Darkness in the Deep Sea (Twelve)

Audrey assumed her Butterfly-Winged Leopard form, deadly intent hidden beneath its elegant beauty.

She moved fast, vanishing in a flash.

Her gaze fixed on the enormous black bulge on the Giant Crab's back. It was the parasitic female Sea Qi Queen. Under the queen's control, the terrifying deep-sea emperor crab swung its claws without pause. The slightest movement of its immense body shook the earth.

The Butterfly-Winged Leopard slashed with both sharp claws crossed.

Crack! A massive claw surged forward and blocked the strike.

Her claws scraped against it with a metallic screech, leaving only a dent a few centimeters deep.

To a crab of such staggering size, that wound was almost nothing.

Whoom!

The deep-sea emperor crab's counterattack was simpler, cruder, and far more direct.

One massive claw snapped shut.

The air itself seemed to tear.

Audrey dodged, but the rush of air behind her sent cold sweat across her skin. Her expression darkened.

In the deep ocean trenches, evolution and predation were exceptionally brutal, preserving traits found in some Ancient Creatures.

No matter how potent a creature's venom, something else was always more venomous—or entirely immune to it.

No matter how strange its abilities, something stranger existed, or something capable of seeing straight through them.

And so,

through the brutal process of survival of the fittest, as they descended against the crushing pressure of the sea and sought the richer energy sources of the ocean floor, these terrifying deep-sea creatures had come to trust their unmatched bodies: the formidable defense those bodies gave them and the direct, crushing attacks they could unleash.

With bodies like these, any special abilities would make them nearly indistinguishable from Ancient Creatures.

Elsewhere,

Alder was not so lucky.

His Elemental True Body was a fusion built from the strengths of Mickey's Thunder Heart