Present Day

Hollow Earth

They came across a great divide. Where the path ended and the earth descended into a dark, foggy abyss. Where the second earth above them nearly met the earth beneath Kong’s feet, and in-between they witnessed a vast assortment of glowing stones hovering between the land masses. The gravitational pull between each earth caught the rocks perfectly, creating a layer of shimmering boulders that floated as gently and easily as any cloud.

Kong approached it with a curious intensity, the two HEAVs following close behind and the inhabitants of each vehicle utterly mesmerized by the display. The likes of Twilight, Celestia, the Council of Friendship, the Young Six, Bon Bon, and all the rest were captivated by the earth above them, the glowing rocks holding a bluish hue of which was either a raw energy source, or an untapped magic.

Whatever it was, it did not stop Kong in the slightest, as he reached with his pointing finger and touched the nearest rock. The impact sent the rock floating away, high up where the pull of the earth above them brought it to its rocky floor.

Though he did not look it, Kong’s mind was intelligent. Hidden behind the gruff and ferocious nature of his appearance, beneath it was a curious and calculating mind that watched, studied, and acted upon which he discovered. If the pull of the earth above him was strong enough, it could pull him, too. For beyond the abyss and on the second earth, the call of the alpha beast originated.

It called to him, and Kong answered.

With a tiny leap, Kong dove straight into the hovering stones and flew slowly to the opposite end, to where the second earth awaited him. Between the fog, the HEAVs could not see what he was flying toward, but as they flew over to join him, they quickly realized what it was. It wasn’t some random rock formation. What Kong flew toward was of intelligent design, made by hooves… or hands.

Kong allowed gravity to take him straight to the carved image of a rocky finger, reaching out for the earth above it. Joining the finger was a stone hand, and one so very similar to that of Kong’s own. His palm graced it, traced the stone down so he could easily settle himself upon the rocky ceiling’s surface, and then it became the floor on which he stood.

Up became down. Their entire worldview was flipped on its head, and the HEAVs spun accordingly to fly above their new ground. The pilots minded the occupants, easing gently into the gravitational shift. Everypony handled it well, still so very silent behind the pilots as their gazes could not be taken away from the windshields, and the hidden world unveiled.

Now, as they continued onward, they took notice to the new landmass. Active volcanos were scattered across the horizon, storm clouds above them eliciting bolts of purple and red lightning to the fiery peaks. Beyond them, to the destination of which Kong led them, the great mound they climbed ended and below it was a scorched valley leading to a monumental mountain. One that nearly touched the earth above it, and held a storm of its own.

But this storm was not like the others. It was not naturally formed, for its size and power grew so wicked that it swirled like serpents around the jagged peaks of this great mountain. The clouds were dark and the lightning was golden and black, earning several unpleasant memories from the ponies. They knew that golden lightning personally, and they trembled to see it again.

To see Kong leading them straight to it. Twilight exhaled a shuddering breath. Celestia and Luna’s expressions were cold and hardened, never torn from the storm.

The light from the core of their planet shone brightly, but even the light from the fiery, molten heart of Equus was blotted out by the storm of the Three-Headed Demon of the Stars. Bon Bon, Daring Do, Shining Armor, Twilight, and everypony else knew they needed to take their minds off of the impending dread that was assuredly waiting them, and they tried to instead focus on their immediate surroundings.

Across the vast, scorched valley Kong stampeded through, the ashy remains of fallen creatures were scattered about. Various kaiju had been felled in the lands once before, cut down in what seemed to be a great massacre. A tremendous war fought in ancient history. The bones shrouded the mountain, holding a haunting reminder that it wasn’t just the species above the Hollow Earth that were capable of a great and terrible evil such as war.

The longer they stared, the darker their spirits grew. The heavier their hearts weighed. Fluttershy stared longer than anypony else, and realized the bones were that of massive apes, and reptilian Titans. Remains of Titans that looked so very familiar.

Instantly, she recalled Princess Cadance’s hopes earlier, of Kong’s family. “Cadance…” Fluttershy whispered, “… were you right?”

But her focus was taken away, pulled by the sound of Kong’s curious grunts and her friend Twilight calling to her. “Fluttershy… you may want to see this…” the princess mumbled almost absentmindedly, her own eyes unable to look away.

Knowing Cadance was in the other HEAV and she couldn’t speak to her now, Fluttershy followed Twilight’s direction and stared forward. Instantly, her voice failed her, and her eyes grew to the breaking point. At the base of the mountain, there was a clear split between two massive slabs of rocks. Upon the face of the stone, Kong stood up and eyed it closely, carefully.

Painted red, streaked downward, a handprint remained.

Kong paid no heed to the HEAVs hovering behind him. He was instead under the influence that the call he heard earlier may have been something he hadn’t expected. Something more personal. Something or someone of his own blood. For as he stared at his own hand, he placed his palm against the handprint. It matched.

This mountain, this home, was where his family dwelled.

And noticing the split rock, Kong gave it a hard push, stepping into the embrace of the Temple of the Kongs.

Light from the outside world filled the darkened cavern, illuminating the blackness. No longer did just the rivers of lava and lavafalls give light to the temple, but the shimmering lights of Equus’ core and the brightened crystals from the outside world gave light and life back to the forsaken remains of what was once a glorious throne. A glorious kingdom, no more.

Just as the outside world was plagued by the echoes of an old war, so was the throne room infested. Much of the floor was covered in relics and reminders of what war was truly capable of. Weapons—several hundred times the size of the ponies littered the floor—rested in the skeletal hands of fallen apes, piercing through the bones of various lizard-like daikaiju. All of it seeming to be the aftermath of a great slaughter trapped in time.

There was another skeleton, a creature massive in stature with various plates covering its back, tied down with spinal bones and chains. Almost like a ritual, with the sacrifice lying before the throne, primed for execution. The axe embedded in its skull finalized that theory.

Kong observed it all from the front gates, standing before the top of the steps with an incredulous look on his face. There was no denying it any longer. His ancestors lived here. Not only lived, but reigned.

While Kong remained frozen, the two HEAVs flew past him. They found on open space of floor and settled there, the engines dying down as the machines landed safely. After nearly a full minute of unmoving silence, the ramps fell open, and a single occupant from each HEAV stepped outside. A T.I.T.A.N. scientist from each, holding in their hooves what appeared to be radiation counters.

Staring at the flickering dial and hearing the slow tick, tick, tick of the counter, one of the scientists removed his gas mask and took in a cautious breath. After exhaling, he smiled confidently and called back to his fellow scientist, as well as inside the HEAV, “Sensors in the HEAVs were right! Radiation levels are surprisingly survivable. Wouldn’t recommend we stay here long, but we won’t need any magic to protect us for the time being.”

With that confirmation, the remaining occupants from each HEAV made their exit. Twilight, the Council of Friendship, Directors Celestia and Luna, and the Young Six from one vehicle, and Shining Armor, Cadance, Bon Bon, Lyra, and Daring Do from the other. Joining them were a hoofful of guards, both Royal and T.I.T.A.N. The pilots and scientists stayed back for their own safety, and by order of the directors.

Rainbow Dash was, naturally, the first pony to lay her hooves on the ground. More so, she was just itching at the opportunity to get out of the HEAV. As she stamped around, Pinkie Pie joining her and bounding up and down and back and forth joyfully, Rainbow couldn’t help but grin.

“First pony to step hoof in the center of the planet in thousands of years,” she chuckled, looking quite proud of herself. “Spitfire is gonna be so jealous!”

“Mmmmm better make it hundreds of years!” Pinkie Pie corrected, holding up the skull of a deceased pony. She played with the jaw, mimicking a ragged voice as she said, “‘I don’t look a day over three hundred!’ Heehee!”

As Rainbow craned her neck back in disgust, Twilight was more so prioritizing the unexpected members of their troop. They left the HEAV’s hold one by one, with permission from Twilight, of course. Sandbar, Ocellus, Silverstream, Gallus, Yona, and Smolder came together, almost hesitant to step hoof and claw onto the ancient flooring.

When they eventually made it with the rest of the team, they lifted their eyes up to Twilight, the Princess of Friendship holding her heavy gaze with them. “You stay close to me,” she ordered, facing forward into the depths and fires of the temple grounds. She peeked back. “Is that understood?”

“Yeeesss, ma’am!” Silverstream declared with a fierce salute.

“You got it!” Sandbar added, smiling with an affirming nod.

Seeing the rest of their nods and smiles gave Twilight a warming reassurance, and one she desperately needed at the moment. Her former students had faced so much together already, had overcome and emerged victorious to uphold the ideals of friendship when she and her friends were facing the end against Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy. To have them all by her side once more made a world of a difference. It calmed her heart, but only so much.

Because the real fight was coming, and now they were staring it and death in the face. The moment she turned, she lost the smile that had grown unconsciously, and proceeded into the hold of the ancient temple. Twilight finally felt the weight of the stakes. The rest followed her, the guards by her side and the Young Six, Council, Celestia, Luna, Shining, and all the others together.

The longer Twilight stared ahead, the more she was able to take in the architecture and scale of the temple. Everypony else followed her actions, lifting their heads and eyes and breathing in every aspect of the dangerous environment.

It was definitely once inhabited by the Titanus Kong superspecies, as various intricately carved statues in the image of apes covered the corners of the throne room. Pillars surrounded the throne in the center of the room, burning bright not with lava, but with veins of pure blue, radiating the energy or magic of the Hollow Earth itself. Stalagmites and stalactites grew everywhere, barely outnumbering the vast assortment of bones and skeletons and gargantuan weapons of war.

As they group waded through the bones, approaching the throne closer and closer, Twilight gulped and twisted her head back. Kong was following them, already beginning to pass and move in the same direction Twilight was intending. His thunderous footsteps trembled the floor, but nopony fell. They held their ground and watched him move on.

Twilight turned her head back to everypony present, announcing, “Keep your eyes open for any sign of movement. All signs are pointing to Ghidorah… so stay vigilant.” After that, she moved on, following Kong’s trail.

Flying above her friends, Rainbow eyed every dark corner, every flickering shadow, and gulped. “Y’all didn’t happen to see a four-hundred-foot, fire-breathing lizard come in here with us, did ya?” she asked, voice uncharacteristically shuddering so very slightly.

Applejack shook her head. “Can’t say we have, Dash.”

Rainbow sighed. “Could really use one right about now,” she said, noting the bones of a familiar, dorsal-plated creature lying several hundred yards beside her. “Well… a living one.”

Listening in on her friends’ conversation, Twilight had to acknowledge the truth and weight to Rainbow’s words. Without Godzilla, facing Ghidorah was going to be monumentally harder. Or worse. Kong could only hold his own for so long, and she had no idea what would happen should he face a resurrected Ghidorah. They may very well have endangered Kong’s life even further.

Forcing those worries and anxieties down where they belonged, Twilight gulped and shuddered, muttering aloud, “If worse comes to worst… we use the Elements of Harmony to bring down Ghidorah for good.”

She made sure to look back at the Young Six. “All the Elements.” Seeing the strong and supportive smiles from every one of them was a comfort she needed.

It was a mostly quiet journey onward. Celestia and Luna took the time to really take in every detail of the environment, studying the vast carvings and paintings splayed across the pillars and walls of the temple, telling a story in a tongue they could not speak. A language far more ancient than either of them.

Daring Do explored with them, taking a few bone samples and teeth, claws, anything that could fit in her bags. She really wished her camera wasn’t destroyed in the Celestial Sea when Godzilla first attacked them, otherwise she would be snapping away at every inch of the temple. But after collecting samples, she proceeded to write down everything in her journal, taking notes of what they witnessed since the descent. If anything was to come of this, a new bestselling Daring Do novel was guaranteed. If they lived, that is, and Daring was sure to write that bit down, too.

Bon Bon and Lyra traversed closely with Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, the four ducking and weaving through the bones of fallen apes and other kaiju. And the more Bon Bon stared, the more she understood what they were. The skeletons, the clash of different species, several holding similar traits to that of Godzilla, it was abundantly clear an ancient conflict between the Titan species occurred here.

Fluttershy was sharing the same thoughts, only her eyes were more focused on the skeletal remains of the apes. Them, and the overabundance of equine bones scattered with the Titans. She had many more questions than answers, but the only one she could focus on was that of Kong’s family. Which brought her to Cadance’s side, Fluttershy tapping her to get her attention.

“Cadance… it looks like you were right about Kong’s family being down here, but… there’s nothing left. Do you think the rest migrated to Black Skull Island, or… do you… think…?” Fluttershy began to ask, only to bump into Cadance when she stopped dead in her tracks, the Alicorn halting the Pegasus with her outstretched hoof.

Mildly confused, Fluttershy turned to Cadance, just to see her agape expression lifted high. Following it, Fluttershy lifted her head up to the throne, to the pillars surrounding it. To the walls surrounding the pillars and telling the story through seemingly endless carvings and paintings of the ancient world.

Celestia, Luna, and Daring Do were already captivated by the paintings, formulating what they saw into stories, into history untold, now unfolding before them. It wasn’t long until everypony and everycreature else saw them all the same, coming together to stare upon the pillars and walls.

There were many paintings similar to those in Star Swirl the Bearded’s secret study in the Canterlot Archives, all of them also taken from underground civilizations and caverns close to the Hollow Earth. But these were older. Much older.

Observing the paintings on the temple walls, Celestia, Luna, Daring, and Twilight came across what was clearly Godzilla clashing beams with another spiked Titan, this one bearing various horns atop its head, and painted snow-white in color. Together, Godzilla and the horned, reptilian Titan battled with their beams erupting from their jaws, a battle for the ages and lost to history, with only a masterpiece in artwork detailing their war.

But theirs wasn’t the only ancient war.

Upon the pillars surrounding the throne, a dynasty was recorded in painting, carving, and a dead language. A story of triumph and conquest, power and madness, where an ape with a jagged whip led an army of apes against an army of spiked, reptilian kaiju. Fluttershy, Cadance, Shining, Bon Bon, and many others walked from one pillar to the next, gazes heavy on each image, each pony taking in as much of it as they could.

It was undoubtedly Godzilla’s species, brought to unity and then war against Kong’s species by the first declaration of the ape king. Two great armies vying for supremacy in the Hollow Earth. And there were followers of each, smaller images of ponies and countless other species rallying behind their kings, their gods, and going to war all the same. Skullcrawlers and other images that looked eerily like Mothra, all of them caught in the war.

A war that engulfed all the Hollow Earth. A war that showed the ape king rising victorious over the bones and bodies of his enemies… with his eyes now set on the world above. The story ended there on the pillars… but the walls of the temple continued it.

The Young Six followed behind Twilight and the Council, peering up at the paintings with everypony else. They all seemed to note that the paintings appeared less aged, perhaps not as old as the previous paintings. Perhaps created after the great war occurred, telling the final days of the aftermath.

One Titan survived, breathing a great fire to the earth above and burying the ape king and his kind to the depths of the world, as well as the other horned, ashy Titan. All of them buried together by Godzilla’s burning vengeance.

Princess Cadance was breathless to it all, witnessing the stunning revelation of their world’s history for the first time, and judging by the looks on Celestia and Luna’s own faces, she wasn’t alone. Heartbeat rising, breath shuddering, Cadance looked over to Kong, watching as he stared at the same paintings and stories left behind. The last remnants of his people, his family.

Turning to Fluttershy, she noticed that the Pegasus was at a loss for words, and couldn’t even finish her question from earlier. Cadance couldn’t even recall what Fluttershy asked of her. Something of Kong’s family. And so, with what she just learned—what they all learned—she chose her words carefully and spoke so very slowly.

“The legends are true,” Cadance said, earning the eyes of everypony and everycreature. “There was a war.”

She cast her eyes across the floor and saw all that there was, all that was left. The countless bones of the fallen Godzillas and Kongs that came before. The gargantuan and fallen member of Godzilla’s species lying before the throne, executed with an axe to the skull. Then, to her shock, to all of their shock, they watched as Kong approached that old corpse, wrapped his hands around the weapon’s handle, and ripped it out.

Cadance gulped, exhaling that immense shock in a trembling breath. And by declaring, “And they’re the last ones standing.”

It lied before the throne. A king’s weapon. Gazing onto the dorsal plate acting as the axe’s head, Kong snarled fiercely, raising the weapon high above his head and pounding his chest. His roar was ferocious, daring and dangerous to all those who foolishly enter the last home of his people. His roar shook the very foundations of the temple, and everypony flinched back from it.

Twilight, especially, cringed at the sound of Kong’s roar. If Ghidorah didn’t know they were there before, he definitely knew now.

But Kong showed no apprehension, no fear. He approached the throne and stared upon it. Stared upon the bloody handprint—the same as the mark on the front gates, and on the mountains of Black Skull Island—now on the face of the empty throne, and he took his place there. The last king of his people, with not one left to witness his self-declaration.

None except the equines, and Kong stared down at them, planting the axe firmly beside him. His eyes settled on Fluttershy, the Pegasus gazing up at him in wonderous awe.

Kong stared back at her, lips pursing and a gentle mumble reverberating in the back of his throat. She may have been wrong about his family being down there, and yet he was not angry. In fact, he had never felt closer to his family since the day he lost them.

And that alone he was thankful for.

The Sunken City

Temple of Godzilla

A war raged in his mind, and still Godzilla fought. He raged in a war on two fronts and just barely managed to push on, deeper and deeper into the depths of the world where the awaiting vortex took him even further.

To the underground civilization that he called home. To the monuments and statues built in his honor, in the equines’ reverence of him. His own throne remained empty, as did the city which had been abandoned long, long ago. Not a single heartbeat other than his own filling the streets, or voices to echo off the cavern walls.

The burning reds and oranges from the lavafalls continued as they always had, raining down and surrounding his throne in an alluring, burning glow. A comfort from the harsh battles and wars, a place of rest that Godzilla found himself returning to more and more often. The world had fallen out of balance. A great and terrible evil had returned. Godzilla was weary and broken and the call of his throne was tremendous.

But not nearly as tremendous as the call he would answer deep in the heart of the Hollow Earth. Not nearly as great and terrible as the dark forces tormenting his mind, body, and soul. His instincts, his drive, his purpose was what led him now, despite every whispering word in the darkest recesses of his mind, or the cold, icy claws wrapping around his nuclear heart.

The enemy was trying to pull him away from what mattered, from his purpose. And without his purpose, what was he? Certainly not a king. Certainly not worthy to uphold balance and unity with the natural world, with the world he called home. The temptations to turn away, to rest, to do anything other than face the rival alpha call were so very strong…

But Godzilla was stronger.

He swam through the towering halls of the underwater city, finally emerging and taking in that fresh breath of air, releasing it in a short roar. Stomping onward, out into the open and where solid and smooth stone replaced a jagged and rocky floor, Godzilla felt the heat and strength of the planet’s core impact his hide, and he flinched to the brightness.

Godzilla opened his eyes, and stood upon the entrance into his temple. An open maw on the face of a vast mountain range, where the steps leading down to the Hollow Earth hills and valleys were adorned with images and statues all replicating his majesty and might. He stood between two great pillars upholding the mouth of the entrance, standing tall and straight. The mountain exhaled a heated and wrathful breath, as did the King of the Monsters.

The pain… the Voice… ripping apart his heart and mind, and trying to abandon it in Darkness…

The call of the true threat was greater. Godzilla’s sheer will was greater. He would not be torn away, nor would the Voice get the better of him. It would be forced to watch as he glared ahead, faced the mountain on the horizon, and witness its end by his own claws tearing Ghidorah apart.

Only now… he heard another. A different call arose from the mountain and dared any to enter its hold while it proclaimed itself as king. It was a roar that Godzilla recognized, and a clear threat made by the rival alpha. A threat to Godzilla’s rule, and one that he did not take lightly.

His breathing intensified, hot steam erupting from his fierce snorts, as the Darkness slowly began to engulf his vision. Almost enough for Godzilla to lose himself in it.

Author's Note

Artwork by Shrekzilla