Air… Air!

Lungs filling after having been denied the sustenance for so long greedily grabbed for the nourishment hesitant to let anything go causing slight hyperventilation. So the process repeated as the mind came to grips with the fact that it was not drowning as it had been previously.

Eyes darted around an unfamiliar chamber, not recognizing the location, which had previously been the bottom of Tokyo Bay. The only things that were familiar were those small creatures that had rightly fled before- only now they seemed much braver. Information from a source unknown came that they were humans and that their clothes marked them as part of the AMF of the JXSDF- catchy in the way that trying to say it aloud manages to twist your own tongue into knots.

In trying to swat the offending knat, he found he couldn't move. Arms, legs, chest, tail, most of his head- only his eyes it seemed were his own. And as reality sunk in details previously missed became obvious- like the fact that his snout was now apparently made out of a very reflective metal, though thankfully there was something protecting his eyes from the glare. His sense of orientation told him that he was upright and not on his back. Which was good, lying on the ground was a sign of helplessness- and despite any evidence that might be manufactured to the contrary, if there was one thing he wasn't it was helpless.

In the corner of his right eye he could make out the reflection of a metallic figure, standing roughly as tall as he was, seemingly at rest. Fear again entered a mind which had scarce known such a thing before. Please, no.

"Alright, let's start with the mechanics. Raise the right hand and ball it into a fist," one of the humans below called out. And his hand- again covered in metal- leapt to the task. His prayer had not been answered. The test continued and unseen to all, one who held claim to the title of "King of Kaiju" wept not knowing what had happened to him, lamented in frustration of being hostage in his own form, grieved for himself as he watched his own death as a free being- as his existence degraded into… this.

This… what is this? Covered in metal, his body flowing as if free, though he is not in command- this- does it have a name? What should I call it? Was this helplessness? No! He would not, could not ever be helpless. It was not in his nature. But then again, neither was this. Whatever this was.

This was something to overcome, a mighty challenge- but there would be a way. If not, he'd make one as he always had. Perhaps his escape lay at the source of the information? He searched himself for what had delivered it. It was long, but he had nothing if not time. There lay vast quantities of abstract concepts. Abilities that he should not have, backed with figures and designs that seemed everywhere and nowhere at once, ideas that he had never even thought to ponder, explained with numbers that had no true meaning to him. Interesting, impossible, actual, and frustrating at once- it was also his best chance.

And so he searched for explanations, and he came to a place where his mind could expand. Expand it did, though by no means a quick study- he was determined and had all the time in the world. Mathematics and Japanese were studied until The Tale of the Hieke he could recite unimpeded, unblemished from the Bells of Gion Shoja, to Mongaku's exile, though the Initiates Book. Calculus became putty that he could mold to his whims. Then he set his sights on the Sciences. From Physics he learned just how deadly he could be, as trajectories, forces, power and pressure combined to spell: pain, injury, and death. Chemistry explained the how behind the Absolute Zero Cannon, an impressive feat should they have correctly made it. Biology was perhaps the most enlightening in telling him what he used to be. He was of the species that humans called "Godzilla," originally "Gojira"- gorilla whale.

Ignoring the seemingly nonsense behind the name- he was very much a reptile, not in any way a mammal- It defined him as a kind of dinosaur, that had been mutated my nuclear radiation. Some quick extrapolations on how radiation can affect the body led to him quickly realized just how damn lucky he was- every mutation had about a one in a million chance of being beneficial to the organism, and that A-bomb had given him a lot of mutations. The chances that they would all even out to become beneficial- astronomical.

But that still didn't explain what had happened to him. So he looked elsewhere, History he found much harder than many of his other studies even though history shapes language, and the tales that the poets tell. There was perhaps the most information on what had happened, though the rest of his education allowed him to grasp more concepts than if he had gone to it first. What he found scared him. Fear, it seemed, was the price of knowledge. According to the humans, in 1954 CE he had made landfall on Japan, terrorized it, and had been killed by a device named the Oxygen Destroyer. No copy of the device existed, nor did the scientist ever make another. The man who built it had hid his work using fire and the device itself, dying with Godzilla to ensure that it might never be used again.

He was dead? But that couldn't be, he could still think, his heart still beat, how could he be dead? But his investigations had turned up that it was 2001 CE, and when he had started his investigations it had been 2000 CE- though he had not understood the meaning behind the numbers at the time. One does not simply not exist for 46 years, where had to be something else!

And that is when he found it, a status report on the MechaGodzilla Project. Dubbed Kiryu, the machine would be made using the bones and remaining DNA of the original Godzilla to boost the functionality and limit the crew. Kiryu was to be used to defend mankind from the Kaiju, who had been attacking intermittently since the 1950's, especially the new Godzilla which had appeared in 1999.

There it was. What they had done. Oh, they tried to hide it, saying that Kiryu was only quazi-organic; the muscle, neurons, and sinew to boost the response time and increase the fluidity of motion. They called Kiryu a mecha, but he knew the truth- just as they had to. Kiryu was no mecha; Kiryu was a Cyborg. And knowingly or not, it wasn't just the bones they had brought back; they had taken his essence, his mind and bound it to serve them.

He could see his entire future play out before him- like some deranged movie. Doomed to never see the sun, never feel the breeze, to never move- unless of course to go to battle. There he would be injured but victorious, for he could accept nothing less than victory, and limp back to this place where they would fix the shell and he could do was wait for the process to start again.

The fools, did they understand what they had done to him? Was his death not enough? Did they truly have to curse him with this kind of existence? Of solitude, of stillness, of darkness; to always have one and a half feet in the grave- only punctuated by moments of pain as he was attacked or as he attacked his own kin? How many crimes against him did they need to commit before they were satisfied? A hundred? A thousand? And once the tally had been reached, what remained for him? One last repair before being shipped off as a museum piece, to be eternally gawked and gaped at? As they extolled their crimes to their children? How they had forced him to go against his brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and children?

Surely, if there was any Justice in this world, the gods would allow something so meager as a vengeance against those who had done so much to him? They wanted a metal dragon? Fine. They wanted a protector? Fine. He would play along. He would try and keep them safe- but in exchange, they would never know peace. In victory he would only injure and send away his kin, never kill them, never maim them. May they always feel the threat of his species, and know that he was all that stood between them and annihilation so long as he was theirs. If they wanted a weapon of war against the Kaiju, then let them know only war! And let it be so that they always remembered- that behind all the metal, all their computers and implants- their protector was the same beast that was attacking. He was Kiryu, he was mad.

This part is a one-shot from before Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla. Basically from when Kiryu first came... online. To preempt certain questions, no they did not put humanity's entire history into Kiryu's computer banks. This all starts before they have Kiryu's OS loaded so he's hooked up to a bunch of computers which I assume have access to the internet. That is where he gets his "education." And while I say he's not a quick study, he does have at least one CPU boosting his mental abilities and he has no need for things like sleep, food, or other distractions like unforseeable life events, and as I said before he is driven, so yes he does become fluent in Japanese (which is the computer's default language- and what everyone around him is speaking, major boost), able to do Calculus,( which is logic based, so the computer again is a lot of help) have a deep grasp of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (of which his onboard CPU has many, many files- due to Kiryu being a weapons system) and History from at least the 1950's to the 2000's, his modern day- all in about two years.

Two: if this fic is canon then when Kiryu went berserk, it was not from Godzilla's cry, but because the pilot was imputting the code to unlock the Absolute Zero Cannon (which here is a misnomer and propaganda on the JXSDF's part- it doesn't actually hit 0 Kalvin). He didn't pull it again because he was a bit busy hacking the new brain, so they got the effect right but the cause wrong. Also he starts to mellow out later and actually starts to care about the humans, which is why Tokyo S.O.S. ends the way it does. Kiryu remembers his curse and to protect us invokes a clause he hadn't intentionally put in there- "so long as he was theirs." He puts himself somewhere that he is considered "lost," and thus not ours anymore. No curse. It is startlingly easy to pull that kind of shit off when you already know the outcome.

I'd like to do a multi-chap AU with Kiryu, but so far the only ideas for plot I've got are way to cliche. Like steal half of Godzilla Unleashed plot cliche.