Wazup y'all!
Welcome back, sorry it took so long to submit another chapter, we've been putting some time into this chapter.
In this one, we'll take our first real look into underwater exploration, and a brand new creature you have never seen before in Ark!
Enjoy!
(Omni's perspective)
I had my Arthro's retreat to the two ridges within the walls, I gave them the order to attack while outside of his range… Now of course they didn't know what his range was… frankly neither did I. I just hoped they had the instinct to know 'hey that would hurt, I probably shouldn't let him pulverize me.'
I leaped atop STAN (1) and scuttled around Doomsday.
Riptide stepped forward and lowered his front in a defensive position.
Doomsday charged right for him with an immediate chomp to the face. Riptide dodged it easily.
Doomsday may be stronger and more powerful than Riptide, but he is faster than Doomsday.
Rip dashed to the right and jumped off of a tree onto Doomsday's back, breaking the tree in the process. Doomsday grabbed him by the sail, swung him around and into the battlement. Riptide crashed into it and fell to the ground. Before he could even attempt to get up, Doomsday grabbed him by the neck and flung him behind him again, this time into a large rock.
At this point, Riptide's blood started to become visible, with Doomsday not even having a scratch on his Tek components.
Riptide pulled his head up to get up from the rock, but Doomsday stepped onto his side to prevent that and roared to the sky in victory.
An answering roar sounded behind us. Suddenly Berserker, with no care for the massive metal gates of the base, and burst right through them. They didn't even open, he just crashed right through them causing the doors to slam into the ground in front of him.
Berserker's eyes were a faint yellow in challenge to the new Giga opponent; not quite enraged, but still close to it.
"Try not to hurt him!" Care yelled.
"I don't think he's listening!" Mika replied as she pointed at his half-yellow eyes.
The Enforcer's cloud condensed atop our wall.
"Oh I can not wait to see all this burn…" he said gazing at Mika and Care's base.
"Will you rise from the ashes to bother me again? Or will you fall among them?" he gloated in his booming voice.
"There won't be any ashes!" Mika responded sternly.
"But there will be plenty of falling!" I shouted as I sniped the Enforcer.
He fell down behind the wall and into the base.
Then he stepped through the open battlement door frame and said, "So be it." Before whipping out a cannon on his arm and firing at me.
STAN and I scuttled around his blasts and happened to find ourselves hidden beneath Doomsday's legs when he had stopped firing.
Berserker then clashed into Doomsday right at that moment when we were below him.
"Could you maybe do something that doesn't kill him?" I whispered to the scorpion.
The lights from within him then turned grey and he slammed his tail into Doomsday's leg several times while Berserker distracted him. (2)
Doomsday turned and bit down towards us. We narrowly escaped by climbing precariously up the inside of his leg, we then crawled up towards his claws and up to his shoulders to his back.
Berserker of course chose that moment to enrage and not care where I was on Doomsday and just attacked all Willy Nilly.
He smashed himself right into Doomsday, causing us to become airborne for half a second, making us slide off the side of Doomsday's Tek back. We just barely managed to stay on by jamming STAN's tail into the flesh area of his back like an anchor.
This time it really started to anger Doomsday, so he grabbed us with his massive jaws and flung us away, hitting Berserker in the face with his tail in the process.
We tumbled a bit but STAN eventually landed on his legs, sliding to a stop creating a dust cloud in front of us. This gave us an opportunity to sneak up on him.
We dashed to the right and Berserker clamped down on Doomsday's tail. We ran near Doomsday but not close enough to be noticed.
STAN then made a quiet chittering sound before making his venom turn purple. This caused the light from within him to also turn purple.
I let him take control since he obviously knew what he was doing better than me.
We scuttled up to the battle quietly, dashed behind a nearby rock, and then climbed on top of it to then lunge at him and stab him with the purple venom right in the back once again.
I could tell the new purple venom had an effect, either it must not be very potent, or Tek variants or Giga's in general, had a slight immunity to it. But now it finally was. He kept shaking his head every now and then, and not the 'I want you off my back' shake he was doing before, now it was an 'I want you out of my head' one.
The Tek weapons powered down, they just hang limply, but he was still enraged so he ran around smashing the base, he crushed one of my Arthro's and attacked Riptide again before being distracted by Berserker, then he completely flipped Berserker onto his side, when me and STAN intervened and he began shaking, this time back to the 'I want you off my back.' He picked us up with his jaws and crushed us into a rock. Then he turned and slapped Care off of Kong with his tail, causing him to fly into the metal spikes, hard enough to make them topple over, it was so fast I couldn't tell if he was impaled or not. He then crashed through one wall of their base and was stopped by the other side of the house. I'd be surprised if he was still alive.
STAN was a little crinkled from getting smashed but otherwise ok, I had the air squeezed out of my lungs and so I was curled up on the ground struggling to breathe as I watched Mika try and reign in Berserker's rage and try to get him to aim it at Doomsday.
STAN saw that I was unable to fight with him and went solo. He ran up to Doomsday fighting Berserker again, dodging his stomps.
Care then emerged from the base and ran up to the enforcer who was about to disperse into his cloud form to heal Doomsday. He whipped out a Tek dagger and sliced his head off. Then he took the head, whistled to Kong, and then tossed the head into Doomsday's mouth as he went for a chomp to destroy it.
This made the rest of the body shoot through the forest in a retreat.
STAN took this opportunity to jab Doomsday in the foot several times with purple venom again.
Doomsday tried to fight it, shaking his head again. He made a loud roar and then collapsed to the ground, with the yellow glow from his eyes slightly fading.
Care ran up to him and lowered himself by his head.
He put a hand on his face and examined him.
From my observation, it seemed that the Tek components of Doomsday were fighting the purple venom from within Doomsday while he was still half unconscious.
"I'd step away if I were you," I advised.
"No. We can free him."
"No, we can't, the venom won't last much longer."
Even if he didn't understand what that meant it was worth a shot.
"I can't leave him again." Care replied in a slightly angered tone.
"You must unless you want us all to die horrible deaths."
Care gave me a look that let me know that was not helpful.
"I'm not wrong," I replied.
Care then looked back at Doomsday who was panting heavily and then back at me. Then he got up and walked inside, with the rest of the creatures following him.
"What do we do with him?" Mika asked.
"Leave him. He has to retreat to his master."
Mika nodded and entered back into their base as I called my creatures and slowly walked away.
…
I walked through the brush near my cave until I heard something. There were steps, then a whisper, then a soft laugh. I dropped to my stomach immediately.
I slowly crawled to the small ravine where the cave entrance was. I quietly peeked over the edge to see two figures just entering the cave.
I silently dropped to the side of the cave's mouth with my bugs crawling down the wall with me.
I slowly peeked into the cave to see nothing. They are near the main chamber.
I walked freely into the cave without rushing. I then chose a place to stop as my bugs positioned themselves around me.
I then counted down from three in my head.
As soon as I hit zero, I heard screams.
Four figures then sprinted around the corner only to stop in their tracks when they saw me.
I then recognized one of the people as Penny.
"You really think I wouldn't have defenses?" I asked sarcastically as two Arthro's slithered in from behind them.
They shot their gaze to them and then back at me.
"What are your intentions here?"
"To free a friend, you know what it feels like to be enslaved." Penny quipped.
"Yes, but I was enslaved for sport. Blue over there had been terrorizing us for almost the entire time we have been here. This is what he deserves."
"You can't just keep him there!" One of the others exclaimed.
"It's what Penny would have done to me, besides, Blue isn't living that hard of a life. I feed him and let him have walks occasionally. You can join him if you'd like."
Penny gave me an emotionless scowl.
"I will let you leave now, but if you return again I will show you no mercy," I said as STAN walked up to them and lowered his tail barb at them.
The fear in their eyes did amuse me somewhat, especially their walk of shame as they left the cave.
I walked in with a fairly large grin on my face.
As I entered the main chamber, I heard Bue call out to me.
"What was all that noise? What happened?"
"Your friends tried to break you out. Don't worry, they failed miserably."
"Well that's just great." He muttered.
I admit I did feel bad for him at that moment, but then I remembered how much of a jerk he was to us and that went away very quickly.
I then walked over to the nursery to all of my bug larvae. There were Arthro's, Araneo's, even some wild scorpion larvae.
They all seemed to get along well with the tamed larvae, this could be handy in the future.
I then let Blue out for a walk and went to bed afterward.
…
I woke up and headed downstairs to the main part of my base. I cooked up some Sarco meat with some Titanoboa eggs as an omelet. I admit it was pretty good.
I heard shrill sounds echoing from further down the cave, and hissing. Then silence. I listened for a few moments more, and for some reason, my gut told me something happened. I groaned as I stood up from my rocking chair and climbed down the ladder, I then made my way down the cave. In the depths, I could see a faint glow. As I approached I found a tiny little scorpion to be the source of the glow. I looked around and found another small scorpion next to it that was dead, and two older scorpions, also dead. The glowing survivor stood over an unconscious snake. I'm actually surprised the scorpion family had knocked it out, I'd have thought they were immune.
Surprisingly the little baby refrained from ending the snake's life, instead, it stood over it, claws and tail ready to kill, but I guess the little scorpion just couldn't bring itself to do it.
I gently picked up the little scorpion, she squirmed around in surprise, and curiosity before she settled in the crook of my arm, using my other arm I quickly shot the snake. The head bounced once before laying limp, dead.
I turned and gently made my back up through the cave and brought her to STAN.
"STAN, you're the only scorpion I have. I need you to help me take care of her." I spoke.
He snapped his claws three times in quick succession, which I assume means he heard me talking and already knew what to do.
I gently laid the baby in front of him. STAN communicated with it and the baby responded.
Then they both turned and headed for the nursery.
The iridescence of the scorpion reminded me of the stars. Almost like a supernova.
And that'll be her name!
Nova… Nova what though? She almost needs a last name.
Mclain, because it's a common last name, and because I'm too lazy to think of anything else.
But I bet nobody is really gonna call her that, so Nova will be her nickname.
Suddenly, I heard the faint, distant sound of running. Not like the sound of insects shuffling about, this is more like heavy steps, as if it came from a larger creature.
I turned to the source of the noise and saw that it was coming from the entrance.
I whistled all the Arthro's to position themselves around the outside of the tunnel, hidden from the sight of the intruder.
Whatever it was, started to come closer, until finally three Baryonyx riders burst through the tunnel and stopped once they saw me, supposedly all alone.
"No more guard dogs huh?" One of them mocked.
"We demand you release Blue. We obviously have the upper hand so stand down and cooperate." Penny demanded.
"And what if I say no?" I quipped.
"Use your imagination." The third mused.
"We have Tek armor! The strongest armor there is!" Penny said, gesturing to his armor.
"That may be true, but I believe there is something you don't know."
"And what's that, gremlin?" One of them mocked.
I then made a quick whistle and all the 17 Arthro's positioned behind them all fired acid blasts at them.
They were completely knocked off their mounts as all of them started to melt.
I then walked up to Penny and mused, "Arthro acid melts Tek."
Then I walked away with their screams echoing throughout the cave.
They all died, including their tames, but the stubborn idiots came back.
"Back for another round?" I asked as the Arthro's raised themselves behind me.
"Please. Just let him go. We won't bother you anymore." One of them said as they shamefully walked up.
"He is paying for what he did," I responded with my arms crossed.
"Is there any bail we can offer you then?" Penny asked.
I thought about this for a moment.
"There is one thing," I said with a smirk.
…
I patiently waited at the mouth of the cave.
I'd seen Troodons in the forest not too far from the cave, so they didn't have to go too far… however I knew they were A: incompetent, B: would struggle to tame the things, and C: they'd have to find it first. As they are quite sneaky.
Finally, after about an hour, they returned. With five Troodons.
"How'd it go?" I asked rhetorically.
"Well we each died about 4 dozen times…" one said.
They unclaimed the Troodons for me to claim them afterward.
"Now… Blue." Penny demanded.
I made a whistle and four Arthro's came out with Blue in the middle. He was wrapped in some light webbing, courtesy of Weaver behind him.
I unlocked his cuffs and pushed him out of the cave.
"Let this be a warning. If you come back. I will hunt every one of you down and you will live in my cave as food for my bugs. They won't kill you, they will eat you alive to the point of death, only for you to heal again. And again. And again."
One of them backed away slowly.
"Never come back. Ever."
Then my Arthro's jumped forward and shrieked at them, causing them to run away in a panic.
I let out a soft chuckle over my power. Nothing can defeat me and my army.
I finally turned and walked back into the cave with my Troodons following.
As it started to get darker the deeper we walked into the cave, the Troodons eyes started to glow.
I walked inside and gave the Troodons some meat from my fridges.
As I was tending to them at the base of my solitude, I heard a difference in the wind coming from the entrance, like something was blocking it.
I turned to see a dark humanoid figure quietly maneuvering through the cave.
I did the same in quiet pursuit. I did not dispatch it quite yet, out of curiosity.
I started to advance behind the figure until I was about a meter away.
Before I could react, there was a long blade an inch away from my face.
"Back away." The person said sternly in a female-sounding voice.
"You are trespassing," I responded.
"You don't own the caves."
"I own this one."
She paused for a moment as a couple of Arthro's slithered up behind me.
"I'm only here for the artifact."
"Very well, you may get the artifact. But you leave immediately after."
She nodded hesitantly and dashed into the deeper parts of the cave.
Before I got to the main chamber again, she had already come back with the Hunter artifact.
"That was fast…" I observed as she started to walk past me.
"I know my way around this place very well, you could call me an expert on the creatures here." She responded.
"And where did this knowledge come from, may I ask?"
"Observations. I've been here for a long time…"
As she started to walk off again I stopped her.
"What do you plan to do with the artifact?"
"You ask a lot of questions." She quipped.
"I don't want it falling into the wrong hands, who knows what it can do."
"I do. That's why I need it. It's the only way to open the gate."
"Gate?" I asked.
"The gate to the Overseer. The one in the volcano."
"The Overseer? That's what the Enforcer keeps bringing up!" I realized.
"The Enforcer?" she inquired.
"Yeah… he sucks, he gets mad if you take an artifact. He's basically like, as his title implies; an Enforcer for whoever is in power here."
"Which is the Overseer… and I've taken many Artifacts, why haven't I encountered him?"
"Maybe he is targeting us for some reason?" I suggested.
"That doesn't make any sense." She trailed off.
"Well, on another note, what's your name?"
"Autumn."
"Wait, you're a dossier writer aren't you?" I asked, surprised.
"Yeah… How did you know?"
"I'm good friends with Thug and Mary. I have yet to meet you, however."
"I didn't know Thug made friends."
"He is an interesting character." I mused.
"I do have one question though." I continued, "Why do you want to go to the Overseer?"
"My goal is to stop him from having control over this Island, but I really don't know what will happen if I defeat him."
"Well, best of luck to you," I replied.
"Thanks." She said as she dashed into the night.
…
(Mika's perspective)
I took one last look at Doomsday before I closed the gate behind me.
I walked over to Care who was brooding in a corner near his monkeys.
"You good?" I asked.
"Yeah." He muttered.
"You sure?"
There was a pause before he replied again.
"You remember when you said that when something dies, you just have to move on?"
"Yeah?" I hesitated.
"Show me how." He said bluntly as he looked me in the eye.
Then Thug flew in with his jetpack and landed on one knee with his fist in the ground.
That pose seemed vaguely familiar.
He got up and walked over to us.
"I heard what happened. You guys ok?"
"Yeah, he didn't do too much damage to the base."
I then walked up and pulled him to the side.
"Care's in a bit of a bad place. The Giga that attacked was the same Giga you gave us, he's having trouble getting over it."
"If it was tamed by him, then why isn't it out of rage mode yet?"
"It's being controlled by the enforcer."
"Well that's not good!" He exclaimed in a whisper.
"I know. We're still trying to figure out how to get him back. In the meantime, Care needs his spirits lifted."
"I got it." He said as he turned to Care.
"Yo Care!" He called out.
"What's up?" He replied in a depressed tone.
"You like going on rampages with your monkeys right?"
"Yeah?"
"Wanna go on one with me?"
As soon as he finished the sentence something jumped over the wall and walked to Thug's side.
"Oh, that is cool." I mused.
…
We walked on into the dense forests. Care had Kong, Abominable, and King Louie at his side while Thug and I were up ahead scouting the land ahead of us.
There were trekking through the dense forestry to hear the sounds of Rex's roaring. From the sound of it, there were about four or five.
I walked up toward the sound behind some bushes that separated us from a clearing.
I lifted the leaves to see a group of bipedal creatures that looked similar to Parasaurs, except without their signature crest. Instead, they have their own crest that looks like half of a deformed disc.
I then noticed that they were the source of the commotion. They were creating the Rex roars!
"You guys seeing this?" I asked the others without breaking my gaze with these remarkable creatures.
"Are they… roaring?" Care asked hesitantly.
Thug stood up straight with a compound bow in his hand. He then sent an arrow into one of the creatures' sides.
It fell to the ground immediately, causing the others to flee, revealing a pack of Carno's.
"They were defending themselves from the Carno's by making the Rex calls." Care realized.
"Protect the body!" Thug called out as he jumped over the bushes.
We jumped in as well as Care whistled all the monkeys to attack.
They all rushed the Carno's.
However, when this happened the Carno pack started to rush as well, revealing all of their numbers.
"We can't take that!" Care exclaimed.
"Yes, we can." Thug said with a smirk.
Then Thug's creature dashed forward and jumped into one of the Carno's faces, slamming them into the ground.
The other Carno's were running fast enough to not be able to stop in time due to their momentum and trip over the fallen Carno.
The monkeys assisted it and eventually killed all of the Carno's.
"What is that thing?" Care asked, referring to Thug's creature.
"That my friend is a Tek Saber. One of the strongest Tek variants."
The Saber snarled in response.
Then we heard thrashing and roaring from where the Carno's were.
Then the Alpha Carno emerged from the forestry.
The burning creature bellowed at us and charged.
The Saber did the same and grabbed its arm and flipped it around onto its side, to slide through the dirt.
As the creature was pinned, the Tek Saber took this opportunity to slash away at its face, until there was a claw-marked hole through its skull.
Once the Alpha was killed, Thug turned back to the creature he shot down.
Apparently, he tranqed it to keep it alive.
He took out the creature's implant and looked into his own. Then he started to write.
into a sheet of paper.
"New creature for you too?" I presumed.
"It's called the Corythosaurus. (3) It can create a vast variety of vocal sounds. They can do this to imitate the sounds of other creatures for defense or to create stampedes to redirect other creatures."
"Interesting."
"I think I'm going to tame this one." Thug mused.
After Thug tamed the Corthy, as we call it, we continued to walk through the forest.
We walked through to find an outpost with a group of large humans with Tek armor and heavy southern accents.
One of them walked up to me and got big in Care's face.
"What you doin' in these parts boy?" He said in his deep redneck voice.
"Mind your own business." Care replied sternly.
"'Scuse me?" He asked.
"We're just scouting, we don't want any trouble." Thug said cautiously.
"Hey, nice pet." One of the others said in a similar redneck voice.
"Hey man," Care started putting himself in between him and the Saber, "Why don't you go back to drinking beers and watching NASCAR."
Then one of them grabbed me by the chest plate and held me up.
"A smart talker huh? I don't like smart talkers." He said.
Then Thug hooked him in the face to drop him.
"Back off." He said seriously.
"Or what?" He said in a mocking tone.
Then Thug made a whistle and the Saber dashed forward and slashed at his neck.
"Ha! What's that gonna do? That's Tek armor smart guy!" One of the others mocked.
Then the other held his neck and his eyes went wild. Then his helmet started to slowly fill with blood as he fell to the ground, lifeless.
"You're right." Thug started as he stripped the body of the armor, "Tek Saber's can cut through any material."
Then he took off the helmet and said, "And now the armor is ours." as he dumped the blood out of the helmet.
The dead survivor turned white and respawned as we started to walk away, then their biggest tribe member stomped in front of us.
"I'm warning you." Care said in a low tone.
The other one stood his ground and held eye contact.
Then Abominable jumped forward and punched him into the forest, knocking him through three trees.
"I warned you." Care quipped.
I then walked up to the corpse of the person that Abominable rocketed into the forest. I noticed that the body within the armor was completely broken, but the armor was barely damaged.
Stripping the corpse of its armor was a bit of a struggle, but free Tek armor is free Tek armor.
One of the people there stepped back and ran, he was wearing a bunch of bird skulls on his shoulders. I wasn't certain but seeing as he wore a black feathered cape, I assumed it was ravens or crows.
The others turned and ran off in different directions, we decided to leave them be, hoping they'd learn not to cross us.
I took the armor and gave it to Care. Then we left and started our trek back home.
We walked back into our base, and saw Mary and Omni inside.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Come." She said without acknowledging my question.
We came to a small stone structure she created within our base and noticed Bigfoot was lying down on the carpet floor.
"What's going on?" Care asked, concerned.
"See for yourself," Mary said with a smile.
Then Bigfoot rolled over and faced us, revealing that she was pregnant.
"Wait… we brought Kong and King Louie. So who's the father?" Care asked hesitantly.
Then Yeti let out a huff from behind us.
"You're joking." I assumed.
Mary slowly turned her head saying I was wrong.
"But they aren't even the same species! This isn't Jurassic Park!" I exclaimed.
"Maybe not, but the Yeti and the Gigantopithecus are closely related." She pointed out.
"So you're telling me, we are about to have a half-Yeti-half-monkey hybrid," Care asked, still pondering the concept.
"That is correct, you will be the first to create this hybrid."
"But I didn't create it." He responded.
She shrugged and turned back to Bigfoot, who was grunting softly.
"She only has about an hour left before she gives birth."
"Gives birth?" I asked.
"Yes, they're mammals." She confirmed.
"Ok, imma head out before anything gross goes down."
"I would stay and… help, but I got my own baby animal to tend to," Omni mentioned.
"Well, I'm gonna go too. I have my own business to attend to." I said.
"Have fun." Care and Mary called.
We walked outside of the hatchery and tended to my creatures. I fed the Rex's and then our Spino's as Crystal did whatever she was doing, this time with a bunch of Compy's and other useless creatures.
Then I noticed a sad expression on Omni's face staring out at the water.
"I thought you were leaving, is something wrong?" I asked.
"I made a really big mistake."
"What happened?"
"I left something at the old base."
"What?" Mika asked.
"Depthcharge…"
"Oh… um… wow, I completely forgot about him."
"Me too…" (4)
"Do you even think he'd still be alive?"
"I wasn't feeding him so I doubt it."
"Well… did he have anything valuable?"
"Way to comfort a man grieving his giant dead anglerfish, ask if it was worth anything." I joked.
"I'm being practical."
"I'm sure you are… and no he didn't have anything valuable, I don't think so anyway."
"Do you want to look for him?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure."
Then we heard a shout from the hatchery.
"It's a girl!"
We ran up to the hatchery to see Care holding a light brown and white baby monkey, absolutely covered in a thick fluid.
I could not hold back the disgusted look on my face from the nasty stuff covering Care's arms.
"I'm grossed out too, but she'll dry soon." He said as he grabbed some cloth near him.
He dried the baby with the cloth and gave her a small mejo berry.
It looked at it very confused and held it up. Then after a moment of gazing at it, she put it in her mouth and started nibbling on it. She was so small the tiny mejo berry could cover her entire palm.
"Ok that is cute," I said.
"I'm naming her Sasquatch. The offspring of Bigfoot and Yeti."
"And… it is no longer cute." I corrected.
"I'm going to introduce her to the rest of the monkeys."
While he ran off, I started talking with Omni again.
"So do you want to go in the water?"
"Yeah, if Depthcharge died I could always replace him, I just feel bad that I left him."
"I'm sure he's alive," Mary mentioned, "anglers typically kill everything around them."
"How do you know Depthcharge is an angler?" Omni asked.
"I know lots of things." She said as she walked out.
The door closed behind her for a moment before it opened and she poked her head back in.
"And you said so."
I shrugged and followed her out.
"The underwater regions are very dangerous, you can't wear armor or you'll sink and drown." Mary started, "Instead you need to wear these."
Then she handed us each a wetsuit with oxygen tanks and flippers.
"Oh I've already used these before," Omni said.
"Then there's less of a chance of you dying." She quipped.
She grabbed the book of dossiers from inside our house and showed us all the creatures we could encounter.
"The most dangerous creature that you will most likely encounter is the Mosasaurus. They are very big and very fast, it's basically the underwater version of a Rex."
"Well that's comforting," I mumbled.
"Trust me, being mauled by a giant underwater Rex is not fun, just be mindful of your surroundings." She concluded.
"I'm coming too, you'll never know if you need help fending off a giant squid or something." Care said from behind us.
We all jumped on our respective Argy's and Care on Survivor, and flew over to our old base, or what was left of it.
At this point, instead of it being a smoking pile of rubble, it almost looks like the structures we find with new explorer notes, old looking with vines and other plantations crawling through the shattered bricks.
"We haven't been gone that long, have we?" I thought aloud.
"Time moves differently here, It's why your Bigfoot was only pregnant for a couple of days instead of months," Mary explained.
We flew down to the beach and dismounted our Argy's. I turned to look into our ancient ruins of a base, the cabin Care and Omni lived in that seemed to be half burned away, my metal bunker that had burn marks and dents all over it, even some of the husks of fallen Spino's still stayed. Even Hookfang's, partially eaten away by wild creatures.
I turned away and got into my wet suit.
"Here, I made some masks for you as well," Mary said as she each tossed us a mask, except this one covered your mouth as well as your eyes.
"This is different to the original mask engram, why change it?" Omni asked.
"So we can talk over our radios," She responded as she handed us each a small box on a wire, "I made them waterproof."
We thanked her and entered the water.
The four of us slowly went deeper and deeper into the darker parts of the ocean.
"Testing testing, one two three." Care buzzed into the radio.
"We can hear you dude." Omni groaned.
"Oh, ok good."
"Why are you so loud? Is there a volume setting?" Omni continued.
Then Omni spotted something to the right of us. There was a soft glow, dashing around wildly.
Omni swam over to it cautiously, with a metal pike in hand.
As he got closer, with us following behind him, the creature started to become more evident.
It was certainly an angler from the looks of it.
Omni slowly took out a tranq spear and continued to swim closer to it.
Then it stopped moving, it spotted us.
"Be warned, Anglers are very fast, They will latch onto you and pull you down to the depths and crush you with the weight of the water," Mary said.
Omni moved closer and stopped, then the angler dashed forward and slammed into him.
"It's him! He's alive!" Omni shouted through the radio as he embraced the ugly creature.
He flipped around Depthcharge and mounted him, then he fed him some meat.
We continued on with our search through the depths.
"It's not as dark as I thought it would be." Care observed, "How deep are we?"
"Right now about 50 meters, the lowest portion of the seabed is 75 meters deep," Mary replied.
"Alrighty, where all them Tuso's at?" Care joked.
We swam on to giant rock formations at the seabed.
"Beautiful." I mused.
Then we started to hear loud moans and bellows.
"Ooooooooooh I really don't like this..." Care said as he swerved around wildly to see all the area around him and all times.
Then the bellowing started to get louder.
Omni Mary and myself involuntarily created a safe circle, pointing our backs to each other looking for the source of the noises.
My eyes dashed everywhere as the moans got louder.
Care, who was about a meter to my left, was doing the same until I saw something in my peripheral.
Behind Care, the water behind him seemed to be… moving.
Whatever was behind him blended in perfectly with the darkness of the water.
"Uhhhh… Care?" I hesitated.
"Yeah?"
He noticed my shocked expression as the creature approached behind him.
He then slowly turned to see the massive fish behind him.
"WHAT IN THE FRESH HELL IS THAT?!" He screamed into the radio as he swam backward at full speed.
The creature bellowed as it swam over us, creating a massive shadow as it moved.
I watched as it slowly moved over us, taking note of its fins, scales, and massive tail.
We were slightly pushed away from the force of its tail as it continued on away from us.
"A Leedsichthys. One of the largest fish that ever existed." Mary said, "It's passive, but it will destroy any boat it sees."
"I want one." Care mused.
"They are untamable," Mary responded.
"Why?"
"One of the many questions asked about this ark." She mused.
"Y'know, when we return, I'll need someone to care for Depthcharge." Omni realized.
"So you've just automatically volunteered me?" Care asked.
I swam over just to slap him in the back of the head, which to get the desired effect I had to swing pretty hard.
"Ey!" Care shouted as he whirled around to face me.
"Whoa… Umm Mika, SHARK!"
I didn't need to look behind me to confirm, I just turned and kicked towards the seafloor, aiming to take shelter in the coral. I felt the water rippling out from the force of its jaws snapping shut. As the radio remained silent I assumed Care managed to get out of its way as well.
Looking up from my coral haven I saw Mary with a pike, racing toward the Meg.
Care and Omni were floating slightly above me.
Mary narrowly avoided the shark's jaws and dragged the bladed tip along the tip of its snout and down to the tail, the tail flipping knocked the pike from her hands and it sailed away.
She was nearly defenseless.
She drew a small knife, and on the shark's next passing attempt she impaled its dorsal fin and began to ride the shark as it thrashed to hurl her off.
Omni swam off to grab the pike. He grabbed it but encountered a strange scorpion-like creature. He tossed the pike to Care who then threw it up to Mary. seeing as the strange scorpions tended to stay near the seafloor, we all rose up a little to be out of their reach.
Mary managed to catch the pike and impaled its eye. It continued to thrash around trying to shake her off. Then she pushed the pike in further, impaling its brain. The shark's momentum carried it forward until its snout slammed into the group of scorpions. The massive predator's presence was enough to scare them off.
"Well…" I started between breaths, "that was… exciting."
"That was the Megalodon, known for their abnormal size compared to other sharks and their aggressiveness," Mary explained.
"Great, now there's giant sharks. How fun." Care grumbled.
We swam along the sea bed to find a creature with a spiral-shaped shell and long tentacles.
"Woahhhh." Omni said as he stopped in his tracks, "Don't go near that thing."
"Why not?" Care asked.
"If you touch it, it will release a green cloud that alerts all creatures near you and makes them all aggressive. I encountered one myself on the day I tamed Depthcharge, he saved my life down here."
"They are called Ammonites," Mary said.
"Duly noted…" Care said as he backed away.
We swam on for a couple more minutes before someone finally spoke up.
"What exactly is our objective here?" Omni asked as he loosely followed Mary along with the rest of us.
"Our objective is to acquire what all Survivors should have, knowledge." She responded.
Then, as if on cue, a large creature rushed to our right directly in front of my face.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Care shrieked.
"So it's a good thing you have me around, or you'd be dead already." Mary continued as if not even noticing the creature.
"What are you implying?" Omni asked.
"That you have no knowledge of the deep, which is why all of you are as scared as you are. People fear what they do not understand." She said as she turned to face us.
Then a huge creature slowly approached us behind Mary, it had four fins, a long face, and lots of teeth.
Then Mary took out something from her inventory, which seemed to be some sort of deep-sea lantern, and turned it on.
Then we saw all the creatures surrounding us, all facing Mary.
"I brought you here to teach you the ways of the deep so that you would fear nothing, but instead use the fear of others against them. The Mosasaurus is my weapon of choice." She said as the Mosa behind her growled.
"I am the master of the ocean."
(Care's perspective)
We sped through the sea at lightning speed. I felt powerful atop my brand new Mosa.
Mary led on one of her Mosasaurus with Mika following on hers.
Omni followed as fast as he could on Depthcharge who was slightly faster than us.
I looked back to see the clouds of Mosa's following us.
"So, do you like, own all the water creatures?" I asked.
"No, in fact, this Mosa is the only water tame I have left, the only reason the others don't attack is because they respect me. In essence, I am their queen."
"What did you do to become 'ocean master'?" Omni asked.
"I have tamed every species possible and killed every alpha variant. By killing the alphas I gained the respect of other creatures. They fear me."
"Damn…" Mika mused.
After a few minutes later, we made it back to base.
We positioned our tamed Mosa's inside the base boundaries and got out of the water.
"Wait a second," Omni started, "How long did it take for us to get here?"
"Like ten minutes," Care responded.
"You do realize we just traveled halfway around the island right?"
"That's how fast we were going?" Mika confirmed.
"I guess you picked some really fast tames," Mary said.
We walked back into our base, I then ran over to the monkey enclosure.
Bigfoot was there playing with Sasquatch, who is now a juvenile.
"While you attend to your bundle of cuteness, I should go attend to mine. Could you keep Depthcharge for me?" Omni said to me and Care.
"No problem," I replied.
"Where were you?" Crystal asked.
"We went swimming," Mika replied as she walked over to the Mosa's to feed them.
"Technically the tames swam, we just rode them," Omni noted as he wandered by.
"Oh hey Omni, you went too?" she asked
"Yeah, had to go find Depthcharge," he answered.
"Who?"
"His giant Anglerfish from like a month ago," I answered.
"I'm gonna head out, see ya later," Omni called.
"Oh, bring Nova by next time you visit!" Mika exclaimed from the Mosa's.
"I'll try to find a way to bring her," he answered as he left the gate.
(Omni's perspective)
I walked through the forest, behind me Caustic scuttled around.
We'd already been walking for 20 minutes, it was another 30 or so minute walk to get to my base.
I heard rustling in the bushes to my right.
Both me and Caustic halted. I quickly mounted him and we silently crawled up a tree.
Looking down I saw 4 figures. One was easily recognizable as the crow-feather-cape-wearing man from before, no one else had such an 'outlandish' outfit.
The other was wearing the least camouflage outfit I've ever seen, even worse than the feather cape. He was wearing bright shiny blue armor. The last wore white armor. The three stood in a triangle around a woman, wearing a simple hide suit, it seemed it had been patched many times too. She was gagged and glared up at them from her knees.
Behind her, her arms were bound to a small metal nail or peg in the ground.
Riding Caustic I slowly maneuvered in the trees behind the white armored figure, the one she had been glaring at. As she was lower than them, and looking up, I hoped she could see me over his shoulder.
She got slightly more feisty, I assume that means she saw me.
I quickly removed the sniper from my inventory and placed it on my back for easy access. I also took out the flare gun.
This time I'm certain she saw me as the two of us made eye contact. At that moment I covered my eyes with my free hand while holding the flare gun in her view. I only hope she understood or she'd have a very bad headache in 3 seconds.
The woman continued to struggle.
"I've had enough, strip her." the feathered one ordered.
Her eyes widened, and while it would hurt more with her wide-eyed shock I fired without checking to see if she had obeyed my silent command.
The three standing members dropped to their knees alongside her.
Switching to the sniper I managed to fire 3 shots before the feathered one stood and evaded the fourth.
The other two had blown apart kneecaps and the woman was no longer bound to the nail but was still unable to use her hands, I didn't trust my sniping skills that much.
Caustic and I leaped out of the tree and pinned the blue one crushing him, undoubtedly breaking a few bones, acid was melting the white one before I even gave the command. And surprisingly instead of fleeing and letting me deal with it, the woman had attempted to tackle the feathered one.
She did manage to knock him down, but he flipped her over which caused them to roll down a hill.
I whistled Caustic to watch the other two, then I ran down the hill after them.
I managed to slide down the hill steadily almost like surfing, it gave me a chance to take a shot with my sniper. It definitely hit him, but he didn't seem to have been too wounded as he continued trying to beat the woman.
I began to run down. I quickly pulled out a pike and gained on them as they rolled and I ran.
They came to a stop in which the feathered man stood up and held a gun to the woman's head.
I arrived just in time to catch him in the thigh with the pike and used my momentum to hurl him away, the shot went really wide.
I stopped spinning by driving my pike into the ground. I turned and used the momentum of my sudden stop and transferred it to a spear, hurling it and impaling the feathered man through the shoulder and into a tree.
… and then I tripped. And toppled head over heels and slammed into a tree next to him.
Groggily standing up, I found the man unconscious from either blunt force trauma from the tree or from blood loss.
I approached the woman and promptly severed the ropes binding her wrists.
I turned away, since, while she was wearing undergarments… some of her armor had been torn up or even off in the tumble. I quickly dropped her my own chitin chest plate, as females generally had more to cover up. Looking away up the hill, I saw one of her gloves and both her boots, one somehow managed to be hanging from a branch in a tree!
"I'm good." She reassured me.
I turned to find the armor was way too small on her, however, it thankfully covered up the… important areas.
"What happened there?" I asked.
"The white one and black one had attacked my base when I first started, my tribe of two was separated, I tried to find her but always encountered them. This time there were three, and well… the rest is pretty self-explanatory," she answered.
I nodded in understanding.
"Look, I can't promise you much in terms of resources or an invitation to the tribe, but I can tell you, we'll deal with them if they bother you," I assured, casting a glance at the hill as Caustic crawled down with both comatose on his back.
"And anyway, we have a personal vendetta against them already," I said upon recognizing Blue and Penny.
"And we had a fleeting incident with Mr chicken over there," I said, gesturing over my shoulder with my thumb.
"That's Crow."
"No kidding," I replied, referring to his ridiculous outfit.
"Do you need anything?" she asked.
"Well… I should be asking you that."
"I'm fine, I've dealt with these guys before."
"I've also dealt with them before, and I know that they don't give up. So, while I can't offer you permanent residence at my base, I can offer you a temporary shelter."
"That'd be great thanks, but may I ask, why aren't you allowed to offer me permanent residence."
"One, I live separated from my tribe, I'm a bit of a loner, and I'm not the tribe leader. Two, you won't want to stay very long when you see what I have in my home or the people who attack it."
"I really doubt anything worse is being raided by Blue, Penny, and Crow, and then locked in their tiny disgusting rotting jail cell," she replied.
"Heh, you have no idea…" I chuckled.
(Ash's perspective)
We walked for about an hour before we got to the Hunter cave.
"So where is your base exactly?" I asked.
"Follow me." He said with a smirk as he walked into the cave.
"Alright…" I said hesitantly.
We walked deeper into the cave until we were greeted by four Arthro's, similar to the one Omni had with him.
He gestured to them and they backed off.
We walked through the opening to the large inner chamber of the cave, with a large construct in the center.
I couldn't help but let out a "Woah..." At the size of this base.
"One question, do bugs gross you out?" He asked me.
"Not really, no."
"Great." He said as he revealed the hordes of giant bugs crawling over eggs in the wall and even the base itself.
"Wow…" I mused as I examined the eggs.
"How did you get them to reproduce?" I asked.
"I didn't, the creatures have their own free will here."
"So… they're not tamed?"
"Not all of them, no. The ones that are wild are aware of what I can do and mind their own business rather than attack me."
"So, in a way, you still tamed them."
"How so?"
"Taming is more than drugging a creature and shoving food down its gullet. It's about gaining their trust." I said.
"Fair point." He replied.
We started to walk down a chamber pathway toward Omni's base.
"Speaking of, do you have any tames?" He asked.
"I did, but they stayed with the tribe I was in. We had Spino's, Theri's, Allo's, lots of stuff."
"Sounds like a solid tribe." He remarked.
"It was until Crow interfered. We didn't even do anything to him. He tortured me because it was fun."
"What a psycho," Omni grumbled.
"Yeah, I wish I could find Mika again."
Omni stopped in his tracks.
"Who?"
"Mika, my old tribe mate."
"Uhhhh… come with me please."
"But… we just got here?" I exclaimed as he pulled me toward the entrance.
"Trust me, there's someone you should see."
…
We shot through the skies on Omni's Argy. I marveled at the beauty of the island below us as we crossed over it. I could see the huge trees of the Redwoods, the frozen river in the north, the swamplands, I could see everything.
We slowly started to dive toward the northern beaches of the Island, where the snow met the grassland.
We landed in a fairly large fort, surrounded by battlements. Inside was a small house at the water between two peaks of terrain reaching toward the ocean.
I thought it was beautiful.
We dismounted and approached the house, then Omni knocked on the door.
A stocky male who was twice the height of Omni opened it.
"Sup." He said.
Omni gestured to me to wait outside for a moment while he and the man walked in.
He came out about a minute later and asked me to follow him again.
I'm starting to get confused by his behavior.
We then walk toward the water. I then noticed two large water creatures and a small black one.
"What are those?" I asked in amazement.
"Those are Mosasaurus, the Rex's of the ocean, and that is Depthcharge, my Angler."
"Amazing," I mumbled.
Then I noticed something approaching from the depths at a high speed.
Out of instinct, I yelled, "Get back!" And pushed Omni away.
We tripped and fell on our backs as the creature crashed through the surface.
I got up to then realize this creature was another Mosasaurus, with a rider.
"It's ok," Omni said as he propped himself up on his elbows.
"I didn't think I could spook you that easily, Omni." A woman's voice called out from the back of the creature.
"I assure you, you didn't" Omni called back.
Then she jumped down onto the shore with a pike and bag of supplies in each hand and walked toward us.
I recognized her voice but she was just far enough away for me to not be able to see her fully.
She kept walking toward us as I rubbed the sand from my face.
Then she helped me up and introduced herself.
"You must be one of Omni's new captives, I'm Mika."
Wait… What?
"Mika…?" I asked hesitantly.
Then she gasped once she recognized me.
She grappled onto me in the tightest hug and said in almost a whimper, "I'm so sorry Ash! I'm so sorry. I tried to find you, I really did!"
I managed to pry her off me and said, "It's good to see you too."
She laughed in between her sobs and pulled me in again.
I looked behind me to see Omni in a sitting position in the sand, I nodded to him as a thank you and he did the same in acknowledgment.
Mika let me go quickly and turned to clean herself up. The large male had run down to see what the noise was about, I assumed.
"What's going on guys?" He asked.
Omni turned to him and explained that I was a friend of Mika's and that we just reunited.
"That's great! Do you have a tribe?" He asked.
Mika gasped again and said, "You can join ours! Unless you do have your own…"
"I don't," I said with a smile.
"I'll build you a room." The man said as he started to back away.
"Oh, I'm Care by the way." He said just before he walked away.
"Nice to meet you," I replied as he went back to the house.
A few minutes later, Mika and myself were taking a tour of the creatures that they had. We had gotten to the Spino's and I had recognized one of them.
"Good to see you again, Poseidon." I mused as I put my hand on his elongated snout.
"Where's Neptune?" I asked Mika.
She responded by looking toward the ground and softly nodding.
"Oh, sorry Mika."
"It's alright, that was a long time ago."
Then the earth below us started to tremble. Omni and Care came to us in a hurry as it started to intensify.
"What's going on?" Care asked.
"We were about to ask you the same question!" Mika exclaimed over the sound of the rumbling.
We then heard trees cracking and falling over behind us on the other side of the battlement.
We looked over it to see the biggest sauropod I've ever seen, and it was coming right for us.
(1) I don't remember if this was mentioned last chapter but SSTAN will be spelled as STAN because one: it looks like a typo for another name, and two: it looks better with one "S". So yeah.
(2) So when we specify that within STAN starts to emit a grey light, that is actually his venom type. Jdog and myself came up with the idea for several Tek creatures to have their own ability. The Tek scorpion's ability is to have several types of venom. Grey = stamina draining, Green = poison inducing, Purple = Torpor inducing (Kind of like a mind-controlling serum that has a limited effect).
(3) Credit to Nateman364 for this fantastic idea! Go to his page to see an entire dossier collection of his creation along with another great Ark story! You can find his profile by looking him up or by looking at the story followers page.
(4) Remember when the three survivors left the original base to split up to run away from the enforcer? Yeah, we COMPLETELY forgot about Depthcharge! So the "Me too" this footnote is positioned at is coming from us...