The monster that shimmers into existence is as tall as a skyscraper. No, scratch that. Mt. Erebus is around 12k feet tall so that thing has to be... Fucking 1500 feet tall? Jesus. It's made of orange, bioluminescent, gummy flesh that stretches as it moves. Lights run across its body like amber emergency lights in a movie theater. It has six legs and four arms. It has no nose or eyes on its wide, shark-like head. Its mouth could swallow my house whole.

  Esoterica 1. Tier 7. You know how in Kaiju movies, the monsters move really slow? That's to make them seem bigger, more colossal. This creature doesn't give a fuck about what looks good on screen. Also, it can regenerate almost instantly. Also, it can make babies! Also, its flesh is poisonous to humans. Also, it is TIER SEVEN. That's the tier when you can level a city without too much difficulty. Did you know aircraft carriers are often called floating cities? Did you know aircraft carriers can't evade monster attacks? Did you know that all your friends are about to die?

  Possible loot: Esoterica Core, various other items.

  The destroyers open fire first. Missiles launch and impact the monster. The projectiles explode, sending chunks of orange flesh the size of pick up trucks raining down. And yet despite the explosions being massive, they look small against the enormous monster, more like bullet holes than what damn cruise missiles should do. The tanks get into position and fire. More impacts. Its upper body is rocked with cannon fire, and is leaning back away from the dozens of blasts. Its legs buckle and it drops. That's when the “babies” come out.

  Hundreds of bear-like monsters swarm out of the Esoterica's legs, chunks of the monster ripping off, transforming and then rushing towards the tanks. The missing flesh is then immediately replaced, regrown in a flash lasting just a second or two.

  Jets flying overhead scream by and heavy payload rockets slam into a single point on the monster's gut, knocking the whole creature back. It rises up and then falls backwards. Its mouth opens up and more of its offspring come for us, flying straight out of the mouth. These are like pterodactyls. Pterodactyls with black flames instead of heads. There are hundreds of them. Some fly up, chasing the jets. Some fly forward, racing towards the destroyers.

  We're 3 miles off the coast. Jose is the only one who can do anything from here. He levels his rifle and begins to fire. Slowly, one by one, he blows apart bird monsters. He can't get them all. Machine gun fire erupts from the ships. Horrible fire-headed birds get ripped apart. Some of them, anyways.

  The bear monsters are swarming the tanks. Machine gunners try to sweep bullets across the pack but it looks like the bears are immune to bullets, or at least have some ability to stay on their feet. Can't tell exactly from here, even with my new eye zoom technique. The tanks are getting overrun. One of the destroyers levels a gun and blows apart the back end of the pack, but it looks like it's too late for that. Now that the bears are at the tanks, I can see that they must be each 10 feet tall and twice as long. They rip into the tanks, clawing and scratching through metal.

  The missile boats open fire on the Esoterica, but this time it has pterodactyls. The flock breaks apart and each one intercepts a missile, killing themselves to blow the missiles mid-flight. Only a couple of missiles get through. The ordinance opens up the underbelly of the monster. Chunks of orange flesh rain down. Unlike The President's Men, these chunks don't try to get back home. These chunks instead turn into more monsters, a mix of bears and pterodactyls.

  “They need to find a core and break it,” I say to those around me. I rush back to the control tower, leap up two flights of stairs in one jump, and swing open a door.

  There's men and women at the helm acting completely calm, totally in control. They don't look stressed. Not yet.

  I find the Admiral in charge. “It's a regenerator! You need to find a core and blast it apart!”

  The steel-grey haired woman eyes me. “We're blasting it to hell and back. If it's got a core, we'll smash it.” She turns away from me, checks a readout on one of the two monitors she's got in front of her and then waves me away with a white gloved hand.

  I look out the window and see the top half and bottom half of the monster separate after taking another wave of missile fire. The two halves writhe, then they shift in color from orange to grey. Another wave of missiles and this time the monster bits blown off are much smaller.

  “It's adapting!” I hear one of the officers shout, followed by two more.

  “Heat readings decreasing!”

  “Look at the snow!”

  Stolen story; please report.

  The top half of the creature(s) grows wings and flaps them, instantly creating a snow storm. The missile launchers fire again, missiles disappearing into the massive cloud of white, then the orange and yellow light of explosions radiating out from within. The sound is muffled, rumbling at a much lower pitch.

  The snowstorm expands, encompassing half the island, even past the shore.

  “Heat signatures still visible!”

  “3rd wing, track heat sigs and fire!”

  Jets fly overhead and a barrage of rockets splits between two targets inside the cloud. These explosions blow the snow away, revealing two creatures in the process of being splattered across the mountain. Two “smaller” creatures, these only the size of school gymnasiums, or perhaps a Home Depot.

  “Contact above!”

  “Chicago confirms contact in the water!”

  A massive wave slams into the ship and we all rock to the right a good 30 degrees. The USS Chicago is a submarine if I remember correctly.

  Explosions go off under water.

  “The Chicago is under attack they can't-”

  The winged top half of the daikaiju swoops down and lands on the deck of the southmost destroyer. The monster's body is the length of the boat, and the top half of the USS Howard just crumples under the weight.

  A helicopter takes off from our boat. As it flies off I see a split second of its passengers. Jose, Henry and Ivy. What the fuck? They're heading for one of the destroyers.

  The winged half of the Esoterica, perched on the USS Howard, opens its mouth and lets out a scream that sounds like a million tortured monkeys. The shockwave sends a wave of water in all directions from it, and the windows of the bridge crack, a couple of them on the monster side shatter and send glass into nearby crew. I jump out the door. I see the helicopter my best friend is in get blasted into an almost horizontal angle, but the pilot recovers and rights the chopper.

  I drop to where my team is. “What are they doing?” I ask Madeline.

  She has to shout, since we're all currently deafened by the monster roar. “Jose thinks he can fire a destroyer cannon like a rifle, and took the others to buff him.”

  That's... Not a bad idea. I nod, then yell at Mercy, “let's give them cover!” Atmos Mind! I take off flying, straight into the new flock of monster dinosaur birds heading our way. Mercy transforms into her Mecha Warlock form and takes off after me.

  There's dozens of targets. I go fucking nuts, switching into Relentless Demon Style. I conjure ten storm hands and start firing beams of Atmos energy at birds.

  Storm Stream

  Exotic

  Fire a beam of Atmos energy that branches off when it hits a foe. The longer you sustain the attack, the more targets can be hit.

  Range: 193 ft

  Cost: 2 Arcana Points/second

  Proficiency: 193%

  Each beam splits off into two more beams, though the streams cut through the monsters after that. I kill dozens in seconds, but there's plenty more. Mercy is sending thin, arcing lime green lasers out to kill a dozen at once. I fly close to the center of the group and fire Storm Stream in all directions, and cut down another cluster. Then I turn around and face the Esoterica. It's currently biting into the USS Howard's front hull, tearing off giant sheets of steel. The Howard is sinking fast.

  To the west, four arms burst from the water around the USS Shoup and drag the entire cruiser underwater. The other Esoterica half is still down there.

  How many people just died? I can't process that right now.

  I draw my new revolver, already loaded with the most powerful spells I've got, and fly forward, into range, gun outstretched ahead of me.

  The monster on the Howard beats its wings, starting to take off. Fuck that, you asshole. I fly to its right side and open fire on its wing. Two spells, Tempest Buster Rifle and Lunar Dragon Breath, blare out in massive beams of pink and teal energy. I added a few techniques to each shot. Specifically Widened Strike, Rapid Strike, Spiral Thrust, Peerless Knives, Bleeding Blades, Chosen Speed and Chosen Might. Plus the subclass effects from Killer. The result is two heavily empowered spells that rip long tears in a wing that's several hundred feet wide. The monster doesn't get the air it's expecting to, and flops down on the Howard, crushing it again and sending it to the bottom of the sea. The winged Esoterica flaps around in the water, hundreds of gallons of water rushing into its titanic maw.

  Now that the Howard is no more, the other boats unload missiles into the winged Esoterica. The explosions blast me backwards a hundred feet before I recover. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead if my Toughness wasn't effectively over 300 right now. I see Mercy surrounded by the flame head dino birds, but then she transforms into her Mecha Oni form, whips out two laser naginata, and starts just chopping the shit out of them.

  Another ship gets pulled under the water by the bottom half of the Esoterica. Fuck, this is not going well.

  How many people are dying right now? What can I do? The missiles bombarding the winged Esoterica are keeping it down in the water. The other half is underwater somewhere. And I do not have a Gundam. Damn I wish I had a Gundam right now. A Gundam could beat a daikaiju... Probably? Depends on which Gundam, honestly.

  What do I have? I have high Constitution, which means I can probably hold my breath underwater for a while. I could go try and put a dent in the armed underwater Esoterica. I could stay here and look for a core in the constantly blowing apart and regenerating winged Esoterica. I could go fight the fleshy bears climbing onto the deck of the George Washington. Wait, what's that last part?

  Esoterica Bear Spawn. Tier 4. Not part of the Esoterica anymore so killing these won't kill the main body. Also, killing the main body won't kill these. They're basically just bears, but bears are pretty awful to begin with. Well, they're made of gooey orange flesh, and have foot long claws, so they're a little different I guess.

  Possible Loot: Not Bear Claws.

  They're dog paddling in the rough seas, some using their claws to rip into the ship and climb inside. Some use their claws to climb all the way up the side to the deck. I fly over to the George Washington, blasting a few bears on my way. My team seems already aware of the deck bears.

  “Some are inside!” I shout.

  “On it!” shouts back Parker, who slides off at high speed into the bowels of the ship. Kiki Suzuki the ninja and Viktor Kovalchuk the pistol guy with good Agility, chase after.

  I hear a crack of thunder and turn to see the cannon on the deck of the USS John Finn wreathed in blue electrical energy.

  These monsters are fucked now. Jose has a gun.