Skull Island
A taloned hand dipped slowly into the water-ridden grass, placed against the wet foliage with utmost flawlessness in its care.
Lightly and quietly as possible, as if to remain completely and utterly undetected by any and all beings with auditory receptors in range. A bony, scaly arm stretched with muscle as its two-limbed owner stalked ever so quietly towards its intended target: a long-limbed cricket-like insect, moss adorning a body that looked as if it were made of a fallen tree. The Spore Mantis didn’t even notice the Skullcrawler stalking her, she was too busy traversing the edge of a forest scouring for whatever small edibles she could find. Toad-like eyes watched her every movement as the adult Skullcrawler timed his next step right and took it, making sure to tread the watery ground with just as much softness as before. His plan seemed to be working, the Spore Mantis didn’t seem to notice. A long, pinke tongue flicked quickly and noiselessly out of his bony jaws to taste the air with anticipation before slinking back in just as quickly as it had arrived. Tensing his 95-foot body, the Skull Devil laid his tail completely flat against the ground and lowered himself like a resting monitor lizard, moving his shoulders with the full intention to break into a spring… … …
The Spore Mantis suddenly chirped loudly and began to scuttle quickly into the reaches of the forest, her vocalization laced with fear. The Skullcrawler paused, unsure of what was happening. Unaware of why the floral insect had suddenly decided to flee. Had she noticed his presence--?
A sound suddenly reached his ears, causing his head to start ever so slowly turning around. It was a sound unfamiliar to the reptilian apex predator. A sharp chittering, like a cross between a bird and a monkey.
And it was emanating from right behind him.
The Skull Devil suddenly whirled his body a full 180 degrees--and in the blink of an eye, his stalker zoomed screeching at him from the top of the mountains, covering the distance to him in less than a second.
SHINK!
A rain of red spurted into the wetland water to paint it with the one color that marked the scene of a hunter’s kill, before the ground thudded with a quaking impact as a large body collapsed limp as a wet rag. Two spiny forelimbs picked up the corpse as their arthropodal owner carried it far away, leaving the severed skull of the once feared ravenous predator behind as a stark reminder of one of the most brutal teachings by Mother Nature.
There is always a bigger predator.
*****
Yellow, bulbous eyes scanned over the vast expanses of the tropical ecosystem of Skull Island, noting down every detail and every path as the emerald insect navigated his way back to where he desired. Blood dripping from the stump where his kill’s now-severed head once perched, the giant praying mantis left a raining trail of crimson as he flew across the forested mountains of the island, some even falling down into a human village he passed over. The mantis ignored them, he had no interest in humans. Just tiny gnats in comparison to his feet, not even worth predation by his like.
This island was full to the brim with bigger, tastier game.
His wings fluttering at speeds that made even a hummingbird’s wings look juvenile, Kamacuras zoomed through the skies as if he were a biological bullet on a rocket launcher; the air warping behind him from the sheer velocity. He didn’t have far to travel; up in the distance, at a series of rocky peaks that reared from a large expanse of water, he saw his objective. The archipelago, the islets. The edges of the island.
His territory.
Kamacuras chittered as the expanse grew in visual size and detail, his wings beginning to slow in pace. As he neared, his eyes caught sight of the other large forms that resided upon some of the limestone peaks, one even standing in the shallow water. The other Gimantis chattered and chirped to each other, waving and twitching their raptorial forearms while filling the morning air with their communicative vocalizations. Claws still clutching the beheaded Skullcrawler, the alpha Gimantis slowed his flight to the point where his wings could actually be seen, the other insects going quiet at his appearance; then, with a screech, Kamacuras landed upon the tallest peak to assert his dominance over the rest of the pack.
But as he placed the Skull Devil’s body on the rocky surface below his claws, his mind registered a sight that made his blood boil and his seasonal instincts flare to life.
Another male stood upon a peak that also happened to be inhabited by a brown-colored female, chirping softly to her as he steadily approached her; his left forelimb clutching the dead body of a Sker Buffalo. Fresh blood dripped from the lacerations on the mammal’s body, and even from his peak the scent of it was every bit as mouth-wateringly alluring as the dead Skullcrawler that lay beneath his feet. And even worse: the trick seemed to be working. Chittering in interest, the female was slowly advancing towards the ungulate corpse, mandibles twitching in hunger.
A sharp, shrieking bark left Kamacuras’ mandibles, stopping the other male dead in his tracks.
Both Gimantis jolted and whipped their heads around to look at him, and even without the necessities to provide for facial expression their shock and alarm was clear as day. The courting male quivered lightly as Kamacuras bent forward and reared his abdomen towards the sky, spreading his wings and raising his arms while he uttered two terrifying shrieks. The meaning was clear; Kamacuras was the alpha of the pack, and as the prime male he always held first dibs when it came to breeding. The dead Skullcrawler served the same purpose as the dead Sker Buffalo; it was not for himself, not to satisfy his own hunger. It was a gift.
It was mating season.
The female Gimantis stepped back while the younger male turned to face the alpha, his alarm replaced with animalistic anger. Rearing his own claws, he screeched a challenge at Kamacuras. The alpha male squalled back, threatening the youth to back right off. From their perches, the three females quickly backed away as they watched the two males posture and wave their clawed limbs to display their strength, screaming at one another like hormonal harpies with a volume loud enough to send any and every species on Skull Island fleeing in terror for miles around. All the while, the timber-colored females watched the spectacle but did not get anywhere close, for while it was often that the loudest and most intimidating display was all that was needed to settle disputes, it was never guaranteed that showing off will be enough. And it was at this point where the females needed to be very careful. From the looks of things, there was a mounting chance that push was about to go to shove, and when two males engaged in full-on combat and a female remained too close to the point she got caught in the crossfire, the males could easily kill her amidst the ferocity of their duel--to say nothing of the combatants themselves.
And this younger one may very well have just made a dangerous mistake.
Even by Gimantis standards, Kamacuras was a very large male; as such, risk of serious injury at the very least was frighteningly high. Kamacuras’ displays were beginning to grow more aggressive by the second, but amazingly the younger male was only emboldened to increase the ferocity of his displays as retaliation. That’s when Kamacuras pawed the rock beneath him and screeched his final warning, louder and more vicious than ever. This was it. This was the moment that the young male had to make a decision. He had to choose between intelligence and logic, or bravery and/or outright stupidity, to decide the outcome of whatever happened to him next. It was all riding on what choice he made here and now… … …
Forelimbs reared and head bent low, the younger male screeched and began to wave his abdomen back and forth, the message unmistakable: an intimidation dance.
The last straw snapped like a dead twig.
With an enraged squall, Kamacuras leaped right off his perch to shoot towards the young Gimantis with speed and fluidity that caught him off guard. The younger insect only managed to raise his arms halfway up before the alpha male collided with him, knocking him off his rock and tackling him into the shallow water below. The females watched poker-faced as the two males squared off, rearing up onto their hind legs and smashing their upper bodies against each other like giant bears, clawing and clanging against one another with their raptorial forelimbs as if they were in a swordfight. Echoing screeches filled the air as they dueled, the cracks of their colliding bodies being so powerful they trembled the rocky islets that composed of the archipelago and rattled the ground for a good three miles. Nothing but pure, primeval testosterone fueled their savagery as they threw down in the shallows, the water splashing about in repeated bursts amidst this clash of the titans.
But it was clear that one held a distinct and obvious advantage.
An arthropod’s armor was his best defense--unless it got split. And there, with one good stab of a clawed limb, Kamacuras buried it into a gap in the rival male’s exoskeleton. Yellow blood spurted, and the mantis let out an ear-piercing shriek of pain and immediately recoiled. As the razor-edged scythe of an arm withdrew from the injury, Kamacuras lunged forth and bit down upon the young male’s neck, chewing viciously into the chitin. Kicking and thrashing, the youthful Gimantis squealed like a giant capuchin as he finally called it quits; with one good hard yank he ripped himself bleeding and free from Kamacuras’ grasp and instantly reverted from fight to flight. Wings a-buzzing, the praying mantis flew into the air and soared far away, landing upon a different islet a few hundred meters away.
Leaping like a grasshopper, the alpha male landed upon the peak his defeated rival once stood upon, perching proudly as he made his position clear. The wounded youth watched fearfully from afar as Kamacuras reared his scythed limbs upwards and screeched in triumph to signify his superiority, the females beginning to re-enter the scene again upon knowing that the battle was over.
But then, in an unexpected display of extra salt to the festering wound, the victorious mantis did the worst possible thing he could ever do to his overpowered competition.
Grabbing the dead Sker Buffalo in his claws, Kamacuras quickly began to feast upon the deceased mammal, the very gift that the defeated male had tried using to court a mate. Mandibles slicing through meat and bone, the triumphant insect devoured the intended gift like the bite-sized snack it was while its original owner watched, the blood spilling down the rock and into the water below, a scent that would surely attract aquatic predators to the spot. It didn’t take long for Kamacuras to finish the meal, discarding the last scraps aside as he at last turned his attention away from the rival.
Another, lighter chirp rang in the air.
Jumping back to his original perch, Kamacuras grasped the dead Skullcrawler in his right ‘claw’, preparing the gift of his own. Sure enough, the female now began to tread towards his position, bulging amber eyes fixed on the decapitated lizard with interest. Soft, monkey-like chitters left Kamacuras’ mandibles as he scaled down the islet, slowly approaching the female and holding the corpse out in her direction, enticing her to take it. Chirping cautiously, the brown mantis reached forward and allowed her antennae to poke at the corpse, sensing it… … ...and then, with a hissing bark, she snatched the corpse out of the male’s claw and began to chew into it.
With the female feasting on his gift, Kamacuras chirped as he began to pace around her in very close physical proximity, sensing her with his antennae; all the while she continued to feast on her prize, unbothered whatsoever by his presence.
She was now receptive.
As Kamacuras lumbered around, he caught yet another glimpse of the defeated male in the distance, still watching them with his expressionless gaze. The alpha male thought nothing of it; he was stronger, simple as that. As with every competition, there were losers, and the young male was the most recent in line. Standing on the outskirts of Kamacuras’ territory, still bleeding from his recent wounds, out here he had little chance of attracting a mate.
All but ignoring his presence, Kamacuras continued his courtship. The strong passed on their genetic lineage, the weak lost out until they either became strong in time, or died trying.
It was just the way things were.
… … ...a booming vocalization abruptly roared into the wind.
Kamacuras suddenly froze, the other Gimantis following suit. They all heard that loud and clear; whatever made it sounded big. As if that weren’t a telltale sign enough, the ground was beginning to quake with single, repeated tremors in a three-second-apart pattern. Almost as if they were powerful footfalls of a very large animal… … …
A loud screech suddenly echoed from the mandibles of the outsider male, the youth waving his claws as he held his back turned on the rest of the pack. The other Gimantis looked in his direction, following his line of sight--and that’s when they saw it. Their excellent vision caught sight of the perpetrator long before any other animals in the vicinity saw it, and Kamacuras twitched his forelimbs and chittered a warning at the oncoming intruder. The hulking behemoth thundered a deep croak as it slowly closed the great distance between it and the huge mantises that watched its every movement. Golden-scaled arms ripe with impressive muscle stomped the shallow water to quake the Earth’s crust with miniature earthquakes, a black armored body rising large spires upon its back to give the creature a regal appearance. A series of bioluminescent crimson bulbs acted as a single visor-like eye that glared at the distant insects, the islets trembling with every footfall as it lumbered into Kamacuras’ territory without a care in the world.
Rearing her right hand up, MUTO Prime slammed her claw down upon the shallow water with enough force to trigger a Magnitude-5 earthquake, booming a bellowing roar at her insectoid opposition. This was her territory now; these pests better either get with that fact and leave, or face her wrath and end up squashed under her heel like the bugs they were.
Eyes seeming to bulge with rage, Kamacuras reared his mandibles and screeched a fearless battle cry that actually made the giant amphibian stop in her tracks, his fellow Gimantis following his lead. The insects had just sent a message of their own:
We’re not going ANYWHERE.