<I feel like I’ve asked you this before, but are you REALLY sure you want to do this?> Wriggle Nightbug, youngest child of Mothra, apprentice guardian of the Earth, and currently a giant, winged insect, asks her associate yet again. <You’re talking about the biggest, most dangerous thing the world has ever come up with! He...he makes Utsuho Reiuji look like a firecracker!>
“C’mooon, we gotta give it a shot!” Kanade Amou grins. In the freeing and lightweight outfit she currently has on, the redhead looks nothing like the famous idol who stands on the stage, having chosen to throw off a focus on that in order to pursue her current goal. Namely, solving the mysteries of kaiju bonding. “No pain, no gain, right? If we don’t try, we’ll never find out!”
<Alright, alright, I’m going!> Wriggle sighs, flapping her giant moth wings as they approached their first lead.
The exploration and research vessel Calico was getting on in years, having been sailing the seas in search of the superorganisms known as kaiju or titans for over a decade, even before the crew’s brief encounter with the Kobbers in Zoofights City, but her crew remained one of the most experienced authorities in kaiju research, thanks in no small part to the two kaiju they had formed a partnership with. Godzooky might have been deceased for years, but the crew was still sailing the seas for new kaiju. Not that anyone in the field was lacking research topics after a strange event in September of 2019 caused kaiju new and known to awaken. As the giant moth and her passenger approached, Kanade’s phone began to ring.
“This is Captain Carl Majors of the USS Calico. Would I be correct in assuming the giant moth approaching my ship is yours, Miss Amou?”
“Yep!” Kanade says, a cheerful lilt in her voice as she replies. “A friend of mine who knows her way around kaiju giving me a lift. After all, you guys are among the best in the business, right?”
“So they tell me!” Captain Majors chuckles. “If Mothra can hold position for a bit, I’ll send out a hovercraft to give you a ride over. Doctors Quinn and Brock are running an experiment and her wings make jostle something.”
As promised, a bright orange hovercraft braved the seas, jumping and jostling about the surface of the ocean to come to a stop beneath the gently hovering moth. Wriggle gently lifted a leg up to lower Kanade gently down to where a young blonde-hair man was waiting to help her in. Pete, once just a child who tagged along with the Calico and was now a strapping sailor in his own right, nodded and piloted the craft back to its mothership, where Captain Majors, streaks of grey now peppering his thick black hair and beard, welcomed the idol/archaeologist aboard.
“Welcome, Miss Amou. Will your friend be joining us? The seas are a bit cold, though maybe not for a titan.”
As she hops off the moth, Kanade looks around and takes in the ship - not just the hovercraft itself, but her eyes widen even more when she sees the impressive Calico firsthand. “Wow… good setup you’ve got here. How hard is it to avoid wrecking it?”
The question, though, causes her to cock her head. “...Y’know, I was too focused on getting here. I forgot to ask.” <Hey, Wriggle? You want on board?>
<I’ll be along in time, Kanade> Wriggle answers back. <I wish to speak to the local kaiju first. He may only be Gojira-san’s nephew, but he is still a Godzilla.>
As Mothra dives beneath the waves, Captain Majors whistles appreciatively.
“Good friend to have. With as much trouble as we’ve gotten into over the years, I’m amazed the Calico has gotten through in such good shape. There was that time in Atlantic, but...well...does it still count as destroyed if time travel kept it from happening?” the captain says, shrugging. “Our Godzilla’s gotten rather good at being careful with her though.”
“Honestly, learning there was more than one Godzilla is what surprised me the most.” Kanade comments. “It’s a name that you think would just be one guy, but there’s what, three or four?”
At the mention of time travel, though, Kanade raises an eyebrow. “That… sounds like it’d count. But that’s besides the point. So, how’s this going to work? Do we just cruise around, hope we bump into the right spot? Do we have a lead? All I’ve got is a pendant.”
“That’s how it normally works. We travel around and just happen to come across some unknown titan or lost civilization,” Captain Majors jokes. “But in this case, we have something better. Sometime about a year and a half ago, something made kaiju all over the world who had previously been dormant wake up. Most went right back to sleep, but their awakenings coincided with some large but brief spikes in radiation.”
The captain motions for Kanade to follow him deeper into the ship, past a couple of submersibles and a Jeep. The ship was small, but well supplied, most rooms being filled with all manner of scientific equipment. Captain Majors’ footsteps echoed through the metallic hallway until he entered a large room where two other people waited, a woman in severely-dated clothing and a muscular, dark-skinned man poring over a map.
“Miss Amou, this is Doctor Quinn Darian and Doctor Brock Borden. Quinn, Brock, this Kanade Amou. She’s out here looking for Gojira.”
The two scientists look at each other, then back at the captain, confused at how casual he made it sound.
“Gojira? Seriously?” Brock says, incredulous. “Just happen to be out here looking for the biggest, most infamous titan on the planet?”
“If this is your idea of getting into kaijuology, Kanade, then you certainly are an ambitious one,” Quinn adds. “Is she somehow related to the large signal we just picked up nearby heading for Godzilla?”
Captain Majors nods. “Her ride here. They’re friends, just like we are with Godzilla.”
Quinn nods, placated. “Never mind. She’s already off to a promising start.”
“...Huh. A year and a half ago…” Thinking back, Kanade ponders her time with the Kobbers. Perhaps they were related? They were very active in the part of 2019 this referred to, and there were all sorts of things they were up to… but she’d only watched them that year, barely participated. It’s not a question she can answer.
Shrugging it off, Kanade sweeps back her hair a bit as she meets the pair of scientists. “Heh, well, when you’re trying to get in touch with yourself… why not go for the top right away? Plus, I’ve been pointed in this direction by someone trustworthy.
So, yeah, I’m looking for a Godzilla. Or Gojira. Either works, really. Anything I should know before going in?”
Doctor Quinn pauses for a moment to think. “Whatever you think you know about Gojira is wrong. The titans - or kaiju - that the world knows as Godzilla are his descendents or distant family. The most famous Godzilla is 120 meters tall. The elder one, which we call Gojira after the original myths describing the creature, is bigger. How much bigger we don’t know because the one confirmed sighting in modern time is a radioactive wasteland on a remote island - Lagos Island - after a battle with another creature of some kind, which we suspect was even bigger. A group of Japanese soldiers saw Gojira leaving the island but found no trace of the other creature beside a possible blood sample that disappeared in the decades before any scientists could investigate.
Most of what we know - including that it exists at all - is because of cave paintings on Odo Island near Japan and footprints on Adona Island that match and verify the Lagos sighting. Gojira is massive and extremely radioactive, potentially severely aggressive, and we suspect it to be territorial as well.”
“Basically, it’s Godzilla except even bigger and crankier,” Brock adds.
Quinn nods and continues. “For better or worse, we believe the elder Gojira is in some kind of hibernation due to how rare even unconfirmed sightings of the creature are compared to its younger relatives. It emerged almost a hundred years ago to do battle with something intruding on its territory and returned to its slumber.”
“So assuming our hypothesis is true, we need only to find a big, dangerously-radioactive spot and we’ll presumably find the big guy,” Brock says, taking over. “Titan researchers across the globe have been looking into the radioactive spots from 2019. H.E.A.T. over in New York City, the Godzilla Prediction Network in Shinjuku, a mobile research team from Japan’s G-Force led by Doctor Kazushi Kagaku, and more have been investigating the Hot Spots.” He motions towards a large screen, bringing up a map with points all over the world appearing.
The boat rocks gently as a loud chirping echoes through the halls. Minutes later, Pete, the hovercraft pilot, knocks on the door.
“Aunt Quinn, Captain Majors, Mothra wants to know if she can come aboard the Calico,” Pete reports.
“She, um, might be a little too big to board,” Captain Majors answers.
For the first time, people see Kanade’s confident expression dissolve into a more concerned one. “...Well, damn. This whole time I was thinking in terms of the Godzilla I knew about. Tall, dark, and scaly was one thing, but if it’s super huge, radioactive, aggressive… hoooo boy.
Especially if we only know about him from this island.” Kanade scratches her head, the rooster-like mane of red hair flying back and forth as she does so. “...Well, that’s the whole point of this, right? Come face to face with whatever you’re looking for, no matter how damaged it is? If my uncle could do it, I could too.
Right! So. Anything I can do to help until you find it?”
“Well…” Captain Major starts, rubbing his chin. “We’re slated to investigate the last two sites. They’re fairly remote and small compared to the others, but we’ll happily loan you our minisub and some hazard suits. G-Force has been providing them to anyone assisting with the investigation and they’re rated very highly! You could be standing in a fresh Godzilla footprint for a year and not suffer much effect.”
“Godzilla’s,” Quinn notes.
“Right, right. These sites are remote and low in radiation, which is why they’ve been saved for last.”
A sneeze behind Kanade gets the idol/archaeologist to jump slightly as Wriggle enters the room.
“They’re not low in radiation, they’re low in the sea,” she states. “Gojira prefers solitude, isolation. He emerges only to battle the greatest of threats, content to spend his time slumbering.”
The two scientists glance at each other curiously, then at the young woman, dripping water on the floor with a towel wrapped around her shoulders..
“Who are you?” Brocks asks skeptically.
“To my kin, I am Scorpio of the Mothra Clan,” Wriggle answers, dropping the towel for a moment to spread her Mothra wings, reduced in size to fit in the room of course. “You may call me Wriggle though; it is the moniker I have chosen for this form.”
“Ah. Gotcha. How do you know this though? Is it secret Mothra news?” Quinn presses, nodding apologetically.
“I asked Godzilla,” Wriggle replies, matter-of-factly. “He has only met Gojira a handful of times, but he knows his uncle well enough to assist us.”
“So...so Godzilla could just LEAD us to Gojira?” Quinn asks, incredulous.
Wriggle shakes her head, wrapping the towel around herself again. “No, not even Gojira’s son or grandson knows where the legend himself dwells. Their kind lay their eggs on land and then return to the sea. Though the entire world is Gojira’s territory, he would not build a nest half a world away from where he would dwell.”
“Hmmm.” Kanade nods and thinks… and her eyes shoot open. “Wait, you went and met Godzilla, and you didn’t tell me? Dammit, I wanted to see him up close! ...Though depending on where he was, I guess I couldn’t have come along.
Anyhow, I’m down for this! I’ve got magitech armor, though from everything I’ve heard, that won’t help me much if Gojira decides he doesn’t like the way I look. Do we have a reason to go for one over the other, or is it just whichever’s closer?”
“Well, he’s resting on the island if you really want to…” Captain Majors says, shrugging.
“Well...hmm…” Wriggle rubs her chin and looks at the map, staring at the two sites intently. She leans forward, squinting. Closer, closer, yet closer! She suddenly stands straight up and turns to Kanade.
“I don’t know how to read this thing!” Wriggle states confidently. “Like, why is the blue over here darker than this blue? What are all these numbers for and why does it say N at the top?”
“...Oh.” Kanade bursts out laughing for a bit, before catching herself on the table and smiling. “Here, move over. I’m not very good with nautical maps but my dad made me learn how to read land maps years ago. Still remember everything!”
Eventually, the two of them comb over the map, with a little guidance from the Calico’s captain when needed, to determine its meaning. Direction, distance, and - most importantly - depth are discerned. With this assistance, Wriggle confidently pokes one part of the map.
“Of course, the Marianas Trench!” Doctor Quinn speaks up.
“Not just the Marianas Trench, but that’s Challenger Deep!” Brock adds. “Only one person has ever gone that deep on a dive before.”
“It’s the perfect place for a kaiju to hide then,” Quinn adds. “He must be even deeper than that though; we could barely detect the radiation.”
“And if we could barely detect it and it’s powerful enough for the Granddaddy of the Monsters…” Captain Majors turned. “I’ll call G-Force and get some better suits for you. One of our minisubs should be able to handle the depth, so go familiarize yourselves with the controls. Pete can give you a beginner’s course.”
“Right. From the stage to the bottom of the sea in a few months… it’s amazing where hanging out with the Kobbers takes you.” With a bright smile, Kanade stretches. “Can’t wait to tell Pitohui I went to the bottom of the world!”
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