Prologue

     August 24th, 2019. That was the last straw.

     The French and Japanese had been stuck in a desperate sea battle with Godzilla for close to a day. They'd assembled an international strike force to intercept his path to the mainland and, as a secondary objective, also declared intent to detain him. Back in Los Angeles, I was watching from my wonky little flat screen, seeing the grainy footage of pulses and explosions in the distance. All of the major news channels had been broadcasting it since dawn, interspersing the footage with hyperbolic reports about how well the task force was doing and how this would definitely be the time they finally got Godzilla. We all knew better, of course, but I don't think any of us could have predicted where things were about to go.

     The live footage stopped coming in around six o' clock. Godzilla had reportedly dove underwater and fled, but nobody was saying why or where he was going. We didn't find out until almost an hour later.

     Monster Island was in ruins. Godzilla had circled around the French-Japanese task force and gone in the opposite direction they'd wanted, crashing through the chemical and electrical barriers that'd successfully repelled him before and making landfall on Chichijima. The multi-billion dollar research and containment facility that'd given the world peace of mind for over twenty years was now a burning pile of rubble, and all of Earth's kaiju were free.

     The United Nations met as soon as they could. They had been arguing about the cost of Monster Island's upkeep for years, but now the issue had been resolved in the worst way possible, and every country involved was reeling from the loss. Worse still, the kaiju would all have to be reined in again, an affair that would be neither easy nor cheap. After several days of non-stop negotiations and bitter in-fighting, the UN finally agreed that enough was enough and solemnly announced that unprecedented measures were about to be taken.

     We all knew what that meant back in the US. After sixty five years of getting razed to the ground, Japan had finally caved on their policy and done the unthinkable: the UN was going to nuke Godzilla.

     Any doubts we might've had were dispelled when they officially announced the new program on New Year's Day. Operation Destroy All Monsters.

     The world was all abuzz about it for about half a year. There were protests, petitions, public debates, and TV specials. I remember arguing about it with my coworkers almost every day. Everyone seemed to have a different opinion on whether or not it would work, or if it was wise. The talks only grew more intense when word got out that the operation would be openly discussed and commenced at the next summit.

     September 25th, 2020 rolled around, and true to their word, the UN dropped the bomb. Just not the one we were expecting.

     I remember where I was when it happened. I was walking down the street to head home after work and saw everyone gathered around the corner store's TV display. I pushed my way in just in time to see it step out of the shadows. The eyes lit up and it detached itself from a dozen or so cables that were bigger around than my whole garage. 120 meters tall, the announcer said. 160,000 metric tons. They called it the Mark V.

     I don't know how they got it done so fast. It must have already been in construction long before they gave D.A.M. the go ahead. All I know is it was supposed to be very comforting and impressive, but the only reaction it got out of me was laughter. It was imposing enough, sure, but another Mechagodzilla? Really? How many times did that plan have to fail before we stopped using it? All I could think of was how much debt the UN countries were already in, and how much worse-off we'd be if this thing blew up in their face.

     The following week didn't do much to sway my opinion. The UN paraded the Mark V all around for photo shoots and test drives, and made a big publicity stunt out of it. All flash and no substance, I felt. A placebo. A farce.

     Then they finally launched it, in Guam. It was supposed to take on Anguirus.

     I didn't think anything of that either until I realized late that night that the fight hadn't been televised. Even the most serious, strictly monitored confrontations made it onto the news, whether it was footage from outside the battlefield or somebody recording it on their phone. This time there was nothing, though - not even online. I could only assume it was because the Mark V had already fallen apart, and the UN was too embarrassed to let us know. I went to bed worrying about what it'd do to our economy.

     The next morning everything was different. Photos of the previous day's aftermath had leaked online and now it was all over the social networks. There were only three pictures, but they were enough to tell me what I needed to know. The fight hadn't been on TV because it was too graphic. The Mark V had utterly butchered Anguirus. The entire beach was soaked in his blood, and there were pieces of shell and tail scattered all over. His body was upside down and halfway buried in the sand, bruised and sliced and gouged with some of the ribs exposed.

     And it had only been a mobility test, they said. Mechagodzilla's weapons hadn't even been turned on yet.

     The next few weeks left the world in awe. Slowly but surely, footage started to trickle in, and it was all so... surreal. We'd never seen kaiju torn apart like that before, not even by each other. This was a whole new level of power, something that'd never existed in our world before. It was frightening. We started to wonder about what it could do to a city, what it could do if it fell into the wrong hands. Then the rumors started to circulate that the UN countries were all fighting over it. Everybody wanted a turn controlling it, but nobody wanted it on their soil if it wasn't directly under their supervision. They were just as afraid of their creation as we were.

     Weeks turned into months and rumors turned into realities. The UN sent Mechagodzilla after anything and everything they deemed a high-priority threat. The biggest, the baddest, the most aggressive... it mowed them all down, one by one, bloody and efficient. Anguirus, King Kong, Zilla, Battra, Orga, Megaguirus, both M.U.T.O.s, Spacegodzilla, King Ghidorah, and Destoroyah. All dead.

     Among the program's biggest detractors were the little "fairy girls" from Infant Island: the Shobijin. They had been against the idea since its conception, but now that it was really working, they were becoming even more desperate and vocal. They said the UN was making a grave mistake and that there would be terrible consequences in killing Godzilla. They warned that Mothra would have to get involved if they went any further.

     It was when they killed her that the gravity of the situation truly sunk in on me. We hadn't just become stronger than our enemies: we were the new absolute power on Earth. It didn't matter which monsters were good or bad anymore. The monsters themselves had become irrelevant. The only thing that mattered to the UN now was our survival as a species, and they were willing to turn their back on nature itself to ensure it.

     The Mark V shot down Mothra over Tokyo Bay and millions watched as her burning body fell into the sea. The world would never be the same; I could feel it in my bones.

     Then at long last, Godzilla appeared and all the old divisions melted away. Nobody was arguing about whether or not he was a menace anymore. He was just the last thing standing in Mechagodzilla's way, and we were all aghast to see the outcome.

     It was like watching the apocalypse unfold on live TV. Every other minute something was blowing up or crumbling to dust. The streets were so mashed to hell that it looked like the Earth itself was splitting open, and all the fire and smoke turned the sky red. They were hitting each other so hard that the shockwaves were shorting out the news cameras. I had to keep changing the channel, worried I'd run out of stations and miss the end of the world.

     In the end neither of them won. Godzilla was the first to fall, but he took the Mark V with him. It popped something off its neck and they both overheated and went nuclear. All around the world people watched in horrified silence as two giant mushroom clouds took form over Tokyo and erased it from the face of the Earth.

     The Prime Minister was devastated beyond words. He was inconsolable for days, and the men who had been serving as Japan's UN Ambassadors all supposedly killed themselves. Chaos broke loose as Japan resigned from Operation D.A.M. and fell into an unprecedented state of sorrow, regret, and economic turmoil. The other UN countries scrambled to prevent an international crisis and fill the power vacuum. Unfortunately it was only the beginning.

     The UN had the audacity to call it a victory. All of mankind's most powerful enemies had been destroyed, the international tensions over the Mark V had been rendered moot, and now the world would have time to recuperate in peace. All the other major UN players started making promises and, for a few surprisingly positive days, the best of humanity started to come out in the effort to help Japan.

     It was too little too late, though.

     I thought I'd already watched Hell on Earth, but I was wrong. That was the following month. It was so slow and gradual at first... the weird weather patterns, the unexplained disasters... but then it all fell apart in what felt like an instant. We had disrupted a natural system that we didn't even know existed. The forces of nature faltered and collapsed all around us, and suddenly kaiju that had previously been unknown emerged from hiding all over the world.

     They would have no more Ghidorahs or Destoroyahs to compete with. No more Mothras or Godzillas to repel them. No more Mechagodzillas to destroy them.

     The tables had turned completely, and now we were at their mercy... probably for the last time.




Story and artwork © Chris Eye, 2016-2018.
Godzilla and affiliated characters © Toho Studios.

2019 edit: Updated the art a tiny bit and added text to give it a more poster-y feeling!