Dryton, The Great Maw

Dryton: The Great Maw
One of the most powerful and obvious aspects of life is the need to consume. An endless loop known as the food chain connecting every living form in its cyclical weave, a producer or fight and flight, feast and famine, to insure a balance of resources are maintained. Dryton, The Great Maw, embodies this necessary function. A leviathan shark that emerged from the primordial sea ages ago, Dryton exists to do one thing: feed. His hunger is insatiable and his thirst is unquenchable. Older even than Shimaku, Dryton has weathered the eons of time. Like a silent sentinel he glided through the ancient oceans, equalizing the ranks of predator and prey alike. Unbiased and unconcerned with more trivial matters, Dryton has lived by a very simple philosophy, feed on the plentiful. Unlike his lesser descendents, Dryton’s hunting grounds are not limited to the world’s waters. Being a creature of moisture and water, Dryton can control the air’s density around him and swim through it as easily as he does the watery depths. Billowing storm clouds literally leech the water from the environment and surround him like a personal vessel. Dryton cannot actually fly as some have speculated, it works more as a form of water based levitation, keeping him mobile and aloft but incapable of penetrating the atmosphere. Though like his smaller kin, Dryton can make astounding leaps from his cloud bank that have caught more than one flying enemy off guard. The Great Maw is only hindered by areas with little moisture like deserts, as it becomes difficult to maintain his levitation in such climates and requires more effort to keep aloft. The reverse is also true in high moisture climates like tropical and artic regions, in these areas Dryton can maneuver with speed and agility that often baffles those that see him floating overhead. The result of this unique method of travel is that areas that Dryton has visited are absolutely barren and immediately suffer draughts and famine. If that weren’t enough, Dryton is not alone on his eternal voyage, creatures known a siphon fish swarm around him and feed off of him. In return for giving them a residence and food source, the siphon fish lead Dryton to new areas rich with hydrogen and moisture and inject it into his skin in the direction that they obtained it. Not that Dryton needs their help much. He’s more than capable of detecting the scent of such areas himself from miles away. Luckily these surface raids do not happen all that often. Dryton is more than satisfied to stay in the ocean depths, where he is one of its undisputed masters. Third world countries have begun to complain of the colossal beast tearing through their shipping lines and sinking tankers. When the major countries tried to deal with Dryton, they ended up giving the term ‘dead in the water’ a whole new meaning as Dryton and his siphon fish entourage turned every navy man and women against them into dried husks before proceeding to utterly crush and devour them…as well as the battle ships and submarines. After seeing the compacted and utterly ruined remains of the fleet, the first world countries attempted an air strike instead. Not two days later, Dryton came ashore and devastated the agricultural economy of most of Indonesia, both Koreas, and a large section of China before gliding over Russia and disappearing into Artic Sea, leaving a trail of sand, parched dirt, and desiccated bodies in his wake. The only known human being that has survived contact with Dryton is a silent mountain of muscle named Tony Lancaster who is content to live on his small yacht, following The Great Maw across the globe. He occasionally comes inland for supplies and is just as brutal when provoked as his K-CELL status would lead one to believe. Whenever Dryton actively goes into battle with other monsters, Tony can be seen near the base of his saw edged dorsal fin, smiling with the anticipation of another fight to throw himself into. The world at large is greatly concerned with Dryton’s presence, as just his floating over an area can turn it into a wasteland in a matter of minutes. However, no force has succeeded in deterring the shark titan and he inevitably devours anything that stands in his way. However, through some cosmic force of irony, whenever Dryton drains an area of water, it will flood not more than a couple weeks later. This has greatly aggravated farmers as just as they think they have set their fields back up; the flood wipes the area clean again. Apparently what Dryton takes, he can also give…though usually at great cost to human life.
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Its really rather hard to improve on a shark and make it more monsterous than it is. In the end I ended up using its most obvious asset, its mouth, to make it even more lethal looking. Dryton fights like a saw edged bulldozer, just ploughing through anything that gets in his way. There was also the issue of getting a shark monster to be dangerous to cities since unless your Atlantis or Mu, your not going to worry about a shark attack on 5th avenue. I remembered Tyrantis's shark kaiju Old Meg but I didn't want to shamelessly steal the flying angle. So instead I created a kind of levitation that ties into his power over moisture. He's like this massive storm coming in until you see him pop out. He's older than Shimaku since sharks are older than snakes, go figure.

-RenDragonClaw