Posted on March 20, 2006 by Jenna
There would be parrots with water powers.
They would live under water.
They would make raucous noises like “Squawk! bubble bubble bubble! Squawk! bubble bubble bubble!”
This would be very disconcerting for the sailors.
There would be burning tyrannosaurus rexes. They would not be extinct because their fire powers would allow them to survive K-T extinction events such as the one that killed all of the non-elemental dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The burning tyrannosaurus rexes would laugh and laugh as they rampaged through American cities but in turn people would laugh and laugh and laugh at their flaming stubby little hands.
It is actually possible that the flaming dinosaurs would not survive but it is definite that any tyrannosaurus rexes with K-T elemental powers would still be around, so, anyway.
There would be at least one Metallic Hopping Vampire. He’d be like a Hopping Vampire, only with powers over metal. That’d be so cool!
And there would be sharks who could jump twenty feet out of the water, hang there, and form bullets out of the wind to devastate their enemies. To hunt these sharks you would need a bigger boat. A bigger, bulletproof, flying boat. And lasers. And even then it would be a near thing.
There would be octopi who would assemble in eight-octopus teams using their aquatic telepathy. It is arguably not so good to be able to talk to fish when one is the King of Atlantis but it is very good when one is a fish and normally unable to communicate at all.
There would be koi with the ability to disrupt bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a terrible element but it is the element that koi get and the koi are not technically to blame for its presence in the traditional Chinese six-element cycle.
Who is to blame for that, anyway?
Bees. Bees are to blame for the traditional Chinese six-element cycle and also they sting people so Hitherby Dragons will not give them any elemental superpowers they do not already possess.
There would be elephants with special elemental ninja powers. For example there would be an elephant master of snow and ice. If you asked the other elephants who the coldest elephant ninja master is, they would invariably trumpet, douse you in water, and then indicate the snow elemental master. In addition there would be a shadow elephant—an umbral elephant, as it were—who could slip under your door and then manifest and charge you.
Charging shadow elephants are very scary even if you take away their credit cards because the phone book overflows with companies willing to extend shadowy elephant ninjas new lines of credit with no questions asked. They can even do it mid-confrontation, so that it might go like this:
“Ha ha,” laughs strong-jawed Buck Williams, brandishing the elephant’s credit card and thus preventing it from charging.
“Trumpet!” trumpets the shadowy elephant ineffectually.
Then the shadowy elephant spies one of many NO QUESTIONS ASKED credit card offers on the table next to the door where strong-jawed Buck Williams, son of Giorgi, keeps his unread mail.
Swiftly the elephant seizes it.
Swiftly the elephant mails it.
Then the elephant, oh so ungraciously, looks smug.
Buck’s eyes widen. In bullet-time, he turns and lunges for his elephant gun. He fills it with buck shot. He levels it. But it is too late.
“Trumpet!” trumpets the triumphant elephant.
He doesn’t ever pay for the charges. It’s a bad debt!
The elephant isn’t the last elemental animal we will examine. There are also earth beetles. These are beetles capable of burrowing through the dirt. Right through the earth! People can’t do that. We don’t have the requisite elemental mastery of earth, which is the problem.
Earth beetles are also good at throwing gigantic rocks at their enemies and at making clever balls out of dried dung.
“What a clever ball of dried dung!” one might praise, seeing them.
Such a compliment makes earth beetles puff up with pride!
Metallic Hopping Vampire would like to clarify that hopping vampires are not animals and so his hypothetical metal powers have nothing to do with the premise for this entry. Oops!
Finally there would be owls who fly around shooting lightning at things. One of them might try shooting lightning at a K-T-powered tyrannosaurus rex.
Bam! K-T extinction event!
That’d show those elemental-powered animals.
After a while, Martin says, “Today’s insight is apparently … not to taunt large predators that can cause K-T extinction events.”
Solemnly observes Jane: “People needed to know.”
Categories: Legends, Hitherby, Under Construction - The Transition to Imago
ethan_greer on March 20, 2006 at 8:27 am said:
random on March 20, 2006 at 9:04 am said:
Penultimate Minion on March 20, 2006 at 9:13 pm said:
Archangel Beth on March 21, 2006 at 3:18 pm said:
Recherche on September 16, 2006 at 12:09 am said: