Galaxy of Monsters (Godzilla/Steven Universe crossover)

Chapter 10: Crash Landing

The crew was back on the Parallax yet again. Emerald had her chair spun around, facing the back wall where the organic, ape-like creature sat, holding his knees close to his chest. Tsudajan leered at his captors, the same race that wiped out his people long ago. 

Ruby stood at the main door, watching carefully so that none of Yellow Diamond's troops would enter the ship unexpectedly. If they caught a glimpse of the alien, Emerald would no doubt be executed. Now that they weren't all being chased by Ghidorah, there was time for a proper interrogation. The captain knew how to be assertive when the situation demanded it. 

But Tsudajan looked ready to bite at any Gem that approached. Escalating tensions was, perhaps, the wrong way to go about this. Emerald looked at Rutile empathetically, hoping the pilot's softer personality might work better to extract information. 

Rutile stared back at her captain for a moment, and then nodded. Pearl and Amethyst stood at the captain's side with their weapons drawn, in case the alien chose to be uncooperative. 

"H-hello," began Rutile nervously. "Can you tell us more about how you got onto that space station?" 

"You promised my safety, Gem. Tell your superiors to put their weapons down." 

Emerald's eyes were full of unspoken rage; to be bossed around by an organic was a deep insult. Tsudajan had no room to bargain with a captain. "We had to work together previously to survive. Now, I'm in charge. Once I know you can be trusted, we'll go easy on you." 

The Simian snarled. He saw that Rutile remained unarmed, and so he turned his head back to her. "Do you know nothing of the war the Diamonds waged on my kind? The Gem army thrust my home planet into a black hole and enslaved the survivors."

The revelation shocked the Parallax crew. Despite serving Yellow Diamond all their lives, this was the first time they heard of such a conflict. Wars against alien species were typically celebrated, for with it came the expansion of their empire. 

However, the war with the Simians was concealed. Another mystery had piled up on another. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Can you tell us more about that?" asked Rutile.

Tsudajan wondered if the Gems were mocking him, reminding him of the terrible defeat his people suffered. But the longer he gazed at Rutile's face, he found no dishonesty in her words. "The Diamonds were threatened by our great machines. We searched the galaxy for the most dangerous creatures, and recreated them with metal. None could surpass our technology."

The Simian paused, recollecting his thoughts. "When we started to lose the war, we looked for a new home planet. Our leader settled on Earth briefly, and it was there that we built our most dangerous war machine... Mechagodzilla. The humans discovered our operations, and our leader was killed. I escaped and brought the schematics back to my kind, but it was too late. The Simians had lost. I was detained on that dreadful space station to improve Mechagodzilla, and the slaves on Isthmi-Yous brought it to life." 

"So, if you based your machines on living beings, does that mean Mechagodzilla was too?" 

"Yes," replied Tsudajan, reluctant to add more. "On Earth resides the strongest monster I've ever seen. The humans called it Godzilla, and it destroyed our great machine twice." 

The name of the creature was chilling. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place in Emerald's head. All of her missions thus far involved giant monsters of immense power. The captain could not deny that the Authority wanted to use them for further conquest. 

It was only a matter of time until Yellow Diamond went to Earth and captured Godzilla, which would make the Diamonds truly unstoppable. 

Now more than ever, it was unclear to Emerald if she was doing the right thing. With a sense of shame, she realized that her superiors were reckless in their pursuit of monsters. Too many Gems already had been sacrificed. It was time to do something different.