GTAG Chapter 52: Dismantling the Spaceship
"..."
Godzilla was at a loss for words.
He suddenly realized he had forgotten something important.
He remembered clearly how terrifying and grotesque the infection creatures were—but he had completely overlooked the setting of the story.
This was Antarctica, a land of endless snow and ice with layers of permafrost thicker than mountains.
And here he was, an enormous walking furnace, radiating heat with every breath. If he walked across this place, wouldn't each step melt deep craters into the ice?
In fact, he didn't even need to walk. Just by standing still, the heat pouring off his body would melt centuries of frozen ice, leaving him swimming in pools of water.
Since the moment he arrived, the sound of hissing steam had been constant.
The ice beneath his feet cracked and melted at extreme temperatures, while the water that touched his skin hissed like droplets falling onto red-hot iron.
Even lifting his legs had become troublesome, the softened ground sucking at his feet.
It was… awkward, to say the least.
And truthfully, he had no intention of lowering his body temperature.
For now, Antarctica still seemed safe. The alien parasites capable of infecting all life had only just begun to stir.
But who could say for certain this was humanity's first contact? What if those creatures were already lurking beyond the ice, waiting?
Godzilla refused to be caught off guard.
Until he proved that his G-cells could resist—or even destroy—the infection, he wouldn't let his guard down.
He wasn't about to be killed because he underestimated something he thought was beneath him. That was the kind of humiliation that would make him no better than "Zilla," that pathetic lizard disgrace.
So, Godzilla changed tactics.
Instead of walking on the ice, he burrowed beneath it, melting tunnels as he went.
Powered by his fusion reactor, the ice melted quickly, and he found that tunneling under the ice was actually faster than trudging on top of it.
His destination was the buried spaceship.
Long ago, when he first discovered this world, Godzilla had scanned it carefully. After much time and effort, he had pinpointed the ship's location.
And now, with his growing mastery of spacetime travel, he could land close enough to reach it.
Before long, Godzilla came upon a circular spacecraft entombed beneath the ice.
He snorted. What kind of aliens built ships shaped like giant disks? It was ugly.
Inside, there was no sign of life. Perhaps the crew had died long ago—or maybe a few still slumbered in hibernation.
Godzilla didn't rip it open immediately. Instead, he circled the vessel, melting away the surrounding ice until it was free.
Then, relying on the techniques he had practiced while dismantling the Engineers' ship, he tore open a section of the hull.
He couldn't be sure his past experience would apply here.
But at least nothing exploded while he tore it apart.
Maybe he had avoided critical systems. Or maybe the ship's power supply had simply run dry after so many years.
Either way, it didn't matter.
When a chunk of the hull fell away, no gore spilled out.
So he kept tearing. Piece by piece.
Before long, the ship was nothing but twisted metal scattered across the ice.
A once-complete spacecraft now resembled a child's broken toy, smashed beyond repair.
And Godzilla felt no guilt whatsoever. He'd do it again without hesitation.
Still, the destruction wasn't fruitless.
Among the wreckage, Godzilla found cryo-pods and incubation tanks.
Inside the pods slept large humanoids, at least two meters tall, with swollen heads and writhing tentacles—aliens, most likely.
He couldn't be certain they weren't already infected.
But the incubation tanks left no doubt.
Suspended in yellow fluid were grotesque, twisted abominations. Their warped limbs clearly belonged to the same aliens now lying in the pods.
These were the infected.
It seemed the aliens had discovered the infection and quickly captured the afflicted, perhaps to study them.
But they hadn't expected how fast or far it would spread.
Godzilla plucked up one of the incubation tanks with his claws and looked around.
He needed a secure place to conduct his test. Somewhere the parasite couldn't escape.
But all around was frozen wasteland—and the only alien vessel had already been smashed to pieces by his own hands.
His gaze fell on his tail. Inspiration struck.
Curling it into a circle, he placed the incubation tank inside, then slammed it with a slab of wreckage.
Crack!
The tank shattered, spilling its contents onto the ice.
The warped creature inside lay still, motionless in the yellow liquid.
But Godzilla didn't relax. His radiation beam was ready, primed to incinerate the flesh at the first twitch.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Still, the meat didn't move.
Patience gone, Godzilla decided to force the matter.
He raised a claw over the inert flesh. With a thought, his skin split and dark red blood spilled out, dripping onto the creature.
If his G-cells could kill the infection, he would know soon enough.
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