Little Titan Goes Metal (Monsterverse)

[Harry Leferts]

Breathing hard, Madison grimaced at the copper taste in her mouth after her newest coughing fit as she gripped the controls as tightly as she could. Which, unfortunately, was not that tightly as they could have been with how weak she was feeling. Something which, she knew, could be thrown at the feet of a certain fact:

She was dying, slowly, but it was coming.

After getting the news a year ago, Madison had cried herself out before coming to accept it. Really, it shouldn't have been that unexpected. Back in Boston, Ghidorah had not bothered to control the cosmic radiation coming from his body. And she had been closer to him for a longer period of time than anyone else alive. One final "Fuck you" from the three headed bastard. So, she had come to accept it… though it had not stopped her from being completely angry over the unfairness of it.

Yet, in every raincloud as her grandmother once told her, there was a silver lining. And, even the news that she got had one. Said silver lining being the newest MONARCH project: Kiryuu.

While by almost every metric, Mecha-Godzilla had been a complete failure and worse, it had been a success in some ways. The major issue, of course, was the fact that they had used the brain of King Ghidorah as the main way of control. That had turned out to be as bad of an idea as she could have told them from the start. But… there was some use in it, hence Mecha-Godzilla II had been started, or as they termed it, Kiryuu.

Madison preferred that name, because she saw it as its own being in a way after being its test pilot and main pilot.

Unlike the original, it had more organic parts, none of which were from King Ghidorah. Rather, they used bits cloned from genetic samples taken from multiple Godzilla remains. One was Dagon, some were from bits of flesh recovered from areas of Godzilla's battles. Yet, more was taken from remains discovered in the Hollow Earth, including some of the very few cold regions. From that, they had cloned a brain and parts of a nervous system to control the giant mech. And, from one of the remains in the Hollow Earth's frozen regions, they had recovered the dorsal spines that were attached to the mech to help it control and better channel the massive amounts of energy needed.

Of course, once it the brain was cloned, they very carefully examined it to make sure there wouldn't be any problems before placing it in the body. As it turned out, said brain was completely blank. The only parts that functioned were the parts that normally controlled unconscious things, such as breathing and the like. It was completely brain dead, the lights were on yet no one was home.

That meant that a pilot was needed for it… though, after the disaster that was Mecha-Godzilla, there was few of those willing to strap themselves in. And into that, Madison came as she volunteered to be the test pilot of the mech. Something that meant going through various surgeries and the like. Being that she already was dying, she didn't care about the risk to herself. Not to mention, she was also suspicious enough to note anything that could pop up. About the only thing that she had noted over the months of tests was that it became easier to control it the more she piloted it. Which, mostly, was thought that it was because her mind was getting used to it.

Granted, there was another reason that she had volunteered to become the pilot for Kiryuu. From the beginning, she had been fascinated by the Kaiju in a way that she knew Serizawa the elder was. Not from a scientific perspective, but from a more spiritual one. And becoming a pilot meant that she would live one of her dreams… to be able to see the world from the view of a Kaiju. And, she was living that dream from the time she had first connected mentally with the mech she was in via her implants.

Recently, as her death came closer and closer, she had begun training new pilots…

And that, of course, was when things went completely to shit as she had expected it to. It turned out that the crystal that the Skar King had used was not the only such example and another group of humans in the Hollow Earth had found one of their own. One that they made use of to control two different Titans, a giant beetle and an aquatic reptile. Both of which they had made use of to attack the surface world alongside other, more minor Titans like Skullcrawlers, to "Retake their birth right" as they put it.

Upon hearing that, despite the situation, Madison had found herself snorting and rolling her eyes. But that was all as their agents had attacked the pilot facility and all those there were either dead or too badly injured to pilot Kiryuu. And that meant in turn that the only one available… was Madison herself. And she had spent the past week or so being rushed from one place to the other fighting, making use of the tunnels and portals in the Hollow Earth alongside Kong to get to her various destinations.

Now fighting the aquatic reptile, named Titanosaurus, she grit her teeth as her mech was thrown back, skidding through the wrecked city streets. With a thought, she thrust a hand down, Kiryuu's own doing the same as it dug into the pavement to help it slow to a stop. Through the corner of her eyes, she could see Kong fighting the beetle, Megalon. Chest hurting, Madison breathed had as she forced her mech to stand back up, firing a maser beam at the giant reptile, driving it back.

Part of her ignored the spots dancing in her vision and the creeping darkness as well as the alarms signaling her health failing as well as the distant shouts over the radio from MONARCH's Command Center.

Teeth grit as Titanosaurus roared, she activated the speakers in Kiryuu's mouth and answered it with her own scream of defiance. In fact, the very same scream she had used against King Ghidorah all those years ago. Somewhat to her amusement, that seemed to cause the other Kaiju to pause, which gave her the chance to close the distance and land a punishing punch that snapped its head back. When it went to grab her, she instead grabbed its arm and pulled it close before landing another punch to the stomach, followed by a headbutt.

Before it could react, she then launched the wires in one hand, the prongs at the end digging in before shooting millions of volts into the Titan's body…

Which was of course when Megalon, having knocked Kong off of him, fired one of his own bolts of energy, throwing her Mech a distance. Flung against the straps securing her, Madison felt more blood well up in her mouth before snarling as she raised the head of Kiryuu, seeing through its eyes as Titanosaurus rose up. Yet again, she screamed through the speakers as she hauled herself to her feet, red seeping into her vision…

And then said scream was answered by a roar that caused the battle to pause, followed by a brilliant pink energy beam that flung Titanosaurus back. Very slowly, Madison turned her Mech's head to look as the King of the Monsters himself joined the battle. Said Titan strode forwards, water streaming from him before pausing as he looked at Kiryuu.

Very briefly, Madison felt like somehow, he was stripping away the layers of metal and electronics to look at her. To somehow see into her very soul in those moments. And she felt like a naked infant before some thing much greater than her.

For a moment, Godzilla looked angry at seeing her, which she realized was because she resembled Mecha-Godzilla as many of the spare parts of the original were used in Kiryuu. But, then, his expression seemed to change, becoming thoughtful before he rumbled. More surprisingly, Madison actually understood what he was saying.

"Little Titan?"

Blinking rapidly, even as she kept an eye on both Titanosaurus and Megalon, both of whom were keeping a very close eye on the newest combatant as they got back to their feet, Madison mumbled a bit through the speakers, "{Little Titan?}"

There was a snort from the King of the Monsters before he rumbled once more, "Yes, recognize your roar. Remember how it surprised three-headed interloper. Was very impressed, big spirit in small body, good to see you in more proper form."

Utterly shocked, Madison realized right then that not only did he somehow recognize her and remember her… she also understood him, 'Is… is it because it is being through the cloned brain matter? Instinctively?' Shaking that off, she turned towards their mutual foes, hoping that Godzilla was not going to be one of them, "{Um, thanks… mind giving a hand?}"

Yet again, she got the feeling that he was amused before he spoke up, "Did good so far, Little Titan, but do not mind helping a child…"

Relief flooding through her, Madison gripped the controls as tightly as she could as she focused through her cybernetic implants, "Let's Go!"

As she changed in, she missed how Godzilla gave her an amused look and shook his head, "Children…"

From there, the battle continued, now with the forces more evenly matched. Just the same, however, Madison felt herself weakening more and more as the strain took its toll on her. Suddenly, she felt pain explode in her chest, like a sledgehammer striking her in the ribs. Gasping for breath as more blood filled her mouth, the young woman felt herself slipping as darkness filled her vision even as she screamed out defiance into the void.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Seeing Madison's vitals flatline as the lights in Kiryuu's eyes went out, those in MONARCH's control room all lowered their gaze as the giant Mech fell over. Those watching noted how Godzilla briefly lowered his gaze in both grief and respect before turning an absolutely enraged look onto Titanosaurus and charging with a roar that shook even those in the command center with one of them quietly commenting on it, "… Looks like the Big Guy is pissed…"

A number of those there simply nodded in agreement as they watched as Godzilla got in close to Titanosaurus and bit down where the shoulder met the neck as he threw them both through a skyscraper. Unfortunately, his anger was such that he missed as Megalon paused before blasting Kong off and digging underground while the giant ape was distracted. Moments later, the giant beatle burst out of the ground right behind the King of the Monsters and scored a hit with one of his drills with Titanosaurus using the distraction to also attack him.

In less than a minute, both Titans had the other one pinned down, even as Kong charged…

Right before a series of missiles slammed into Megalon, knocking him back. Moments later, a familiar defiant scream could be heard as Kiryuu hauled itself back to its feet, eyes glowing in anger. Inside the control center, various people began to panic.

"Pilot vital signs still flat! No signs of life detected!"

"What in the hell?! The main brain, its… active! Detecting active brainwaves!"

"QUICK! THE KILL SWITC-"

"NO!"

Everyone stopped and turned towards the main commander, one of them speaking up, "Sir, if Kiryuu goes out of control like Mecha-Godzilla, we're supposed to hit the kill switch!"

Looking at them, he then pointed at the brainwaves from the main brain, "Quick, check that against our records!"

One of them did so and blinked for a moment before staring in disbelief, "Match found, they're... Pilot Russell's... b-but how, her vitals..."

Staring at the screen, where Kiryuu grabbed Megalon's arm and blasted it off with its maser, the Commander shook his head, "Only her human ones... only her human ones."