Caelicetus POV

*roar!?*timmmyy…*, the three-headed dragon made a weak rawr that was more of a whimper before they became lifeless and just after each set of eyes was going blank, the three necks went limp before the head bit my body.

'I won!', I clamored internally as I whistled and clicked repeatedly in happiness, it was my first fight and I won. 

I made a backflip and clapped my two pairs of front flippers together two times in the end, making a slight gust of wind all around me and my tail making a long tail of golden motes of light that flew everywhere. 

I realized only too late that the pain didn't disappear as I winced. I was injured, not that bad but it could have been worse, way worse. When they fired at me, It was as if I was a butter brick and their fire beams were a hot knife.

I gazed with contempt at the two pieces of the insolent nameless three-headed dragon falling to the ground. Their annoying and enviable shield was finally gone. 

I want one too and I will make one, black holes work, but they aren't the best to stop those hellish fire beams, and they hurt like a bitch.  And I realized that I'm a sitting duck, I need a way to protect my body.

I needed to predict where they would fire, what time they would, where the fire beam would go, and prepare in advance while they moved at a speed I could barely follow. 

Maintained the black holes stable enough for them not to explode and injure me in the process while I was in immense pain. 

I'm proud of myself, to have had the idea to use the space jump offensively. It literally cuts a piece of space and puts it in another place.

So I cut their shield and them in two, by teleporting half of it with me, disabling it in the process. Brute strength would not have worked. I 'cheated', well all is fair in war, I would have preferred to do something else if only they didn't do this to my Mars…

I knew I have won the fight but I didn't let my guard down, I could see how their delicious black oil-like blood and organs were trying to regenerate themselves, new flesh, nerves, bone and more started to slowly grow and wiggle like maggots back together, in the middle of apparently making two identical but smaller copy. 

'Not on my watch, one was horrible, two would be my death.', I thought, I could have died and I'm not delusional enough to ignore that fact. 

But the idea of fighting two at the same time was strangely exciting to a small part of me.

It was impressive to see something with this level of regeneration. It was also frightening, to be honest, does that mean that they possibly could regrow their entire body mass from just a little bit of flesh if they had enough energy at their disposal? 

'Just like a freshwater hydra or those freaky flat worms… Oh, fuck me sideways.', I realized, not happy at all with the likelihood of something like this happening. I won't leave any parts.

If they are somehow alive, I won't be so unprepared, that's a plus and I have a general idea of what they are capable of.

I grabbed every bit of them falling, making even the tiniest droplet of blood get suspended in mid-fall, their blood won't stain my Mars.

The gore bizarrely didn't faze me one bit, however, whoever the species, the things that I teleported in two were, it was making me have a strange and deep feeling of hunger and hate.

I started to crush them with gravity into a sort of compressed lump of meat, it was harder than I would like to admit. 

Their scales were resistant to whatever I was trying to do, the desirable energy in them fighting my gravity, nonetheless, that won't stop me from being able to utterly crush the scale with enough time.

Though the insides and bones, not so much even if they had more of this energy, that I now recognized as a mix of the one with dragon signature being in majority it and it was the one that enticed me the most, then one they were stealing from my home, finally, there was another, this one felt very old but familiar to that of the current Mars.

'They already did this to Mars before… but where were they?', I deduced but was puzzled by why they were there only now. 

'Maybe the Martian of the time managed to beat them. They seemed pretty advanced in the technological department.', I presumed as I started to see the scales finally snapping under the pressure. Only spurring me to increase the pressure even further.

The front half jolted awake all three heads fighting against my hold as they glared at me with those unnerving six glowing red eyes. I have never seen such an amount of hate, loathing, and fear…? But I felt the last wasn't about me.

Then they let out an ominous shriek and declared in with their rumbling thunderous draconic voice, all slightly different, the three heads were in tandem and this time didn't have any problem in their sentences, as if in trance, "We are Desghidorah the Harbinger of De-*CRUSH*, I increased my pressure tenfold, not even waiting for whatever bullshit they were going to spout out.

"I do not care about your self-biography. Die.", I talked in this same strange language for the first time, it came naturally but my voice was super weird. 

It's very deep and very high-pitched at the same time while having a strange melodious echo to it as if multiple people sang simultaneously in a chorus. 

Something you'd imagine an alien god to have or a real biblical angel… and I loved it.

'Desghidorah uhh, Ghidorah, isn't this a kaiju… oh. I remember this movie that got out last year before my death. The plot was subpar at best but the titans were really cool, so I'm in this universe or a variant of it?', I thought with a bit of relief, my full intention was onto my next meal.

I made the two compressed pieces of Desghidorah full of energy and got closer to my jaws, I opened it and swallowed the two at the same time.

My mind blanked out. It was indescribable.

I felt a surge of energy go through my entire body. It was a delightful tingling sensation, especially around my whole nervous system, heart, and the set golden orb directly behind my eyes.

Gravity was getting erratic, and the energy from Mars that Desghidorah had still was getting expelled. While their tainted energy was getting eaten by me and I couldn't believe how delicious it was. 

My rostral was pointing to the sky as I shifted my body vertically. My mind was getting sluggish.

'Sleepy…', I thought as I mentally called the Flock to come over, just before I felt myself go fully fall asleep for the first time in my life.

_______________________

Two days later.

Earth, Bermuda Triangle, Outpost 54 - Castle Bravo

A meeting between the highest rank of Monarch was going on.

It was about Mars but it wasn't the only topic, the ORCA, a new titan, and more. 

As much as Mars and Titanus Cetus were incredibly important and serious subjects in their eyes, Monarch was created to study, track, destroy and contain the Titan from Earth, not Mars or any other planet other than Earth for that matter.

Titanus Cetus won't be coming to Earth, as far as they know so it isn't really in their 'expertise', so to say but they were really flexible in that aspect.

It was on their top priority though, not for the danger it actually represented to humanity but for the data, it could give them. It has already made them greatly advance in the ORCA development.

However the possibility of an alien civilization more advanced than theirs was also worrying, Mars titan was only that a titan, sure it was extremely smart as far as the data goes, it could play with the rover Spirit. 

But it wasn't as smart as a human, it was a beast after all, maybe on par with King Kong. It was what most thought anyway. 

The only advantage they had against this god-like beast was their human-level intelligence and just the thought that one might be as smart or smarter than them was quite the terrifying prospect, they preferred to completely forget it could even happen.

After all, if they ignore it, it won't totally come back to bite them in the ass later on. 

"....This is the current Mars soil. As you can see, flora seems to grow and develop at an extreme pace. Water is now found in great quantities…", said a Japanese middle-aged man with greying hair while he pointed at a hologram of an incomplete map of Mars, zooming with the help of a metal stick.

Multiple alien biomes passed through holograms around with different plants visible, plains of purple and cyan grass, strange mushroom forests, strange trees, and more.

"... On the fauna side, we sadly didn't get much. But what we saw was exceptional. We saw what a swarm of martian shrimp look-alike, the average size of a group is 464km² (288mi²) which is bigger than the biggest locust swarm ever recorded in human history, and the 'shrimp' is estimated to be longer than a human forearm and can move through the air with unknown mean, their alimentation is unknown…"

Most only nodded, no massive outburst of emotion visible this time. Even if most were like little kids at their birthday party, so much possible for humans. Even if the swarm was a bit of nightmare fuel.

"No sign of Titanus Cetus for the moment but a strange grey floating island was detected, we only notice a little part of it. Unfortunately, PEQUOD would not pass over it unless we modify its current orbital course.

I would like to propose a vote. Lift your hand if you believe that PEQUOD should be ordered to change trajectory at the risk of a shortened life span and potentially less data or we could have more than we could ever imagine.", the same Japanese scientist proposed with a thoughtful look on his face as he made a gesture, to show the con and pros of changing the satellite.

2 minutes later.

The majority took the risk. PEQUOD was designed for this and AHAB a rover was already in the testing phase, in less than a year it will be on Mars soil. Also, ESSEX would be launched the same year, they can take risks.

They continued to discuss and debate about Mars and its ecosystems, geology, climate, and the random floating island they PEQUOD photographed with her first orbit.

A red-haired woman with amber eyes stood up, as it was her turn to talk. She was very nervous, she joined only two years ago and now she is here in front of potentially the most powerful people in the world.

"Good afternoon everyone. I'm Dr. Santos. As you probably already know. I and my team have discovered why this city…", she said as she pointed at a particular point on a map of New Jersey on the holographic screen.

"...and its surroundings have the highest percentage of mental issues per person in the world. It was a mystery until four months ago. This phenomenon is caused by the bioacoustic of a newly discovered titan, it has a very similar in morphology to that of a bat.

It is presently residing in a giant cave deep below this same city. It could have hidden from our sight this long with this same unique bioacoustic…", she continued to describe and explain their findings.

"I'm sorry if I ask too much. I would like to ask to study this bioacoustic in more finner detail and see if they are usable in the development of ORCA...", the majority agreed to the proposition with a simple, then she went on.

"Thank you for listening to me.", she finished and made a slight bow before walking to her assigned place. 

The meeting proceeded on it's and ended with a quick but worrying mention of something big shifting in Antarctica and a mission to check what is going on there.