Battles in the Depths

"Evasive maneuvers!" Tanaka shouted as the jaws rushed ever closer.

The helmsman wasted no time bringing the Seeker into a sharp dive just narrowly avoiding the monster's teeth, the only damage coming from a slight scraping as the jaws snapped closed. The sharp dive also nearly jolted everyone out of their seats. Lucky for them, the Seeker, despite her massive size was actually quite agile.

"Everyone alright?" Tanaka called out.

"We're fine, Captain," the radar operator replied. "But that thing's circling around for another attack."

"This doesn't make any sense," Asuka said, obviously trying to comprehend their current situation. "The Kaiju are supposed to be dormant. How is this one awake?"

Ryota Higurashi, Tanaka's ensign replied, "Maybe there are other Kaiju out there that not even G.R.I.D. accounted for. Maybe this one's a rogue."

Well, Tanaka thought. So much for smooth sailings.

"Ensign Higurashi," Tanaka spoke with the same authoritative yet calm voice he used during his years in the Kaiju War. "Make the call. We're gonna show this thing we can bite back."

Ryota nodded and placed his finger on the intercoms.

"Alert! Alert! We are under Kaiju attack! All able-bodied crewmembers report to their battle stations immediately! This is not a drill! I repeat, not a drill!"

Koji, Ricky, and Tsubaki were just now leaving the cafeteria as the crew of the Seeker went into a frenzy of shouting and people rushing down every hallway.

"Wait," Ricky asked. "I might have heard this wrong, but, did he just say Kaiju? I thought they're supposed to be asleep!"

"Maybe this one didn't get the memo," Tsubaki replied. She then rushed down a corridor to the power room to make sure nothing was damaged while Koji headed down to the sub-fighter hangar, leaving Ricky in the middle of the chaos.

"O-kay," he told nobody in particular. "I guess, I'll just try to seek shelter."

Ryota turned to face Tanaka and saluted him.

"Maser gunners are in position and ready for orders, Captain."

Tanaka nodded and pressed the intercom before uttering two words.

"Open fire."

The bolts of energy erupting from the vessel caught Dagahra off guard. They didn't hurt him per say, just surprised him. His prey was actually fighting back. Perfect. He always wanted prey that had some fight in them. Over the thousands of years waiting in this deep sea Hell, he never received a challenge from anyone let alone this metal, human contraption. Maybe this would offer him a bit more fun. Dagahra curled his perpetually smiling lips into a fanged grin as he rushed forward, picking up speed. Just as soon as he was a mere twelve meters, he extended one of his wing pincers and clamped down while he used his claws to grip onto the hull.

The Seeker rocking violently and the loss of forward motion was all the crew needed to know they were in the Kaiju's grasp. One of the crewmembers screamed as the beast's red, reptilian/piscine eye glared in on them, not helped by its malicious, fanged grin as though it were savoring their horror. Tanaka, however, stood steadfast in the face of danger as he had done in his years of the Kaiju War. If not even Godzilla could make him flinch, no oversized fish-lizard was going to scare him either.

"Launch sub-fighters." he nonchalantly ordered.

Okay, Koji, remember the first rule of Kaiju engagement, Koji mentally told himself as he entered the spherical cockpit of the Piranha sub-fighter along with the other hundred pilots, Don't panic. Just remember your training and try not to be too much of an obvious target.

Koji placed his hands on the controls and watched as his hatch began to fill up with water to ensure his aquatic attack vehicle's deployment was much smoother. As the water level reached his cockpit midway, another thought entered his mind.

God, I'm glad I'm not hydrophobic.

Just then, upon receiving the green light, Koji was pushed back into his seat as his vehicle was launched into the briny deep. Once outside, Koji and the rest of the Piranha armada got a good glimpse at the monster currently in hold of the Seeker.

To put it in a nutshell, the Kaiju looked to be one part mosasaur, one part manta ray, one part crab, one part moray eel, and all parts nasty. The creature's silhouette vaguely resembled a dragon and it was covered in bluish-green scales with a sickly yellow underbelly. Its long tail ended in a fin that looked like it belonged on a fish but was positioned in a way that resembled a whale fluke. The beast's hindlimbs were merely flippers while its front legs sported ten claws, five on each foot, that were curved like meat hooks. Its 'wings' resembled manta ray fins but were positioned in a way similar to a bat's wing and tipped with crustacean pincers that it used to grip the Seeker. Its head was the most frightening thing about it; vaguely resembling a moray eel's head crossed with a Komodo dragon's with its jaw curved in a way it was sporting a permanent grin. The kind of grin a serial killer would have on his or face as he or she carved up helpless victims The Kaiju was only half the size of the vessel but it still had the strength to hold her in place.

Over his radio, Koji heard the rest of the pilots' chatter.

"Geez, would you look at the size of that thing?"

"Goddamn! That is one ugly Kaiju!"

"They're expecting us to fight that thing!?"

Koji didn't exactly blame them. The only Kaiju action he and the rest of the pilots experienced was in simulation runs. However, those were simulations of Kaiju humans had encountered during the war, not an actual, living, breathing one. Not to mention, this one was not part of their records. They were attacking something they knew next to nothing about.

"Alright," Koji radioed in the rest of the armada. "All Piranhas on me. Let's blow this seafood combo from Hell to Kingdom Come."

Dagahra tipped the vessel to the left and right, watching the ant-sized monkeys scramble to and fro, back and forth. It was so delightful imagining their screams of panic. A pity he was about to make them join the other souls who either wandered into his killing grounds or were sucked into the mouth of the Hall of the King. However, he felt several pops on his body. He turned his head to see hundreds of smaller human vessels heading straight toward him. He could ignore them, after all they were less of a threat than the machine he currently had in his grasp (not that it was a threat anyway), but, then again, the thought of more victims to kill was more than promising. After all, when one spends thousand of years alive waiting for the next victim to stumble by with only the Barem as company, things did tend to get rather... boring. Besides, he was having more fun than in the past, when all it took to destroy an intruding vessel was either one slice of his claws, crushing it in his pincers, or blowing it to bits with his Irashuban Beam. Why not just take the time to savor it? Letting go of the vessel, Dagahra rushed to answer the challenge issued to him.

"We're loose!" Tanaka called out. "I want all weapons hot and ready to return fire!"

"Aye, Captain!"

On the outside, the gunners took their positions on the Maser and torpedo cannons and aimed them at the Kaiju, unloading everything they had in hopes of offering additional fire to the Piranha pilots.

"We got its attention," Koji radioed. "Piranhas on me so we can circle around for another attack run."

The Piranhas, true to their namesake, were designed to pack a wallop in large armadas; the larger numbers, the more pain they inflicted. As a single unit, the sub-fighters unleashed a volley of torpedos at the Kaiju, detonating against its hide all the while the Seeker gave them additional fire. The Kaiju itself let out a roar which was barely muffled by the water before it opened its mouth halfway-

And a bolt of purple energy shot out of its jaws, obliterating quite at least sixty of the Piranhas. There wasn't even so much as a series of explosions, they were just engulfed in the beam and it was like they weren't even there.

"What the Hell was that!?"

"Oh my God! That thing just took out Nigel!"

"This thing can shoot back!?"

"Look out!"

The beast then lashed out one of its pincered wings and crushed another Piranha. It then lunged forward with its jaws open, revealing quadruple rows of shark-like teeth, to bite down and destroy three Piranhas in a row. Just then, the Kaiju began spinning around with red dots falling off of it. It wasn't clear what they were until...

"Something's on me!" shouted one of the female pilots, Mara."Oh, God, THEY'RE MELTING THROUGH MY SHIP!"

Koji looked over to see Mara's Piranha covered in red, organic objects that, true enough, were corroding her ship's armor; the starfish. Once they ate through the propulsion, the Piranha somersaulted into one of the thermal vents and exploded. He didn't even hear her scream before impact.

"Piranhas," Tanaka's voice crackled on his radio. "What's going on out there?"

"It's those starfish, sir!" Koji replied. "The Kaiju's covered with them! I think they have a symbiotic relationship!"

With the amount of people the Kaiju was destroying, this was no longer a battle, this was a slaughter. Just then, there was a blip on his radar. Something else was down here and it was alive, big, and moving fast.

Another Kaiju? Koji thought. The blip on the radar got faster and faster until it was ultimately right on top of him, in addition to the other Kaiju which had turned around and seemed to take on a shocked appearance as the second beast entered his view and he got a good glimpse of it. And what he saw was not only recognizable, it made his heart stop and his stomach flip three times over as he noted its features; Brown-gray skin resembling crocodile skin or keloid scars, a roughly humanoid build, a sinuous, segmented tail, a lupine head, glowing, red/orange eyes, and three rows of dorsal plates resembling warped, bleach-white maple leaves with black centers.

"Godzilla."

With a roar that too was barely muffled by the watery depths, Godzilla swam vigorously toward the other Kaiju, his four-clawed hands splayed out. The other Kaiju, initially startled by this, gained a bit of bravery as it charged toward Godzilla as well. Upon colliding, the impact was akin to an underwater detonation. Godzilla was the more powerful among the two and he pushed the other Kaiju back through momentum alone as the other monster dug its claws and teeth into his shoulder.

The crew of the Seeker and the Piranhas watched as the two leviathans disappeared behind a cloud of geothermal smoke, only to barely make out their dueling silhouettes.

That ought to keep the two of them busy. Tanaka thought. However, he knew they wouldn't be busy for long. Especially since Godzilla had entered the fray. They needed to find a passage now.

"Does anyone see anything?" he asked. "Some kind of opening? Anything?"

"Captain," Mr. Hanbridge's voice came on the intercom "One of my drones found an underwater plateau with what looks like a crevasse in its side close to us. I'm sending the coordinates now."

Tanaka was then greeted by a holographic map with a blinking, yellow dot designating the crevasse Hanbridge was talking about.

"Coordinates received," Tanaka announced. "Seeker and all remaining Piranhas converge on this location."

"Roger that, Captain," Koji replied as he and the forty remaining sub-fighters regrouped and followed the Seeker. "But what about Godzilla?"

"With any luck, they'll probably kill each other."

As much as anyone would hope that to happen, Koji knew that was still doubtful. If something like the Oxygen Destroyer couldn't kill Godzilla back in 1954, dying in battle sure as Hell wasn't going to happen.

Dagahra clung to his enemy, his teeth breaking the beast's veins and causing blood to leak into the depths while his pincers snapped at it. His opponent, however, didn't seem to notice or care. Just what was this beast anyway?

Godzilla snarled as the abomination's fangs sank into his hide. With a growl, he reached over his left hand and sank his claws into the monster's flesh. Then, he began to slide them down, spilling ichor into the depths. The monster illicited a roar of agony as its hold loosened.

Pain. It was such a strange phenomenon to Dagahra. He had never experienced such a sensation. It felt like fires were blazing deep beneath his hide all the while his veins and nerves screamed out, threatening to break loose. He didn't like it. He had to kill this beast before it inflicted pain to him again. With a snarl, he swing out his left wing and smacked the beast onto the ocean floor. As it tried to regain its footing, Dagahra rushed at it and pinned it to the floor.

Godzilla snarled as he tried his best to keep the abomination's jaws away from him, from the corner of his eye, he noticed the human vessels enter the passage way to Malika. Then, he noticed a vent spewing out volcanic heat as an idea entered his mind. Reaching out, Godzilla grabbed the right side of abomination's face and started to drag it toward the vent. Once the monster realized what he was doing, it began to squirm, no doubt knowing what he was about to do. However, Godzilla's grip was far greater than its desperation as he got it closer and closer to the vent only to plant the left side of the beast's face right onto it. The sound of sizzling flesh was briefly heard before the abomination released its hold on Godzilla with a scream of agony and swam away. However, it didn't get far as Godzilla managed to grab its tail and throw it onto the ocean floor.

The left side of his face burned to a crisp and nearly blind, Dagahra's body was screaming in pain. How was this possible? How was he losing the upper-hand? That was until he remembered a word his creators kept using as they were embedding his genetic programming along with images of this very same monster. It was one name repeated over and over again.

"Xanlanth."

Narrowing his one good eye, Dagahra hoisted his body up with his wing pincers and began to shake the Barem off his body which clung to Xanlanth's body. Xanlanth let out a roar as the starfish began to burn away at his flesh. Taking advantage of this, Dagahra loosed his Irashuban Beam toward the monster, exploding on impact and engulfing him in smoke and dust. For a while, the water was still. Maybe that did Xanlanth in. However, just as Dagahra was savoring his victory, the dark depths began to take on an eerie blue glow. Suddenly, Xanlanth emerged from the cloud, his eyes and dorsal spikes glowing the same blue color. It must have been as hot as the vents' emissions because the Barem were burnt to a crisp. Before he had time to react, a pillar of blue light and steam erupted from the monster's open jaws and struck Dagahra in the chest and sent him somersaulting onto his back. As he groaned from the pain, Xanlanth swam up and planted his foot onto his charred chest.

Godzilla narrowed his eyes at the beast. He noticed one of its pincered wings rushing toward his left from the corner of his eye and grabbed it without turning his head. Then, with a sharp angling of his wrist, he bent the wing with a bony snap. The monster's screams filled the depths.

The pain Dagahra was feeling was beyond excrutiating. He then noticed the blue glow had returned, this time slightly brighter than before. By the time Xanlanth had lowered his head and began to open his jaws, Dagahra had realized he failed.

With a stronger blast of his Atomic Breath, Godzilla stirred up a massive cloud of dust which hung in the water for a moment. He then looked down and saw the abomination's remaining eye had rolled into the back of its skull. He took his foot off the beast and let out a bubble-laden sigh. He then turned his attention to the entrance to Malika. The humans were gone, obviously having entered. The humans were edging closer to Malika.