Super Science

Ch 106: Research Log-Pacifica Update

This is Doctor Izuku Midoriya, reporting once again on an update regarding many things in the Neo Icon Phoenix Research Facility and Pacifica…but mostly Pacifica. New creatures have been added to the island in hopes of balancing out the ecosystem. I'll start with the facility first since it is the shortest by comparison. So first on the agenda is the project headed by Doctor Animal Genus; his name will undoubtedly come up a lot today: of the aptly named Dragon Hunters. They recently completed basic training and their first successful mission, which showed their skills and teamwork.

After being sent to a smaller section of the Philippine Islands, they investigated a potential dragon sighting and discovered some Mocking Drakes, which are basically mucus-spitting raccoons that can mimic any sound. This leads them to discover a Kinsbane, which they successfully slain. So congratulations to them, and we all hope they can stop the outbreak of dragons before it gets out of hand.

Going to our next order of business-

*RING RING RING*

Uh, excuse me for a moment; I have to take this.

Turning away from the mic on his desk, Izuku reached over his cluttered space and pressed the answer and speaker section on his office phone. "Yes, Josie?", he answered.

The fox woman told him, "Sir, Doctor Animal is on the other line looking for you. He says it's urgent."

"Punch him through.", Izuku told her as the line cut and was redirected to a new channel.

There, the voice of Anima spoke, saying, "Izuku? Oh, good thing I got you. You're not busy, are you."

"Not particularly, what's the matter?", Izuku replied while glancing back at his computer and mic.

"The Dragon Hunters have come upon a bit of a…predicament.", he said in an unsure tone.

The worst-case scenario flashed through his head, and he exclaimed in fear, "Oh my God! Are they dead!?"

Anima made a confused sound and explained, "What? No! Calm down; they're fine. They just discovered something…unusual, and we want your take on what we should do."

"Well, what is it?", Izuku inquired after calming down.

"I'll just let them explain.", Genus told him while punching him through to a different line.

"Hello, Doctor Midoriya?", said the Griff voice of an older man.

"Speaking.", Izuku confirmed.

"This is Fujitora, leader of the Dragon Hunters.", Fujitora introduced himself.

Only for another voice, that of Keanu, to shout, "Leader!? If anything, I'm the leader!"

Then another voice, Rei, shot back, "As if! You couldn't lead us out of a barn! I should be the leader!"

Kai's voice said, "I hold the most important task; maybe it should be me."

"Shut up, Kai!", the other two yelled at him.

From there, the three of them, mostly Keanu and Rei, got into a gargled argument while Fujitora stepped away and asked, "Anyhow, has Professor Genus given you the rundown?"

"He just said you'd explain it better.", Izuku answered.

"Well, during our most recent mission, we were sent to a small island in the Atlantic, one populated by an Indigenous group of people.", Fujitora began to explain.

This struck Izuku, and he quickly pieced it together, guessing, "Oh! You mean the recently discovered Rito people! I heard they were birds."

"No, they just dress like birds. Anyhow, we made landfall, and we're surprisingly greeted.", Fujitora corrected him before continuing.

"Well, it's good to know you didn't have to force your way in. Why did they greet you?" Izuku prompted, knowing how aggressive untouched tribes are to modern people.

"I assume they think we're some kind of gods. We did fly in on the newly made Wing Drakes and are covered in this armor.", Fujitora guessed.

"So, does this have anything to do with the dragon situation?", Izuku inquired, wondering when they'd get to the point.

"I was just getting to that. With free reign of the island but didn't have to look for long as we found it…right in the middle of their village.", Fujitora explained reluctantly.

"What!? How? Why? What kind of dragon was it?", Izuku exclaimed in shock.

"A…Rattle Dread.", Fujitora finally admitted after a brief silence.

Izuku's jaw hit the floor, and he exclaimed in a shout, "A Rattle Dread! The dragon that bullies other dragons and animals from their kills and nests! You can't mean that!?", No reply was all he got, and that's all he needed, as he said in disbelief, "Oh my God, you are. How in the world is a Rattle Dread of all dragons peacefully living alongside humans?!"

"Well, firstly, they see it as a god. And second, the locals have been feeding it. They actually gave it a name, Valoo.", Fujitora explained vaguely.

Izuku prompted him further, "I feel like there's more to this story, so go on."

So the old man explained in detail, "When we found it, it was peacefully napping and only waking up to be fed. So, after some investigation, we discovered why that was the case. Apparently, a group of individuals from a country had tried to come to the island to annex the people but found the dragon first. Seeing this, the locals saw it as a god and began to offer offerings. We believe the rattle dread came to this island from the smell of the food stores within the village. It tried to raid, but simultaneously, the raiders came in and found it. You can guess the rest."

"What country?", Izuku interrupts.

Fujitora shrugged on the other end and replied, "Hard to say. Rattle Dread aren't good eaters, so nothing was left of them but torn or bloody halves."

"And the dragon hasn't eaten or destroyed everything?", Izuku asks carefully.

"No. Apparently, the Rito have been using their aged spines to cover their houses, enhance their weapons, and even decorate themselves. They even have food stocks to last them for years, maybe even decades. And the dragon seems content with whatever it's given. That is why we wanted your input on this. What should we do?", Fujitora asks with concern and confusion.

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief and initially said, "A good thing you did call first. If you killed or took it away, the Rito aren't going to trust the outside world.", he thought it over for a while, almost considering getting Egon on this. But then he remembered what his therapist said to him. He had to be more forward and confident in his decision-making, and now was that time. So he finally settled in with himself and said, "For now, leave it be. It's good as a guard dog for the Rito in case anyone else tries to conquer them. We'll give the dragon a Good Boi splinter, so it'll become fully domestic, so no incidents occur. And it does help to have a foothold there so we can study the people, and you guys being seen as God's might help."

Fujitora said, confused, "I thought you hired us to kill dragons, not play deities."

"Things with the Rito will be far and few between; there is no need to fear," Izuku assured him before inquiring, "If that's all?"

"Yes sir, and thank you.", Fujitora replied in thanks before hanging up, allowing Izuku to return to his log.

Rolling back to his computer, he saw that the recorder was still going and took down his whole conversation….awkward. So, with an embarrassed sigh, he decided to continue and edit that part out later.

Ah, where was I? Oh yes. The next order of business is that a small hired militant has been set out under the code name D.I.N.O to combat the new threat of revived dinosaurs brought into the modern age and unrestricted. This project, created by Professor Egon, is now in the hands or tentacles of Professor Cephalopod.

Unlike the Dragon Hunters, their job is to essentially invade other countries, investigate any dinosaur sightings, capture or kill them, and then find out who made them and take them out while retrieving our stolen data. It may sound brutal, but it's that, or we allow dinosaurs to become the new dominant species.

On to our next topic: Professor Hankoyo and Professor Hatsume have entered an arms race to develop hover technology. Hankoyo uses powerful but harmless sound waves, and Hatsume is trying to unlock the secret to antigravity. I better not tell him about Uraraka's quirk, or he'll go mental.

Professors Pura, Robbie, and Doctor Wily have begun to collaborate to buff up our robots with ancient technology. So far, they can only put said technology into larger things. These constructs have been dubbed Guardians, with many different models already in the works. Currently, trying to shrink the tech down for the smaller bots has its challenges. Here's to them figuring that mess out.

Honey Lemon has developed a super adhesive that will revolutionize construction. Chopper and Doctrine continue to make leaps and bounds in the medical field. Pamela has made several kinds of plants for defense around the facility, including some superfoods she has been working on recently. Though still in the works, one of her projects has succeeded! It is a tree that produces orange glassy fruit that can provide all the food and water a body needs for a whole day.

She calls it Amber Ogia. However, there are a few downsides, like how unnaturally sweet it is, how weirdly the tree grows, and how often it produces fruit, which isn't much.

Cluck and Cho have been working together again, which is never a good sign on the internal and external facility defenses. Melissa continues to bounce around the facility, helping whoever she can. Recently, she has been helping me a lot with a very big future project I have been putting most of my time and energy into. The money situation has been much better, and things are starting to simmer. But I know I can't put my guard down just yet. We've still got plenty of enemies out there. From the world's governments, the Brotherhood of Mutants, probably the whole medical and paleontology field, the League of Villains, villains in general, the Meta Liberation Army, and who knows who else wants to make problems with us!

Sigh. I wish things could go back to the way they were before. Things were simpler. But I guess that's what happens when you find success in…anything.

Anyway, let's go on to what is going on in Pacifica. The villain infestation has almost nearly been eradicated, thanks largely to the natural terrors on the island and the spiders. From what I hear, there are only a few dozen left. Soon, that will be one less thing Pacifica will have to deal with.

Next, the Pachyderm's' new archipelago has been completed, and the inhabitants have been safely moved to the island. Thanks to the new landmass, the Pachyderms will not have to worry about the many predators and other stresses of the main island.

The only things they'll have to watch out for are the shoreline and the sky. While we did put up several deterrents to keep dragons and larger creatures from the island chain, it could be better, and a few will come in from time to time. Luckily, the Pachyderms have learned rather quickly how to defend themselves from such threats, and the archipelago is quite a ways off from the mainland, so only a few dragons or other flying creatures can easily make it there.

They've also figured out how to farm the dodos we gifted them to start their new society. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they'll create. I'm just glad they'll be safe in Pacifica; who knows what'll happen if the world finds out about intelligent elephants?

In addition to this, the modified island bloom we made to make the archipelago bigger than they were had an unforeseen side effect. Below the surface, about several thousand kilometers away, another part of Pacifica was emerging from the sea. We had thought the subcontinent had finished growing, but it had one last spout in it, and the dropping of that island bloom caused it to explode.

In short, a new island section had sprung up around the great redwood forests, one with mega flora. And I don't just mean big trees and flowers; I'm taking trees as tall and wide as a mountain and flowers as big as a skyscraper! After a small debate, we decided to call it the Shikkotsu Forest, which came in handy for two reasons. First, the Pachyderms got another layer of deterrent protection, and second, a few of Professor Anima's newer experiments can be placed there. And that brings me to my next point, Genus.

He sure has a lot of great ideas, but once they go into practice, he needs to remember a few steps. For instance, he tested a growth serum from Honey Lemon on a moth. No biggie, we just got a bird-sized moth, which is what you'd think. But he accidentally left a fragment of an altered Singularity Soul, and it became…well, I'll explain when I get to it. But in short, Genus made a lot of stuff, whether on purpose or by accident, and we put them on the island. So, from here on, I'll briefly overview each one.

The Mothra

The Mothra is a gargantuan insect that appears to be a moth. It exhibits all the behaviors and lifestyles of a moth but with drastically different features. Apart from their size, which is 50 ft long with a 150 ft wingspan, they come in very bright colors along their wings, ranging from blue, orange, yellow, and red. Their bodies are a mix of brown with white heads and blue eyes. They have a plethora of abilities ranging from silk, reflective powder scale dust, eye lasers, hypnotic antennae, a venomous stinger, telepathy, telekinesis with enough power to move earth or affect the weather to a degree, and so much more!

In addition, all of them are female, so they reproduce via parthenogenesis. You would think that such creatures of sauce magnitude would overtake the island, but luckily, the flowers of the forest provide them with all the nutrition they need, and they reproduce exceptionally slowly. Only laying a single egg once every few decades, or if they feel their life is in peril and their numbers are only in the single digits. In addition, dragons and spiders can act as their natural predators. Also, the Mothra are exceptionally emotionally intelligent and can communicate with humans via emotional responses. We even theorize that they can tell the difference between good and bad people.

Katsuyu

The Katsuyu, or just Katsuyu, is not a species but instead an individual. At the time of this recording, she is a giant white slug with blue stripes on either side of her body. Katsuyu is intelligent, can speak any human language at any given time, and is remarkably kind-natured. And…she won't stop growing. Yep, she started the size of a regular slug but soon turned into a giant, so now we have to ship her off to Shikkotsu Forest since that's the only place to hold her reasonably. We theorize she may grow to the side of a mountain.

Why was she made? Genus wanted to make a slug that could produce a healing tonic through its skin or stem cells, but as you can see, things went wrong, and Katsuyu was born. However, her original purpose was a success, as Katsuyu can produce a kind of stem cell that speeds up cell division healing. If only she weren't so big.

Bee-Rex

Yep, you read that right. Anima made a T-Rex mixer with a bee. Why? Strangely, it was because he wanted to see how far he could cross over different genes from different animals in hopes of understanding how to splice them better. Thus allowing the issues with genetic problems in human and animal DNA to be more easily resolved. He thought he would just get a weird-looking bee, but the opposite came out. Now, we have a Queen Bee-Rex that we have to put on the island before she starts laying eggs.

And if you're thinking of a T-Rex with the thorax, wings, eyes, and antenna of a honey bee, then you'd be right because that's exactly how it looks. However, the queen is far more colorful. I wonder what their honey will taste like? Genus has assured us this thing will be fine since the best it builds, yes, they make her hives, and it needs to hook into something large and robust. The only things large enough to do that are the trees in Shikkotsu Forest and a few mountains, but they're too cold for the giant monsters to live. Also, they would self-control their populations by killing off any other hives that sprout up. This means that unless the two hives are far enough away, which they won't, there will only ever be one hive on the island at a time.

Cave Trolls

Cave Trolls are a new kind of subterranean mammal living in the many cave systems on the island. They were placed there for two things: first, to make sure no villains left can't take refuge in them, and second, to keep the spider population under control. The trolls are not like what you might find in a fantasy novel; instead, they are giant ground sloths. Bigger than a polar bear and far meaner. Deep shades of brown and gray color their bodies, with cream markings on the belly and red eyes with natural night vision. The main diet consists of roots, moss, and bugs, making them perfect for their ecological niche. They are usually solitary but will come together during mating and communal offspring rearing.

Basilisk

The Basilisk is a large serpentine reptile that acts as one of the few animals that prey on dragons. It is long, slender, yet extremely muscular with dark gray scales and light gray on its stomach, a mouth of sharp teeth, spines that run the length of its limbless body, and three barbs on the tip of its tail. Despite its appearance, it's not a snake but a limbless lizard. It hunts its preferred prey by burying itself underground with only its tail barbs sticking out and wiggling hypnotically while excreting a scent that only dragons can sniff. Once close, the basilisk will pop out, wrap the dragon in its coils, and inject its highly potent venom into it while trying to crush or strangle it to death. From what Im told, they lay their eggs in the dragons' nest and allow the young to eat their siblings if they hatch first.

Sand Worms

These strange creatures are another predator for dragons and griffins in the desert dunes. Using the vibrations in the ground, they sense prey when it moves and burrow through the sediment with spines all around its body at a surprisingly high speed. With a triple black jaw, no eyes, a sandy-colored body, and growing to a maximum of 10 feet long, they have a face only a mother could love. They can also put off enough speed to launch themselves into the air to catch fleeing food.

Dragon Snappers

Dragon Snappers, also known as Sky Spouts, are unusual animals related to elephants. They are enormous in size with white to sandy bodies, stumpy limbs made for burying themselves, and unusual eyes that almost seem useless. They are bigger than an elephant and don't move at all. These things only move on two occasions: burying themselves and hunting. Because they have no natural resistance to the harsh sun, they bury themselves in the sand to keep cool. When it comes to hunting, they have the strangest method.

They have a form of echolocation that they constantly send into the air above their heads. When something flying overpasses them, usually griffins and dragons, they shoot up a modified mouth and tongue that rockets off like the tongue of a chameleon and snaps up anything unlucky enough to be caught in its six-way jaw before being dragged back down and into the sand to be devoured. Like the Mothra, they perform parthenogenesis since they don't move around at all. The eggs are incubated in the sand, and the babies set off to hunt smaller dessert games until they get too big or lazy to move and begin to hunt dragons.

And that's all I have today. I do have more to say, but I just got a text saying that we have a situation on the roof and front entryway. I'm sure Egon can handle the roof while I take the entryway. Whatever it is, I just hope it's nothing too crazy. For once, I'd like to have a normal week. This is Doctor Izuku Midoryia signing off for now.