12-20-2017, 01:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-20-2017, 01:05 AM by King Ghidorah.
Edit Reason: Missing words, sundry details.
)
For several seconds, neither we nor Mothra move. A kilometer of waterlogged fields lies between her and ourselves, the four of us towering above this dismal, soggy little province. We steal the opportunity to draw upon our astral wellspring, hoarding cosmic charge in anticipation of an unexpectedly difficult fight.
"This is your last chance," says our rainbow-winged challenger, a wheedling voice in our minds.
We make a show of hesitation - and then we strike, flooding our body with the living light of a cosmic catastrophe as we launch ourself into the muted sky, wings and scales shining scintilating astral radiance from within. The rush of the chill, damp wind beneath our wings, the tug and twist of complex air-currents among our writhing necks and and streaming double-tails forges a cold, solid certainty:
We are King Ghidorah - and diminished we may be, but this is not the first time a creature whose stature eclipsed our own has stood in our way.
Mothra counters immediately, prismatic beams of mystical power as thick as our necks erupting from her over-sized compound eyes. We try to dodge but our aerial agility remains disappointing, and we're struck in spite of our efforts. The power of the beams is astounding: the resulting technicolor explosion nearly knocks us from the sky, spinning us around in mid-air, but its force is blunted by the cosmic aurora gleaming from our golden hide. Several frantic wing-beats correct our course, and we accelerate, returning fire as we close the distance; Arcing golden lightning bursts from our mouths in stutter-step rhythm, crackling through the atmosphere. Our target dodges easily, rolling aside with a casual, thunderous flick of her wings and gaining altitude rapidly, spiraling higher. The luster suffusing our gleaming metallic scales gutters out, spent. We flap our wings furiously - far more than should be necessary - and follow her into the sky.
At the top of our climb, we burst through the clouds, and into the light of the sun, trailing mist and shining like a dying star in the late-afternoon light. A landscape pure white vapor stretches out around us, stinking of water and oxygen, great billowing fields of evaporated water punctuated by roiling towers of thicker, denser mist, all burning with shades of rusted orange and ruddy gold.
The engagement becomes a duel. Mothra circles us, and we circle her, ducking and weaving among the clouds as bolts of incandescent power scorch the air between us. To our monumental irritation it appears she's faster than we are, and far more nimble, capable of sudden bursts of speed and unlikely stops. It's only by sheer sustained volume of fire we manage to hit the presumptuous bug, raising bursts of sparks and steam from Mothra's fuzzy body and gouts of flames from her polychromatic wings, but she simply rolls with the impact, spinning through the air, trailing oily smoke, before recovering with a flick of her wings. She barely sees affected saving the scorch marks and a slight raggedness in her flight.
If we could only get closer - but we don't get the opportunity. The clouds suddenly swirl up around us, moving unnaturally against the wind, obscuring our view, and when we emerge again into the open sky we take a blast of electric rainbow light full in the chest.
For a moment, we don't know what's going on. Our wings have stopped working. A furious howl of moving air batters us constantly, and there's a pain in our torso the likes of which we've only rarely felt before - not merely hurt, but deeply wounded. It shouldn't be possible: not by this insect whose kind I've slaughtered previously with such ecstatic ease! As the shock passes one of us notices that we're trailing a cloud of smoke and blackened scales as we fall - and another notes that the ground is approaching very, very quickly.
We spread our wings, try to glide, to control our descent, but the best we can manage in our dazed and injured state is to slow our plunge. There are green hills below us - miniature landscape-textures marred by darker patches which we recognize from long experience soaring above doomed continents as rocky outcroppings, growing more prominent defined with every passing moment; If we fall on those, stunted and battered as we are, we might actually die.
Half-frantic, straining to focus, we draw upon our astral wellspring - and as we tumble that final, fateful thousand feet we flood our scales with cosmic potency, and hit the ground amidst a halo of light.
"This is your last chance," says our rainbow-winged challenger, a wheedling voice in our minds.
We make a show of hesitation - and then we strike, flooding our body with the living light of a cosmic catastrophe as we launch ourself into the muted sky, wings and scales shining scintilating astral radiance from within. The rush of the chill, damp wind beneath our wings, the tug and twist of complex air-currents among our writhing necks and and streaming double-tails forges a cold, solid certainty:
We are King Ghidorah - and diminished we may be, but this is not the first time a creature whose stature eclipsed our own has stood in our way.
Mothra counters immediately, prismatic beams of mystical power as thick as our necks erupting from her over-sized compound eyes. We try to dodge but our aerial agility remains disappointing, and we're struck in spite of our efforts. The power of the beams is astounding: the resulting technicolor explosion nearly knocks us from the sky, spinning us around in mid-air, but its force is blunted by the cosmic aurora gleaming from our golden hide. Several frantic wing-beats correct our course, and we accelerate, returning fire as we close the distance; Arcing golden lightning bursts from our mouths in stutter-step rhythm, crackling through the atmosphere. Our target dodges easily, rolling aside with a casual, thunderous flick of her wings and gaining altitude rapidly, spiraling higher. The luster suffusing our gleaming metallic scales gutters out, spent. We flap our wings furiously - far more than should be necessary - and follow her into the sky.
At the top of our climb, we burst through the clouds, and into the light of the sun, trailing mist and shining like a dying star in the late-afternoon light. A landscape pure white vapor stretches out around us, stinking of water and oxygen, great billowing fields of evaporated water punctuated by roiling towers of thicker, denser mist, all burning with shades of rusted orange and ruddy gold.
The engagement becomes a duel. Mothra circles us, and we circle her, ducking and weaving among the clouds as bolts of incandescent power scorch the air between us. To our monumental irritation it appears she's faster than we are, and far more nimble, capable of sudden bursts of speed and unlikely stops. It's only by sheer sustained volume of fire we manage to hit the presumptuous bug, raising bursts of sparks and steam from Mothra's fuzzy body and gouts of flames from her polychromatic wings, but she simply rolls with the impact, spinning through the air, trailing oily smoke, before recovering with a flick of her wings. She barely sees affected saving the scorch marks and a slight raggedness in her flight.
If we could only get closer - but we don't get the opportunity. The clouds suddenly swirl up around us, moving unnaturally against the wind, obscuring our view, and when we emerge again into the open sky we take a blast of electric rainbow light full in the chest.
For a moment, we don't know what's going on. Our wings have stopped working. A furious howl of moving air batters us constantly, and there's a pain in our torso the likes of which we've only rarely felt before - not merely hurt, but deeply wounded. It shouldn't be possible: not by this insect whose kind I've slaughtered previously with such ecstatic ease! As the shock passes one of us notices that we're trailing a cloud of smoke and blackened scales as we fall - and another notes that the ground is approaching very, very quickly.
We spread our wings, try to glide, to control our descent, but the best we can manage in our dazed and injured state is to slow our plunge. There are green hills below us - miniature landscape-textures marred by darker patches which we recognize from long experience soaring above doomed continents as rocky outcroppings, growing more prominent defined with every passing moment; If we fall on those, stunted and battered as we are, we might actually die.
Half-frantic, straining to focus, we draw upon our astral wellspring - and as we tumble that final, fateful thousand feet we flood our scales with cosmic potency, and hit the ground amidst a halo of light.