Unlike me, Endo seems to be taking great pleasure in the destruction, laughing lightly, an open mouthed smile frozen on his face. When the Kaiju reach the rotunda and lay into it with their giant claws, the dome exploding like a crushed egg, Endo turns to me. “It’s like Godzilla versus King Kong.”
A vague memory of a childhood movie returns. Godzilla on one side of a tall Japanese building. King Kong on the other. The monsters smashing through the building to get at each other. Endo is right. It’s like the monsters are doing an homage.
Endo holds a small pair of binoculars out to me. “So you can see.”
I’m not sure I want to see this any closer than I can right now, but I take the lenses and put them to my eyes just in time to witness the end of an iconic American building of untold historical and financial value.
With a swipe of Nemesis’s mighty arm, the Capitol Building ceases to exist. In her fervor to reach Scylla, Nemesis has left herself open to attack. While Nemesis is overextended, the hammerhead monster lunges forward. Its lower jaw drops open, revealing those horrible teeth—the longest and sharpest on any of the Kaiju. The massive jaws wrap around Nemesis’s forearm, and compress.
There is resistance for a moment, but the blade-like teeth slowly slip through the thick flesh. Nemesis doesn’t react at first, and I think the Kaiju must not have pain sensors in their armor or skin. But once the teeth are a few feet in, Nemesis throws her head back and roars in pain.
She flinches back, lifting her arm and dragging Scylla through the Capitol Building’s remains. Scylla holds on, latched in place, while Nemesis shakes her arm back and forth, reacting to the pain without thought.
The teeth sink deeper. Nemesis’s roar becomes high-pitched. Something stirs within me. All of my fear and trepidation is forgotten. I stand and shake my fist at Nemesis. “Fight back!”
Endo glances at me. He doesn’t say anything, but I can see he’s pleased by my outburst.
I grip the side wall around the top of the White House roof as Scylla begins shaking its head, thrashing back and forth. Red blood flows from Nemesis’s arm, dripping on the Capitol ruins.
Slowly, Nemesis lifts her arm, higher and higher until Scylla is lifted off the ground. The display of strength is impressive to say the least, but Scylla hardly notices. It just clings to the arm like a dog to a dangling rope, wiggling back and forth. I think it might even be growling. When Nemesis levels a brown-eyed stare at Scylla, the Kaiju finally stops moving.
There’s a shift that takes place, and it has nothing to do with physical violence—yet. Scylla’s body language changes slightly, like it knows it’s severely fucked, but can’t back out.
A distant roar, deep and powerful, announces the approach of Karkinos. Typhon isn’t far behind. I can see them just over the horizon, rising up over the city, just a few miles off, but approaching quickly. There isn’t a lot of time before this becomes a three-on-one fight, and while Scylla is still fifty feet shorter than Nemesis, the other two look to be her match.
A sneer forms on the sides of Nemesis’s mouth, revealing sharp teeth. She’s moving past the pain and into the mindset in which she feels most at home: rage.
Nemesis unleashes a roar the likes of which I’ve never heard out of her, drool spraying from her mouth. She lifts Scylla higher and then yanks her arm down. Scylla’s body swings out and then drops. As the Kaiju’s giant body swings back toward Nemesis, she kicks out with one of her massive feet. Scylla’s body folds around the foot as it drives into the monster’s gut and forces the air from its lungs in a gargling scream. The impact forces Scylla’s jaws open. The teeth slip free with geysers of blood. And then Scylla is airborne, punted over the ruins of the Capitol.
The hammerheaded Kaiju lands across buildings, which absorb its fall like a memory foam cushion, except that when the giant stands and shakes off the attack, the buildings remain squashed.
Ignoring the approaching Kaiju, Nemesis leans forward and roars again, but she doesn’t move. She’s instigating her adversary. Scylla takes the bait, thundering toward Nemesis, mouth agape.