Mod Superhero

Chapter 4.18 - Know Your Enemy

The next two days passed uneventfully.

As nice as it was to hangout at the shelter with his friends and catch up with his family, Emmett had work to do. So he went back to staying at the lab. He gave his family an excuse about volunteering extra with the Summit and relief efforts, and Max and the others helped cover for him.

Both Mom and Dad said they were proud of him for helping out as much as he was, and both tried to reassure him that things would get better soon. Emmett hoped they were right about that second part, but he didn't believe it.

To hear Dr. Venture talk, the Summit should've been able to stop the Deep Ones. The fact that they hadn't yet was bad news.

Equally disconcerting was the fact that the Deep Ones had done relatively little since the tidal wave. World navies had attempted to position themselves above the underwater enclaves, but carrier groups and submarine groups were gently rebuked—the Deep ones used massive currents of water to push them away. Flooding still hadn't receded, despite the efforts of Summit hydromancers, mages, and reality warpers. And since the initial assault, there had only been small skirmishers with the Deep Ones.

Serenity had referred to these small groups of Deep Ones as scouting groups, but that didn't sit right with Emmett. They didn't skulk around and retreat at the first sign of danger or Summit resistance. The Deep Ones fought to the death, no matter how outnumbered or even if they could hop back into the water and retreat.

But that wasn't what was bothering Emmett right now.

Currently, he stood alone in the hub of section 002—the mechanical wing. Well, not entirely alone. TINA was with him. She was always with him. Together, they went over footage from all the engagements with the Deep Ones.

Every time Emmett had been on patrol, he'd seen something beneath the waves.

They'd been over the capabilities of the Deep Ones several times now. They were cold-blooded, with multiple biological forms—similar to ant colonies. Their civilization was thought to be linked in one or several hive-minds.

Strides had been made in some aspects of research. Scientists across the world were dissecting thousands of corpses and analyzing their genetic code. Despite their physical differences, the soldiers, mages, and shock troopers were all one species. That wasn't especially surprising—there were plenty of examples of dimorphism within the animal kingdom. Male and female birds often had drastically different plumage. Ants had workers, soldiers, queens, and even sacrificial males for mating. Certain jellyfish species, like the Portuguese man o' war, weren't a single animal, but actually a colony of animals.

TINA said, "Technically, they're comprised of zooids, not—"

"Thanks, TINA, but you don't need to explain it again. I'm not studying for a biology quiz or anything."

The rest of the biology research on the Deep Ones was incomplete. Mages were thought to be female, and both soldiers and shock troopers thought to be male, but no specimens of the three types were sexually mature. Some researchers were already speculating that there were some type of queens hiding in the strongholds at the bottom of the oceans.

Monstrosities were even stranger.

To date, less than ten monstrosities had been studied—each one possessing completely unique biology and genetic code. The one that attacked Belport looked like a cross between a lobster and a squid. There was another that looked like a shark crossed with an eel. Another like a salamander and an otter.

No matter how different each looked, they were genetically similar—not just to each other, but to the smaller Deep Ones, too. All of them were clearly the same species.