Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave
By C. L. Werner
Chapter IV:
The Evil of Frankenstein
From the shadows, something watched as Godzilla and the deadly Devil Fish closed upon one another. The huge construct, its form crafted from parts stolen from a dozen murdered men, curled its greenish lip in a snarl as its keen eyes focused upon the black-scaled figure of Godzilla. The effects of Frankenstein's strange atomic elixir, the savage brutality of his brain surgery, the hideous shape that now housed it, all of these had not removed the one thought that now consumed the brain within the skull of Prometheus.
Godzilla would die.
The huge human-like monster closed his hands upon the massive, crude axe he had crafted from the rotting hull of a sunken battleship, itself a past victim of the elder Godzilla. The monster's face split into a grotesque leer as he imagined plunging the weapon into Godzilla's body and pulling out the reptile's heart. The voice of his creator, buzzing in the ear of the fifty-meter giant, urged Prometheus to remain calm, to wait until Godzilla was fully distracted by the Devil Fish. Then, from the shadows, like a mammoth assassin, Prometheus would strike.
Godzilla snarled, his lip curling in rage. By way of response, the Devil Fish noisily puckered its gills. The two atomic monstrosities advanced, crushing automobiles and cracking pavement beneath their awesome masses as they moved. Godzilla sent another sheet of atomic destruction blasting into a towering building, showering the hideous mollusk in rubble and glass. Still, the Devil Fish continued to slither towards him.
Godzilla turned on the monster, lashing the Devil Fish with his powerful tail. The first blow struck the horrible octopus creature squarely in the head, pushing its boneless mass inwards. The Devil Fish squirmed in pain, partially stunned by the violent blow. Again, Godzilla's tail lashed out, but this time the Devil Fish was ready for the attack. Four of the monster's arms gripped the ground, the other four tensed. The Devil Fish waited until Godzilla's tail was nearly upon him, then it lashed out with its own assault. The arms shot forward, catching Godzilla's tail, arresting its downward motion. The tentacles whipped about Godzilla's limb, digging into the scaly flesh with razor-sharp suckers. Radioactive blood began to ooze from the tail and Godzilla let loose with a cry of pain.
The reptile exerted his immense strength, pulling his tail back, ripping the Devil Fish from its anchorage in the debris-laden street. The huge octopus shot forward along with the tail. Surprised and upset by the unexpected maneuver, the Devil Fish released its grip on Godzilla, crashing into the side of a warehouse, rubble crashing into its scaly body, burying it from site.
Godzilla's eyes narrowed, studying the unmoving tentacles protruding from the pile of ruined masonry and twisted steel. A low snarl rumbled from his chest. His eyes fixed upon the tentacles, Godzilla stepped forward, intending to make certain of his enemy's demise. Godzilla kicked a clawed foot at the nearest of the tentacles. The massive snake-like appendage flopped lifelessly. Godzilla snarled again, stomping on the tentacle this time. Thin, greasy blood exploded from the ruptured tentacle, even as seven more exploded from the pile of rubble and wrapped about Godzilla's body.
The Devil Fish snapped its beak with savage wrath, eager to taste the flesh of this creature that had caused it so much pain. It did not relate the strange changes wrought upon its body to its earlier sampling of Godzilla's flesh, nor could it wonder what more of the wondrous cellular material would do to it. No, it was the far more basic motive of survival that moved the mollusk as its tentacles dug into Godzilla's skin.
A great fleshy mass wrapped around Godzilla's throat, even as a second tentacle stifled the roar bellowing from Godzilla's mouth by lashing around the monster's fanged muzzle, pulling the reptile's jaws closed. Slowly, like enormous pythons, the tentacles began to constrict.
Murakoshi stood in the parking garage beneath Osaka police headquarters. Teams of Special Police, answerable to the CCI, were busily securing the velcro straps of their armored vests or performing last minute ammo checks for their massive automatic rifles and portable flame guns. It had taken several hours since Murakoshi and Kataguri's arrival in Osaka to reach this point. A minor level Yakuza member had been broken after hours of interrogation. The Osaka detective who had conducted the interrogation suspected that the Yakuza had always intended to give up Frankenstein's location, their connection to the renegade Nazi was both tenuous and dangerous for them.
Now, with thirty of the most highly trained police in all of Japan, the time had come to strike. Murakoshi double-checked the clip in his own automatic. One way or another, the evil of Heinrich von Frankenstein was about to come to an end.
'Remember,' Kataguri was speaking, addressing the Special Police troops, 'the CCI wants Frankenstein alive. Dr. Gildor, if he is still alive, is also to be taken unharmed. We do not know if he is Frankenstein's accomplice or his prisoner, but either way the information he may now possess is vital.' Kataguri paused, letting his voice drip to a lower octave. 'Any officer who causes the death of either of these men will be answerable to me.'
Murakoshi snorted, again examining his firearm. The chief of the CCI could say what he liked, if it came to a choice between allowing Frankenstein to escape or gunning him down, the INTERPOL agent would not hesitate.
Godzilla's vision began to blur as the Devil Fish's tentacles continued to choke off his breath. The great reptile toppled, rolling across the ground, desperate to detach the mollusk and its constricting, biting tentacles from his body. Rubble, twisted girders and jagged blocks of concrete stabbed into the giant octopus' flesh, causing greasy black blood to seep from scores of wounds. Yet still, the Devil Fish maintained its strangle hold.
Godzilla rose uneasily to his feet, finding the action difficult with the Devil Fish's dead weight dragging him down. He had been unable to dislodge the mutant beast, but his action had not been completely fruitless. One of the Devil Fish's tentacles wrapped around Godzilla's arm had been momentarily withdrawn, reacting to some particularly sharp piece of rubble. Godzilla's free arm closed about the retreating tentacle. His vision fading into blackness, Godzilla began to strain, tugging and pulling at the Devil Fish's whip-like limb.
Black-blood fountained into the air as the tentacle came away in Godzilla's claw. Godzilla let the limb fall to the street, its lingering life making it squirm and writhe mindlessly. The reptile had torn the limb from the Devil Fish's scaly body, ripping it out by the roots, leaving a gaping hole in the creature's central mass.
The Devil Fish let out a gurgling shriek of agony, and dropped away from Godzilla in a spasm of pain, its constricting tentacles withdrawing almost instantly. The maimed octopus began to slither away, squirting a dark inky substance that pooled in the street, useless in the open air.
Godzilla glared at the fleeing Devil Fish, a snarl coming from his freed mouth. Dorsal plates on Godzilla's back began to glow with silvery light. A beam of atomic annihilation streamed from Godzilla's fanged jaws, blasting across the debris-strewn battlefield.
The Devil Fish could sense the incoming blast of nuclear radiation, its hunger rekindled. The Devil Fish paused, awaiting the incoming, life-giving warmth. It was the last mistake in its long, brutal existence. Godzilla did not direct his fire against the Devil Fish as a whole. Instead he focused the flame on a very specific point on the monster's horned body. The human-like eyes of the octopus grew wide with horror as the stream of atomic flame struck the weeping wound. The tremendous energy streamed into the wound, searing into the octopus' vulnerable innards, circumventing the Devil Fish's resistant hide. Like a mammoth tick, the Devil Fish burst, bathing the battlefield in rubbery flesh and black, runny blood.
Godzilla roared in triumph, bellowing his victory to the cloudless sky.
'Now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein hissed into a radio transmitter from his hidden lab in Osaka.
The giant shape detached itself from the shadows of a towering hotel, racing across the streets, his mammoth stride carrying him the length of a football field with every jogging step. Prometheus ran at Godzilla, the patchwork abomination reaching the monster before the reptile was even aware of this new enemy advancing upon him from behind. Prometheus let a savage, feral growl crawl from his lips as he raised his primitive weapon.
The axe blade sank into Godzilla's back, spearing downwards between the outer and middle rows of dorsal plates. Godzilla's triumphant roar became a scream as the hunk of rusting metal speared downwards, erupting from the center of the huge monster's scaly chest. Prometheus pressed downwards with his blade, snarling with a simulation of his master's hate, driving the weapon still deeper.
Boiling radioactive blood bubbled from the savage wound. Prometheus leaned forward, snarling his wrath into Godzilla's ear, pushing the penetrating metal still further into Godzilla's body. Godzilla turned his head, despite the agony filling him, trying to see this new threat, trying to bring his terrible atomic ray to bear upon his attacker. Prometheus remained behind Godzilla, straddling the monster's tail, pressed against his dorsal plates, one arm locked about the haft of his crude axe, the other circling Godzilla's chest, providing the monster with his deadly leverage. Godzilla sent a blast of blue flame searing from his jaws, but could not turn his head far enough to strike the corpse-like beast.
A hissed command in the monster's ear made Prometheus twist his patch-work lip in a feral leer. The monster released his grip upon Godzilla, bringing the arm upwards and smashing the meaty fist into Godzilla's jaw, shattering teeth and causing the huge reptile to stagger. Prometheus managed to maintain a hold of Godzilla as the atomic dragon reeled, then brought both hands upwards and leveled a terrible double fisted blow to the back of Godzilla's neck. Godzilla dropped from the haymaker, pitching forward into the dust and rubble. Prometheus snarled again, ripping the crude axe from Godzilla's body.
Some faint remnant of Goke's mind knew what to do now. The monster's face split in a wicked grin as he raised the axe to deliver the first butchering blow.
'It will be very soon now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein gloated in the darkness. He turned an arrogant eye to Dr. Johann Gildor. The younger scientist was pale, somewhat aghast at what was unfolding far away in Sapporo. 'You see, with me guiding my Prometheus, there is nothing that crude beast can do. Its brute strength is no match for the intellect of genius!'
Suddenly, a small light flickered from a bank of machinery. Dr. Gildor raced over to the machine.
'Herr Doktor,' Dr. Gildor gasped. 'There are intruders in the warehouse!'
Frankenstein's eyes became still more glacial and lifeless. 'It seems my trust in the Osaka Yakuza was ill-placed. I should have known better than to have expected any of these yellow monkeys to keep faith with me.' The wicked Nazi renegade's voice dropped into a sinister hiss. 'When I have finished with Godzilla, I shall make Osaka and object lesson to the rest of the world, an open grave for those who would preach the equality of hominids.'
'Herr Doktor,' Gildor said, gripping Frankenstein's arm. 'We must escape! If they catch you...'
Frankenstein angrily shook Gildor's hand from his arm. 'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?' The mad scientist let a cunning look crawl across his face. 'Fear not, they shall not get you. I am very protective of my assistants. But for now,' Frankenstein returned his attention to the radio transmitter, 'I must see to the final dissolution of Godzilla.'
Prometheus let a low snarl echo across the battlefield. Downwards came the scrap-metal blade, descending toward the neck of the great beast lying prone below the monster's feet. The giant corpse towered over Godzilla's body, like a colossus, a gargantuan headsman. First Godzilla's head, then the rest of the enormous beast. The creation of Dr. Frankenstein was reveling in such butchery.
But even as the axe stroke began, there was a stir of motion in the great black carcass at Prometheus' feet. A glow built about the dorsal plates, a glow that quickly became something more, a fiery wave of unstoppable, undirected atomic fury, an irresistible nuclear pulse. The wave of power lifted the giant corpse from his feet, flinging him high into the air. The scrap-metal axe buckled and warped in the wave of power, its surface bubbling before the blast of power. Prometheus was hurled nearly twenty city blocks, crashing into an apartment building, his singed, charred and blackened cadaverous flesh sending streams of foul black smoke slithering into the air.
Godzilla slowly stood, turning towards the distant Prometheus. By ambush and sneak attack the giant had caused Godzilla incredible pain, nearly succeeded in killing the great reptile. But the monster had failed. He had only injured Godzilla, only fueled the beast's fury with agony. For to Godzilla, pain equaled power. And that power was now focused upon the smoking giant sprawled among the ruins of Osaka.
A loud roar bellowed from Godzilla's throat, dull blue light played about his dorsal plates.
'No!' screamed Heinrich von Frankenstein. 'I will not be denied! Rise Prometheus! Pick up your filthy carcass and take cover! Lure the animal to you, then strike!'
Dr. Gildor cast a nervous glance at his mentor, then a second look at the ceiling. The sound of heavy boots stomping through the warehouse overhead could be heard. Again, the young German scientist seized the arm of the Nazi.
'We must leave now, Herr Doktor!' Gildor cried. Again, Frankenstein brushed him off.
There was a sudden clamor and the heavy steel cover was shifted from the opening to Frankenstein's underground lair. Both men within the room turned to see a Japanese man wearing a gray suit drop into the laboratory. There was a pistol in his hand.
'Don't move!' the agent shouted. 'INTERPOL! You are under arrest!'
Dr. Gildor backed away from Frankenstein, raising his hands to express that he represented no threat. Murakoshi refocused his attention on the seated Nazi.
'Heinrich von Frankenstein,' the INTERPOL agent said 'if you would please rise and step away from that machinery.'
'So, you have found me,' the Nazi scientist said emotionlessly, making no move to rise. 'And what are you going to do with me, my little yellow monkey?'
'You will stand trial for crimes against humanity, Herr Doktor,' Murakoshi replied, refusing to allow himself to be goaded by the villain.
'Will I?' Frankenstein allowed himself to laugh. 'Will I really? Do you truly think they will hang me? Do you think anyone really cares about some human cattle who advanced the cause of science fifty years ago? Do you think they will care enough to deny themselves the secrets I possess?' Frankenstein let a cunning look return to his hawkish features. He cast a sideways glance at Dr. Gildor. 'I, and I alone.'
Two shots echoed through the subterranean lab almost as one. Before Murakoshi could react, the Nazi had lifted a short-barreled Luger from behind his radio equipment. The Nazi snapped off a single shot before Murakoshi sent a bullet crashing into Frankenstein's arm, making the evil scientist drop his weapon. Lying face down on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spread from the wound in the center of Dr. Gildor's head.
Murakoshi stepped forward, pulling Frankenstein to his feet. Both men looked at the corpse of Dr. Gildor.
'He knew too much for my own good,' the German explained. 'With my late lamented assistant still alive, it is possible that there would be those who would not find me as essential as they might. But now...' Frankenstein grinned at Murakoshi. 'They will not hang the man who can give the great and the good immortality.'
'You will not escape justice,' Murakoshi said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. Frankenstein laughed.
'Think what you may,' the Nazi gestured to the ladder. 'Shall we ascend and let your government begin its little charade?'
Godzilla blasted the gray-concrete face of an apartment building into a molten ruin, pushing the building's corpse to the street with his black-taloned hands. The giant reptile let a shriek of wrath and aggravation echo, swinging his tail and battering another supporting wall away. Entire city blocks had been ravaged by Godzilla as he angrily stalked the lurking Prometheus. The giant had retreated from Godzilla, keeping the buildings of the city between himself and the atomic juggernaut, appearing only at brief intervals to hurls boulders torn from the asphalt at Godzilla's scaly head.
Prometheus crouched behind a towering parking facility, its decks nearly devoid of cars. The monster had been instructed to keep Godzilla at a distance by his master, to avoid the reptile's claws and fangs until Heinrich von Frankenstein determined a way to kill the beast. But the directing voice of his master had become silent and Prometheus was growing eager to finish the fight. As Godzilla strode nearby, the giant corpse-hands of Prometheus reached into the superstructure of the garage and tore two massive steel support beams from their concrete housings.
The sound of the parking facility crumbling into debris caused Godzilla to spin around. Already, Prometheus was leaping from the cloud of dust. As the giant saw Godzilla turn, a snarl split his hideous face. Godzilla sent a stream of blue fire searing at the oncoming attacker. The blast caught Prometheus in the arm, scorching the limb from his patchwork body. The blackened mass of flesh spun into the air, crashing into a gas station some blocks away.
Then the monster was upon Godzilla. With a savage cry, the monster struck Godzilla with his remaining hand, stabbing the reptile in the shoulder with the long steel support beam. The metal sank into Godzilla's flesh, punching through the scales like a nail driven into leather. Godzilla bellowed in pain, tearing at the huge giant's chest with his claws, gouging deep wounds in Prometheus' flesh. The monster replied by bringing his knee smashing into Godzilla's ribs.
The two huge brutes grappled, struggling against one another, the patchwork graveyard horror and the primordial nuclear behemoth. At length, it was the atomic behemoth that gained the upper hand. Godzilla gripped Prometheus about the chest, crushing the monster to his body just as the Devil Fish had done to his own reptilian form. Stolen bones snapped and groaned under the pressure of Godzilla's grip and Prometheus struggled to escape the deadly embrace, snarling in wrath and desperation.
Godzilla leered down into the face of his captive, slowly opening his jaws. Golden light flashed from Godzilla's mouth, blasting into the face of Prometheus. The monster's head disappeared in the golden brilliance as the wave of destructive fire spewed forth from Godzilla's innards. For the better part of a minute, Godzilla let the deadly wave of nuclear power emerge from his body. The creature held in his arms grew slack, but still the stream of obliteration continued. At last, Godzilla closed his powerful jaws. From the body in his arms, there now came no sign of life, indeed, where the head of Prometheus had been there was now only a smoldering scar. Godzilla let the rest of the massive carcass fall to the street.
His wounds already beginning to heal, the monster king turned from the rubble of Sapporo. He paused for an instant on the edge of the bay, as though pondering whether to return, to reenter the ground he had fought so hard upon. A terrible roar echoed into the suburbs, causing those just emerging from their shelters to scatter back into their burrows.
But it was a cry of triumph and parting. Godzilla slowly sank beneath the cool waters, his powerful tail propelling him through the darkness. Godzilla had seen enough of Japan for today.
By C. L. Werner
Chapter IV:
The Evil of Frankenstein
From the shadows, something watched as Godzilla and the deadly Devil Fish closed upon one another. The huge construct, its form crafted from parts stolen from a dozen murdered men, curled its greenish lip in a snarl as its keen eyes focused upon the black-scaled figure of Godzilla. The effects of Frankenstein's strange atomic elixir, the savage brutality of his brain surgery, the hideous shape that now housed it, all of these had not removed the one thought that now consumed the brain within the skull of Prometheus.
Godzilla would die.
The huge human-like monster closed his hands upon the massive, crude axe he had crafted from the rotting hull of a sunken battleship, itself a past victim of the elder Godzilla. The monster's face split into a grotesque leer as he imagined plunging the weapon into Godzilla's body and pulling out the reptile's heart. The voice of his creator, buzzing in the ear of the fifty-meter giant, urged Prometheus to remain calm, to wait until Godzilla was fully distracted by the Devil Fish. Then, from the shadows, like a mammoth assassin, Prometheus would strike.
Godzilla snarled, his lip curling in rage. By way of response, the Devil Fish noisily puckered its gills. The two atomic monstrosities advanced, crushing automobiles and cracking pavement beneath their awesome masses as they moved. Godzilla sent another sheet of atomic destruction blasting into a towering building, showering the hideous mollusk in rubble and glass. Still, the Devil Fish continued to slither towards him.
Godzilla turned on the monster, lashing the Devil Fish with his powerful tail. The first blow struck the horrible octopus creature squarely in the head, pushing its boneless mass inwards. The Devil Fish squirmed in pain, partially stunned by the violent blow. Again, Godzilla's tail lashed out, but this time the Devil Fish was ready for the attack. Four of the monster's arms gripped the ground, the other four tensed. The Devil Fish waited until Godzilla's tail was nearly upon him, then it lashed out with its own assault. The arms shot forward, catching Godzilla's tail, arresting its downward motion. The tentacles whipped about Godzilla's limb, digging into the scaly flesh with razor-sharp suckers. Radioactive blood began to ooze from the tail and Godzilla let loose with a cry of pain.
The reptile exerted his immense strength, pulling his tail back, ripping the Devil Fish from its anchorage in the debris-laden street. The huge octopus shot forward along with the tail. Surprised and upset by the unexpected maneuver, the Devil Fish released its grip on Godzilla, crashing into the side of a warehouse, rubble crashing into its scaly body, burying it from site.
Godzilla's eyes narrowed, studying the unmoving tentacles protruding from the pile of ruined masonry and twisted steel. A low snarl rumbled from his chest. His eyes fixed upon the tentacles, Godzilla stepped forward, intending to make certain of his enemy's demise. Godzilla kicked a clawed foot at the nearest of the tentacles. The massive snake-like appendage flopped lifelessly. Godzilla snarled again, stomping on the tentacle this time. Thin, greasy blood exploded from the ruptured tentacle, even as seven more exploded from the pile of rubble and wrapped about Godzilla's body.
The Devil Fish snapped its beak with savage wrath, eager to taste the flesh of this creature that had caused it so much pain. It did not relate the strange changes wrought upon its body to its earlier sampling of Godzilla's flesh, nor could it wonder what more of the wondrous cellular material would do to it. No, it was the far more basic motive of survival that moved the mollusk as its tentacles dug into Godzilla's skin.
A great fleshy mass wrapped around Godzilla's throat, even as a second tentacle stifled the roar bellowing from Godzilla's mouth by lashing around the monster's fanged muzzle, pulling the reptile's jaws closed. Slowly, like enormous pythons, the tentacles began to constrict.
Murakoshi stood in the parking garage beneath Osaka police headquarters. Teams of Special Police, answerable to the CCI, were busily securing the velcro straps of their armored vests or performing last minute ammo checks for their massive automatic rifles and portable flame guns. It had taken several hours since Murakoshi and Kataguri's arrival in Osaka to reach this point. A minor level Yakuza member had been broken after hours of interrogation. The Osaka detective who had conducted the interrogation suspected that the Yakuza had always intended to give up Frankenstein's location, their connection to the renegade Nazi was both tenuous and dangerous for them.
Now, with thirty of the most highly trained police in all of Japan, the time had come to strike. Murakoshi double-checked the clip in his own automatic. One way or another, the evil of Heinrich von Frankenstein was about to come to an end.
'Remember,' Kataguri was speaking, addressing the Special Police troops, 'the CCI wants Frankenstein alive. Dr. Gildor, if he is still alive, is also to be taken unharmed. We do not know if he is Frankenstein's accomplice or his prisoner, but either way the information he may now possess is vital.' Kataguri paused, letting his voice drip to a lower octave. 'Any officer who causes the death of either of these men will be answerable to me.'
Murakoshi snorted, again examining his firearm. The chief of the CCI could say what he liked, if it came to a choice between allowing Frankenstein to escape or gunning him down, the INTERPOL agent would not hesitate.
Godzilla's vision began to blur as the Devil Fish's tentacles continued to choke off his breath. The great reptile toppled, rolling across the ground, desperate to detach the mollusk and its constricting, biting tentacles from his body. Rubble, twisted girders and jagged blocks of concrete stabbed into the giant octopus' flesh, causing greasy black blood to seep from scores of wounds. Yet still, the Devil Fish maintained its strangle hold.
Godzilla rose uneasily to his feet, finding the action difficult with the Devil Fish's dead weight dragging him down. He had been unable to dislodge the mutant beast, but his action had not been completely fruitless. One of the Devil Fish's tentacles wrapped around Godzilla's arm had been momentarily withdrawn, reacting to some particularly sharp piece of rubble. Godzilla's free arm closed about the retreating tentacle. His vision fading into blackness, Godzilla began to strain, tugging and pulling at the Devil Fish's whip-like limb.
Black-blood fountained into the air as the tentacle came away in Godzilla's claw. Godzilla let the limb fall to the street, its lingering life making it squirm and writhe mindlessly. The reptile had torn the limb from the Devil Fish's scaly body, ripping it out by the roots, leaving a gaping hole in the creature's central mass.
The Devil Fish let out a gurgling shriek of agony, and dropped away from Godzilla in a spasm of pain, its constricting tentacles withdrawing almost instantly. The maimed octopus began to slither away, squirting a dark inky substance that pooled in the street, useless in the open air.
Godzilla glared at the fleeing Devil Fish, a snarl coming from his freed mouth. Dorsal plates on Godzilla's back began to glow with silvery light. A beam of atomic annihilation streamed from Godzilla's fanged jaws, blasting across the debris-strewn battlefield.
The Devil Fish could sense the incoming blast of nuclear radiation, its hunger rekindled. The Devil Fish paused, awaiting the incoming, life-giving warmth. It was the last mistake in its long, brutal existence. Godzilla did not direct his fire against the Devil Fish as a whole. Instead he focused the flame on a very specific point on the monster's horned body. The human-like eyes of the octopus grew wide with horror as the stream of atomic flame struck the weeping wound. The tremendous energy streamed into the wound, searing into the octopus' vulnerable innards, circumventing the Devil Fish's resistant hide. Like a mammoth tick, the Devil Fish burst, bathing the battlefield in rubbery flesh and black, runny blood.
Godzilla roared in triumph, bellowing his victory to the cloudless sky.
'Now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein hissed into a radio transmitter from his hidden lab in Osaka.
The giant shape detached itself from the shadows of a towering hotel, racing across the streets, his mammoth stride carrying him the length of a football field with every jogging step. Prometheus ran at Godzilla, the patchwork abomination reaching the monster before the reptile was even aware of this new enemy advancing upon him from behind. Prometheus let a savage, feral growl crawl from his lips as he raised his primitive weapon.
The axe blade sank into Godzilla's back, spearing downwards between the outer and middle rows of dorsal plates. Godzilla's triumphant roar became a scream as the hunk of rusting metal speared downwards, erupting from the center of the huge monster's scaly chest. Prometheus pressed downwards with his blade, snarling with a simulation of his master's hate, driving the weapon still deeper.
Boiling radioactive blood bubbled from the savage wound. Prometheus leaned forward, snarling his wrath into Godzilla's ear, pushing the penetrating metal still further into Godzilla's body. Godzilla turned his head, despite the agony filling him, trying to see this new threat, trying to bring his terrible atomic ray to bear upon his attacker. Prometheus remained behind Godzilla, straddling the monster's tail, pressed against his dorsal plates, one arm locked about the haft of his crude axe, the other circling Godzilla's chest, providing the monster with his deadly leverage. Godzilla sent a blast of blue flame searing from his jaws, but could not turn his head far enough to strike the corpse-like beast.
A hissed command in the monster's ear made Prometheus twist his patch-work lip in a feral leer. The monster released his grip upon Godzilla, bringing the arm upwards and smashing the meaty fist into Godzilla's jaw, shattering teeth and causing the huge reptile to stagger. Prometheus managed to maintain a hold of Godzilla as the atomic dragon reeled, then brought both hands upwards and leveled a terrible double fisted blow to the back of Godzilla's neck. Godzilla dropped from the haymaker, pitching forward into the dust and rubble. Prometheus snarled again, ripping the crude axe from Godzilla's body.
Some faint remnant of Goke's mind knew what to do now. The monster's face split in a wicked grin as he raised the axe to deliver the first butchering blow.
'It will be very soon now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein gloated in the darkness. He turned an arrogant eye to Dr. Johann Gildor. The younger scientist was pale, somewhat aghast at what was unfolding far away in Sapporo. 'You see, with me guiding my Prometheus, there is nothing that crude beast can do. Its brute strength is no match for the intellect of genius!'
Suddenly, a small light flickered from a bank of machinery. Dr. Gildor raced over to the machine.
'Herr Doktor,' Dr. Gildor gasped. 'There are intruders in the warehouse!'
Frankenstein's eyes became still more glacial and lifeless. 'It seems my trust in the Osaka Yakuza was ill-placed. I should have known better than to have expected any of these yellow monkeys to keep faith with me.' The wicked Nazi renegade's voice dropped into a sinister hiss. 'When I have finished with Godzilla, I shall make Osaka and object lesson to the rest of the world, an open grave for those who would preach the equality of hominids.'
'Herr Doktor,' Gildor said, gripping Frankenstein's arm. 'We must escape! If they catch you...'
Frankenstein angrily shook Gildor's hand from his arm. 'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?' The mad scientist let a cunning look crawl across his face. 'Fear not, they shall not get you. I am very protective of my assistants. But for now,' Frankenstein returned his attention to the radio transmitter, 'I must see to the final dissolution of Godzilla.'
Prometheus let a low snarl echo across the battlefield. Downwards came the scrap-metal blade, descending toward the neck of the great beast lying prone below the monster's feet. The giant corpse towered over Godzilla's body, like a colossus, a gargantuan headsman. First Godzilla's head, then the rest of the enormous beast. The creation of Dr. Frankenstein was reveling in such butchery.
But even as the axe stroke began, there was a stir of motion in the great black carcass at Prometheus' feet. A glow built about the dorsal plates, a glow that quickly became something more, a fiery wave of unstoppable, undirected atomic fury, an irresistible nuclear pulse. The wave of power lifted the giant corpse from his feet, flinging him high into the air. The scrap-metal axe buckled and warped in the wave of power, its surface bubbling before the blast of power. Prometheus was hurled nearly twenty city blocks, crashing into an apartment building, his singed, charred and blackened cadaverous flesh sending streams of foul black smoke slithering into the air.
Godzilla slowly stood, turning towards the distant Prometheus. By ambush and sneak attack the giant had caused Godzilla incredible pain, nearly succeeded in killing the great reptile. But the monster had failed. He had only injured Godzilla, only fueled the beast's fury with agony. For to Godzilla, pain equaled power. And that power was now focused upon the smoking giant sprawled among the ruins of Osaka.
A loud roar bellowed from Godzilla's throat, dull blue light played about his dorsal plates.
'No!' screamed Heinrich von Frankenstein. 'I will not be denied! Rise Prometheus! Pick up your filthy carcass and take cover! Lure the animal to you, then strike!'
Dr. Gildor cast a nervous glance at his mentor, then a second look at the ceiling. The sound of heavy boots stomping through the warehouse overhead could be heard. Again, the young German scientist seized the arm of the Nazi.
'We must leave now, Herr Doktor!' Gildor cried. Again, Frankenstein brushed him off.
There was a sudden clamor and the heavy steel cover was shifted from the opening to Frankenstein's underground lair. Both men within the room turned to see a Japanese man wearing a gray suit drop into the laboratory. There was a pistol in his hand.
'Don't move!' the agent shouted. 'INTERPOL! You are under arrest!'
Dr. Gildor backed away from Frankenstein, raising his hands to express that he represented no threat. Murakoshi refocused his attention on the seated Nazi.
'Heinrich von Frankenstein,' the INTERPOL agent said 'if you would please rise and step away from that machinery.'
'So, you have found me,' the Nazi scientist said emotionlessly, making no move to rise. 'And what are you going to do with me, my little yellow monkey?'
'You will stand trial for crimes against humanity, Herr Doktor,' Murakoshi replied, refusing to allow himself to be goaded by the villain.
'Will I?' Frankenstein allowed himself to laugh. 'Will I really? Do you truly think they will hang me? Do you think anyone really cares about some human cattle who advanced the cause of science fifty years ago? Do you think they will care enough to deny themselves the secrets I possess?' Frankenstein let a cunning look return to his hawkish features. He cast a sideways glance at Dr. Gildor. 'I, and I alone.'
Two shots echoed through the subterranean lab almost as one. Before Murakoshi could react, the Nazi had lifted a short-barreled Luger from behind his radio equipment. The Nazi snapped off a single shot before Murakoshi sent a bullet crashing into Frankenstein's arm, making the evil scientist drop his weapon. Lying face down on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spread from the wound in the center of Dr. Gildor's head.
Murakoshi stepped forward, pulling Frankenstein to his feet. Both men looked at the corpse of Dr. Gildor.
'He knew too much for my own good,' the German explained. 'With my late lamented assistant still alive, it is possible that there would be those who would not find me as essential as they might. But now...' Frankenstein grinned at Murakoshi. 'They will not hang the man who can give the great and the good immortality.'
'You will not escape justice,' Murakoshi said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. Frankenstein laughed.
'Think what you may,' the Nazi gestured to the ladder. 'Shall we ascend and let your government begin its little charade?'
Godzilla blasted the gray-concrete face of an apartment building into a molten ruin, pushing the building's corpse to the street with his black-taloned hands. The giant reptile let a shriek of wrath and aggravation echo, swinging his tail and battering another supporting wall away. Entire city blocks had been ravaged by Godzilla as he angrily stalked the lurking Prometheus. The giant had retreated from Godzilla, keeping the buildings of the city between himself and the atomic juggernaut, appearing only at brief intervals to hurls boulders torn from the asphalt at Godzilla's scaly head.
Prometheus crouched behind a towering parking facility, its decks nearly devoid of cars. The monster had been instructed to keep Godzilla at a distance by his master, to avoid the reptile's claws and fangs until Heinrich von Frankenstein determined a way to kill the beast. But the directing voice of his master had become silent and Prometheus was growing eager to finish the fight. As Godzilla strode nearby, the giant corpse-hands of Prometheus reached into the superstructure of the garage and tore two massive steel support beams from their concrete housings.
The sound of the parking facility crumbling into debris caused Godzilla to spin around. Already, Prometheus was leaping from the cloud of dust. As the giant saw Godzilla turn, a snarl split his hideous face. Godzilla sent a stream of blue fire searing at the oncoming attacker. The blast caught Prometheus in the arm, scorching the limb from his patchwork body. The blackened mass of flesh spun into the air, crashing into a gas station some blocks away.
Then the monster was upon Godzilla. With a savage cry, the monster struck Godzilla with his remaining hand, stabbing the reptile in the shoulder with the long steel support beam. The metal sank into Godzilla's flesh, punching through the scales like a nail driven into leather. Godzilla bellowed in pain, tearing at the huge giant's chest with his claws, gouging deep wounds in Prometheus' flesh. The monster replied by bringing his knee smashing into Godzilla's ribs.
The two huge brutes grappled, struggling against one another, the patchwork graveyard horror and the primordial nuclear behemoth. At length, it was the atomic behemoth that gained the upper hand. Godzilla gripped Prometheus about the chest, crushing the monster to his body just as the Devil Fish had done to his own reptilian form. Stolen bones snapped and groaned under the pressure of Godzilla's grip and Prometheus struggled to escape the deadly embrace, snarling in wrath and desperation.
Godzilla leered down into the face of his captive, slowly opening his jaws. Golden light flashed from Godzilla's mouth, blasting into the face of Prometheus. The monster's head disappeared in the golden brilliance as the wave of destructive fire spewed forth from Godzilla's innards. For the better part of a minute, Godzilla let the deadly wave of nuclear power emerge from his body. The creature held in his arms grew slack, but still the stream of obliteration continued. At last, Godzilla closed his powerful jaws. From the body in his arms, there now came no sign of life, indeed, where the head of Prometheus had been there was now only a smoldering scar. Godzilla let the rest of the massive carcass fall to the street.
His wounds already beginning to heal, the monster king turned from the rubble of Sapporo. He paused for an instant on the edge of the bay, as though pondering whether to return, to reenter the ground he had fought so hard upon. A terrible roar echoed into the suburbs, causing those just emerging from their shelters to scatter back into their burrows.
But it was a cry of triumph and parting. Godzilla slowly sank beneath the cool waters, his powerful tail propelling him through the darkness. Godzilla had seen enough of Japan for today.