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~o~
He was tired. Exhausted, really, but he'd start with tired.
Little wonder, considering the day he'd had. He'd been arrested, interrogated, almost eaten by an outsized monster—twice, matter of fact—had jumped off a train trestle and out of a plane, and as if all that hadn't been enough, he'd almost blown himself up.
Ford Brody lay still, propped up against the wrecked car behind him, heart hammering after yet another encounter with the female MUTO, and stared up at what he could see of the night sky, wishing for the umpteenth time since this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day had started that he could just go back to bed.
How had this become his life? He'd lost his father, maybe lost his wife and son, and definitely lost his sanity. There was no way monsters were real, and yet he'd now survived four encounters with the MUTOs. And to put the cherry on top of the shit sundae, he'd just blown up a nest containing possibly hundreds more of those fucking things.
So yes, he was tired. But there was no rest for the weary. He needed to get up and head for the marina to rejoin the unit. He could still hear the MUTOs fighting each other, so hopefully that meant that they were too distracted to notice that the nuke had been stolen right out from under their noses. He needed to make sure that they either stopped the countdown or got the thing as far out to sea as possible in the time they had left.
Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet. He wasn't looking forward to the walk down to the marina, but at least it was all downhill. He started to hobble away, trying to put as little weight on his injured leg as he could. He didn't think it was broken—he'd had broken bones before, and they never felt like this—but then again, he hurt all over, so maybe he wasn't a good judge of what was possibly, probably wrong with his leg.
He had to stop after hobbling just a few feet because his leg was just throbbing. He bent over, trying to catch his breath both from the explosion and the close encounter, although he figured what he really needed was about a month off in a monster-free zone.
And a bottomless supply of alcohol, but he'd start with the vacation.
The hair inexplicably stood up on the back of his neck. He straightened up, glancing around, trying to figure out what had pinged his Spidey Sense. Turning around, he saw nothing but smoke and fog and darkness.
And then slowly, the smoke parted to reveal… Him. Gojira, Doctor Serizawa had called him. A god, Doctor Graham had said. He was bent low, staring right at Ford as if he could see him. It was… unnerving. Disconcerting. Mesmerizing.
They stood there, staring at each other. Man and Monster.
Ford held his breath, unsure what was happening. He waited for Gojira to attack, or crush him, or maybe just burn him with that atomic breath they hadn't known he had.
Instead, he just stared. If Ford were a different person, he'd think that Gojira was… grateful. For the help destroying the nest. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?
And then, just as quietly as he appeared, Gojira disappeared into the smoke. Ford stood there for long moments and just stared at the empty space where the monster had stood, in total disbelief of what he'd just seen.
They were from two different worlds, and yet, for just a moment, they were allies. They had the same goal. Maybe Gojira had sensed that. Maybe he really was grateful for the assist.
Ford shook his head. No way that's what it was. He'd probably just hit his head on the way down.
Still.
The sound of gunfire caught his attention. The rest of the unit must have run into trouble. He realized that he'd lost all track of where the MUTOs were, but he'd bet good money that one or both of them had gone after the nuclear warhead.
He turned and started hobbling toward the waterfront. He wasn't sure what he could do, but he knew he had to do something. There really wasn't any other choice.
~o~
He was tired. Unspeakably so.
He had slept for millennia, only to be woken by the small creatures and their weapons made of his very life's-blood. Though they meant to destroy him, he used them for nourishment. For that reason alone, he might have been inclined to protect them.
Mostly, he protected this world because it was his home. If that meant protecting the small ones who tried to destroy him, so be it.
He didn't usually take notice of those small creatures, but now he was seeking one out. The one who had unknowingly come to his aid.
He had felt more than seen the destruction of the nest. Felt the blast wave as the small creature used whatever was to hand to destroy it. He'd been under siege by both the male and female at that point, and so unable to use that which nature gave him to destroy it himself.
To own the truth, if not for the explosion, he'd be dead at this very moment. He was losing the battle, and he knew it. Working together, the male and female had gained the upper hand on him. It had been only a matter of minutes, perhaps, before he'd have succumbed to their overwhelming strength.
It was the thing that had felled others of his kind. Very few Titans could match him in strength or prowess, but these creatures working together could do what most could not: they could beat him, if they worked together. Fortunately, most of the other Titans eschewed fighting together, preferring to go it alone.
Better for him, certainly. He could take any one of them in a fight.
But these two… well…
He moved over the scarred landscape until he spotted the tiny creature, standing amid the rubble. The smoke was thick, but he could still see it standing there. It was wounded; he could smell the creature's blood. He had no intimate knowledge of these creatures—and didn't need it anyway—but he thought it was still alive.
He bent low, huffing out a breath to clear the smoke and dust. And there, in the clearing, stood the creature. It stared at him, its fear strong in the air.
He looked, conveying with nothing more than that, his gratitude. This small creature had saved his life, not just today but in the future as well. Without the nest, there would be no new generation to terrorize him and his kind.
For that alone, and so much more besides, he simply stood and stared.
Then he pulled away, melting back into the darkness, smoke and dust. Time to finish this.
Past time, really.
And then… rest. He'd earned that.
~Finis