Now that it was established that the strange beast was no Dragon, ELEVEN felt that in hindsight, he should have just snuck up on it from the start.
But well, what could you do? Beggars couldn't be reckless idiots. He had to confirm the nature of this prey first.
The Skullcrawler shrieked again the moment that the Dragon had pounced in for a bite. It quickly tore apart what it could from the corpse before turning away to retreat in an instant.
ELEVEN narrowed his golden eyes as he stepped over the cow without so much as glancing at it, his focus solely on his new target as his jaws clamped down on hot air, barely missing the Skullcrawler's serpentine tail.
Although his huge lumbering form might have one come to the conclusion that he would be slow on land, that was just not true at all.
After all, with a large part of his DNA comprising of carnivorous theropods like tyrannosaurus and giganotosaurus, agility and endurance weren't an issue.
As for the Skullcrawler, why it decided to immediately run away was obvious. Its kind had a simple way of measuring opponents, anything smaller than itself was food, whereas anything larger wasn't.
The only exception was when it had friends that would help in taking down larger prey.
ELEVEN opened his mouth as boiling steam began to emanate from the depths of his throat. It burned to his senses as tears welled up at the edges of his eyes.
He chased after the Skullcrawler, ready to make use of his projectile as his body moved with great velocity.
The Skullcrawler's tail whipped against the air as it leaped to cross a fallen tree, taking a u-turn in an attempt to lose the Dragon in these cramped woods. It scratched and hissed as it evaded every attack.
The vapory mist seemed to condense around this corner of the forest, literally taking steam from ELEVEN's boiling breath as he knocked every tree and obstacle out of the way, his dorsal plates moving flexibly with his body despite what their bony appearance might suggest.
In that aspect, they were like cartilage, which made sense given his shark DNA. However, in truth, they were derived from the spiky osteoderms of the stegosaurus.
And just like a stegosaurus, ELEVEN's eyes snapped to the right as he swung his tail with full intensity, sensing danger from the shadows. He didn't possess a spiked thagomizer like a stegosaurus, but his bulky tail more than made up for that as it slammed onto another Skullcrawler's ribs.
"There's two of them?"
ELEVEN frowned as the Skullcrawler shrieked and thrashed at the moment of impact. His eyes, however, didn't neglect the first Skullcrawler as it came sprinting back for sweet revenge.
It seemed to have been deliberately calling for its friend to help out, and now had suddenly regained its confidence after doing so.
The Skullcrawler launched itself into the air as it then clamped down onto ELEVEN's upper back with its claws. It dug into the flesh, its claws piercing through the thick hide as ELEVEN's pupils contracted.
He responded with an aggrieved growl, and clamped down hard on the Skullcrawler's tail before it could properly have a bite at his flesh. Making full use of his muscled neck, he swung diagonally with the beast in his jaws and slammed the Skullcrawler against a boulder, bludgeoning its thick skull.
—CRACK!
However, there was no moment for him to celebrate as the other Skullcrawler immediately struck out and slashed at his exposed eye, hissing for him to fall.
ELEVEN screamed in pain as blood splurted out from his eye socket. His heart began pumping rapidly as he blinked repeatedly, the agonizing pain shocking his senses at every blink.
He lashed out with a great big chomp to the Skullcrawler's shoulder, his feet stomping hard on the other Skullcrawler's skull, crushing the damn thing as its brains began to spill out. The reassuring taste of blood filled his mouth as the still living Skullcrawler clawed and bit at his side, creating numerous lacerations.
And then he felt another weight upon his back.
And then another striking his leg with a voracious ambush.
What!?
There were four of them now. Well, three considering the first one was already dead.
ELEVEN spat the Skullcrawler from his mouth as he turned around and slammed his back against the nearby cavern wall, using it to stun the one that had climbed on his shoulder. His golden eyes were bloodshot as he swung down his head with bloodied maws wide open.
"Come over here!" ELEVEN roared as the steam boiled out from his mouth. With a wet squelch, he expelled his breath attack directly to the Skullcrawler's face.
ELEVEN was made in the image of a Dragon, the fire breather.
Yet there was no animal that could possibly breathe fire.
But there was an alternative, one made only possible after the countless trials and errors done in the creation of the other specimens.
There is a species of snake that spat out their venom instead of administering it with a bite.
The spitting cobra.
Whenever threatened, the spitting cobra would rear up and brandish its fangs to intimidate whatever it was that foolishly provoked it. If it didn't take the hint, then the snake would spit out its venom, targeting the head and eyes for maximum pain.
That by itself was already terrifying, but that venomous spit was only a single component of ELEVEN's boiling breath.
The bombardier beetle, turkey vulture, and saltwater crocodile.
These three animals might not share much in common, but they each possessed specific abilities that made it extremely deadly when combined.
First was the simplest, the saltwater crocodile.
It is potentially the animal with the strongest gastric juices and stomach acid on the planet. These attributes are what made it capable of digesting bones so quickly.
Next was the bombardier beetle.
Humans were lucky that these insects remained small, as they could dish out a scalding, irritating spray triggered by enzymes in a reaction chamber to produce a violent, boiling-hot chemical blast of benzoquinone, oxygen, and water, enough to injure or even kill most of its predators.
And lastly, the turkey vulture.
Although its stomach acid was not as strong as the saltwater crocodile, and neither did it have the spray of the bombardier beetle, it did have a special defense mechanism that combined aspects of both.
Acid puke.
This bird would quite literally puke at you if you came running at it.
The puke in question wouldn't just be its half-digested dinner though, but also its stomach acid.
With all of these abilities making up ELEVEN's boiling breath, it wasn't hard to imagine the result.
The Skullcrawler screamed for its life as the acid tore through its cranial carapace and left it a disoriented, bleeding mess on the ground. Without another moment of hesitation, ELEVEN roared and charged forward.
He slammed down with his entire weight before taking the shrieking beast's neck into his mouth. Suffice it to say, it didn't have much more to scream about after its neck was cleanly ripped out from its torso.
That's two down.
His eyes blinked as they snapped towards the remaining two. The severed head of the fallen one remained within his mouth, the blood dripping down as its skull-like face was disfigured by the boiling acid.
ELEVEN released a low, rumbling series of growls, eerily resembling human laughter as he spat out the head and made eye contact with the smaller one of the two still remaining.
Even still, his breathing was ragged and paused at unusual intervals. A sign of fatigue and mental exhaustion.
That should have been a good sign for the Skullcrawlers as they prepared for another attack.
After all, what they had done so far was relatively minor, yet had cost two of their lives. It would be considered a great loss even by their standards, which was exactly why they couldn't afford to lose for real.
The pair glanced at each other and nodded, a silent form of communication as they began to formulate a new plan of action in their minds.
But that's when they went still.
Under the pair's frozen gazes, ELEVEN's form twitched as they gasped in shock.
The bleeding on his right eye began to bubble and violently burst as his flesh started to conjoin and rebuild itself.
The countless lacerations that had been dealt to his body began to turn a shade of purple before slowly fading away, covered in layers and layers of newly regenerated skin.
Judging by how fast the process had been, it would only take another a few minutes before ELEVEN would be completely healed.
Again, his laughter resounded within the expanse.
His pupils shrunk in pure, unadulterated excitement as the pair finally understood the truth of the matter.
Although the Dragon was tired, it mattered little in the end.
They never even stood a chance against this monster.
· · ──── · ──── · ·
Sergeant John Hammond was completely awestruck by the scene depicted before him.
It was a tape recording of the combat trial for Specimen C11 and its battle against the juvenile Skullcrawlers.
He had always been fascinated by the animal kingdom. Even in his youth, he had been the type of troublesome child to catch frogs in his free time just to see what they did aside from existing.
And that was why he had been stupefied when King Kong and Skull Island was revealed to the world.
He had aspirations of going into paleontology after the war was over, and even had a personal childish dream of seeing a living dinosaur roaming the earth.
Yet it seemed this dream hadn't been that childish, after all.
This was exactly why he had eagerly volunteered to be stationed here for the Seattle Project. A dinosaur was already amazing by itself, but a genuine Dragon created by science!?
That didn't even sound real!
Yet the undeniable proof was right before him.
He narrowed his eyes as Specimen C11 began to heal itself in the recording...
What kind of strange ability was that? John had never seen anything similar in his life before.
"Doctor," Luckily, the general had the same question in mind as he asked the scientist. "What exactly is going on there?"
"Ah!" The bald scientist perked up at the innocent question as he grinned.
John noted of the man's crooked teeth and heavy bags under the eyes. Although these were unremarkable traits, they told the story of a man finally seeing his hard work come to fruition.
"Why that is just one of the miraculous effects of Organizer G1, sir." The scientist explained. "It's not just Specimen C11, all of the others also share the accelerated regeneration. However, in ELEVEN's case, we decided to use a surplus amount of axolotl DNA in its creation..."
John raised an eyebrow at the scientist's words. He understood every part of it except for this 'Organizer G1' that he had mentioned.
What on earth was that?
Taking a peek at the general, he doesn't appear even a little bit confused at the term, so...
Ah.
It wasn't something that a sergeant had the right to know.
"Axolotls are most well known for their ability to heal even severed limbs," The scientist explained. "When we combined this with the Organizer G1, the effects were... astounding, as you can see."
Indeed, although the scientist had mentioned that the other specimens also possessed regeneration, none of them had been visibly healing that fast, at least, in what was captured by the tapes.
Specimen C11 was just on another level in that regard.
"Well," General Thatch spoke once more. "He certainly seems to enjoy it."
John made the same observation as the tape captured what seemed to be reptilian laughter.
He wasn't afraid to admit that it creeped him out the first time he heard it.
But that couldn't have been a real laugh, right?
There were animals like hyenas that supposedly 'laughed' like a human would, but that was just because the natural noises that they made resembled laughter.
Still, it didn't lessen how eerie it sounded in the tape.
"Ah, y-yes... he appears to be." The scientist responded, seeming to be unsure of the notion.
"Wait, is it even a male?" General Thatch asked another question as the previous topic was quickly forgotten. "Are there plans to breed them?"
To that, the scientist perked up, appearing much more capable of answering this familiar topic.
"No, sir. No plans for that yet." He explained as he gestured at the recordings. "Currently, all of our specimens are male."
"This is to avoid the risk of asexual reproduction as the majority of them have genes from either monitor lizards or some other animals that have the ability to asexually reproduce via parthenogenesis."
John whistled internally at that. Now that was a piece of knowledge he hadn't known about. Monitor lizards could do that?
As a curious mind, he appreciated the occasional animal facts.
"I see," The general nodded. "Alright, the results of the combat trial have been satisfactory so far, perhaps we can consider their deployment..."
His gaze swept over the recordings.
It wasn't just Specimen C11 that was now enjoying its meal.
Specimen B9 could be seen dragging a dead corpse back to its den, and even Specimen A7 was hovering in the air above, its talons bloodied with the satisfaction of a successful hunt.
Of course, that was to be expected of the 'three' aces. The other specimens had suffered far more injuries, and some had even died.
Yet in General Thatch's eyes, this result seemed more than enough.
One should understand that the Skullcrawlers were the first real threats that these Dragons had ever faced without protection, maybe aside from themselves when they were younger.
They had little experience in combat, and yet had manages to pull through in the end.
The scientist became ecstatic at the general words. "I assure you, general. You won't regret it!"
***
Chapter four completed! Any thoughts?
Alright, chat. I'll give you a deal, place our beloved Godzilla Paradox in the top 100 rankings this week (for FF's below 30 days of age) and a bonus chapter will be yours!