pjbooks Chapter 145 The Dream Bird: Bonds and Trembling from the Previous Work!
Chapter 145 The Dream Bird: Bonds and Trembling from the Previous Work!
(This episode was modified a bit; if it's a tribute, it should be a thorough one, so Nori also returned.)
Time flies like an arrow; in the blink of an eye, it's Friday evening at 8 PM again.
Countless die-hard fans of Ultraman Dyna were already waiting in front of their computer screens and televisions.
As the familiar, rousing opening theme ended, the title of episode nineteen slowly appeared against the night background—"The Dream Bird."
The screen lights up, and without any build-up, a strong sense of sadness and nostalgia washes over you.
In the stands, Mayumi, dressed in black, sat alone on the platform, her gaze lingering with a touch of sadness as she watched the race cars speeding past on the track.
A gentle breeze ruffled her hair, and even though so much time had passed, her forlorn expression still instantly tugged at the hearts of longtime viewers in front of the screen.
Ah! It's Mayumi!
Wow! Is this a cameo appearance?!
Mayumi is still so beautiful!
Just then, the figure of racer number 1 gradually came into Mayumi's view.
In a daze, she seemed to see her deceased fiancé—racing driver Takumo.
"Takumo..."
Mayumi suddenly stood up.
However, the moment the rider in front of her took off his helmet, the face that was similar yet completely different shattered Mayumi's hopes.
Just as she looked down at the pendant in her hand, reminiscing about the past, a very familiar background music quietly began to play.
There were no rousing drumbeats, only a gentle and sorrowful melody.
This is the classic theme song "Love Theme" composed by Tatsumi Yano from the previous work "Ultraman Tiga"!
The moment the music started, the chat rooms in all the live streams exploded with excitement:
[Holy crap! Holy crap! Ultraman Tiga's background music!]
[Gu Nan, you old scoundrel, you have no sportsmanship! You started by playing "The Theme of Love," and my tears just started flowing!]
[It's so heartbreaking! Mayumi Tiga and Takuma not being able to be together is a pain I'll carry for life!]
It's been seven years since Dyna's storyline came about, but she still hasn't moved on...
However, Gu Nan's knife was always accompanied by horror.
Just as the audience was immersed in nostalgic sadness, thick dark clouds suddenly appeared in the sky.
"Hahahaha—"
A chilling, eerie laugh suddenly pierced the somber background music. From the clouds, a gigantic bird-like monster with a terrifying human face in its beak appeared!
The human face inside the bird's beak stared intently at Mayumi, emitting a chilling voice: "The tragedy will happen again... just like before..."
Suddenly, the background music abruptly shifted, seamlessly switching to Dyna's monster entrance theme—"Dai-Kai" (Great Destruction), also composed by Tatsumi Yano. The tension and eerie atmosphere instantly intensified!
The scene flashed, and Mayumi suddenly woke up from her bed, covered in sweat.
Fortunately, everything that just happened was just a dream.
But a terrible premonition lingered in Mayumi's heart. Why did she still dream of Takuma even now?
What does that terrible prophecy refer to?
The fast-paced plot gives the audience no chance to breathe.
The scene then switched to the TPC base.
The piercing alarm blared.
Detection revealed a series of sudden earthquakes somewhere in Eurasia, and power plants in various locations were destroyed and exploded for unknown reasons.
Shin Asuka, still half asleep in bed, was hurriedly set off under Shin Kariya's frantic urging.
"Hurry up, bird!"
"Ah! Where is the epicenter?!"
"Calm down, Asuka! Looking at yourself like that, are you even a member of the Super GUTS team? Take it off!"
Captain Hibi looked at the messy sleeping cap on Asuka's head and unleashed a torrent of attacks.
However, he didn't seem to realize that he hadn't had time to change his shoes either.
This brief moment of everyday joy slightly eased the terrifying atmosphere from before.
Subsequently, in order to find out the truth, Kibi Gosuke dispatched his team members to patrol in shifts.
Early in the morning, Shin Asuka piloted the Alpha fighter jet to patrol the skies above the city.
The weather was fine and sunny, with no clouds in the sky. The radar showed no abnormalities, so Fei Niao felt there was nothing to worry about and breathed a sigh of relief.
Little did he know, his fighter jet had already been locked onto by a monster lurking in the shadows!
"What is this thing?!"
From the clouds, the monster with a human face and a bird's body suddenly burst out and brushed past the Alpha!
The background music has changed again!
This time, it's actually the monster theme song from Ultraman Tiga – "Premonition of Invasion"!
This piece of music carries an extremely oppressive feeling, suggesting that the monster before us possesses terrifying strength no less than that of Gazort back then.
After giving the bird a warning, the human-faced monster quickly disappeared into the sky.
However, Asuka's fighter jet was covered in a lot of black residue.
Back at base, Asuka remained haunted by the eerie human face. Just like the uncanny valley effect, the more human-like something appeared, the more terrifying it became.
……
They then returned to the Victory team.
In the corridor, Asuka encountered Kawamai, who was carrying large bags of gifts.
Mai says she's going to meet her new idol—motorcycle racer Taku Aoki (originally Aoki Haruchika).
The bird thought about it and realized something was wrong.
Mai's idol used to be her childhood friend Himuro, right?
Why did you change it so quickly?
Is this what it means to be obsessed with looks?
Mai noticed Asuka's confusion and happily explained.
They also believed that the bird saw a monster with a woman's face because it was under too much work pressure and needed to see a doctor.
In the end, Asuka accepted Mai's suggestion and went to the infirmary...
Then, Asuka met Mayumi, who had been promoted to head nurse.
"Head Nurse, is it really just my imagination?"
The bird tried to comfort itself.
However, after he told Mayumi everything he was about to see, Mayumi shook her head with a serious expression.
"Legend has it that there is an ominous bird called the Guhuoniao, and seeing it is a sign that someone is about to die or a tragedy will occur. Perhaps it is not a hallucination, because... I have also encountered it in my dreams."
As Mayumi narrated, the background music played for the third time the divine song from "Ultraman Tiga"—"The Call from Afar".
A photo of Mayumi and Takuma flashed on the screen, instantly breaking the hearts of longtime fans.
Asuka didn't know about Mayumi's past, but just then, the automatic door to the infirmary opened with a "whoosh".
A young man, dressed in a senior uniform from the TPC Research Department, who appeared mature, composed, and refined, walked in.
"Because her fiancé, Takumo, died in the attack by Gazort the Lightning Man back then."
The newcomer adjusted his glasses and looked at Mayumi with gentle eyes.
Upon seeing this face, the comments section paused briefly before erupting in an unprecedented frenzy!
[Holy crap! It's Ye Rui! It's a member of Ye Rui!!!]
[Oh my god! Ye Rui has grown up! He's become so mature and handsome!]
[Wait, the way Nozue is looking at Mayumi... Could it be?!]
[It's perfect! It's perfect! These two are almost a couple?!]
That's right, the person who came was none other than Nori, a former member of the GUTS team and now the director of the TPC Network and Monster Ecology Research Lab!
Norizuki doesn't appear in the original work, but in this world, since we've chosen to pay homage, why not go all the way?
Therefore, Gu Nan decided to have this former Victory Team veteran explain the past grievances.
Nori walked over to Mayumi and gently patted her shoulder to comfort her; their actions were natural.
Then, he turned to the bewildered Asuka: "Asuka, I've finished analyzing the black residue you brought back from your fighter jet with Chungjima. The situation is serious. Assistant Captain Hibiki wants you to return to the command center immediately."
The scene shifts to the command center.
Ye Rui and Zhong Dao projected the data onto the main screen.
Having personally experienced the brutal war against the Lightning People, Ye Rui's research on ionospheric organisms is the most authoritative in the entire TPC.
"Based on Chung Dao's analysis and my comparison of the data from that year,"
Nori's expression was solemn. "This monster does not belong to the Lightning Man race like Gazot. Instead, it is a plasma creature that inhabits the ionosphere after the Lightning Man was destroyed by Tiga and our former GUTS team, and it took the place of the Lightning Man."
"It's the Guhuoniao, a legendary ferocious beast!"
Jong Dao added.
The ionosphere is also overcrowded.
【Huh? Isn't this Ubume the Lightning Man?】
The Ubume is a demon, but it usually lives in the ionosphere. The Lightning Man is a resident of the ionosphere, but he escaped Earth in Ultraman Tiga.
Okay, I thought it was the third Gazort.
……
Meanwhile, another side storyline is also progressing.
Kawama Mai finally found her idol, Takuoki, at the motorcycle maintenance shop.
Aoki not only looks remarkably like Takuma, but he is actually Takuma's younger brother. He inherited his brother's last wish to become a race car driver and always remembered his brother's words: "Never give up no matter what difficulties you encounter."
Aoki refused Mai's gift, saying he was going out to the meadow where Tiga and Gazort had fought to mourn his brother, but the outgoing Mai still shamelessly followed him.
Crisis strikes again!
TPC's satellite radar detected another unidentified giant creature in the sky!
Eager to prove himself, Shin Asuka flew his fighter jet without the captain's permission.
Within the vast black plasma cloud, the Guhuoniao with a human face and bird body suddenly appeared!
Asuka frantically pressed the launch button, but the laser hit the plasma-made Guhuoniao and had no effect at all, passing right through it!
Just as Asuka was dumbfounded, Miyako and Nakajima arrived to provide support in the Gamma, which was equipped with special weapons.
"Use this! This is the anti-plasma cannon jointly developed by Director Ye Rui and Zhong Dao!"
Gong Liang shouted and pressed the launch button.
The dazzling beam of light successfully hit the Guhuoniao, and the monster's body instantly dissipated into the clouds after reacting rapidly with the anti-plasma!
Everyone thought that the Guhuoniao had been wiped out.
Asuka ran triumphantly to tell Mayumi, "You can rest assured now, the tragedy won't happen again!"
On the way back, Mayumi clutched her chest, her bad premonition growing stronger than ever before.
On the bus, Mayumi shared one of her views with Asuka.
"I once heard someone say that time doesn't move forward, but rather repeats itself in cycles..."
"Therefore, historical tragedies will continue to repeat themselves..."
In Mayumi's eyes, humanity always repeats the same tragedy...
In fact, the theory behind Mayumi's idea coincides with a famous quote by the German philosopher Hegel.
The only lesson humanity learns from history is that humanity learns nothing from history.
Upon hearing this, Asuka offered a different perspective.
He believes that history does not go in circles, but rather spirals upwards like a staircase, with humanity learning from its mistakes and making continuous progress in the process.
Ah, I've heard that phrase before.
The spiral ascent described by the bird is a figurative philosophical expression of the development of things. This was inherited and developed by Marx from Hegel's thought. Hegel's dialectics are extremely rich and varied; Marx and Engels established dialectical materialism precisely by drawing upon Hegel's dialectics.
[Scientists are responsible for the upward movement, and politicians are responsible for the downward spiral, right?]
Good heavens! It's a Marxist bird!
……
As expected, the Guhuoniao still exists.
"Captain! The Ubume has appeared near Jinghai!"
This is the very spot where Gazort attacked the microwave power generation equipment back then!
The Super GUTS team rushed to the scene in their GUTS Eagle and fired the anti-plasma bullet again. However, this time, the special weapon had no effect because the huge amount of electrical energy stored underground was completely absorbed by the Ubume!
On the ground, Asuka's Seret tank lost power due to the magnetic interference of the Ubume, and the monster's bombs fell from the sky, forcing Asuka to jump out of the vehicle!
At the critical moment, a motorcycle shot through the thick smoke like lightning!
It's Aoki!
"If it were my older brother, he would have done the same!"
Aoki roared and drove his motorcycle to draw the Guhuoniao's firepower. This scene perfectly replicated the resolute act of Takuma covering everyone back then!
Taking advantage of the opening, Asuka hid in a secluded spot and raised her Flash Sword high!
In a dazzling light, Ultraman Dyna crashed to the ground!
The battle erupted instantly!
But the situation presented an extremely bizarre one-sided picture.
Dyna's beam attack hit Guhuoniao, but it was completely ineffective, like a stone thrown into the sea!
"Destroy! Destroy you and humanity, all of you!"
The Ubume let out a piercing shriek. It not only absorbed Dyna's attack, but also unleashed extremely powerful plasma beams and plasma lightning!
The raging lightning tore at Dyna's body, sparks flying everywhere!
Shortly after his appearance, Dyna, who had suffered a severe injury, knelt on the ground, and the color timer on his chest began to flash a blinding red light!
An atmosphere of despair instantly enveloped the entire battlefield.