“Current kaiju forecasts call for Welbaru to rampage south-southeast this evening,” smiles Quentin into the camera, before Welbaru rampages north, directly through their studio. When the rain of cinders has slacked off, they struggle choking into suspended rubble-dust.
“Listen,” says producer Rayanne, “I think we can spin this so he actually went south after all.”
“South is relative,” nods Quentin.
“North!” snorts Rayanne. “Who needs north? North is what they’d like you to believe.”
Then they do a headcount and hardly anybody’s dead except the staff kaijologist, whom they were going to kill for this anyway! Oh, too soon.
Mechnozoid’s been sitting very still in Kaijuville Square for about three years.
“We still have to do this?” says Orville. ”He’s gotta be asleep by now.”
“We can’t take that chance,” says Ping. ”Any hint of a threat could reactivate him. Do you want your selfishness to kill everyone in this city?”
Orville does not, so they stride out naked into the brisk bustle of a downtown day. They’re not the only ones, but kids point and laugh anyway. Orville tries to cover himself; Ping slaps him.
Mechnozoid rusts, the “UBIQUE LIBERTAS” plaque in his cockpit slowly bleaching in the sun.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Murdron and Garmegula are pushing down buildings to see how many other buildings they can topple, domino-style. Concrete breaks loose from twisted rebar; a tiny clang echoes from Murdron’s foot down what remains of the street.
Klaxons klax from Murdron’s klaxula. “Our lifestyle is under attack!” he thunders, deploying laserbursts to rake the rubblescape. Garmegula stomps through three hospitals and the Humane Society. Norbert, struggling for breath through a crushed ventilator, throws a picture of his late family at Garmegula’s tail.
Tink, goes the picture.
“I KNEW IT,” shrieks Garmegula in righteous triumph, and douses a daycare with radioactive pee.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
“I think he’s either the figurative judgment of a vengeful Gaia for our abuse of the planet,” says Kelvin, “or the figurative judgment of a vengeful God for not abusing the planet enough.”
“I think he just hates buildings,” says Lindy.
“Maybe that’s it!” says Kelvin. “He’s angry about undocumented construction crews. So if we can just deport enough of them–”
Lindy’s leery. “You think that’s the place to attack this problem?”
“No construction, no buildings.” Kelvin is drafting the new city plan with vim. “No buildings, no kaiju! Solved!”
Later on it turns out Garmegula also likes destroying makeshift huts.
Garmegula roars and stomps around the industrial park, leaving twenty-foot prints in the concrete, which makes it difficult for Jebediah to finish his PowerPoint.
“The red line, of course, tracks gross revenue over six months, and the blue area would cover expenditures.”
“KREEE,” Garmegula bellows.
“Now, that’s not a great-looking graph!” says Jebediah, who was up until 3 am trying to make it look less terrible.
“GREEAGGH,” says Garmegula.
“But th-things look good to roll out the second wave of action figures in December, and the interactive DVD is–”
“WE ARE WAY BELOW PROJECTIONS FOR Q3,” says Garmegula.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Murdron and Garmegula have been battling so much lately that people are starting to talk.
“Do you even remember the last time Murdron threw down with Welbaru?” says Gerania, eyebrows high.
“No…”
“February! I checked!”
“You really think something’s going on?” says Hebron, as they duck and cover from a blast of napalm breath.
“I don’t know how they expect to stay off TMZ.”
Garmegula and Murdron are engaged in a long, staggering clinch; Garmegula’s dorsal blades shred the bank tower. There’s a lot of subsonic grunting.
Watching from the volcano a mile away, Akikai weeps. It’s probably just the fumes.
Mechnozoid’s copy of Apache is configured all weird and it would probably be hard to upgrade to 2.2.11 even if it weren’t actively battling Murdron at the moment. Edderly wishes like hell he could just figure out which kaiju kernel it’s running.
“Try apt-getting again,” he yells across the machine-crowded command deck to Felix.
“I don’t think that works if the hosts file is EAAAGH,” says Felix, as Murdron’s energy sword peels through titanium armor to obliterate his torso.
Hi, Edderly types into a new forum post, I don’t know if any of you have encountered this problem before.
The Ufonian craft hums right into the base, stops and hovers, and dumps its latest load of abductees down a beam of light into the hopper on Mechnozoid’s head. As it fills with hapless fleshlings, its eyes begin to glow; before long it’s grinding its way out of the cavern to shoot lasers at Garmegula. Again.
Delmar and Croesus are two of the first to finish tumbling through its works and wind up, greasy and shaken, on the ground behind it.
“Was that Mechnozoid?” says Delmar, ginger with bruises. “I hate being used to power Mechnozoid!”
“It’s a job,” shrugs Croesus.
