Chapter 36: Chapter 36 - A violent encounter
Months have gone by since Spencer has been on this planet. He had long since familiarized himself with the landscape and had come across many other inhabitants. He had also come in contact with the same creatures he met in his first week of arriving on quite a few occasions. Considering he didn't what they were called, he decided to go with the name Lacertilia, solely because the creatures were lizards.
He also met some creatures that greatly resemble spiders in the way they were structured, eight legs, eight eyes, thick carapace, massive mandibles, also the fact that they were roughly ten feet tall, seeming like the average nightmare fuel to anyone normal. He also didn't forget to take the traits of as many creatures as he could find. In addition to his needles, which was now capable of paralyzing whatever they come in contact with due to a little modification that Spencer eventually added, he had also gained the ability to see on a variety of light spectrums from consuming a kind of giant dragonfly and breathe out a lethal poison mist due to consuming a what looked to be a butterfly.
Everything on Mars seemed to simply be a bigger and slightly modified version of what was already on Earth, which was somewhat disappointing, but he couldn't complain seeing the traits he was gaining by consuming them.
Now, the only other form of life he was looking for was the Martians. He thought that maybe the alien life on this planet could give him a challenge and make him struggle to survive, but it seems that the only beings on this planet that could achieve this would have to be them.
Right now, Spencer was in the middle of fighting another creature of this place, a creature that greatly resembled that of an earthworm. Well, if an earthworm had rows of teeth and could grow to the size of a pickup truck while reaching the length of a football field. Spencer came in contact with this thing while he was strolling through the landscape, "minding his business" when suddenly this thing spawned out of nowhere and attempted to assault him from below.
Staring at this thing, Spencer felt no threat from this creature and only lowered his head, releasing an audible sigh of disappointment. He had his arms crossed with an expression of boredom, this place was supposed to challenge him in ways he could never think of, not make him more bored than when he was on Earth! The terrain was just soo plain, the creatures here were just a waste of his time and this overgrown fishing bait was testing his patience.
Spencer couldn't bother anymore, he had already seen what the meager creatures on this planet could offer, and it wasn't much. He only shook his head and started walking past the worm. Seeing that Spencer wasn't paying attention to it, the worm spat an unknown liquid at him in annoyance.
Sensing this, Spencer casually blocked it with an energy field. The liquid looked to be acidic, due to the smoke it generated when the sand came into contact with it. He couldn't bother with the creature any longer and turned around to look at it. The creature immediately dove at him upon seeing that his first attack had no effect.
Clenching his fist, Spencer disappeared into a blur. In the next moment, a blare rang out as the worm fragmented into an explosion of blood and guts. Before the fragments could the sand, however, it all quickly liquified in the air and converged towards Spencer as he absorbed it into his body.
"We need to speed this up…"
Growing almost restless at this point, Spencer channeled a large portion of his energy into the area perpetually, hoping to find the Martians. However, no matter how many times he tried, there were no signs of the elusive species he was looking for, making him increasingly more agitated. In his frustration he kicked the ground, spurring up a giant sand wall before him.
"WHY CAN'T I SENSE THEM?!" - He roared into the wind.
While he was throwing his tantrum at his failure to find them, the energy within his body was being stimulated greatly by his anger, sending sparks into the atmosphere. He continued kicking the ground while sending a storm of sand forward. Quickly raising his leg above his head, he then formed a crater by violently stomping the ground beneath him.
Soon ending his outburst, Spencer felt how unstable his energy was growing, he promptly calmed himself and flew over to a rock in the distance. Reaching it, he sat down and began to meditate to get his energy under control.
Unbeknownst to him, a decent distance away from Spencer, two vaguely humanoid silhouettes were apparent, standing and carefully observing him from a distance. The two seemed to be tall, almost reptilian creatures, sporting tails with digitigrade legs and bodies covered in a minuscule layer of an armored carapace. Their skin was extremely pale, appearing practically white to those who view it.
The silhouettes stood next to each other completely hidden from Spencer's sensory abilities. Cutting back to him, he had finally managed to regain control of his energy and was about to continue his search, until he was hit by a sudden sharp pain in his head as if something was attempting to forcefully invade his mind. Holding his head, Spencer fell to his knees confused as to why his brain felt as if it was being pricked by hot needles.
Repeatedly wincing in pain, Spencer struggled to get back to his feet as his body slowly began to adapt to this sudden assault on his mind. After some time, he stood up, somewhat disoriented.
"What is going on? My head feels like it's about to split open!!"
Spencer's tone was very uneven and strained, but he soon managed to collect himself a little. Racking his already hurting brain about what was the possible cause of the assault on his mind, he couldn't come up with any conclusions or possible theories as to why it happened so suddenly. Before he could think any further, he once again felt his mind being invaded.
"What sort of creature are you?"
A sharp, but aggressively toned voice rang out in his head, startling him greatly. He frantically began to look around while raising his alertness to their peak, yet he couldn't find anything.
Instead of answering, he continued his search, but it was fruitless, he could not find the source of the attack no matter how much he looked for. He soon gave up and stood on guard.
"What are you?!"
A second, yet softer voice albeit still aggressive, rang in his mind, causing him to have another headache. Spencer couldn't handle the strain on his mind any longer as he quickly tried to fly away, only to collide with an unknown force and be violently thrown back into the sand.
He tried to get up once again but was forced to his back, something pressing against his chest. He looked up and was appalled by what he was seeing. Sleek, intimidating, and stronger than anything he has ever faced in this world, as well as the very thing he wanted to find since the beginning.
"Martians!"
The Martian had Spencer pinned to the floor beneath its foot. While unable to move, a second appeared next to him, observing him as he laid on the floor in distress.
The once Apex predator, beneath the foot of another creature at the peak of its ecosystem.
He could not move correctly in his highly disoriented state, at this moment he was somewhat helpless to any attacks that the Martians might launch upon him. He continued to resist and attempted to remove the Martian's foot from his chest, but he was severely weakened from his mind being bombarded in a way that he has never experienced before.
Attempting to move was a struggle in itself, let alone using any of his strength to get up and fight back. Despite this, Spencer was still giving his all.
The two Martians looked at Spencer and continued to interrogate him.
"No creature native to this planet has this appearance. You are also definitely not one of those Greens… What are you?"
With the last question, the assault on his mind was increased as he was not responding to their interrogations. The strain was growing unbearable, and he couldn't access any of his strength. Growing desperate, a sensation he hasn't associated with for decades, Spencer allowed the energy within his body to surge and he did his best to channel it into the foot of the Martian that was holding him down.
The two Martians had never seen a creature like this on the planet. They had attempted to influence its mind once they had seen it causing a great disturbance, but they were quickly rejected by the mind of this thing. They had even tried to probe its mind to get information on what it could potentially be, but all they received was a jumble of wildly chaotic memories and visions. Within this thing's mind, there were countless memories of creatures for endless variety, many of them that have never witnessed before.
Seeing from its memories that it harbored intelligence, they attempted to communicate with it with the language it was familiar with, but the thing refused to respond and even attempted to escape, so they quickly subdued it and held it down to question it further. However, all the creature did was struggle and fight, making them wonder if it was truly intelligent at all.
To make it talk like it did before they increased the strain on the creature's mind and asked again. Yet they received no response. They were growing quickly annoyed by this thing, so they increased the weight on its chest as well. To their surprise, it retaliated in a way they were not expecting.
Coming back to Spencer, he was challenging as much energy as he could to manage some form of control in his jumbled state. He launched it forward at the male Martian in front of him, knocking it back and temporarily allowing his mind some semblance of clarity.
Kicking up from the floor and taking a crude unrefined fighting stance, Spencer immediately threw a feeble punch at the female Martian that was next to him, launching it away from him as well. He then quickly sought to ground himself and undo the distress the male martian had placed on his mind.
Taking a few seconds, Spencer enhanced his mind's functionality using the energy within his body and was finally free from the disorientation he was experiencing. However, that was the least of his problems at the current moment.
Looking around, Spencer remained vigilant as to prevent himself from being blindsided again. Despite his diligence to stay at full alert, he was suddenly thrown to the side without warning and was sent tumbling and rebounding off the sand. Digging his hand into the sand, he lessened his momentum slightly, only to be sent flying a second time from something powerful hitting his face.
Using the energy in his body, Spencer halted in the air and landed on his feet in a crouched position shortly after. Looking up towards the direction he came from, he couldn't see what had hit him, until the body of the female martian began to materialize at his previous spot. Spencer was wide-eyed, despite his prior knowledge of the Martian's abilities, he was still having a hard time.
Glancing at the female martian that had kicked him, Spencer began looking for the male martian that he had pushed away from him. In the middle of his search, while keeping an eye on the female, he was once again thrown to the side without warning, with much more force than before.
Catching himself in an instant, Spencer grew immensely annoyed by the reality of being thrown around as if he was some sort of ragdoll. In his annoyance, he quickly realized that trying to look for them would be an issue considering they can become invisible and trick his eyes, even with his ability to see on different spectrums.
Seeing that he couldn't rely on his eyes any further, he closed them and began to place focus on his other senses. Smell, hearing, vestibular, proprioception, thermoception, electroreception… al possible sensory abilities other than sight that he had access were enhanced to their absolute maximum. In his mind, an invisible sensory field was created around the area with his body as the center. Within this field he could sense every detail, the movement of the sand, the slight changes of temperature in the atmosphere, the electrical stimuli traveling through the air, nothing was escaping Spencer's evolved senses.
Remaining stagnant, Spencer stood still and allowed his body to decide when it was time to act.
Switching to the two Martians, they didn't know what to think of the situation. From the very beginning, they have been attacking this thing without holding back, and yet, all of their attacks only seemed to have annoyed it. There was only a minuscule amount of damage apparent on its body, which was beyond their expectations. Far different from their usual domination of the creatures on this planet.
The female martian was especially perplexed by this creature, despite her sending him flying and kicking him in the face with her full strength, he instantly recovered and got back up as if it did not affect him in the slightest. Their assaults on his mind were proving to be less effective as they were in the beginning, it seemed to be building resistance to the attacks as they bombarded its mind.
Seeing that he was no longer moving, the two Martians attacked Spencer simultaneously. The male Martian jumped in and went in for a punch to the solar plexus while the female flew towards him and attempted a kick to the back of Spencer's head. The two were attacking while exploiting their invisibility. But they weren't expecting what was soon to happen.
Returning to Spencer, in the middle of his heightened sensory state, he knew that he couldn't locate the two assailants by using his energy, so he resorted to a new way of locating them; by trusting his instincts that he honed throughout the prehistoric era and his senses.
Feeling the presence of the two Martians from sensing the vibrations in the atmosphere around him and the shifts in the sand beneath his feet, he could weakly perceive their bodies as featureless silhouettes. However, he didn't have time to revel in the fact that he could now see them, he had to quickly evade the incoming attacks.
Holding out his hand and receiving the punch of the male martian, Spencer used the male's momentum as a means to parry the female's attack, swinging him around and slamming him into her body.
Knocking her out of the air and embedding both of them into the sand, a small crater was formed with the two at its core. Spencer didn't let them rest for even a second, he immediately flew into the air and condensed multiple spheres of purple energy around his body, each the size of a basketball.
Launching all of the spheres of energy at the crater, an explosion of massive proportions echoed, greatly deforming the landscape and forming a mushroom cloud spanning several hundred meters in height.
Opening his eyes, Spencer looked down at the crater and didn't see anything left of the two Martians. Descending back to the sand, he approached the crater to see if the attack was sufficient enough to fatally harm the two.
However, when he arrived, nothing was there. It was as if he had been attacking the sand itself and not the enemies that were beating the crap out of him previously. He was confused, but this confusion didn't last long. Spencer was once again sent flying for the third time. Rocketing through the air, he collided with the ground a long distance away from the crater and laid there in silence.
He remained stagnant and unmoving against the sand. Looking from the outside, his face appeared calm and somewhat composed. On the inside, however, his mind was engulfed in an overwhelming rage that was just urging to breach the surface. Sitting up, he jumped on his feet and dusted himself off in a nonchalant manner.
"I didn't think I would have to go this far… I was assuming that maybe, just maybe if I met the green Martians, I could potentially convince one of them to give me some of their blood or something… But noooo, I just HAD to meet these ASSHOLES!!!"
As Spencer was voicing out his anger, his body structure slowly started to morph. His body began to expand, his muscles bulged as they increased in size and density, his skin began to shift into a more charcoal-like shade, while spines began to protrude along the center of his back. His legs became digitigrade and sharp bony protrusions ejected from his elbows. His tail grew out and ended with a tip covered in an armored plating.
His size continually increased until it reached about roughly 3 meters. Lastly, his once calm expression had transformed completely into that of total anger. Looking at where he was sent flying, Spencer saw the two white Martians standing and observing him with hostility.
"Oooh… I'm going to enjoy tearing you two to pieces!!!"
Saying those words, he launched himself at the two, disrupting the entirety of the area behind him and leaving a deep cavity in his wake. Appearing in front of the two in a second, he cocked his fist back, channeling his strength in the attacking arm…
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone