A lower howl this time, rawer than the horizon call had been, aimed downward at the ground and the woman pinning its legs to it. The creature had felt the damage humanity had landed. It had understood, on the back of that, that the reason it could not move was a single woman's will.
The six pupils closed, then opened.
The fissure-mouth cracked wider than it had been.
And the Kaiju jumped.
A scream left its fissure-mouth on the way up, aimed downward at the earth itself in a register the planet registered back, and the ground came with the creature. Chunks of continental bedrock the size of small islands tore free under its four feet and rode its vector skyward, soil and stone trailing the ascent in a cloud the size of a district. The trees around the perimeter blew flat a second time that day.
Vespera's shadows had been wound through the Kaiju's knees, anchored to the ground for their leverage.
The ground was not on the ground anymore.
