That night, a large rock on the side of the canyon started shaking, without any apparent forces acting upon it to cause any such behavior. This didn't interrupt the behavior of the slimes below, though a couple of them got an unexpected meal of pebbles when a significant amount of cliff face snapped away from the greater rock surface and began floating in midair. It's shaking continued, until the mouth of an enormous shark broke out the front of the boulder and started thrashing it's way forward out of the confinement it found itself in. This stopped the shaking in exchange for the entire chunk of rock rocketing around the canyon, smashing itself into the walls and carving furrows into what was previously a fairly smooth, sheer decline down to the river that ran down both sides of the mesas.
In short order, the topmost section of the boulder was broken away by the frantic motions of the behemoth shark, though it seemed to have far more difficulty escaping from the similarly sized boulder on its belly. Chains of black metal wrapped around the shark, extending downward into the rock wall preventing the creature from simply swimming away from it's burden, and that simple fact was enraging the beast. Deciding that ordinary thrashing wasn't cutting it, the megalodon sized flying object started swimming low, scraping the rock strapped to its belly against the stones of the canyon’s base, leaving a trail of smashed slimes and scratched white stones. After a furrow had been carved out beside the river, the shark flew up as high as it could in preparation of slamming it's burden into the ground with as much force as it could muster.
It built up speed flying only a meter above the river, solely gaining altitude. From one meter to one point four, five, six meters in the air, it doubles the velocity of it's massive bulk. At the Apex of the sharks momentum, it going itself skyward, breaching its self propelled height limit! Jumping as high as it could, the creature manages a stunning backward spiral as it brings its highest point up to one point eight meters in the air!
Angling itself directly downward, the mega shark slides nearly frictionlessly through the fluid known as ‘air’, peaking at an inertia great enough to warp steel bars. It opens its mouth as if to scream defiance at, or perhaps devour, the world itself. Unfortunately, the shark, being unable to see itself, misjudged the size of the thing strapped to it, and just slams face first into the river.
The makeshift dam the shark had left between the furrow and river burst with the impact of shark flesh against it, and water floods around the shark, leaving a dry island within two branches of river, a shark taking up a good deal of the available space
However, fruit of some sort had been borne of the trench run. Beneath the shark, or to the side of it, now that it had landed on its side, the stone had been scraped away to reveal a pitch black material. Similar in appearance to the chains wrapped around the shark, the metal absorbed all light, hiding any possible contours or changes in texture from view. No changes at all could be detected until a vertical slit appears in the black nothingness, showing a grey depth and a source of light from inside of the rock. As the light grows wider, so does the darkness, like plates moving to either size and blocking the stone from view.
After the light finishes expanding to a full circle of glow across the river, the slimes look on in addle-brained wonder, and hunger, as a foot comes up from the depths of the rock. It is followed by another foot, and quite rapidly after that an entire body that shoots out from the glowing hole and falls parabolically to the ground as local gravity takes full control of its descent. Scree generated from the shark’s temper tantrum slides easily under the forward moving body, allowing for an uncontrolled slide directly into the newly rushing water.
A few more inquisitive slimes attempt to investigate the potential food source trapped in the water, soggy but potentially delicious, but are summarily dispersed into the far more vast body of liquid. Curiosity being weeded out of the small but easily influenced gene pool of dividing clones by nearby environmental factors could potentially be a factor in their underdeveloped monster status. After a few minutes of watching the potential meal flail around with no effect, and any who attempt to go near it removing themselves from any possibility of eating food ever again, the slimes return to their original behavior of devouring the leavings of an entire city.
Eventually, the figure in the water has enough presence of mind, or more likely blind luck, to put their feet down and discover they can easily reach the bottom. With their foolishness exposed for all the world to see, the person in the middle of a meter deep creek glares balefully at the harmless oozes jeering at them from their viewpoints at the shore of the water. They lift an arm, and a nine and a half centimeter ball of water rises out of the larger mass; as the figure gestures toward one of the slimes, it flies in a lazy, slow arc into the core of the monster. There’s a ripple over the surface of the gel, and the liquid is absorbed into the whole, leaving the creature very slightly larger than it was before.
Satisfied that its point had been made, the person in the water stands up, fighting against the gentle current. With a herculean struggle, they drag themself footfall by agonizing footfall to the mostly dry land populated entirely by deadly sharks. Immediately upon gaining landfall, the scree slides out from under their foot, and they fall face-first onto the rocky shore.
After laying there for a good minute, the figure shows off their determination and struggles back to their feet. This was a task not assisted by the remains of popped slimes coating the ground, making it simultaneously sticky and slippery, not to mention somewhat fizzy. Over the course of several minutes, the slowly moving figure makes its way down the sixty meters of furrowed coastline to the shark, wobbling the whole way. Upon their arrival, they stick their head into the open porthole and yells into the light.
“Definitely made it! Get out here and take care of your pet, it looks like it’s still calm, but that could change at any moment.”
They remove their head, then think better of it and pop back in.
“And take it easy on the exit, there’s -”
Another being, this one far larger than the first, pops out of the light, smashing directly in the face of the smaller one. The forward momentum of the second is completely halted, leading to them dropping straight to the ground, whereas the first, being the recipient of all the force, slips backward down the scree straight back into the river.
While the first off sputters and attempts to regain their footing, the newcomer stands up with no issues and jogs over to the shark laying unmoving on its side, its gills sputtering as it inhales and exhales in a medium nature never intended it to be in. The large creature strokes the shark, ignoring the rips this action creates in its skin. Those disappear almost immediately, and the creature moves on, following the chains of black to where they wrapped around the giant beast. The thrashing, slamming, and general mayhem brought about by the sharks entrance into the canyon had pulled the metal taunt against its hide, and when inertial forces caused pressure to form between the two, it was not the chains that broke. Quite unpleasantly for the shark, it hardiness had caused the chains to heal directly inside of its own flesh.
The first figure finds footing far faster than the previous time it had been in this situation. It stands in the midst of the current, and yells toward the second again.
“As I was saying, the exit was sideways, and gravity was going to pull you in a different direction than you were expecting! Creator, these guys are always annoying to work with.”
In response, the one nearer the shark moves toward the head, finds a chunk of rock about two meters across, and tosses it over the shark in the general direction of the first one. Hitting the bottom of the small gully, the rock splits into several pieces and fills the newly formed channel. Displaced water splashes up, and knocks the only creature within the liquid over. The noise of a giant rock smashing down into a small pool of water echos through the canyon, followed by muffled yelling as the recipient of said rock is repeatedly thrown back under the surface by a suddenly far more active current.
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On the dry side of the shark, the other person gives the chains an experimental tug. Other than some twitching from the shark, there is no effect. The figure frowns, and focuses on itself. Over the course of the next six seconds, it grows from two meters in height up to fourteen meters tall. Grabbing one side of a chain stuck in the shark in each hand, the giant bends its knees and lifts.
The shark lifts up fourteen meters in the air.
Frowning again, the giant puts down the shark, and focuses inward once more. After only two seconds, it has grown to forty-six meters high. Holding down the shark with one careful hand, it carefully pulls the chain with the other. Over two thousand newtons of force wrench the chains from the scales of the shark, which begins thrashing as the giant gently holds it still, skin scraping off en mass as the sharp spines of the dermal scales dig deep into its fragile flesh.
Bedraggled, the first figure yells again.
“You moron, let me decouple the connectors before you start doing that! I just wanted you to keep it from flying off or blowing up the planet or whatever these things do when they’re hurt!”
They hurry back to the porthole, moments flying by as the shark continues to struggle. The giant lets loose the chain as soon as it notices the rips in the creature’s skin having repaired themselves, and places its smallest finger directly in front of the shark. Noticing meat directly in front of it, the predator’s instincts kick in, and its movements become more fluid, as it flicks its tail rhythmically side to side, or in this case up and down, to attempt to propel itself toward its next meal.
Stopping just outside the rock encrusted portal, the first figure looks dumbfoundedly at the sight.
“Hey, could you clear this rock off our transport? I can’t get to the release mechanisms from here.”
Removing its hand from the face of the predator that wanted to eat it, the giant gently rubs its fingers across the protrusion under the creature’s stomach. Clouds of gravel fall from the surface, as rock shatters like a clod of dirt under a humans two fingers. Within moments, a black sphere is sitting under an apex predator, looking like a world war two sea mine strapped to a trained sabotage agent.
Nodding in satisfaction, the first figure focuses on where it knows the toggles for the chain locking mechanisms should be. A simple press of a button is all it takes to release the bindings keeping the chains in place, and the ball drops away from the shark, leaving nothing but the metal links embedded in the creature’s body.
“Okay, now you can do whatever. I’m gonna call in that we made it. Try to keep any destruction pointed away from me, please.”
From the hand not currently holding a shark, a thumbs up.
The first figure clambers back up into the lit hole. As soon as it passes the point where the seam opened, it bounces back out, before it gets a grip on the bottommost edge of the surface. Once it manages to get its head all the way in, it takes only seconds before a force of some sort pulls it all the way into the light.
Inside the metal ball, there are very few things. Two chairs, a control panel full of levers, lights, dials, and buttons, and a brown wooden box with a yellow handle on the top, two buttons on the front, and a dial in the middle. Without anything touching it, the button on the left depresses.
“Come in base, this is recon team eff. We have found a seemingly habitable area, with no signs of intelligent life anywhere near the landing site.”
From the box, a tinny, distorted voice speaks.
“Your use of the intelligent qualifier intrigues me. What sort of life are you located near? How have you determined it is lacking in that most necessary of qualities?”
Despite being safely aboard the ship, far from the source of the voice, the figure shudders. It thinks quickly, coming up with an answer it hopes will placate this… less than pleasant member of its acquaintance.
“Master Grimfang, the indigenous population is a swarm of single celled life forms, which, despite witnessing and falling victim to an enraged shark, continue to eat and divide around the landing site.”
“But do they react to stimuli? Can they recognize themselves? If you stab them, do they flee in agony? Can they determine that the thing that causes them pain is a thing to be avoided at all? Get back to me once you’ve tested it. Do the important one first. Let me know how they suffer.”
To the right of the dial, the second button depresses, popping loose the first one. The figure rubs its forehead, then turns and carefully lets itself down from the hole. Out a ways, the chains have been removed from the shark, which is now calmy floating around a deflated giant, now only the size of a large human. The first gestures at the water, and a small ball flings itself at the not-so-giant, hitting it directly in the face.
“One of the bosses wants to know what happens when you hit one of those cell things.”
With another pet of the blood-splattered shark, the larger one walks over to the shore and stands still. In short order, one of the slimes attempts to run into it, and the giant kicks it. The creature explodes into a fine mist, and the survivor of that encounter gives a thumbs-up to the instigator.
“Augh. Okay, not when you do it. Give me a minute and I’ll get over there.”
Approximately fifteen seconds later, as the figure is still not even halfway across, the giant walks over, picks them up, and carries them to the bank.
“Ow, my pride. Do you see any sticks or anything around here for poking?”
With a casual glance around, the giant walks over to where a group of slimes are eating a pile of compost. As they near the mound, it suddenly bursts up from the ground and wraps itself around the giant. The creature is immediately forced to the ground, unable to accommodate the sudden weight jumping up onto it. Slammed into the ground, its skull is split open, followed by vines drilling directly into the crack.
“Oh no.”
The first figure wastes almost a second trying to control the vines directly, only to realize that it was nowhere near powerful enough on its own to deal with something its physically inclined compatriot couldn't. Instead, it went for the far more reckless and ill advised option, to charge into the vines bodily and hope that it would be a more tempting target to the tangle.
Taken off guard by the sudden appearance of additional prey, the vines forgo constricting and devouring the downed creature for the moment to deal with the new threat. With that threat having been kind enough to come directly to the mound, it didn’t have to waste its energy on moving, and could simply slam down repeatedly on its target. The first fist only hits for a glancing blow, the utter peak of what the first figure’s physical abilities could provide, but the second fists’ slam is as solid a hit as the initial ambush. Vines burrow into the soft skin, syphoning blood from veins like sap from a tree.
‘Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,’ the one currently being drained of life thinks of its companion.
For long seconds, the situation stagnates. A pile of rotten vegetation sits in a pit of slimes, while a body sits next to it, forgotten for the moment. Then, the body begins to grow.
Wounds healed, the now giant grabs the vines with one hand, and rips the drained husk from the parasitic plants. The vines slam against the palm, and burrow into the flesh, but the giant ignores the pain. Dropping the husk with no concern about where it landed, the giant grabs the shark with its other hand, points the mouth toward the hand holding the vine, and gently squeezes.
As if this were some sort of signal, and it was indeed, the shark opens its mouth, and a searing beam of energy blasts out, burning hand, vine, and cliff behind into nothing but a pit of ashes. The giant releases the shark, and shrinks back down. They find the shriveled body of the other, and places it inside of the black sphere.
Five minutes later, the leftmost button depresses itself again.
“Master Grimfang, the cells are unintelligent enough to attempt to digest a plant that was in the midst of absorbing them.”
“Bah! Another one, useless to me! Get on with your mission, I’ll inform the rest that you’ve arrived safely.”
With that taken care of, the figure picks up the box by the top handle, carefully lets itself back out of the sphere, and issues orders to its subordinate.
“Now that check-in is out of the way, it’s time to get on with it. I’ll set up the monitoring system here, and you canvass the area to find a potential spot for us to take over. Take the transport, secure it, find a place to get back to normal size, and meet me back here when you’ve found something. Wait, wait.”
Taking a look around at the potentially deadly everything around them, the first figure points at the newly created cave on the side of the canyon.
“Put me in there first, and carve out a path to the top and bottom. One with a gentle enough gradient that I’d be able to use it without a problem. I’ll need to be mobile, and not have to deal with hostiles constantly.”
As the giant is working, they think for a moment more.
“And get me a poking stick!”