Spoilers from Abraxas will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned
Abraxas: Empty Fullness is an anthology of one-shots written by Hrodvitnon
, serving as a sequel to her previous Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction Abraxas. It's available to read on Archive Of Our Own.
The author was inspired to take up writing these one-shots by the Abraxas Recursive Fanfiction Abraxasverse One Shot Collection that was previously written by SyfyGuy2. Hrodvitnon states that some of the one-shots in Abraxas: Empty Fullness will officially be canon to the original Abraxas, and some of them won't.
Stories and official plot summaries include:
- "Sermones ad Mortuos": "Mothra helps Monster X cope with Susan's passing; life, death, and rebirth as told by an immortal moth Titan."
- "Ain't That a Kick in the Head": "Body language barriers result in Rodan making a courtship display for Monster X. It goes about as well as expected."
- "Damnatio Memoriae": "In a forgotten age, in a forgotten galaxy, a tormented devil with three heads is created. Damnation is unleashed upon the stars."
- "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away": (Non-canon) "In which a routine trip through the Hollow Earth vortex unexpectedly results in Monster X shrinking down to human size, just in time to enjoy Halloween with old friends and an old flame."
This series provides examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
- In "Sermones ad Mortuos", Mothra pats Manda's head with one of her talons to placate him. Vivienne is also reminded of how her human mother would brush a hand through her hair.
- In "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away", a human-sized Monster X delivers and receives a couple such gestures. They affectionately pat Vivienne's old babysitting charges Ziyi and Yong on their heads. Ling and Monster X affectionately touch the sides of each-other's faces. Monster X nuzzles the top of Ling's head with their snout after their pseudo Flight of Romance. When San is taking over to bid the Chens and Russells farewell, Mark comfortingly pats Monster X's head.
- Amicable Exes: The ambiguity of the first fic concerning whether or not close friends Vivienne Graham and Ling Chen are a former couple who broke up amicably is put to rest in "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", where they're confirmed to be exes and they have a friendly conversation.
- Apocalypse How: "Damnatio Memoriae" sees Ghidorah annihilate the native civilization on the planet that the Makers originally loosed it on, turning everything to ash. Given previously-established lore about what Ghidorah's powers do to a planet, plus Ni/Elder Brother's thoughts that the entire planet is dead at the end of the act, it's likely that the true scope of the apocalypse is Class 5, or close to that if it took Ghidorah time, honed practice and the powers of other Titans under its thrall to get good at annihilating planet-wide biospheres later in the three-headed dragon's existence.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: It's revealed that Manda can emit flashes of aqua bioluminescent light. Monster X flashes red bioluminescent light when their emotions flare.
- Bioweapon Beast: "Damnatio Memoriae" chronicles San and his two elder brothers being captured by the Makers, being forcibly transformed into Ghidorah, and being loosed on an alien world that the Makers wanted Ghidorah to destroy, with the Old Noise that the Makers permanently implanted driving Ghidorah to do just that.
- Bookends:
- The first and last scenes of "Damnatio Memoriae" mention an alien religious text called the Ghee'haszhra: the opening reveals that the Makers' work on Ghidorah was inspired by the Ghee'haszra, and the closing has Ghidorah itself recalling how its victims screamed the name with the implication that Ghidorah (who isn't yet called such by itself) will take a distorted memory of the name Ghee'haszhra as its own name in the future.
- "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away" ends with Monster X returning to their normal size via the exact same way that they were shrunken in the first place; traveling through the Hollow Earth's electrostatic membrane in a Vile Vortex, with the membrane having reappeared near the story's end after it vanished upon Monster X's early shrinkage.
- Cryptic Background Reference: All we really know about why the Makers created Ghidorah to commit genocide is that the decision was made because "thrice [the Makers] have offered [another civilization on another planet called the Enemy, with Ghidorah's design being based on the relevance of Rule of Three in the Enemy's religion,] and thrice they [the Enemy] have refused."
- Death by Irony: Invoked by the Makers on their enigmatic Enemy in "Damnatio Memoriae". The number three is key in the Enemy's religion, and they'd rejected the Makers' offers three times, so the Makers made a three-headed monster in the image of the Enemy's own religion to destroy them.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ichi, Ni and San's captivity by the vaguely human-like Makers in "Damnatio Memoriae" is uncannily comparable to Real Life cases of inhumane testing and experimentation on animals: being kept in body-restraining harnesses, force-fed with tools, kept in cramped and electrified cages; and being brutally mutilated without anaesthetic, with absolutely no regard for their emotional sentience, to further the captors' objectives which the test victims can't comprehend. Ichi/Eldest Brother pleading for the Makers to hear his and his brothers' anguish only for it to fall on deaf ears certainly brings to mind the plight of animals in such positions as test subjects being unable to communicate their suffering to humans.
- Doomed by Canon: In "Damnatio Memoriae", we know that no matter how much the three Dorats love each-other and want to protect their respective youngers at the start, their transformation into Ghidorah and subsequent corruption is going to eventually turn the elder two into completely spiteful psychopaths who despise, abuse and put down the Youngest Brother (San), with all the elder two's positive character traits ground away or forgotten. We also know that the Makers are going to be eradicated by their own creation directly after it's destroyed its intended target.
- Downer Ending: "Damnatio Memoriae", as Ghidorah's Start of Darkness, unsurprisingly has such an ending. Ghidorah annihilates an entire sapient world (not the Makers') for the first time, the heads (particularly Ichi/Eldest Brother) are horrified and traumatized, Ghidorah still isn't rid of the Old Noise after all that destruction (and we know that Ghidorah won't be rid of it anytime soon and that when it does fade to tolerable levels it won't matter for Ghidorah anymore, with God knows how many inhabited worlds dying in terror and agony as a result); and Ichi/Eldest Brother lashes out at San in full for the first time to vent his trauma, as he and Ni/Elder Brother show the first signs of what they're going to become down the line.
- Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: The first two one-shots focused on giant, prehistoric and/or transhuman Kaiju, living in a post-apocalyptic world, navigating grieving troubles and unexpected relationship prospects.
- Flight of Romance: Although they're Amicable Exes and they don't get back together, this trope otherwise applies in the non-canon "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away", when Monster X flies with Ling in their arms across the Pensacola skyline on Halloween night.
- Foregone Conclusion: The basic structure of Ghidorah's Start of Darkness in "Damnatio Memoriae" is already known from San's recounting in the main fic.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Monster X in the non-canon "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away" after they're shrunken down to a near-human size in time for Halloween.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: "Sermones ad Mortuos" ends with Monster X and Manda falling asleep while lying atop a passive Rodan.
- Halloween Episode: The non-canon "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away", which follows a shrunken Monster X having fun enjoying the Hallowe'en festivities alongside the Chens and Russells, and the chapter was posted on October 28 as a Hallowe'en treat.
- Held Gaze: Several in the non-canon Halloween Episode. Monster X, and Vivienne's amicable ex Dr. Ling lock gazes several times as old feelings are stirring back up. At the climax, San takes over and meets the eyes of all the gathered Chens and Russells, calling them his friends.
- Hidden Depths: Despite Rodan's snarky and blusterous personality, he knows how to make a good nest and then put on a very good avian mating dance when he's looking to court a potential mate.
- Holding Hands: In "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away", Dr. Ling and a human-sized Monster X end up romantically holding hands for quite a while the morning after Halloween, as they converse intimately.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Monster X wonders at the end of "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away" if it was truly a Contrived Coincidence that they got shrunken down to human size just days before the Chen and Russell families celebrated Hallowe'en, or if a higher power was at play deliberately giving them a chance to have some closure with Vivienne's human loved ones during the holiday.
- Mistaken for Flirting: The set-up of "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" is that Rodan, working under the assumption that Monster X was expressing interest in him as a prospective mate all those times that Monster X touched or thumped his chest area, decides to finally do something about it. Both Titans are hilariously mortified when they realize the misunderstanding after Rodan has initiated an avian courting display in front of Monster X.
- Moving Beyond Bereavement: The main plot of "Sermones ad Mortuos" is getting Monster X's two halves through their grief at the recent death of Susan, which has put them in a bad depression.
- Past-Life Memories: Mothra states in "Sermones ad Mortuos" that although remembering her past lives is a trait unique to herself, sentient beings who have died and reincarnated as something new can still subconsciously recall faint echoes of their past lives as little more than dreams.
- Peaceful in Death: Discussed. When Vivienne was a child, she was confronted with death for the first time when she attended the funeral of a friendly elderly neighbor. Her mother commented to her that the neighbor in his coffin looked like he was sleeping, but Vivienne thought at the time that he looked more like a mannequin than anything else, and she broke down in tears during the car ride home. Ironically, decades later, Susan looks peaceful when she dies in Monster X's presence.
- Platonic Declaration of Love: Susan Graham's last words, and the last words that Monster X gets to say to her, are declarations of love.
- Queer Establishing Moment: Vivienne and Dr. Ling both gets theirs in "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", when it's confirmed during their scene together that they're Amicable Exes; establishing Vivienne as bisexualnote , and at the very least confirming that Ling is romantically interested in women. Vivienne's orientation was briefly hinted in the main Abraxas fic, and Word of God had already stated multiple times that Vivienne and Ling were exes, but this is the first time that it's spelled out within an Abraxas-canon narrative.
- Rage Breaking Point: Manda hits his in "Sermones ad Mortuos" when he thinks that Rodan is abandoning Monster X to wallow in their grief, making his anger clear. In "Damnatio Memoriae", the being who becomes Ghidorah's middle head is understandable filled with pure hatred for the Makers, but it's only after Ghidorah's very first act of planet-wide destruction and extinction and after that fails to get rid of the Old Noise that he starts venting and lashing out at his own beloved brothers.
- Rule of Three: The third one-shot, "Damnatio Memoriae", reveals that the Makers specifically made Ghidorah a three-headed creature from three animals, because they based it on a religious text held by the rival civilization that Ghidorah was meant to destroy, which states "Three times [...], but never four"; and because the Makers were turning to genocide after said rival civilization had thrice rejected the Makers' "offers".
- Running Gag: In "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away", there's a motion-detecting, music-playing and pun-spitting electronic jack-o'-lantern decoration that keeps going off throughout the story, and it annoys everyone to no end.
- Ship Tease: "Come Little Monster, I'll Take Thee Away" drops some strong hints that years after the main Abraxas fic's events, Ilene is romantically interested in Mark and they might soon get together after all.
- Shout-Out: See here.
- Start of Darkness: The third one-shot, "Damnatio Memoriae", tells Ghidorah's origin story from the main fic in a little more detail, chronicling the three heads' original life as Dorats, their capture by the Makers, and the horrific experimentation, lasting consequences and other circumstances that set Ghidorah on the path to becoming what it is today.
- Tsundere: Much as Rodan tries to conceal it with his usual belligerent demeanor, concern for a grieving Monster X's well-being drives him to bring it to Mothra's attention so that she can help them get past it better than he can.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: "Damnatio Memoriae" chronicles Ghidorah's Start of Darkness, detailing how all three of the Dorats who would become Ghidorah's heads Used to Be a Sweet Kid simply fighting to survive in the wild, until the Makers violently caught the trio, drove them to justifiable hatred of them via abuse and horrific experimentation, forcibly programmed the Old Noise which constantly agonized them whenever they went too long without killing something, and then set Ghidorah loose so that the latter would kill an entire planet in a desperate bid to make the Old Noise stop... only for the Old Noise to come back after the genocide bought a temporary reprieve.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" reveals that, much like mundane animals in the wild in Real Life, some Titans when looking for a mate will kill another Titan's young in order to get themselves a shot at mating with the parent. Rodan is not one of those Titans, even when he's at his worst.
- Overlapping with animal cruelty, "Damnatio Memoriae" indicates that the three creatures who became Ghidorah were still juveniles when the Makers first captured them and began their highly inhumane experiments on them.
