DECEMBER 17, 2404 APPROXIMATELY 80 MILES NE OF HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, EARTH ALLIANCE The house, as he'd expected, was a royal mess. Retired Admiral of the Fleet Kristan Oren Overstreet, CFMF, currently test pilot for Cygnus/Bell's X-1 Jaeger project, looked out the lab-door and up at the large hole in the dining room roof. The chill December air of an early Texas morning blew through the room and out again by way of the shattered windows in the kitchen, tugging at Kris' beard and stirring the deep piles of leaves and pine needles strewn on the carpet. A test of the light switch established that yes, indeed, something had gnawed through the power lines again, and the fusion plant would have to be reconnected to the house and the well before anything else could be done. He didn't even want to think about the pantry. The Redneck pulled his brown jacket closer around him, zipping it up and sticking his hands in his pockets as he surveyed the damage. In summertime he might have fixed it himself, but with just a week to Christmas he refused to spend hours in drizzly weather with highs only in the mid-40's on a rooftop replacing tin and two-by-fours. After all, now he had a wife with a flunky to do those things. "Honey?" A short young woman with brilliant red hair done up in an eclectic array of spikes, bun, and ponytail stepped out of the lab door, looking as usual like a large crab riding atop a private school student's head. "Did you change your mind, Kris?" Washuu asked hopefully. "No, I didn't," Kris sighed. Washuu had transformed from mad scientist to manic hausfrau since moving to New Avalon, and she took a perverse delight in shoveling five miles of driveway buried under a foot of snow (on average) at least once a week. "Tell Zathras I have a few chores for him." "Zathras hears," a raspy voice, soaked with a mixture of misery and eagerness, rattled from within the lab. Taller than Washuu, marginally shorter than Kris, and hunchbacked, the shaggy, shabby form of Zathras wobbled his way out into the living room. After a moment's glance, he added, "Zathras thinks Zathras' vacation is not going to be as restful as Zathras had hoped." "'Fraid not," Kris smiled. "I need the fusion plant on-line, the power reconnected to the house and defense perimeter, the water turned back on, the roof patched, and the living room cleaned, in that order." A soft slithering sound came from the leaves at his feet, and Kris had to fight every instinct to jump as a large diamondback rattlesnake crawled across his shoe. "And while you're at it-" "IRVING!" The new voice caught everyone's attention, including the snake; it raised its head, looked towards the door, and made a beeline for it as a tiny girl with deep pink hair pushed her way through the door, arms opened wide at the rattlesnake. None of the three adults looked the least bit surprised as the snake reared up, leaned into the hug, and curled its excess length around the girl in a loose, loving caress. "You know," the Redneck drawled for the two hundred twenty- seventh time in the past three years, "I wonder if they sell tickets to the world Wapiko lives on..." I have a message from another time... WHITE LIGHTNING PRODUCTIONS in association with EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLTD. presents a story of Undocumented Features WAPIKO LOVES GAMERA (An Overstreet Family Christmas) Introducing a new fanfiction star GAMERA as himself ****** It took a little sweet-talking from Wapiko, but in about fifteen minutes' time every snake, mouse, raccoon, opossum, ornitholestes, centipede, scorpion, ant, wasp, termite and flea was marching in single file out the front door. The cold-blooded creatures of the group would find new quarters in the barn, where (by some miracle, or Wapiko area-effect) they would settle down peacefully for their winter hibernation. The mammals and dinosaurs of the group (including the large ankylosaur who tended to sleep on the front porch) would stick around, playing happily with Wapiko and keeping her fully occupied. The Redneck wasn't the least bit worried about Wapiko. Back in New Avalon, finding a babysitter tended to be problematic... not to protect Wapiko, but to protect everyone else in New Avalon -from- Wapiko. The four-year-old girl had a top running speed close to Mach One (and getting faster all the time) and a level of indestructibility that put Kris' own regeneration to shame. A girl who could run through foot-thick brick walls without breaking stride had to be watched constantly. So far, the only prospective babysitters able to keep up had been the universal babysitters of New Avalon, the Rose family. Eiko was faster and stronger than Wapiko (for the moment, Kris thought with a shudder) and well able to turn corralling Wapiko into a game. When Eiko wasn't available, Martin made a patient and versatile second choice. Unfortunately, the two weren't available all the time; Eiko now taught elementary school, and Martin worked long and unusual hours with the CID. When those two weren't available, the Overstreet family had to look long and hard for substitute sitters who, after one experience watching over Wapiko, either charged exorbitant rates or refused the service altogether. The teenage scions of the Shannon, Hutchins/Morgan, Daniels, and Utonium families all had at least one Wapiko Horror Story to their name, starting with Kaitlyn's trip to the petting zoo with two-year-old Wapiko... which had ended in disaster when the entire zoo tried to follow Wapiko home. Nor could Kris rely on his houseguests to watch the little pink dynamo. In November, when Wapiko had dragged Mayl Popp'fl from the house to the ice cream parlor- a twenty-mile trip, made in seven minutes and through eighteen walls and seven fences- Mayl and Rianna had decided to take a break from the Overstreet home. Thus, instead of accompanying the family to Texas for Christmas, the privateers had lit out for Deneb Sector, precise location unknown. Out here, however, the only residence for six miles in any direction besides his own was the old Jordan homestead a few hundred yards away, still inhabited by descendants of Kris' great-aunt. Aside from trees and the occasional oil well, there wasn't anything for Wapiko to smash, break, trample, fold, spindle, or mutilate. The larger and more intelligent creatures that stayed near the house- like Fred the ankylosaur- would give warning in the unlikely event that Wapiko met something she couldn't charm. The lights snapped on almost at once, the soft hum of the perimeter fence energizing fading quickly into the background. The fence wasn't intended to keep out humans or mid-sized animals; it was intended to discourage the really large critters, like the iguanadons or the occasional tyrannosaurus wandering the piney woods. The 10,000 volt barbed wire served as a mild attention-getter to such large creatures that the homestead was not to be trod upon. With power restored, Wapiko playing gleefully in the front yard, a loud hammering echoing from the roof, and Washuu hauling presents in from her lab, Kris flicked on the satellite-relay television to catch the Republic of Texas' news channel. "... this is RTN. Our top story tonight, a mutated pteranodon is terrorizing fuel refineries in the Galveston Bay area. Citizens of Galveston, Brazoria, Harris, Chambers, and Liberty counties are to be on the lookout for this creature, shown here setting fire to an abandoned petroleum refinery in Lake Jackson." The creature looked vaguely like a pteranodon, if you made the head wide with points on the sides. Indeed, the creature looked boxy and awkward on the ground, its angular wings flapping for balance as the creature kicked in rusted storage tanks with its short, clawed legs. From the scale of it, the creature was no less than eighty feet tall, perhaps as tall as a hundred. "Preliminary efforts to subdue the beast by the Texas Army and Earth Alliance forces have met with no success," the broadcaster continued. "Officials advise the public to avoid the creature, which they have codenamed Gaos, until such time as larger forces may be brought in from the United States sector. "In other news, Houston Mayor Walter Hobbs has been indicted for the third time on charges of malfeasance in office. Hobbs, having been acquitted twice of such charges, expressed confidence that-" Kris flipped the channel, looking for sports. Nothing important on the news, obviously; monsters cropped up in the rural Badlands all the time, even a century and more after the Fourth World War, and Houston had become synonymous with corruption. Definitely a slow news day. Outside, he heard the soft engine of a ground vehicle; he paid it no mind, resolving to get up later and check the box for mail. It didn't sink into his head for quite some time that the engine sound was not that of a Texas Postal Service rural delivery tank. The engine belonged, in fact, to a broken-down pickup of decidedly mixed breeds. The front end had begun life as a Nissan, the payload bed was Ford make, the engine was Daihatsu-Stingray, and the armaments were Kalashnikov. Two former highway bandits sat in the cab, driven off the highways and into the back woods by the guns of the Texas Rangers. The hood of the truck trembled slightly, the poorly tuned microfusion power plant rattling in its rusted mounts. All in all, the truck was a pathetic sight, and its drivers even more pathetic than that, one tall and skinny, one broad and chunky, both gone beyond desperation into quiet, forlorn acceptance. They paused on the mixed asphalt and dust which marked the ancient highway in front of the Overstreet compound, staring at the compound they'd planned to use as a hideout for the winter, watching the new occupants make it homey once again. "Well, -Jeez,-" the driver (the tall one) grumbled, slapping the steering wheel in frustration. "I thought you said the place was abandoned." "Well, nobody lived in it for three years, what was I supposed to think?" His companion's gravelly voice managed to squirm even more than his body did at his partner's agitation. "Well, Charley," the driver whined, his high tenor voice sliding through vowels like a swoop racer in a chicane, "you've really done it to us this time. We come twenty miles away from anything, running on vapors, because you know of a recently abandoned building..." "Well, I'm sorry..." "Well, yeah, but 'Sorry,' um, it isn't going to do any good, Charley," the driver whined. "Now we'll have to find some centuries-old snake trap again like last year, and God knows where we'll find one out here." "Well, I'm -sorry-." "Yeah, yeah," the driver shrugged. He turned his attention back to the house, the strange-looking person banging on the roof, the little girl playing with the dinosaur in the yard, the figures barely visible inside moving around. "You know, it must be some really stupid people moving out here in this part of the Badlands, y'know Charley?" "Yeah, Harv," Charley nodded. "Stupid and rich. That perimeter musta cost a fortune." "Yeah, it would," Harvey nodded slowly. "Stupid... but rich... y'know, Charley, I think I might have an idea..." Wapiko looked up from her tic-tac-toe game with the ankylosaur to see the homely man looking down at her. "Hihi!" she smiled, standing up and bowing to him. "I'm Wapiko! What's your name?" "Um, I'm Harvey," the thin, unshaven man smiled at her. "I'm kind of lost around here. Can you show me where the nearest store is so I can fill up my truck?" Wapiko, in a strange oversight on the part of her parents, had never had the Strangers talk. Thus, suspicion never dawned in her sunny little mind that the strange person in forest camouflage clothing might wish her ill. "Sure! It's about fifteen miles that-a-way!" She pointed southeast, not quite in line with the highway. Harvey nodded. "Couldja come with us and show us how to get there? I'm sure your folks wouldn't mind you helpin' people out." Wapiko nodded. "Sure!" As Wapiko skipped along with Harvey to the truck, Fred looked up from his seventh tic-tac-toe in a row and watched Wapiko leave. This, thought Fred, will lead to no good. The old truck lurched forward, its rickety transmission grinding loudly as Harvey coaxed the pickup down the road. In between him and Charley sat Wapiko, bouncing in her seat, enjoying her neat ride. "So, Wapiko, I'd like ya ta meet Charley," Harvey said, gesturing to the occupant of the shotgun seat. "Hihi Charley!" Wapiko smiled cheerfully at Charley, who smiled back a bit uneasily. "Nice ta meetcha," Charley said. "We're gonna be seein' a lot of each other th' next few days, huh Wapiko?" Wapiko nodded happily, stopping only when her young, sunshine- flooded mind detected the first notes of an inner warning bell. "Why's that, Mr. Charley?" "Well, Wapiko," Charley smiled, scratching the back of his head nervously, "we, ah, well, we're actually-" "IX-NAY, Charley," Harvey growled, to no effect. "- kidnappin' yas, see. We're gonna hole up a few days in the woods, tell your folks we got ya, and we'll ask for a bunch of dough ta return yas." A shadow passed over Wapiko's lavender eyes, and the sunshine in her happy mind fell behind a cloud. "You're... kidnappin' me?" she asked, uncertainly. "It's not like we're gonna hurt ya or nothin'," Charley rambled on, not catching his partner's urgent motions to cut off the conversation. "We'll just lock you up somewhere, like, say, in a closet, we'll feed ya every day, and when your folks get worried-" "Mommy an' Dad worried?" The clouds in Wapiko's little universe were growing darker by the second. "well, once they pay up, we'll return yas, nice an' happy all over again," Charley finished. "In th' meantime, we can play house an' have all sorts of fun together, huh Wapiko?" Wapiko's eyes began to tear up, as in her little world, the thunder rumbled. "You... you're gonna make my parents WORRY," she whimpered. "You're gonna make 'em SAD!" She stood up in the seat, head brushing the top of the cab, and screamed, "YOU'RE MEAN PEOPLE! I DON'T LIKE YOU! WWAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" "Get her to sit DOWN, Charley!" Harvey hissed, trying to keep his eyes on the road. When Charley didn't move fast enough, he grabbed Wapiko's arm and tugged, then tugged harder when the four-year-old didn't sit down as he'd expected. Wapiko screamed even louder, yanking her arm away with a strength that slammed Harvey forward into the steering wheel. The truck lurched to the right, running up into the ditch, and as it brushed against the dense thicket lining the road Wapiko leaped forward, smashed through the dashboard and windshield, kicked the engine block into the dirt below with one mighty leap, and ran. Centuries-old trees toppled down around her as she cried and squalled, speeding away from her would-be captors at high speed. The truck's fusion plant, no longer connected to important things like the transmission, the drive train, or the coolant system, shut itself down and safed itself, steam rising from its surface where coolant splashed freely from the radiator. Charley, hanging through the shattered windshield, groaned and muttered, "Harv, I think my arm's broken... Harv?" Harvey, thrown completely out of the truck and into some poison ivy on the embankment, was too busy communing with the tweety birds to give Charley any answer, which was probably for the best. raprapraprapWHAM! *thump* raprapWHAM! *thump* rapraprapWHAM! *thump* rapraprapraprapWHAM! *thump* Kris sat back and relaxed in his slightly weathered easy chair, ignoring the snake (who, missing Wapiko, decided to hang around a human Wapiko liked instead). He'd bought a seven-volume series of novels by Gem Norren, the best-selling Rigel Belt Pirate series, about a young man who goes from cabin boy to undisputed leader of the various pirate clans of the Rigel system's three asteroid belts. He expected to spend a nice, long, quiet month reading and re-reading those seven books, beginning with the one in his hands, 'Mr. Midshipsman Forester.' If he liked them (as he expected to), he'd pick up the newest book, 'Lord Forester' in hardcover when he returned to New Avalon. He'd gotten about twenty pages into the book, about the point wherein Cabin-Boy Forester challenged an abusive lieutenant to a duel, when the loud chuff-chuff-chuff of a large fusion engine caught his attention. Blinking, he set his book aside and shooed away the rattlesnake (who, disappointed, crawled into the kitchen, where Washuu caught him and sent him to the Lab, where he lived out a happy, carefree and rat-full existence). Looking out the window, the Redneck saw the Fargo-class light-armor tank at the mailbox, the words RURAL DELIVERY emblazoned in big black letters against its side. The Fargo-class tank, designed and built by the Ozaki Works of Zardon, was a follow-up to the near-ubiquitous Napoleon class micro- tank. Like the Napoleon, the Fargo had been designed for urban warfare, but it was built more as an armored transport rather than a tank. The lightly armored tank had proven ideal for worlds where armored transport and large guns were recommended when traveling. The rural areas of southern North America, with neo-dinosaurs running wild since the third World War, fit the bill to perfection. The model was soon licensed for manufacture on Earth, where it was known as the 'Wells Fargo' for its primary purpose; armored delivery service. More to the point, a Fargo had a very large power plant, with a much deeper roar than the soft rattling sound the Redneck had heard... just -how- long ago? Kris rushed out to the road, jumping over an agitated-looking ankylosaur, just missing the tank as it drove off down the road to make more deliveries. The box, he noted idly, was three-quarters full of junk mail and 'OCCUPANT' sales brochures, to which had been added a new flyer from the department store at Fort Livingston. A brief check of the dust and dirt on the road proved futile; the mail tank's treads had torn up all the old tracks, making any identification of the earlier vehicle impossible. "Wapiko?" Kris looked around, noting the absence of pink-haired little girls and swarms of critters playing with same. He dashed up into the yard, shouting louder, "WAPIKO!" He looked around, noting the absence of freshly-downed trees; apparently Wapiko hadn't taken it into her mind to go jogging, so she -should- have been within sound of his voice. After a few moments of near-silence (rapraprapWHAM! *thud*), Kris tried for alternative number two. "ZATH-RAAAAAS!!" rapwhapWHUD! "ACH, ach, ach!" *thud* "Zathras, have you seen Wapiko in the last half hour?" *thud* "Zathras is very sorry," *thud* "but Zathras has not seen anything besides nails, and tin, and," clickclickclick, *thud* "and this hammer. Zathras was not around when they lined up for X-ray vision, Zathras is afraid." *thud* "Could you stop that hammering for a moment?" *thud* "Zathras -has- stopped hammering." *thud* "Zathras thought that was you or Great Professor Washuu." *thud* "Well, it's not me," the Redneck shouted, as the next *whud* came down not on the porch but, instead, on his toes. "OOOWWWWW!!!" Having finally gained the human's attention, Fred the ankylosaur tried to communicate, using a combination of bleats, beats of his club-tail, and body language that Wapiko had gone off with some unsavory characters. The Redneck looked down and saw Fred point his tail to the road, say, "Wrrruuuuaaaaaa," and attempt to skip merrily with his front legs. The house shook slightly under his heavy feet. "Fred," Kris sighed, "I know you're trying, and I appreciate the thought, but I don't have -time- to play 'Little Timmy Fell Down the Well Lassie?' right now." Rushing back into the house, he shouted, "WASHUU?" "Just a moment, dear," Washuu said, teleporting a surprised- looking snake in an energy bubble into the Lab, "what is it you're shouting about?" "Wapiko's disappeared," Kris gasped. "I think she's been taken somewhere. I'm going to check the woods, you search the road." Without waiting for acknowledgment, the Redneck leaped out the front door again, dashed behind the house and vanished into the thicket. For a long moment, Washuu stood motionless, the shock of having a child go missing hitting her for the first time. Usually, when Wapiko ran off somewhere, you could locate her by following the trail of debris. If there was no wreckage... it -had- to be foul play. That meant, of course, a thrilling and dramatic parental rescue. Washuu chuckled. Liking the sound of it, she giggled. Liking that more, she laughed maniacally, hands on hips. "HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This is the PERFECT chance to test out my latest creation! To the Lab! It is time for the Red Avenger to make her debut!" So saying, she marched to the lab door and strode through, the crab-chime clattering behind her as the door closed on one last demented laugh. It, in a former life, had been a snapping turtle. At least, It's mother and father had been snapping turtles, but that had been about one hundred thirty years ago, when stray radiation and chemical fallout from the Third World War had done strange things to a certain turtle nest, things that only allowed one egg to survive to hatching. His early life had been, like that of most baby turtles, hazardous. Certain strange and curious mutations brought on by the great wars gave It an advantage most baby turtles didn't have, though. Most snapping turtles didn't breathe fire or fly, and their growth rate during infancy ran somewhat slower than a foot a day. Little things like this tended to discourage predators until It had attained his full growth, roughly the size of a medium-size space freighter. It no longer needed food, now that his growth was complete; It tended to rouse itself only during forest fires, when he would rise up from his hibernation and land in the hottest part of the blaze, feeding on the warmth. The most recent fire had been a mere six years ago, and It wasn't even feeling peckish; he was, in fact, enjoying pleasant dreams involving, for reasons It didn't understand, cheering humans, marching bands, and poor quality dubbing. It was quite intelligent, as giant monsters go, and when he first stirred to wakefulness beneath the ancient beaver pond, It correctly interpreted the random crashing of tall pines to earth as something out of the ordinary. He'd slept through a logging crew forty years ago, knowing them for who they were, but trees falling without storm or machine didn't fit into his general view of how the world worked. Slowly It shifted himself beneath the pond, moving his immense head out of his shell and listening to the sounds of destruction. Through the water and mud, in addition to the falling trees (which were growing closer, curving towards It from the south) he could hear footsteps, rapid, powerful footsteps. And was that... howling? Crying? It couldn't be a human child, and yet... ? *SPLISHWHOOOOOSHBLUB.* That sound had been something hitting the surface of the pond unexpectedly at high speed, skimming along the surface for about half the pond's length, and then sinking into the murky water. It lifted itself up out of the water and curled his head as far back over itself as it could go for a better look. Sliding off his shell, covered in pond-muck and wearing clothes somewhat the worse for wear, a little girl gasped for breath, coughing up a bit of water and moaning disconsolately. The girl splashed back into the beaver pond beneath It; he reached down, very carefully caught a bit of cloth on one giant tusk (also nonstandard equipment for snapping turtles), and lifted the girl out of the water and onto the dam. The girl, barely noticing, stood on her own feet and wiped her eyes, still crying a bit softly. "Nasty mean no-good people... big meanies... make mommy an' daddy sad..." It, not being an educated monster, did have some small understanding of human interrelations, and he did not care overmuch for beings placing themselves between a parent and its young. (After all, if it ever met a female turtle-monster of a romantic inclination, It had his own plans...) It roared for a moment, trying to keep it quiet and gentle, not expecting the girl's short-cropped hair to be blown back by the force of his breath. For the first time, the girl looked up at him and -saw- him, standing twenty feet over the surface of the pond, broad legs supporting a massive horny shell, his immense head bent down to her, staring at her with large yellow eyes. "Oh," the girl said, "Hello. I'm Wapiko. Who are you?" No one had ever asked him that question. It hadn't spoken to a human before at all, at least not if you discounted the 'AH! OMIGOD RUN!' trend of conversations he sometimes had with local firefighters. He considered the question for a long, long moment, then roared again, doing a better job of muting the volume this time. "Gamera? That's a nice name." What had come out hadn't sounded anything like Gamera, but that had been what It had intended. Gamera nodded slowly, solemnly (as solemn as a turtle can nod, even a hundred- foot- long turtle). "I'm kind of lost, 'cause some men asked me for directions, and I thought they were nice men, but they weren't, 'cause they wanted ta take me away from my mommy an' daddy, an' I ran away from 'em 'cause they were mean, the men that is not mommy an' daddy they're nice, an' I didn't see where I was goin', an' now I don't know where I am." Wapiko was slightly less than half a mile from the highway and three quarters of a mile from the Overstreet compound, in the flood plain of Big Sandy Creek, where ages ago some ambitious beavers had dammed up a side passage of the creek to form a pond. Gamera, in that strange rapport that Wapiko shared with all animals more advanced than a polliwog, communicated all of this to her except the part about the location of her house, of which Gamera was himself ignorant. Wapiko, who had not yet learned to run when she'd left Earth for the first time, didn't know anything about anything off the old highway. "Um, well, my house is on the highway... maybe if I go to the highway, I can find it from there." She bowed respectfully to the turtle, smiling. "Thank you, Gamera! I appreciate your help!" Gamera saw the girl walking exactly the wrong way- towards the creek- and sighed to himself. With a long roar, he indicated that Wapiko should climb up onto his neck. "You want me to ride you, Gamera?" Wapiko blinked. "But it's a long way to the highway for a turtle, even a big one." Gamera indicated that this would not be an issue and lowered his head halfway into the water, his nose almost level with the old path across the dam. Wapiko carefully stepped onto his head, walked back until she reached the ridge of his shell, and straddled his neck, grabbing onto a couple of wattles for safety. "Okay! Let's go, Gamera!" What happened next totally surprised her. Gaos was in a foul mood. As a mutant pteranodon, Gaos tended to be cranky to begin with, but those pesky humans and their aircraft chasing him really annoyed him. He'd knocked down a few houses in League City in anger after one plane got a lucky shot in and cut off one of his feet. Finally, having blasted the jet out of the sky with his poison cold breath, Gaos limped away northeastward, away from human habitation, finally coming to rest on a sandbar in the middle of the Trinity River. He backed underneath one high overhanging bank of the river, the deep channel and tall trees around the edge hiding him from sight. There he groaned and shuddered as, slowly, with slime and blood dripping from the stump, he regrew his leg, flexing it as it slipped out of the stump and snapped its talons open. Whole once again, he spread his wings, shouting defiance at the cruel world full of humans he lived in. Why didn't they go back where they came from? One wing caught an overhanging oak tree and uprooted it, sending it crashing down onto Gaos's still-tender foot. His eyes bulged a bit, and he grit his beak and whimpered at the new pain. He needed to destroy something. Preferably something flammable. With a rush of wind, he launched himself from the banks of the Trinity, flying eastward, looking for those large metal things with oil in them. They blew up reeeeal good. Harvey regained consciousness slowly, reluctantly, and painfully. By some miracle, he had no broken bones, although a couple of his ribs didn't feel quite right and his entire body hurt with a passion. Looking up, he saw Charley still resting spread half over the dashboard, half over the hood, looking a bit sheepish. "So, you told her we were kidnapping her, Charley," Harvey said at last. "Well, I told her, that's all," Charley shrugged, not looking at all proud of himself. "So you triggered something that turned a cute little girl into an unstoppable juggernaut in pink," Charley said. "Just popped off your mouth, and here we are, wrecked and injured in the middle of nowhere." "Well, I'm sorry, Harv." "Well, sorry, um, doesn't do us any -good,- Charley. Now, let's get our story straight for when somebody comes along." Harvey pulled himself painfully to his feet, walked over to the truck, noted the ripped-up line down the middle of the hood, and said, "Now, what happened is this. We was drivin' along th' road minding our own business, when this dinosaur, big dinosaur see, jumps out of the woods, rams our car, and runs off." "Gee," Charley muttered, "do ya think they'd buy that?" "Well, Charley, it's -just- wild enough..." Harvey trailed off as he and Charley heard a strange new sound above them, the sound of laughter. Female laughter. Manic nerve-jarring female laughter. The two bandits looked up to see a figure silhouetted by the noonday sun, red hair streaming down her back, voluptuous pale flesh accented by what appeared to be gleaming red metal bikini-armor. A semi-transparent shield hid most of her face from view, part of a metal helmet with vernier-like horns jutted up from either side. The figure stared down at them, hands on her hips, and said, "Woe to those criminal scum who would separate a helpless child from her loving parents!" "Hey, listen," Charley shouted, "there wadn't nothin' helpless about that child, lemme tell ya!" "Shut UP, Charley!" Harvey hissed. "I am the armored warrior of love and Science! I shall right wrongs and triumph over evil! For I am the RED AVENGER!" She posed dramatically in midair, her metal armor not quite enough to subdue some impressive jiggling, and she looked down again, adding, "And you two have been found... guilty!" "Charley?" "Yeah, Harv?" "I think this is gonna hurt." Wapiko looked down at the trees, eyes wide with delight. Gamera was FLYING. She could look up at the low-lying clouds, down on the trees and oil wells zipping beneath the huge turtle's shell, back to see jet flames rushing out of the holes in his shell where his hind legs had been. The only thing sticking out was his head, which occasionally rocked a little to one side as Gamera checked on his passenger. Her father would have written Gamera's flight off as impossible, except he was tangled in a patch of briars trying not to cut apart the clinging plants. Her mother would have scanned and analyzed the strange flying beast, except she was currently in what Wapiko knew as her Playing-with-Daddy body, wearing an odd costume, and shouting things like 'ICZEL LANCE!' 'ICZEL KICK!' 'ICZEL WEDGIE!' while she made two miserable bandits even more miserable. Wapiko giggled as she tasted the wind on her cheeks, looking down in wonder at the narrow country road below, not recognizing her house from above and not noticing Zathras on the roof. (Zathras, in fact, was no longer on the roof; Gamera's take-off roar had caused him to slip down the tin roof, and he currently lay entangled in the limbs of a magnolia tree having his own communion with the tweety birds.) Gamera didn't mind Wapiko's euphoria; he remembered his first flight, and he figured it'd take either a couple hours or a big-ass pteranodon (the latter, in his own case) to jolt her out of it. "Ooooh!" Wapiko shouted, pointing westward. "What's that?" Gamera looked to the western horizon and sighed. "That" was a big-ass pteranodon. The Red Avenger had departed, taking her skimpy power armor and its overflowing contents with her and leaving two battered and scorched bandits behind for the authorities. One half-charred lump of humanity raised itself on its unbroken arm and said, "Charley?" The other lump, hurting too much to move, replied, "Yeah, Harv?" Harvey gathered himself, gasping, "We need... to get our story... together... for when the cops... arrive." "motherfuck... goddam... OW... son of a BITCH... damn briars..." Charley raised his head enough to look towards the bushes alongside the road and muttered, "That wouldn't be them now, would it?" A loud humming sound erupted from the bushes, and in a flicker of red light, several plants fell away from the thicket, twigs and leaves partially incinerated by the beam. A man in blue jeans and a tattered T- shirt emerged from the brush, shivering slightly at the chill December air, looking very irritated at life in general. As the man pulled a couple of twigs from his beard and brushed the leaves out of his short- cropped red hair, he took in the incinerated truck, the thoroughly chastised bandits, and the trail of fallen trees leading away from the truck. "So," he said at last, "you're the bastards who tried to kidnap my daughter." "Harv, this is going to hurt again, isn't it?" Charley gasped. "I think so, Charley," Harvey gasped in reply. Before the hurting could commence, a loud squark of challenge ripped through the air, followed by a deafening explosion. A plume of smoke rose from the woods to the west, and with a loud Salusian curse the Redneck turned his back on the bandits and ran back into the woods, cutting a path before him with a beamsword. The two hoods watched him leave, took a big sigh of relief each, and passed out. Gaos crowed with delight as he spotted the large oil containers scattered among the pine trees. Here and there, oil wells still rattled and pumped, dredging out the deepest dregs of a formerly bountiful supply, pouring the thick Texas crude through the pipes and into the old but well-maintained tanks. With a screech of pleasure Gaos dove onto the nearest tank, knocking a maintenance ladder over into the half-full overflow pond, and slashed it open with one wing. Oil poured from the tank, ignited a moment later as Gaos' claws sparked against the rusted metal. The billows of smoke rose into the sky as flames danced around Gaos' body. With another happy roar, he leaped into the sky, looking for something else to smash. He wasn't expecting to catch umpty thousand tons of angry flying turtle in the gut. Wapiko clung tightly to Gamera's neck as she watched Gaos smash up the oil tank. "Hey! He's tearing up that big metal thing! HEY YOU! THAT BELONGS TO SOMEBODY!" When Gaos didn't hear her shouting, she looked down and said to Gamera, "That's a mean old giant monster. He needs to be taught a lesson." Gamera wasn't going to argue with that. Unfortunately, he had a little girl on his back, and he couldn't exactly jump in feet blazing and fight with a rider along. He needed a moment to let Wapiko off before he took care of this pterosaur who had the temerity to interlope on HIS skies and blow things up in HIS forest. When Gaos leaped up from the flames, Gamera saw his chance. Rushing forward and downward in a blaze of fire (to Wapiko's screaming delight), he slid his body into a mid-air bootlegger turn and slammed into Gaos broadside across the midsection. Gaos went tumbling backwards, smashing hard into an ancient and decrepit graduating tank and shattering the rusted relic to bits. Between the metal and trees, it would take Gaos some moments to get free. Slowly and carefully, Gamera lowered his body to earth in a clearing near an intact oil tank. He hinted to Wapiko that she should step back, as the fight would probably be very rough indeed. "Okay, I'll get out of your way," Wapiko smiled. "Don't worry about me!" She trotted back to the far edge of the clearing, covering her face as Gamera drew all his limbs and his head into his shell, slowly spinning like a top as jets blazed from all four holes. He rose into the air, hovering in place, as Gaos extracted himself from the wreckage and arose, screaming defiance, into the air. With a titanic slam of chitin against leather, the fight was on. The Redneck crashed through a dense tangle of fallen limbs and briars, beamstaff slashing through the undergrowth like a red glowing machete. Pausing in the old firebreak road to rest, he looked up and saw for the first time the giant turtle and pteranodon, the latter blasting some sort of foul gas at the flaming, spinning turtle shell. If his daughter hadn't been missing in the middle of all this, Kris might have wished for popcorn; as it was, he was about to charge back into the brush when a whoosh of air heralded the arrival of the Red Avenger. In her high-heeled knee-top boots, the Avenger actually stood a bit taller than the Redneck, but the long red hair and other hard to miss distinguishing characteristics made it easy for Kris to identify her. "Washuu, what are you doing in that getup?" he asked. "You want to catch cold or something?" "Why, I'm searching for our daughter, of course," Washuu smiled from beneath her tinted visor. "I've already disposed of the thugs who so unwisely attempted to kidnap her. In fact, the authorities should be here in a matter of minutes to take them to a nice maximum security hospital." She struck a pose, throwing her shoulders back just a little bit extra for Kris' enjoyment, and shouted, "Once more the power of love and Science! has triumphed over evil! The genius of the Red Avenger is all-powerful! A-HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Gaos, flying low overhead, clipped the top of a pine tree; the limb fell squarely atop the Red Avenger's helmet, knocking her to the ground. "owwie" "You sound so much like Mayl when you say that," the Redneck grumbled. He hacked his way into the brush, shouting over his shoulder, "Go back to the house and get some proper clothes on before someone begins asking questions!" Washuu pushed the limb off her body and brushed herself off. "Even Wapiko?" "ESPECIALLY WAPIKO! OWWW!" The slashing paused as the Redneck pulled briar thorns from his skin for the hundred and thirty-third through hundred and thirty-ninth times that day. Harvey and Charley roused themselves from a brief but merciful slumber, taking stock of their immediate surroundings and their own conditions. They still lay in the ditch alongside the ancient country road to nowhere, their truck smoldering behind them from an Iczel Lance or eight. Several limbs and other bones had been broken on each, although no injury was actually life threatening. They had achieved that dubious pleasure of endorphin fatigue, the point where the pain-numbing chemicals in their bodies had produced enough happy-juice to transform excruciating pain into a low-grade ache, with severe lassitude and mild depression tacked on for laughs. This condition generally killed any ambitions the two had involving movement, but since the slightest motion produced fresh, non-dulled pain in economy-sized boatloads, they hadn't been very inclined to move anyway. The crashing of trees not far off, the monstrous roars of two battling titans, and the occasional shaking of the earth beneath them had nearly convinced them, despite all the incentives to remain still, to try to move toward some form of shelter. "Okay, Charley, I think I can push off on my good leg. Grab my upper arm an' I'll drag ya across th' road. Maybe there's a hole we can hide in there." "Good idea, Harv." Charley grit his teeth, grunted, rolled over onto his bruised ribs, and grabbed Harvey's -lower- right arm. "OWWWWWW! UPPER! UPPER! UPPER!!" Charley switched his grip, gasping, "Sorry..." Harvey, not bothering to answer that, pushed against a crack in the ancient pavement with his boot heel. His body slid backwards slowly, shakily, until after about seven inches the pavement under his boot flaked off and bounced down the ditch slope. The boot, without anything pushing against it, flew out and caught Charley's shin with a solid kick. "OOOW! Hey, HARVEY!" The two bandits rolled apart, lying flat on their backs again, gasping for breath and trying not to move anything at all. Both had to clear tears of pain from their eyes before either could speak. "Harv? How far d'ya think we got?" "About... about maybe a foot, Charley, maybe two." "How far 'cross the road?" "Hm... about another twenty or so." "Um," Charley said, thinking carefully for a moment; then, out of consideration for his partner rather than any lingering personal wishes, he asked, "Do ya wanna try again?" "No," Harvey said, now very careful not to shake his head, "No, I think I'll lie here and wait for a dinosaur to come eat us." "Sounds like a good plan, Harv," Charley gasped, and with that he lay still and closed his eyes, wishing he'd listened to his mother and become a longshoreman. Gamera crashed to the ground, shaken and weakened. The foul ice breath, the air that drew warmth from the body even as it poisoned him, had taken its toll. Gamera, on the other hand, had not yet been able to land a truly telling blow. His flame breath actually seemed to energize the enemy, and that irritated him no end. He needed an edge, and fairly soon, or he would soon be joining his smaller cousins as an exhibit at a roadside stand somewhere, a hundred-foot shell painted with the words SOUVENIR OF EARTH- "Everything's Bigger in TEXAS" or something of that nature. The thought of becoming the galaxy's largest ten-credit junk souvenir brought Gamera back to his feet. With a grunt he pushed himself up, balancing on his hind legs, and strode purposefully towards the hovering form of Gaos. Gaos, eager to take the fight to the ground, lowered himself to the ground, waving his wings to balance on his own stubby feet. Gamera marked those wings with caution; the leading edges were sharp, razor-sharp towards the tips, and his shell already had deep gouges from his efforts to ram Gaos out of the sky. Walking into close range and engaging in a fistfight wasn't a very good idea. Neither was exchanging breath attacks at twenty paces, since his breath attack didn't really hurt Gaos that much, and Gaos' attack weakened -him- a lot. Gamera looked behind Gaos, seeing behind him two oil tanks side by side. Nearby, an oil pump rocked up and down, drawing up fresh oil and pushing it to the tanks; Gamera could even see the still-intact pipe leading above ground from well to storage. The plan came together almost immediately. With a roar of triumph, Gamera leaned forward, yanking in his hind legs and jetting forward with arms spread. Before Gaos could dodge, he had the giant pteranodon in as close to a tackle as a turtle can manage, adding to the hold by gripping Gaos' shoulder in his tusks. Gaos screamed, thrashing its head helplessly as it struggled to get free. Together the two monsters smashed square into the tanks, setting off another fiery explosion. Fresh oil kept the flames fed as Gamera picked himself up off Gaos. With a squawk Gaos grabbed one of Gamera's hind legs with his talons, pulling the immense turtle off balance. Gamera stumbled backwards, just avoiding the fall that would have left him helpless on his back. Instead he pushed forward and fell, smashing his full body weight back onto Gaos in a 3.8 Richter scale body slam. This time Gaos didn't grab Gamera's leg as the two stood up. The flames rose around them, feeding both creatures fresh power, but in the midst of the flames Gamera had the advantage. Gaos backed away from the huge turtle, seeking some space, and blasted away with a wave of ice breath. The breath attack fizzled out in the intense heat of the oil fire, and before Gaos could react Gamera was on him, waddling forward, rocking back and forth on his hind legs as his forelimbs whipped back and forth, smashing Gaos in the jaws again and again and again. Gaos toppled backwards into the trees, his flailing wings slicing through treetops behind him, the falling limbs entangling him. Above him towered Gamera, rising majestically into the air on a plume of flame, pulling himself up to high altitude as Gaos lay helpless among the broken trunks. With Gaos at his mercy, Gamera executed the turtle version of a jackknife dive and plunged at full throttle downwards, a giant reptilian meteor, impacting dead center on Gaos. Gaos lay still, only a slight hint of breathing indicating that the giant pteranodon had survived the encounter. Gamera lifted himself up, looked down at his foe, and prepared to finish the intruder off once and for all. "WAIT!!" Gaos looked down to see the little girl standing on the edge of the flames, her clothes smoldering a little. Wapiko was shouting up at him, "You beat him! He's learned his lesson! Don't hurt him anymore!" Gamera didn't quite understand the logic of that. He was a reasonable turtle, and one of the rules of being a reasonable turtle is that most other people your size aren't going to be as reasonable. Gamera attempted to communicate this, along with the suggestion that one more punch would make sure Gaos didn't bother anybody ever again. "No! You mustn't hurt him any more! If you do, you'll be just as big a meanie as he is!" What world did this girl live in, anyway? Gamera wondered. His yellow eyes gazed down at the tiny girl, her large lavender eyes staring up at him in turn. He saw the innocence, the pleading in those eyes, the unshakable conviction that every creature in the world really could get along if they just made the effort. Somehow Gamera just didn't feel like disillusioning the child today. With a solemn turtle nod, Gamera stepped away from Gaos, pausing for a moment to draw the flames from the fire into his body, extinguishing the oil fire in seconds. Gaos was, and would remain for a while at least, weak and helpless, unable to renew his inner reserves. A pair of atmospheric jet aircraft screamed across the sky above them, and Gamera indicated that he had to leave before more trouble came looking for him. "Oh, Gamera..." Wapiko stared up at the giant turtle, rushing forward amidst the oil and mud, hugging his huge leg as much as her little arms could. "Don't go! We could take you home and we could play together and have all sorts of fun! I just met you an' all an'-" "WAPIKO, STEP AWAY FROM THE MONSTER!" The Redneck strode forward, fearless and determined, willing away his beamstaff before he stepped into the oily mire which had been the tank overflow pond. The goop only slowed his steps down a bit as he waded shin-deep into the muck and grabbed his daughter, lifting her into his arms. "Now -what- have I told you about playing with strange monsters?" "But he's a nice monster," Wapiko said. "He beat up this meanie bad monster for us, see?" She pointed to Gaos, who was just shaking the cobwebs out and looking around to see what wasn't broken. "Look, honey," Kris said, "I've seen you befriend coral snakes. I've seen you befriend skunks. I've seen you befriend lobsters, and we've never been let back into THAT seafood restaurant yet have we? I've seen you bring home SIX JIGGLYPUFFS, and there's not supposed to be a single Pokemon in Avalon!!" He pointed up at Gamera and said, "There is no way in God's golden nebulae that you're bringing THAT home for a pet. The New Avalon Petting Zoo doesn't even have a POND that big!!" "But... but DADDY..." Gamera looked at Gaos, who looked back at Gamera. How about those humans? Gamera said to Gaos, more or less. Takes all kinds, Gaos shrugged, then whimpered because it hurt to shrug with two broken wings. Gamera glared down at Gaos. You going to cause any more trouble? Who, me? Not a chance, I know when I'm beat. Gaos tried his best to look innocent, and managed only a mild parrot-eyed stare. Gamera nodded, turned back to Wapiko and her father, and roared. "Daddy, Gamera says that we might wanna get out of blast range." The Redneck, who had caught enough glimpses of the fight to know what came next, scrambled out of the sludge and trotted to the edge of the clearing, where a re-clothed and re-sized Washuu awaited them. With a second roar, Gamera stepped out of the oil, lifted off the ground, and sped eastward in a blaze of shell-spinning glory, just ahead of the Texas Rangers chopper which landed in the clearing a few minutes later. The helmeted form of a Ranger, silver star pinned onto a heavy flak jacket, stepped out of the helicopter and walked towards the Overstreet family. "Ranger Smith, Texas Rangers," he said, only to have Kris and Washuu disintegrate in hysterical laughter. Wapiko clung to her father, looking up in confusion. While the Ranger grumbled under his breath, Wapiko reached over and patted him gently on the shoulder. "It's all right," she said, "I don't understand what's so funny either." The rumble of tank treads caught the attention of two limp forms lying on the edge of the road. Charley and Harvey looked up to see a large number of armored transports in single file approaching them, the lead half-track coming to a stop just a few feet from them. Prominent on all the vehicles was the white lone star of the Texas Rangers. A Ranger dropped from the transport, walking over to the two criminals. Slowly, carefully, the Ranger pulled off her gloves, slapping them together in one hand, and raised her visor for a better look. "Pardon me," she asked, "but did you happen to witness a-" "We surrender," Harvey whimpered. "-giant monster battle near... I'm sorry?" The Ranger blinked in confusion. With the Gaos creature holding top priority, she hadn't paid much attention to the APB sent out twenty minutes before about a failed kidnapping by some vigilante calling herself the Red Avenger. Or something. "Could you repeat that for me?" "We give up. We done it. We're guilty." "I'm sorry, guilty of what?" "Anything," Charley grunted. "Any crime. You name it, we done it." "Any non-capital crime," Harvey added. "We never killed nobody." "Yeah, right," Charley nodded, "but aside from that we'll sign any confession you put in front of us." "Just please, please, take us away from here," Harvey pleaded. "To a nice jail cell," Charley added. "With a nice warm hospital bed." "We don't even ask for attractive nurses," Harvey begged, tears falling down his soot-covered face. "In fact, we'd prefer the ugliest nurses you got," Charley added, shuddering at a memory of a certain voluptuous form beating him black and blue. "Just ARREST US!" Harvey threw a weak kick at the Ranger, missing her leg by a mile. "Look! Look! I'm assaulting an officer! I confess! Arrest me!" Charley pushed himself off the road with his good arm. "And lookit me! I'm resistin' arrest! Attempted escape! Lock me up good!" The Ranger stared in disbelief at the two pleading men and shook her head. Why, she thought, why did I request a transfer from Waco city patrol? These Badlands are just plain full of NUTS... CHRISTMAS DAY, 2404 "... and the creature code-named Gaos has been deposited safely in his new habitat on Monster Island, where he will be nursed back to health by scientists and studied in captivity for the rest of his life. Researchers are encouraged by the total lack of resistance exhibited by the creature during the six thousand mile journey across North America and the Pacific Ocean. It is hoped that, with the proper research, creatures like Gaos and his fellow residents on Monster Island will produce new breakthroughs in-" The loud thumping of tiny feet on the wooden floor echoed in the pre-dawn Christmas air. Kris turned the television off and got out of his chair just in time to see Wapiko trotting in, as well-behaved as possible for a four-year-old girl who could crumple steel by accident. "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" Wapiko shouted, happy eyes staring out from a face filled with sunshine once again. "When are we gonna open presents, huh huh huh?" "We're going to wait until your mother's dressed, honey," Kris said quietly, "and then we're going to see what Santa Claus left in your Christmas stocking." "Did Santa eat th' ice cream I left out for him?" Wapiko asked eagerly. "The whole half gallon," Kris nodded, pointing to the empty Ever-cool carton which once had held a sizable amount of Cherry Garcia. Kris' pro-Texas vote of Blue Bell Cookies-and-Cream had been overridden by a vote of two to one (three counting the black-haired female Santa in question). "YAY!" Wapiko grinned. "I'll get lots an' lots of toys this year, 'cause I been a good girl, right?" Kris had to agree, at least if you gave bonus points for good intentions and repair efforts. "But I gotta take care of somethin' first, okay Daddy?" Without explaining herself, she ran over to the Lab Door and closed it behind her; a few seconds later, it vanished, and Kris began wondering what Wapiko (and either Washuu or Zathras) were up to? Not that it mattered; a few more precious minutes of quiet before the gift-unwrapping tornado struck were to be treasured. Merry Christmas, Mister Overstreet, and goddesses bless us, every One, he thought. I have three weeks before Washuu has to be back at NAIS for spring semester, and three quiet weeks is all the Christmas present I need... "Oh, Kris..." Washuu came into the room, slinking around the bar in full adult form, wearing a red woolly Christmas stocking labeled "Kris" on one foot... and nothing else. "Do we have time to unwrap -your- present first?" Any thoughts of a peaceful Christmas, naturally enough, evaporated for the next half hour or so. SIX MONTHS LATER, GIVE OR TAKE On a high, dry, grassy patch of ground next to the beaver pond sat a twenty-foot-tall teddy bear. It wasn't anything unusual, just your usual teddy bear, aside from its size. Its all-weather, stain-resistant fabric felt warm and fuzzy to the touch, as all good teddy bears do, and its large black button eyes stared longingly back at you, pleading for a hug. Around its neck was tied a bright red ribbon, knotted as if by hand into an elegant bow knot. The hunter stared at the teddy bear he'd nearly shot for the real thing, trying to figure out if what he was seeing was true. He walked carefully around it, making sure to stay out of the mud-bog which was the beaver pond in summertime. Cicadas chirped loudly in the forest around him as he found the tag: THE SMITH AND EXEDORE COMPANY, MADE IN NEW AVALON, NO CLEANING REQUIRED. The hunter paused for a moment, stroking the teddy bear's leg and wondering to himself how much effort would be involved in carrying the huge plush toy to his truck? It'd make a dandy trophy, without question. He reached down and grabbed the leg, raising the foot a few inches from the ground... A skull-rattling roar sounded from behind him. Slowly, very very slowly, the hunter turned around, careful to keep his gun held towards the ground in the most nonthreatening manner possible. Behind him, the swamp had lifted itself UP and there, covered in mud and dead limbs, was the biggest, meanest looking snapping turtle he'd ever seen. Meaner, even; most snapping turtles didn't have tusks. The giant turtle turned its head towards him, glared down with those terrifying yellow eyes, and roared again, a blast of air rocking the hunter backwards on his heels. Carefully the hunter continued backwards, crawling up the slope into the brush where, concealed from view, he turned and broke into a full run, resolving then and there to change his hobby to cross-stitching and needlepoint. Gamera, satisfied, nuzzled the foot of the bear lovingly before he sank back into the mire. Giant monsters might not have much use for teddy bears, but that was HIS teddy bear, and nobody was going to take it away from him. Besides, Wapiko might visit again soon, and she'd wonder where it was. The last spike of Gamera's horny shell sank below the water again, and on Earth, and in a chaotic home in a Dyson sphere thousands of light-years away, life went on... UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT: WAPIKO LOVES GAMERA Script written by J. Conrad Spade With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound Starring He pulls the spitting high Kris 'Redneck' Overstreet tension wires down Washuu Hakubi (Overstreet) Wapiko Janet Overstreet Helpless people on a Zathras subway train Harvey Man Scream bug-eyed as he looks Charley Guy in on them Gamera Gaos He picks up a bus and he Ranger John Albercrombie Smith throws it back down Ranger Joan Nameless As he wades through the buildings towards the center of town Ice cream devoured by Skuld Ravenhair Inspiration provided by Oh no Toho, LTD. They say he's got to go AIC/Pioneer GO GO GODZILLA Nakayoshi Magazine J. M. S. Oh no Freburg Productions, Ltd. There goes Tokyo (but not very) GO GO GODZILLA and the usual crap (Let's go!) Grudging forgiveness to (Yeah, Godzilla doesn't appear King Features Syndicate in this story. If they'd made and a cool song about Gamera besides Sandy Frank Productions that hokey march, -that- would be the end credits music. Sue me, I'm Filmed on location near new at this, stealing Chris Meadows' Segno, Texas ending riff... whups, outta space) Support your local author Oh, no www.wlpcomics.com They say he's got to go GO GO GODZILLA Watch Tenchi Muyo OAV ep. 8 if you're still confused, tough Oh, no There goes Tokyo A White Lightning Production GO GO GODZILLA in association with Eyrie Productions, Unltd. History shows again and again Edited by Ben Hutchins How nature points out and the Eyrie Productions the folly of man Usual Suspects GODZILLA! Hold on tight to your dreams... ZILLA-GOD... THE ADVENTURES OF WAPIKO WILL CONTINUE (gods help us all)