Tree Monarch - Chapter 1

A/N - Story Poll at the end. Do VOTE!

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——

Point Nemo, South Pacific Ocean, Earth 

–Caden–

With nothing else to do, he focused on the one thing that he could focus on and that was the network of roots that were supplying energy to him. Now, if he remembered correctly, he was dropped in the most remote point on the planet, Point Nemo, which he knew because it was such a nifty little fact to know.

The fact that the closest humans to him were the astronauts in the International Space Station, provided that it was above him, than any other land based humans was amazing.

Boy, he sure was glad about that Calm Mind perk because he’d heard that sensory deprivation was considered torture and he was certain that his civilian little ass would not survive anything that the whole world considered to be torture, especially not for long periods of time.

So, focusing on the root network, he swiftly realised that it was not very large, and the flow of food was not particularly fast, nor was the absorption of energy from the body. Yes, his current body could absorb any sort of energy, he knew that much by instinct.

Currently, being at the bottom of the ocean meant he had access to very little sunlight but what he did have access to was thermal energy. He was absorbing heat from his surroundings, and storing that energy to grow his root network or the size of his bark once enough fuel had been gathered.

So, knowing that there must be something he could do, he tried to somehow will the fuel gathering to go faster. Not having any conventional senses meant it took him a while to get used to the sensory input he was getting from his roots. They were very thin, heading straight down, without a single root going sideways.

Well, he was a sapling so that was to be expected. He was just a little bit surprised when he realised that the fuel gathering from the roots had increased, not dramatically but enough for it to make a difference. 

Seeing progress, he happily focused on that, not caring about the time spent in the process since he did not have a conventional body to have a normal body clock. After a while, or so he thought, since his sense of time was shot down here, the fuel gathering process accelerated as well, and just like taking your foot off the pedal while the car was in cruise control mode, he gingerly removed the foot and voila!

The fuel gathering setup functioned at the same accelerated speed as before. He really had very minimal knowledge, nothing beyond the school taught course about biology, when it came to trees and their complex functioning.

All he knew was they needed CO2, which he was somehow getting here, light in the form of energy, and nutrients from the ground. Now, the energy he was getting was in the form of thermal energy.

To increase the rate of nutrient gathering, he needed bigger and more efficient root networks. He also discovered that the energy absorption capabilities were also extended to any part of his body, which included the roots.

So, being the paranoid little bastard that he was, he chose to double down on his foundation, the roots. But instead of just burrowing deeper, he chose to spread his root network, to explore the area around him, since that was all he could do to get some stimulation in this place.

XXX

He did not know how long he had been at it but with the increase in root network, came the increase in resource gathering, not to mention the more land he covered, which also increased the amount of thermal energy he could absorb from the no doubt extremely cold water.

The results were…promising.

For one thing, he discovered that he could still feel pain, even as a sapling. He discovered that in a rather fun manner.

By bringing his roots.

Yup, his campaign to just increase the range of his roots, something that he heavily focused on when he realised that there was a limit to how much energy his body could absorb from his surroundings, resulting in him pursuing a wider root network, met with a little fiery obstacle.

The pain of being burned was all too recognisable as he realised that his roots had probably met underwater volcanoes, probably. Look, he was not that well versed about underwater volcanoes as well but there should be no other reason to have that level of heat this deep underwater.

Now, a sane, normal tree sapling would have learned its lesson and stayed away from the source of fiery death but he was a Tree Monarch for god’s sake!

Ahem.

Well, a potential Tree Monarch but still, his point stood.

So, he doubled down on his efforts, instead of just extending his root network in the direction of fiery death, which was a big no-no, he instead chose to burrow deep from where his roots had been burned off, resulting in…yes, a high temperate area coming under the purview of his roots.

Greedily slurping the delicious thermal energy, he burrowed deeper underground, whilst also storing that energy and nutrients for something that he had been keeping on the back burner since he did not have a reliable source of energy.

The trunk, or the body of the sapling. Eventually, he wished to breach the surface of the seawater and take in sunlight, and then hopefully, reach civilization to, once again, feel human but that was lightyears away, he could acknowledge that.

To reach that level, he would need to be able to speak, to get his senses back, to move, and more. All things that started with a single step and that was the upgrade of his body. It was small, disproportionate with the root network so he chose to stockpile a bunch of nutrients and energy, to get the requirements fulfilled for the body upgrade.

How did he know the exact amount of energy and fuel/nutrients required? Well, it was all instinctive, and he could not exactly quantify everything. What he did know was that it took a lot of energy to do the bark upgrade, enough to extend the current root network by 30%.

All instinctive knowledge but he knew that with a certainty that it was true, which could be another perk of being a Tree Monarch sapling.

XXX

After a certain while, his mental senses pinged him about the requirements for the bark upgrade being met. He did not know what the upgrade would bring about, which was kind of nerve-wracking since it would be his first time but he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that this was the way forward.

He was a Tree Monarch, not a Root Monarch so the Tree had to be equally as strong as the root network, which was already spreading fast as the extra energy and fuel gathered was automatically being used to expand the root network, which was something he had already preprogrammed into the root network.

It fell back on old programming once it did not receive any new instructions, which was neat. As it meant it would continue working and functioning in case he was knocked out, which was certainly going to be the case now.

It also made him realise that he, the person, was centralised, stored in the body of the tree, an uncomfortable realisation since it meant that he had been just digging around in the ocean floor, looking for energy, while his true body, his mind, was completely vulnerable, exposed to anything that could harm him.

And there was a lot of stuff that could harm him since he was very squishy right now.

Okay, enough dilly-dallying around, time to get to the real stuff. With a deep breath, which did not happen, he mentally pushed the button for upgrade and promptly knocked himself out.

XXX

What upgrade does Caden's Tree body get? Poll ends Sunday