GTAG Chapter 18: Wings
When Godzilla first spotted the fortress, he had no interest in bothering with the humans from that other world.
He wasn't driven by mindless destruction, nor was he some spoiled brat eager to smash apart toys humans had painstakingly built.
Monsters gives DNA, humans were mere ants.
After one glance at the fortress, he simply turned away.
How humanity chose to develop in this world had nothing to do with him.
Still, the fact that they had only managed to build a single fortress, without expanding further, told him their progress was going poorly.
This world was teeming with massive monsters. Ordinary weapons were little more than tickles against them.
Even powerful weapons couldn't guarantee killing them all—let alone deal with the smaller but even deadlier organisms lurking here.
Just building that one fortress must have cost humanity staggering amounts of resources and manpower.
If they hadn't discovered certain plants here capable of slowing cellular aging and enhancing the human body, they would have abandoned this world long ago.
Monster corpses had yielded no meaningful breakthroughs so far.
Even with the lure of longevity, humans still couldn't expand their territory here.
Their military budget had ballooned several times over, all in pursuit of weapons strong enough to kill these beasts—ideally without destroying the terrain, since they desperately needed the plants that grew here.
So when Godzilla appeared outside their walls, every heart inside the fortress nearly stopped.
They had no weapon capable of killing something of his size.
Fortunately, the massive creature ignored them and left.
Only after he disappeared did the soldiers notice their backs soaked with cold sweat.
The fortress commander, however, couldn't shake a sense of familiarity.
He pulled out a dossier containing illustrations of all known monsters over fifty meters tall.
On the very first page was one estimated to exceed one hundred meters.
Its likeness matched the beast they had just seen.
"Monster Zero… it really exists?"
When the mist first spread and life from this world invaded their towns, many civilians claimed to have seen a terrifying monster.
At first, no one believed them, dismissing the sightings as hallucinations born of fear.
But as more and more eyewitnesses described the exact same creature, and when enormous footprints were discovered near the town, authorities were forced to take them seriously.
Still, they doubted. The largest monster they had confirmed so far barely exceeded seventy meters.
A hundred-meter giant? Impossible.
Until today, when it appeared right before their eyes.
Now there was no denying it—only panic.
Such a colossal monster could only be destroyed by their ultimate weapons. Nothing else would suffice.
The commander quickly grabbed the phone on his desk, dialing his superiors.
Since normal signals couldn't penetrate this world, they had rigged hardlines through the rift itself.
What had seemed like a cushy assignment as forward commander suddenly felt like a death sentence. He almost wanted to resign—though of course, he wouldn't.
The profits to be had in this world outweighed his own life. Leaving wasn't an option.
Instead, his call was to demand weapons. If he could secure nuclear warheads, all the better.
······
Discovering a second link between the worlds surprised Godzilla.
He hadn't expected his luck to be this good. He had only been here a few months.
But even finding another rift was meaningless to him.
He'd rather stumble upon a new, massive monster he hadn't fought before.
After wandering this world for months more, he finally left.
By now, he had explored nearly everywhere worth exploring. There was no reason to remain.
He returned through the ocean where he had first arrived.
Slipping back into his own world beneath the waves, he didn't even need to alter his form.
Though both worlds felt much the same to him, this one gave him a strange sense of comfort—like coming home.
This time, he didn't roam. He simply settled on the ocean floor, gathering and sorting through the materials he had acquired.
Most would be useless, but there was always the chance of some small surprise.
What Godzilla truly longed for, however, was a pair of wings.
But for something of his size, flight would require wings of staggering scale, supported by impossibly powerful muscles.
More importantly, he realized he didn't actually need the ability to fly.
The idea had only ever appealed to him as a way to chase prey.
But none of his enemies had ever escaped his atomic breath.
Even airborne creatures fell one after another under his aim.
His accuracy was more than enough.
Still, wings would be worth having—even if they served no practical purpose.
Before, it had never occurred to him—he was too focused on swimming the seas and walking the land.
But after seeing a massive birdlike beast flying through the skies of that other world, the thought had taken root.
Through painstaking effort, he finally succeeded.
Godzilla grew a pair of massive batlike wings, stretching at least five hundred meters across.
When folded, they resembled two black rods lying flat against his back.
When spread, they could blot out the sky itself.
In a pinch, they could even serve as shields against enemy attacks.
But whether these wings could actually lift him into the air—that was another matter entirely.
Testing them would be simple enough.
So, after further modifying his body, Godzilla rose from the depths and surfaced.
[Please give powerstones if you're enjoying the story.
500 stones = 1 extra chapter
patreon com/GuessMyName33 for up to 30 chapters ahead]