Kinjya: The New Titan

Chapter 2: Fear Becomes Reality

Months passed after Godzilla's strange thought first entered his head, and things seemed to be going peacefully on Earth despite this thought. Rodan still slept in a decent amount, but nothing to concern his fellow titans. Occasionally, some of the other kaijus stopped by to say hello to the king and queen of the monsters. The ones who visited the most frequently were aquatic kaijus like Leviathan or Tiamat, as some of the titans were still roaming the planet to keep its ecosystem in perfect order. Godzilla appreciated the dedication his followers were showing to keep Earth in a healthy state. Finally, after so many years, all the giant beasts of the planet were working together. But as time continued to go on, the thought of another alpha predator being among them kept lingering in the massive reptile's mind. However, since the other titans had been comforting him about the dreadful idea, he had all but learned to live with it. 

Since the island was tropical, it almost never snowed there. However, during the winter season, intense rains were usually thrown at the island. Mothra and Barb would usually hide from the heavy rains as they, for some unknown reason, did not like the rain. Godzilla did not mind it, as it gave him a nice cooldown when it was hot out. Rodan, however, despised the rain with his heart and soul. Being a volcanic titan, the rain often threatened to turn his shell to hard, stiff stone. This would heavily limit his movements, resulting in him having to take shelter in a nearby cave close to the lava lake. This protected his hard shell, but often caused his shell to cool off slowly. Though the rain never lasted long enough to make him completely go cold. 

After the winter had passed, it was now spring. On one particular morning, Godzilla woke up to a strange sight. Even though the sun had risen above the ocean's surface, there was a strange red haze sitting on top of the ocean on the horizon. He stared closely at the red haze, then his eyes widened when he realized what that meant. "I knew that thought in my head meant something...", he thought to himself, now overly concerned and worried about what could be going on. Rodan crawled out from his cave by the lava pit and flew to where Godzilla sat, but he didn't seem to have his usual upbeat and cheerful face. Instead, his face was one of nervousness and fear, and Godzilla was quick to notice this change in his titan companion. He gave a concerned face and asked in the calmest voice he could possibly use at the moment, "Something wrong, Rodan? You look distraught." Rodan turned to face his alpha, still with the same scared face and answered in a nervous tone, "I feel like something bad is about to go down.." Godzilla turned back to the red haze, watching it as it glowed in the distance. 

Barb soon arrived at the shore, sharing the same expression Rodan had. It was clear that this was affecting more than just Godzilla, and the thought of another alpha kaiju came flying back into his mind at full force. He took on a fearful expression when it did, realizing that he would indeed have to fight again, if this unknown beast was even looking for a fight. However, given the behavior of the others and the red horizon, he was almost sure that it was. The big reptilian titan nearly dropped to the ground in pure stress and frustration, causing Rodan and Barb to look at him with worried faces that would raise concern with anybody, before they exchanged a look with each other out of pure empathy for their alpha kaiju. "I'll get Mothra to come down here, you stay here and try to keep Godzilla calm as long as you can", Barb said as her face changed from scared to serious. Rodan gave a nod, and Barb ran off to the mountain, leaving Rodan and Godzilla alone on the shore as the former tried to comfort the latter. Barb returned shortly after with Mothra, and the two attempted to calm Godzilla down.

"How about I fly around the world to check the others? If they're experiencing the same behavior, then something's definitely not right", Rodan volunteered. Mothra gave him permission, and Rodan promptly took off across the ocean to check the other titans while Mothra and Barb stayed behind to keep Godzilla stable. As Rodan broke the sound barrier to check every titan on the planet, he located Behemoth, Methuselah, Abaddon, Leviathan and Bunyip in their hibernation areas. All of them were 100% not hibernating though, as they all had the same expressions on their face: A look of fear and nervousness. But one kaiju had a different expression, a look of pure terror. And that was Mokele-Mbembe, who was cowering in his cave located in the Congolese jungle. "Mbembe? Why are you hiding down there?", Rodan asked the sauropod-like titan upon peering into the cave. Mokele-Mbembe instantly looked up to face him, and responded in a truly terrified tone that an unknown titan had attacked his cave a few days prior, causing the roof to partially collapse, to which Rodan located a hole in the ground right above Mbembe's cave. After checking the rest of the titans, Rodan returned to Monster Island and reported his findings to Mothra, Barb and Godzilla. Upon hearing that a creature had attacked Mokele-Mbembe, Godzilla's face became a mix of terror and anger. Evidently, this kaiju was not friendly by any means, and attacking one of his titans was next level. "Did Mbembe say what the kaiju looked like?", Godzilla asked Rodan with a very serious tone. "No, he didn't get a good enough look at the titan to make out any distinguishable features, I'm afraid", Rodan responded with a nervous tone in his speech. Even though they didn't know what this titan looked like, it sounded like it was powerful enough to be a major threat to the natural order if it could destroy a cave like that and the fact that it had the nerve to attack another titan.

Soon after Rodan's inspection of the other titans, Godzilla made a decision that they would have to go out and locate this kaiju. Godzilla would patrol the oceans for it, Barb would search on land, and Mothra and Rodan would survey the skies for any strange activity. At first, nobody could find anything to help track down the mystery titan, but they kept searching the world to possibly find even the slightest clue. Baphomet, Abaddon, Leviathan and Tiamat even pitched in to help try to find any sort of clue that would hint to its whereabouts. The search went on for quite some time, even stretching a few days. But still, nothing had been found regarding the mysterious unknown monster.

However, 5 days after the search began, it would be Barb to find a big clue, and something even bigger. After landing on the shore of Brazil, the giant parasite made her way along the coast to see if she could find anything. After surveying the coastline for hours on end, she finally discovered something major. A set of footprints was leading out of the dense Amazon forest, with a whole swath of trees being cleared out for miles across the landscape all the way to the ocean. The footprints were large enough to give even Godzilla a run for his money, being almost as big as the king's feet. "Whatever this thing is, it seems to be VERY terrestrial. And these footprints are a big concern", Barb thought to herself while looking at the massive footprints in the sand and dirt. Some trees that were knocked over had been completely crushed to splinters, signifying a massive creature, maybe bigger than Godzilla himself. "This thing is definitely an apex predator for sure", Barb muttered to herself under her breath. She decided to find Godzilla and report her findings to the king, but as she was turning to leave she noticed something that made her titan blood run cold. There, out in the ocean about a mile or two, was a set of spines similar to Godzilla's in appearance swimming out to the open sea, along with an EXTREMELY long tail that would make all of the aquatic titans jealous. Whatever the beast was, it seemed to have pitch black fur and dark red highlights. Barb watched as the spines and tail slowly disappeared from the surface, with a visibly scared expression on her face. "I need to report this to Godzilla, this thing looks dangerous", she mumbled to herself before turning away and running off to find Godzilla.