And boy, do we have a real humdinger of a battle this time, folks! In fact, our stock market guys are telling us that people will be recording this one three times over just so they can watch it with their friends every week! Tonight's battle of beasts sees us traveling to the heart of the American Everglades, a once-rich national park now reduced to a barren, blood-soaked battlefield as rival gangs battle it out for priceless blood diamonds and an invasive species makes snacks of every faction. Will Clades, the hero of the Greco-Roman Empire, take the win for his country and masters? Or will Mann Co.'s Ol' Fangs secure the domination of these resource-rich territories? Whatever the outcome, you can't deny that it's going to make great television!
Buckle up, viewers, and bring your mosquito nets, because it's time for...
Connor Hardy, reporting from the safety of his helicopter as it happens!
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A still, sunny morning graces the Everglades, the sun's gentle rays filtered down through the canopy of the mangrove trees down to the still waters below. It's barely seven o' clock over the swamps, and yet the birds and some beasts are putting on the dawn chorus of chattering, squawking and song, filling the air with their cacophony. A fine layer of algae covers the sluggish river in a blanket of green, mangrove roots stick out like the spikes of an iron maiden from the muddy banks and the branches of a weeping willow trail in the river like the hair of a dusky dryad. All is peace and stillness, and the morning mist lays over the water like a curtain.
Until the iron-grey fin slices through the algae like a knife.
At the sight of it, bird and beast alike shriek in fear and take flight into the canopy - the only safe refuge from the enemy they have associated the unusual object with. But the beast that partially emerges from the water is not the invasive Poseidon Rex that has recently moved in from the oceans, but the more compact and sleek bulk of Sharktopus. A low, rattling growl escapes the chimeric carcharodon's throat as translucent third eyelids wipe the eyes clear of water and algae, gills contracting to prevent damage. The water churns slightly beneath Clades as he hefts his javelin out of the water, the metallic tip glistening in the sunlight.
This is unfamiliar territory to the amphibious abomination. The water is brackish, which suits his breathing needs just fine, but it's a murky soup of silt and mud, which is not fine at all. With his visibility lowered to just a mere meter or so past his nose, Clades has increasingly had to rely on his various other senses, such as his electroreceptors, to navigate up the river in search of his enemy. The briefing was short and to the point - his enemy had the element of surprise almost as much as he did, and even the smallest of mistakes could lead to his death.
Nevertheless, he is confident that he can win this.
With another gurgling snarl, Sharktopus disappears beneath the surface of the bayou, leaving only bubbles as evidence of his presence. But even though he has vanished, the sounds of the bayou don't immediately reassert themselves just yet.
Because, up in the treetops, the animals have spotted another wake in the water, casually following the one left by Clades.
A much bigger one.
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Beneath the water, and the source of the disturbance is apparent.
It's Ol' Fangs, on the hunt for the enemy. Unlike the horrific hybrid he pursues, Gatoroid has no trouble seeing in these murky waters at all - in fact, this is pretty much home to it. So much nicer than that horrid, cold place it fought those spiders in, too, with the warmth sun filtering down upon it through the cool water. On top of this, there's no nasty surprise lurking in the swamp and waiting to pounce - every other creature practically turned and fled the moment they lay eyes on him. It feels good to be the top predator again, lording over everything smaller than himself.
But there's something as big as himself in these waters right now. And he's been told, although he didn't understand the words exactly, that he was supposed to find it and "beat the ever-loving fucking daylights out of it", so that's what he's going to do. He's sure that the trail of marks in the mud at the river bottom were left by this strange enemy, because he can't think of any animal in the world that would leave such strange, swirly patterns like that. And there's a scent in the water, too - oily yet meaty, and he's following it like a pack of hounds follows the rank stench of the as yet unwary fox.
A few meters further on and the trail of stirred-up mud suddenly turns sharply to the left, yet the roided-up reptile remains undeterred. A sweep of armored tail, a twist of muscled body and Saxton Hale's tag-team partner is on track once again, following the trail along a by-river that separates from the main body of the swampy waters. A little way past a strand of mangrove trees, the water suddenly broadens out into a deep pool, almost stagnant with algae and far deeper than any part of the bayou. Here and there, a rotted and piranha-picked corpse amongst the weeds tells of yet another bloody battle between gangs, their corpses left to moulder at the bottom of the lake that serves as the battleground.
For a few moments, the smell of old, stale flesh and stinking weed blots out anything else, and Gatoroid finds himself swimming in wide arcs near the bottom of the lake, seeking clues as to where his prey has gone. His eyes roll in their sockets and his head darts left to right as he searches, but the water is practically green here, and the supersized suchian can't see hair nor hide of his opponent through the scum and haze. Even when he finally picks up a trace of scent, hanging in the water like a cobweb in the air, he has no idea which way to follow it.
But he does, however, see the glint of a spear poised above his head.
And turns. And bites.
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A snarl of surprise escapes Clades' throat as his enemy suddenly twists around like a ballet dancer on a stripper's pole, clamping his fangs around the javelin. Having already suffered one surprise attack on his person, it would seem Ol' Fangs is no longer willing to suffer a repeat of the Ice Spider's treachery, and has struck first before his enemy can get the drop on him. Sharktopus' tentacles immediately grab a hold of clumps of weeds and roots on the river bottom, anchoring him down has he desperately tries to wrench his weapon free of his enemy's jaws so he can get another chance at sticking him. The pugnacious predator isn't having it, however, and tugs back with equal force like a dog wrestling with his owner over a pull toy, trying to pry the lance away.
But the chimeric carcharodon is quick to take advantage of his foe's single-minded tenacity. With a jerk, the shield comes swinging through the water and bashes sharply into the aggressive alligator's skull like a shovel wielded by a determined house burglar. The water reverberates with the resulting clang, and pain sings through the drug-clouded synapses of Gatoroid's brain, causing him to reflexively open his jaws in a stream of bubbles. Taking the opportunity, Clades yanks his javelin clear of the toothy maw, noting with irritation the teeth marks in the handle, before rearing back and delivering what can only be called a headbutt to the temple of the Australian contender.
Reeling back through the water, Ol' Fangs decides he needs to rethink his approach to this. His lungs are starting to call for air now, after having spent quite a while beneath the water, and his prey has just revealed itself to be quite a bit more than he can handle in a straight-up fight. With a flick of his tail he turns and jettisons away from Sharktopus, headed towards the surface. Once he has taken a breath, he reckons, he should be in the perfect condition to try tackling his enemy again.
No sooner does his sizable snout break the water's surface, however, then a sharp pain lances through his leg, and then a sharp tug yanks him back under the water. A silent howl leaves his jaws as he thrashes from side to side, trying to get clear of the scummy lake, but the surface comes no closer. The answer has it's teeth buried in his hind leg - Clades, forsaking his weaponry to try and keep his opponent under the water. Despite his increased lung capacity, the giant gator still needs to breathe, and the Champion of the Switzerland Siege is not willing to let that happen if he can help it. Slowly and surely, the hybrid horror drags his captive towards the bottom of the lake, intent on drowning his foe before the fight even starts.
WHACK
Well, there's a new proverb for you - he who grabs the alligator by the leg should mind the tail. A hefty slap from the appendage sends the Sharktopus tumbling backwards through the water, nearly dropping his weaponry from the shock. This gives Ol' Fangs the time he needs - a desperate push of limb and tail sends him hurtling to the surface, and a veritable spray of foam and scum billows forth as the roided-up reptile gulps down great lungfuls of air. No sooner is this task complete, and the burning in his chest has died down, then Mann Co's mascot plunges back beneath the surface, turning around to face his tormentor once more just as the Italian entrant recovers his bearings.
Now the fight can start properly.
And it starts with Gatoroid charging through the water right at his enemy, jaws agape. Of course, as experience has shown, this never works in the Monster Mash - Clades simply jukes aside, letting the lethal teeth miss him by almost half a meter before lashing out with his javelin once again. But the strike was mistimed - what should have been a surefire blow to the neck ends up hitting the leathery side instead, failing to hit a vital organ even as blood clouds the water. Ignoring the pain dulled by years of hereditary chemical abuse, Ol' Fangs twists in the water once more and snaps, this time succeeding in clamping his jaws around one of Sharktopus' trailing tentacles and ripping it free with a jerk of his head.
Startled by the pain, the chimeric carcharodon jolts the opposite way, still clinging onto the weapon imbedded within his opponent's side. There is a crack of splintering wood and a muffled poof of detonating gunpowder, and the next thing Sharktopus knows, he's holding a thin stump of pole as Gatoroid pulls away, trailing blood from his side. The explosive head of the javelin has detonated, but to no effect - the leathery hide simply stops the shrapnel from making any headway through the flesh, and Ol' Fangs continues to swim unimpeded.
With a growl of frustration, Sharktopus discards the useless lump of wood and pulls out the short dagger - the laser sabre is no good under the water. With a flex of his tentacles and biting back the pain of his lost limb, the Greco-Roman gladiator darts forward, leveling up with his foe just as Ol' Fangs twists around to attempt another attack run. The blade momentarily catches a glint of light as it swings through the water towards the alligator's skull, but it's a costly moment indeed - catching it from the corner of his eye, Ol' Fangs simply twists around and out of it's way. The jaws come snapping in again, but this time Clades is ready, lifting his shield in time to intercept and allowing the teeth to slide harmlessly across the metal.
Too late, however, does the savage shark remember to pull the trigger on the shield's hidden gun - by the time the bullets are lancing through the water, the window of opportunity to blast Gatoroid through the brains has gone. The sound of the gun firing, however, startles the massive monster into jerking back as the bullets pepper his scutes, allowing Clades another shot with the dagger at his face.
This time the swing hits home, scouring a bloody streak into the reptile's shoulder and eliciting a roar of pain, and the sight (and smell) of his enemy's wound tempts the hybrid horror into pressing his advantage, swinging his weapon once more in an attempt to sever the throat.
This time, however, the swing misses, barely even grazing the colossal crocodilian, and suddenly Sharktopus finds a mad, yellow eye staring into his own. A nasty little detail worms it's way out of the back of the Italian's mind, a memory of a certain thing his enemy is supposed to be capable of doing, but he barely has the time to process it. Before he can draw back and away, a set of massive jaws has clamped around Sharktopus' head, the teeth scouring savage groves into his head, and the next thing he knows he's being shaken this way and that like a child's rag doll in the mouth of a jealous terrier. Last, but not least, he is lung in a direction he's not entirely sure of, but may be upwards.
As his opponent breaks through the water's surface, Gatoroid bellows with theobromine-enhanced apoplexy and surges through the scummy water in pursuit, following the upward slope of the lake bottom.
The fight is going to land.
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The sudden appearance of a shark-octopus hybrid bursting out of the water and crashing onto the bank is enough to send anything running.
But Clades couldn't care less about the monkeys, birds and whatever else he sends fleeing into the canopy. Winded by his impact with the muddy ground and half-blinded by the sudden change in brightness, at first he has trouble righting himself onto his tentacles. But gradually, as his senses and breath return to him, the battle-hardened beast manages to drag himself upright, wincing at the blood tricking down into his eyes and hefting his weapons back into position. At the same time, the water nearby explodes, and the head of Ol' Fangs comes roaring up from the depths in a cacophony of furious snarling.
It is soon followed by the rest of the body, the squat limbs dragging his massive, waterlogged bulk up the bank after his foe as the roided-up reptile snaps his jaws in threat. It's not just the wounds and continued tenacity of his foe that has angered the Gatoroid - the stab to the neck has, much to Clades' misfortune, triggered a flashback to the trap laid by the Ice Spiders back in round one. And much like the last time, rage and illegal enhancers are bubbling away within the Australian's synapses, creating a gnashing, mad-eyed menace that, from a single glance, Clades knows he can't take on in a straight-up fight.
However, this change of battleground has left one thing in the hybrid horror's favor.
With lightning reflexes, Clades draws the laser sabre from it's holster and flicks the power switch on, lighting the blade up with a sickly green glow around the edges. A snarl of defiance rattles through the multi-limbed menace's gills as he moves forward to meet the armored abomination once more, raising the weapon in readiness to strike. At once the jaws come whooshing towards him like a deadly rake, but the Sharktopus nimbly slides out of the way, easily evading the poorly-aimed strike before bringing the blade down towards his enemy. The sabre easily cuts through the leathery hide, blood weeping from the wound almost instantly onto the muddy bank and trickling into the water.
But Ol' Fangs is so consumed by blinding anger he barely registers the attack on his person. With the sort of speed that would make a racing car spit with jealousy, the mammoth monster defies physics and his own bulk to swing around on the spout, snapping furiously. Clades is quick to respond in kind though, and bounds straight up into the air to barely dodge the piecing fangs. But only barely - yet another trailing tentacle is caught and ripped away, and the chimeric carcharodon has to bite back a hiss of pain as he loses another precious limb, instead slicing downwards towards the head of his determined foe.
With his vision clotted by the blood from his own forehead, though, Sharktopus's aim is a bit off, and the sabre strikes further up the skull of Gatoroid than intended. Here, the blade encounters resistance in the form of the armored scutes that pepper the alligator's body - even with the laser edging upon the blade, the weapon has trouble cutting through bony plates thicker than the concrete of some fallout bunkers. To Mann Co.'s mascot, though, it still burns like hell, and the oversized reptile thrashes and shrieks in anger and pain as the weapon bites into his head. It's all Clades can do to keep a hold of his most effective weapon, clinging to it desperately in a bid to retain his one way of finishing the match quickly.
But it's still not enough - Ol' Fangs suddenly bucks his head upwards, knocking the Greek gladiator off balance and dislodging the weapon from his skull in a burst of crimson. Scrabbling to keep his footing, Clades grabs hold of two massive trees growing side-by side in the mud and, out of instinct, hoists himself slightly off the ground into the air. Gatoroid roars as he lumbers after his opponent and leaps, trying to bite once again, but once again the jaws strike on the metal of the shield and leave Sharktopus unharmed. Hoisting himself up still further into the trees, the amphibious warrior shoves his opponent back and away from him, and the frustrated reptile drops back to the ground with a snarl before trying to rear up for another snap - dissuaded, however, by another swipe of the blade that scars along his nose.
What could almost be described as a triumphant laugh ripples through Sharktopus' body as he observes the annoyed alligator beneath him. Finally, he has found a way to confound an enemy that seemed more than a match for him - a sheer wall of anger and brute muscle that no creature in their right mind would fight toe-to-toe. All he has to do is remain up in these trees until the thing tires itself out, letting it drop down and stab it through the head, or until it simply loses interest and wanders away, granting it the victory by default. Leering down upon the panting beast below him, his sabre poised to bat the jaws back down again, Clades seems to sense victory.
Then the yellow eyes of Ol' Fangs glint with sudden, malicious cunning.
And then he spins on the spot, tail swinging through the air.
There is a splintering, crashing sound, the world lurches sickeningly. The next thing Clades knows, he's wedged between the trunks of the trees he was once suspended in, howling in pain as their weight crushes his lungs between them. The shield and sabre have somehow dropped from his grasp in the confusion, and with a jolt of horror he realizes that this leaves him practically defenseless against Gatoroid. His tentacles flail desperately, trying to seek some purchase or anchor with which to free himself, but the undergrowth and the muddy ground offer no purchase - he is stuck fast between the fallen foliage.
Until he is suddenly dragged out by a familiar set of jaws.
Ol' Fangs may have knocked the trees down on purpose, or in a fit of chemically-induced rage. We may never know, and the raging reptile isn't telling us any time soon - he's too busy shaking the crippled Sharktopus back and forth in his jaws, bashing him against the ground and whatever else he can find around here. Pausing for a brief moment, he tenses his jaws, and there is a horrific ripping, crunching noise accompanied by a high-pitched wail of pain from the captive Clades. Then the armored head twists and jerks with a sudden whipping motion, and the body of Sharktopus, minus the remainder of it's limbs, goes sailing through the air to land with a heavy thump on the riverbank once more.
It's safe to say that Clades is in a lot of pain now. He hasn't a tentacle to stand on annymore, and he's losing blood at a rate that would impress Jason Voorhees. Even as he lies gasping on the bank, vision sliding in an out of focus like a camera operated by a drunkard, he manages to catch the ferns rustling from the corner of his eye. Somehow pivoting on one fin to follow the source, the wounded warrior is horrified to see the bulk of Ol' Fangs emerging from the brush, slowly and triumphantly. The steroid cocktail in his brain has simmered down into calmness, and now the gigantic gator is pacing invincibly towards his foe, confidence radiating from his form like the smell of bad gumbo. His mere posture - that of an invincible hunter confident in his territory, sends chills up the spine of the crippled carcharodon.
It looks for all the world like he's going to lose.
Confident of victory, Gatoroid prises open his maw...
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| GaiaCorp wishes to make clear that this was the result of a freak numerical event, and urges loyal fans to honor the memory of Major Failure and enjoy this image of a shark killing an alligator. |
BIGGEST UPSET OF THE TOURNAMENT
With the sound of a random number generator defying massively weighted odds, Clades suddenly lunges forward and bites through the suchian skull, piercing the drug-addled brain within. Blood pours down the scarred muzzle, stained whitish-pink with cerebral matter, as Ol' Fangs jerks once, twice, then flops onto the mud in a twitching mass of inert and useless flesh and scales, expiring in an instant. Several million miles away, one great nation howls ecstatic war-cries at their television screens, whilst several million in the other direction, another curses and throws their half-finished pint glasses at them instead.
But Clades doesn't know or care about these things. There's barely enough energy left in him to bat an eyelid, yet still he detaches his jaws from the carcass and rolls onto his side, gasping for water that seems a million miles away. He is in sheer agony, missing his weapons and losing enough blood to fund three slasher films, but his mind is strangely at peace, the cold calm of the veteran assured that his mission is completed. He has upheld the honour of his country, and now no backwater hat-traders are going to dare question the might of the Greco-Roman Empire.
Just before the legendary laniform finally loses consciousness, he notices the iron-grey fins of the local P. rex cutting like knives through the water, making a beeline for the bank. But he doesn't let that bother him.
He knows the reptiles won't touch shark. Not when there's enough alligator to go around for hours.
SHARKTOPUS WINS!
And remember, folks - the next week is the final match of Round 2, where one more competitor will make his way into the lucky three aiming for the Monster Mash Championship. Out in the sprawling city of Beijing, dark shadows lurk in misty corners and ancient legends hang in the air like the smell of cheap air freshener! And a clash of titans is about to take place right on the city streets, with the entire population gaining front row seats to-
WhO iS lI͏kE t҉He BeA͡sŢ? W͠ḩO ͘c҉An̶ ͜MáKe ̵W̨a̴R̵ ͝a҉G̷aIn҉S͜t ҉Hi̶M̢?
I'̸lL tEl͘L ̨yO͠u.҉
͢
̛N͝o̸-ơn̵e̷.
-and stay tuned for THE BRAWL IN BEIJING, only on The Monster Mash 199X!
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(I'M BACK! Took me long enoughn didn't it? :P
(So yeah, between university work and other things, I haven;t found much time to work on Monster Mash. I may try to find time to start the next fight soon, and I'm hoping to work on it during the Easter Break. If that doesn't happen, remember - just be patient with me and I'll release it whenever I can. Hope you're enjoying it so far, even if it is taking like two whole years to make :U)
It's Croak vs Monster Truck all over again.
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