Champ's Lake mainly focuses on the Lake Champlain Plesiosaurus, otherwise known as Champ, however, in the story, like my other cryptids, he has a rival. But this one isn't a cryptid.
Barb is a Nothosaurus Profuntorum which translates to "False Lizard Depth Hunter". She is 10 foot tall, 38 feet long, and weighs about 2 tons. The reason why she was given this kind of species name is because her kind are far more adapted to the water than their ancestors. With them diving to depths that most semiaquatic animals aren't able to reach, and they can hold their breath for an astonishing six hours.
Unlike her Triassic counterparts, Barb has a slightly longer snout, a bulkier body, four legs with webbed feet, plates on her back, and a paddle tail. She has a row of stripes running down her back, multiple stripes on her legs, and triangle shaped stripes on her tail along with circles. She also has a shock collar on his neck and has veins popping out as a result of stress, she also has a disturbed expression. At the moment, I don't have a planned color scheme for her yet.
Unlike most of the animals in these stories, Barb is not based on any particular cryptid, rather, she is my own original character made for the story.
Barb used to live in Lake Superior, and she didn't have an issue when it came to hiding because she was quite fast compared to her ancestors, so she would often bolt away the moment she engulfed some air. She only ever pokes her nose out of the water and not her entire head, leading to some people just writing her off as nothing more than a crocodile or an alligator.
Barb didn't really have any competition in Lake Superior, because unlike most lakes that held previously thought extinct wildlife, there was no other kind of prehistoric life in the lake apart from other members of her kind. At some point, Barb would meet up with a male of her species and would breed with him. All was going well for her, she and her mate decided to nest on a small island where humans didn't go to too often. They built their nest safely while fending off any mammals that tried to eat their eggs.
Unfortunately for Barb, things would end badly for her. Because little did she know, this island wasn't as untouched as she once thought.
In November of 2019, man who was out exploring the island managed to catch a glimpse of her mate pulling a muskellunge out of the water and decided to trail him. Once the man approached the nest, he started to record his findings on a camera as he watched Barb feast on the musky. After the man left the island, he alerted the authorities about this. At first they didn't believe him, that was until he showed them the footage.
It went on the news and garnered lots of attention, but the ones who were the most interested in the Nothosaurus family, didn't have the best of intentions.
An organization known as Seal, which was a subgroup of a larger company known as Dunamis Incorporated, infiltrated Lake Superior in order to find Barb and her mate.
When they found them, the two Nothosaurus fiercely fought to protect their nest, Barb's mate even killed two of the men that were tasked with hunting them down, but unfortunately, her mate would meet a tragic end at the hands of a bullet that was shot through his head. This enraged Barb who charged for the Seal troops, however, they needed Barb alive for research purposes, so they tranquilized her. They soon took her and her mate's corpse for research, along with the two eggs inside of the nest.
When Barb woke up, she was being held in a facility, with her eggs close by, being studied by scientists. Barb would try to attack the scientists by lunging at them, but then, a shock was sent throughout her entire body. A shock collar had been placed onto her, however, the voltage wasn't enough to kill her, but it was enough to make her do whatever Seal wanted.
Seal threatened to destroy Barb's eggs, despite her being an animal, she understood that if she doesn't meet their demands, they'll kill her unborn children. But she only understood that after several more shocks because the next time she tried to attack, they pointed a gun at her eggs. With her seeing guns as a danger because they're the reason why her mate was killed, she forced herself to bend to their rule.
Seal used Barb as a weapon, that's all they really wanted from her. They found out from Dunamis Incorporated that animals like these can be told to do their bidding if they forced their will upon them. They found this out when the CEO of Dunamis Incorporated, Kasim Shaw told them that he found an island filled with animals like Barb, but they were different, they weren't just limited to a lake.
The whole island was filled with them.
Shaw demonstrated this by sending a video to them of him ordering an animal known as a Torvosaurus Improsequor, a medium sized predatory dinosaur. But the only reason he had control of it was because Shaw trained it from birth to be a weapon.
Barb would be put up against animals such as crocodilians, bears, sharks, and anything that was close to her size, to see if Seal could use her as a weapon, and if she's useful enough, they'll send her to Dunamis Incorporated for Shaw to use.
Little did Barb know, her children already hatched out of the egg, but they were being kept in a separate holding chamber. For months, Barb was forced to do Seal's dirty work such as getting rid of people from rival companies by ambushing them after Seal lured them to a trap, either that, or they used her to hunt down traitors. And every time she opposed them, they would shock her.
In 2021, after being informed that there was a possible prehistoric animal in Lake Champlain, Seal decided to bring Barb to the lake to see how useful she really was, putting her up against something that was like her.
And that something was Champ the Plesiosaurus, Lake Champlain's apex predator.
They first sent Barb out to fight Champ during the night, after they followed a group of teenagers who were trying to find Champ after recent reports started popping up, saying that Champ was responsible for the recent killings happening around the lake.
Champ emerged from the darkness and attacked the ship that the teens were on. At the same time, Barb was sent to fight him. The two fought fiercely in the gloomy night water, with Champ using his long neck like how a constrictor snake would use it's body, Champ used his neck in an attempt to suffocate Barb, but the ferocious False Lizard fought back by clawing Champ, almost taking out his left eye. After a while, Barb was called back when a signal was sent to her shock collar. Her shock collar would glow different colors whenever an order was sent to her, and over the months, she would learn what they meant after Seal put her through some training. It flashed yellow which meant she had to retreat.
Later, the teens, led by a boy named Jay Curry, found out what Seal was doing to Barb and they also found out about her children. This sent them on a race against time to find a way to free Barb before Seal made her fight Champ again.
Unfortunately for Jay, he would soon find out that his family had a twisted tradition that he didn't know about. The reason why Champ was the only Plesiosaurus in Lake Champlain was because his ancestors, including his parents, killed the rest, leaving Champ as the last survivor. So Jay was conflicted on whether or not he should let Champ live, or let Barb fight him in order to have him die. But his parents encouraged him to kill Champ himself because they viewed him as a demon.
Champ and Barb's second and final duel would take place during the day. This time, the whole town was present to watch the battle after they saw the commotion and were shocked to find out that not only was Champ real, but he was fighting a creature that was like him.
Some of Jay's friends snuck over to where the Seal troops were. Because they were near a shoreline and they had Barb's children with them just in case if the shock collar stops working. The team slowly devised a plan to free the younglings and Barb from Seal's tyranny.
Meanwhile in the depths of the lake, Champ and Barb brawled once more, with Champ taking on a more aggressive approach. But Barb just kept hitting back because after being tortured for months, she came to the realization that if she ends up dying, who will Seal use instead? Her children.
She may not know that they've hatched already, but considering what they did to her, she knew they'd do the same to her kids once they grew up, which is why she put more effort into fighting Champ. The Plesiosaurus almost pushed Barb into a specific hole in the lake, however, what was in said hole was already disturbed because of the amount of blood in the water.
A swarm of lamprey swam out. Because Champ despised these vampire fish, he slaughtered many of them and focused on getting himself away instead of trying to fight Barb. Once the two of them were away from the lamprey, they continued their duel.
Meanwhile, the teens, and some of their parents, managed to get past the troops by beating them and knocking them out. One of the children's parents even put on one of the troops' uniforms to fool the rest of Seal. One of the parents, who was a police officer, alerted the rest of the police force about Seal's illegal operation and told them where they were.
However, they were soon exposed by the Seal troops which resulted in the parents using the guns they got from the Seal troops they knocked out. They didn't kill anyone, but they didn't leave anyone unharmed either. While the parents distracted the troops, the teens went to free Barb's young.
Once the young were free, the leader of Seal itself tried to kill one of the girls in the group, but then, the girl charged at the leader because not only because the were Seal's leader, but they also held the remote for Barb's shock collar.
The more Champ and Barb fought, the more Barb wanted to leave. She never wanted to fight anyone. She wanted to go home, she wanted to be with her children and raise them to be strong like their late father. It's why, during the final segment of the fight, Barb tried to escape Lake Champlain, not caring about whether or not Seal would shock her again. All she needed was to see her children in the hopes that she would be able to take them back to Lake Superior somehow.
But Champ wasn't an easy opponent to shake off.
Eventually, Champ brought their conflict from the lake, to the land. Evolved Plesiosaurus like Champ can stay out of the water for hours on end, which is why he had no problem fighting Barb on a beach even though she was the one who had legs and was better adapted for land.
After a while, the police came to confront Seal and their leader, and with that, the girl who fought the leader broke the remote that controlled the shock collar. When she did this, the collar shut down, and it unlocked itself and fell off of Barb's neck.
Soon after, Barb's children ran to her, recognizing her as their mother despite not meeting her beforehand. Barb hid them behind her as she roared at Champ to leave. Though Champ was a ferocious fighter, the moment the collar came off, he quickly noticed that Barb didn't want to fight anymore as she kept backing away. It was here where Champ realized what he was really doing.
He was attacking a mother who's only motive was to protect her young, like how any good mother should. Champ may be a carnivore, but he wasn't heartless. Both of them were intelligent enough to where he could tell she didn't want to fight anymore.
Champ left afterwards, he confronted Jay one last time on his parents' ship. The boy was tempted to shoot Champ with a spear turret, but he froze, and moved his hands away from the turret. He accepted that just because his family has been killing Champ's kind for years, it doesn't mean he has to as well. He didn't want this wretched history to consume his future, so he let Champ go.
Barb and her children were soon captured again, but this time, they weren't going to be put into a facility.
They were captured in order to transport them back to where they belonged. After interrogating the members of Seal, they found out where Barb's home was and they sent her and her kids back to Lake Superior. But they also brought something else with them.
The bones of Barb's mate were buried underneath the island that Barb and her mate used to live in. They thought that it was best that he was buried here because if he was, in some way, at least he'll still stay close to his mate because Barb didn't leave that island to find another one. She stayed there because she missed her mate. Barb was now protected by the law and any hunters that attempted to kill or hunt her would get shot down. Not because the government wanted to be cruel, but because they didn't want Barb to suffer any more than she already has. Which is why they killed any hunter who attempted to hunt her to send a message, any hunter who goes out to hunt her down, will not come back from it, and not because of Barb herself.
Also, beside Barb is one of my favorite prehistoric animals, Helicoprion! It doesn't appear in the story, there was just a lot of extra space on the paper so I thought I could squeeze in an extra drawing in there.
Trivia:
• Barb was named after her teeth, because they stick out like barbs.
• Originally, a male Prognathodon named "Razor" would have been Champ's rival, either that, or a Crocodile named "Reaper". I didn't go with Razor because I thought that a Mosasaur would be too much for a Plesiosaurus to handle, and I didn't go for a crocodile because that would be too bland.
• The name "Seal" was inspired by the name of the shady organization known as "SEELE" from the Evangelion franchise.
• If you didn't know, this story is connected to my other series, Sauria Island. And if you know anything about that series, you'd know that Seal being a subgroup of Dunamis Incorporated is an example of world building. Because Dunamis is the evil corporation that acts as the main antagonists of the Sauria Island series, in terms of the human side of the story. And if you've read my posts about Sauria Island, you'd know that Kasim Shaw, the CEO, would die after being electrocuted. And the Torvosaurus is Quake, one of the main dinosaur antagonists.
• Barb is the one of only the animal antagonists in the cryptid stories so far who ends up surviving. Kronag the Kronosaurus from Nessie's Loch dies while Nessie holds him still, giving the main protagonist, Jonathane Richards, a chance to blow out his brain with a rifle. And Alkai the Temnodontosaurus from Crown of Teeth gets decapitated by Basil the Mosasaurus. Although, to be fair, both Basil and Alkai are antagonists, it's just that Basil is the one who managed to make it through to the end.
What do you think?
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