Still refusing to believe his stroke of good luck, Cell looked around, taking in the fresh air, soaked with the smell of crisp, dewy morning grass, the salty lick of the boundless oceans stretching into the horizon, and the many various kinds of ancient and current plants, trees and flowers decorating the Monster Island. When Cell next opened his reptilian-like eyes, it saw butterflies, as large as Cell's entire head, with spiky, jagged wings fluttering about colossal rafflesias and fruity palm trees with leaves wide enough to hide behind like curtains.
A curious gigantic praying mantis peeked from behind a moss-covered boulder. It must have measured Cell up as potential prey, but after Cell turned around to look right back at the insectoid predator, and after the mantis evaluated the fact that Cell was still twice its size, it dipped back to wherever it lurked in wait for prey in.
The Monster Island was truly impressive. Based on what Cell had seen of it, it thought the island to be some sort of massive jungle island. An ancient ecosystem frozen in time, however, after a brief time roaming the place just to get acquainted with the island, Cell found a barren rocky wasteland. Extending its tail, Cell squirted a thick blotch of Saibaman acid, covering a humongous rock pillar and pushing the thick corrosive goop inside of it. After melting a few holes in random locations, Cell brought itself down and shoved its stinger deeper into the boulder, widening the hole to make itself a cave-like home.
No sooner than Cell had become acquainted with the wasteland he's chosen to build his home in, did a tiny bipedal chinchilla mouse dash up to his home. With noticeable squeaks to each of its steps, Cell walked out through the front entrance to his hollowed-out rock home to face the tiny visitor. The curious case of gigantism that affected most denizens of Monster Island did not affect the bustling rodent, though this could have been merely because it lived in such a barren and rocky biome of the island.
"What the heck gives!?" the chinchilla squeaked out, shaking its tiny, furry paw up in the air as a vague threat.
"I'm sorry, was this your territory or something?" Cell squinted, feeling rather good about his odds in a fight for territory against this spunky rodent. "I'm quite new on this island and ranger Lapis told me I could settle in wherever I liked."
"No, if you wanna live here, that's on you, pal!" the chinchilla wearing a blue backpack that was significantly larger than it was waved its cute and tiny hand off in dismissal of the notion. "What rubs me off the wrong way is that you've built this entire house here and didn't build yourself a mailbox! Where am I supposed to deliver mail to?"
"Mail…?" Cell turned its head to the side like a curious puppy. "I was under the impression that this island was a secret. How do we get mail here?"
"That's right, I'm the mailman 'round here and anyone livin' in a house and able to comprehend what mail is gets mail from yours truly!" the chinchilla wobbled, being carried around by the hefty weight of the big blue backpack it lugged around.
"Sorry, I'll make sure to build one as soon as I can," Cell shrugged, unsure why he'd ever need a mailbox or who might send one of these monsters mail. Maybe the rangers could use mail service, but they looked to be too secretive and protective about the location of this island to need such a thing.
"Okay, and where am I supposed to put your mail now then, wise guy?" the chinchilla rubbed its tiny hands into its tufts while standing up on its little toes and glaring up at Cell with a judgmental look.
"Just today, given that I'm new around here, could you deliver mail directly to me by handing it to me?" Cell politely requested, bowing to the perky little mailman of the Monster Island.
"Eh… I guess since you're new and you asked so nicely. Sheesh, these immigrants, always moving in without knowing how things work 'round here…" The brown and white chinchilla slid its humongous backpack off its back and unzipped it to burrow inside it while Cell awkwardly stood in front of the little mailman. Based on a glance that Cell slipped into it off the top, the bag was completely stuffed with cookie treats and berries.
"You got no mail today, buster," the chinchilla declared, making Cell's head dip to his chest.
"From the looks of it, nobody's got any mail today. Your bag's stuffed with berries and treats," Cell pointed out.
"Yeah, well… When you run around the island delivering mail to everybody, you need to keep your calory intake up or you'll end up gassing out and inside the belly of one of them huge dinosaurs," the chinchilla pointed out while bloating like a balloon in the tension required to heave that huge backpack over its shoulders again.
"I see, I see…" Cell scratched its horny head before saluting the little critter farewell. "Well, I'll make a mailbox for tomorrow. You take care of yourself out there, I guess…"
"You better!" the tiny mailman squeaked out. "Cause you better believe it I'm going to check up on you tomorrow!"
With a hand-sized black wasp with yellow stripes landing on its finger, walking around for a little while, then flying off, attracted by the whiffs of berries in the furry mailman's backpack, the wasp buzzed off alongside the last traces of Cell's sanity. Just because Cell considered itself to be intelligent and identified other intelligent beasts and creatures, evidently enough, didn't mean that the Monster Island would always make sense to Cell.
Because it's been a while since Cell had last fed, it figured that it was best to get this dirty deed out of the way. Recalling what it has learned about Monster Island, Cell saw what kind of ordinary creatures it could feed on, resolving to not feed on any legendary or one-of-a-kind monsters and leave it up to cattle or rodents to fulfill its needs.
The Bio-Android took off from its carved home with a makeshift and leaning mailbox driven into the rocky ground by the rocky staircase leading to Cell's hollowed-out boulder home and shot off into the sky. In a single swoop, Cell ended up in the swampy area of Monster Island. Almost instantly, Cell noticed gigantic salamanders crawling in the bog. Surprisingly enough, a pair of flamingo-like avians with feathers that burnt on their tips were also waltzing about the swamp, prodding holes in the bog that shot methane gas into the air, which caught wind of the flames on the blazing flamingoes' feathers and ignited into a horrendous inferno.
Cell hissed and leaned back from the sudden eruption of light, but before it could decide if it needed to interfere and extinguish the flames, the phoenix flamingoes slurped the turbulent firenado of burning gas up like noodles. They even went so far as to burp a pitch-black smoky cloud. Unburdened by the whirling flames, the gigantic salamanders burst through the inferno to scoop up ordinary catfishes from the bog and chow them down with one gulp.
Seeing all this unique variety and these majestic creatures before it, Cell felt bad about killing and draining either of these species. For a moment Cell wondered if perhaps it should leave Monster Island entirely to visit either of the nearby islands and drain one of the more ordinary animals found there, rather than extinguishing the life of one of these unique species that one wouldn't find anywhere else even with a lantern and a radar.
Cell lowered itself down to the ground, to seek for one of the catfishes that the humongous, flat-headed amphibians with blue scales ate up. With the benefit of advanced tracking technology built into Cell's body via its Artificial Human features, after switching to echo-location, it was easy as pie to find one of these bog dwellers. However, when Cell extended its arm and cast a Kiai wave to send it onto the mushy grassland, the catfish rolled over on its front, revealing a slimy, slug-like soft, and pungent body with the quirky addition of two froggy arms on the sides. Cell wondered if it should truly sting and drain this sorry-looking creature, a bit shaken by its sad eyes and miserable attempts to drag its body back to the bog with its puny two arms.
Before Cell could will itself to it, a terrifying, low-pitched buzz made Cell tuck its head to avoid being hit by a plane-sized dragonfly. Taking it to the air to retreat from the overwhelming sensory input and new information rushing in, Cell saw the catfish creature using this momentary distraction to slip back into the dirty, syrup-like water. Meanwhile, Cell tracked a handful of these gigantic dragonflies chasing after boulder-sized eggs with gooey and soft membranes laid down in the grasslands at the very edges of the bog.
With a smile, Cell swooped down and kicked one of these dragonflies down, thrusting its stinger in between the chitin shell protecting the different segments of the creature. Normally, Cell didn't consider insects viable prey. They were too simplistic and too small on the main continent, however, on this island, the insects were so incredibly massive that the energy found inside the body of even one primitive creature would have sufficed to replenish Cell's cells with energy and ward off decay of the full period. Besides, these were plentiful, and they laid hundreds of eggs at once. Cell would be regulating their population, if anything, rather than eliminating a unique species.
"Hmm? What's this?" Cell muttered to itself, plunging to a location where something peeking out of the water was reflecting sunlight straight into Cell's peeper. After leaving the dried-out and empty chitin shell of a consumed dragonfly behind and fully replenishing itself, Cell thrust its stinger into the water to perforate something it would have never imagined finding here. "A plastic wrap? No, it's a full sheet of cellophane…"
Cell began dragging the thing out of the water by the handfuls, removing a horrifying amount of plastic sheet laid out like a fishing net over the bog. It must have been laid out recently, since the two-armed, sluggish catfishes that were in threat of choking on it jumped out of the water, feeling the brush of oxygen against their skins again. These strange creatures seemed to breathe through moist skin, meaning that they were in a risk of drying out on land, but also risked drowning when trapped underwater. Cell thrust its stinger into the bog, drawing in some of the filthy muck and shooting it with a water spout spray.
"There's no way that Lapis or Pirita could have laid these. Did poachers make it on the island? That's odd, I can't sense any suspicious Ki and my radars don't register any power sources on the island's vicinity…" Cell spoke to itself before elevating far up into the sky. A vibrant and colorful frog, seated atop a lily pad and fishing with a rod, a line, and a hook, looked up to follow Cell with its eyes, bored out of its mind.
After checking in where Cell last saw Pirita in the cabin in the woods, Cell found it empty. Cell last parted with Lapis above the massive dinosaur woods, with Lapis going off to check on something and run some errands for the Monster Island inhabitants. That might have meant that the island was ranger-free. Cell returned to its hollowed-out boulder home, wondering what it should have done about it. Cell felt certain that Lapis would have told it to sit tight and just enjoy a peaceful life on the island for once. It was Lapis' and Pirita's job to take care of the animals and that must have been what they were doing.
Flying over grassy plains, Cell heard a commotion and quickly swooped down to check it out. It was possible that the poachers were up to no good and Cell felt determined to protect its newly met neighbors and friends. While Cell despised Dr. Puri and the experiments she put Cell through in its early stages of life, if one could even call the pitiful state of existence as a lab rat life, those same experiments made Cell incredibly strong and, in a way, Cell felt grateful for that strength and being able to protect its friends like that.
Cell slammed down in front of a charging behemoth warthog, standing like a telephone pole in front of a speeding vehicle. The charging beast bellowed out a warning for Cell to move or be flattened, but Cell stood its ground and the warthog crashed right into Cell, flattening its snout and chipping its teeth and fangs. The fallen beast had teary eyes and its legs had fully buckled. Cell turned around to see what this behemoth was chasing around, and it seemed to be just about an around ordinary bunch of animals, ranging from common squirrels to giant pandas and colossal platypuses.
Cell turned back to the beast that it brought down by merely standing in front of it, noticing the tears in its eyes. What stood out to Cell wasn't the fact that it was crying, it was the fact it sat up on its rear and continued crying long after it blew its snout back into shape. Based on what Cell knew about ordinary warthogs, their fangs were incredibly important for them, however, they also continued to grow throughout their life so this beast had nothing to worry about some busted fangs. If anything, given how even ordinary warthogs sometimes suffered ingrown fangs that penetrated their heads and threatened to rake out their eyes or scratch their skulls, knowing the incredible longevity of mythical creatures, Cell might have done this guy a favor here.
And yet, somehow… It didn't feel like this horrifying giant was crying tears that would have filled a barrel each because of pain or injury. Cell could strangely identify with that brand of sadness and longing. It was the sadness of loneliness. Without saying a word, Cell took off, speeding toward Pirita's forest cabin and snagging a poster off the announcement board. After pushing a window off its frame and then pushing it back in, Cell made its way into a small ranger office building behind the cabin and found itself some scissors, glue, and rubber bands. After getting everything it needed, Cell promptly got to work.
Floating on a cloud, Cell peered down with the far-seeing eyes, combining the best abilities of the animal kingdom together into something incomparable to either of them individually. Down below, wearing the handsome cardboard mask of a politician advocating support for nature reserves with slick, black hair and a strong, rectangular jawline, the warthog tried approaching the animals it scared off previously.
The giant panda began bellowing in a mad peal of laughter, wrapping itself up in stitches and curling into a cutesy, furry ball, rolling on the ground. The indigo-furred squirrel ran onto a stump to get a better look at the goofy-looking behemoth, laughing it up as well, alongside a colossal platypus with the entire band of animals being so entertained by the curious sight of a behemoth warthog trying to pretend like it was one of the group wearing a cardboard cutout of human face attached to its snout with rubber bands that, somehow, against all odds, it brought the animals a spirit of togetherness they'd have otherwise never had.
Even the behemoth that was feared as a ferocious archduke of all land-walking beasts appeared to appreciate its newly found position as the class clown. It would have taken up any role, as long as it let it be a part of the group and no longer roam the land alone.
"It's not exactly what I would have done in this situation, but you did good," Cell heard a voice coming from behind him. Cell's tracking systems had been disabled to let it absorb the biological visual input of the scene developing below, to where it didn't even notice Lapis closing in from behind it.
"Sorry for cutting up that poster and breaking into the office building. If it's any consolation, I put the window back in where I found it," Cell replied. "I just… Felt like I understood what that animal was feeling, even though it couldn't speak."
"That's impressive. It's a sign that you're forming a genuine connection to the animals here," Lapis smiled, looking proud of Cell's progress. "I came to check on how you were settling in, figuring that you wouldn't let yourself get confined into one place after spending so long cooked up in a dark lab. I can see now that I was wrong to be worried about you."
"I found a plastic sheet laid out on the swamp. I was worried that some poachers might have gotten in, but I couldn't sense anyone else around and I couldn't find you or Pirita," Cell brought it up.
"I see, Pirita left with a dodo with a broken wing. She was worried that it might have been poachers' work too. She told me she believes that someone utterly crumbled the bones in the wing into dust, almost as if the bird was injured by a blast wave. That sounds troubling, if poachers really found this island, and I can't even find them, and they're sick enough to be using military-grade explosives to take out these majestic and rare animals… It could smell like trouble," Lapis sighed.
"Don't worry, I'll help you protect these animals," Cell claimed by bumping a fist on the chest piece of its armored shell.
"It really sucks to ask this of you or to rely on you, you're not a ranger after all," Lapis sighed, scratching the back of his head in frustration.
"These animals are like my precious neighbors. I want to help them with everything I have, otherwise, what's the point of these powers and abilities that I've gained?" Cell insisted. "What were you up to?"
"Oh, nothing much, the blue coyotes needed their smokes," Lapis lifted a paper bag stacked to the brim with blocks of cigarettes. "Without their cigarettes, the blue coyotes get depressed, stop eating, lose their weight, and their fur, and then die during the next full moon."
"Hmm…" Cell cringed into a tiny chuckle. "There's so much I still don't know about these animals that I share an island with. I wish to explore more of it, meet more animals, and get to know them all. I also want to help them, to begin to make up for all the evil deeds that I did. Even if it will never be enough, I want to know that I've lived a life full of genuine attempts at making up for my deeds and to have no regrets."
"I guess we're not too different in that case," Lapis nodded with a subtle smirk of his own. "Just know that the bond you felt forming with that behemoth warthog I felt when I met you. I felt like I knew what you were going through and that I could and should help you. That's why I can only hope that you don't give up on yourself like I and Pirita never will."
"Lapis…" Cell's beak wobbled with rippling waves and its eyes became teary. The two friends shared a brief moment in the clouds before Lapis went off to hand the blue dogs their smokes and Cell went off home. It was an exciting first day of what would end up the rest of its life, but Cell burnt with the need to see more, to help more.
Even if Cell would always remain a monster of the Monster Island and never the ranger, it wouldn't let anyone do any harm to these precious and rare animals Cell's been fortunate enough to call friends.