On her chest.
At first, the poking of its talons into her skin was a mere itch, but now she felt the thing. Really felt it, the way she felt most life, by detecting the lightness or darkness of its soul. In this case, the creature scurrying up her chest, both familiar and unknown, exploded with darkness. Not only that, it bore a resemblance to Nemesis herself. She recognized the traits that came from her, and for a moment, she felt a kinship, the way a mother might feel for her spawn. But then she remembered. This is what she’d seen upon waking. What she had struck away. This is the creature that had stolen from her. Had violated her.
And it was poised to strike.
Nemesis knew what would happen if the creature pierced the membrane on her chest. The creature would cease to exist in a fiery explosion. Had the creature been a bigger threat, she might have been inclined to let the thing have its way. But such an attack was reserved for far graver threats.
Moving with surprising speed, Nemesis brought a single claw up to scrape the creature away. The small thing didn’t strike, but Nemesis didn’t hit it, either. The creature leapt away, wrapped its long tail around Nemesis’s wrist and then swung onto her forearm, where it did strike.
Three times.
21
My relief at Nemesis taking action against the Tsuchi is short lived. The creature, while much smaller than Nemesis, is agile and lightning fast. I flinch when it leaps away, wraps its tail around the Kaiju’s arm and swings onto her wrist. “Oh, crap,” I say, when I see the thing’s tail jab Nemesis’s wrist three times.
Nemesis backhands her arm into what remains of the GOD building, and it comes away free of the Tsuchi, but the damage has already been done. The skin on Nemesis’s wrist bulges and then splits.
The massive Kaiju roars in pain, sending shockwaves through the air. The chopper shakes, but we’re far enough away now to not be in any real danger.
“Woodstock, hold us here,” I say, and the helicopter levels out to a smooth hover, the rotor blades almost silent in the regal interior. “Collins, get on Devine.” The Digital Vanguard Intelligence Network, designed to help us coordinate a response to Kaiju threats across all emergency channels, including the military, has been unused for the past year. “I want airstrikes on the—”
Two F-22s roar past. I’m about to ask how they got here so fast, and then I remember that we’re technically still on an Air Force base. The two jets, America’s most advanced 5th generation fighters, unload their full payloads. Between the two fighters, twenty-four missiles streak through the air.
My body tenses for a moment, as the white smoke trails seem to point toward Nemesis’s chest, but the missiles angle upwards, locked onto Nemesis’s head. While there is no threat of detonating one of Nemesis’s membranes, they’ve just guaranteed she’s going to be really pissed off, and with a city of 43,000 people within stomping distance, that seems like a really bad idea.
The missiles strike Nemesis in the side of her face, pitching her sideways as the cracking bulge on her wrist ruptures with bright red gore. She roars, sounding more angry than hurt.
Part of me wonders if the combination of modern military mixed with the Tsuchi assault might be enough to take Nemesis down for good, but I know that’s the wrong call. Small Tsuchi are a threat to the whole planet. I hate to think about what an army of giant Tsuchi could do.
I turn to Collins. “Tell them to target the Tsuchi! Not Nemesis!”
Collins has her smartphone to her ear. “They’re not going to know what Tsuchi are.”
“The spiders!” I shout, remembering their more descriptive name. “The big fucking spiders!” I see Alessi, sitting beside Collins, but looking past me, out the window, widen her eyes.
I turn back to the action in time to see Nemesis twist and arch her back in pain. But it’s not from the missiles. The smoke from those twelve strikes rolls away from her face, revealing no damage at all. The old girl is as tough as ever...if you ignore her wrist. As she bends back, Nemesis lifts the offending wrist up, letting out a sharp wail as her flesh bursts from the inside out.
Three new Tsuchi, smaller than the one that implanted them, tear out of the arm, twitching and shaking gore away from their bodies. Like the first, they’re much bigger than a normal Tsuchi, and even from this distance, I can see they share some attributes with Nemesis. These aren’t the spindly, turtle-shelled monsters I fought in Oregon. These are Nemesis-Tsuchi, having borrowed some of their DNA from the Kaiju.