Horriblis vs. Ab-Horriblis

She didn't make it. On the road trip, that was to say. She sighed and thought about her next chance.

Midori wasn't the self-pitying kind. She grieved her lost vacation—again—and got ready to go back up over the top.

One day she'd get a chance to relax and solve mysteries. For now, she had to get to keeping the books. She'd been promoted—quite against her will—and now she ran coupons and drawers in the back office. She never got to see this place in any detail before, but now she could see she wasn't missing much. A dry and dusty room, this was—and little else.

She reached up to where they kept the SOP manuals. Ugh—that was dusty too. Too dusty, in fact—she hoped this would be up-to-date with their tech.

Huh. This wasn't an SOP manual. Unless “Horriblis” had something to do with Sun Valley. She'd never heard of a product by that name, in any case. Nor did she recognize the author. There was no “Angelo” here.

Oh well. She set it aside and got ready to get back to work.

Her hand darted up to find a pen and it swatted against the book's cover. The tome popped open.

Sitting on the first page was an illustration of an enormous reptile-like creature. Erupting from its huge head were ridges and spackles of nubby horns. It seemed to have webs of scaly flesh underneath its arms, which could maybe be used for flight, she figured. From the head and tail she thought this thing could may be a mutated Rhedosaurus. That had her attention.

Okay. Hard to resist shit like this. She flipped the page over, and began to read.

Horriblis vs. Ab-Horriblis

By Angelo T. Malory

The problem began with Begurra.

Many problems began with Begurra—or Begarra, or however one chose to spell it. He was a destroyer, but he could be nothing but such. With his size, creatures like him needed nearly absurd amounts of space and sustenance. He was also equipped to handle predators his size, and bigger, via the multicolored beam that erupted from the horn which crowned his reptilian face. The beam forced the heat of its target into another dimension—leaving said target to freeze under a sheath of ice. He was built for defense as well as attack. The ridiculous ear-flaps at the sides of his head folded in to cover his eyes. Because his eyes (along with his mouth) were one of his few remaining weak spots, he turned himself into a colossal tank of diamond-hard armor. With those flaps down not even Tokagiru could scratch him.

Tokagiru, somehow, had never crossed paths with Begurra. When Begurra was first unleashed upon the world, Tokagiru was out fighting Prahna and the Crimson Jungle, on the island that band of terrorists kept their slaves on. Onodera's cousin Yoshimura had played a role in the Crimson Jungle's defeat. Not like he ever got credit for it, and maybe that was deserved, the old bank-robber.

But that was fitting for their family, wasn't it?—Onodera thought to himself. No glory, no honor. That was why he had stolen the opal. It didn't matter how he got it—once he was rich, he could hide that he'd just never told his friends about the scorpions in the cave. That wasn't murder—it was just an accident, a lapse of judgment. And wealth could always cover accidents and lapses of judgment. No royal bastards for kings and queens, oh no—there was always a mountain of gold to pay the peasants' silence. All he'd wanted was that same power.

And so when he'd heard of the opal, he'd risked life and limb to get it. How was he supposed to know that opal actually Begurra's egg? Exposed to an infrared lamp, the monster hatched and grew. And then, horror had begun—horror that Onodera barely survived. He, like the rest of the world who knew about it, that Kameba, the turtle-monster, had killed Begurra, in their climactic battle out at sea. Kameba had died with him.

But both returned, in time, and when Begurra came back, there was a giant who had emerged to challenge the colossal reptile. The JSDF had determined that the enormous humanoid was a mutated homunculus created years ago by a relative of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein. How a monster once the size of a normal person had become a titan capable of violating the cube-square law no one knew. Of course, how any of these monsters were able to move given their bulk was a mystery, but if Begurra could send heat out of this universe then it could likely manipulate the laws of physics to some degree. Professor Yamane thought this was a sign that these creatures came from outside the ordinary cosmos. Of course, Onodera didn't care what Yamane had to say. He didn't care what any of them said. He was their slave, and he hated them for that.

They had hired him when they figured out he was behind the Begurra opal incident. Even beyond that mishap he was a talented thief—he'd be the heir of Lupin himself if such a person didn't already live in Japan. Plus—because he never built that barrier of power to keep himself safe—they learned he'd killed his fellow-hunters, and held that detail over him. It was this or jail, and he chose this. This was a response to what had happened after the Frankenstein incident. The oversized freak's carcass had tumbled into the ocean, beyond the reach of modern technology. Then the monster's primary attribute kicked in—this brute could regenerate from the most grievous of injuries. And so the dismembered corpse of Frankenstein had become two new abominations—Monster G and Monster S. Like all brothers they fought, and they fought hard.

And so he was here, in what remained of Dr. Frankenstein's wartime lab. Wolf Frankenstein was his name. He had come to Japan under the invitation of a friend of his, a Monsieur Colomb. And he had continued his family's work in the shack in seclusion until he went on the move again at the War's end.

What exactly Onodera was supposed to find here, he had no idea. It was a ramshackle place, ruined by decades of water damage and even maybe a little geological shifting. The walls were cracked, the ceiling caved in, though long-limbed trees obscured the light and sky. Any books left behind (written in English, which Onodera couldn't read) were victimized by mold and silverfish. Some of the Japanese titles were legible. One was called “the Book of Dead Names” by “A. Alhazred”; another, “Mysteries of the Worm,” by a name he couldn't make out. Was this Wolf Frankenstein an occultist?

What a dumb question. He was a Frankenstein. Those people fought Dracula—they made dead flesh live. He could expect to find mounds of mutilated skeletons soon enough.

Now he could see a gap in the battered floorboards, exposing another secret chamber. Several of the dilapidated walls had fallen open in such a way that they revealed rooms that were not otherwise accessible. What would this one yielded?

He peeled back the tattered wood and climbed down. Already he knew that was foolish, because the pulpy ground below him gave way. He felt his ankle turn, sticking a sharp immaterial spike into his muscle. He sat down by reflex and that ground gave out too. He felt the joint of his leg strain against the socket, but thankfully—or maybe not—it didn't dislodge. He took a few breaths of the stagnant air. All around him was filth, but he honestly couldn't get dirtier after the long hike up the mountain. The first thing he saw upon sitting up was a large blackboard—with the diagrams on it still intact.

Onodera made his way over to the board. He knew he'd have difficulty interpreting the diagrams but he'd have to try. At first he wondered if maybe it was the device that that suicidal doctor had used to kill Tokagiru back in 1952. He'd always wondered if that guy was a plagiarist. He looked down on him for killing himself in his effort to destroy Tokagiru...which didn't even work!

Now he could see, though, that this was something different—more like a gun than anything else.

Save for his flare gun, he had no way to contact his hosts, so there was nothing he could do to translate the writing. His only choice was to assume that this device—if it had been built, and built all the way—was what he'd been sent to find. He started sweeping his eyes around to find any trace of this “ESSENCE SPLITTER.”

He tried to think of all the boring things they'd told him before the drop. Frankenstein had been working on new ways to synthesize his ghoulish building materials. To that end, he had supposedly been working on a way to alter reality itself. He'd worked with a scientist named Shinpei, who was something of a dream-specialist. He had built a machine that could probe into the world of dreams. Hey—maybe that's where all those monsters came from. He'd heard of something called Kabarra, which was said to be some kind of dream-monster. Tokagiru had fought him once upon a time—hadn't he?

And so maybe this was an elaboration on the same machine that Shinpei guy had been working on. If dreams could be turned to matter—that meant anything was possible. But he didn't think deep on such an idea. All the great implications of that idea were ruined by being vague. Infinity was nothing at all until given definition and shape.

There!

He'd finally spotted it. The large barrel-snouted box was shrouded by mud and corrosion. Did the government really need this thing that badly? He had severe doubts that it still worked.

He knelt down and, hissing somewhat in disgust, he hooked his fingers under the ridges of the thing, and tried to haul it up. To his surprise, it came up easily—it was somehow very light, despite its size. He looked it over, wondering if it had a trigger or activator of some kind. It looked like it did. Did he dare try to turn this thing on...?

As if in response, the ground began to shake beneath his feet.

Suddenly, he remembered the name of this place had struck a chord in his memory. Obaki Island—wasn't this place supposed to be the home of...?

He had to move. He had no idea why he clung to the mysterious object, but his hands were as stiff as rigor mortis. The lab collapsed swiftly and only a desperation to live put Onodera outside the radius of destruction. He could feel the soil rush up behind him, and he couldn't resist turning to observe what exactly was birthing itself out of the mountain. The ancient native legends called this creature Obaki—but in Japan the winged gliding lizard was known as Horriblis.

The horn-covered beast reared back and released a mighty roar. Stretching his arms out wide, he began to flap the long stretches of flesh that hung below his arms. In an instant, he was hovering a solid thirty feet above the ground. Onodera felt a certain weakness in his bowels as he saw that the creature had locked its hungry gaze on him. And it was definitely on him—there was nothing edible behind him. He saw Horriblis begin to rear back. He prayed to every god there was that he wasn't going to swoop, but then—

He came towards, striking faster than a lightning bolt. The trees that flanked Onodera were torn down in a second, releasing a mosquito-swarm of splinters. Maybe the gods heard him, and pulled aside. Lying on the ground, he watched as the long, dark, bat-like creature soared off into the distance. Though Horriblis lacked a draconic head, Onodera found himself thinking of the old legends of the Space Dragons, and wondered if Horriblis was one of them. He thought of Pteno, that monster from the old Kitamatsu Mine, before remembering that that thing was supposed to be a mutated pteradon.

But now Horriblis was turning around—intending to correct his miss. Time seemed to slow around the monster as he rotated, but then it sped back up as he darted fast at Onodera.

In desperation, he aimed the device he'd captured up at the monster, and pulled the trigger.

He saw only bright light—a blinding light. Inside was the shadow of Horriblis. He saw this shade for only a moment—his eyes locked instead on the Essence Splitter, which now vibrated so hard it sheared and cracked the mud and clay off itself. He had to shut his eyes before he went blind. But before his eyes closed, he swore he saw the shadow that was Horriblis split in half.

Then the light passed. And he saw his eyes did not deceive him.

He really wished he knew what “Essence Splitter” meant in Japanese, because whatever he'd done, it had made a second Horriblis.

No, this one—it was different. There was something wrong with it. Abnormal. The face was distorted, stretched out in a strange wedge-like triangle. The eyes that blazed within the fiery sockets were full of an uncannily-human hate. The wings were noticeable larger, turning this monstrosity into much of a bat or dragon than Horriblis himself. This alternate Horriblis, this Ab-Horriblis, was now releasing a yellow fog from its body. Onodera saw that the creature was initially quite fatigued-looking, but this fog seemed to act as nourishment. That wasn't what was happening though, he realized. The fog blocked the light of the afternoon sun from reaching the creature's skin—it was weak to sunlight.

Horriblis stared in confusion at his mutant counterpart, growling aggressive. Then, he dove for Ab-Horriblis, seeking to battle him within the depths in the fog. But as he swooped to the attack, Ab-Horriblis open his mouth, and unleash a blast of white-hot energy.

He was just like Tokagiru! But his beam proved to be much more effective than that of the Lizard King. It was less like a beam of terrible heat and more like a blade, slicing open Horriblis' dark flesh in an instant. Ab-Horriblis aimed his beam well, for he sliced through the membrane that allowed Horriblis to glide about like a flying squirrel.

The sounds of the monsters baying and roaring in pain was deafening, and Onodera was knocked off his feet. Suddenly he was thrust into a scene from Hell itself, and he was screaming out for his mother as he watched. Man was not meant to witness beasts of this size battle to the death. The power they wielded was unimaginable. And for a long while, Onodera was sure he was losing his senses. Begurra and Kameba had been bad enough, but Ab-Horriblis was like a vampiric demon, a monster from a fairy tale. It was like evil itself radiated from him. It was—

Onodera figured it out. The monster was psychic, and capable of broadcasting a signature of fear with his mind. He was using such a power on his twin, and it was affecting him as well. He felt the alien presence in his mind and somehow, Ab-Horriblis seemed to know Onodera, in a way that was almost human. Perhaps the monster even understood that Onodera was his “father,” in a sense.

Horriblis was buckling. He had not lasted long against the secret Japanese navy assault from 1956, when he had last been seen, and it was clear that Ab-Horriblis was stronger than him. Oh, God—if Horriblis had wanted to eat him, then Ab-Horriblis would certainly want the same, or worse. Onodera knew he had been sent here to die, but not like this! Not like this!

In the distance, however, he saw that there was a secret second part to the mission. He could look out over the sea from where he had collapsed, and there were now shapes on the horizon. Boats—JSDF ships—and something else. A pair of somethings. His face lit up when those Boris Karloff visages passed into visibility. They'd brought Monster G and Monster S here, and that meant they had to have known that Horriblis was buried in the mountain. They may have even known that he would accidentally use the machine on the monster, creating this new one. Just as his face lit up upon recognizing the twin monsters, the two Frankenstein beasts' faces lit upon seeing Horriblis and Ab-Horriblis. They rushed towards them, eager to join the fight that was swiftly moving towards Horriblis' death.

It wasn't out of compassion that the two gargantuan monsters attacked Ab-Horriblis. They assumed it was a threat to them and they acted on pure animal instinct. The two of them grabbed the silver-skinned titan by the wings and worked in concert to lay down punches on its rigid flesh. Ab-Horriblis—in the frenzy there was no time for other names, besides the first that came to mind—let out a horrific shriek, and turned from the pulped remains of his own clone-father to attack the giant humanoids. He bit deep into Monster G's shoulders, forcing it to let out an agonized scream. Then its wing came up and its outer razor-edge cut across the homunculus' chest.

Monster S had been fighting his twin for some time now, but the furious blows he laid down now on Ab-Horriblis suggested more familial closeness than was obvious. Blue and violet blood erupted from the bat-like monster's body, and sapphire bruises formed up where the skin wasn't broken. Onodera watched as Monster S pounded Ab-Horriblis' head over and over again, until finally there was a sickening snap as he broke his jaw.

But the hate in Ab-Horriblis' head only grew stronger, and with his broken, bleeding jaw almost comically flapping under his pyramid-shaped head, he unleashed his cutter beam on Monster G, who was still recovering from the bite he'd suffered. The beam sliced through Monster G at once, and it was clear that he was dead before he even hit the ground.

Monster S went into a rage, and at once Onodera felt in his heart that the tide of battle was changing. Monster S charged towards the flying monster, and this time tackled and pinned him to the ground before laying his blows down on him. He seemed to hate the monster's eyes then, as much as those eyes showed hate for him. He slammed his punches into the sides of Ab-Horriblis' head, this time with greater force than before. Eventually those orange-red eyes were lost in a sea of purple blood, as Monster S tried to crush Ab-Horriblis' skull.

In the heat of the battle, Onodera hadn't noticed that Ab-Horriblis had left his mind, but now he felt the monster creep back into him. This time the presence was much stronger—he felt thick grubs wriggle in his muscles, and those worms worked their way up to his brain. And there was a message in that sensation, sent by the dying monster.

He would return.

“Mr. Onodera!”

“AHH!”

Suddenly, there was a man at Onodera's side—a government individual it looked like. “Sorry to scare you. We gotta move.”

“W-what? Wha—wh-who are you?”

“My name is Tetsuro Tanaka. Japanese Self-Defense Force. You have the Essence Splitter, don't you?”

He called the device by its Japanese name, and now Onodera understood what it was—as if cloning Horriblis hadn't been enough to demonstrate. Tanaka saw that he did have the device, and offered him a hand.

“Come on. Seriously. We have to get moving.”

“W-what's happening? I-it looks like Monster S is winning...”

“Yes. That thing you made is almost dead. But that means Monster S is still alive.”

Ab-Horriblis' short life was now coming to an end. Soaked in blood, Monster S delivered the final blow, and the dragon-bat breathed its last. Triumphant, Monster S roared into the heavens as it stood over the defeated body.

Onodera knew then that this tiny island was about to be blown out of history. But there was a problem.

“You realize the Frankenstein Monsters are just going to regenerate, right?” he said.

“Not this time. Not with this level of firepower.” Tanaka was certain, but Onodera had his doubts. These military guys had no idea how to handle these monsters. Though why he thought of himself as contrasting that he had no clue.

A possibility trickled in Onodera's mind, and he had a weird, wavering impression that this possibility came from outside his head. If they were going to blow up this island, with missiles or whatever, then all four of the monsters would be blown to pieces. The regeneration powers of the Frankenstein monsters could be conferred onto the other set of twins in the heat of that explosion, enabling them to revive after the blasts cooled down. Ab-Horriblis, and perhaps the legendary Horriblis himself, could survive this assault. In fact, they almost certainly would.

But as long as he had this machine, Onodera didn't care about what happened. He'd accomplished his mission, and so he would not go to jail. Perhaps he was even a free man, and there'd be no more jobs with the government. No more monster hunting. No more delving into the dens of Frankensteins.

He knew he was just doing some wishful thinking, though. He looked over at Tanaka as he boarded the escape ship, leaving the oblivious Monster S shrieking behind them, locked in his victory pose. The look on his face already showed that Onodera's Hell on Earth was only just beginning, and there would be far more terrifying things in his future.

Something was about to happen on that island. And he was there at its genesis.

His theory would come true, and he knew that once again he would face the Terror of Ab-Horriblis.

To be continued in Ab-Horriblis vs. Kameba...!

~~~

Midori was stunned. Shinpei Mafune was her father's name, and there was a Shinpei mentioned here, a man with a dream-machine. An interesting and rather creepy coincidence. Had someone seen her family listings on Facebook and written this for her? And left it here, where they knew she'd find it? No, that was crazy. It was just a coincidence. This was just someone's weird sci-fi movie fanfiction. Albeit of an older vintage.

She flipped the page to see if the other stories were even included. Sure enough on the next page, there it was: Ab-Horriblis vs. Kameba. Since there was no one around, she whipped out her phone, and did some searches to see if this was from a show or something. But nothing notable came up for “Horriblis,” “Ab-Horriblis,” “Tokagiru,” “Begurra,” “Begarra,” or anything else. It left her arm-hairs standing up on end.

Only one way to solve the mystery. She'd have to keep reading.