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"ROOOAR——!!"
Godzilla's dorsal fins had broken the surface far out at sea. On the transport ship's deck, Kong felt the danger the instant it appeared. His genes were screaming at him , that thing out there was his enemy.
He opened his mouth and roared. Both fists hammered his chest, and the sound rolled across the water like a declaration: king of Skull Island, right here.
"Godzilla is two kilometers out."
"Damn it, now Kong's going berserk too?!" The crew in the bridge watched the two Titans closing on each other and felt the bottom drop out of their stomachs.
Nobody knew who would win if those two giants went at it. What they knew was simple: once the fighting started, everyone on this ship was finished.
They'd wanted to put Kong in restraints. Dr. Ishiro Serizawa had killed that idea.
"Easy, big guy. Prettiest thing on Skull Island."
"I've got you." Natsuki caught a Monarch crewman who'd nearly gone over the railing with a flick of telekinesis, set him down without breaking stride, and walked toward Kong through the violent pitching of the deck. His voice was calm, unhurried. Reassuring.
Kong heard him. The chest-beating slowed. Something flickered behind those eyes , hesitation.
He knew Natsuki was good. He knew the man wanted to help him. But he wasn't going to be the animal that hid behind someone else while they fought his battles. He was Kong. Last of the great surface apes. The last of his entire kind.
After losing everyone he'd ever had, he'd learned one thing: survival in this world meant depending on yourself. That belief was the only reason he'd fought his way to the top of Skull Island's food chain, through every giant beast that had ever tried to kill him. He didn't need to start fights. He could live peacefully, and he had. But when an enemy came for him, cowering behind another creature while someone else handled it?
He couldn't. He wouldn't.
At minimum, he had to meet the enemy himself. Then they could talk.
'I don't want you to get hurt.' Jia's hands moved. She knew what Kong was thinking.
Kong was her most important friend.
"ROOOAR!" Kong dipped his head toward Jia , he understood, he heard her , then looked back out at the dorsal fins cutting closer through the water and let out another roar.
He would never back down.
"Kids," Natsuki muttered, watching that hot-blooded giant with a helpless smile.
He turned toward the direction Godzilla was coming from.
"Nobody fires. Nobody interferes." He pressed the earpiece in and addressed the Monarch crew over comms.
"But, "
"The fighting won't reach any of you. If anything goes wrong, it's on me." His tone didn't leave room for argument.
"Trust Mr. Natsuki's judgment," Dr. Ishiro Serizawa added quietly.
"...Understood." The captain let out a breath and stood down.
Godzilla kept coming.
Serizawa glanced over at Jia standing beside Kong, something almost like hope moving through his eyes. He walked to the edge of the deck, heart clenching, and placed himself at the spot where Godzilla would arrive first.
"Godzilla..." He breathed the name.
The next second.
"KRRRSSHH—, !!"
The sea surged upward. A wall of white water blew into the sky. Something enormous pulled itself halfway out of the ocean, and its eyes found Kong on the far side of the deck before anything else.
Ancient memory ignited behind those eyes.
The atomic dinosaur lineage and the ape lineage had gone to war before written history began. And Godzilla itself carried a grudge from those days , a personal one, older than most of the scars on its body.
It had lived on a surface island once. The ancient humans there had worshipped it as a god. Then one Kong, powerful beyond anything it had faced, had driven it out. That humiliation had never faded.
Time passed. It grew stronger. It went back looking for that island, looking for that Kong, ready to settle it once and for all.
The ancient Kong had turned to bones long before it arrived. The grudge had nowhere to go. So it stayed buried, quiet and waiting.
But here was another Kong. Standing on a human ship. Right in front of it.
Two debts. One moment to collect both.
"GRAAAHH, , !!" Godzilla opened its jaws wide and screamed at Kong.
Serizawa threw himself forward into the wind pressure of that roar, craning his neck back to look up at Godzilla. "No," he said, voice cutting through the noise. "Kong means no harm."
"We only want to reach the Hollow Earth. There's a girl , we're looking for her people."
Jia could talk to Kong. He'd spent his life hoping he could do the same with Godzilla. Decades of study. He wanted to believe that meant something.
"GROOOARR, " Godzilla's head dropped. Its gaze swept from Serizawa to Kong, drifted, and landed on Natsuki.
This guy again.
"I know you two have history," Natsuki said, meeting that ancient stare. "But do me this one favor."
"After we come back from the Hollow Earth, the two of you can sort out who's on top."
The words went straight into Godzilla's mind through telepathy. No translation needed. Godzilla understood every word.
Every Monarch member on the ship had stopped breathing. The fighter pilots on the deck were quietly praying. Jared and Old D had already pulled rocket launchers out of a weapon crate and were standing there with expressions that said they knew exactly how useless those would be.
Godzilla and Kong locked eyes.
The shape of the ape in front of it began to blur and shift in Godzilla's mind, bleeding into an older silhouette from a different age.
And in Kong's chest, bloodline instinct hammered out its warning.
"ROOOAR, , !!"
"GRAAAHH, , !!"
Both Titans roared at the same time. The sound hit like a physical thing. Every person on the deck clapped their hands over their ears.
There was no avoiding it now.
"It's still not enough..." Serizawa frowned, watching Godzilla's eyes burn with battle-hunger.
All those years of research. Still couldn't match what Jia had built with Kong in a fraction of the time.
Godzilla began to climb toward the deck.
"BOOM,, "
Thunder cracked from the center of the deck. A column of light punched into the sky. A giant with a body of red and silver rose above the ship, hovering between the two Titans without adding a gram of weight to the hull below. Bright eyes turned toward Godzilla. The giant held its position in the space between them.
The voice that followed was deep and resonant, arriving in both minds at once , Godzilla's and Kong's, simultaneously, inescapably.
"If you choose to fight each other right now."
"I will put you both down."
Light wheels began to form between the giant's palms, spinning slowly, gathering. The energy pouring off them warped the air around them. The hum that filled the deck carried a single clear meaning. An invisible pressure expanded outward like a wave.
➤ Next: Journey to the Center
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