Dust Devils - A Girls Und Panzer Story

Chapter 77

Thursday, September 19th 2013

Earth was one planet with many worlds. A paradoxical declaration on the surface, but when one takes a more in-depth look, they'll learn that it is an axiomatic truth. Life in scorching deserts, underneath the turbulent waves of oceans, in the desolate wastes of tundras, and many more domains in Earth's biosphere exist in their own worlds. Each was vivid, different, and fascinating, even those areas that house little to no life, such as the mouths of roaring volcanoes. Yet, it was only one kind of world that gripped Marielle and captured her imagination. A world that couldn't be seen by the naked eye, but its impact on the human species was undeniable── the microscopic world.

Catalina was an art school; it was what made it so renowned. However, it was still a high school, and thusly, it was mandated by state law to provide students with a comprehensive curriculum to satisfy standards. The math and science courses weren't as high quality as more STEM-focused institutions, such as Golden Gate, though they were respectable enough. They were more than enough to make them Marielle's favorite.

In the late morning, she was in her biology class. It was a lab day, so students in the room were partnered up. Marielle was partnered up with Nathan as she was the only other member of the tankery team in this class period. So, naturally, he gravitated toward her when the time came to partner up as she was the only person he knew, even if only partially.

The pair sat side-by-side at a lab station, with Marielle operating a microscope that looked relatively new and Nathan with a notebook and pencil. Marielle prepared a glass side by applying a drop of collected pond water and inserted it under the microscope. She peered through the eyepiece and found the picture to be incredibly blurry. Adjustments were made with the side knobs and, with one more final twist, got crystal clear quality.

The small pond water drop contained a fantastic world full of squirming microscopic creatures. She immediately spotted a filter feeder called a Stentor, an organism that resembled a funnel. Marielle could see in front of its 'mouth' were small disturbances in the water that was the work of its cilia. These hairlike structures vibrate to generate vortexes to pull in plant matter and unlucky critters that happen to be caught and devoured. She looked around some more and came across creatures that resembled a bear, another very circular in nature, and others wormlike—all swimming in, what was to them, a vast and dangerous ocean. Then she found something that she hoped to come across, a hunt in its final stages.

"Alright, we got two good ones here," Marielle informed. "An amoeba and a paramecium."

"Okay," Nathan replied. He was about to write down what he was told but stopped to look at her. "We get extra credit if we identify specific species."

"Gotcha," she went silent for a moment, not moving from the eyepiece. "Chaos carolinensis and Paramecium aurelia."

"Wanna check the reference sheet? I got that somewhere..."

Nathan reached for his backpack though Marielle raised her hand in protest.

"Nah," she said. "I'm definitely right on the money here."

"Alright, I'll take your word for it," he wrote down the names. "So, what are they doing?"

Marielle lifted her head from the eyepiece and scooted her chair away. She gestured toward the microscope.

"You'll definitely want to see what's about to go down for yourself."

With some excitement, Nathan hopped on the microscope and saw, and Marielle observed. He first noticed the amoeba, the larger of the two critters. It genuinely fit the definition of a blob with no defined shape at all. At one end of it extended two arm-like projections called pseudopodia, where they were used to move the amoeba toward its prey.