D'Nunavut was a desolate place, more flat and brown than anything. Ice piled in tracks left by the kaiju, or out in the open. No forests. Subtle greenery on the grounds, hidden from the world as much as it could hide, yet still out there growing in the light of auroras and the pale sun. This land was far enough north that the sun did not set in the summer months.

No mountains.

But there were three brown rises on the land, like low lizards. The kaiju. They were sunning themselves, and generally doing nothing at all. To the right was Stripey; brown and darker brown. Beyond the demolished remains of a fueling station, was Tan, which was his overall coloring scheme. Red, which was more of a brown than a red, was over to the left, head and upper body raised up, eyes on a swivel, scanning the world around them. Stripey and Tan were sleeping. Red was the lookout.

They were each the shape of skinny lizards, with long tails. They had big arms and bigger legs, but aside from Red pressing up with his front legs, and head on something of a 'stalk', raised up 400 meters off of the ground, they were all clearly more comfortable on their bellies than on their legs. Mark wondered what sort of lizard they had been before the kaijufication. Ones that laid low but with raised heads to look around them, no doubt.

They were each maybe 1,200 meters long, including the tail. Something like that.

That swiveling head and those big eyes on the sides of the head meant they were able to see all around them, all the time, if they wanted.

The beams were supposed to come out of their mouths. According to the files they were high-energy particle beams; effectively concussive-fire-based. They could also just stream fire like water from a hose, if they wanted. They were immune to their own beam attacks, and they could fire on themselves, and on each other. Mostly, they were hard to injure, and they worked together. Being hard to injure was normal for a kaiju. Kaiju working together was not.

"A good measuring stick," Mark said.

Mark had never actually killed a kaiju on his own, at all.

First time for everything.

Mark took a breath and felt a swell of joy, of anticipation, of violence.

Glorious Man had started his career going out into the world and just killing whatever kaiju were around, eliminating threats all across the Japanese archipelago, inside Chinese lands, and down to Indochina and up to Lost Russia, and whatever those parts of the world were called. Glorious Man simply plowed into those monsters, punching them apart, ripping into them to kill them from the inside. Beams splashed away from him as he dove down throats. Claws tried to stab him, to grab him, but he grabbed back and tossed kaiju across the land.

Could Mark do that?

Mark probably had the physical toughness, but not the strength at all. He'd have to be more surgical with his strength. Find weak points and then cut them open. If he flew around he could spot weak points rather easily. And so, in reality, he had lots of time to study these things.

… And yet.

Mark needed to act like these kaiju were coming for him and his people, with very little time to plan, because that's how it would be in Endless Daihoon.

Mark let out a breath, and let all his fears and worries go with it. The air around Mark darkened with a pulse of threaded miasma, before the downdraft of Mark's rotors brushed that miasma away, into the world below, out of concern. Assassinations? Yeah, they would try. Politicking? Always, because life was politics. PR nightmares? Well that last one was on the Hero/Villain Program to massage into position.

There were kaiju to fight.

Mark let his rotor flow apart under its own stresses, to unfold into two blades each 10 meters long. He plummeted to the ground, 200 meters below, angling his blades to catch the air, to turn his fall into a glide. Blades became long wings, stretched to thinness like a veil of night suddenly appearing. The brown ground flowed backward as Mark flew forward.

The entire island was only 30 kilometers across and much of it was mostly flat.

Stripey was closest at 10 kilometers away. He was sleeping. Waking him would be stupid, especially right under the watchful eyes of Red. Tan was 15 kilometers away, right past Stripey, and beyond Red. That put him out of range, and Mark didn't want to circle around to get to that one.

Mark went for Red, at about 12 kilometers away.

Red was the target, with its bulbous head and upper body stretched high as it could go, its thin, snake-like neck on a swivel, its bright eyes gazing outward, looking for signs of trouble, mostly from the air. Each eye was at least 50 meters across; they were some of the largest eyes on kaiju that Mark had ever seen. The head itself was almost 150 meters across.

It was like someone had tied a balloon to the neck of a lizard.

Mark was a black speck of nothing compared to them, but his wings were rather large right now—

Red spotted those wings, one of its great red eyes glaring at Mark, the slitted pupil narrowing just a little… but then it moved on, looking away, back to the sky, disregarding the threat, because how could something so small even be a threat? Small things were easily brushed aside if they got close at all.

Mark could feel its intentions through its astral body, now. It was close enough; 6 kilometers away. It didn't consider the black thing flying at it to be anything worth caring about. Mark made his plan: go in fast, power up, cut the neck, then move on. The neck was probably highly protected, considering how vulnerable it looked and how these three kaiju were still alive, but sometimes straight-forward attacks worked the best.

Alacrity/Slowness.

The world slowed.

Mark did not.

Mark ripped his adamantium wings into the ground, moving at the speed of thought, pulling himself forward like he was a mountain climber and the world was made of tar. The honey-like air burned, even in the cold, as Mark flashed forward. Snow turned to rain and blasted away as steam as Mark broke the sound barrier. Permafrost seemed to sigh, melting slightly in the flames.

Ahh… whoops.

The noise would wake everything. That was something to consider in the future.

Mark clambered forward, eating up the land, angling a few foils of adamantium to catch the air, to keep him up instead of flowing down into the ground. And then he was 400 meters away from Red, aiming behind Red's left rear leg. He got there, fire burning everywhere, and then he was inside the beast's range, on its back, touching forward. Instantly, Mark noticed a difference in his advancement. He had been grabbing onto rocks and ground back there like he was pulling himself forward through tar, not even the ground providing much more of a grip than the air itself, but here, the red-brown back of the creature was craggy and solid, like Mark was actually touching something real, once again.

Still had a bit of give.

Mark casually carved into that flesh, to see if he could, taking 10 meters of blade and swiping along his path up the creature's back. It was tough. The blade caught on something down there, beyond the reach of Mark's astral body, the kaiju's astral body pushing him away from his adamantium.

Carving deep meant the thickness of Mark's blade actually mattered, and he hadn't made this one thin enough. Mark pulled his blade straight out and moved on before he got caught up with experimental cuts.

Red noticed the wound, and the attack, but it was still slower than Mark right now. It knew it was in pain, but not from where, or from what.

Red's head was still up there, still staring outward. From this angle Mark could tell that its eyes were inside swivels, and it could absolutely look behind itself if it wanted to. It had kaiju'd from a prey animal, for sure. Not a dragon. Just a lizard.

Mark made his way up the back of the kaiju, across the craggy expanse.

The overall width of the body was maybe 200 meters, with the head and the body being about that width, but the neck was weirdly maybe only 30 meters across. It was like a snake's neck, easily flexible and turnable. The roughness of the skin got a lot rougher up there. Not scales. But also probably a lot tougher than the flesh he had left behind.

Red's sizable head loomed overhead, backlit by blue auroras, like a dark cloud in the sky.

The tougher scales started a lot earlier than the neck. Mark's caltrops, like fingers, stopped sinking into the knobbly flesh and instead gripped the surface, sticking in crags and pits. Mark got right underneath the head, over 200 meters overhead.

He made a sword, crystallizing the need to behead this thing into the adamantium.

Adamantium flashed with heat, becoming a long crystal, singular and clean. It was a handspan wide and 30 meters long and it disappeared when looked straight-on.

Grip on the kaiju, grip on the blade, and Mark swung, sword blazing the air as it flew fast, shockwaves spilling off of it the whole time.

Mark struck.

The blade bounced.

Okay, well.

Mark expected problems—

The kaiju's vector came alive, glancing backward, down, and Mark looked up at the barely-turned head of the kaiju, like a blimp had suddenly shifted angles in the air. The snake-like neck curved away, moving fast, the eyes glanced at Mark, bright red and shining. The mouth of the balloon opened up, revealing crimson depth and so very many tiny sharp teeth. The head was still mostly turned away. Crimson fire became orange flames, licking behind teeth.

It saw him.

Mark pulled harder on Alacrity, directly from the kaiju, giving it more Slowness in turn. The world slowed down a bit more and Mark moved to the other side of the kaiju, away from his igniting mouth.

Mark made the sword into a garrote, looped and looped again, and Mark pulled on one side and let the other go flying, spinning adamantium wire across a rather reasonable 20-meter-wide target. Wire carved into the neck, blitzing deep, and then it caught and slipped. The carving stopped. Something slicked onto the wire, and though Mark pulled it tighter from his end, he couldn't actually Kinesis that deep into the monster; his astral body failed to reach any depths more than a few meters below the surface.

It was a common problem.

Mark kept at it for 20 seconds, brain moving fast, garrote moving faster, nothing else seeming to move at all.

This was not working.

Moving on.

Glory and Fear.

Light burst from Mark, cascading out with every sudden heartbeat, every ragged breath, his body turning more Glorious by the moment.

Fire bloomed overhead.

Mark spun his adamantium garrote faster, deeper—

But something slick coated the metal, like an ooze or industrial strength lubrication. Oil spilled out of the wounds, getting everywhere, yellow and slick, and Mark's garrote didn't do much at all.

Red's head spun like a locked-in turret, aiming at Mark, opening wide. Illumination sparked under Red's knobbly flesh, like embers brought to life in the fire inside Red's mouth. Sparks flowed out, and then came flames.

The kaiju Called down flame and death right on top of Mark, bright and hot.

Mark barely felt it. The oil coated him more and more as he pulled deep into that neck, yanking with all of his strength. Oil spurted everywhere and Mark couldn't see through the fire. The kaiju roared, undulating and fierce. It roared and hated. It was getting too hot.

Thoughts fled.

Mark fled, too, spinning around Red's head, drawing his garrote with him, pulling hard.

The fire remained behind for the briefest of moments, but then Red's head turned overhead, sweeping the cold land with flames. The soft blueness of the land erupted in flashing, brilliant orange fire as Mark flowed around yet again, pulling himself on spikes of adamantium, tightening his garrote as much as he could—

Red suddenly lurched forward, slamming his head against the ground with too much speed, turning his balloon into a hammer.

Mark went flying, slammed upward by the force of the downward hammer. And then Red slammed up, crashing into Mark's body, sending him spinning, reaching out with metal trying to hold on. It wasn't going to work. He weighed so much more than he was used to and he just about fell straight down, his garrote pulling out of Red as he fell.

The flow caught Mark and he turned into a garrote himself, pulling upward, grabbing on like a spider shooting so very many webs, slamming all 3 metric tons of his body into Red's flaming, oil-bleeding neck. Mark rapidly reoriented, holding on as Red hammered the land with more and more hammer blows, trying to dislodge him.

Mark tightened his garrote, coming back together, not letting himself fly off this time. The garrote wasn't going to break; not under this much movement, even if Mark only had small parts of it under his direct control. It was adamantium.

Suddenly Red hammer-headed the ground, over and over, speedster-ing with his slams. Something finally snapped. Mark went flying, still on fire, into the air. He could barely see, but he saw enough.

Alacrity/Slowness.

The shockwaves of Red's hammerheading, or maybe his Kaiju Call, had woken up the other two. Tan glared Mark's way, his mouth full of yellow light. Stripey glared Mark's way, too, his maw filled with brilliant blue. They were frozen in slowness, for now.

Mark moved fast, the speed of his action shocking the oil off of his body, leaving behind a burst of flames as Mark went right back to the wound he had made on Red's neck. It was not deep. Maybe a meter. Shining plates of something lay exposed under the thin neck. Inner defenses. Mark's adamantium had only carved a few scratches into that stuff, and probably because 'that stuff' was covered in that lubricating oil.

Sam, back at the settlement, had often spoken with Mark about the limitations of monowire. His big Power was Threadmaker, and he was very familiar with cutting through monsters because of that Power. Monowire sometimes failed when it came to cloying lubrication, but lubrication ran out fast, as soon as you inflicted enough wounds. This lubrication seemed to be flammable, too. The flames didn't seem to hurt the kaiju, but it did use up a resource… probably.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Mark realized his mistake. He had been trying to continue along a single path toward victory.

Mark cast out three garrotes, ripping them around the kaiju's 20-meter-wide neck, and then he spun those wires deep into the knobbly, flaming surface. Red was still hammerheading the ground, but Mark was faster. He stopped pulling on the garrote when he got to that inner layer of defenses, and then he repositioned higher on the neck, carving more lines into the kaiju's not-very-vulnerable neck.

Of course it wasn't going to be vulnerable, Mark told himself. The original animals probably mate by biting each other's necks, or something.

Between the hammerhead speed, the serpentine twisting, and the thickness of the outer and inner scales, the neck was like this because it worked. The necks were the obvious point of attack, and they were also the most well defended.

Mark was still gonna behead them—

Something slipped inside of the neck, in the third repositioning. Mark's second garrote went deep. Far deeper than any other attempt. It was like cutting through extremely cold butter with a frozen knife, but Mark's knife was more than up for the challenge. He pulled, twisted, and then carved all the way through.

Fires flickered out of the exit wound as oil caught flame everywhere.

Red was beheaded, and it didn't know it yet, but its vector crashed, reduced by 90%. The head and body would remain alive for a while, but it was dying now.

Time to kill the other two.

Mark was still moving in speed-time, so he got far, far away, moving like a firework, catching himself on red fire from the speed of that action. He didn't stop until he was several kilometers away. When he stopped the orange fire of Red reignited on his flesh.

Tan's maw of yellow flames seemed as bright as the sun.

Stripey's blue light was condensing inside his mouth—

A line of blue light crossed the world, splashing against Red's neck and body, scattering off of that knobbly flesh like sparks and light from a disco ball. Blue flames crashed upward, over Red's head and severed neck, before the severed head even had time to fall. And then the blue flames kinda stilled in the air, because those had been speedy-flames, and now their speedy power was gone.

Reptiles and other 'cold blooded' animals always had some sort of speedy-shit going on, for when the going got tough. Turtles, reptiles, snakes, dragons; all of them.

Mark reoriented.

Blue-fire speedy-Stripey was next.

Mark began moving that way, pulling himself through the tar that was the atmosphere, while blue fire glowed all across Red's body, seeming to mirror the auroras overhead.

Getting under Stripey's senses was easy, and soon Mark wrapped three garrotes into Stripey's neck and pulled, finding the same layers of protection that had been in Red's neck. Stripey realized something was wrong, and a lot faster than Red had realized. Stripey looked straight down, moving way, way too fast, and opened his blue-light maw.

Mark was already gone, headed toward yellow-fire Tan, like a black bullet surrounded by shockwaves.

Blue flames blossomed all around Stripey's body, turning the world into a blue fire with blue auroras overhead. The ground exploded like a blue volcano.

With a quick twist, Mark spun 3 garrotes around Tan's neck, searching for whatever inner weakness Red had. Mark found the weak point. It was probably some vertebrae issue where the inner scales were thinner, or maybe the oil was less. Maybe the bones were weaker there, or something. Mark wasn't sure and he didn't do any inspection. He just slipped into that weakness, pulled, and felt something give way under his garrote.

Yellow fires spurted out of the exit wound as Mark fully pulled his garrote through, and some yellow flames joined the orange and blue flames burning merrily on his adamantium body. It felt kinda nice. Warmish.

The fires and oil combination would have absolutely killed a normal person. There were reasons why these things were still alive, after all! Getting oil on you was enough to kill you, if you were a normal person. Mark was not a normal person.

Mark got some good distance from the fresh kill, moving all the way into the dark water outside of the island, plunging into the ice to wash off some of the burning oil. It didn't wash. Mark slipped back into normal time to do some Purity/Corruption—

Red and Tan's astral weight upon the world went up in flames. Where the kaiju died, fire bloomed, like atomic weapons setting off. Orange brilliance rose from Red as the entire kaiju's body exploded from the inside, while yellow illumination burst out of Tan, rocketing into the Winter Auroras and across the land and sky.

Dust and rock rode the shockwave that flashed over Mark, disturbing the flames on his body and knocking him back a few centimeters. The shockwave passed into the ocean.

Blue flames from Stripey got lost in the mess.

… Mark breathed with Purity and Corruption, erasing the oils that had coated his his body and adamantium—

An undulation began. A roar. A kaiju scream of loss and hate and the need for revenge.

Stripey's maw opened to the sky and his eyes rolled back, flashing left and right fast, as he roared and roared and roared, trying to find whatever had attacked him and his friends. His need to kill overwhelmed him, and then he spotted Mark. In a flashing instant he reoriented at Mark, mouth open only barely, brilliance gathered densely. All in less than 3 seconds.

Mark was already moving with Alacrity/Slowness, moving right. He was mostly fast enough.

A line of blue about a thigh-thick shot across the land, casting everything else into darkness from the sheer brilliance of the fire. The land melted. The fire passed into the ocean and the ocean exploded.

The fire had caught on one of Mark's blades and some of Mark's caltrops. They were gone now, lost to the fires, scattered into the oceans. Mark was pretty sure they were not destroyed. But! Holy crap! That was some firepower.

Mark moved fast, using the adamantium he had left, to approach from a hidden angle. He latched on to Stripey's neck again, higher up, right under the head, and he held on. He did not go for a garrote. This damned thing had taken some of his adamantium. Mark wanted some back. Mark latched directly under its neck, spreading his body out and grabbing on, prepared for more hammerheading. Mark could handle it. He needed more adamantium, and so...

Glory and Fear came out, and time got a whole lot faster.

Stripey's roaring head spun left and right, eyes searching. Mark held on for dear life, draining power from the kaiju. It was so, so much...

But Stripey didn't get that much faster. Mark wasn't actively killing it, or injuring it…

Stripey turned out to be a very dumb kaiju, because suddenly it didn't care about Mark, since it couldn't find him, since Mark was right under the back of its neck. It might have seen the illumination of Glory, but it didn't seem to care about that; there was a lot of blue fire still around, anyway. It knew he was here… but not where. And he didn't care, really.

Stripey was much, much more interested in his brothers.

Tan's head lay to the side of Tan's body, cut from his exploded body, yellow flames everywhere. Ribs lay exposed and on fire. Limbs lay disconnected and on the ground.

Red's head got really far from his body for some reason. It was over in the water, half-taken by the waves. Orange flames still covered all of him. Only half of his chest had exploded. The rest of him was intact. Still on fire, but intact.

Stripey lumbered over to Tan, the weight of his body and the stomping of his legs shaking the world as he moved. He opened his maw and fired blue flames at the body. Tan was mostly dead and he couldn't heal himself, so Stripey's blue needle-like flames carved a path through Tan's body, killing the other kaiju even faster.

And then Stripey started eating Tan.

"Ah, that's bad," Mark said softly to himself, as he got to experience a jostling, kaiju-eating-kaiju event from up close.

When kaiju ate other kaiju, they usually powered up. It was a rare event on Earth and Daihoon, but it did happen often enough to be a known event. What was much more common was when monsters ate dead kaiju. Monsters powered up a lot from eating kaiju corpses, so the disposal of kaiju corpses was a top priority for all cities, otherwise they'd end up with monster waves right after surviving the kaiju. Kaiju eating kaiju was worse, because normally kaiju never ate at all.

Mark muttered. "Not good."

But Mark still needed adamantium. Mark secured himself as best he could, as he sucked out all of the adamantium he could from Stripey. It was not going to be 'enough' to maintain his stores going forwar—

Wait.

Wait just a darn second.

Mark could heal himself and make more adamantium.

… Alacrity/Slowness.

Mark moved in speedy time while Stripey barely moved at all, and Mark searched for the suspected weak point in the kaiju's neck. The other two had some sort of vertebrae-thing happening about every 10 meters down the 100-ish meter long neck, and Stripey was no different. There were ridges underneath the surface.

Mark found a vertebrae-thing and then angled his garrotes around the ridge and pulled.

Stripey realized he was being attacked, but he was being slow about it. He went right on eating his brother—

The garrote right below the ridge slipped in deeper, and Mark focused on that one. He pulled tight, and soon, with a little spurt of blue fire, Stripey's head was now separated from his body.

Mark got the hell out of there, fast as he could.

Stripey tried to continue to eat the flaming corpse of his brother, but whatever went in the head popped out the neck hole, and soon, the eating slowed. Stripey took 10 minutes to die. When he died, he died like his brothers; in flaming explosions.

Mark watched from the coast as blue flames and shockwaves burst out of Stripey's body, turning him to burning flesh and scattered parts.

"Ah, holy heck… I did it."

Mark breathed hard, grinning, feeling some amazing kind of way, like everything would be alright. The world was frozen and on fire, assassins would be coming for him, and everyone Mark cared for was in danger with him and especially if they went with him into Endless Daihoon, but also…

"I did that," Mark said, lifting off of the ground, floating into the air, to watch the bodies burn. With a giddy energy, he smirked. He whispered, "I did that."

"Would you like some constructive criticism, sir?"

Mark giggled, and then he calmed. "Yes. Sure. Give it to me."

"You almost died when the blue beam almost clipped you by the ocean that one time. The cat-5 range attack was not undersold. You did well, but there were dangers."

Mark smirked and nodded. "Quite right, Quark! But you see? I didn't die. Even a straight shot would have just scattered me, and though I'm pretty sure it would have hurt like fuck, I still would have lived. That fire kinda hurt, but only in a too-hot-shower kinda way! Gods! An adamantium body might be fucking weird as fuck, but it has its uses. Like you can't really die either, Quark, with your silver metal body; your Livium core."

"… Ah," Quark said, "I suppose… yes, that is true. I had not considered this, sir. Does that mean you like your adamantium body?"

"It's weird as heck and maybe I kinda do, in some ways. I don't know about that, Quark. Not yet. But I do know…" Mark gazed upon the burning flames, feeling good. Confident, even. Sure, it would be scary inside Endless Daihoon, fighting kaiju that were actually cat 5 in every way and not just in a single weapon, but… Mark softly said, "I know we can do this."

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