battle about to commence.

  "Well, I'm radioing reinforcements," Jelena dialed the comm. "Houston, how many squadrons are heading to our location."

  "Three at the moment," Houston looked over the nearby activity of Apex aircraft.

  "Notify them to send six," she corrected. "With their strongest bombers."

  "Sure, let's add the bunch of jets with missiles that are gonna bounce off their armor like toothpicks," Rick sarcastically said.

  Raija snarled at the shoggoth perched on the mountaintop, the whirring of lightning dancing across her back. Garasharp joined in, flaring her hood and shaking her tail to the point of a droning buzz that disoriented the team's hearing. The other titans simply snarled and rumbled with Anguirus beating his tail against the ground. The shoggoth responds in turn, lifting its head and roaring in a follow-up to goad them into attacking. For hot-headed Raija and Garasharp, it works. The Thunder Serpent launches herself into the air as the Amphithere slithered beneath her, the two serpentine reptiles rushing towards their enemy with unfiltered rage. Kimera and Monga followed in suit, Anguirus and Baragon staying on the ground assessing the situation.

  “Well, I think we can all agree this isn’t gonna end well for it,” Rick seemed confident in the titan’s victory.

  "It chose its fighting spot well," Jelena said.

  "It's stuck on the top of a mountain," Rick pointed out. "It's made itself a standing target.”

  "The cliff is too tall and too steep for Anguirus to ascend fast enough before being knocked down," Ishiro clarified. "And it put itself uphill of the rest of its enemies where it can fire down on them easily. Only Raija will be able to nullify that advantage."

  "If she's smart enough," Jelena added on.

  Sure enough, Raija soared over the shoggoth, the dragon spewing lightning down upon her enemy only for it to be redirected by the spore cloud. Frustrated, Raija beat her wings to gust away the cloud, but the shoggoth continues spewing out its forcefield barrier. Seeing the other daikaiju, it beams lasers from the eyes independently to deal with them, breaking the rocks beneath an ascending Garasharp as she scales the incline as Kimera and Monga shuffle down and to the sides as the lasers come raining on them. Still, lightning struck the beast's head as Raija keeps beating her wings to spray away the spore cloud. But being left stationery in the air, she is a sitting target as the shoggoth unleashes its atomic breath on her. The dragon barely manages to dodge the brunt of the attack, tail and wing edge smoking from radioactive fire. Garasharp clambers up the summit, blasting noxious gas at the shoggoth in a smokescreen of verdant poison. It didn't do much to dissuade the monster, but it did provide enough of an irritant for Garasharp to strike with her saber fangs. Unfortunately, they only managed to scratch the armor before she made a tactical retreat as the beast charged up its lasers again. That's when Monga comes in with a mace swing, but the shoggoth manages to evade in time to avoid another head bash before blasting its laser to push Monga back down the mountain right into Kimera.

  Peaking back up to the summit, Garasharp swings her sonic rattle. But the shoggoth ducks in time. A swooping Raija instead receives the attack and coincidentally, the Thunder Serpent was about to score a lightning bolt to the shoggoth until the sonic blast diverted her aim and sent the fulgur fury striking Garasharp instead. The two serpents hissed and snapped at one another for a moment, briefly forgetting the common enemy they were facing. The shoggoth is quick to take advantage of the hostility as it grabs Garasharp's tail and hurls her towards Raija with surprising aim. The bronze dragon falters in the air before going down with the Garasharp as the shoggoth blasted atomic fire at her once again with several laser beams to boot. Both monsters tumble through the sky until both crashes into the dunes below. As the dust settles, Garasharp stirred, shaking her still smoking head in momentary disorientation. With their head lying on the sand, she takes notice of deep rumbles through the earth right next to her and notices the bronze dragon having fallen as well, sneering and groaning from being hit by the spiral heat ray. With a low rattle from her tail, Garasharp expresses her adamant frustration with the bronze dragon, bearing her fangs with a deep hiss from her throat. Raija, in a characteristic manner, replied in tune as she pulled her lips back as violet electricity danced between her horns.

  Meanwhile, things still were not going well for the remaining monsters. Kimera and Monga are still shuffling across the rocky terrain to dodge the lasers. Nimble hands grappled the gravel, allowing them to get to the top of the escarpment. But they didn't stay long as the shoggoth forces them to descend. As Kimera takes the brunt of a laser beam, Monga gets a brief opportunity to ascend, managing to get on the shoggoth's position. He bashed his mace on one of the beast's feet, trying to destabilize its stance. The shoggoth slipped, but it didn't tumble as its claws grew thicker and recurved to keep it balanced. Blasting a laser at Monga, the primate managed to block the blast with his mace, but the force behind it still forced him to descend. Back on the ground, Anguirus attempts to scale up the hill to join the battle, but he is too slow to climb before being met by beams striking his armor. As unrelenting as he can be, Anguirus knew he was not getting up there anytime soon. If he couldn't come to the shoggoth, he'd need the shoggoth to come to him.

  Exactly what Baragon intends to do. The Rose Dragon eyes the lovecraftian monstrosity keeping the synapsids at bay at the summit and the armored reptilian below. No matter which way they attack, they cannot land a mortal strike. The eyes all over their enemy's body simply prevent a sneak attack. So he needs to get out of sight. The Baragon grumbles to Anguirus, flashing his ears and pointing his horn to the ground. Anguirus obliges with a knowing rumble of his own, attempting another charge of the escarpment. Again he is met by beams blasting from the eyes around the shoggoth's head. But this time, the attack was to prove a distraction. Baragon begins digging, shoveling away sand, and eventually meeting bedrock and submerging himself under the crust of the earth. Making his way to the escarpment, he is careful to keep himself between the walls of the hollow pocket of the rock formation. He could feel the battling giants right on top of him, the tremors of his tunneling disguised by the constant battling above. On the surface, Anguirus roars up to Kimera, with the Shisa following the command and clambering behind the shoggoth. The lovecraftian beast didn't lose sight of its opponent, blasting with the laser beams through the scale cloud to land a hit on the Shisa. Kimera's armor absorbs the impact, drudging along with a snarl. The shoggoth increased its power, keeping the Shisa at bay.

  But its focus on the stone lion proved to be a lapse in concentration. The shoggoth's realization came too late, as Monga's mace cut through the laser beams and scored a devastating strike to its head, armor cracking and splintering from the impact. Making his way quickly to the back of the shoggoth, Monga grabs the fungoid's tail with his jaws and front claws as he positions his mace with his prehensile tail to block any incoming beams. Even with the scale cloud, the lasers seem attracted to the weapon, allowing for Kimera to join as he grabs the titan's tail as the two try to drag their enemy down. With its advantage in jeopardy, the shoggoth frees its tail and turns around to face its enemies with a spiral heat ray. But before it could unleash its fury, the ground beneath it exploded in molten lava. Like a great white shark charging from the depths of the sea to snatch a seal, Baragon swims through the melting bedrock to ram full speed into the shoggoth's head, his momentum and the resulting instability and precariousness of the perch causing the shoggoth to slide down the escarpment on Anguirus' side. When the shoggoth hits the dunes, Anguirus immediately tackles the larger opponent. The two tumbled through the dunes, haphazard lasers firing into air and sky alike as both wrestled for control against the other. Monga and Kimera charged downhill in pursuit, bounding in leaps across the rock and sand. Just as the shoggoth might be gaining the upper hand, Kimera unleashes his beams, releasing all the stored energy in a laser blast that nearly cuts through its armor. Monga charges in with his mace, bashing the beast's head again and toppling it off Anguirus. The three giants wrestled with the shoggoth, and despite its larger size, their combined strength seemed like it was beginning to wear it down.

  "They got it on the ropes!" Akilah exclaimed.

  "Welp, time to add another tally to the death list," Rick joked. "What do you say, Ishiro?"

  But Ishiro wasn't so sure. The shoggoth sprayed acid from its jaws, nearly caking the Monga and Kimera as it dissolved the sand, with Anguirus ramming into its side but failing to bring it down. "Even against three daikaiju, it's still holding its own."

  “Not for long, it won’t,” Rick said. “That thing isn't going to withstand the attack of six daikaiju of this caliber for long.”

  “It’s been pulling out unexpected move after move. I wouldn’t bet on anything yet.” Jelena said. “Houston, where are the air reinforcements?”

  “E.T.A in ten minutes,” he responded.

  A roar pulled their attention back to the battle. Sure enough, even after fighting several daikaiju at a time, the shoggoth still had more than enough steam to throw down with the armored veteran and gargantuan synapsids. Whatever injury they make is quickly healed, and the lasers from its eyes still blasted around at full force. Eventually, their suspicion proved correct. After the three monsters seemingly had the advantage on the shoggoth, the tentacles on the beast's right arm morphed into a spike-like mace structure before the whole limb began crackling with electricity. Before the Fierce Dragon could retaliate, the shoggoth landed a devastating uppercut to his jaw, knocking the armored behemoth onto his back and pinned down by the clawed foot of his aggressor. Quickly, it also grabs Kimera in one of its hands, re-forming into a crab-like pincer to keep him at a distance. Monga was the last beast left, dodging lasers and deflecting them with his mace as he circled for a good angle to attack. But his opponent had already figured out a good plan of attack. The shoggoth aimed for the sand beneath Monga's feet and knocked the titan off balance, the weapon slipping from his grip. For safe measure, the shoggoth grabs the mace in its jaws and flings it as far it can through the sky, tumbling across the dunes. With Monga's deadliest weapon now out of play, the primate took evasive action, bounding across the sand and ducking behind dunes from lasers and atomic fire until he was far away enough. A rumbling from below called his attention as Baragon came launching from the sand like a ground-to-air missile. Quick with its hand, the shoggoth luckily managed to grab Baragon with a triple-clawed hand, angling those jaws away from its body. Despite all three daikaiju trying to break their way out of shoggoth's grip, the multi-eyed goliath kept them pinned.

  The sound of thunder rang through the air as the clear sky begins to fill with storm clouds. From below, the shoggoth could see Raija rising into the air on thundering wingbeats, lightning outlining her silhouette in the sky as she divebombed towards them. From the same direction, a pair of horns rushed through the sand as Garasharp's slithering form swam through the dunes before breaking into a sidewinding gallop towards her enemy. Monga game charging back as well bounding and zig-zagging behind dunes to avoid any incoming laser blasts from the shoggoth. The three titans converged on their enemy, seemingly confident that it is too preoccupied with the three monsters it is dealing with currently to fight back against them at once. But the shoggoth proves to be far too formidable of an enemy. As the daikaiju closed in, all of its eyes
suddenly and independently fixated on each titan, and the crimson beast responded accordingly. Kimera and Baragon were thrown at the charging Monga and striking Garasharp. All the titans sent tumbling back across the dunes moments before they could even touch the fungoid, while the divebombing Raija got point-blanked by a blast of atomic breath, blasting several scales off and pushing her through a dune as if it was water. In an instant, nearly all the shoggoth's enemies were down, and the advantage now heavily leaned back in their favor. Anguirus, still pinned beneath their feet, furiously continued to lash out. He scores a disorienting hit to the enemy's face, knocking its head close enough to be blasted by a sonic roar from the fierce dragon. The shoggoth stumbled off Anguirus, the fierce dragon flipping back onto its feet just in time for the shoggoth to unleash its full fury upon him. With atomic breath and lasers converging on a single point on his carapace, the Fierce Dragon was pushed back meter by meter as pieces of his carapace splintered and cracked. But as his armor smoldered, Anguirus did not relent, trying to persevere through the immeasurable power of the combined assault. Switching tactics, the shoggoth suddenly ceased its attack, Anguirus lurching forward haphazardly before the shoggoth grabbed his weakened body and knocked him back into the cave. Before Anguirus can get to his feet, the shoggoth brings down the entire rock formation upon the armored dragon with its lasers, burying Anguiurs under a mountain of shattered rock.

  With the most experienced opponent down, the shoggoth turned to the others, one by one. Raija's chest smoldered from the point-blank blast of atomic fire, snarling as she bull-rushed the fungoid with lightning. But the scale dust deflects it, and she is met again by a pinpoint blast of the lasers to the chest, ripping off more scales as it continues its approach. Resorting to physical strength, she lashes out like a cornered animal and rakes her spurs against the lovecraftian beast's head while kicking with her sickle claws and striking with her jaws and horns. But the shoggoth simply grabs the leading edge of her wing finger which snaps beneath the immense force of those fanged jaws. With their greater bulk, the fungoid dragged Raija along before shaking their head hard enough to rip a part of her wing off and dislocate her shoulder as he tossed her into a collapsing dune. Kimera launched themselves at them, pouncing upon the goliath's back, and at first, was out of range of the lasers. But the shoggoth simply released more of its spores into the air before firing beams that ricocheted off the reflective particles and knocking Kimera off. The stone lion fell but got up at a moment's notice unscathed. The shoggoth grumbles at his enemy's refusal to lay down and die as he leaped back on. Until it took advantage of the Shisa's armor's one weakness. It grabs the stone lion in its newly formed claws, and the shoggoth pinned Kimera to the ground to redirect the stored energy in his scales. Then it clamps his sharpened claws hard around his neck and chest. Shisa armor evolved to withstand sudden strikes. But not slow, sustained pressure. Especially if it's behind a sharpened point. Kimera roared as the spiked claws slowly punched through the armor as he attempts to break free. His talons slashed at the eyes of the shoggoth, managing to poke through one with his thumb. But this didn't discourage the other titan as it pressed down with its weight and strength, the stone lion beginning to weaken with his enemy on the verge of finally taking him down.

  But Kimera is saved when a wounded Monga leaps from a dune and plunges the sharpened end of his mace through the enemy's side, the crimson goliath shrieking in surprise as it locks its gaze on the primate and lets go of the nearly unconscious Kimera to the ground. The blade pierced through one of the shoggoth's eyes, right where the armored plating meets. Using his remaining strength, Monga pushes on the handle of his mace, the armor beginning to pry as he does so. He doesn't get far when the shoggoth's arm smacks Monga away, sending him through a dune in a flurry of sand and fur before firing his lasers for good measure. Despite being taken out of the fight, Monga's stray hair began to irritate the new wound in the lovecraftian beast's armor. It's so irritating and painful that the shoggoth wasn't focusing on its environment as smog and sand dust swirl around it. And that's when Garasharp comes striking from the dust, saber-fangs digging right into the central eye of the goliath and pumping her venom into the newly inflicted injury. Demented laughter turning to pained shrieking, the shoggoth wrastled and struggled like a bucking bronco as the toxin eats through its exposed wound. Now rampaging like a wild animal, the shoggoth grabs the serpent in its hands and pries her off. Garasharp attempts to escape, but her enemy clamped their jaws around her like a beartrap, keeping her restrained. As the serpent lashed in its jaws, the shoggoth began repeatedly shaking and bashing Garasharp against the ground like a crocodile trying to dismember its prey. Garasharp lay limp and knocked out in its jaws, but before the fungoid could tear the serpent in two, a blast of fire hurtles into the side of the giant and nearly cuts through its dorsal armor.

  Baragon is the last daikaiju standing, his Inferno Beacon having managed to scorch the behemoth's armor. But even his attack failed to cripple the shoggoth as the goliath rose on two legs and fired their atomic beam. Baragon submerged himself in the ground, digging out of the way of the spiral heat ray as he tunneled beneath the shoggoth. The lovecraftian monster's eyes now had nothing to lock on with an invisible threat, only relying on the tremors felt beneath them to figure out where the Rose Dragon would emerge. It proves ineffective as Baragon bursts from the ground in a molten explosion, ramming into the compromised armor of the shoggoth before digging back. Baragon continued to pace beneath the shoggoth, tremors rumbling beneath his larger opponent until the ground finally collapsed beneath the fungoid. With his enemy trapped in a pit, Baragon burst from the slopes of the trap and attempted a throat bite on his larger opponent. But the spiked dewlap of the shoggoth prevented him from getting a good grip, stout fangs punching through flamboyant armor instead of doing any real damage. And before he could dig himself back into the earth, the shoggoth's tentacles grabbed his tail and pulled him out of his burrow. With the Rose Dragon out, the shoggoth wrapped its tentacles around Baragon's mouth and began slamming him against the ground repeatedly. Over and over again, the Rose Dragon's head met the hard bedrock. Finally, the shoggoth inspected his body and plopped him on the ground, now unconscious.

  As the other beasts lay defeated on the ground, only Raija has the energy to get back on her feet. If only barely. She may be injured, dragging her wing behind her as blood dripped and smoke rose from her chest, but she wasn't out. Coming up the edge, she arrives just in time to strike a lightning bolt to the shoggoth's face. At this point, the lovecraftian nightmare appears more annoyed than threatened as it half-mindedly chucks Baragon's unconscious body at the Thunder Serpent. Raija attempts to get back up despite her ailing strength as the shoggoth begins scaling up the side of the pit and grabs her foot with its clawed hand. As the smog emitted from its body rises into the air like an ominous vapor, Raija takes one look and is eye to eye with shoggoth. Raija still snarled at her foe, but there was a faltering sense in her aggression. She had thrown everything she had at this beast. All her rage. All her recklessness. But her enemy still didn’t fall. And now it clawed its way towards her, the spectre of death feared by all living things...

  Before it could do anything else, a slob of mucus to the eyes blinds it in surprise. Cresting over the hill, Raija and the humans see the old serpent Vellaraka having arrived, sensing the tremors from the other monsters. Raija improvises and swiftly kicks with both her legs to back the shoggoth into the pit. From there, Vellaraka has an easy time nailing the lovecraftian giant. Each shot of mucus venom lands a direct hit on the eyes, impairing the shoggoth's main attack. Atomic fire bellowed from the beast's jaws, but with each mucus shot from Vellaraka, the shoggoth's aim further degrades. Vellaraka is scoring direct hits on each of the eyes and putting enough distance between herself from the edge in case any stray energy attacks are hurled at her. With armor still scorched and splintered from Baragon's hellfire, Garasharp's venom still coursing through the behemoth's body, and pinned against a tight spot, the shoggoth decides to cut its losses. The titan dug down through the pit's bottom, hands forming into massive claws as the ground seemed to give way to its submerging body, leaving behind its enemies in the dust.

  Anguirus finally manages to pull himself from the rubble, ready to throw down with the fungoid again. But in their stead, the other daikaiju bar Vellaraka lay on the ground, defeated and wounded. Baragon and Garasharp were unconscious. Kimera was coming to but groaned as he got up. Monga trekked towards him, fur scorched as the trail of the laser beam was visible in the lines of smoking skin along his chest. Raija limped towards where the beast had burrowed, ready for another go, despite panting and wheezing as she dragged her mangled wing across the ground. The human’s air reinforcements finally arrive, but the attack has long since passed. And now all the team could do was watch on as a newly dreadful feeling begins to well up inside each of them.

  "Well...we might be screwed now."