GTAG Chapter 36: The Wild Card
The first thing Godzilla did upon arrival was scan his surroundings to figure out where he had landed.
To his surprise, it wasn't land but ocean.
Great.
The transformation he had deliberately made before crossing over was now wasted.
How many times had this happened already?
But he was used to it by now.
The question was—what sea was he in?
This time, Godzilla didn't fully regress into his strongest aquatic form. He kept his limbs, making him look like an enormous lizard.
Except this lizard could turn the planet's surface into a burning sea of fire.
After transforming, Godzilla didn't immediately search for Omega.
Because Omega would eventually reveal its own location.
He wasn't sure what stage this world was in, but he was certain Omega hadn't been destroyed yet.
And as long as Omega lived, it was only a matter of time before that human—the one splashed with Alpha's blood—died again.
When that happened, Omega would be forced to reset time.
And when time reset, Godzilla would follow the ripples straight to Omega's position.
Sure enough, after drifting aimlessly through the ocean for three hours, Godzilla was enveloped in a surge of temporal power that swept across the entire world.
His vision flickered, and the next instant he found himself back at his entry point.
The sea looked the same, but he knew it: this was where he had crossed into this world.
He could still "see" the channel he had torn open to arrive here.
Traveling between worlds always left a scar, a hidden hole invisible to ordinary detection.
The other side of that rift connected to his own world.
But anyone trying to pass through it would be shredded apart. His arrival had been too violent, leaving the passage warped and unstable.
And once he returned home, he would collapse it completely.
No intruders would slip through.
Though hours weren't enough for him to cross every ocean, he could span an entire sea in that time.
Yet just now, he had been yanked back in an instant.
Without any control over it.
It felt like giant hands had scooped him from the water and dropped him back where he started.
The sensation filled him with disgust.
A destructive urge boiled up inside, the instinct to burn the source of that power to ash.
"..."
Godzilla calmed himself.
It was instinct, nothing more. The first time he'd encountered a force against which he had no resistance, his body reacted with the primal need to eliminate the threat.
But if he let instinct govern him, one day he would fall into nothing more than a beast.
That was unacceptable.
Steadying himself, he swam toward the source of the temporal surge.
Now that he had direction, his speed increased sharply.
But even racing forward, he was dragged back to the starting point again before reaching land.
"..."
Damn that wild card.
Godzilla had almost forgotten there was such an unstable factor here.
How many times had that man already died?
Who could possibly count?
Adjusting his strategy, Godzilla shed his limbs entirely and streamlined into his fastest aquatic form.
This time he caught sight of land—only to be snapped back before he could reach shore.
What the hell!
His fury surged.
Instead of aiming for Omega directly, he turned course, swimming toward land on the opposite side.
He had to find that wild card.
Though he wanted nothing more than to crush the man between his claws, Godzilla knew he needed to protect him.
At least until Omega was located and consumed.
He didn't know how much of Earth remained unfallen, or exactly which battlefield had seen the Alpha's blood spilled.
But instinct told him: finding the man was far easier than tracking Omega through the resets.
Godzilla surged forward. In less than two hours, the mainland came into view.
Just as he was about to accelerate further, his radar picked up a swarm of life ahead.
Aliens.
As he closed in, the swarm grew restless. They had noticed him, shocked at his presence.
But surprise didn't slow them.
A tide of alien creatures surged toward him.
They weren't coming to talk.
Their nature was pure malice—every lifeform they saw, they destroyed.
But they were no match for Godzilla.
He ignored their attacks. The currents churned by his colossal body tore them apart before they could get close.
Even their ranged strikes bounced harmlessly from his hide.
He pressed on, straight for the shore.
As he neared the beach, he shifted again into his terrestrial form.
Perfect timing.
And so, into the battlefield of humans and aliens strode a monster.
A monster so fearsome that even the gunfire above faltered in awe.
[Please give powerstones if you're enjoying the story.
500 stones = 1 extra chapter
patreon com/GuessMyName33 for up to 30 chapters ahead]