Biomorphers #2 - The Rock and Lava Creature

0:04 Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world. I'm Martin, and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories. And tonight, we're headed back into a universe that we've only been to one time before. The Biomorphers universe. And if you don't remember this one, essentially... I had a whole family of people, I believe it was Deacon, Duke, Dutch, Micah, and Justin, who suggested this original idea. And at the time, I thought it might turn into a series, but I honestly didn't get a whole bunch of suggestions for it right away. And then today, when I was going back through my suggestions and deleting old ones because I had to make room for new ones, you know, like ones I've already done and that sort of thing, I found

1:02 this one that I hadn't done yet, and it was for the Biomorphers series. And just in case you don't remember, Biomorphers is a world where at a certain age you get to try out to be one of the Biomorphers, which is an elite group of people. who can sort of capture the DNA of strange anomalous creatures, or monsters as you might call them, you know, and transform into them, or capture them and use them to do battle. Let's check out the suggestion.

1:41 Hello, my name is Stafford, and I would like to suggest an idea for the biomorphers. You find... A giant rock monster with a core of lava. And it makes things run away from it when it's just trying to make friends.

2:04 Bye.

2:05 Love your podcast.

2:07 And I love the idea and, well, the idea of going back into the biomorphers world. So I think what I'm going to do is record this episode. But I believe I will also release the original episode maybe on the same day. Just so if you want to listen to it, it's easy to find. I know it's sometimes hard to search through all of the episodes on this platform.

2:32 Because there's like 600 or 700 of them now. And different podcast platforms have different ways to search.

2:39 So.

2:40 No super easy way for me to make it easy for you, depending on where you're listening. So I'm just going to post it again, and you can listen. Or you can start here if you remember it. Anyways, yeah, on with the story. Time to get as comfy as you can in that bed, close your eyes, and imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does. As you may recall, not very long ago, you, the main character of the Biomorfer series, were just a regular kid. Well, the regular kid who desperately wanted to become a Biomorfer.

3:29 You traveled to Biomorfer headquarters... joined a group of other hopeful kids, and were given a temporary biomorfer for your trial. That trial turned out to involve something you definitely weren't expecting. A living creature made entirely of mac and cheese. Instead of simply fighting it, you scanned the creature, transformed into a mac and cheese creature yourself, and realized that it wasn't actually trying to hurt anyone. It was just scared and lonely and confused. So you were able to calm it down and capture it willingly. And because you chose to understand the creature instead of simply attacking it, well, you passed the test. The temporary biomorfer permanently bonded itself to your wrist. And then you were given one more form,

4:36 a gigantic flaming phoenix that, well, allowed you to travel from place to place. Which is why, right now, you happen to be flying several thousand feet above the ground with your entire body on fire. You spread your enormous wings. Flames blast from behind them. You rocket forward through the sky as the biomorpher's map floats in your vision, almost like a giant invisible screen that only you can see.

5:16 Across it are thousands of blinking red dots, quantum anomalies, Creatures and objects changed by the strange uncertainty fields that sometimes pass through your world. And right now, one of those dots is getting closer and closer and closer. You tilt one enormous wing. Your body turns through the air.

5:51 Below you, forests stretch across the land in every direction. Mountains rise above them, with little rocky peaks cutting through the morning clouds. The blinking red light moves toward the center of your vision. Quantum anomaly, 4.8 kilometers. You grin. Well, you would grin if you still had lips. Instead... Your giant phoenix beak opens. Okay, that's going to take some getting used to. You angle your wings downward. Flames explode behind you, and you dive at incredible speed. The wind races past your feathers three kilometers, two kilometers, one. Then you see smoke. At first, you assume it's coming from some kind of forest fire, but as you get closer, you realize the smoke is rising from a small village

7:01 tucked between two mountains. And something is definitely wrong. There's a huge crash as a giant boulder flies through the air and smashes through the side of a wooden house. You pull your wings tight against your body, and dive even faster. Another rock rises straight out of the ground. Not rolls and not falls, but rises. It floats several meters into the air, and then it shoots forward. With a huge boom, it crashes through a little stone wall surrounding somebody's garden. People run through the streets. Some are hiding behind buildings, others are carrying children away from the center of the village. And standing right in the middle of everything is the anomaly. It's huge, at least three times taller than a person. Its body is made from

8:13 enormous chunks of dark gray rock fitted together almost like pieces of armor. Its arms are gigantic. Its hands are made from clusters of jagged stones. But the strangest part is its chest. A crack runs straight through the rocks in the center of its body and inside, something glows. Bright orange. Molten.

8:45 Lava.

8:47 Lava. It looks almost like the creature has a miniature volcano burning inside its chest. Another crack opens across its shoulder. Orange light shines through. The creature raises both hands. The ground shakes, and dozens of stones begin lifting in the air around it. Some are no bigger than baseballs, while others are the size of small cars. Oh, this is not good, you think. You fold your wings and your body drops from the sky. The rock monster throws both arms forward and every stone launches toward the houses. You spread your wings and a wall of flame erupts from them.

9:42 The smaller stones hit the fire first. They glow red, then orange. Then, with a fshhh, they melt. Drops of glowing stone splash harmlessly onto an empty section of road. Wow, your fire is really powerful. The larger rocks keep coming, though. You twist through the air. One boulder flashes past your left wing. Another comes straight toward your head. You open your beak and something inside you instinctively knows what to do.

10:23 Heat gathers in your chest. Then, you release it. A concentrated blast of fire explodes from your mouth. The boulder turns red, then white, then splits apart. Two molten halves fly past either side of you. Okay, you shout.

10:48 What?

10:48 Except because you're still a phoenix, it actually comes out as a. The rock monster looks up. Its glowing orange eyes lock onto you. For a moment, it stands perfectly still. Then, it reaches down. Its hand plunges directly into the earth. You blink. What are you? The creature pulls upward. and a huge section of ground tears free, a boulder nearly as large as the monster itself rises above its head.

11:29 Oh.

11:30 The creature throws it, you flap both wings, fire erupts downward, and your body rockets upward just as the boulder passes beneath you. You loop through the air, turn, dive... And fire. A stream of flame slams directly into the creature's chest. You expect it to stumble backwards. Maybe the rocks will crack or something. Maybe the lava inside it will react somehow.

12:03 But instead, the creature simply stands there. Your fire washes across its stone body. The rocks glow slightly. The lava inside its chest becomes even brighter. Then, the monster looks down at itself. Then back up at you. Uh-oh. It opens its mouth. Orange light appears deep inside its throat. And with a.

12:37 A stream of molten lava shoots through the air. You roll sideways... The lava misses you by centimeters. You feel its heat even through your own flaming body. It hits the ground behind you. The dirt instantly blackens. You circle around the creature. Okay, fire monster, you say, only in bird language. You blast another stream of flame at its back and... nothing happens. You shoot downward again and... nothing.

13:18 The creature spins and throws another boulder. You blast it apart with fire and pieces of molten stone rain down around you. You're protecting the village. That's good, but you're not actually stopping the anomaly. You fire another enormous blast directly into its shoulder... and the creature doesn't even flinch.

13:45 In fact, you could swear that the lava inside it looks brighter. Oh, come on. The monster slams both fists into the ground, and with a boom, a wave travels through the earth. The road cracks, stone spikes suddenly explode upward beneath you, You flap hard to rise out of the way. One spike barely misses your tail feathers. Another erupts directly in front of you. You blast it with fire.

14:23 It melts just enough for you to smash straight through. You rocket back into the open sky. The creature raises both hands again and more rocks begin floating. You look toward the village, a family crouched behind a broken wagon. Three huge rocks hover directly above them. No, you dive and the monster throws. The rocks fly, you flap once, twice, then fold your wings completely. Your flaming body becomes, well, a missile. The first rock comes towards you, and with a whoosh, you melt straight through it. The second hits you from the right, and you slam your wing into it, cracking and melting the rock in two. The third is already past you, heading for the family. You twist in midair, fire explodes from your wings, you accelerate... and at the

15:36 last possible second, you swoop beneath the falling rock, grab it with your enormous phoenix claws, and shoot it upward, sending it flying over top of the family and, well, unfortunately into a wooden house that doesn't do so well when it crashes in. The family stares up at you. One of the kids waves. That feels pretty good. Then something hits you from behind. The world spins. You tumble through the air. It must have been a rock. It must have launched another one while you were distracted. You flap wildly and manage to regain control before hitting the ground.

16:26 Your flaming wings spread wide again. The rock monster stands below you. It pounds one fist against its chest. Boom, boom, boom. Lava drips from its mouth. You stare down at it. Alright, clearly the phoenix isn't working. The biomorpher responds almost as soon as you think it. Your available forms appear inside your vision. Human, phoenix, and... Mac and cheese. You stare at the little picture. Really? Should you really fight a three meter tall walking volcano with macaroni and cheese? But then another boulder rises from the ground. You don't exactly have a lot of choices. Mac and cheese it is.

17:31 You mentally select the form. The familiar tingling sensation races through your body. Your flames disappear, your feathers soften, and they become noodles. Hundreds and hundreds of noodles. Your phoenix body collapses into a giant flying blob of macaroni and cheese, which immediately stops flying.

18:01 Oh no.

18:02 Oh no. You fall and scream, only it comes out mac and cheese. With a splat, you hit the road. Your entire body explodes into hundreds of individual pieces of macaroni. For half a second, you're scattered everywhere. Then something strange happens. You feel every single piece. You think about standing up and The noodles slide across the ground and pile themselves together, reforming your body. And suddenly, you're a mac and cheese person standing in the middle of the road. The rock monster looks at you. You look at the rock monster.

18:54 Mac and cheese? The creature raises a boulder. Mac and cheese! It throws. The boulder smashes directly into your chest, except, well, your chest isn't there anymore. The noodles simply split apart, and the boulder flies straight through the hole. Then the macaroni reconnects. You look down at yourself. Huh. Or rather, it of course comes out as mac and cheese. The monster throws another rock, Your head separates from your shoulders, and the boulder passes straight through. Your head drops back into place. Another comes toward your legs. Your legs scatter into dozens of noodles, and the rock passes harmlessly beneath you.

19:48 You reform again. Mac and cheese. Okay, this form might not be strong, but it turns out that it's really, really hard to hit. The rock monster hurls another boulder. This one is huge. You don't even try to dodge it normally. Your entire body explodes apart. Hundreds of macaroni noodles scatter across the road. The boulder crashes through the space where you were standing. Then, every piece of you slides back together. Mac and cheese. You're starting to understand why this form was so useful during your trial. It isn't strong. It can't fly, though strangely the individual pieces do sort of levitate on their own. And you're pretty sure throwing macaroni at a giant rock monster isn't going to accomplish, uh, really anything. But it is almost impossible

20:54 to hit. The monster swings an enormous stone fist at you and you split in half, reforming behind it. The creature turns, too slow... As you break apart again, slide between its legs, and reform on the other side. That's when you realize something. You're close. Really close to the rock monster. Close enough to scan it. You raise your biomorfer.

21:30 The rock monster turns toward you. Orange light burns inside its chest. Its mouth begins to glow. You hit the scan button. A bright blue beam shoots out and races across the creature from head to toe. Quantum information acquired. A new image appears in your vision. A rock monster. Without hesitation, you select it and the tingling begins. But this transformation feels completely different. Your soft macaroni body hardens.

22:15 Your arms become heavy, dense, powerful. Stone begins forming around you. Your fingers thicken into massive rocky claws. Your legs grow larger and heavier until every step presses cracks into the ground.

22:35 Then.

22:36 Something burns inside your chest. Not painfully, but powerfully. A deep orange glow appears between the rocks covering your body. A molten core. Lava. You look down at your hands. Stone. You clench one fist. Crack. And then... You feel something. Something... inside the ground, or, well, maybe the ground itself. You can feel the dirt under the road, the rocks beneath the houses, the sand between the stones. Every pebble, every crack, every piece of earth around you feels almost like another part of your body. You lift one hand, A rock beside you rises into the air. Your eyes widen. You move your hand left, and the rock moves left. Right, and the rock moves right. You grin. At least you think you're grinning. Your new stone face doesn't move very much, honestly.

23:58 The other rock creature raises both arms. Six boulders tear free from the ground. You raise yours. Six boulders rise around you. The creature throws, and so do you. With a gigantic series of booms, rocks smash into, well, smaller rocks in midair. Stone explodes everywhere. The creature roars and slams its foot into the ground. as a wave of stone spikes races toward you. You stomp, and a wall of rock erupts in front of you. The spikes crash against it. You lower your shoulder and charge, just as the other creature charges at you. With a boom, you collide in the middle of the road. The ground shakes.

24:59 You grab each other's arms, and for a moment, Neither of you moves. Then, orange light appears inside the creature's mouth. Lava. You feel your own core respond. You open your mouth, and both of you fire. Streams of molten lava collide between you. Bright orange liquid splashes in the air. You push harder. Your lava blast drives forward. and the creature stumbles.

25:35 You release one hand. The earth beneath its feet suddenly rises. A huge slab of rock launches upward, and with a wham, the creature's knocked backward. It crashes onto its back. You immediately raise both hands. Two enormous boulders lift into the air. You hold them there, ready. But the creature doesn't attack.

26:06 It looks up at you and then it says something. A deep, grinding sort of sound. Except somehow, you understand it. Friend? You lower the rocks slightly. What? What comes out of your mouth sounds like rocks grinding together. Why, friend? The creature slowly sits up. It points toward the broken houses, then at the boulders, then at you. It speaks again, and you understand every word, even though, again, it just sounds like grinding rocks. Friends throw rocks. Friends knock friends down.

27:03 PLAY.

27:05 You stare at it. Then you look around the village. Broken walls. Crushed fences. A huge hole through somebody's house. Giant gaping craters all over the ground.

27:21 You were.

27:23 You pause. You were playing? The creature nods enthusiastically.

27:31 PLAY.

27:32 GOOD PLAY. Many friends. You cover your rock face with one hand.

27:39 How?

27:42 The creature wasn't attacking the village. At least not on purpose. It thought everyone was playing with it. You point toward the damaged houses. Humans don't play like that. The creature tilts its head.

28:03 No.

28:04 Rocks? No. It looks genuinely disappointed. You think for a second, then you get an idea. I am going to be traveling around finding other anomalies like you. The creature watches you. Some of them might actually need fighting, or playing as you call it. Its lava core glows brighter. Rock play? You laugh. Yes, sometimes there could probably be rock play.

28:47 The creature jumps to its feet. Friend. Friend, you say? You activate the disc capture function. A small disc shoots from the biomorfer and lands on the road. This is going to store you inside my biomorfer. Is that okay? The creature looks at the disc, then at you. More play later? Definitely, buddy. Definitely. It sits down, perfectly still.

29:28 The disc begins to glow again. Blue light spreads across the creature's stone body, and slowly it transforms into... well, energy. Its rocks disappear. Its glowing lava core becomes a bright orange spark. Then, everything is absorbed into the disk. The disk shoots upward with a click. It snaps back into your biomorfer. You look toward the village. They're staring at you.

30:07 A few start cheering. You lift one rocky hand and wave. Then, you mentally switch forms. The stone disappears. Your body stretches. Feathers burst outward. Fire races across your wings. And a moment later, you're once again a gigantic phoenix. Though all of the people of the village have figured out exactly what you are. A biomorfer. You launch into the air with a whoosh. The village becomes smaller beneath you. The map appears in your vision. Thousands of red dots still blinking across the world. You now have another form, another power, and, well, your first or, well, second traveling companion. You choose the next blinking light, spread your wings, and blast toward your next adventure. On the way, you begin to become... somewhat sleepy.

31:27 You spot the top of a mountain. You zip down towards it, land on the stone, and curl up in a circle. The stone begins to heat itself up beneath your body. It melts slightly and forms a perfect bed, one that fits you exactly. You close your eyes, and with each breath, you sink down a little bit more. You let go of any tension in your muscles, in your wings, your legs, your neck, your shoulders, and even your face. And slowly... You drift off to thoughts of new dreams, new forms, and new adventures to come. Good night, everyone.

33:38 Thank you. Thank you.

35:13 Thank you. Thank you.

37:53 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

45:54 Thank you.

47:17 Thank you. Thank you. Amen.

49:27 Thank you.

51:27 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

55:40 Thank you. you Thank you. you