A figure walked around in an anxious manner, its head constantly turning towards a large line of metal plating on the far side of its position. Stepping back would reveal that the metal plating was in the form of a beak, with a curved metal spike pointing inwards on each side of the beak, and higher up on the metal beak was one wide and singular red line, which occasionally reflected the light that constantly illuminated the room.

Looking up, one might suspect that the ceiling was getting closer, but looking down from the side of the platform and you would conclude that you were in a giant elevator. In two consecutive corners were pillars that raised up another platform, albeit smaller and only big enough to be a walkway. Two figures were on the walkway, both in hooded cloaks, but easily identified as ponies, with one in the middle being the figure that was pacing around.

“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this, Black Band,” said the figure in the middle of the walkway. The target of his sentence was on the far left side of the walkway, sitting down and fumbling with his hooves over some metal panel.

“What are you worrying about? Everything’s cleared. We ain’t breaking rules here, at least as far as I know. It would be a first too,” the other figure replied. To confirm his proclamation, the left side figure known as Black Band held up the metal panel, showing a sea-foam green screen to his fellow pony, who quickly trotted up to read the panel. It showed him that everything was green-checked by Princess Celestia. Yet his face still didn’t loosen up.

“I’ve just got that gut feeling again. You know, the same feeling whenever we were on those heists back in the day? The same feeling that something is going to go wrong?” the figure looked with pleading vibrant blue eyes to Black Band’s hazel ones.

Black Band sighed. His partner’s gut did have an uncanny power to tell his partner bad omens. He knew it from experience, and it has saved their hides more than once. Only one way to find out how bad of an omen it would be.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I ate some bad grass,” the other figure replied.

“But not like you ate some meat or some bad evening meal?” Black Band asked.

“No.”

“Hmm…” Black Band contemplated. His partner always described his gut feeling with how he felt when he was digesting something unwanted. “Well, bad grass means it shouldn’t be real bad…”

“But what if…”

“...which means it won’t be our problem. I’m sure it won’t be something the Rum Guard can’t take care of.”

“But, what if it turns out worse than we thought!”

“Goose, it’s not our problem anymore. We’ve gotten away from the gang. We’re trying to get our lives back together,” Black Band put a hoof on his partner’s shoulder. “We’re not alone anymore. We don’t have to rely on your gut anymore.”

“sigh, I guess so. Can we at least tell someone to be wearetorted.rather not have anypony hurt tonight.”

“Heh, never thought you of all ponies would say that.”

Goose took two steps forward, with a stern look on his face. Black Band backed up.

“Eh heh heh, not the right words to say, huh?”

“No,” Goose said, before turning around and walking to the other end of the walkway.

“Oh, c’mon! I was only making a joke!” Black Band tried to justify himself, but his plea fell on deaf ears. With a huff, he brought his attention back to the panel, before yellow warning lights blazed around his figure. With a knowing look towards Goose, who still gave him the stink eye with his look, they both walked to their control panels nearby the railing close to the red lined metal beak.

The panel was made up of several buttons and levers, each with their own purpose. In the middle of the panel was a warning sticker. It read “WARNING: PLEASE REPLACE COMPONENTS IF RELAYED COMPONENTS FAIL: GYRO-STABILIZERS, BATTERY SINK, OPERATOR.”

“Whose this one’s anyway?” Black Band asked, yelling amid crunching metal that signaled the elevator stopping.

“I don’t know. Rumors sprung up that it might be Prince Blueblood, seeing as how they managed to get the cybertronics green-checked.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that? I thought any tech on a monster was banned unless it was to compensate for a defect, not to enhance it.”

“That’s why ponies are saying it’s Blueblood. It was green-checked by Celestia, and there’s the fact that it was all declared before it was even ID’d. Everyone in the stadium already knows what they will be watching.”

“What’s its name, anyway? I didn’t catch that from the brief.”

“Gigan.”

Black Band shivered. It was rare for new monsters to join the K Leagues. Usually they would go up in one match before their qualified to join the league, and most of them didn’t survive.

“Who’s the contender?” Black Band asked.

“Who else? Anguirus.”

“Really? How is ETR going to get his “coveted title match” if he only challenges newcomers? I mean, sure, Fancy Pants is smart enough to not accept any challenges until his contract’s up, but it’s not like no one’s gunning for it. It’d sooner be Shadowbolt’s or even Diva Violetta’s before Rich could get his hooves on the championship. And even then, how is…“

“Band.” Goose interrupted.

“What?” Band replied.

“This is just a job to me. You know I’m not into the whole political soap opera dramas of Kaiju Royale like you are.”

“sigh, Fine. You’re missing out though, we’ve got a lotta cool discussions going on at the pub,” Black Band smiled.

“I’ll live,” Goose retorted.

A few minutes later, the blazing yellow lights turned a consistent green, and the elevator closed to a stop. With hissing gas, two large panels in front of the walkway opened, letting Goose and Black Band hear the blaring crowd's screams, almost deafening their ears. It was a massive stadium, filled with ponies of many shapes and colors. On the far side of a stadium stood another monster, but it was too far to accurately see. The two ponies did have an idea of who it was. Both ponies pushed a few buttons on their respective panels like they were taught in their orientation, and the walkway parted and swung away from the group, with the elevator lurching forward into the light to reveal to monster the two had known as Gigan.

On one side of the stadium, a tower rose up, being given a good situational view of the whole stadium. Inside the tower were various screens and ponies barking orders at the screens, causing them to move in their wanted places. Further down, two ponies, the left being a unicorn with a beige color, and the right an earth pony with a lighter azule coat, gazed at the window, before turning to a camera behind them, straightening their ties with a smile.

"Hello, my fellow Equestrians, and welcome to another night of Kaiju Royale! A newcomer is up in this match against the competent Extravagant Rich and his monster Anguirus. And boy, this newcomer and its trainer has a lot of news, wouldn't you say Cajun?"

The pony on the right shifted in his seat and wriggled his mustache before speaking, "That’s right, Blaze! This big ol’ monster right here is Gigan, the Kaiju for Prince Blueblood himself! Seems he wanted to get in on the action too, and may have bended a few rules too, as I’ve been told the monster’s actually a Cyborg! And here I thought you couldn’t have no techie stuff in them things!”

“I thought so too, Cajun, but if Princess Celestia herself allows it, then I guess we will have allow it too. And speaking of, there she is!” The third screen in the room cut to a moving spotlight that rested on a familiar white pony, practically glowing under the lights. Princess Celestia raised her right foreleg in order to wave to her ponies with a smile on her face. And next to her stood an interesting dark blue shape.

“Well, now, Cajun, it seems she brought out the newly reformed Luna to her first Kaiju Royale! If any of you ponies haven’t been living under a rock, you would know that Luna has just come back after a 1000 year banishment from her Nightmare Moon episode that we all remember from our old foal stories. She arrived at the castle forestep just a few weeks ago, and many of the Royal guard thought she was still Nightmare Moon, and almost attacked her on sight! Luckily, the Princess saw it was just Luna, depowered and all too wanting to just apologize to her sister Celestia. We haven’t heard much from her since, and I believe this is the first time she has been seen in public!”

The duo spent an unusually long time just letting the camera focus in on Luna, her astral mane drifting in some unknown wind, her eyes curious to everything around her, smiling all the while. Cajun saw a little drool drop on his tie in the corner of his eye, and quickly coughed and straightened himself to continue the broadcast.

“Well, I gotta say, it looks like she’s in for a treat tonight folks, as all you are as well! Let’s have a little look at that Gigan, huh?” Cajun looked to his left to see Blaze still drooling at the screen of Luna, along with a couple other ponies inside the tower.

“Koff, I said, let’s take a look at Gigan?” One pony snapped out of his trance and switched the camera to the fourth screen, giving a semi top-down angle on Gigan. Blaze snapped out his trance as well, and straightened out his tie again.

“Er, right, let’s take a look at our newcomer. And I gotta say, by all accounts, it truly is a monster. Standing by the 1.25 kilometers that is the K-league regulated height, it towers over the ponies that fill this 7 kilometer long stadium down here near Canterlot. Gigan is a dark-hued green bipedal lizard, with a chest of tan scales, but looks like it’s glowing a dull gold under the late-night lights. On its back is what appears to be fans made of a tan skin membrane, which I suppose is to give the idea of wings. On its chest is what seems to be a vertical line of spikes, and as they are shining in the light it’s a good guess they’re made of metal too. The tail looks average, as a tan scaled tail that I guess is supposed to be the counterbalance for a bipedal creature could be. The head of Gigan is adorned with vertical spikes along the top, with a red line acting as the eye for the monster."

Cajun spoke up. “The limbs are the main eye-catcher here, Blaze. Instead of hands, a metal claw seems to be on each forearm. The claws are blunt, and the most likely reason is that the metal was meant to hit hard, not pierce, but I wouldn’t want be on the receivin’ end of those things anyway! Even on it’s feet, they’re just one giant metal claw on each of them too!”

“And here comes the rum guard folks, to put up the shield spell,” Blaze ended the summary of Gigan with a knowing look towards screen 2, right in the center of the field, where the camera focused on three unicorns with a green equivalent of the Royal Guard’s armor. The three guards stood in a triangle point formation with each other in the middle of the stadium, before blasting their horns at the center point in the triangle, above their heads.

The spells combined before shining upwards to a high elevation in the stadium, way higher then Gigan. The spell dispersed in a dome made up of geometric crystalline structures falling down, before falling down to the point where the stands met the field, the ponies in the front seats oohing at the strange geometric contour lines reverberating brightly in the dome’s wall. The dome disappeared, but the front seat ponies could still barely see the crystal structures.

With a final salute to the audience, the three ponies walked from where they came, a small door on the far side of where the tower stood. closing the door.

Hearing a strange noise, the audience and the cameras turned left to where Gigan stood. It’s red eye flickered softly, before it shined brightly with a whirring of machinery coming from everywhere in its body. It stepped forward, and screamed a cacophony that sounded not like animal, but not like machine either. The crowds cheered, eager to see the newcomer in action, before they were silenced by another loud high-pitched scream turning into a baritone growl.

“Heh heh, it looks like Anguirus is all too ready to fight! Anguirus is a mix of a simple brown lizard with a shell of a turtle and hedgehog DNA, allowing it to grow out spikes in its shell and its tail. Then it was grown up to three fourths of a kilometer, but it still packs a wallop with those spikes if you’re not careful!”

Both monsters stared at each other, Anguirus with its nostrils blowing air and Gigan with what can only be described as metallic breathing out of its beak.

“What’s it gonna be Blaze? How are the odds?” Cajun asked his co-hort.

“I don’t know, Cajun. My bookie friend told me its a 52 to 48 chance of Gigan winning, there’s no telling what the cyborg can do.”

Both monsters suddenly let out a scream before they started to charge.

“Oh! And they’re chargin’! It’s already shaping up to have this match start with a bang! And they’re getting closer…”

The two Kaiju never slowed down as they neared each other, ready to strike first blood. As they drew closer, Gigan suddenly jumped low and flipped. When it landed, it threw its right claw down, smashing Anguirus’s head and making the kaiju skid its body across the ground. Gigan stuck its feet together with its tail to stop itself from the momentum.

“Ooooh, and Gigan draws the first strike, laying a nasty blow with its metal claw on top of Angie’s head, and it doesn’t look like he liked it!”

Anguirus looked back at Gigan with murder in its eyes, and charged again. As it neared Gigan, it too jumped up, but Anguirus only half flipped, intending to use the spikes on its back against the cyborg. The attack landed, and Gigan was sent to the ground, its head pinned by Anguirus’s back.

“Oh, and it looks like Angie’s already tryin’ to end the fight. It’s using its signature move to pin itself down on Gigan’s head. If Gigan can’t get itself out, it might suffocate and lose consciousness.

“No, Cajun, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Although Gigan’s pinned, it being a cyborg I doubt it can lose consciousness. We might need to call it a draw and prepare for another round if Gigan can’t… wait, hold up. There’s something happening down there folks!”

A red light emanated from where Anguirus pinned down Gigan’s head. It pulsated faintly before it disappeared.

BWAAAA! A bright beam of red light sent Anguirus straight up into the sky. A pillar of red light held it faintly in the air before it dissipated. Gravity soon took hold, and Anguirus started falling to the ground with a faint screech. Gigan tug its claws behind its head in a pivoted position, and when Anguirus neared the ground, it flipped itself with its arms, sending a hard metal kick to Anguirus, with enough force to send it in a beeline to the wall of the dome. Anguirus’s body hit the wall with a sickening crunch, as the dome materialized in thick geometric lines to protect the audience. The crowds cheered as Anguirus rolled down the wall, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

“Wow! I was not expecting that at all! It seems Gigan is one of the few monsters with a beam attack! Is Angie down for the count?”

“I don’t think so, Cajun. Look!” The duo looked to see Anguirus rising up, but only shakily. It gave a roar, before standing up shakily on its two hind legs, using its tail for support.

With the cheer of the crowd, both kaiju looked around briefly before locking eyes. The two kaiju squared off, before both of them charged.

The elevator screeched to a stop to let out two passengers. They quickly noted the tense atmosphere, as ponies ran to and fro trying to complete their duties and jobs that Kaiju Royale required them to do. At that moment, a roar was heard, before it was silenced by the ground rumbling.

“Sounds like Anguirus might not survive the fight this time, Goose.”

“Yeah. Poor thing. He doesn’t deserve that abuse, and neither does Gigan.”

“He, Goose? Anguirus is a he?”

“You really think Anguirus should be a she?”

“Their its, Goose. They’re just monsters.”

“Monsters we create to hurt each other.”

“Bah! If you really feel that much for ‘em, go join PETM,” Black Band waved off Goose, turning to catch up with another group of ponies who were all in yellow safety jackets, leaving Goose alone. Goose only shook his head before he kept aimlessly walking, bumping into a green wall.

“Oh, sorry sir, I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Goose apologized. He looked up to see a lighter green unicorn, wearing the dark green armor of the Rumble Guard.

“It’s no matter. I KOFF wasn’t watching where I was walking either,” the guard replied.

“Are you okay? You don’t sound well,” Goose noted the hoarseness of the guard’s voice.

“Ah, it’s nothing. Just a simple cold. I took some medication before sending up the shield spell.”

“...Wait, you were one of the three that did the shield tonight?” Grass, bad grass.

“Yes, why do you ask?” the guard replied, a little bit confused to Goose’s growing expression of panic.

“Okay, I’m no expert on unicorn health, but wouldn’t your magic be diminished and thereby the strength in the stadium shield diminished?”

“Well, yes, but I took some medication to help me.”

“Did they work? How well did they work?”

“They worked fine, of course…” the guard was getting antsy and a bit scared at Goose slowly marching up on him, and he couldn’t feel as if he was smaller than the stallion now.

“But then why did you cough?” Goose stared hard at the guard’s eyes, while the guard seemed to shrink under them. Goose felt a sense of deja vu in this position, and he knew the unfortunate reason why.

“It...I...I just…” the guard finally rolled up into a ball, now understanding the implications of his actions. He shivered there for a few seconds before uncurling himself and standing up. “Okay, we need to let my superiors know that the shield isn’t at full integrity. They can send some spells in to strengthen it, just like we do in particularly long matches.”

Suddenly, the ground rumbled, and another roar was heard, except this roar sounded weak, like it was dying.

"We'd better get to them fast before we end up having a crisis on our hooves," Goose said. The guard nodded, and he ran to his left down a hallway, with Goose soon following. They brushed past Black Band, who was talking to a unicorn in a yellow construction suit.

"Where ya going, Goose?" Band yelled.

"Bad grass!" Goose yelled back. Band was a little bit confused to his answer before his eyes widened in realization. He started to run after.Goose.

"Wait for me!"

Cling! Cling! The sound of metal against bony flesh was a harsh sound, yet the ponies loved it whenever Gigan connected another swing against the now battered and worn Anguirus. One more swing served to throw it a couple kilometers away. With a weak growl, Anguirus stood back up, but shakily it tried to remain on its footing before collapsing. Weakly, it stood up again, and this time it stayed standing.

"I don't think Angie's got much fight in him anymore. The next move might be Gigan's finishing move. You think it had a finished like Anguirus, Blaze?"

"Oh ho ho, I think it does, Cajun. Take a closer look at Gigan there." Both ponies leaned in colder and saw something they were all too excited to see in action.

The blades on Gigan's chest whirred and murmered a bit, before giving a sickening but satisfying screech as the blades turned like a buzzsaw, before slowing down to a stop. Anguirus soaked up whatever remaining strength it had before charging weakly at Gigan. It was for nought however, and Anguirus found itself in metal claws.

Gigan hooked its left claw on Anguirus's neck, and had its right claw lift it at the base of its spiked tail. Holding it up high over its head, Gigan switched the blades on his chest to face upwards, before it threw Anguirus up in the air. Leaning back, the buzzsaw whirred.

It was a move that everypony cheered in roaring success as Gigan whirred its chainsaw when Anguirus came down on it, spinning the Kaiju in a lateral position. The sound of metal cutting through bony flesh never let up, as Gigan's saw kept Anguirus in its grasp for a full 10 seconds.

Gigan stopped the buzzsaw and grabbed Anguirus, holding the Kaiju above its head again. Leaning back, it threw the spiked lizard to the wall. Anguirus collided with the wall, and the whole dome of magic that protected the crowd shattered. It broke from the impact and spread outwards slowly, raining down crystals on top of Gigan and the field.

Some of the crowd stepped back in fear now that they weren't protected, but as soon as Gigan took a step, the Kaiju's red visor glowed dull, and a sound akin to an engine powering down could be heard.

"Wow. What a fight that was Cajun!"

"It was, Blaze. I held my breathe there a couple times, including when Gigan broke the barrier! At least bein' a cyborg helped to stop it before it could do any damage to the crowd, as it is now shut off and being wheeled back to its elevator. The same for Angie too, although its probably taking a trip to whatever infirmary they have for Kaiju."

"Well folks, this has been a great night for Kaiju Royale. Join us in a little bit when we interview both trainers about this battle. This Blaze..."

"-and this is Cajun-"

"Signing off. Have a good night everyone!"

Goose, Black Band, and the guard all released a collectively held breath. Nothing worse would happen, now that the Kaiju are being sent down without doing any damage to the stadium. The guard counted his blessings that they wouldn't have to worry about the barrier.

"Well, that was close," Black Band remarked.

"You're telling me. I thought our jobs were screwed when the barrier broke," replied the guard.

Goose tensed up. "I'd still worry about our jobs, guys..." he muttered. Walking up to them were three stallions in business suits. One in tan brown, one in dark blue, and one in light gray, with matching black ties between them.

"You three knew about the barrier failing?" The stallion in the middle asked.

"Well, uh, you see, it was more of just a gut feeling. Actually it was entirely a gut feeling but this gut feeling is a gut feeling which I, uh, we follow because it is a gut feeling that is very specific about how bad a situation is and uh, he he..." Black Band could only cringe at the sight of the three stallions glaring hard at him, and he put his head down in shame.

Author's Notes:

So? How'd you like it? Let me know in the comments!