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Chapter Text

It was only after much pleading and bargaining with her dad that Maddie was allowed to go on one of the trips to Rodan’s new nesting area. Her recent experiences with the few mini-Titans she’d encountered had helped convince him. Being friendly with four out of four did wonders in her argument that obviously something made them see her differently from other humans. 

While none of the Titans, big or small, actively threatened people, they didn’t hesitate to retaliate or defend themselves. Godzilla’s little rampage through Castle Bravo a few months ago was example enough. 

Not with Maddie, though. Whether she was just lucky enough to never push their buttons, or they had more patience with her, or for some other reason entirely, not a single one had ever deliberately snapped at her. 

And now she’d managed to convince her dad that this would hold true with Rodan. Despite his fear and wariness—which was valid, considering his first and only encounter with Rodan involved almost dying—Maddie was standing only a few miles away from the volcano housing the Fire Demon. 

Monarch was in the process of building a new outpost in the area, ostensibly to keep an eye on Rodan, but more because they wanted to keep people away from him. He, like a number of the other Titans who’d been awakened by Ghidorah over two years ago, had wandered around a bit before settling down, inevitably not far from some city or another. 

Trying to keep moronic tourists from annoying Rodan into eating them or something had been Monarch’s main priority when he first chose this volcano as home. The new outpost was nearly completed now, as were their extensive security measures. 

No one had fallen into the volcano or been stepped on—despite some people’s apparent attempts at otherwise—so Monarch counted the whole thing as a win. 

Maddie stood on the highest level of the outpost’s series of viewing platforms and stared over the tops of the trees to the volcano. The area was vast, and during previous explorations taken both on foot and by drone, they’d found a lot of trees near the base had been knocked down. 

It was an indicator all on its own of Rodan’s activity. He didn’t sleep for long periods of time anymore. The jungle environment bore all sorts of signs of his presence. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Dr. Ling asked as she joined Maddie at the railing. She’d offered to accompany Maddie with the rest of the group heading out here, which had proved to be the final bit of reassurance Mark had needed. 

Maddie nodded. “It kinda reminds me of Outpost 61.” 

“Mm,” she hummed, closing her eyes for a moment. “I agree. Though I envy the temple’s isolation.” 

Remembering some of the stories they’d been told by full-time residences over breakfast of their most memorable encounters with thrill seekers, Maddie laughed and said, “Being so far away from people certain has its upsides, that’s for sure. Do you know if we’re heading out soon?” 

“Within the hour. They’re doing a final weather check to make sure our journey won’t be interrupted by poor conditions.” 

They both looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless, the sun shining warmly down on them. 

Dr. Ling laughed lightly and added, “I understand some of the storms in this area arrive suddenly and violently.” 

“Better safe than sorry,” Maddie agreed. 

A faint screech echoed out of the volcano. She carefully watched the top in case the tip of a wing or something poked out. Though she’d promised her dad that she wouldn’t wander away from the group or intentionally go looking for trouble, Maddie wouldn’t object to having a close encounter with Rodan. 

If she was lucky, this trip would end with her being able to call a fifth Titan a tentative friend.

• • • 

Everything went wrong a few hours later. The tropical storm they expected to hit long after the sun went down showed up early. Really early. The timing couldn’t have been worse, too, because only twenty minutes or so before they recognized the signs, their team had gotten word of some thrill-seekers who had gotten past the security measures. Since they weren’t far, a small portion of their group had left to intercept the trespassers and escort them to the separate Monarch facility built solely for dealing with these sorts of idiots. 

With them gone, there was Maddie, Dr. Ling, three on-site scientists, and five members of the security team. They were spread out around the terrain, each doing their own thing, for the most part. 

Maddie, accompanied by one of the security team—because there was a difference between exploring and being stupid—had climbed the outermost rocky hills making up the volcano. The view was beautiful, the weather was pleasant, and there was something inherently exciting about being so close to a volcano with a Titan inside it. 

At least, Maddie thought so. She was sure her dad wouldn’t have agreed with her. 

Being shadowed by a guard was no hardship when she was as friendly as Sophia was. She recognized every bird call they heard and every flower they saw, better than one of the actual botanists below. 

Maddie clambered up to the top of an enormous boulder and surveyed the area. She could clearly see where Rodan had indeed done some landscaping. Snapped trees and scorched patches of grass and rocks littered the base of the volcano. Turning away from the surrounding forest, she examined the volcano itself. 

If it weren’t for the fact someone had told her it wasn’t a normal mountain, she never would’ve guessed. It was really wide at the base and carried upwards in a gentler slope than she might have imagined, though it was pretty steep in a few places. The rough surface was covered with cracks and crevices and what she hoped were caves. 

She knew she could spend weeks exploring the area without growing bored. But she only had a few days. She must’ve made a face at the thought, because Sophia chuckled. 

“There’s just so much!” Maddie complained. There really was such a problem as too much of a good thing. 

“I know, kiddo, I know. Y’see that yellow line a little farther up? Can’t go any higher than that today, I’m afraid, but there’s a bird nest near it, hidden in a fissure. Want to see if you can find it without help?” 

It sounded like a fun challenge with a potentially cute reward, and Maddie had no problem with hiking a little higher. 

So, naturally, it was when their numbers were small and their group divided that the storm hit. The wind picked up first, and just as it got to be noticeably bad, the sun was suddenly obscured by dark, ominous-looking clouds. Then came the rain, in great, pounding sheets. 

The rocks beneath Maddie’s feet shifted, and quite by luck, she tripped herself while trying to regain her balance. She fell on a larger, more sturdy boulder, unlike Sophia. The slick ground took the woman down hard, and a section of loose stones sent her right over the edge of the wide lip they’d been standing on. 

Maddie couldn’t even see the others through the rain. 

Without standing up, she carefully scooted to the drop off. It wasn’t a big one, thank goodness, but Sophia was definitely unconscious a few feet below her. Only using rocks that appeared to be firmly wedged into the dirt, instead of simply sitting all wobbly on top, she slowly climbed down. 

It looked like Sophia had landed funny, and her leg was absolutely not supposed to be facing that direction. Blood had already soaked through her pant leg, too. From what Maddie could see of her face, there were at least two bleeding cuts. 

Lightning crackled through the sky, shortly followed by a boom of thunder explosive enough to shake the ground. The wind whipped water into her eyes, and she pressed against the mountainside as she shielded her face. 

No matter how hard she looked, Maddie couldn’t even make out the base of the volcano, much less anyone standing there. She wrestled her backpack off and fished out the radio inside. 

“Dr. Ling?” she called into it over the sound of the storm. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

She flinched as what sure sounded like a rockslide or something crashed and banged around not far from her and Sophia. 

A burst of static nearly made her drop the radio. She thought there was a voice mixed in with it, but it was so faint. 

“Dr. Ling? I can’t hear you!” 

“—Maddie—you—storm—”

The wind picked up, flattening Maddie’s hair against her face. She turned her back to it, pressed her side against the volcano, and tucked the radio into the little pocket between her body and the elements. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but Sophia’s hurt!” 

“—hurt?—dangerous—mudslide—”

Oh. If that was a mudslide she’d heard, it was probably between the two of them and the others. 

After a lot more crackling, two final words burst out of the radio, “—find—safe?” No matter how she fiddled with it after that, there was nothing else incoming. 

More lighting split the sky. Maddie flinched, the combination of light and pounding rain momentarily taking her back to Fenway. She had to take a few deep breaths, biting her lip as thunder rattled her heart, before she could stand up. Fighting the wind and the faint trembling in her legs, she stumbled along the mostly-flat path. 

Not too far from where Sophia had fallen was one of those caves she’d spotted earlier. Determined to get them both out of the rain before another mudslide or something similar could befall them, Maddie hurried back and contemplated the true obstacle. 

How was she supposed to maneuver an unconscious, full-grown adult across a slippery volcano? 

Definitely not by just standing here, she thought. 

If she was really lucky, Sophia would wake up. Maddie kept an eye on her face as she carefully wrestled the woman’s bulky gear off. Extra weight had to go. Just as she was ready to try dragging her, Sophia’s face screwed up a little. Her eyes fluttered open a few moments later. 

“Don’t move!” Maddie had to shout over the sounds of Mother Nature, pressing her hands against Sophia’s shoulders. 

She looked confused for a second before pain flashed across her face. 

Maddie explained what had happened as quickly as she could before urging Sophia up. It took long, chilly minutes, but Maddie was able to be a good enough crutch to cross the agonizing distance between them and the cave. 

After settling Sophia a reasonable distance from the entrance, Maddie ran back into the storm to grab their discarded gear. Falling to her knees beside her guard upon her return, she fished a first aid kit out of one of the backpacks. 

“Can you dry swallow pills?” Maddie asked, unscrewing the little travel-sized container of pain meds. 

She offered a shaky smile. “Whether or not I can doesn’t matter, those things are going down one way or another.” 

While she worked on gulping the maximum dosage down, Maddie wriggled out of her light coat and tossed the soaking garment aside. There should be towels or something in the backpacks… 

Sophia had finished by the time she successfully located two thankfully dry towels and a blanket. They weren’t much, but the temperature was already a lot cooler than it’d been half an hour ago. The cave protected them from the rain, not the brisk breeze. 

“What should we do about your leg?” Maddie asked as they went about wiping their faces, and in her case, her bare arms. She gathered the soaked fabric of her shirt and squeezed excess water out. When she looked back up, Sophia had cut away her pants at the knee and was leaning up to examine the injury. Maddie could see a bit of bone sticking out of one of the gashes. 

“Think you could wrap it for me? Slow the bleeding, hopefully prevent infection. I don’t think we have anything to use as a splint.” 

“Yeah. Do—do you think you could walk a little more afterwards? I think we should try and get away from the wind.” Maddie rubbed her goosebump-covered arms, already shivering. 

Sophia nodded, trembling faintly herself. She carefully lifted Sophia’s foot onto her own leg so she wouldn’t have to move it around while wrapping it. While practicing some deep breathing exercises, Sophia guided Maddie on where to apply some antiseptic spray before she began bundling it up in gauze. 

“Don’t worry, kid. Unless you go yanking my leg around, you can’t make it worse.” 

Maddie chose to believe this whether it was true or just Sophia trying to make her feel better. She was only fourteen, and while she’d taken first aid courses before, it didn’t really prepare you for having to do it like this. 

After finishing with her leg, Maddie moved on to help with the other scrapes and cuts Sophia’s fall had left on her face and hands. Nothing seemed too bad, but she knew they needed to return to the base as soon as possible to make sure not-too-bad didn’t become worse.

Both of them were shaking badly by the time they were ready to move deeper into the cave. Each armed with a powerful flashlight, they painstakingly moved away from the already feebly lit entrance. There was a slight bend not too far, and Maddie breathed a sigh of relief when Sophia slumped against the rough cave wall with a groan. She leaned heavily against an outcropping at her side as well, looking exhausted.

Maddie once again backtracked to retrieve their supplies. This time, as she returned to Sophia, she noticed how the ceiling and walls opened wider the further in she went. 

The woman’s eyes were drooping. Maddie carefully laid the blanket over her, receiving a small smile of thanks. Sleep was probably for the best, if it meant she could escape the pain for a little while. 

Taking the drier of the two small towels, Maddie vigorously rubbed it over her head to try and get her hair to stop dripping. Sophia was completely out by the time she stopped, satisfied with the result. 

Maddie tested the radio again, but there was only choppy static. 

The wind wasn’t nearly as bad this far back, but she was still shivering. Her coat was too wet to do any real good, so moving around was her next best option. She wished she had a change of clothes, or at least a heat source. For a moment, she considered sitting next to Sophia to share body heat, but fear of jostling her leg or falling asleep herself, leaving them both even more vulnerable, kept her on her feet. 

The sound of rocks falling had Maddie snapping her head around. Her flashlight didn’t catch anything moving in the darkness. No, the noise had been farther away. 

She bit her lip. If there was a creature living in here, it might be unsafe to stay. She’d feel awful for making Sophia get up again, but it’d be better than being mauled or something. 

Maddie left the second flashlight beside Sophia, on and facing the ceiling. As quietly as she could, she picked her way deeper into the cave. 

Periodically glancing back to make sure she hadn’t lost sight of her sleeping companion, Maddie eventually spotted a very faint light coming from a small crack in the wall. Curiosity took over. She had no trouble slipping through a short passage to emerge on a rocky lip jutting out into an absolutely massive cavern. 

She was so busy looking up at the stalactites covered in brightly glowing stuff—lichen? moss?—that she almost completely missed the cave’s occupant. 

Sitting in the center, picking at something beneath his wing, was Rodan. 

Maddie must’ve gasped or knocked stones loose when she took a little step forward or maybe her presence was enough on its own, but either way, Rodan’s head poked up and turned to face her. 

Even though he wasn’t the first Titan she’d been so close to—not even the second or third or fourth—she still felt the same thrill as every other time. Part of her hoped she’d never lose the feeling, the awe and excitement, the rush of rollercoaster-adrenaline. 

She raised her hand and waved. Different methods worked with different Titans. She’d roared in Godzilla’s mini face. Mothra had immediately recognized her. Methuselah had maintained his distance while Maddie had talked until her throat hurt, creeping closer when she wasn’t paying attention. Scylla had required stillness. Basically, it was best to see how the Titan reacted to her before she chose an approach. 

Rodan stared for a long minute. Finally, he trilled quietly and ducked his head a little. She would’ve mistaken him for being shy if she didn’t know better. It was an odd reaction, especially given what she’d seen of him back during the almost-end-of-world. 

A particularly violent shiver shook her body, and Maddie rubbed her arms again. 

Slowly, without ever letting his eyes stray from her, Rodan turned and crept closer. If she had to guess, based on his deliberate movements and periodic, low trills, he was trying not to startle her. Maddie held still as he came to a stop in front of her little ledge, which was a set into the wall close to the height of Rodan’s shoulders. 

He bowed his head until the front edge of his beak brushed the stone beneath Maddie’s feet. And then, like all Titans seemed to be capable of, he went unnaturally still. 

She could feel the heat radiating off him, and when he didn’t move away when she took a single step forward, she leaned against the smooth surface. Every part of Rodan ran hot, and his beak was no exception. Maddie sighed in happy relief as the cold in her veins was chased out by the warmth. 

Once she could think past the haze of comfort, she raised her left hand and stroked her palm up and down in thanks. A funny little gurgle built up in Rodan’s throat, but he didn’t open his mouth. 

It abruptly occurred to Maddie that this felt a bit like an apology. 

She shifted back, pleased when she didn’t immediately become cold again, and craned her head until she could see one of his eyes. For a while now, mostly since she’d first met Godzilla in his mini form several months ago, she’d wondered if they talked to each other outside of battle or whatever. Did they gossip? Share stories? 

Most relevantly, did Godzilla somehow tell the others about her? He had to have, right? 

Why else would Rodan act like this, why else would he be not only calm and gentle, but guilty and apologetic? He looked, in this moment, like any animal who knew they’d done something bad. 

Pressing her forehead to his beak with a sigh, she said, “I’m not mad. I don’t blame you for what happened. You ended up in that situation because of other people, not because you wanted to be there.” Leaning away again, she smiled ruefully. “Kinda like me, actually.” 

Maddie stepped away so Rodan could raise his head. He responded with a stuttering warble. Gripping her arms just above the elbows, relishing in the lingering warmth, she slowly moved back towards the crevice she’d slipped through. 

“Sorry for intruding in your volcano, Rodan. I’m glad I met you, though. My friend’s hurt, so I gotta get back to her, okay?” 

His head tilted, incredibly bird-like, and when no other reaction was forthcoming, Maddie turned and went back the way she’d come. There was no change in Sophia, which she figured was more of a good thing than a bad thing. 

Feeling a little more awake after her short adventure, Maddie sat down against the wall on Sophia’s uninjured side and lifted the blanket to slide under. Another check of the radio proved useless. Even from deeper within the cave, the roaring storm outside was loud—worse, it didn’t sound like it was getting any better. 

A little skittering sound nearby spiked Maddie’s adrenaline. She went limp for a second in relief when she found the source. 

Rodan, as miniature as any of the others she’d seen, quietly crept closer. He was about the size of an eagle or a hawk, though she suspected his wingspan was longer than that of a similarly-sized bird. 

He clacked his beak and nudged Maddie’s foot once he got close enough. The fiery lines on the bottom edge of his wings glowed brightly in the dark. She didn’t move other than to smile at him, and after a moment, he carefully picked his way up the space between Maddie and Sophia.

There was enough of a gap for him to settle his body on top of the blanket, a wing outstretched over each of their laps. It was better than a heating pad. If it felt good to her, when she was still relatively warm from earlier, then it must’ve felt absolutely wonderful to Sophia. If she was even aware of it, fast asleep as she was. 

“Thanks, Rodan,” Maddie whispered. She dared to reach out and pet his head, scratching the base of his horns and against the rough, leathery skin of his neck. He pushed into her touch with a soft purring-trill. 

It didn’t feel as risky to fall asleep when there was a Titan with you, so with one hand on the radio, Maddie let herself close her eyes and relax. 

• • • 

A light nip to the side of her hand woke Maddie up some time later. It didn’t hurt, but it was enough to make her eyes open. She blearily blinked down at the rusty-red shape half on her lap as the events of the previous day caught up to her. 

It took her a moment to realize the cave was silent. The sounds of rain and wind were gone. No thunder rumbled through the rocks. It was just as dark, though, if not even darker. 

Sophia was still resting, so Maddie carefully slid out from the blanket. Crouching there, she asked Rodan, “You mind watching her real quick? I’ll be right back.” 

Rodan bobbed his head. Taking the radio in one hand and a flashlight in the other, Maddie headed for the cave entrance. It was nighttime, which meant hours had passed since their expedition that afternoon. The sky was clear, and she spared a minute to stare up at the stars. 

The radio continued to not work, no matter what she tried. She couldn’t see much of the mountainside from where she was standing, but it wouldn’t surprise her if everything was just that much more precarious after a storm like that. 

Maddie trudged frustratedly back to Rodan and Sophia. “No luck,” she whispered, resisting the temptation to chuck the stupid radio at the wall. She plopped down at Sophia’s feet and crossed her legs beneath her. 

Chin in hand, Maddie considered her options. They could simply wait for help to come. Sooner or later, someone would show up, right? Even if Monarch didn’t know exactly where they were, all any rescue team had to do was go to where they were last seen and call out. Maddie would be able to answer. 

But that could be hours away, and though Sophia looked fine now, she would be in a lot of pain when she woke up, and the longer she didn’t get treatment, the more of a risk she faced. 

She wondered if there were flares in the backpacks. If she set one off, would it catch someone’s attention, enough for them to send help? 

Maddie didn’t feel comfortable leaving Sophia alone for long, especially since she was asleep, so that meant her leaving to find help was out of the question. 

She sighed. Sitting tight was looking to be their only option. If Monarch didn't mobilize a retrieval team until daylight, then they really were looking at hours of waiting, plus however long it took them to safely reach the cave, prepare Sophia for transport, get her down the volcano, and take her to the outpost. 

A rustle of fabric caught her attention. Rodan clambered off the blanket and hopped over to her. Appreciating the company, Maddie leaned forward and hugged him. He hooked the little claws along the tops of his wings into her shirt. 

“I’m really worried about Sophia,” she muttered. “We need to get back to base, ’cause she’s hurt. But I think we’re gonna be stuck here the rest of the night.” She sighed again. 

Rodan leaned away and tilted his head back and forth, as if he was considering her words. She released him fully and watched in bemusement as he clumsily took off and flew straight out of the cave. Weird. 

Maddie had only just climbed back to her feet when a much louder, fuller screech came from outside. Unlike every other noise, this was what woke Sophia up as well. 

“What was that?” she asked sleepily. 

“Uh…” Maddie stepped around the bend, just enough to see full-sized Rodan peering into the cave. He screeched again, still comparatively soft for a Titan, and ducked his head a little. When she didn’t move, he repeated the sound and the motion. 

“Maddie?” 

“I…” A slow smile spread across her face as she turned back to Sophia. “I think we’re being offered a ride back to the base.” 

• • • 

It was a challenge to get Sophia onto Rodan, less because of the pain she was in and more because she couldn’t believe the so-called Fire Demon wouldn’t eat her or something as soon as she let her guard down. It was only after Rodan made a rather exasperated sounding noise and harmlessly nipped Maddie’s shoulder that she hesitantly agreed. 

Maddie just hoped that demonstration never made it back to her dad. She’d barely even felt it, but with her luck, her dad would probably imagine Rodan fitting his beak over her entire body and have a heart attack. 

With Sophia grimacing over the state of her leg bandages—largely soaked through with blood, and smelling worrisome—Maddie settled in with the backpacks and called out to Rodan that they were ready. 

The flight took little more than a minute or two, and only because Rodan was moving slowly for his human passengers. He bent and lowered his head beside the viewing platforms, making it easy for them to disembark. 

Sophia sat down immediately, having finally exhausted her ability to keep going with such an injury, and Maddie was quick to say her thanks and a goodbye to Rodan before rushing off to find help. 

He was gone by the time she returned. 

• • • 

“Quite the adventure,” Dr. Ling said the next afternoon, after Maddie had been checked over by the on-base medics, offered food and a hot shower, and had a nice long nap in a real bed. They were back to standing where they were before going on the expedition, on the very platform Rodan had dropped her off at about twelve hours earlier. 

“Yeah.” Maddie leaned against the railing, arms crossed over each other, and watched the volcano. “I’m just happy Sophia’ll be all right.” 

“Have you received any updates on her condition?” 

“Saw her earlier, actually. They caught the infection before it had a chance to really do damage, and the surgery to reset her leg went well. She’ll make a full recovery.” 

Dr. Ling smiled. “That’s wonderful. We were so worried when we couldn’t reach you, Maddie, and we were afraid to assume the worst had occured.” 

“I’ve faced worse odds,” she said, before wincing slightly. Turning to press her back to the railing, she forced some cheer into her voice and continued, “And Rodan was a lot of help! Being cold and wet was an awful combination.” 

Dr. Ling mercifully allowed the change in subject. “You must have been happy to meet him. That was one of your reasons for coming out here, was it not?” 

“Pretty much,” she admitted. 

“You have a wonderful capacity to make unexpected friends, Maddie. My sister has told me about the other Titans you’ve met.” 

“Mm, it’s nothing special, I guess. That is, I don’t do anything special. I just got lucky. They’re awesome, though.” 

Dr. Ling’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Yes, I’m sure just anyone could effortlessly win the hearts of numerous Titans.” 

“I’m not winning anyone’s hearts, Dr. Ling.” 

“Mm hmm. Well, you might want to tell him that.” She nodded past Maddie. 

Because there was Rodan, eagle-sized and perched on the railing only two feet away from her. 

“How the hell did you manage that?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t even heard him land, and Dr. Ling was only so distracting. 

He chittered and sidled a little closer. Maddie couldn’t quite suppress her grin as she faced him and started to stroke his head. Spotting the fond look on Dr. Ling’s face, she said, “He let Sophia ride on him too, y’know. It’s not just me.” 

“Would he have done so if you hadn’t been there?” 

Maddie puffed her cheeks out. Okay, probably not, but that didn’t mean she did anything special. “I think it’s probably because of Godzilla,” she admitted. “I don’t know if Titan’s gossip or whatever, but I bet if he told them not to eat me, they wouldn’t.” 

“A reasonable explanation,” Dr. Ling allowed. 

“But you don’t believe it.” 

“I doubt we’ll ever be able to fully understand Titans, Maddie. I doubt we’ll ever truly come close. Whether Godzilla has given you his seal of approval, so to speak, I can’t say for sure. Whether your first encounter with him directly resulted in every subsequent encounter you have with different Titans, we’ll likely never know.” She turned to head to the stairs leading down. “But I have studied Titans and their history for much of my life. The future we’re facing will be just as new to them as it is to us. We share this world, Maddie, and I can’t imagine that changing. This world is very different from the one they were a part of before they went to sleep. Is it so inconceivable for them to take comfort in something that has not changed?”

“Which is?” 

“A human who does not first reach for a weapon or scream at the sight of them.” 

“But they used to be worshipped. I don’t do that.” 

“No. Even better—you love them.” 

Dr. Ling started down the stairs with one last parting smile, leaving Maddie with a Titan half in her arms, veritably purring his content. 

Chapter Text

“How could an entire Titan go missing?” Maddie asked, idly spinning around in a desk chair. 

“Y’know, kiddo, I’d love to know the answer to that, too,” her dad said, squinting between three different laptop screens. “But just because we don’t know how, doesn’t change the fact that Methuselah virtually vanished from that crater outside last night.” 

And the group of researchers who had been inhabiting several hastily erected observation tents insisted they would have noticed him walking away. Which, fair. Maddie was inclined to agree with them on that. 

“Maybe the earth,” she said slowly, rotating steadily, “swallowed him.” 

She wasn’t facing her dad, so she couldn’t see what sort of face he was making, but she sure heard his sigh. 

“You’re not allowed to say anything like that near Rick,” he muttered after a minute. “I still haven’t recovered from his last rant about the tunnels.” 

Maddie tapped her sneaker toes against the clear plastic mat keeping her chair’s wheels from sinking into the dirt. The tent they’d been ushered to wasn’t terribly impressive, but then it was roughly three in the morning somewhere in Canada. If anyone had mentioned specifically where, Maddie had been too asleep in the Osprey to hear it. 

It was chilly, being the middle of the night—and having gotten used to more tropical weather—so Maddie was rather comfortably wrapped in a blanket. Her dad was still wearing the t-shirt he slept in, which had a bit of a drool stain. 

She wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that, though. 

Honestly, it was his fault they were out here, anyway. Apparently, being high enough in Monarch’s personnel ranking meant being dragged out of bed at all hours to try and track down a missing three-hundred-foot-tall Titan. 

And being the daughter of said man meant she was dragged out of bed right alongside him. 

After a few minutes of silence, she shuffled to her feet and said, “Riveting as this conversation is, I’m going outside.” 

“Don’t wander too far,” her dad said before manically tapping at one of the laptops. 

Maddie snagged a spare electric lantern on her way out and squinted through the dark. Numerous bobbing flashlights moved around near the crater where Methuselah was last seen, napping peacefully. Low voices came from the other field tents set up in the cluster. 

Turning away from the mild commotion, she trudged through the long grass until all the voices had faded away, leaving her in nature’s silence. After double-checking that the ground was dry, she plopped down, still wrapped in her blanket, and tilted her head back to stare up at the night sky. 

Having lived in big cities and in completely isolated outposts, Maddie had seen both sides of the star issue. Too much light versus none at all. This place, out in the middle of nowhere, was the latter. 

Space stretched infinitely out above her, bright and beautiful. There’d been many nights, before Mothra had hatched, where she’d snuck out of her and her mom’s house to stargaze. She found it calming. 

Her breathing had gone deep and slow with relaxation when something rustled nearby. 

Curious, and not yet afraid, Maddie grabbed her lantern and twisted to look to her left and a little behind her, where she’d heard the noise. 

A pair of eyes reflected back at her, but the creature they belonged to was shadowed beyond the light’s reach. Whatever it was was low to the ground, and wasn’t making any angry or threatening vocalizations. 

It was just staring at her.

A sneaking suspicion made her raise the lantern. The light stretched further away, just barely catching on a pair of curved horns and the jagged rise of a miniature mountain. 

That explained how Methuselah had disappeared without a trace, then. 

Maddie hadn’t ever seen him in person, and most of the few pictures she’d been shown were either blurry or captured only a small part of him. The darkness wasn’t helping her paint a clearer picture. She could really only make out the horns emerging from either side of his head, curling down and forward alongside his mouth, as though to mimic tusks. 

He didn’t look like he wanted to attack her, so Maddie slowly faced away again and set the lantern down at her side. A minute passed in complete silence. He wasn’t coming any closer. 

“You ever turn tiny before?” she quietly asked, more for the sake of hearing something other than the wind. “Probably not, right? Godzilla seemed new at it, I think. And there’s no record of it happening before he did.” 

She contemplated how it would feel to suddenly change size so completely. This wasn’t a growth spurt—or the opposite, she supposed. This was going from being hundreds of feet tall to being the size of a medium-large dog. 

“I can’t imagine,” she continued, shivering more from the thought than the cold. “I hope it doesn’t hurt you guys. That’d be awful.” 

A slight shuffling sound on her left suggested movement. Maddie didn’t turn around. 

“Godzilla didn’t seem like he was in pain, so… But it still must be super jarring. It’s okay, though, it’s not permanent. I don’t know if you know that. But Godzilla went back to his usual size eventually, and we’re pretty sure he can control the change at will now.” She smiled. “Like a superpower.” 

Looking down, Maddie carefully angled her head to try and peek at Methuselah peripherally. He was still far from being in arm’s reach, but he was definitely a tiny bit closer. She raised her head and refocused on the stars. 

“I wonder if this means all the Titans can shrink like that.” She hummed in thought, briefly closing her eyes to better imagine it. A gaggle of teeny tiny Titans would probably be nothing short of hilarious. Especially if they all hung out together. 

“I feel like that would go either really well, or really, really badly,” she muttered, smiling slightly. “Titans capable of fitting in buildings. Yikes. There’d be no peace, would there?” Maddie shook her head, watching the grass wiggle in a slight breeze. 

Of course, she couldn’t just forget about movie night with mini-Godzilla. Stressing her dad out aside, it’d been nice to kinda just hang out with him. He was warm. 

“Group movie night,” she suggested to herself. “Maybe someday, hm?” 

She quickly peeked to her left. Methuselah was lying on his stomach, legs neatly tucked beneath him, easily halfway between his starting point and her. Giving him space to approach at his own pace seemed to be working. 

“You’ve caused a bit of an uproar, y’know,” she said after a few minutes of peaceful silence. “Not that it’s your fault or anything. But that’s why we’re out here, me and my dad. Because the research team that’s been following you basically turned their backs to you for a minute, and the next thing they knew, you were just… gone.” 

Turning to glance at him a bit more deliberately, Maddie sincerely told him, “It was quite the impressive vanishing act, in my opinion. Whether or not it was intentional.” 

He inched forward and snorted at her, tossing his head a bit. 

Settling back against her hands, she breathed in the fresh air, eyes closed. “I don’t know if you guys talk or anything, but I think you or Godzilla should probably let everyone else know about the shrinking business.” She sighed, content, and heard him shuffle around in the grass. 

Maddie didn’t know how much longer she stayed out there, or how much longer she talked to him. What she did know was that she fell asleep at one point, the oddly warm rocky surface of Methuselah’s back pressed lightly to her side. 

• • •

She wasn’t sure what woke her—the vibrating rumble against her hip, or the heavy judgmental look her dad was sending her. 

“Are you really surprised?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes as she flinched away from the beam of his flashlight. 

“No. But can’t you give me a break, just once? Just one day on the job where I don’t have to find you sleeping next to a Titan, small or not?” 

“But they’re cuddly,” she said, just to see the expression he made. Maddie floppily raised her hand and patted Methuselah’s back. He wiggled jerkily, like when a turtle shook its butt back and forth. 

“He’s practically made of stone!” 

Maddie propped herself up on her other elbow, without moving her hand. Methuselah was certainly among the sharper looking Titans, given that her dad wasn’t wrong about the stone thing. “Yeah, and?” she said, tilting her her head back to look up. 

“What if I got you a dog?” her dad offered. 

She stared at him for a long moment, hoping to convey how unimpressed she was. “Nice try. Why don’t you go tell everyone else that you found Methuselah? I’m sure they’ll be grateful.” 

“But—” 

Methuselah stood and shuffled around, effectively cutting her dad off. He settled back down so he was facing Maddie instead of sitting alongside her. Propping his head on her side, which almost made her twist away out of ticklishness, he stared up at her dad, boldly showing off his sharp teeth. The angled points of his horns jutted away from Maddie’s skin, and only the rounder bottom edges pressed against her alongside his jaw. 

“See?” Maddie said, patting his back again. “He’s cool.” 

Her dad raised his eyes to the night sky, perhaps silently pleading for patience, before he deflated with a resigned sigh. “Can you at least relocate to a tent where you’re not completely exposed the the elements?” he begged. 

Maddie turned to Methuselah, who snorted at her. To her dad, she solemnly said, “I think we can manage that.” 

Chapter Text

One of the perks of officially being an adult: she could go on actual missions for Monarch regardless of her dad’s say-so. Most of it was Titan-related (her speciality), but there were other things she volunteered for. 

Ironically, this mission had nothing to do with Titans. At first. 

In the course of investigating suspicions about someone selling Monarch secrets, Maddie ended up at a party. The millionaire host had known one of their suspects in school, so her job was to see if they met up, this weekend being one the suspect had taken a few days off for.

It hadn’t been hard to get in. Hundreds of people crowded through the mansion, leaving her as just another body in the crowd. In a crop top, jean shorts, and blacklight paint streaking her face and arms, Maddie looked exactly like half the other girls dancing and drinking their way through the night. 

The whole party reeked of hedonism. She thought longing of the modest beach house she still called home.

She caught sight of her target an hour in. He was standing with the host and a few other men that her gut said were trouble. From the shadows, Maddie fiddled with her fondly named spy bracelet, taking pictures via her contacts. 

Hoping to get good shots of the rest of the group, not just her targets, she made a leisurely circuit of the room. Several minutes were spent dancing with two girls who were very high and probably younger than her. At one of the tables laden with food, she accepted some pills with a loose smile. With sleight of hand that Rick had taught her, she faked knocking them back. She tumbled onto an oversized lounge couch with the clumsiness of someone so drunk they couldn’t even see straight. She tilted her head against a stranger’s shoulder and laughed at nonsense jokes. And all the while, every time she turned in their direction, she sealed the men’s fates with a few twists of the pendant in her spy bracelet. 

They would be on Monarch’s radar in minutes, their lives combed through to hell and back, all because of her. 

Maddie was just starting to consider retreating from the room when the host raised his hand over his head and snapped twice at someone she couldn’t see. He was beaming with pride, his teeth shockingly white under the blacklight. 

From beneath the half-lidded eyes of someone on the verge of drug-induced unconsciousness, she watched. 

Playful cries of fake fear, too tangled with laughter for them to sound real, followed a quartet of bodyguard-looking men heading toward her targets. A bright glow on the floor caught her attention through the crowd’s legs. It was being dragged by the four men. 

It took every ounce of her training not to react when they left the tangle of people and marched into the small open space surrounding the group she was spying on. 

That was a mini Titan they had in chains. A Titan. 

It was quadrupedal, comparable in size to a bulldog, and scaled similarly to Godzilla, only white instead of gray. Shard-like crystals grew from its back and the crown of its head in vivid purple-blues. Its snout was more rounded than G’s, and it was encased in a cruel muzzle. Chains were connected to its legs and a tight collar around its neck. 

It pulled weakly at its restraints, its blue eyes glassy and clouded. The music and chatter were too loud, but Maddie would have bet money the poor creature was whining. 

Dried blood was crusted around the collar and shackles. Its ribs were visible, its limbs thin. Starved. 

When the millionaire got tired of showing off his exotic pet, Maddie ghosted after the men who dragged the Titan away. She snatched an oversized black suit coat from the back of a chair and slung it around her shoulders as she left the darkened party rooms for empty hallways. Her presence went unnoticed. 

When they stopped at thick bars set into the stone wall, Maddie tucked herself out of sight to wait. In the meantime, she pulled out her phone. Being in a concrete sub-basement didn’t stop her from sending a message to the rest of her team. These phones could send texts from the middle of nowhere and underground—and had.

Plan B for extraction. Give me half an hour or so, I’ll confirm when I’m ready. 

She listened with fury boiling in her chest as the monsters taunted their captive. The jangling of chains filled the quiet hall, the bass from the party’s music only a faint rumble. She heard a thump and a quiet whimper. She clenched her jaw.

Copy that, Sasha, one of her backups, sent. You getting into trouble, Mads?

With a grim smile, she thought, More like getting someone out of it. 

Do you even need to ask? Gavin said, and she could practically hear his exasperation. Of course she is. Blah blah, you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks. “Oh but they’re totally necessary Gavin don’t worry I know what I’m doing.” There, got that convo out of the way. I’m ready to shut down the backyard cameras when you are, Crazy.

Your concern is touching, Gav.  

Sasha reacted to that with a laughing emoji. 

Gavin replied, You’re a thrill seeker and we all know it. Cheers for getting all those faces btw.

Hearing the cage door slam and lock into place, Maddie sent a thumbs up, then tucked her phone back into her pocket. The men walked by a moment later, not so much as even glancing her way. 

She counted to two hundred once they had fully left, and when there wasn’t any change, she slipped from her hiding spot and approached the cage. 

It was a plain concrete room with thick bars connecting it to the hallway. There wasn’t even a hint of comfort—bedding, toys, greenery, shelter. The only food on the floor was a mound of moldy lettuce. The Titan had clearly chosen a corner for when nature called, and it definitely hadn’t been cleaned in the last month at least.

The shackles were still present, and the chain connected to the collar hadn’t been removed. The other end was attached to a ring on one wall, not even long enough for the Titan to reach the opposite side of the cell.

Beneath the single stark lightbulb, the Titan was curled into a tight ball. Its snout was hidden in its center. The poor thing was making the faintest little cries. 

Maddie didn’t see any cameras, not that she needed to worry about them. In a certain radius, the chip sewn into the inside of her shorts stalled out security cameras. If there were any, and someone was watching them, the image would have frozen by now to the view of the motionless Titan.

Crouching beside the door, Maddie pulled the decorative hair sticks from her braid. Unscrewing the tops, she dumped her lock picks into her hand and got to work. 

It wasn’t even a digital lock or a scanner or anything fancy. Just a keyhole. Rich people and their arrogance, ugh. But also very beneficial to her. 

The click of the door unlocking finally caught the Titan’s attention. It twisted its head against the floor with a long whine, curling up even tighter. 

Maddie slipped into the cell and sat on the chilly concrete just inside the door. “Hey,” she whispered.

It went still for a brief moment before raising its head to peek at her. 

She clenched her hands together in her lap. They hadn’t taken the muzzle off either. 

“Hi,” she said to those hurting, cloudy blue eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

The Titan didn’t move. 

“I’m gonna stay right here, okay?” 

After a moment, the Titan shifted so that when it put its head back down, it could still see her. 

For long minutes, Maddie didn’t do much. She fiddled with her hair sticks, snapped a couple pictures with her contacts, and started humming very quietly to herself. The Titan watched on, unmoving. 

Her phone vibrated. She pulled it out, casually paying no special attention to her observer. 

Director Clark, who was in all her agents’ group chats but rarely participated in conversations, professional or otherwise, had sent, We have a positive ID for the Titan: Shimo, a suspected distant relative of Godzilla. Powers related to ice, likely the reason for the muzzle. At least two temples we’ve located have included writing/art of her. Even worshippers of old noted her disappearance. Congratulations, Madison, you’ve just located a Titan who’s been missing for thousands of years. 

“Nice,” she muttered. 

Do you believe you’ll be able to extract both yourself and Shimo safely? Director Clark continued. You take priority, always. We have her on our radar now; we will find a way to get her out at a later date if we need to.

Maddie glanced up at Shimo. She was still watching, but the crystalline, spiky end of her tail was ever so gently tapping against the floor. 

I’ve got her. 

Understood. Sasha, Gavin, Darcy—let’s talk Titan transport in a different chat so Madison can work without distractions.  

Gavin immediately replied, You got it, boss.

And Darcy, the quietest of their team, sent, Good luck, Maddie. 

Left alone again, Maddie set her phone in her lap and went to the secret compartment in the sole of her Converse. It contained her good luck charm, the one thing she always found a way to bring on her missions. Barely two inches tall and not even that wide, she slipped out one of Godzilla’s spines. It had stayed mini when it broke off him, and she’d barely let it out of her sight since he’d given it to her. Outside of undercover missions, she wore it on a necklace. 

She leaned forward and put it on the floor between her and Shimo. “I’m a friend of Godzilla’s,” she said. “And if you’d like, I can get you out of here and take you to him.”

Shimo lifted her head, zeroed in on the jagged dorsal plate. She scooted closer, then stretched her head out to smell it without getting too close to Maddie. 

A muffled croon slipped past the muzzle. Her eyes raised to Maddie, but she didn’t give any sign of acceptance yet. 

It’d be easy for Maddie to be lying, was the thing. She could have broken that piece off herself, could have Godzilla locked in his own cell somewhere. 

So Maddie tapped to the camera roll in her phone and pulled up a video from just a week ago. Turning the phone around, Maddie held it near the floor in front of her, the volume up enough to be heard but not so much as to echo in the bare basement prison. 

She listened to her dad’s chuckles as, she knew, she groaned and grumbled for his help. Godzilla lay flat across her stomach, longways, his chin resting on her sternum. He was visibly smug, tail thwapping the sand beneath her every few seconds. 

“I’m being squished into a pancake, and you’re laughing,” video-Maddie complained. 

“Who am I to dislodge the King when he looks so comfortable?” her dad replied, his grin audible. 

Godzilla snorted in haughty agreement. 

“You’re so heavy, G, what did you eat this morning?” 

He snorted at her, and though the video ended soon after, Godzilla hadn’t let her up for another fifteen minutes and only after she promised to give him a good scratching with his favorite stiff-bristled brush. High-maintenance little snot. 

Shimo, having inched forward with every rumble and snort Godzilla had made in the video, was nearly touching her hand with how close she’d gotten to the screen. She made tiny huffy sounds, her body wiggling slightly. 

For the next few minutes, Maddie swiped through more videos and pictures of herself with various mini Titans. Her cradling Mothra like a baby. Scylla wrapped around her lower leg. Kevin and Rodan with their heads buried in a bowl of Halloween candy. A couple of Maddie utterly covered in slumbering Titans. 

By the time she put her phone away, the skittish Titan was laying a hair’s breadth from her crossed legs. Godzilla’s dorsal plate was just visible in her curled fist. Maddie didn’t try to take it back; Shimo needed it more than she did.

“My name’s Maddie,” she finally introduced herself, slowly reaching out, giving Shimo a chance to move away. 

She stayed where she was, relaxing noticeably when all Maddie did was gently stroke down her back beside her crystal spikes. 

“And you’re Shimo,” she whispered. 

It took a heartbreaking few seconds before recognition struck, and Shimo lifted her head. 

“Shimo,” Maddie repeated. “You’re gonna be safe soon, Shimo. I promise.” 

Hesitantly, she nudged her forehead against Maddie’s wrist. 

Lifting her lock picks for Shimo to examine, she asked, “How about I get that collar and muzzle off you?” 

After a few curious sniffs to the tools, Shimo scooted forward just a little more, enough to rest her chin on Maddie’s leg. It was all the go-ahead she needed. 

The collar went first. Shimo whimpered as Maddie pulled it free, revealing raw, bloody, scaleless flesh beneath. The collar had been there a long time. A very long time.

Unable to do anything about that now, Maddie moved on to the muzzle, all while seriously contemplating giving Godzilla directions to this place to grind it to dust. 

Shimo’s jaw cracked as she opened her mouth wide for likely the first time in months, if not years. She clacked it a few times, yawned hugely, then stared up at Maddie with big, trusting eyes. They weren’t quite so cloudy anymore. 

As much as she wanted to tackle the shackles too, every additional minute down here was a risk.

Cameras, she sent to the group chat. Gavin replied with a thumbs up within seconds.

Shimo was small and emaciated enough that Maddie was able to lift her into her arms with little difficulty. She breathed deeply through her rage; a Titan shouldn’t feel so delicate. 

Making quiet sounds that Maddie could only call peeping, Shimo remained still and calm as Maddie hurried out of the sub-basement, through the halls she had memorized from the building layout, and out the back door of an empty lounge room. 

The booming music faded behind her as she took off through the yard, then into the woods surrounding the mansion, at a brisk trot. No one saw them. 

• • • 

It was humbling, the amount of trust Shimo was willing to place in Maddie. For the entire trip back to the Argo, which had been sent to meet them once Maddie’s recon mission turned into a rescue, poor Shimo trembled and whined but never put up a fight. 

Maddie put to use every scrap of information she’d learned about the Titans over the years, especially from those long-ago first meetings with many of them. Shimo was far from the first to be so skittish, but no Titan had ever been imprisoned like she had. 

She counted her blessings, though. These days, they had actual doctors who specialized in Titans. Shimo was deemed underweight and seriously malnourished, and they shoved vitamins into raw meat for Maddie to feed her slowly (a trick they’d used on nearly all the Titans by that point, save Mothra, who would always be too smart for that). 

Titans were more durable than any other creature on the planet, and that was, without a doubt, the only reason Shimo didn’t have broken bones or more severe injuries than what her restraints had caused. Her cracked and scuffed scales and the jagged broken edges of her crystals told them plenty about her treatment. 

“She’s not tame,” the behavioral analyst said from his corner of the room, where he’d been watching all the goings-on for the past hour. Maddie, cross-legged on the counter with Shimo making a stuttery attempt to rumble-purr in her lap, looked over at him. 

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.” 

He nodded with an expression of deep sadness. “But she has been abused for likely longer than we will ever guess. Time wears away at anyone. They treated her like a caged pet. An amusement; a toy.” 

Shimo, ignoring them, snuffled against Maddie’s hand, and she obligingly passed her more meat. She took it delicately, careful of her teeth, and with a heartrending hesitation that said she still expected her food to be taken from her. 

“But as we all know,” the analyst continued softly, “time does more than wear away. Be patient with her, Miss Russell. Shimo is not tame, but I think she has, at least a little, forgotten how to be wild.” 

• • •

For once, it was Mark who met Godzilla as the King emerged from the ocean onto the beach behind the Russells’ home.

“You know she was on a mission recently, right?” Mark asked, watching Godzilla give himself a shake. 

He dipped his head in a nod with a rumble. 

Mark started to head down the path to the back porch. “She’ll explain what happened herself,” he said, glancing down at the Titan keeping up with him. “I’m here to tell you to brace yourself. Maddie’s fine,” he hurried to add. “But she found an imprisoned Titan. No atomic breath in my house, capeesh?”

Godzilla cut off the threatening growl that started to form, exchanging it for the begrudging grumble of agreement that Mark was very used to at that point. 

“And,” Mark paused at Maddie’s closed bedroom door, hand on the handle, “don’t go spooking our guest. She’s skittish.” 

He swung open the door without waiting for a response. He saw the exact moment Godzilla recognized who Maddie was holding. The air hummed as his spines flared with light. He bared his teeth in a snarl. 

Mark knew what he was seeing—Maddie and Shimo had barely moved since they arrived home the afternoon before. Whether it came from a place of true trust or not, Shimo had refused to be separated from her rescuer. She was constantly curled against Maddie’s stomach, making little sounds that, to Mark, seemed to be a mix of self-soothing and rusty, half-foreign attempts to express contentment. 

She looked so small in his daughter’s lap. Their experts confirmed that for the full size she was expected to be—most murals depicted her as large as, if not larger than Godzilla—she was unusually small in her mini form. 

Theories for the cause of which ranged from severe malnutrition to a self-defense mechanism to the sheer amount of abuse she’d suffered literally altering her size. Whatever the reason, only time would tell if Shimo would ever be larger than a medium-small dog. 

Maddie looked up at them with a tired smile. “Hey, G,” she said, her hand never faltering in its rhythmic stroking of Shimo’s side, over the visible bumps of her ribs. Leaning down, she said to the bundle in her lap, “Shimo? Godzilla’s here to see you.” 

There was a long pause before Shimo began to uncurl with a terribly young-sounding warble. Godzilla rumbled loudly and practically charged down into the bed. 

Shimo wobbled upright to meet him, and even Mark’s heart melted at the way they gently butted their snouts against each other’s head. Godzilla growled lowly as he encountered the bandages carefully wrapped around Shimo’s neck and ankles. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Mark said quietly, giving his daughter a nod before stepping back and silently closing the door. He sighed to himself as he walked away; they had a long road of healing ahead. 

• • •

Godzilla eventually nudged Shimo back to Maddie. He looked at her, and she couldn’t tell if he was more angry or grief-stricken or relieved. He curled down to gently bump his forehead to hers, rumbling. 

“No problem, G,” Maddie muttered, leaning into the touch. “We’ll get through this.” 

He huffed and pulled away to prowl around the room, spines flaring in what she knew was a protective threat display. For him to be doing it here, of all places—his instincts must’ve been going haywire. 

Shimo had just finished curling back up in the divot of Maddie’s legs when a reminder popped up on Maddie’s phone. “Hungry?” she asked, already knowing the answer. 

Pressing the bridge of her snout against Maddie’s thigh in a yes, Shimo relaxed. It had only taken a few times for her to start to fully trust that Maddie wouldn’t withhold food from her. 

Godzilla finished his “patrol” and came back into the bed. He watched, head tilted, as Maddie slowly passed Shimo chunks of meat. 

“The doctors want her food intake to be monitored for the first few days,” Maddie explained to him. “We don’t know exactly how your guys’ bodies would react to you suddenly gorging yourselves after being starved for years, but we know how most other creatures would. Slow and steady, G. No upset stomachs here, if we can help it.” 

It also allowed the doctors to keep track of exactly how much nutrients Shimo was getting, from vitamins and otherwise. They’d all be keeping a close eye on her weight, energy, mood, and regular blood tests while she recovered. Callous as it may have sounded, this was a prime opportunity to learn about Titan malnutrition and how they recovered from it. 

It would help them if something like this happened again, God(zilla) forbid. 

There was a group of varied experts somewhere in the world, right at that very moment, putting together an extensive plan on how best to help Shimo. Rest and getting her strength back up was only the beginning. They’d be relying on the other Titans, Godzilla especially, to help her past the behaviors she’d developed in captivity. Sooner or later, there’d be a trip to one of the radiation-rich sites Godzilla used to recharge to see if it’d do her any good. 

A lot of discussion over whether it was a good idea to leave her with Maddie had been had before Maddie had been allowed to bring Shimo home. Not because they didn’t trust her, but no one wanted Shimo to be overly reliant on her. 

They’d concluded it would cause Shimo too much distress too early on to forcefully separate them, since it was obvious she wouldn’t simply walk away from Maddie by her own will. 

It was generally agreed on that it was a very good thing Maddie had been the one to find her. 

Godzilla lay down in front of her so Shimo was sandwiched between them. He rested his chin on her left knee, the same side Shimo was facing, and he started rumbling deeply. His spines brightened, casting them all in a blue glow in the dim bedroom. 

Shimo paused before taking her next bite. After a moment of fierce concentration, a faint light pulsed within her own crystalline spines. With the quietest little roar of glee, she booped Godzilla’s snout with the end of her own.

“Yeah,” Maddie said with a smile. “We’ll get through this just fine. All of us, together.”