Moving along the ground, slouching forwards on its snail back, was a little spherical... something. With a green jelly body, the slime used its form more than a dozen times a minute. Crawling upwards against the concrete.
Somewhere along its path, it came under a light on a high pole. The blinding bright yellow beam shone on it, illuminating the translucent and shimmering speckle of a speck on the creature. Having tiny, barely visible footprints, it struggled climbing through the light. Sliding forwards, the little slimy creature pushed at the glass cover of the yellow light's prison. With its sticky and oddly spindly yet slightly muscular head, the tiny blob nudged itself deeper and deeper onto the glass, biting down onto its hard exterior shell. Then, using the strength of over 34 kiloNewtons, it bit, peeled the cover off, and sent it flying outwards into the depths of space, hitting Saturn. As the cover ended up going deep inside the planet and being the final push towards its death, the little slime crept inside, exploring the wires that were found inside.
As a simple electric charge and current could be seen pulsing within these complex, high density wires. The tiny blob made its way to the source of light, following its natural tendency to be a predator of light in the darkness. The mass of wires and lights spiraled down in a small dim tunnel, then finally opening up into a wall socket. In these cramped holes, was nothing.
...
"I'm telling you, I saw a snail throw the light cover at Saturn and cause a chain reaction-" "Shut up. Just, shut up. That's just slander. Never let yourself be deluded by your sight like that. Ever."
Turns out, Zabulus saw the snail, so he told Vetro. So apparently, when snails throw things... they're actually pretty strong!
"And I'm telling you, be conscious of what you see! One day, if you tell your elders and superiors that you saw a snail throwing an object towards Saturn, they'll have you hung by the balls. Learn your place, and be diligent. Dismissed."
After rolling his 'eyes', Zabulus responded to Vetro's lecture, "But see, if a snail throws its shell at an apple, that causes an impact of enough force to end its snailhood, and-"
"What if you tell me that when you have some evidence?"
"A- Aye."
Vetro had an unfazed look on his face and put his left leg on a bench, in a manly way. "Let's say that somehow, the snail grew a rocket engine and could travel at the same speed as light..."
And, well, snails are naturally gifted with slowness, however they still die faster than turtles. Or tortoises. Who knows. But even at that speed, the poor snail would grow tired from exerting such energy when it has its bajillionth year of living. They're like immortals! But less than turtles... of course...
"Okay, do you want to go and have a drink at Alisters? I could invite Alice and Guillerme, it'd be fun!" Zabulus asked Vetro, whose beard twitched as if excited, but the lack of action showed otherwise.
"Alright then." He responded wholly unenthusiastically.
The next moment... Snail.
The snail saw the two men wander about, one slouched and another headstrong and marching forwards. Unlike any other creatures in this place, the slime-covered-mini-thing had an exceptionally low tolerance and fear threshold. Therefore, it clung onto 'kill anything you see' behavior, even if the two passed it by and ignored it.
"Huh? is that..." Zabulus turned around and looked at the ground and saw...
"What? Aren't we going over to-" Vetro turned around slowly to meet the eyes of...
"A snail." A small smile crept into the corner of Zabulus' mouth as his neck shot back up, then gazing directly at his friend, whose arms were behind his back.
"Yes. It's a snail. But that cannot be real, you must be blind, surely. No, you are blind. You have cataracts."
"Hah!? I don't even have eyes! I see metaphysically! Meta-phy-si-ca-lly! What are you, 5?!"
And like that, the snail was ignored for over a minute.
As the duo continued on their little fight, a sudden hunch came over the snail, and it picked up a concrete fragment with its antennae. Or whatever it has. At any rate, that was not what interrupted the friendly bickering between two... friends. Not at all, because it was the moment when a third party walked in between them, one who didn't even know their arguments.
"Ah! Zabulus! Vetro! What are you guys- AHHH! THAT'S A SNAIL PICKING UP A CONCRETE SQUARE FRAGMENT WITH ITS ANTENNAE!" A seemingly young blonde woman wearing a blue-and-white dress named Alice tripped backwards, staring at the pure nightmare fuel horror that was the snail lifting up the chunk.
"What did you say?" Vetro reluctantly asked, very much in shock at the true sight of a demon.
"...That is... Crazy! Hey, isn't that just, uh, hm..." Zabulus wasn't in a position to say much, and yet...
Alice cried out, "Run!"
As the snail wasn't just going to stand there and let them make comments all the time, it launched the concrete at Vetro's head.
His head fell down as Alice tugged on his leg. "He's a goner!" Her voice echoed. But his head hit the ground, barely dodging what could have been death. "...Or not…"
The snail was displeased. Oh so vile and unholy, the mere thought of it was enough to drive the being crazy. Instead, the snail held itself upside down on its antennae and... Launched itself at Vetro, charging head on into its target.
"Woah woah woah woah! Hey now, what the hell is that snail doing!" Alice exclaimed, as the creature plopped onto Vetro's face, its slimy and constant acid corrosion setting into his senses. His shouts soon turned to screams, as the slimy green beast sent tiny shockwaves across the man's face with its little slimy and quivering movements.
"AAAAH! Get off Vetro you damn stupid bug...!" "Don't hurt my friend, he's worth more than the world to me!" Alice and Zabulus were conflicted about the situation, especially seeing that... A bug was beating up their friend.
Attempting to use brute force against it to pull it off would prove to be futile, prying only so slightly at its slimy mass proved impossible, ripping only strands of it as the entire creature refused to budge. Then, the sudden use of power caused the sloth-like creature's back end to be taut from a sudden forced stretch, something to which Vetro's head instinctively pulled back away, causing it to be released. The shock at least was enough to send it back a bit.
Then, its re-evaluation of targets came into the mix, instead opting for the newly discovered 'blonde-haired girl' than a previously explored man whose head felt like it was on fire. The beast's own natural ability to create kinetic momentum was an unexpectedly nigh-legendary opponent in battle... But that's besides the point.
The thing was about to pounce once again, despite being a snail, its ability to think and its speed were almost on par with a human's. And yet...
Zabulus' hand had already moved, "Uuuuurevuuuuushuuuuuuuuuun!" He shouted nonsensically, as if using a named attack, or a special move.
The air was cleaved with... A pencil. Hold on.
Is a pencil better than a knife?
Hey, a pencil is better than a knife if the target's a snail! At any rate, the beast's gelatinous form fell cleanly in half, where the force was strong enough to incinerate its small body and turn it into an immeasurable pile of ash and a cloud of fine dust.
"Hah... Hah... What the hell was up with that snail!" Zabulus asked Vetro, who was on the ground and wiping tears away from his face due to the pain endured from its simple acid.
"Seriously, you guys. How do you manage to get yourselves into these weird situations and..." Alice dropped a few choice words, and swore.
Vetro started off his explanation, telling alice of how Zabulus spotting that snail was truly remarkable, an act of supreme sight, more uncommon than spotting an astronaut nearing the end of their trip into space, drifting off from their space station into nothingness and being ejected from the universe itself. He went on to mention how he was able to notice it too, and awaited praise from Alice.
She put her hair behind her ear and smiled awkwardly, "That's... Great, yeah, cool stuff Vetro. By the way... Do you guys want to go to Alister's? I heard that they're doing a ten percent discount. And an eating contest! Which could win a free meal for everyone, I heard that they're having meat day..." She proposed as the two boys' drooling fountains began spewing clear liquid between them.
"Yes! We shall go! what do you say, Zabulus? We will be eating to our utmost capacity! Hup, hup! Hurry!"
"Aye aye... We'll have to hurry, they're only an hour away from closing!"
"Last one to get there is a mashed potato!" Alice yelled.
Then, they ran. With all their might they ran towards the restaurant they'd go to, Zabulus could not describe what had happened, and Vetro simply brushed it off as they ran together...
Somewhere far away on a sidewalk, a slimy entity snuck by quietly. Slithering, scooting, almost lurching by... When in fact, this was the reborn! Stronger! Better! Faster body of the snail, rebirthing itself anew after regenerating! Able to get out of almost any scenario, through simple mimicry of natural ability, it fooled its enemies and escaped as it met one of its weaknesses... The Pencil.
The trio had arrived at the place, but their sight was too quick and keen. Noticing a small creature, one with a newfound hunger for revenge, Zabulus uttered the single phrase... "There's a snail coming..."
"Haah? Again? Surely, not every other snail we see has some killer intent and strength. Right, Vetro?"
"Yes! While it is statistically a low chance of encountering a single mutant snail capable of destroying a man, I believe that meeting one twice is an impossibility among impossibilities, and is therefore something that shouldn't be considered in the long term. So, we're safe! Good."
"The road has a lot of snails, guys... What the hell!?"
Indeed, it was as Alice said. There was not one... not three... not twenty... but a hundred or maybe more snails coming their way, albeit slowly.
"AHHH! STATISTICAL HELL! While under normal circumstances this should not be a possibility, what we see must be a test of destiny, faith, or even the very fabric of reality itself! This is a chance... Yes! My friends! It's time to prove our strength with mathematics and physics! I will compute the density of all the snails..."
Before long, Vetro calculated how the area was already infested with snails and how they were converging, it was obvious that their speeds and movements were meant to be the same as that of a normal snail, but their strength is what differs them most. On top of that, their behavior... Was different. While a normal snail would not 'attack', even when provoked, these ones were converging together to create a human-height ball of slime and slime-shields. Unbeknownst to him, he also did not realize that the slimes were being commanded by a single one, a shell-less slug. Not knowing of it or else, if he did, he would also tell how such a slug-type individual was able to gain its followers.
"I've got it! Ladies and gentlemen, my calculations are completed!"
"Wow, really!? Tell us anything important, then!" Alice exclaimed, interested in the information.
"Yes ma'am! So, I have successfully analyzed the number of snails at around a hundred per square meter, and, given the maximum radius from which they could have come from the moment we saw them, my workable radius is at about forty meters. Counting their speed is the simplest part, however, letting that flow into the fact that their bodies are becoming one does not bode well. If the size of each ball of snails is roughly sixteen square feet, and there are a hundred snails within that, and the diameter of the ball they're forming is roughly five centimeters less than its radius... Ah! We'll be hit in about... around thirty-two seconds or so." Vetro finished his stream of calculated, nearly guesses, and estimates, with Alice clasping her head in frustration.
"I don't understand what the hell you're saying! Also, what are you gonna do about that..." She pointed towards the rolling ball of slime coming from the right side of the road.
"The fuck...? Are those... Snails!?" Zabulus couldn't believe his own 'eyes', something of which he could have a brain error because of the high amount of power required for 'metaphysically' scanning an area and looking there.
"Ah! I was wrong! It was not thirty-two seconds, but five!"
"Five?!"
"What do we do?!"
"Oh! Oh, I see! Good thing I have a packet filled with salt in-case we were ever put in front of a gigantic ball of snails rolling down the street trying to get us roughly the size of a minivan!" Vetro quickly explained his thought process and revealed a small packet in his pocket.
"...This is gonna... What, repel that ball? Please, if you say so, go ahead. Seriously!" Alice spoke full of doubt, as Zabulus looked like a statue when the snail ball, now actually the size of a semi-truck due to collecting many new snails, smashed into the ground, spilling out a smaller portion of tens, if not hundreds of snails on the road and sidewalk, rolling left and right.
Vetro opened the packet quickly and sprinkled the salt over the many snails before him, yelling as he did it, expecting the yelling to enhance the power of the salt, "Begone! Snails!"
And apparently, it worked... In a second, the ball of snails dried up and crumbled. All that was left behind were sad, dirty and unhappy... Dead slug bodies. Some of them stopped altogether, falling to the ground, while others kept twitching and moving. The collective mass of dozens of snails was essentially extinguished.
"No way..." Alice looked in disbelief.
"Our greatest enemy has fallen! Whoo! The little fuckers are gone!" Though he was naive and his vision narrow... He seemingly forgot about the humanoid slime converging near them, gathering an army of its kin. Its own personal guard was to command the others, though not, unlike what happened here, capable of speaking. Slimes tend to imitate their commander in this regard, much like dogs...
Zabulus was so happy about getting rid of one of the existences with incredible strength, but he simply forgot about the other one... Rather quickly!
"Ah... Hey, there's still one left!" Alice pointed out a snail, not just one, but the many that converged into the same body. This time, it wouldn't take thirty-two seconds for it to attack, it just did instantly and Indiscriminately.
One of its arms lashed out towards Zabulus who was unprepared to fight one last time, seeing how easy the previous ones were to defeat, he did not expect that the remaining piece was even more formidable than the many waves of minions beforehand. Three snails launched out as the 'fist' didn't connect with Zabulus' gut, instead, they opted to split apart from each other and attach themselves onto his face, neck, and shoulder respectively.
"GAHHH!!! GET THESE DEMONS OFF ME- I CAN'T SEE, OH MY GOD MY HANDS!" He flailed about and hit a few things while doing so. As he struggled, however, one can only think that he was not trying as hard as he could.
He slapped the creature on his neck, hit the creature on his shoulder with a light pole and hit his face on the pavement to crush each one before they could spew any sort of acid through his skin, but then he took into account that they were in fact, just normal snails. No matter how powerful they could be in such large groups, their single existence seemed barely worth noting with the potential physical advantage of a humanoid. They could become stronger by fighting together, but they weren't the brightest kind.
The mutated snail was enraged at the sight of its comrades being humbled, ground into smears on the pavement beneath without even a care about their lives.
If it had a voice to speak with, it would scream and cry, as such, its voice was only internal and minimal. Not enough to vocalize pain and suffering, so the poor snail could only make small frequencies of noise that didn't get picked up by their ear.
"Vetro! What do we do about... that thing?!" Zabulus mentioned the humanoid snail cackling its arms in rage, mimicking him and his screams.
"Huh? Oh, that's a slug. That's definitely a slug with arm-like protrusions. Make no mistake, a snail would have a smooth shell at the back, not that round with bumps and cracks with slime oozing out from all angles. Slugs are physically deformed snails who have a tougher defense through--" His explanation was cut with a 'Not now!' from Alice and he quickly understood what needed to be done. "Of course. Allow me... To calculate an escape route! So if a slug leaves no trail, that means there will be no acid which in turn may help us hide from it as we won't have our feet or shoes sullied with slime... You guys might have already known that, but the tricky part here is finding a route, as there are slime to the right of the road and the humanoid is to the left, the only route is behind, where Alister's is... Oh! How fortunate! We can go into Alister's! How could I have forgotten? Slugs and Snails dry up from salt, it seemed to work against the ball of slime earlier, meaning that if we go and ask for salt in Alister's (While paying a great deal of money) we could suppress the monster! Oh, and if we somehow end up with it inside the restaurant, then we won't have to deal with paying any amounts because they'll understand our predicament and go 'sure thing, fellas' and give it to us." Vetro hypothesized the possibility and solved their most prominent worries.
"Are you serious!? That could actually happen!? Also, your word choices are a bit eccentric for some reason today..." Alice mentioned. "Ah! Watch out!"
"Huh?"
As the humanoid slug saw them standing around having a talk rather than running away, it met them with another 'Slug Fist' but Alice pulled them both away in time and didn't meet any problems.
Vetro snapped out of his thought process momentarily to grasp the situation and formulate a proper plan, "Yes. The monster goes for a punch, thus momentarily taken in by its own momentum, and in that moment...! Hah!" He ran towards Alister's as the Slug-Snail Humanoid was recovering from its punch, urging the other two to come along and ener the establishment.
Arriving at the reception desk quickly, without the humanoid monster in the store, the receptionist or restaurant owner welcomed the three with...
"Ah! This is wonderful! Thank goodness that you three came along, you see... Alister is absolutely stuffed with snails! Just a moment, I'll take your reservation and have your seats ready... But, can you do something about these snails? You three are regulars and have dealt with worse, this issue has been driving away all our customers today!" The young receptionist asked them, which they immediately accepted.
"Of course! As one of Alister's regulars, it is my duty to keep the reputation of their dining safe and clean..." Vetro started making up fancy nonsense in hopes of the rest of the service being free, quickly however, he remembered his plan. "Ma'am! May we have several salt packets?! That I believe is the only way to deal with these creatures..." He finished off.
"Sure thing, have... Hup, this!" She brought a... cannon.
"A... Cannon? Are we living in a fantasy world!?" Zabulus was fazed by the sudden presence of a cannon on the counter.
"Are we gonna go pirate-style and do this the honorable way?!" Alice imagined herself going all over the place and doing great deeds with a peg-leg or other.
"It's the fabled Salt-Cannon that was created in order to deal with a Snail crisis in the past... To believe that I see it in front of my very eyes... let alone to have it in my presence... Let alone handed to me to use, what fortune!" Vetro felt even more fortunate than before, gazing upon the Salt-Cannon and holding it securely in his arms. "Uh... Should I borrow the Salt or load the packet into the cannon?" Vetro was confused.
"Place it in the compartment right there where it says 'LOAD HERE!'" She explained in haste.
"R-right..." Red as a beet, Vetro followed the directions and with one yank, loaded the gun.
"Please keep the safety on at all times and pull the lever located right behind the handle to the left of the grip. Make sure that you have a straight line to the target, especially if its weak or small, and if its a big target, pull the lever in the opposite way, that way it'll shoot out with a huge amount of spread." She smiled after the brief and... relatively detailed explanation.
"We're going to destroy you, Snail-man!" Zabulus threw out two punches as a way to prepare himself.
"Snail-man? Hahahaha! That's a good one... Here! That's me! Slug-man! Rival of Snail-man!" A joke or two was exchanged between Alice and Zabulus as Vetro put on a serious face (On top of another serious face) and walked outside, exclaiming out loud.
"Snail! Slug! It's your end! Your short-lived reign and empire falls to its doom! Because I-- Vetro, son of a guy that I don't remember the name of, named because Vetro is the combination of the italian word for Glass and nothing else, Glass, shall end it myself and... Yeah, that's it!" He aimed the cannon at the entity. "You may enjoy this second of pain before you're call dried up! Ha-ha-ha!" And then... he pulled the lever backwards, shooting out 20% of the salt within the cannon.
It hit its entire left arm which was raised in order to defend itself, only to be pierced and turned into a crusty shell of what it once was... It completely dried up... Crumbled into pieces... Was easily pulverized with a small dust cloud appearing where it was.
"You're a dead man! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" He laughed robotically.
But it was still alive... So what did he do? Naturally, he shot at it again.
This time, it defended with its right arm, once again crumbling down to pieces and scattering across as the wind blew it away. Of course, this happened because the monster didn't think well about the attack. It couldn't think that well at all, only actions to be done out of its want for revenge, for suffering... and its fear. If that was not enough, it would soon fall to the single attacker, already wobbling due to its limited concentration and vision.
He shot it again, and again, and again.
It defended with its right leg, crumbled.
It fell down on its butt, and defended with its left leg, crumbled.
Now left limbless, its sole enemy now coming to grab it from the side and smash the cannon right into its face, shooting where the mastermind was.
"Are you dead...? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Pitiful creature! You had to come up against me, the Great and Smart Vetro! Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" But alas, was that truly victory?
"You did it Vetro!" The other two celebrated and hugged their friend who put his life on the line instead of running away.
"Of course, it was only natural that the strongest ally of the... Whaaa!" He was felled by the unexpected embrace, and the ungraceful fall he received.
"Nice! Now what about the last snail? Ooh, wait, they all went away, ahahaha!" Zabulus was confused for a moment but quickly noticed the slime in question and its fate.
"Great!" As if on cue, Alice held her hands out and grabbed Vetro's arms, hoisting him up from the ground, "It worked great, we'll just skip the contest altogether and enjoy a meal at Alister's, what do you guys say?"
"Sounds good to me!"
"Yes. We have a well-deserved meal coming up. It may even be free!"
And so... The three who just barely fought against a stupid 'monster' went into Alister's to have a meal. But from afar... The third generation of Snails was watching... Waiting for the right moment to pounce and surround the trio... Giving them an endless life of fighting Snails, in which they would eventually be known as 'heroes' wherein they save people from snails. And known as 'snail disasters'... where they bring snails anywhere they go, eventually they got paid by the government to just stay away from any civilization, to live in a government facility that constantly dispenses salt around it for their protection and the protection of others.
Of course, they had online connections so they could have some form of a social life!