Kyoto Nightmares

As his son was cheering one of his best friends on in San Francisco, Hakama was getting ready to sleep after pouring through some of the documents he had been given. He scanned a few, and transferred some of the electronic files to the research team back at the home office, and bedded down for the night.

He had been asleep for about two hours when blaring alarms woke him.

In English, Japanese and at least two other languages that he recognized as distinct but did not know well enough to identify, a voice broadcast: “This is not a drill - all non-military are to report to designated shelters. Kaiju have been sited. All military personnel report to your assigned duty locations. Repeat: this is not a drill!”

He threw a bathrobe over his sleeping clothes and joined the group of hotel guests and staff heading to the heavily reinforced lower levels.

He picked up some of the chatter:

“Sounds like a flight of Blastcrows,” one person said.

“I hear they have some new commanders, maybe one of them is making a show of force?”

“Did you hear what happened in America?”

“I hear they called out that Ultimate Warrior clone and he failed to show up!”

“Not a call out, he was told to join them or die!”

Sato just shook his head and sent a text back to the office for more information.

A man beside him had a cell phone out and was trying to talk into it while keeping up with the crowd heading down - he was speaking in English so stood out to Hakama: “Yeah, honey, I’m sure it's nothing. They have some specialized weapons here. I swear I’ll be there tomorrow. Yeah, I love you too.” He noticed Hakama looking at him as he hung up. “Getting married in Hawaii in two days,” he said with a shrug.

“Ah, American? Me too,” Sato said, smiling. “I’m sure you're right, and it's nothing. Congratulations!”

The man smiled and was about to say something more when the group suddenly stopped - a floor above the secure levels, there was a large window, and several people had clustered around it to gawk.

“Are those the new Raptors?” a voice said.

“Escorting Skylances - look, Blastcrows!”

“Oh, this should be good!”

Satto's reporter instincts made him push through the crowd and he saw a group of the familiar small fighter craft, but they were accompanied by two larger airships that looked red in the night sky. Weapons bristled on the hulls of these larger ships, yet they seemed to be maneuvering better even than the Skylances that flew around them. One of them fired a volley of rockets at a Blastcrow, and the monster exploded!

Another Blastcrow was taken down by a beam weapon from a building nearby - but then the monsters began their assault. There were eight Skylances and two of the larger Raptors against nearly two dozen of the massive “lightning birds” and two Skylances went down during the initial assault, one to a direct lightning blast and another to being overwhelmed by three Blastcrows.

Then one of the Raptors shifted from flight mode to battle mode - it was a massive humanoid robot, with even more weapons visible than before.

“I heard they have a crew of ten,” someone said nearby. Hakama logged that in his memory. He was busy taking quick pictures with his phone, and was one of the first to see something else - approaching the battlefield very quickly was a massive figure he could not make out at this distance. He could barely make out a roughly humanoid outline, but it had massive horns on its head and seemed to have three amber eyes that glowed in the night sky.

Someone beside him saw Hakama trying to enlarge the picture he had just taken on his phone, and gasped.

“You know this thing?” Hakama asked and then repeated the question in halting Japanese.

The man just looked at him, terrified, then looked out the window, and, both awe and horror in his voice, said “Diarnagon.”

Hakama had heard the name once before, in a report from an affiliate company - two small coastal cities had been wiped out by one of these things before experimental weapons were brought to bear and took it down. They were humanoid kaiju, apparently smart, heavily armored and able to expel jets of intense fire.

It moved between searchlights and Hakama could see some of its form - the body was either red or brown in color, with a lighter colored belly. It's face seemed to be in a constant state of amusement, with a broad, tooth-filled mouth twisted into a perpetual rictus. Its ears made Hakama think of an elephant, but that was the only similarity it had to the massive mammals. From its forehead, it had antlers that reminded him of a male deer, a buck, he recalled.

Then he saw the thing pull back and expel a jet of fire from that eternal grin - the blast destroyed two Blastcrows and the three Skylances they were fighting!

“We need to get down to the shelter level!” A voice from behind called out.

Reluctantly, Sato shouted: “That is right - as fascinating as this fight is, we have a duty to reach shelter for our friends and family out there!”

Several voices - most reluctantly - repeated his statement or translated it into other languages, and again the group began moving, a bit more slowly as many still wished to watch, but most realized the danger of that impulse and the entire group was soon in the heavily reinforced lower levels of the hotel.

In the shelter area, several large televisions had been set up. Some showed local news coverage, but most were broadcasting images from several social media reports, as those seemed faster than the news channels, and often lacked ongoing commentary.

By this time, most of the Skylances and Blastcrows were gone, either dead or fled from extensive damage.

The Raptor that had shifted to battle mode had lost an arm at this point but was holding its own against the fire-breathing horror. The other was darting around the battlefield, picking off the few remaining Blastcrows while gaining altitude.

In Battle Mode, the Raptor was almost as large as its foe and was struggling to keep it busy. The kaiju showed signs of injury, but did not seem to be slowing down at all.

Suddenly a strange, high pitched mechanical whine filled the area, as the other Raptor came screaming down at an insane speed, firing what weapons it could at the Diarnagon.

Hakama thought he saw several small pods burst from the sides of the plane before it suddenly ripped into the chest of the giant monster, tearing it apart and causing globs of burning tissue to be strewn across the area.

The other Raptor suddenly began shooting some kind of foam from its remaining arm, and the fires began vanishing as the foam hit them.

The Diarnagon remained standing for several seconds before collapsing to the ground.

One of the televisions had a commentator speaking in Japanese; if Hakama was translating correctly, there had been fifteen Skylances, two Raptor class super-heavy fighters, and a few ground forces involved defending the city, while a full score of Blastcrows backed by the Diarnagon had attacked. Most of the ground troops and one Raptor survived, along with all of the crew of the other Raptor except the pilot, who’s suicidal dive had brought down the monster.

It was fifteen minutes before the national defense ministry gave the 'all clear'. While waiting, Nick found the anxious groom from before and said: “See? I knew we’d be okay!”

“Yeah, let's just hope our rooms are too,” the man replied with a smile. “Jay Davis,” he added, offering his hand to Hakama.

“Sato,” he said, accepting the offered hand. “Sato Hakama. You should probably call your fiancé and let her know you’re safe.”

“Him. My fiancé is a man. Oh, wait you’re not THE Hakama Sato, the one who…”

“Named the kaiju, yeah,” Hakama replied.

“Then you’re from where that ‘Protector’ has been sighted?” Jay asked, excited.

“Yeah, I even got to see him take down Lord Kao,” Hakama replied.

“Wow, that’s cool! Man, Dave will just lose his... ah, he’s a big fan of yours. Really. Uh… could I get an autograph?”

***

After fielding questions about the Protector and his various experiences reporting on the kaiju, Hakama finally got back to his room - one wall had been damaged but not broken during the fight outside. He knew he was too wired from the experience to sleep, so started looking over the electronic files again. This time, in one of the folders, he noticed what appeared to be a corrupted video file and sent it to a friend in the IT department to try and fix.

Other than that, all he found was support for stuff he had unearthed previously and an odd study that offered no explanations but listed three “areas of interest” - one just off the Australian coast, one in the Arctic Circle near Iceland, and the other just north of the Philippine Islands. It referenced a few other documents, but none of them seemed to be in the area.

After about an hour, he was finally ready to go to bed when he got an email ‘ding’. The tech he sent the file to had replied already: “If this is a trailer for a movie, I want the title and release date. If this is real, mention me when you get the Pulitzer. Was not corrupt, just a file type so old I had to track down an obsolete system to open. Was easy to convert but may have degraded quality. That’s old tech for ya. Enjoy.”

Sato sent back a hasty thanks and ran the video.

On his laptop screen, he saw a handsome young man with a round face who introduced himself as Major Richard Irwin, Australian Special Forces, and gave out a set of coordinates that Sato recognized as latitude and longitude. He paused it, reran it three times to make sure he copied the numbers correctly, and then resumed the video. The Major was exploring an island that had been giving off odd electromagnetic signals for a few days. He had parachuted in as the coast was too rugged from a small craft to land and was about to explore the only feature on the island, a large cave.

He had an easy-going manner and kept up a running commentary, about the surprising number of animals he’d seen on the island, the massive cobwebs filling the cave, and then suddenly stopped talking for about three full seconds as the tunnel he was following opened into a massive cavern, illuminated by crystals that gave off radiance similar to a borealis.

When he regained his power of speech he said:

“Crikey, this is the most amazing thing I have ever seen! I don’t think my camera can do it justice but… wait what the bloody Hell…”

Something large, bright blue, and covered with what appeared to be massive hairs moved at the edge of his camera’s focal range, and then a rumbling voice spoke in multiple languages: “Why have you disturbed Yaraan’s lair?”

In a hushed tone, the Major said: “Crikey, that's one bloody huge spider!” Louder, he called out: “Apologies, ma’am but I meant no disrespect. Are you truly the Dream Spider Yaraan?”

“You honor me, little one,” replied the cacophony of voices, “I am she the legends were based on… Ah, I see in your mind… Can you reach the red crystal to your… I believe the term is ‘left’?”

“Yes, ma’am, I think I can if this is what you mean by my left,” the Australian replied waving an arm.

“Then take it and leave me to my slumber. It will let the … Americans, I think it is? Communicate with what they found. You do not need us now, but once they crack it, send the device and its bearer here when you do, and I will call the others. Now, begone, such interactions fatigue me!”

Very briefly the image showed about one quarter of a gigantic, spider-like being - it had a carapace that was dark blue at the edges, lightening to a very bright blue at the center, and legs of a medium blue shade. The camera did not capture more than that, as the video abruptly ended.

Hakama sat back for a moment in thought and then plugged those numbers into a geo location service.

Then he pulled out the ‘areas of interest report’ and checked the info there. The island the Major had made this video on was one of the “hot spots” from the report…

He put together a quick article proposal for his editor, and then, finally too tired to do more, went to bed, hoping he’d have a few days at home with his family before they let him pursue this story all the way to Australia, but fearing the worst.