X
X flew into the Savage Land at top speed, making no attempt to slow down as he came down towards the ice. A small beam of light flew ahead of him. The veil around the Savage Land opened. He passed through.
For a moment, when the veil closed behind him, he was disorientated. The veil cut him off from every satellite on the planet, the connection he’d had since the moment of his creation. He adjusted to the ‘sensation’ in microseconds, but it was uncomfortable. In many ways, this was the first time he had ever been left with the silence of his own thoughts.
He imagined it was how a modern teenager felt when left in the woods with no technology.
X stopped musing to press a button on his harness. The straps holding him to his jetpack released, allowing him to drop as he flew. For just a moment, X freefell through the air, his body streamlined with arms and legs tight to his body. At the last second he snapped his form outward, hitting the ground in a plume of earth and stone flying about.
Boom!
X took a moment to let his android form adjust to the sudden stop before rising up and striding forward. He patted the weapons across his body while ignoring the jetpack flying away. Instead, he spoke on the radio signal being used by BRIDGE.
“This is X. I have arrived in the Savage Land. Acknowledge.”
X used the long second's humans always took to speak to process the jungle around him. The river Mahmoud had fallen into was just a few feet away. Good. He made his way there, reaching for his machete. With brutal efficiency, he sliced his way through the vines.
“X!?” the voice of Carl Creel said in surprise over X’s radio. “What are you doing here?”
“Finding Mahmoud,” X kicked aside a boulder, ignoring the three-ton stone bouncing its way into the jungle. “Are you well, Mr. Creel? You look fatigued.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m- wait, you can see me?”
X had access to all BRIDGE camera networks, so he was able to see through the security cameras installed in the BRIDGE Savage Land mobile base (More of an RV than a base in truth) to watch as Creel looked around in shock. Creel was standing in a room surrounded by screens, with scientists and soldiers looking at the screens, all of which were covered in maps.
“Indeed, Mr. Creel. I am obtaining all the data I can from the mobile bases servers. I’ve extrapolated the last possible location of Mahmoud before the trail becomes muddled. I am headed there now.”
“How-” Creel shook his head. He rubbed his eyes slowly. The superhuman had all the clinical signs of exhaustion and lack of sleep. He had dark coloration beneath his eyes, hanging eyelids, pale skin, and the corners of his mouth were sinking. Still, he was clearly motivated by the way his back was straightening. “Whatever, it’s good to have the help. You want us to come along?”
“No need,” X said as politely as he could. He stopped by the river, robotic eyes tracking across the water. “How is Fantasma?”
Creel hesitated. He looked towards a back room. X accessed the cameras in that room.
Fantasma was reading in a chair. The young Russian witch looked even worse than Creel. Her hair was straying about, far from the usual sophisticated way she had, her hands were shaking slightly, and her eyes were falling constantly. She was reading a screen, frantically taking notes. X took a look at the file she was reading. An upload of a book of magic. She was reading through spells on tracking items.
But she was making mistakes.
“Mr. Creel,” X said at last. “Please, endeavor to rest. Both you and Ms. Fantasma. You are both exhausted. Exhaustion does not help us.”
“X, we need to find him,” Creel growled.
“Yes. But you need to sleep,” X said firmly. “I do not. I can attempt to track him while you rest. Once you are rested, I will inform you of my position, and you can come aid me. Fantasma is currently writing a spell that, if I am understanding correctly, is meant to track Dial’s sword. However, she has currently set it to summon a creature I believe is called a Flumph. She must rest. And so must you.”
Creel stood in silence. X strode into the river until his head was submerged. Finding nothing, he exited and began to walk along the bank, his eyes taking in every bit of information he could process so that he missed nothing.
Creel lashed out suddenly, his fist shattering a tv screen before going through it. Everyone in the room stared at him. X ignored it, instead pushing aside a tree and slicing through more brush.
“Fine,” Creel said, as though he hadn’t turned perfectly good equipment into scrap. “I’ll get Fantasma to rest. You’re right. We need to sleep. But you tell us the second you find Dial. Because I’m going to break his arms if he’s just hanging out having fun while I’m trying to find him.”
“That is more than likely not what he is doing,” X said dryly.
“One thing,” Creel said. “Ka-Zar hasn’t shown up yet, but we’re planning to ask him for help the second he shows up.”
“That would be welcome,” X continued forth. He disconnected from the radio, but kept a subsystem monitoring the mobile base.
He continued to follow the river for a mile. From what he could hypothesis, Dial’s armor had kicked in emergency functions when he had landed in the water. But for some reason, they couldn’t access the emergency beacon that should have activated. So what had gone wrong? Where did his trail continue?
X continued along the river calmly, his processors taking in the footage from his eyes and going through it at immense speed. His large feet left depressions in the mud. His immense strength tore through the jungle with little regard, several times carelessly ripping a tree out of the earth to move it out of the way. His focus was absolute.
Soon, he’d left the jungle to find himself walking along the river as it cut through a field of short grass and weeds. Then he noticed it. At one point, the current of the river changed before continuing as normal. X stopped to watch the river. He’d been taking constant measurements. The river was diverting. But where?
It was probably best to wait to figure that out. X felt that he was currently being investigated.
He turned to look at the creature who was slowly walking up to him. It was about the size of a baby elephant. It toddled towards him awkwardly, large eyes looking up at him curiously.
A triceratops baby. Or at least, a descendant of one. It had two tiny horns that hadn’t grown just yet, and was looking at him with the fascinated gaze of all infants. It must have been only a few months old.
X lowered himself to a knee as it approached. He reached out and pulled some grass up out of the ground before holding it out. The baby triceratops eyes lit up, and it rushed forward. It tripped over its own feet, struggled back up, and continued towards X, leaning it’s head down to devour the grass in the androids hand with mewling sounds of happiness. X raised his other hand and rubbed it’s head, getting more sounds happiness from it. It was covered in extremely soft feathers the color of mocha coffee, with some small amount of blue across it as well.
X noted it’s actions calmly. It was a cute thing. It was part of why he’d felt the urge to feed it.
“RAAAAAGH!”
She had been just out of sight, in the treeline. X watched as the mother came towards them. The infant squeaked, rushing towards the mother, who nudged it back. As it did, X noted the size of the Triceratops. Thousands of pounds of flesh and bone, with feathers similar to its child, only more aggressively blue than mocha. It’s horns were more like spears of solid bone three feet long, and it’s entire body was built like an armored tank similar to a rhino, with it’s crest rising high off it’s head.
Once the baby had moved off into the treeline, the mother spun to glare at X.
This was very interesting. There were many theories on the behavior of dinosaurs, but no way to prove them. Of course, X mused, this triceratops may have evolved to act this way on the Savage Land, but it was better than nothing. She was acting more like a mother bear than anything else.
Oh. She was attacking.
She charged towards him with an aggressive roar, her elephantine feet crashing into earth with quaking force. X adjusted to the shaking and faced the animal, who outweighed him by tons. He felt some digital approximation to excitement.
This would be his first fight in the real world.
He waited for the mother to reach her full speed, an impressive 25 km/h. He calculated the time to impact, his own physical bodies reaction speed, weak points across her body, and the rules in place for the Savage Land, as well the moral implications of any of his actions.
By the time she was three feet away from him, he had ducked her horns and sidestepped her. The mountain of furious dinosaur missed him by inches. She slammed her feet into the ground, grinding herself to a halt and trying to turn around. X dived under her, crouching. Then he placed his hands against her belly. Servos and pistons spun within him. He rose up.
And so did the triceratops.
“Eugh?!” the mother waved its feet in shock as it was lifted off the ground. X stood to his full height, supporting the weight of the dinosaur. He took a moment of synthetic pleasure in the ease of the movement. His body was taking the weight very well. He kept its weight distributed across his shoulders, mimicking the way human weightlifters did similar feats. Then, as the triceratops continued to wave its feet around and look around in a panic, he hefted her up and pushed. It took some careful movement to make sure when she landed, she wouldn’t shatter or break anything. She still landed with a ‘Boom’. Confused, the triceratops slowly rose to her feet and faced him. X turned his back on her and walked into the river.
The triceratops was smart. Apparently, being lifted off the ground and dropped by something that followed that by ignoring her was too much. She slowly backed away, making sure to keep it’s cub behind her while the baby watched with adorably wide eyes. X ignored them both even as he recorded the incident. Internally, he thought that had gone rather well.
Back to business, however. He disappeared underneath the water. His advanced cameras tracked along the river bottom. Based on the movement of the silt as it was lifted by the water… Ah. There.
He walked up to the opening that was in the side of the river, deep under it. An underwater tunnel. This explained everything. The river had a small amount of it constantly pouring into the tunnel, but no one would know that unless they swam under its surface as X had. So when BRIDGE had attempted to follow the river, they missed this area, which was where Dial must have been swept into.
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However, Dial’s chances of survival had significantly dropped.
X ignored the statistics running through his mind. He simply walked up to the stone tunnel and pressed into it. For a moment, his squat form struggled to enter it. He pressed deeper, the stones scratching at him and moved on, shoving aside hundreds of tons of stones to enter the tunnel.
He moved into it, finding himself in almost claustrophobic conditions. All light was left behind, forcing X to turn on a function in his eyes that activated simple LED lights within them. He crawled for several minutes before the tunnel opened up into a larger cave. X made his way out of the tunnel and looked around the cave. It was twenty feet around, with stalactites and stalagmites in one corner, and the river cut its way through it. X updated his internal map and strode forward. He could see small scratches on some of the surfaces of the stone along the river, possible where Dial had bumped into as he had floated. The cave continued to open up as he moved forward. At one point, he found himself in a cavern that was dozens of feet high above him, opening up at the top in a large hole that revealed the sky. X noted the plantlife surrounding that hole, as well as the waterfall pouring down it to join the river. He also noted the large temple in the middle of the cave, about the size of a house, the stone building having fallen apart centuries ago. The statue of some figure still stood in the center where the temple had once been, though it had been beaten by the elements for some time. It appeared to be some sort of… feathered being? With a rooster comb on the head?
X took footage, then continued on. It was as he left the cavern to continue deeper into the tunnel that he noticed some metal imbedded on a wall along the cave, a strain of some oddly silver-
ALERT! X’s internal systems screamed a warning the instant his body's structure was compromised. X leaped back the instant he understood what was happening. His right hand, which had been reaching forward started to flake and turn to liquid as he got closer to the metal. X got back as far as he could before the melting finally stopped. He stared at his hand.
The hand was still intact. But the metal on it had been melted and left to drip. His hand now looked like liquid silver had been poured across it, only to freeze midway. He twisted his hand and was forced to shatter a piece of his armor to allow him to move it freely. The sound of steel cracking filled the air as he squeezed his hand into a fist, watching dispassionately as he returned his mobility to his hand. It shouldn’t have been so easy to shatter the metal on his hand, even with his enhanced strength, but the damage had weakened the metal as well. Then he looked up at the cave ahead, staring at the strains of metal.
Anti-Metal. Antarctic Vibranium. Dial had told him about it. An element that could make other metals fall apart at the atomic level. He didn’t have any sensors to see if the damage to his hand’s casing had truly been down to the atomic level but it was easy to surmise what had happened.
And if Dial had floated along the river, then that explained why he had gone missing. If the Omnitrix had fallen apart in response to the Anti-Metal…
X activated his radio. As of now, he had no way to follow Dial. He’d only made it a couple of miles, but already needed aid. It was… disappointing. But logic prevailed. He needed a humans help from here on out.
“This is X,” he said over the radio, reconnecting with the mobile bases cameras. “I have a lead on Dial, but I require help from a human.”
In the base, several people looked at each other before one man, the BRIDGE soldier in command of the unit on the Savage Land, came up to the mic. “We read you, X. We have an asset in the field heading out to you. He said he should be able to find you soon.”
X acknowledged that. “Very well. I’ll track their armor and contact them through it.”
The BRIDGE soldier hesitated. “That… won’t really work?”
“Why not?”
"He doesn't have armor. The only thing he went out with was a knife.”
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Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter
Kraven shook his head as he ran through the jungle. He’d had a fun day so far. Met up with some old smuggler friends willing to ship him to Antarctica. Always good to start a hunt off meeting old friends. His friends, French pilots who had some familiarity with flying into the ice cold regions of the world, had been doing well.
He’d then air-dropped over the cold of the most remote region of Earth with nothing but a parachute and a beam emitter that Boris had given him, really a laser that had been modified per BRIDGE specifications to emit the light they’d discovered could open the veil around the Savage Land.
That had been a thrill. Falling towards a world of ice, feeling the chill wind pass him by. Then, a single laser flying out of the boxy device he’d lugged along, and he was headed down for a jungle instead. What an incredible thing to see!
From there, things had been much more familiar note. He parachuted into the jungle and made his way to the BRIDGE mobile command center. When he got there, the BRIDGE soldiers immediately pulled him in.
“Where is Fantasma?” Kraven had asked curiously.
“She and Creel are knocked out,” the BRIDGE man in command had told him. “They’ve been up since Dial disappeared. We’re letting them rest until we get news.”
Good. Sleep was as necessary to survival as sustenance and shelter. While Kraven had long since trained himself to only require 30 minutes of sleep 4 times a day, he still needed that rest. Lack of sleep could kill a man as effectively as any animal, and in many cases lead to dying by animal anyways.
Kraven rubbed his chin. “Then I will head out for the hunt.”
“...You mean rescue?” the BRIDGE soldier said hesitantly.
“Is there a difference?” Kraven scoffed. Honestly. As though he hadn’t saved tourists from their own stupidity before. “ Where was our shapeshifting friend last seen?”
“Here,” a scientist said nearby, pointing at a map.
Kraven studied it for a moment before nodding. “Very well! I am off!”
“Alone?” the soldier asked.
“If I want to go quickly, yes,” Kraven said with a scoff. Honestly. While these men may have some skill on the battlefield, especially if they had even the slightest amount of skill the lovely Melissa May had displayed, they were not hunters.
“Well, we currently have an asset in the field tracking Dial right now,” the soldier said. “X, an android. He said he had a lead.”
An android? In the jungle?
The soldier shivered at the interested smile Kraven displayed.
“Uh, do you need anything before you go?” the soldier asked. “We have more armor, weapons-”
Kraven shook his head, patting his sides, where a steel and bone knife hung on each hip. “I will be fine as is.”
Then he turned and left, ignoring the stuttering of the soldier as he left.
From there, the hunt began. And it was an interesting one.
First, he went to the cliff where Dial had fallen, and leaped off of it, hopping his way down the rocks with incredible agility until he had gotten to the bottom. Then he leaped into one of the trees along the river and made his way along the shore, jumping from tree to tree with practiced ease.
The Savage Land was a delight to the senses. The scents of animals he’d never encountered, plants larger than he could have ever believed, even the insects here were enormous and powerful creatures if the dragonflies that frequented the river were any indication. Kraven reveled in how hostile this place was. After half his life hunting, he’d nearly memorized almost every jungle on Earth. Not entirely of course, the very nature of jungles made such things impossible. But he’d gained a sense for how they worked. He’d hunted every manner of animal, survived floods, forest fires, and hurricanes, turning predators into prey. Over time, Kraven had only gotten stronger and more skilled. He’d taken the wild and made it a home.
Not the Savage Land. Here, the trees stretched upwards for hundreds of feet, a city of green to rival the likes of New York, the brush was thick enough to entangle the largest of animals, and the scent of the jungle was almost aggressive. Every time he jumped from tree to tree, using the tall foliage the way lesser men would use trails, the land spoke to him. ‘You are not welcome. You are prey. Make one mistake and you will die. I care not for the great empires of man, for I have survived while they have risen and fallen.’
How enticing. To be once more a novice. He hadn’t felt such a thrill since he’d been a young man in Kenya. For all his experience, he couldn’t help the feeling within him. The thirst to prove oneself that only the greatest of men felt deep in their hearts.
Either that or he was having his first mid-life crisis.
His amusement at the internal thought faded when he noticed an irregularity. A crater alongside the river, on the opposite bank.
In a twisting movement that would have left the most avid Olympic gymnasts gasping in awe, Kraven leaped out and grabbed a branch in his hands, the bark under his palms cool as he twirled around it three times before releasing it to fly across the river in a somersault. He landed in a roll on the other side and came to an instant stop next to the crater. Then he took a long hard look at it.
“Hm… newly formed,” he mused to himself. Dust from the crater had flown up to land on nearby plants, proving that true. It was about three feet deep, but nothing stood in its center. He took a deep sniff. The scent of metal, ozone, and silicone filled his lungs. The android.
He looked around and found the tracks. The android had a heavy gait, but the ground was dry enough that it took a small amount of effort to discover where he had gone. He’d entered the river for a brief moment, then left it to begin trekking alongside the river. So the android was on the trail as well.
Kraven leaped into the trees again, moving rapidly to follow. If the android found Dial before him, Kraven would never live it down.
It was during this next leg of the hunt that he discovered something interesting. The android was among the easiest things to follow he’d ever encountered. The android had apparently taken the same method tanks did when it came to tracking prey. Simply stride forward and bulldoze anything that blocked you. Kraven found ancient trees ripped out of the earth and discarded on their sides as though the thousands of tons of wood were little more than driftwood. He’d also sliced his way through the brush with brutal efficiency, leaving long trailing gaps of devastated foliage and large footprints. Kraven noted a few boulders that had been ripped out of the ground as well. Apparently, whenever the android came up against anything it was faster to tear through rather than walk around, he simply ripped through it.
It was almost impressive.
Soon, Kraven found himself dropping from the trees to land in a small field. He looked around, face neutral as he took in the scents and sounds of the area.
X had been here, the footprints said. But so had two others.
Kraven leaned down to look at some grass that had been torn in half, as though by a hand. Then at some small footprints like those of a baby elephant in terms of the way the weight was being distributed.
Of course, then there were the massive footprints that must have come from a being that outweighed elephants by several tons. Kraven eyed the footprints, including the ones that showed the largest animal had been running towards the android.
Kraven laughed when he realized what had happened. Impressive. This android must have been quite strong!
Then, the android entered the water, and never came back up.
He eyed the water. After a moment, Kraven dived in, disappearing beneath the waves. Some close examination revealed the existence of the tunnel. Any normal man wouldn’t have gone in without some form of oxygen tank.
Kraven had no such fears. He’d hunted in caves and deep beneath the ocean, lakes, and rivers of various parts of the world on many an occasion. The world's longest recorded dives often lasted over 10 minutes, with the divers requiring time hyperventilating oxygen beforehand in order to last that long. Kraven had no need for such things. He took the only piece of technology he had brought with him, a small flashlight, and placed it between his lips before entering the tunnel.
The hunter crawled in the hole for long minutes, fingers pressing to stones, the cold water pressing in around him. The conditions were less claustrophobic than he expected. He soon discovered why when he realized that the tunnel had been pushed to be wider than it had been, with scratches along the walls and some portions opened up so wide that Kraven managed to grab some air.
He rose out of the end of the tunnel and blinked up at what he had found.
“Good afternoon,” the android said. The large being in front of him had eyes that emitted a powerful beam of light, illuminating the cave around them. Kraven pulled himself out of the tunnel as the android stepped forward. “I am X.”
Kraven stood to his full height and face the being warily. He was built thick and strong in size, his body made of smooth metal all across. Kraven noted the machete, revolver, and rifle the AI was wearing. Apparently he’d come prepared for a fight. Interesting. “I am Kraven.”
“Yes, I know,” X said quickly. “I have been stymied in my search.”
Abrubt. Wonderful! He had no wish to waste time with pleasantries!
“What happened?” Kraven asked.
“Anti-Metal, a substance so named by Dial for its ability to dissolve the bonds of atoms in metal,” X said. “Of course, that is a rather brisk description of the material, but it will suffice until it can be studied.”
Kraven eyed one of the androids hands, which had been partially melted. My. That was an interesting material. “I suppose that would be an issue for a man like you.”
X nodded. “I require organic assistance.”
“You have it, my friend,” Kraven laughed, walking forward. “Come! Let’s continue the hunt!”