Aftermath

Sato Hakama had just wrapped up an interview with an enforcement agent who had, almost single handedly, stopped a band of so-called road pirates attacking the shipping industry between Central and North America and was looking forward to heading home, finishing his article, and spending a nice, quiet evening celebrating his son’s birthday when two calls came in.

First, he was being ordered to an air force base near where he lived to interview a pilot named Wynter who apparently witnessed a giant man defeating a kaiju. He was a little skeptical of this, but it was an assignment. The second was from his son. He held off on returning that call until he was in the transport headed to Travis Air Force Base.

Nicholas answered on the third ring: “Father!”

“Hi son, I had hoped to be home tonight to spend your birthday together, but just got the strangest call and now have to interview a pilot. I should be back some time tonight, but I have no idea how late. Spending the night with friends sounds like a good idea…”

“Ah, thank you. Interviewing a pilot?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, apparently he saw some sort of giant defeat a kaiju or something like that. Probably a hallucination from flying too fast, is my guess.” came the reply.

"A giant? Where was this?” Was Nick's response.

His dad chuckled lightly: “That will be my first question when I meet him at Travis Air Force Base.”

“How late do you think you’ll be, dad?”

“Don’t know but if you’re still up when I get in, we can have a piece of cake together before you go to bed.”

“Sounds good dad. Thanks, and bye,” Nicholas replied, hanging up the phone and returning it to his pocket

As he had not set the call to Private, the others had heard it. Sandra grinned: “So you’re having dinner with us tonight, then?”

“Looks like,” Nick replied, “but first, someone mentioned something about milkshakes?”

***

Fifteen minutes later, the five kids had been joined by a sixth, a pretty, though slightly heavy set, pale skinned girl with long purple hair, named Hsien Shu-Tai, but who preferred to be called Judy Shen. Judy was sometimes Dan’s girlfriend - or at least she always said she was, and he sometimes agreed. Judy was in a different section at school and had been on her artifact hunt a few days earlier. They were seated at Servo Shakes, chatting about life in general, when a robot rolled up to their table. It was almost as tall as an adult human, had a cylindrical red torso, a clear domed head, and a lower body that resembled what it was - a small, mobile refrigerator. The robot took their orders and made a bunch of mechanical sounds and then the red torso opened, and it used long, retractable, flexible arms that emerged from hidden panels in its side to draw out the six milkshakes ordered. In a slightly acerbic voice, it said “Enjoy your milkshakes. Your food will be up soon. But the shakes are much better. Enjoy your day.” And wheeled off to the next table.

About six minutes later, a smaller robot, similar to the first but with very short arms ending in oversized hands came out of an adjacent area, carrying a tray of food and set it on the table it simply said; “your food” and withdrew from the dining area.

Several other kids from their school were scattered around the shop, as it was a regular hangout for students. There was much chatter, and the six were enjoying their food when someone near the entrance stood and pointed out the window: “What’s that?!” He cried.

Before anyone else could react, alarm claxons rang out and everyone's phone lit up with “Kaiju sighted. Proceed to nearest shelters and avoid bridges to the mainland. This is only a sighting. If an attack occurs further instructions will be provided.”

A kid at the table near Nick's group asked the robot server: “Is this place a designated shelter?”

The reply was not very encouraging: “Are you kidding? The people who made this place were so cheap it barely blocks the rain!”

A few people ran out of the shop. The rest were all checking out news feeds on their phones for additional data.

Apparently, a flight of five Blastcrows had begun flying around the Old City. The student who called out before the alarms sounded had seen the one that veered off to fly over the New City. It has been destroyed by the defense systems in place before it could pose a threat to anyone.

The four remaining ones, however, had shown greater caution, they remained on the mainland, flying patterns that kept them just out of range of the defensive weapons on the corporate stronghold skyscrapers, almost as if a greater intelligence was directing them.

***

Back at the soda shop, everyone who was not focused on their phones and who had not already fled had moved to the front windows to try and see what was going on. In the late afternoon light, they could occasionally see the movements of the Blastcrows near the ancient skyscrapers and saw an infrequent burst of fire from the buildings as well.

Well, everyone except Nicholas, who had been moving in the opposite direction, towards the emergency exit at the rear of the shop.

“Sensei,” he thought, “Does it take more energy to fly in Gargantua Mode than in normal mode?”

“No - power consumption is the same. Only the shift to and from Gargantua Mode costs energy while the sun is out, unless you really push your speed or strength; flight drains energy only if the sun is behind clouds or at night. Energy is also consumed, of course, if you fire the Turbolasers.”

Nick nodded and then asked: “You were able to access some electronics at the research area, can you do that here?” 

Suspecting his intentions, Sensei asked: “You want me to disable the emergency alarm on the door?”

“Correct.”

“I was attuned to those systems, but the operations should be similar. If there is a direct connection, I can disable the device for a few seconds.” Came the reply. Not as good as he had hoped, but good enough. Glancing around, he saw that, aside from one robot cleaning a table, all eyes were focused elsewhere and placed his hands on the door, next to the alarm.

“Let’s get out of here, Sensei.”

***

Moments later, Nick stood in the alley between Servo Shakes, a grocery store, and an entertainment center. “Can you tell me if there are any cameras in the area, Sensei?” He asked silently.

“Yes. Walk towards the wall you are facing. Before you hit it, turn to your right and walk three meters. You should be in a blind spot. Once you activate the armor, you should be able to see the power flows and avoid them.”

“That bag of trash there is about my size, right? I’ll put my school jacket around it and ‘fly it to safety’” Nicholas suggested.

“Nice idea,” was the mechanical reply.

As soon as he was at the indicated site, Nick took off his jacket, wrapped it around the trash bag, tapped the disk at the base of his neck, and saw the strange armor appear over his body.

He lifted the bag with his jacket on it up, stepped into view of two cameras, and jumped into the air. A block later, he set the bag down on camera-free rooftop, asked Sensei to remember where he left his jacket, jumped into the air again, and activated Gargantua Mode.

***

In the shake shop, someone pointed out the window - “Look! A giant!”

“The Ultimate Warrior!” Peter exclaimed.

“Where’s Nick, he should see this,” Sandra said, and looked around. When she saw no sign of the young man, she frowned.

***

Flight was a little more complicated than the nearly-gravity defying leaps he did during his first battle; he kept wobbling off to one side or another and having to shift position frequently to maintain forward momentum. “Will this get better?” He asked aloud.

Sensei replied: “Yes, both with personal skills and leveling up.”

He shot over one of the four bridges that connected the floating city with the mainland - it was beginning to retract - and then spotted something near the beach. He lost control for a moment and plummeted earth-ward, barely regaining control before hitting the water and leaving a wake behind.

“Do not let your attention waiver like that!” Sensei admonished.

“I think I found a fix to some of our power usage problems,” Nick replied - and then realized he did not know how to land as he hit the sandy ground at high speed; at least he had the foresight to swing around and hit feet first; this enabled him to fall back on his acrobatic skills and turn what would have been a hard fall into an almost elegant flip.

Regaining his feet, he scanned the area and quickly found what he had been looking for - a discarded metal beam about eight to ten meters long.

He lifted the pole, which likely weighed a little under half a ton, and, though it was hidden behind the mask of his armor, smiled. Then he set it down, clapped to open his Turbolasers, and locked the right arm into place. Then he walked up to one end and, using the laser with as little power as he could, burned one end into a sharp-looking point. He was almost satisfied with the outcome when, at the corner of his vision, he noted two shapes flying towards him fast.

“Time to test my idea,” he said, lifted the metal beam off the ground, and then hurled himself to the side to dodge the electrical blast from the nearest Blastcrow.

“Thank you for volunteering to be my rest subject,” he said, and launched into the ground, flying straight towards his attacker, the pointed end of the metal beam leading the way. The bird-thing tried to wheel around and escape, but Nick’s armored form, while less nimble, was far faster than it. In fact, its movement made it so that, instead of hitting it on the shoulder as he had planned, Nick’s make-shift weapon struck it in the center of its chest!

Dark blood sprayed everywhere as the creature tried to pull itself off of the improvised spear and managed to shake it out of Nick’s grip. It tried to fly away but had lost too much strength from blood loss and began spiraling towards the ground. Nick spun around awkwardly and pursued it down; the impaled Blastcrow almost struck its companion and did ruin the other’s aim with its electrical attack. Nick managed to grab the spear and yank it out of the monster barely a few meters before it struck the ground. It was not yet dead, but clearly would be soon.

“That worked almost as well as I had hoped,” he said while catching his breath

Then he felt something grab the spear and try to yank it from his hands - the other Blastcrow had shifted its position and closed in to wrap its foot talons around the makeshift weapon.

“Nice thought,” Nick said, “let’s use it against you.”

He tightened his grip on the spear and cut out his own flight; as he had hoped, the monster retained its grip. As his feet hit the ground, Nick used a rolling maneuver and slammed the spear towards the ground. The Blastcrow realized what was happening and let go at almost the last second, so the lance only slapped against the one already on the ground, ending its suffering, instead of smashing the active one into the dirt.

A distant sound came to Nick’s ears - aircraft approaching at a high speed. He hoped it would be a squad of Starlances, as there were at least two more Blastcrows in the area, as well as, likely, at least one other, greater kaiju using them as forward scouts.

He spun around and launched back into the air, a little more slowly this time, and sought out his current playmate. It did not take long - after it recovered from its surprise at his attempt to smash it against the ground, it had shot straight up, and then wheeled around and was coming down in a lazy spiral. “Charging your guns, perhaps?” Nick asked it.

The monster did not answer. Nick accelerated towards it as fast as he could. The Blastcrow was startled by this move and failed to even try to dodge. Nick did not see where his lance impacted the monster but felt the hit and then felt pressure all around his body and then he was suddenly flying straight up.

“That was … messy,”  Sensei declared. “I have detected six incoming objects. Profiles suggest four Skylances, another Blastcrow and an Exerian Transport pod.”

Nicholas stopped his upward flight and began to freefall. The ground rushed up towards him as he scanned his surroundings. As soon as he could see the other aerial objects, he did a mid-air somersault and turned on his flight. His descent ceased and he let out a sigh of relief that this stunt worked. He saw two of the Skylances shift into combat mode while the other two veered off, each with a Blastcrow in hot pursuit. The two in combat mode began playing with the newly arrived Blastcrow, one feinting at it while the other attacked and then they switched places.

Nicholas turned his attention to the large oblong object approaching the battle zone. He stopped his forward motion and held his position as the large object also ceased and then opened. A man-sized figure jumped out and, in flight, it grew to a size slightly larger than Nicholas was.

This monster bore a roughly humanoid outline. Rippled gray flesh covered most of its form, and it had two long thin legs and similar arms. Both the arms and legs ended in five-fingered hands with sharp talons instead of fingernails. Its long head sported three eyes, bat-like ears, and two separate mouths, one filled with sharp, jagged teeth. From the creature's back sprouted a pair of wings that looked like they belonged to an enormous butterfly, but with a wider array of colors than any terrestrial butterfly showed, with blue at the outer edges, and a mix of white, red and orange patches throughout.

Suddenly Nicholas heard a strange voice, with a slight lisp and an odd echo: “Can you understand my words?”