St. Remedius Medical College: “Kaiju Wipeout”

When Kaiju Breeding Migrations, Instagrammers, and Kirby Suits Collide

(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)

For the previous five centuries, the kaiju of Texas slept. They slept in the muds at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, slowly metabolizing leaking oil and the radioactive traces therein. They slept within massive caverns in the central Hill Country, breathing in carbon dioxide released as trickling rainwater eroded limestone with each week-long inhalation and occasionally waking up just long enough to gnaw on chunks of flint within the limestone to strengthen their teeth and armor. They slept beneath the Trinity River in downtown Dallas, absorbing PCBs and plastic grocery bags with naturally occurring iron oxide and hydrogen sulfide as they gradually built up strength. Yet others slowly basked in the slow radiation of the remnants of Mount Briscoe in West Texas, along what later became the Edwards Plateau, as the trace residues of thhe plutonium once inside Mount Briscoe gradually breaks down into uranium, while others bathed in waves of cosmic rays and dark matter and gained strength off the quiet but regular flickering between the weak atomic and strong atomic forces. Some bore young while deep in hibernation, which either latched onto their parents for sustenance or sleepily wandered off to find their own resources. Others prepared for deep sheds to prepare for the next stage of their life cycle or to remove parasites, most of which were large enough to qualify as kaiju themselves. Occasionally they rolled or stretched in their sleep, setting off earthquakes or dam failures, or a flickering of metabolic activity set off brushfires that burned through thousands of hectares. Even so, they slept through multiple waves of humans moving into the vastness of Texas, snored through drilling and mining and quarrying, and occasionally farted as humans built skyscrapers and football stadiums and data farms atop the bits of plating and scales and thagomizers that peeked above the land.

Then, inevitably, they woke up.

(Special Note: Experts still fight, sometimes viciously and often with edged weapons, over the official definition of what constitutes “kaiju.” In the famed Founden Marr Conference of 1999, Dr. Terry Martinson of St. Remedius Medical College first proposed the classification standards that distinguished kaiju from cryptids and other poorly understood giant lifeforms. As a general rule, with exceptions that cause many experts to demand satisfaction with chainsaw duels, any large poorly studied lifeform weighing less than 100 tons is officially a “cryptid” if it still depends upon consumption of organic compounds for sustenance, a “physimorph” if its metabolic needs are filled by quantum effect or cosmic sources, a “uranidont” if its metabolism is fueled via nuclear fission or fusion or their byproducts, and a “vishap” if it feeds via mystical or psionic energies. Kaiju fall within what became known as the Ingersoll Constant: more than 100 tons of mass, at least 50 percent biological in origin, fueled via nuclear or quantum interactions, and ranging in intelligence from completely mindless to the verge of tool use. Organisms that otherwise meet the parameters of the Constant but with ability to use advanced technology or sorcery are categorized as “raphontis.” Hodags and Carlie are cryptids. Dragons and wyverns are vishaps. The sentient asteroid Kuuuluk is a raphontis. Code Name Tarkus qualified as a kaiju, but just barely.)

The end of the Gregorian Calendar year 1999 was already a time of strife, confusion, and turbulence that had been building since August 1987 (the triple threat of the Harmonic Convergence, the resurrection of the One True King after 20 years in purgatory, and the discovery of Earth’s sole Hero Lantern) and the emergence of hundreds of previously napping kaiiju throughout Texas on New Year’s Eve only added to the chaos. The great long-necked flying monster Camazotz, the eternal adversary of the Bat God, blasted the roof off its cave roost with one ultrasonic scream, thereby vaporizing the town of Bastrop, before unfurling membraneous wings and soaring to the coast, occasionally shredding and defiling obvious human gathering places along the way. The original El Lagarte of the Gulf slowly rose to the surface, sculling through fishing fleets and supertankers on their way to the same location. The squat aetosaurian Neeble climbed out of Lake Lewisville, where absorbing a half-century of aluminum beer cans and bottles dumped by lake residents and visitors gave it an especially strong-light-weight, and sparkly armor. It also galumphed to the coast, alongside both monsters from the ancient legends of the Wichita, Comanche, and Karankawa and new horrors completely unknown to science or thaumaturgy. The town of Cleburne disappeared off the map for a time, as a new insectoid beast, boosted by 35 years of operation of the Comanche Peak nuclear reactor in Glen Rose, arose, shed its skin, and flew to the coast, with the residents of Cleburne learning too late that the presumed dinosaur tracks in the area were actually from this beast’s parasites and symbiotes, all free for the first time in centuries.

Over the next two days, pretty much the sum of Earth’s scientific, thaumaturgic, and military might focused on stopping the kaiju, with minimal success. Even the newly unveiled powered armor from St. Remedius labs, commonly known as “Kirby suits” after their inventor, Dr. Jacqueline Kirby, had limited effect in stopping, delaying, or deflecting all but the smallest kaiju. Each Kirby suit was a marvel in tapped and channeled zero-point energy generators, mechanoneuotic synthetic muscles and nerves, and projectile and energy weapons, able to blast orbital weapons platforms and tank battalions into slag, but the kaiju kept fighting, frantically, to get to the coast near Houston.

Finally, the last onslaught was planned on the island of Galveston, where even strange and terrible weapons dragged out of unknown armories received little more than a shrug from the waves of kaiju slowly flattening Houston into the mud. The surprised defenders watched as some kaiju started digging nests, either on the surface or underground, and began laying eggs. Others brought their already-born young to the water to dredge the surrounding harbor for food. Still more, such as the terrible Camozotz, curled up atop vacation houses and hotels to bask in the winter sun. Any human interference met with what could only be described as “indifferent contempt,” and with the island freshly evacuated, the defenders looked across the destroyed bridges once connecting Galveston to the mainland and waited.

Now, with a better understanding of typical kaiju life cycles, Galveston is restricted to all but researchers. This is partly due to the kaiju returning to their original abodes after their short breeding season, now rising every five years to repeat, and partly because of the various horrible defenses borne on kaiju eggs to prevent predation and parasitism. Those Decembers, the adults rise and migrate, and in the subsequent July, the eggs hatch and the neonates and larvae emerge either to follow their parents or go to the open ocean. After the second re-emergence in 2009, efforts to rebuild after the latest migration stopped and effort instead went into reserving routes for trademarked “Kaiju Corridors” facilitating their return to the gulf. The town of West, already a wildly popular tourist attraction for those traveling between Dallas and Austin, was just south of a major intersection of Kaiju Corridors, with thousands of people traveling to watch the migration, catalogue already known kaiju, and take notes on new ones joining the march. Very occasionally, one of the new kaiju attempts to wander off the Corridor, and a regular contingent of Kirby Suit troopers move, like security at a rock concert moving drunk patrons, to convince their charges, very gently, to get back on the path.

The real use for the Kirby Suits, though, is for crowd control. Once on Galveston Island, kaiju rarely move off it until they are ready to leave. This relative safety emboldens dozens of thrill- and attention-seekers to sneak over to the island by any means necessary to snag fragments, photograph nesting sites, and make unneeded and unwanted videos “about my experiences in this wonderful place.” The dozens would be thousands of idiots planning to go viral, if only by being stomped by an irritated kaiju, if not for the line of 100-foot-high Kirby Suits standing at the edge of the beach. Even so, the intrepid suit pilots still spend their days and nights scanning for boats, hang gliders, submarines, and small aircraft attempting to cross the strait, as well as those using more esoteric means to teleport or gate to the action. It keeps the pilots in practice, it irritates the rubberneckers and influencers, and most importantly, it calms the kaiju. Even after the disappearance of St. Remedius, the Kirby Suits are still a symbol that someone, somewhere, some individual dedicated to the general good, is there to keep the monsters under at least minimal control.

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

Camazotz Carlie cryptids Dr. Terry Martinson hodag Ingersoll Constant kaiju Kirby Suits raphontis St. Remedius St. Remedius Bromley Contingent vishap