Episode 1: Escape from Monster Island

Nighttime at the Azorean International Kaiju Sanctuary.

Doubling as a nature preserve and prison for the world's largest monsters, the Azores sit in the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean almost a thousand miles from any human populated areas. This volcanic island chain of nine islands boasts a variety of terrain - from subtropical forests, pasturelands, and volcanic fields, to mountains, black sand beaches, and windswept seaside cliffs. The largest island in the archipelago serves as the abode for a majority of the Sanctuary's residents. Known as São Miguel Island to the Portuguese, that name has been mostly retired in favor of the more popular name, "Monster Island". Here, the kaiju are spread fairly evenly across the island's more than 287 square miles of space, each having claimed a chunk of land for themselves. A few of the more reclusive kaiju, particularly those that don't mind taking a swim, have staked their territory on the other Azorean islands such as Pico, Terceida, Faial, and Santa Maria. The sea floor around the islands drops off quickly not far from the shore, providing plenty of depth for ocean-going kaiju to move around in the local waters.

Most of the human towns and structures that once dotted São Miguel have long been flattened or overtaken by nature. Ironically, the absence of humans has done much to replenish the ecology of the island, despite its colossal, earth-shattering inhabitants. Only the occasional standing ruin or crumbling road still protrudes here and there - a sobering reminder that the Azores was once home to almost a quarter of a million people. Still, humanity's presence hasn't completely withdrawn. Even the least intelligent of the kaiju on Monster Island seems cognizant of the fact that the Sanctuary is, more or less, a prison to hold them. Far in the distance, several miles from shore, the faint lights of the U.N. international flotilla can be glimpsed floating in the darkness, forming a blockade that encircles the island. Although these lights once prompted the kaiju into battles with the KTF, most of the Sanctuary's residents have come to associate the lights with the arrival of metal giants that serve the humans. Likewise, the offshore weapon batteries have done their share of damage to the island's inhabitants.

On a clear night like tonight, a survey of Monster Island reveals nothing unusual from any other night. The island's lush green forests blanket most of the region, broken only by towering black shapes silhouetted against the moonlight. Given their size, it's easy to mistake these motionless black forms for small mountains or rocky outcroppings in the distance... until they slowly begin to lumber through the landscape. Sounds produced by inhuman vocal chords pierce the nighttime silence and echo across the island. Large splashes in the ocean off of the coast hint at massive "things" moving beneath the waves. Fire and smoke arise from Kirashaku's territory as the kaiju uses its flame breath to cook a beached whale before dragging it inland. The insectoid kaiju called Lepidoptera has taken to the sky; its colossal luminous forewings blotting out part of the moon like a butterfly-shaped lunar eclipse. And at the westernmost portion of the island, coming from within a flooded volcanic caldera, a pale blue glow marks the nesting place of Daitatsu, the Monarch of Monsters. Most kaiju instinctively understand to give the Great Dragon's territory a wide berth.

Yet tonight, your kaiju feel a sudden pull to head toward Daitatsu. Regardless of what you're doing - whether hunting, or resting, or roaring challenges to a rival - you feel the inexplicable, subconscious impulse to approach the western part of Monster Island. Your entire sentai seems to receive this call, and so you begin to move in Daitatsu's direction. Land trembles, waters roil, and hurricane-force winds churn as you make your way to the caldera.

All of you make the nighttime trek across Monster Island to reach the home of Daitatsu.

For the flyers and swimmers, the journey is uneventful. Only a few kaiju are capable of going airborne, and they tend to avoid each other's airspace. Aside from Taclydus, the only other flyer currently in the sky in Lepidoptera. The gigantic butterfly kaiju is perhaps one of the least aggressive monsters on the island. As she sees you approaching, she moves north to give you a wide berth. It's a clear gesture of deference, as though to say "...I don't want any trouble..."

Likewise for Straj, the only other kaiju that predominantly lives in the waters around Monster Island is Fringehead. However, the bellicose leviathan typically spends much of its time sleeping in a bay at the northern side of the island, so swimming along the south coast is a safe and easy journey.

For the land-based kaiju, the trip to the western tip of the island is barely a hour's walk, probably less depending on where you are when you receive the Call. It's a quiet night; at the moment, the only sounds are your own thunderous footsteps. Swathes of forest jolt and shake with each passing footfall. As you travel westward, the island's picturesque scenery changes from woodlands and empty fields to rolling hills and small mountains dotted with the occasional lake or pond. The trip to Daitatsu's nest forces you to skirt uncomfortably close to the territories of a number of other residents in the Sanctuary... some of whom are known for their hostility toward their fellows.

You trudge along the edge of the the laurel woods claimed by the kaiju known as Razorback, and the sound of rocky grinding grows louder as you approach. The massive ankylosauroid boar can be seen sharpening its tusks against a mountainside with swift, punishing thrusts. At your passing, the kaiju stops and watches; its eyes reflecting the moonlight not unlike a cat. Razorback shifts its armored, bristle-clad body in your direction and lowers its head, pawing aggressively at the ground with its hooves as though readying to charge. Ultimately though, the kaiju takes no action other than staring you down. Why he doesn't attack, who can say? Perhaps the monster also heard the Call and knows better than to interfere.

Further on, you walk near the hunting grounds of Tsuchigumo, which is obvious from the thick webs of spider silk that coat the surrounding terrain like a delicate white blanket. You glimpse its burrow in the distance, and the giant spider scuttles to the entrance in order to observe your passing with its many dead black eyes. Only its head, thorax, and a few spindly legs are visible; the rest of its bulbous body remains out of view. The kaiju's fang-like chelicerae are continuously moving, and the fresh bones scattered in front of its burrow seem to indicate that the creature just finished a meal. Most likely one of the large mammals that the humans regularly place on the island as foodstuff for the inhabitants.

The territory claimed by Nachtmacher is carefully patrolled by its resident kaiju - at least during the night - and the nocturnal superspecies dromaeosaur quickly makes his presence known when you get too close. Although seemingly hesitant to start a fight, the lightning-spewing mega-raptor also brooks no encroachment into his home turf. With quick, agitated movements, the kaiju paces back and forth along what he perceives to be the edge of his land, inadvertently smashing trees aside with his wildly thrashing tail. He chirps and growls at you. Like a tesla coil, split-second arcs of electricity periodically crackle across his inky black skin. The air smells of smoke and ozone. Nachtmacher anxiously taps his sickle-like toe claws against the ground and guards his territory with manic vigilance until you've moved far passed it.

Eventually, the terrain gives way to basaltic lava fields. You begin to see billowing steam vents and bubbling hot springs that hint at the volcanism below the earth. You approach the mountainous caldera claimed by Daitatsu and scale its sloped side. By now, the pale blue glow emanating from within the crater is many times brighter than the light of the Moon. Upon reaching the summit or flying above it, you see the nest of the Great Dragon. Known as the "Caldeira das Sete Cidades" to the original human inhabitants of São Miguel, the caldera is over three and a half miles across. Once covered in lush green foliage, the plant life within the caldera is mostly dead; killed off by Daitatsu's radioactivity. The long dormant stratovolcanic crater is largely flooded, and a shallow lake sits at its base. At the center of the crater lake is a small islet. In actuality, the islet seems to be little more than a mound of dirt rising from the water. And resting on the islet, partially buried in the dirt, is the splotchy white egg roughly the size of an automobile. And then there's Daitatsu herself. At six-hundred feet tall, the Monarch of Monsters is imposing, to say the least. She is easily twice the height of even the largest kaiju in your sentai. Her reptilian body is vaguely humanoid in shape; she's bipedal, but that's generally where such comparisons to humanity end. As her nickname suggests, the Great Dragon anatomically resembles popular depictions of a Western mythological dragon. She sports a long snout with a colossal incisor-filled maw wide enough to swallow kaiju at the smaller end of the size scale. Her tail is sinuous yet powerful; hundreds of feet long and capable of leveling skyscrapers with a hard swipe. Her hands and feet end in claws the length of semi-trailers, and a row of vicious-looking spines and jagged upright plates adorn her back, running from the base of the head to the tip of the tail. A pair of membranous wings, boasting a wingspan of nearly a quarter of a mile when spread, are folded at rest along the monster's sides. Perhaps the most notable trait possessed by Daitatsu, however, is her glow: a pulsing blue light that steadily leaks from her body. The light is eerie but too soft to blind. It emanates from the minute spaces between scales, from the edges of her dorsal osteoderms, and from the depths of her throat. Its as though the kaiju's abdomen is housing a small blue star and just barely containing its energy.

You find Daitatsu relaxing in the lake at the bottom of the crater, and her massive form is huddled protectively around the egg. Given her great size, the shallow lake is little more than a puddle to the kaiju. Her glow illuminates the water, making it glisten like an emerald and casting dancing lights along the inside of the caldera. At your arrival, the Monarch of Monsters lifts is titanic head in your direction, and her slitted reptilian eyes fix on you. You catch the glow of blue fire churning behind her eyeballs. Daitatsu rises to her feet cautiously so as not to disturb the egg. Her casual, unhurried manner indicates that she was expecting you. The Great Dragon's muscles are like coiled steel, rippling as she moves and encased in a scaly bluish-green hide that can shrug off most kaiju attacks with the same ease that kaiju can shrug off most human attacks.

Once you have all arrived, the Monarch of Monsters belts out a roar. Not an aggressive vocalization, but one of warning. It translates roughly to "Danger."

@Taclydus

At Daitatsu's suggestion of danger, you take to the nighttime sky and search for any obvious threats. You see the lights of the warships in the distance, but nothing else catches your attention. Beyond the island and the ships is just the endless expanse of ocean.

---

Daitatsu shifts her gaze around to each of you. She eyes Straj, making certain the cephalopod kaiju isn't getting too close to her egg, and then gazes up at those of you surmounting the caldera's summit. She exhales through her flared nostrils, and each exhalation unleashes what humans would measure as gale force winds.

The Great Dragon begins producing an odd chuffing sound; a deep gurgling from the base of her throat. The kaiju makes a series of head-bobbing and neck-stretching movements that are vaguely reminiscent of a bird about to feed its young. Her throat dilates and constricts repeatedly, and you see the outline of a bulge as is moves up her esophagus. After a full minute of this, Daitatsu lowers her head and opens her vast, toothy maw. She regurgitates the contents of her stomach: foamy stomach acid along with something large and partially digested. The mystery object falls onto the ground at the edge of the lake.

From each of your vantage points, you are quick to discern that its a detached head - a kaiju head, given the size. The flesh is somewhat liquified and digested away, and you see clear patches of brain without a skull. However, you're still able to make out some of the features it had in life: orange connective tissue like that of an octopus or cuttlefish, the remnant of lidless eyes, leaky pigment sacs, and bits of a rigid material similar to shell or carapace. Your powerful olfactory senses can still smell the creature; the odor is pungent and fishy like most things from the sea. More surprisingly, however, is that you each see and smell pieces of metal fused to the monster's flesh.

The Monarch of Monsters gives the malformed kaiju head a lingering look of disdain and glances at all of you again. She emits a deep rumbling growl, and the sound is intense enough to vibrate the surface of the lake around her. Even without words, her message is clear... she views this creature - whatever it was - as a threat. All of you have lived with the Great Dragon for years on the island and understand that she rarely considers anything a threat. Rival, certainly... the Monarch of Monsters has had her share of rivalries with other kaiju, and often provoked the humans out of rage or sport. But the notion of her regarding something to be a threat, as though it actually poses a danger to her existence, is alarming. Ever since she'd laid her egg, Daitatsu had noticeably grown more careful and reclusive. You could all smell that some of the kaiju on the island were beginning to wonder if their alpha was becoming weak...

What was the monster? None of you have ever seen its kind in the Sanctuary. Had it traveled here? There was a shared understanding among the giant residents of the island that something was happening in the world. The source of the feeling was unclear, but all of the kaiju felt it... a sort of constant unease. Many of the monsters were more agitated than normal, and fights between the kaiju were occurring more often. It was not unlike the stress response that some of the more territorial kaiju display when their territory is being invaded by an enemy.

Daitatsu points her head toward the horizon and makes a sharp flick of the snout, urging you to leave this place. Not the caldera, specifically. The island. She motions beyond the lights of the warships, and you get the sense she's indicating the human-held mainland across the ocean. She then indicates the human blockade surrounding the Sanctuary, roars defiantly in the flotilla's direction, and looks at all of you. Her massive clawed foot comes down on the decomposing head and crushes it with a wet splatter. Looking around, Daitatsu waits to see if any of you are brazen enough to challenge her authority.

Old instincts come to the fore. The Monarch of Monsters wants you to go on the hunt. Kill more of these creatures. They are a threat. Don't let the humans stop you. Rampage.