My Joy

A fresh new day dawned on the home world. The massive star radiated down, its warm light and brought life to the lush forest. The little cyborg was awake, and filled with the energy of the bright day. This morning Gaiganny was concealed beneath the greenery, her own green skin yielding excellent camouflage. She waited. She knew He would pass by here today. Directly across from her hiding place was an expansive lake, and still further in the distance were towering ominous mountains.

Trajan was silent and somber this morning. He trudged forward toward the dark mountainous shapes. He had not bothered with Gaiganny today. She needed some time to be on her own. As did he. Yet today Gaiganny was in a playful mood. Trajan slowly paced forward. He took a look at the lake, and glared hard at it. His eye flashed once. For a moment he wanted to lash out, then repressed the urge to vaporize the lake. He looked out over the lake and felt himself starting to calm, slowly. His back was to her, and Gaiganny thought it's now or never. Gaiganny streaked forth from her concealment, and slammed into Trajan's back. Her shoulder dug into his middle back plate, and Trajan's head was pulled back from the whiplash. Her momentum was so great that as the large gigan was thrown into the lake, she fell in after him. The water felt wonderful, and soon Gaiganny rose full of laughter. She stepped onto shore, and turned to see what had become of Trajan. The water bubbled then went still. Gaiganny looked on slightly concerned when the water began to glow red. Trajan slowly rose form the lake, eye ablaze and he growled. Gaiganny breathed a sigh of relief and looked him over. "Hee hee, you're all wet!" He looked at her. She's on a sandy beach preening and he said nothing. Slowly he approached her. She was still in a playful mood, and when she saw him coming at her, she hopped into a tree and continued to preen herself. Still saying nothing, he pulled the tree down with one swoop of his hand, and grabbed Gaiganny by the back of the neck, and walked off with her. "ACK!!! Hey, can't you take a joke? Let me go!!! Don't squeeze so hard!"

He carried the struggling creature into the woods. "Come on, I got wet too. I was just playing! Sskkkreeekk!!!!" She complained. While still grasping her in his hand, he stopped in front of a large tree. He smacked it, and about twenty massive orange fruits fell to the ground, each the size of Trajan's head if not bigger. He rolled one in front of them with his tail. Gaiganny has stopped struggling and watched intrigued. She wanted to learn to knock fruit out of trees with one punch. Trajan turned her towards him, then towards the fruit. SPLUCK!!! Trajan drove her into the fruit until she's totally buried in them. "AAAAAHHHH!!!" He let her go, and began to walk away. "Eeew, I just preened!" She lifts her claws dripping all over the place. "Well if that's how he's gonna be..." She reached down, with her hook, and placed a good chunk of mushy fruit in it and lashes it out at him. It sped through the air and smacked Trajan on his head spikes and explodes. "HAHAHAHAHHA!!" Trajan stopped, pulp trickled down his back. Another good -sized chunk careened down his chest and split when it met his buzzsaw. Slowly he turned towards Gaiganny who was still laughing about the situation. "Uh oh." She turned to run, but he's on her in a second, once again he has her by the back of the neck. He carried her back to the water, while Gaiganny still laughed. "My aren't you juicy. Keep holding me and you'll only get dirtier." He walked into the water up to his waist. He scaned it, then dunked himself under much to Gaiganny's shock. "GACK!" She managed to scream out before she's taken below with him. Beneath the waves was a massive oyster, and Trajan pried the shell open. Ripping out the soft animal that was inside, he chucked her in, closed the shell shut then carried it back to shore. He tilt it on an angle so that the water drained out and she could still breath.

Gaiganny struggled inside. He dropped it on shore and began to walk away. "What are you doing??? Let me OUT!!" Trajan heard her and walked back. The little gigan banged on the walls, yet they held for they were very thick. Trajan leaned down a little. "You want to get out?" He said to her.

"YES LET ME OUT!!"

Trajan tapped the shell with his foot, and started to kick it into the forest little by little. He rolled it over and over. "LET ME OUT!!" Gaiganny put her four limbs against the inside of the shell to keep from bouncing around. They came to a rocky overhang over looking a forest bed. Gaiganny still screamed the whole time.

"You want to get out?" He asked once again.

"I'll get out myself!" she yelled. She concentrated her forehead beam on a seam of the shell. Zzzzeeeeee! Trajan rolled the shell a little more, then kicked it off the side of the cliff.

"I hope you can get out."

"Now what? AAAAA!!!!"

He watched the shell fall. It bounced and rolled as it hits rocks on the way down. Her beam began to burn through though, but she started to loose all sense of direction. "He'll pay. He'll pay!!" In spite of her dizziness she concentrated two beams on the point directly in front of her. The shell spiraled on its way down, yet the two beams broke through. They spun out in all directions as the shell rolled and it looked like a spiraling fire cracker. They hit rocks, trees and other plants, leveling things in their wake. Inside Gaiganny helds on dizzier than ever, but the shell was starting to give and she increased to three beams. "AAAAHHHH!!!"

Trajan picked up a large fruit in his hand, watched Gaiganny trying to free herself. He took a bite and continueed to watch. She started her saw, as the shell spit out deadly blue rays. "I don't feel so good......eew!" Through it all Gaiganny kept her beams on, and her blade turning. The shell at last gaves way, but at the speed that it was going, Gaiganny was thrown out as it shattered into pieces. She didn't realize she was out and continued firing and tumbling. The landscape was destroyed by her rays, some of which flew Trajan's way. He took another bite of the fruit and muttered, "Feh, it has seeds." Gaiganny's whirling destruction finally cames to an end when she hit a tree at the bottom of the hill. Not much was left of the surroundings and she lays on her stomach all dizzy. "Oooh." Trajan saw Gaiganny's rays coming at him, and tossed the fruit at them. They hit the massive orange fruit and exploded through it. The remnants rained down on Gaiganny, though she was too disoriented to take notice. Trajan headed down to the bottom of the cliff, a short hike for him and he saw her in the distance. Gaiganny's eye focused in and out.

"I see you got yourself out." She tried to stand up, or at least to sit up. She held her head. "Oooh. Uh...yeah, no thanks to you funny boy."

"Get up." Trajan pushed her head lightly. "Get up."

"Uhhh." She sat up but swayed back and forth. "eeeeeee"

Trajan spat a couple of seeds into his hand. "I hate seeds." He tossed one at her head. She looked up at him seeing multiple images.

"Do you?" He continued.

"Hey! Watch it, you'll poke someone's eye out." Yelled Gaiganny, trying to pin point where Trajan was.

Trajan began to pace around her. He threw another seed at her. She holded her head up again.

"You don't like to play do you? HEY!" she yelled as it hit her.

"I despise seeds." He threw another at her head. "And do you know why?"

"Cause you can't digest them. I don't know and I don't care!" She eats one.

"Because they are weeds."

"NYAH!" Like a child Gaiganny called back at him.

"They kill beautiful flowers." He threw yet another at her head. She stuck her tongue in the direction she last heard his voice, though he was no longer there.

"Ow. Grrrr."

"And the thing about weeds....is that they strike without warning." Threw a seed at her again, it stings.

"They wrap their vines around their victims..."

She starts to regain her senses. "Cut it out!"

"And they strangle them to death..." He threw another seed at her, harder. Her vision focused, and now she began to see clearly.

"And weeds..." Continued the planet buster.

"AAAAHH!!!" She stood and stared at him. "Grrrr."

"Do not...."

"You're not fun." She protested.

"PLAY GAMES!!!"

Gaiganny raised her head and roared in anger.

"What starts out as a game to you can end in death." He told her with a stern look. Gaiganny cocked her head to one side, not believing what she was hearing.

"Huh? What are you talking about? You really don't know how to have fun." He stares at her.

"Fun...fun is a relative term."

"Fine I'll never play with you again." She started to walk away into what was left of the woods when Trajan grabbed her by the arm. "Hey!"

Trajan looked down at her and began, "There was a time when..." Oh no here we go again, she thought. Another long story.

"When I would love to have played with you." Trajan let her go, turned and began to leave.

She stops. Him play? "Really?" She called out. He stopped. "I didn't think you knew how." Said Gaiganny. Trajan started to say something then stopped. Gaiganny crossed her claws, cocked her head back and turned away. She was mad. "Humf." He looked back at her. The little cyborg leaned on a tree and looked down, claws still crossed her eye a little dimmer. She had her back to him.

"You enjoy this life you have regained. You have earned it." He told Gaiganny. Her metal tipped wings shimmered in the light. "Fun was rarely part of my life...either life."

Either? She wondered. She slightly turned her head back to him, but not directly.

"Fun was for..." He bows his head...thinks of Gigan. "...for those of us who could enjoy life."

Gaiganny got a strange feeling in her chest, she turned fully to look at him. Little did she know how much she reminded him of him. "I once tried...but...it is lost on a kaiju like myself. It is pointless." She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. She could see the pain etched in his face.

"You...you have a flare for life so few have. A flare I will never have. Something I was never meant to have."

"I wish I could give some to you since I have so much." She said.

Trajan almost laughed. "Humph, some of us were not meant to have it. I was not." She stareed at him wide eyed. "That's sad." She looked down again. "I wish I could give you some."

"How could I have such a feeling if my only purpose was to destroy the planets of the universe...?"

"I don't know." Her voice quivered.

He looked up to the sky. "Neither do I. Neither do I..."

"Perhaps you could gain pleasure from that? Fighting is all you do, so why can't you fight for this feeling? At least I tried to help by...by..." Gaiganny struggled for her words.

"There is no pleasure in killing without purpose." He responded. She looked down again. What's the point. She didn't know what to say and had tried anything.

"There is less in killing for a purpose you hate. You start to hate, hate the ones you kill, the ones you serve...yourself..." Gaiganny folded her wings and middle fin down and listened to him.

"Oh, yes I once tried to love what I did. I tried to get some kind of joy from it. But then I realized how wretched my existence had become. A weapon to be used at their will, nothing more than a tool for them to manipulate. Soon the emptiness consumes you, it becomes what you are. You become it."

Gaiganny searched insider herself. Was there nothing she could say now? Sigh. Trajan looked at her intensely, she slowly looked up at him again.

"That is why...you must NEVER become like me. Though my blood is in your veins, and your powers grow...never allow yourself to become what I have become." His words as intense as his gaze.

She stepped closer. There had to be something.

"Keep your flare." He told her.

"I would rather share it. What good does it do me alone?" Responded the little hen.

"There is nothing for me. It is not something you can help, not something you can fix on your own. There was a time I would love to have played with you...but that time has long passed, before we even met."

"But...but.." She stopped, and just listened to him again.

"My joy is no more. If I can say there is any left in me, it is in watching you." He pauses...hesitates. Gaiganny's eye lights up.

"YOU...are my joy Gaiganny."

She gasps and is take by his words. Trajan slowly turned from her and started to walk back towards the woods. "Wait!" She yelled. He slowed and turned slightly. Gaiganny paused a moment, then ran up to him and in front of him. He looked at her silent. Then she grabbed his hand. She looked up at him with a slight smile.

"Take this." She said. "Let it remind you of me when I'm not around." Trajan stareed at her, and tilted his head a little. He saw a tiny seed in his hand. She continued, "This is not the seed of a weed, but that of a plant that thrives and also enjoys life. Like me. Let it remind you of me...I..." She squeezed his hand, and without warning ran into the woods. "eeeee!" Her little call fading away.

Trajan watched her go. After a moment he felt the slightest hint of a smile tug at his mouth...it faded quickly. He looked down at the seed, and poked a funnel in the ground with his left scythe. He let it drop and coverd it.

"From you will grow something greater." Trajan turned and slowly headed back into the woods.