Match 186: Maguma vs. Bemular

Match 186: Maguma vs. Bemular is the 186th Match of the KWC and is written by Connor Clennell.

## Story

Man was born into the cold. When the Earth froze over during the last Ice Age, the ancestors of humanity were unprepared, having lost their protective hairy hides over generations of evolution. With the ice came new, exotic creatures that the early humans quickly learned how to use their hides to survive the harsh, almost-eternal cold. And when the ice and snow eventually retreated to the north and south poles of the planet, Man emerged a wiser and more experienced creature, ready to explore the new post-Ice Age world. Never again would mankind have to live through the eternal winter again.

Fast forward to the present day, and humanity has returned to the snowy wastes, not only surviving but thriving due to their ingenuity that has allowed them to create the massive concrete and steel structures found all across the Earth. With these new resources, however, came new problems: the burning of ancient fossil fuels caused an increase in CO2 emissions, causing the planet to begin heating up. The increase in temperature caused the polar ice caps to melt – revealing the ancient secrets of the past in the process…

Deep within the ice flows of Antarctica, a large fishing trawler was hauling up the last catch of the day. The crew had caught a plentiful bounty, bringing in a hefty catch of fish, squid and other edible marine life. The weather was colder than ever and the crew were eager to finish their work and head back to port and the warmth of their own homes. The net had just touched the deck when a loud rumbling noise caught the attention of the entire crew. All hands aboard looked off the starboard bow to see part of one of the great glaciers lining the coast crumble and come crashing down into the sea. This wasn’t typically a common occurrence, nor was it anything for them to worry about. What did bring cause for concern among those aboard the vessel was the large, blurred mass visible within the frozen structure. The details were hard to make out, but the sheer size of the object made it impossible for it to be anything but a kaiju, and the captain of the vessel made the wise decision of heading back to port in case whatever was inside the glacier decided to wake up.

A shout from one of the crewmen brought everyone’s attention from the glacier and its contents to the skies above. A bright, shining orb hued a brilliant blue soared through the air above them. The orb was undoubtedly on a collision course, as with a high-pitched screech the object collided with the glacier. The tower of ice shattered almost instantly, bringing a torrent of ice and snow down into the sea and across the coastline. A think white blanket of snow filled the air around the crash site, occurring it from view.

A fierce, animalistic howl pierced the silence air.

From the miniature blizzard it emerged. A grey, lumbering creature with a tough, fatty hide and a pair of canines almost like those of the sabre-toothed cats of the past. The beast was ancient, yet greatly resembled one of the modern world’s animals: a walrus. Welting snow and ice trickled down the leviathan’s back and through the creases and wrinkles of his blubber-filled skin. The beast sniffed, tasting the chilly air. The world smelled much different compared to the world the walrus monster was born into thousands of years ago. It felt warmer too. Its surroundings had changed as well. There had been nothing but extensive coastline the last time he was here, and definitely no jagged, towering cliffs or fields of glaciers either. The walrus monster bellowed again, partly out of simple anger of the strangeness of his surroundings, and partly to see if others of his kind, or even animals he was familiar with, were around to answer his call.

The high-pitched scream that responded was not one he was familiar with.

Turning around to face the source of the noise, the giant pinniped was greeted with the sight of a creature the likes of which he had never seen before. It towered over the mammal, but what it had in size it did not have in girth. The beast was rather skinny, sporting a pair of tiny clawed arms that almost looked unusable. Tall spikes jotted out in every direction across the bizarre beast’s head, back and short, stumpy tail. But perhaps the strangest, and perhaps most terrifying aspect of the creature was its face. Its eyes were huge and bulbous, facing in opposite directions and angles of each other, and it couldn’t seem to close its mouth fully, leaving its huge, frog-like lips and sharp, triangular teeth on display for all to see. If the walrus could use a word to describe the expression on the spiky monster’s face, it would have been “psychotic”.

To the walrus, the intruder on what was once his turf was an abomination to be destroyed.

To the reptile, his opponent was another potential victim of his galaxy-wide killing spree.

With a brief exchange of roars, Bemular and Maguma declared war on one another.

The giant pinniped was the first to attack, his four powerful legs kicking snow and dirt into the air as they carried his massive bulk towards Bemular. The space monster shrieked in surprise and tried to back away from the charging mammal, but Maguma was too fast to escape and soon slammed into the spiked reptile’s chest. Maguma gnashed his tusks fiercely, trying to get into a good angle to sink his most prominent features into Bemular’s hide. Bemular tried to push the walrus’ face away, but his tiny arms barely managed to budge Maguma an inch. Bemular tried scratching his attacker’s face, but his claws barely left a mark on the mammalian monster’s thick hide. Maguma made another lunge for the reptile’s belly, prompting Bemular to raise his leg in defense and have it connect with Maguma’s jaw. The mammal kaiju's howls of agony were cut short as Bemular spun round and decked Maguma on the face with his tail, toppling the giant pinniped. Now more enraged than ever, Maguma clumsily returned to his feet in time to witness a bizarre spectacle.

Intense heat radiated from Bemular’s maw, melting the snowflakes falling around his head. The heat continued to build up rapidly until blue flames appeared in the space monster’s mouth and shot out towards Maguma. When the flames made contact with Maguma’s chest the ancient beast cried out. Never before had he felt pain such as this! As Bemular’s heat ray subsided it was Maguma’s turn to back off, his chest smoking but generally unharmed. Bemular’s lips turned into a sinister smile. How quickly the tables had turned. Bemular fired his heat ray again, striking the ice before Maguma and pelting the retreating monster with cold sea water and ice. Maguma barred his tusks as a warning, before the sound of ice cracking caught his attention. The giant walrus beast had backed up onto the ice flows which, unable to take his weight, collapsed. Maguma didn’t even have time to call out before he disappeared under the waves. Bemular tossed his head back to allow a joy-filled screech to fill the air. Victory was his!

The space monster approached the hole in the ice, peering in to try and spot his fallen opponent. The pitch-black waters made it impossible to see anything, which came to Maguma’s advantage as he burst out of the water, catching Bemular off-guard. The walrus’s jaws closed around the reptile’s left leg, his tusks easily piercing the soft tissue. A pain-filled hiss was Bemular’s only response as he was pulled under. The extreme cold of the Antarctic waters hit Bemular instantly, but the space monster was used to travelling in the colder environment of space. Maguma dragged the struggling reptile deeper, hoping to drown or crush Bemular under the sheer pressure of the ocean. Bemular’s heat ray discharging against the top of his skull prompted the walrus to let go. The cold waters of the ocean may have lessened the beam’s fiery properties, but its sting was still strong enough to wound the blubber-filled mammal. It was when Bemular let out an angry cry, allowing bubbles of air to escape from his open jaws, that Maguma realized drowning the reptile was out of the question. Unlike him, the space monster didn’t need to hold his breath.

Maguma decided to get as much distance from what he perceived as an abomination as possible, but found that plan dashed when Bemular’s jaws clamped around his right hind leg. Maguma resisted the urge to scream as the reptile thrashed his head from side to side, his teeth doing a much more effective job of piercing the mammal’s flesh than his claws. A cloud of blood obscured Bemular’s face, mixing in with the blood cloud seeping from the wound in the space monster’s leg. As Bemular thrashed around, so did Maguma, trying to dislodge his attacker. His free leg pounded Bemular’s face repeatedly, trying to persuade the space monster to release his grip. Several hits later, Bemular finally did. Maguma wasted no time, his legs now propelling him through the water like a speedboat. Only once he was certain he had enough distance between him and Bemular did Maguma look back – only to see the spiked beast swimming towards him, moving his entire body up and down in a seal-like motion. His lips were curled into an angry snarl, pointy white teeth barred for Maguma to see. The walrus did, and swam for his life.

Fear for his well-being was what motivated Maguma to move through the water at such incredible speeds, Bemular hot on his heels. Blue streams of flames lit up the otherwise pitch-black setting as Bemular tried his best to nail the fleeing pinniped. All around Maguma, bright streaks of light and heat zipped past him and blasted apart submerged glaciers. The mammal kaiju had never been more scared for his life than ever before. He’d never encountered anything like Bemular back when he had roamed the Earth during the last Ice Age. Except maybe that armored behemoth with the jagged scales...

Another heat ray shot past Maguma, close enough that the walrus could feel its heat on his skin through the frigid cold. Snapping out of his thoughts, Maguma changed direction, racing to the surface as fast as his legs could propel him. Huge waves spread across the ocean surface as the walrus monster’s head burst out of the water, greedily gulping down air. His appearance startled the crew of the fishing trawler; Maguma had appeared only a few meters away from their ship. Everyone on board screamed for their lives at the monster’s appearance, then hung on for their lives too as the waves generated by Maguma’s breaching threatened to capsize the trawler. Their cries reached Maguma’s ears, and for a brief moment the giant mammal considered smashing the vessel to shut them up. That plan was abandoned when Bemular breached in front of him, screaming for Maguma’s demise at his claws. Maguma reacted as any cornered animal would, and went on the attack. His webbed flippers slammed against Bemular’s chest and face, stunning the giant reptile for the briefest of moments. That moment was long enough to allow Maguma to lunge forward with the intent of ripping the space monster’s throat out. Bemular recovered just in time to avoid such a fate, twisting his body out to range to instead receive two slashes across his chest from Maguma’s tusks. Once again Bemular found himself the losing side of this battle and disappeared under the waves, Maguma following suit.

The ocean surface was quiet. Nothing happened that would indicate the fierce battle happening between the waves. Out of seemingly nowhere, the waters around the coast began to bubble. Bemular emerged from the frothing waters, dragging himself back onto dry land. He had only made it a short distance inland when the waters churned again, Maguma lumbering out of the swell and onto land once more. An angry howl directed at Bemular left his mouth, and the extra-terrestrial reptile responded with his own hate-filled cry. Maguma charged, only to be repelled as a heat ray detonated against the ground in front of him. The walrus backed off, but would not be discouraged. He was determined more than ever now to kill Bemular. Bemular felt the same way. He hadn’t come all the way across the galaxy just to be beaten by this oversized sack of blubber. Maguma charged forward again, and like last time Bemular blasted the ground before him, forcing the giant pinniped back. This strategy would continue for some time, not because both were dim-witted, but because they had no other options to attack. Maguma couldn’t get close enough to engage Bemular with his superior melee skills, and the space monster’s heat ray wasn’t strong enough to do any significant damage to the walrus monster.

The two would have been stuck like this for a while, had the weather not intervened.

The wind, which had been blowing gently up until now, began to increase in strength. Fierce, harsh gusts whipped up loose snow into the air, adding to the already increase rate of snowfall, and soon the two kaiju found themselves in the midst of a fierce blizzard. One minute Bemular had Maguma firmly in his sights, the next his opponent had disappeared into the white cloud that was quickly reducing the space monster’s viewing distance. Bemular shrieked in surprise at having lost his opponent and instinctively began backing up, not wanting to give the giant mammal the chance to sneak up on him. Maguma’s cries echoed over the whistling winds; the walrus was obviously not pleased with its predicament. Bemular collided with something behind him, earning a startled screech from the reptile, and he turned to see what he had hit. He had backed into the cliffs lining the coast, which towered over the already tall creature. Vast quantities of snow and loose boulders had collected at the top of the rock structure, ready to start an avalanche at the smallest vibration. A sinister smirk crawled onto Bemular’s face as an idea formed in his head…

Maguma cried out once more as he stumbled through the blizzard, barely able to see even a few feet in front of himself. The walrus bumped into something hard, spiky and cold, and the mammalian beast lashed out in panic. His flipper slid off the icy structure before him. It was just a glacier. Maguma snorted in relief, before Bemular’s high-pitched scream filled the air. The walrus’s head snapped to attention, listening for the source of the noise. Another scream came, this time from his right. Maguma turned almost instantly and made his way through the veil of snow towards Bemular. The space monster’s cry came again from somewhere in front of the walrus. At last, Maguma spotted something through the blizzard as the winds began to die down. Bemular was standing with his back to a cliff, screaming and shaking his body in an intimidating manner. Maguma’s eyes narrowed in rage at the reptile and he charged him without a second thought. Bemular felt the tremors from the walrus monster’s footsteps before he heard Maguma’s war cry. The giant pinniped came barreling out of the snowstorm towards Bemular, who made no effort to stop Maguma’s attack. Nearing the spiked monster, Maguma bent his legs, using them as springs to propel himself through the air at Bemular.

The walrus opened wide – in time to clamp down on thin air as Bemular leapt aside, allowing Maguma’s skull to meet with the cliff face. The collision was strong enough to send a small tremor across the entire rock structure. Maguma, in his dazed state, barely registered the large volume of rocks and snow that came tumbling down atop him until the sound of Bemular’s heat ray detonating against the cliff face brought him back to reality. Maguma looked up, and his eyes widened in horror as a carpet of snow, ice and rocks came careering down towards him. The walrus had time to let out one last, echoing howl before he vanished from sight under a curtain of white.

Bemular observed his handiwork from a distance. His mammalian foe had been buried in a tomb of rock and snow almost as tall as a three-headed golden dragon Bemular had once encountered. The spiked reptile waited to see if Maguma would dig himself free, but after a moment of no movement from the pile, Bemular was certain the walrus monster was either dead or had returned to hibernation. It didn’t matter to him which it was; he hardly felt like digging up the pinniped’s body. Bemular silently hoped the rest of the life forms on the planet wouldn’t be as troublesome as Maguma.

As the blizzard died down and Bemular’s vision was returned, the space monster caught sight of the fishing trawler in the distance. The boat and its crew were almost out of the ice flows, but weren’t out of the space monster’s range. Bemular’s lips curled into a psychotic smirk, as blue heat energy built up within his maw…