Chatting up Bruce

"How many years have passed?" I thought aloud as I navigated through the water.

"Well, I was expecting an apocalypse and dimensional gates kind of progression but why the hell is the ocean so damn polluted?" The smell of all kinds of pollution was strong in that part of the ocean.

I could only attribute it to the thermonuclear warhead Striker Eureka detonated and the bombs used by PPDC to destroy the Breach. And there was another factor- Kaiju blue.

It was completely dark on the seafloor but I could see just good with perfect clarity.

"Don't they know that they could easily create an inferior version of Shin-chan? Or maybe Ultima? Meh, there are a lot of aquatic candidates out here." It looked kind of funny speaking underwater.

The Little Mermaid could speak underwater, pfft.

I immediately shifted my course after spotting a living creature 100 miles away.

"Bruce! Bruce! Wait!" I called out to the great white shark swimming alone as I caught up to him in a few seconds.

The Great white shark or better "Bruce" the name I found suitable for him, briefly gazed at me.

"..."

???

Bruce immediately pulled a reverse(sharks can't do backward movement), turned to a different direction, further away from me, and fully embraced the "King Shark mode" of swimming.

"Why are you running?!" I called out to him in a friendly tone. You know, creating rapport. How can I forget such an important when meeting new buddies?

"Bruce!"

"You remind me of my childhood friend called Bruce. He is still looking for his other friend Nemo. I don't know if he has found him yet!"

The more I slowly and unhurriedly followed behind him, the more he zigzagged away at breakneck speed.

Bruce gave me a surreptitious side glance that spoke volumes of his current feelings.

Probably along the lines… "Fucking bollocks, do I look like a joke to you?"

"With that intimidating, disgusting size of yours, you thought I would take your beer offer!"

"F*ck off, I am not your friend!"

*Are you fucking mental?"

"I am off to Florida for vacation! Never coming back to Pacific!"

My active mind funnily formulated a script for our dear Bruce.

"You know it gets lonely when you are a monster with no internet, Bruce."

By the way, there was something interesting that I came to notice about Bruce as I trailed behind him. He was about four times bigger than your normal Great white.

Was it a mutation or was it something else?

Bruce looked like a friggin megalodon!

"You know what, Bruce? I have no interest in your Sharkforce or whatever. I don't bite creatures I deem as friends. I am no longer a loner extremist like I used to be. I am slowly by slowly trying to be a social creature."

Weird. Super weird.

Everything about the situation wasn't exactly right.

I was having fun chatting with Bruce but Bruce clearly didn't like me.

Wasn't he just being biased against me due to my large size factor?

Of course, I was an apex predator, more predatory than Bruce could ever be. The funny thing is, most predators are more cowardly than you think.

Bruce was just following his base instincts to run away from a great danger like me - a behemoth with four legs, unlike any other creature it had ever met.

Most animals were intelligent and had situational awareness.

"Bruce, I envy your stamina but I really come in peace. Shark meat doesn't taste great! I despise seafood."

Bruce instinctively accelerated his speed after I said those hypocritical words.

Seeing Bruce zigzag up and down, left and right, as he speedily swam with his life on the line, sadly reminded me of Bob. But that memory was only momentary as my thoughts switched to adventure.

Ever since I got the power to eat my foes and evolve, I had only been driven by the need to survive, to be better. That sort of single-mindedness and discipline was good but in the grand scheme of things, it only served to make numb to a few moments of fun.

I reminded myself that I was no longer my past pathetic shell of a human being. A being with no freedom and goals and only listlessly existed.

That was no solitude but low-key loneliness that only slowly built up depression and that consecutively led to the usual existential self-questioning after a fake dopamine rush.

It's good that my gender was currently nonexistent after evolution. I was in a zen state of mind intending to enjoy monster cuisines to evolve, chat with the unusual, fight with formidable entities, go adventuring like nobody's business, and finally-

Finally what?

Other goals and ambitions were meant to be realized as I continued to exist.

I no longer had the urges of mindlessly destroying humans yet I still disliked them. The switch was probably going to be turned on if they ever messed with me.

'Wait, I think I am sidetracking a little bit. I was having a decent one-sided conversation with Bruce.' I grinned before increasing my speed until I was beside the megalodon cosplayer.

"Dude!" I creepily eyeballed Bruce from the side, eventually giving him a serious nervous breakdown.

The intensity of his heart rate was hella high and I feared that I might send him into cardiac arrest.

Bruce stopped moving and faced me with his white saw-like teeth slightly bared open, his current state worse than his previous happy state.

"You are saying that you are not him. You are not Bruce and I am hugely mistaken." I interpreted his body language and the transmission of signals from its electroreceptors.

Bruce nodded his head.

Surprised? Sharks can also communicate. King Shark is a shark and he can also talk.

"If you are not Bruce, then who are you?" I showed a visible frown.

Bruce didn't respond for a moment and only raised his head slightly.

"You said you are Batman?" I immediately laughed my ass off.

Guys, I am officially a schizophrenic patient.

Batshit crazy like Batman.

After enjoying my laughter, I grinned at Bruce.

"You can go, buddy. You made me laugh and that warrants your survival. Your jokes remind me of the time I used to play with my dolls and the effort I put forth to impersonate each one of them."

Bruce, "..."

"Alright, I know I am childish. But being childish isn't bad. It sometimes drives the stress and negativities away. It's good to be carefree instead of moody, innit?"

Bruce,"..."

Since sharks couldn't communicate through sound, I emulated a signal and passed on my intentions.

"You are free. Go, Bruce."

Our dear Bruce(God bless him) didn't linger around me even before a second passed and left behind urinal secretions.

"He pissed himself?" I spaced out as I looked at his terrified, departing figure.

Krrrkkkk!

On my right, a dolphin began to happily swim towards me.

It was a female dolphin.

Krrrkkkk!

"Wut? You want snu snu?"

"No, no, I don't offer such services!"

Krrrkkkk!

"I said direct your horny ass somewhere else. I will bonk you hard before you even know it."

Krrrkkkk!

The female dolphin understood my message and left dejectedly.

'Hold up, she is heading towards Bruce.' My mouth widened, nearly dropping down on the ocean floor.

"It's just a coincidence." I then began to swim to the surface.

***

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