After passing a large cactus-like plant that was reaching up to the sky, they came to a swamp.
"Is that a swamp in the desert?" Haley asked.
"Yes, it is," Zeon said. "It may not be a natural thing in your world, like an oasis, but it's completely natural in the monster dimension."
Just then, a bang came from outside on the left wing.
They looked out and saw smoke and sparks flying from inside the wing.
"What's happening?" Kirby shouted.
"Most of the power in the wing has been damaged!" Zeon shouted back. "I can't control it."
"Prepare for crash landing again!" Cadence shouted.
The vehicle hurtled towards the desert swamp; it slammed through the trees and was stopped by some vines.
"Hooray for the vines," Jake said. But then the vines broke through the windows and tried to wrap around the group.
"What's going on?" Hayley asked.
"These vines have a mind of their own," Zeon said. "Everyone, get out quick!"
The door wouldn't open because the vines were wrapping around the vehicle like snakes, so Jake turned on the scent shower.
The purple gas leaked everywhere, and the vines stooped attacking them and fled.
The vehicle fell on the ground with a thud and the vines retreated back into the trees.
"Great idea, Jake," Hayley said. "How did you know that the gas would drive away the vines?'
"I didn't," Jake said. "I just thought that if I'm going to be squeezed by vines, I'd want to use the scent shower one more time; it smells like the school cafeteria on taco day."
"What even caused us to fall out of the sky?" Cadence asked.
The group went to look and found something the size of a large cat moving around on the wing.
"A baby Mongolian Death worm," Zeon said.
"How did it get onto the wing?" Kirby asked as the worm jumped off and burrowed into the ground.
"It must've been blasted onto the wing by the sand geyser that hit us before," Zeon said.
"So, now we're stuck in a swamp that reeks worse than Jake's gym shorts," Cadence said.
"Hey!" Jake said.
"Don't worry," Zeon said. "There's another way we can get through this swamp without having to fly, so everyone climb on."
After everyone climbed back into the vehicle, Zeon switched on the backup power and pressed another button.
The wings retracted back in, and the vehicle began to hover.
"This vehicle has a hovering mechanism too," Kirby said.
"There are areas in this swamp that are too sticky to drive through, so this is an easier way to go," Zeon said.
"But this is pretty cool," Jake said.
They watched out the windows for any other monsters that might live in the swamp. They passed by trees with blinking eyes, squishy chutes that were pumping out fumes like smokestacks, and more living vines.
After a little while, they stopped at a river with mist rising from it where there were large puddles of mud.
"Why've we stopped?" Jake asked.
"Put on some boots from the closet and cover your scent," Zeon said. "I want to show you something."
After putting on the boots and covering their scent, the Troop came out of the vehicle and walked with Zeon over to one of the bubbling mud puddles.
"This mud smells terrible," Kirby said, looking green.
"This mud smells like the goo of Monster 459, Fire Salamanders," Zeon said.
"But if this mud smells like fire salamander goo," Jake said looking a little nervous. "Then that would mean…"
Before he could finish, something crashed through the trees.
A large herd of repticores lumbered out of the swamps.
They came to the mud puddles, dipped their tentacles into the mud, and covered their hides with the mud.
"What are they doing?" Hayley asked.
"Because repticores live in desert areas, they travel to these mud puddles to cool themselves down with the mud and protect their hides from drying out in the sun just like elephants in the human world do," Zeon explained. "And the reason why repticores are drawn to the scent of fire salamander goo in the human world is because they think that the smell is coming from one of these mud puddles, even if they know that they're in the human world."
"I don't think any of us have thought of it like that before," Hayley said.
"But there is more to why the repticore is drawn to fire salamander goo," Zeon said. "Many of the repticores that Troops around the human world have fought were females; because for their mating rituals, males rub this mud on their backs to attract females; the males with the most scent gets to mate."
"If there are two males and one female left, the two remaining males will fight until one of them is exhausted or dead."
"So, we get to learn about how monsters mate too," Kirby said pulling out his camera. "I gotta get some shots of this."
It wasn't too long before something else came lumbering out of the trees, but it wasn't a repticore; it was a giant sauropod like monster with an elephant trunk, two elephant tusks, and spines lining down its back and all over its tail too.
"What is that?" Jake slowly said.
"Monster 437, Mokele-Mbembe," Zeon said.
The mokele-mbembe lumbered over to the repticores and roared at them; the repticores roared back.
The mokele-mbembe lifted up its whip-like tail and whipped most of the spines from its tail at the repticores, so they back down and lumbered away.
The team then hid behind some trees to avoid being spotted.
"What happened?" Kirby asked, taking a couple of shots of the giant beast.
"Mokele-mbembes are sometimes territorial and destructive around other monsters when they're near a body of water," Zeon said. "Those spines on its tail are sharp enough to even pierce the impenetrable hide of a repticore. They're one of what you call 'The Five Most'."
"The only five most that Hayley and I have defeated was a griffin," Jake said.
"Yes, Monster 844, Griffins are part of the five most because they're part bird, part beast with enough strength to carry away a large cow, but the mokele-mbembe is part of the five most because it's large, has a trunk, and all those spines," Zeon said.
The monster then plunged into the river and swam toward a branch where there were these big red fruits with green splotches.
It used its trunk to pick the fruit and placed them in its mouth.
"That must be the reason it scared the repticores away," Cadence said. "It probably thinks that they wanted its food source,"
"Yes, Lungo fruit," Zeon said. "Mokele-mbembe love that kind of fruit."
"I feel kind of bad for those repticores," Hayley said. "They were chased out of this place and can't go back in."
"So, let's help them out," Jake said. "We should lure the mokele-mbembe away from this place."
"We should give it a try," Cadence said.
They all ran back to the vehicle and grabbed some weapons.
They stopped in front of the monster and fired some warning shots around it.
The monster lifted up its whip-like tail and shot out some of its spines.
The spines missed, so they kept on firing warning shots.
One of the shots hit its trunk, so it wallowed out of the water and lumbered away.
The repticores came out from swamp and walked back to the mud puddles.
"You know," said Jake. "It's kind of nice doing something good for monsters when they're not causing any destruction."
"But we should get out of here before they turn on us," Kirby said.
"Yeah, you're right," Jake said. "I don't want to end up being inside one of those monsters again."
"So, are we going to quickly get the wing fixed and fly out of here?" Hayley asked.
"Why don't we try another form of exploring the monster world" Zeon suggested.
"What other form?" Cadence asked.
"How about I show you instead of telling you," Zeon said.
As the team walked into the vehicle, it began to hover again, and Zeon drove it towards the river.
He pushed a button, and the vehicle turned into a boat and floated down the river.
"This vehicle is full of surprises," Jake said.
"So, this means that we'll now get to see some sea monsters since this river leads down to the ocean," Zeon said.
"I hope that this camera is water resistant because I'm not going to lose any of the shots I took," Kirby said.
I hope you like this chapter.