Match 9

DESTOROYAH VS. SPACEGODZILLA: DEATH'S FAVORITES

The moonlit city of Hong Kong was about to become a battlefield. Usually such great cities hosted struggles between the giants who protect Earth and the giants who wish to destroy it. But not this time. On this particular night, two great evils would clash, one of this world and one from the stars.

This wouldn't be a battle to decide Earth's fate. It was a battle to decide Earth's executioner.

All at once, the numerous people walking the streets collapsed, violet energies crackling across their thrashing forms. Clothes dissolved and flesh melted away staining the concrete. In a single moment, hundreds of men, women, and children were skeletonized, dead in an instant. Given sufficient substance by the grim massacre, billions of microscopic killers gather, forming Death incarnate with roar of fire. From a blinding could of smoke, a living reaper emerged in the mist of the city. Emitting a chilling shriek of delight at all the lives it had stolen, Destoroyah announced its sinister presence. Soulless eyes glowering with hate for the world in general, the Precambrian horror slashed a purple ray of micro-oxygen across the black skyline, announcing the beginning of its reign of terror.

It was a reign that wouldn't go unopposed.

Destoroyah's shrieking ceased when another cackle answered its own. Descending from the silver clouds, a saurian demon appeared. Crystalline form shimmering with cosmic power, SpaceGodzilla, black child of the black hole, eyed his newfound competition with undisguised contempt. The bizarre mirror image of Godzilla hovered downward to float loftily above Destoroyah, as if suggesting the order of things, a mix of humor and deadly seriousness lurking beneath his glowing eyes. Two yellow, inhuman eyes cut through the cool night air, flaring with fury at the mocking screech SpaceGodzilla spat. Destoroyah's twin pair of wings rose, the collective lifeform flexing its claws. It would enjoy mutilating this pompous thing's remains. SpaceGodzilla simply smirked at this motion. There was no doubt in the clone's mind who was going to win. It was just a matter of how long he decided to draw the fight out.

And so began the duel between the two greatest enemies of life on Earth.

With one great sweep of its satanic wings, Destoroyah took to the air, unleashing a hellish scream. SpaceGodzilla let loose his own cry and fired a Corona Beam from his tusked maw. The sinuous spear of cosmic might cut a looping path into the dark skyline before harpooning itself into Destoroyah's blood red carapace. SpaceGodzilla was shocked to see the mutated super-colony simply shrug off the attack with an irritated hiss and continue to barrel at him. Using the green tongues of telekinetic energy seeping from his shoulder crystals, the space saurian willed himself to twist around Destoroyah as the beast made a vicious swipe at him with its claws. SpaceGodzilla- now directly behind his adversary- gave a mocking bellow and fired a Corona Beam pointblank into Destoroyah's neck. The potent projectile struck home with a small geyser of yellow blood. Destoroyah threw back its head with a howl of pain, much to SpaceGodzilla's delight. But the sadistic beast's smirk soon became an open-mouthed gape when the crescent-shaped claw that tipped Destoroyah's segmented tail gripped his throat. With a shriek, the Precambrian predator dove, SpaceGodzilla in tow, his telekinesis easily broken. As the two dealers of death approached the ground, Destoroyah pulled up sharply and released SpaceGodzilla. The crystalline reptile slammed into the city street below with a distressed screech.

As the cosmic juggernaut rose to his feet, a micro-oxygen ray exploded against his hide. The lavender beam burned dully, but SpaceGodzilla was otherwise unharmed, his super regenerative ability already nearly done knitting the damage back together. Against most other creatures, the micro-oxygen would eat away at flesh, but being a creature from the black void of space, SpaceGodzilla was unaffected. Luminous eyes narrowed in fury, the cosmic clone watched as Destoroyah circled overhead. The towering invertebrate fired another micro-oxygen ray. SpaceGodzilla quickly summoned a crystal barrier with a hot breathe of anger. The violet beam bounced harmlessly off the shield. Snarling, Destoroyah banked and angled itself downward, soaring straight towards SpaceGodzilla. The space leviathan's eyes widened in surprise as Destoroyah swooped lower and lower, gaining speed. Standing strong and vocalizing his defiance with a horse roar, SpaceGodzilla launched a barrage of Corona Beams, the erratic streaks of energy all spinning and twirling towards the charging form of Destoroyah. The cosmic projectiles punctured the super-colony's armored body with a chorus of wet squeals, showering the city with yellow blood. But the demonic creature kept coming, bringing both his clawed feet forward and smashing them into SpaceGodzilla's chest. Wailing in agony, the dark clone stumbled back, feeling crystal bones snap under the devastating blow. The crystalline terror was suddenly bowled over by one savage strike from Destoroyah's claws. Toppling into a skyscraper, SpaceGodzilla collapsed, the human structure crumbling under his great girth.

For the first time in his horrid life, SpaceGodzilla felt helpless. Never before had the deep space demon meet a beast of such brutality and endurance!

An unquenchable rage boiling in his chest, SpaceGodzilla lashed out with his tail, its sharp tip piercing Destoroyah's breast and plunging deep into its chest cavity. The Precambrian powerhouse fell back with a of yellow blood from its fierce jaws. Swiftly rising to his feet with the help of his telekinesis, SpaceGodzilla fired a volley of Corona Beams. Yellow lifeblood sprayed into the air as Destoroyah's carapace was fileted, laid open by cosmic destruction, and its wings shredded. SpaceGodzilla cackled as he was speckled by his foe's blood. Gurgling on his own blood, Destoroyah grabbed the space saurian's tail, which was still buried in its chest. Cranial horn bursting to life with cutting energies, the collective giant swung its head down, cleaving SpaceGodzilla's tail in half. The crystalline tyrant gave a pained screeched as his dark blood stained the street. Leaping up with a bet of its ragged wings, Destoroyah slashed at SpaceGodzilla with its horn, still buzzing with power. The crimson energy blade sliced a shoulder crystal in half and left a long, cauterized laceration across the clone's chest. With one of his major energy conductors gone and his regeneration filing to heal the wounds caused by Destoroyah's laser horn, SpaceGodzilla was beginning to panic. Unleashing a swarm of Corona Beams, the crystalline goliath forced Destoroyah back. Rising into the night sky, SpaceGodzilla used almost all his remaining energy to erect a crystal forest. Lifting the translucent structures into the air like a league of lien missiles, the space saurian willed the crystals to surround Destoroyah from all angles. The super-colony hissed suspiciously and shrieked at the army of now inanimate objects.

SpaceGodzilla grinned triumphantly.

The crystals raced forward like javelins. The bulky projectiles punched through Destroyah's carapace like paper, yellow blood exploding out from the demonic creature. SpaceGodzilla cackled as the collective being was reduced to a mangled heap of red armor and yellow innards. With a burst of white vapor, Destoroyah was gone.

Floating to back to the ground, SpaceGodzilla bellowed in victory. He had won!

Or had he?

Amassing behind the gloating clone, what remained of a once almost endless population of microscopic creatures gathered, forming a beaten and scrawny- but still living- Destoroyah. With its yellow eyes smoldering with hate and its mouth pulled into a terrible grimace, the floral pattern of the Precambrian best's opened. The churning energies within Destoroyah's core hummed ominously, alerting SpaceGodzilla that the battle wasn't done yet. As the cosmic horror wiped around, Destoroyah unleashed its ultimate weapon-

The Wave-Motion Ray.

A column of orange power exploded from Destoroyah's chest. The roaring beam struck SpaceGodzilla with a tremendous boom, driving straight through the crystalline giant's body and emerging from his back. The beam kept going, destroying countless buildings as it thunder through the city. The devastating ray finally stopped, leaving a seemingly endless, solid path of destruction in front of Destoroyah- a path that vaporized SpaceGodzilla black heart. The dark shadow of Godzilla shuddered once, and then dissolved, dissipating into millions of particle that drifted lazily into the sky, bound for space. As the last of these strangely beautiful beads of light disappeared into the clouds, Destoroyah gave a single shriek, as if to claim the battle as its victory. The Earth was ow its and its alone to destroy.

But there were always those who wanted to protect it.

An unearthly roar answered Destoroyah's cackle. Marching all the way from monster island, Godzilla, King of the Monsters himself, appeared. The nuclear saurian was a truly majestic sight, as breathtaking as Destoroyah was horrifying. Godzilla was in many ways the opposite of his "son", SpaceGodzilla. But there was one definite trait they shared- both were extremely powerful. Lips curled in challenge, the atomic behemoth took a battle-ready pose.

Eyes burning with the desire to kill once again, Destoroyah did the same.