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"Is that someone from your old employer?"
"Recognize any of them?"
Natsuki turned back to Jared as the two sides traded fire across the vast underground space.
These two organizations fought like they had a blood feud. One look at each other and they went straight to shooting.
"NO..."
"At least before I left the organization, I'd never seen these guys." Jared, already in his mid-forties, had been a senior veteran before he walked away , but these people drew a complete blank. No recognition whatsoever.
APEX he knew, at least by reputation. Private company, cutting-edge tech. They'd had some dealings with Monarch in the past, but nothing substantial , surface-level stuff that never went anywhere deep. In his memory, the two sides had never been close.
Whatever was driving this firefight right now, the MUTO egg was almost certainly it.
And the people who showed up here weren't necessarily the ones calling the shots.
"So the people here are breeding Kaiju, trying to control them..." Natsuki's gaze swept between both sides. "And this Monarch team came to intercept and steal it."
He pieced it together from what he already knew.
Quite the Kaiju tug-of-war.
They really weren't afraid of the thing going out of control and killing every last one of them.
Were they always this reckless?
"We need to move. This firefight is going to cause a nuclear leak, and the Kaiju will wake up."
"We have no reason to get buried here with these lunatics." Jared watched the technicians in hazmat suits already filing out, then looked at Natsuki. "Let's go."
If they waited any longer, they really would be buried here.
"I can't leave." Natsuki looked toward the massive MUTO egg at the center of the chamber. His expression shifted , quieter, more serious.
"It's already awake."
He could feel it clearly. The Kaiju inside the egg had already stirred, and it wouldn't be long before it broke free.
This MUTO had its genetic code rewritten during development. Whatever was controlling it sat in the observation room directly above , a device up there was broadcasting at a specific frequency, something only a Titan could understand.
"Looks like they're using these people as live test subjects."
This Kaiju was fully mature. The Monarch team had walked straight into the worst possible timing.
"Then why aren't you leaving?"
"You want to stay here and die with them?" Jared knew exactly what a Titan like a MUTO could do. He wasn't going to stand here and watch Natsuki throw his life away.
"Get out of here. Now!"
He grabbed Natsuki's arm and pulled.
Nothing. The tall, lean man in the floral shirt didn't move an inch , like he'd been bolted to the ground.
"You... shit." Jared frowned, jaw tight.
"I know you've got abilities most people can't explain. But this isn't the time to prove anything."
"Those people have nothing to do with you."
He genuinely couldn't figure it out , why would an alien dig his heels in over something like this? Stubborn as a mule. Ten horses couldn't drag him back.
"You said it yourself," Natsuki said, meeting his eyes. "If this Kaiju starts tearing through the city, the whole place shuts down."
"Yeah, I said that. That's why I'm here — gathering intel, trying to find a way to stop this." Jared's voice dropped slightly. "I've lived through it. I know what a disaster actually costs. I'm human. That's why I want to save the people who have nothing to do with any of this."
"And you?"
"I still don't fully understand why you came to Earth. What you actually want."
"Why does an alien care about any of this?"
He asked it straight. Every question he'd been sitting on, finally out in the open.
This guy was too much of a mystery. His purpose, his loyalties , none of it added up.
"Same reason as you."
"To protect innocent people." Natsuki smiled.
"Why?"
"You're just a—" Jared started, still unable to make sense of it. Then the answer cut him off before he could finish.
"Because I am Ultraman."
He stepped out from behind cover and walked straight toward the center of the crossfire.
"Ultraman..." Jared stood alone, the word turning over in his mind, searching for what it meant.
...
Cover near a passageway on the opposite side.
"Sir, radiation levels in the surrounding area are dropping fast. Their nuclear reactor has gone offline."
A soldier in full black combat gear appeared at the blond buzz-cut man's side and reported.
"Damn it... they're waking the Titan."
The blond man , Lao , stared at the Kaiju egg in the center. Its pulsing frequency was accelerating. A cold feeling settled in his gut.
He pressed the earpiece in his right ear and opened comms with his superiors.
"This is Team Lao. Enemy is preparing to awaken the Titan. Requesting further instructions."
"Received!"
The order came back quickly. Lao looked across to a soldier crouched behind cover on the far side and signaled with his hand.
The soldier caught it, nodded, and opened a black briefcase he'd been carrying. Inside was a compact, sophisticated sonic device.
Hmmm , hmmm ,
Based on the energy readings from the egg, it had less than a minute before it hatched.
The APEX guards were already pulling back. In the observation room above, the long-haired man stood with his hands clasped behind him, watching the egg with quiet anticipation.
"Jam it!" Lao ordered the moment the soldier signaled ready.
The soldier cranked the device's output. A complex layered frequency poured out of it , a sound no human ear could parse or understand.
The only one in the room who could understand it was the Titan at the center.
And it responded by breaking faster.
THOOM , THOOM!
WROOOOAAAAR!!
It happened all at once. The Titan tore through the side of the crescent-shaped egg. The entire underground space lurched. Monitoring equipment dissolved into static. The lights flickered once, twice , then died. A deep, crushing roar rolled through the darkness and shook the walls.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
The MUTO was out. Lao was already shouting at his soldiers.
It rose in the violent trembling , a hundred meters of it, maybe more. Four slender forelimbs braced against the ground, two thick hind legs anchoring its weight. It looked like something between an insect and a machine, its body dense and angular as cast iron. A flat, triangular skull. Eyes burning crimson, sweeping slowly through the dark.
A female MUTO. Fully awake.
And in that same moment ,
"Dr. Serizawa! Seismic activity in San Francisco. Radiation signature matches — it's almost certainly a Titan!"
Inside a Monarch outpost, a monitoring room lined wall to wall with screens, a technician spotted the anomaly and immediately called it in to Serizawa Ishiro.
Serizawa crossed the room at once.
He held advanced degrees in paleobiology, zoology, climatology , and more. He was also one of Monarch's senior leaders, the head of a faction that had always believed Titans and humanity could coexist.
"Alert the government immediately. Begin civilian evacuation in San Francisco."
"Damn it..." Serizawa's hand closed into a fist. "Those people have really lost their minds."
At the same time.
In a temple deep beneath the ocean, another vast and terrible creature opened its eyes.
➤ Next: Muto
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