The Monster vs The Bull Shark (Carrion vs Maneater)

“And I, I do not dare deny the basic beast inside. It’s right here, controlling my mind.” - Jonathan Davis

The Monster, the parasitic abomination of blood and gore of Carrion.

The Bull Shark, the ever-adapting, revenge-seeking apex predator of Maneater.

Evolution. It’s what silently pushes a species to grow and adapt to its environment, always changing from generation to generation, passive and constant. But what happens when a beast is forced to evolve? To adapt and assimilate the traits of new creatures to survive a hostile environment? When it’s thirsty for revenge against the humans that captured and brutalized it? Well, things are destined to get bloody.

These two bloodthirsty beasts may be at the top of their respective food chains but today, we’ll be finding out who the superior apex predator is in a DEATH BATTLE!

Before I Start…

This is relatively simple for both as they’ve only got one game. 

For the Monster, they'll be getting Carrion, it’s official Christmas DLC, the mobile exclusive bonus level, and the short comic book part of the Deluxe edition for the game.

Similarly, the Bull Shark will only be getting Maneater and its DLC, Truth Quest. 

Background

The Monster

“It learns from what it eats. It absorbed biological instinct from the worms. Desire to survive. Desire to grow. Desire to eat.”

Long ago, a curious group of scientists had arrived at a long since forgotten ruin. Deformed skeletons belonging to strange and alien entities would line the walls, masses of calcified flesh, broken and shattered stairs with systems that haven’t been active in god knows how long. 

But eventually, those scientists would stumble upon a massive lump of pulsating flesh in a pond. Determined to know what it was, they collected samples and inadvertently awoke the Monster. 

Rather than just slaughtering the humans, however, the Monster had actually parasitized one of them, controlling and puppeteering their body from the inside. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn’t get far and would end up in the hands of Relith Science, contained.

As with all reverse horror games, the Monster would not stay contained for long. With just two rats for food, it was able to breach containment and cause havoc on the rest of the facility. Along the way, it would slaughter dozens of humans, fight against armed troops, destroy mechs, solve puzzles, and finally, escape the facility, ready to wreak havoc on the rest of the world. 

The Bull Shark

“A famous big game hunter once posited that after an animal had a taste of human flesh, it forsakes its natural prey in a deadly, single-minded search for ‘the deadliest game.’”

Life isn’t easy in the ocean, especially now that humans have disrupted the natural order. Such was the case with Scaly Pete, a renowned shark hunter who had come from a long line of shark hunters. Scaly Pete was vile, believing that all sharks were hungry, man-eating monsters that humans could not coexist with, expressing a desire to kill them all. 

On one particular day, Scaly Pete would capture a pregnant shark, slice her open, and mark the pup inside before tossing her back into the water, losing a hand in the process. Unbeknownst to him, that pup would quickly grow to become a dangerous threat not just to him, but to all of Port Clovis as a whole. That pup, born prematurely and tossed into a foreign environment, would fight to survive and seek vengeance against the man that killed her mother and branded her. 

She’d kill dozens of humans, eat hundreds of animals in an effort to quickly grow, defeat notorious shark hunters, gain various mutations, defeat every apex predator, and finally avenge her mother by killing Scaly Pete. Still, she wasn’t done. Once she had become a mega shark, she’d catch the scent of a new animal, one powerful enough to challenge her status as apex. Following the scent, she’d discover a brand new region where stronger, deadlier threats awaited. 

She’d battle against mutated animals, elite hunters, the fucking Navy, and an actual irradiated leviathan. Why? To uncover and stop the New World Order from releasing a deadly virus onto the world and holding the vaccine ransom. Or at least that’s what the Narrator says. In reality? To secure her place as the one and only apex predator in Port Clovis. 

Experience & Skill

The Monster

The Monster, though its true origins are unknown, is a highly intelligent killing machine. It’s smart enough to use its webbing to remotely push levers, interact with technology, solve a variety of puzzles, outsmart humans, and, finally, escape the facility after being contained.

Its intelligence is truly unnerving. While taking the form of or possessing a human, it’s smart enough to fire weapons, operate mech suits, fool DNA scanners, and even fly helicopters. At one point, it was able to mostly speak fluid English while in control of a human, learning the language the more it spoke. 

Though the Monster may not have a ton of combat experience, it is smart enough to employ tactics. Webbing prey for easy kills, slamming drones into walls, or piloting mechs when outnumbered. Its most common tactic, however, is hit and run. By utilizing the terrain around it, it can prepare ambush attacks to catch humans off guard, pulling them away from the group to be brutally killed. 

The Bull Shark

Given the Bull Shark’s age, it’s actually quite surprising how much skill and experience she’s managed to obtain in such a short amount of time. 

She’s fought against and killed dozens, if not hundreds, of shark hunters with increasingly better weapons and technology. She’s defeated and consumed 15 of the best shark hunters in Port Clovis, a few of them being world renowned. The higher her infamy gets, the more technologically advanced the hunters get, eventually sending in naval interceptors, helicopters, and modified boats with teslas strapped to their underside to prevent her from getting close. 

She’s defeated and killed every apex predator in Port Clovis, from mere barracudas to Great Whites to orcas to sperm whales. Most impressive is when she defeated various mutated animals like the Electric Great White, Shadow Orca, Bone Sperm Whale, and the Atomic Leviathan, a literal behemoth of a monster that dwarfs the Bull Shark in size and can fire radioactive lasers out of its mouth. 

The Atomic Leviathan got its ass whooped so bad it called for help from THREE irradiated mutants to help it and it still lost.

Regarding skill and intelligence, she’s actually quite adept and far smarter than your average shark. She’s smart enough to remember Scaly Pete’s face and hold a grudge against him, hit switches by launching projectiles at them, catch explosives and return them to sender, target radar dishes by launching projectiles, and evade bullets.

Abilities

The Monster

For simplicity, I’ll just be covering all of the Monster’s abilities regardless of any biomass requirements they may have, which I’ll expand on in the Forms section. 

Unique Physiology

The Monster is a slithering mass of blood red tentacles and has no concrete form, size, or shape. It’s able to use its tentacles to quickly maneuver along walls and across rooms, fit into doorways, crevices, and people, even when it’s grown to monstrous proportions.

DNA Assimilation

The Monster is stated to “learn from what it eats”. This is also shown in-game when it breaks into a containment unit to absorb new DNA to further enhance or alter its abilities.

Every ability and mutation in the game is obtained this way. 

Hive Creation

The Monster is able to slip into small crevices or holes in the wall and create masses of flesh from its own body. 

These newly created hives allow the Monster to replenish biomass if injured, quickly traverse throughout the underground lab complex, and can grow forcefully enough to burrow through steel and concrete and open up new pathways.

Echolocation

The Monster lets out a roar that allows it to find hives and, with an upgrade, edible corpses.

Parasitism

The Monster releases a small tendril that burrows into an organism, allowing the Monster to control them like a puppet. The Monster has such fine control over the host that it can mimic and understand human speech, fire weapons, and even mount and use mech suits to use against other humans. It can also violently burst out of its host when a disguise is no longer needed.

This ability, with an upgrade, can also allow the Monster to fully take on the form of a human without needing a host. This mimicry is so advanced that it can trick DNA scanners.

Arachnoptysis 

The Monster shoots webbing to restrain its prey. This webbing is strong enough to restrain humans and drones and can be used to push levers that are out of reach. This webbing is also electroconductive and will allow the Monster to absorb energy remotely.

This ability is only available in the Monster’s Infiltrator form. 

Photokinesis

Has the memory gone? Are you feeling numb?

The Monster is able to bend light around itself such that it becomes completely invisible. While invisible, it can pass through laser security systems without being detected. Being invisible does need energy, requiring the Monster to latch onto electrical power sources to siphon power into itself to recharge.

This ability is only available in the Monster’s Infiltrator form.

Xiphorrea

The Monster grows a series of blades along its body before lunging forward with enough force to shatter thick wooden barricades. Naturally, it also eviscerates any poor organism that gets caught by this lunge.

This ability is only available in the Monster’s Enforcer form. 

Acanthosis

The Monster coats its body in sharp keratin spikes. When approaching an organism, these spikes will immediately embed themselves into the creature and deal damage. These spikes are sharp enough to pierce through a soldier’s armor.

This ability requires energy to use. Though it can freely create the spikes, it loses energy if those spikes actually embed themselves into anything. 

This ability is only available in the Monster’s Enforcer form.

Harpogorrhea

The Monster creates a series of sharp, bone harpoons that quickly launch outwards and embed themselves into surfaces (or people) and then get violently yanked back towards the creature. It is very useful for quickly clearing through obstacles or bringing biomass closer to the Monster. 

This ability is only available in the Monster’s Exterminator form.

Keratosis

The Monster grows thick, keratin plating around its body. This armor is hard enough to protect against bullets and shield the monster from explosives powerful enough to dislodge steel doors.

This ability requires energy to use. The more damage the keratin armor takes, the more energy is drained. 

The Bull Shark

Bull Shark Physiology

The Bull Shark is a shark. Surprising, I know. Beyond that, the Bull Shark is obviously adept at swimming and suffocates if out of water too long, though she can hold her breath for a decent while.

It’s also somewhat implied that the Bull Shark is capable of digesting seemingly anything, even irradiated chunks of flesh and mutagens and is implied to be absorbing the DNA of the creatures she eats, such as when she gains the Amphibious organ after eating an apex alligator.

She also has a keen sense of smell, able to sense the scent of a new, unknown creature that threatened her status as an apex, and can see in the dark, just like real life sharks.

Enhanced Agility

For a shark, the Bull Shark is surprisingly agile. She can evade to the left or right, jump several meters into the air, do barrel rolls as she jumps out of the water, use her tail to attack, and can even quickly traverse on land despite being a shark, though she is obviously much slower.

Sonar

The Bull Shark is able to use sonar to locate prey, see what types of nutrients she’d obtain by eating various creatures.

She can modify her sonar to grant buffs, debuffs, or even deal damage to nearby enemies.

Organs

Various organs that the Bull Shark can equip to gain new passive abilities and effects.

Protein/Fat/Mineral/Mutagen Digestion: These are 4 separate organs that each serve a similar function for the 4 different types of nutrients available. All of them provide a 30% boost in their respective nutrients and a 30% boost in healing when consuming an animal. 

Adrenal Gland: When the Bull Shark is low on health, this organ activates. When activated, the Bull Shark receives a 30% boost to her max speed, evade speed, lunge speed, acceleration, and swim speed.

Advanced Sonar: An organ that increases the range of the Bull Shark’s sonar by 300% and reduces its cooldown by half.

Amphibious: Greatly increases the Bull Shark’s speed on land and allows her to survive for longer before beginning to suffocate.

Brutal Muscles: Increases the Bull Shark’s swim speed, max speed, acceleration by 30%. Additionally, it also increases the force and damage of her tail whip by 30%.

Disorienting Sonar: When using sonar, any enemy nearby is disoriented and deals 30% less damage for 10 seconds. 

Healing Factor: The Bull Shark passively regenerates 36 health per second.

Hearty: Increases the Bull Shark’s max HP by 600 and provides 60% knockback resistance when on a boat. 

Reinforced Cartilage: Provides 15% damage resistance. 

Sonic Burst: When using sonar, the Bull Shark releases a sonic blast that damages and repels any enemy or boat within 30 meters. The further the enemy is, the less damaging the blast is. 

Subliminal Evasion: Creatures that are smaller than 90% of the Bull Shark’s size will not attack her. At her biggest size, the Bull Shark is 10 meters in length. 

Tail Catapult: The Bull Shark’s tail becomes significantly more powerful and receives a 200% bonus to her whipshot velocity, range, and a 200% increase in her tailwhip. Projectiles flung by her tail will also have their damage increased by 25%.

Targeting Sonar: When using sonar, the Bull Shark gains a 30% boost in damage to any creature within 60 meters for 10 seconds. 

Bone

The Bull Shark can coat various parts of her body in thick, bony armor to increase her damage output while also reducing how much damage she takes. 

Though not particularly fancy, this set of mutations is still powerful in its own right. She can cause devastating damage to boats by ramming into them, deal damage with her fins by rolling, and deal extra damage with her jaws. Though likely an exaggeration, the description for a few Bone mutations states she can "rend through steel” with her teeth and “shatter boats like glass” with her head.

When equipping the Bone body, she becomes immune to stuns.

When equipping all Bone mutations, she gets a permanent 10% damage reduction.

Bio-Electricity

Using specific mutations, the Bull Shark is able to harness electricity and use it to her advantage. She can paralyze enemies by just biting them, send bolts of electricity with a flick of her tail, short circuit boats and prevent them from moving by ramming into them, surround herself in an aura of electricity that damages anyone or anything that approaches, or even turn into actual lightning to evade attacks. 

When equipping the Bio-Electric body, she becomes immune to electricity-induced paralysis.

When equipping all mutations in this set, she gains a 50% damage boost to her bio-electricity.

Shadow

A poison-themed set of mutations, the Shadow set allows for the Bull Shark to deal damage over time by poisoning her enemies. The Bull Shark can apply poison stacks to any nearby enemy. For every stack applied, the enemy suffers from -1% speed, damage resistance, and damage output and takes .2 damage for every stack applied, up to 30 stacks.

With Shadow mutations, she can heal herself with every bite by draining the enemy of their blood, release poisonous clouds by evading, fire balls of poison with her tail, and double her reaction speed, slowing everything around her by half.

When equipping the Shadow body, she becomes immune to poison.

When equipping all mutations within this set, she gains a permanent 10% boost to her movement speed.

Atomic

A radioactive set of mutations, the Bull Shark harnesses atomic power to devastating effect. With these mutations, she can grant herself stacks that each boost her damage or damage reduction by 1%, each stack decaying every 2 seconds and capping at 30 stacks. 

She can fire orbs of atomic energy with her tail, release an atomic blast when ramming into boats, turn into pure atomic energy when evading, and fire balls of atomic energy from her mouth that she can charge up for extra damage.

If she equips the Atomic body, she becomes immune to radiation sickness.

If she equips every Atomic mutation, she gains a permanent 5% boost to her damage.

Forms

The Monster

Infiltrator

This is the form the Monster first starts with and the one it reverts to if it loses enough biomass for any reason. 

Though this form has the least amount of health, it is the fastest, has the greatest agility, can turn invisible, and comes with the ability to shoot webbing to restrain prey.

Enforcer

The Monster’s second form after obtaining a decent amount of biomass. It trades some mobility for increased health and is the perfect balance between its more agile form and its bulkier form. 

When in this form, the Monster can grow razor sharp claws, coat itself in keratin spears, and has enough mass to break through thick wooden barricades and eject steel blocks.

Exterminator

The Monster’s final form, this is by far the biggest and comes with the most amount of health. It can cover itself in thick, keratin plating that can absorb damage from bullets and bombs and can launch bone harpoons to forcefully yank steel blocks out. 

This form, being so massive, is the slowest and least agile but should be capable of upscaling any feat performed by the first 2 forms.

Hydrophilia 

The Monster transforms into a loose collection of worms that can slither through tight spaces when in water. All of its abilities are retained in this form, including biting, xiphorrea, harpogorrhea, and keratosis.

The Bull Shark

All already listed in the Abilities section.

Resistances

The Monster

Electricity: The Monster is able to siphon electricity from electrical sources and remain unharmed, though they are still harmed by electric shields.

Radiation: The Monster is capable of freely roaming around in the Uranium Mines without any issue and can even hold radioactive cores within itself.

Fire: With Pyrophilia, the Monster becomes more resistant to fire and takes longer for its biomass to ignite. 

The Bull Shark

Poison: The Bull Shark is able to swim in the heavily polluted waters of Deadhorse Lake and is relatively unharmed when swimming in poisoned waters.

More importantly, she can survive being poisoned by Shadow Orcas and, with the Shadow Body equipped, is outright immune to poison entirely.

Electricity: The Bull Shark is able to survive the Electric Great White’s electricity, though they are stunned for a time. The flavor text for the quest mentions the Electric Great White can generate up to 2,000 volts. With the Bio-Electric body, she becomes immune to electricity-induced paralysis.

Radiation: The Bull Shark faces off against various irradiated foes, up to 4 at once, and goes as far as to even consume their remains without any issue at all. With the Atomic body, she becomes immune to radiation sickness.

Mind Control: The Bull Shark fought and killed the Atomic Leviathan, who was able to summon various irradiated animals to its aid with a roar. The Bull Shark was not affected by this. 

Feats

The Monster

Overall

• Killed dozens of humans. 

• Escaped the facility. 

• Absorbed the DNA of various specimens. 

• Defeated mechs, armored troops, and drones. 

• Breached every area of the facility and infested them with its flesh.

Power

• Can throw doors hard enough to split humans in half.

• Violently bursts out of a human when it's done with their body. (467.046 Kilojoules)

• Can bust through wooden barricades. (0.009 Tons) 

• Can breach through blast doors with only a few hits.

• Bursts through a thick pane of bulletproof glass. (0.012 Tons)

• Capable of violently fragmenting large steel blocks. (0.34 Tons)

• Its tendrils can burrow through rock. (19.079 - 59.173 Tons) (See Before the Verdict)

Speed

• Can blitz humans before they can fire their weapons.

• Swam 48 miles in a relatively brief time period.

Durability

• Its keratin armor can survive a few bullets.

• Its keratin armor can also withstand a small bomb. (0.54 Tons)

The Bull Shark

Overall

• Went from a juvenile shark to a mega shark in a short amount of time.

• Obtained multiple evolutions and adaptations along her journey.

• Defeated and consumed every apex predator in Port Clovis on her way to the top of the food chain.

• Defeated multiple professional shark hunters.

• Avenged her mother and killed Scaly Pete.

• Defeated the Atomic Leviathan and stopped the NWO.

Power

• Able to break open gates.

• Can sink and destroy boats easily by ramming into them.

• Able to send different animals flying with a whip of her tail.

• Hammerheads. (2,585 - 7,756 Kilojoules)

• Great Whites. (5,573 - 9,103 Kilojoules)

• Can fragment sperm whales with her attacks. (0.05 Tons)

• Fires powerful atomic blasts from her mouth. (0.32 Tons)

• Can rend the Atomic Leviathan into large chunks of meat. (0.43 Tons)

• Her radiation beam can cut through naval interceptors. (0.68 Tons)

Speed

• Able to roll and dodge bullets.

• Can see bullets in slow motion. (130.871 mph)

Durability

• Survives a large point blank explosion. (4,903 Kilojoules)

• Withstands having explosive canisters explode in her mouth with minimal damage. (0.07 Tons)

• Survives another larger explosion. This explosion was stated to be worth multiple gigajoules and the shark survived unscathed. (0.033 - 0.253 Tons)

Scaling

The Monster

None applicable. 

The Bull Shark

Other Animals

Mako Sharks: Stated to swim at 46 miles per hour, mirroring their real life counterparts.

Irradiated Electric Great White Sharks: Stated to be able to release up to 2,000 volts of electricity.

Bone Sperm Whale: Smashes through columns of rock in its introduction.

Atomic Leviathan: Smashes/melts through a chunk of concrete. (0.18 Tons - 62.8 Tons) (See Before the Verdict)

Weaknesses

The Monster

As menacing as the Monster is, it isn’t flawless. It almost always requires ambush tactics to win encounters with armed troops. Additionally, it cannot have all of its abilities at the same time without first shedding biomass. 

A good chunk of its abilities also require energy to use and would constantly need a source of electricity to refuel itself. 

Its healing is also limited, either depending on hives that it has previously established or by consuming prey.

The Bull Shark

Naturally, the Bull Shark is unable to stay on land for very long and will begin to suffocate after a short duration. Though she’s still able to move around a surprising amount, she’s obviously much less mobile on land. 

She also needs to deal damage to recharge her active abilities, whether by biting or using her tail.

Her healing, even with Healing Factor and Shadow teeth, is also relatively slow and more often requires the consumption of other animals. 

Before the Verdict

City Block Carrion

This feat is a powerful showing from the Monster, but I have a few problems with it

For starters, I think there are too many things in the game that point against this feat being a legitimate feat of strength for the Monster. For example, the Monster, in its Infiltrator form, cannot break through wooden barricades or ballistic glass. It requires the later forms after obtaining enough mass. 

Why would this be a problem when it’s clearly a weaker form? Because even the Infiltrator form is capable of recreating similar feats. Other examples are the guards. The guards are enemies with armor that cannot be dismembered at all. Not with teeth or hooks or claws. The only form of damaging them is thrashing them around, drowning them, or with puncture wounds created by your teeth or by Acanthosis. Additionally, these enemies also cannot be torn open with parasitism, which realistically should be similar to the hive creation feat (as in, tentacles spreading outward and bursting through material.) 

Even more evidence against it is that the Monster is very clearly suited for ambushes and hit-and-run tactics. Any direct fight against a group of guards or a mech will result in the Monster very quickly getting shredded with sustained gunfire. Hell, a small bomb is a guaranteed one shot at maximum biomass without the use of Keratosis.

Secondly, these types of feats are never recreated in combat and require very specific spots along the walls, usually crevices or cracks in cave walls. Because of this, I’m inclined to believe that the Monster is exploiting structural integrity rather than using raw power to force open new pathways. 

It’s up to you on how you want to view this feat, but I’ve given my reasons as to why I don’t buy it and thus, it won’t be used for the verdict.

City Block Bull Shark

Yeah, so, I’ve got a few issues regarding the high end calc of this feat. For starters, we don’t really see exactly what happens or how the Leviathan escapes containment. It could’ve melted its way out, or it could’ve simply bashed against containment. Both ends have their arguments.

In favor of melting the concrete, we can at least assume the atomic blasts, which would reasonably give off intense levels of heat and radiation, melted the concrete and gave it that glowing green look. This is also backed up by the Bull Shark’s own atomic blast, which should be similar in nature, very clearly melting through a naval interceptor in a promotional image.

In favor of simple fragmentation, we can still find visible, large chunks of concrete on the floor near the gap and, in general, this is a huge jump in power for the Bull Shark. 

Again, you can interpret this feat however you’d like, but I’ll only be using the low end for it as I believe that one is more in line with the Bull Shark’s other showings.

Verdict

Stats

Up first is their stats. 

Starting with the Monster, it had fewer showings of power compared to the Bull Shark. Busting through wooden barricades and thick panes of ballistic glass would respectively require 0.009 and 0.012 tons of TNT. Even higher, the Monster was able to violently fragment large blocks of steel, generating up to 0.34 tons. Its best feat, however, was its capacity to survive a 0.54 ton blast thanks to its keratosis, enough to blast thick chunks of steel into rubble. 

For speed, the Monster was severely lacking. At best, we can assume that the Monster swam its way to Seattle, crossing 48 miles in an hour. 

Regarding the Bull Shark, she could hold her own fairly well. At her low ends, she could both survive and dish out attacks worth several thousand kilojoules, such as when she survived Scaly Pete’s boat blowing up or how she can send Great White Sharks flying. Her higher ends, however, can reach up to 0.43 tons, the amount of energy needed to fragment a creature as massive as the Atomic Leviathan. With her atomic blast being able to melt through naval interceptors though, she can dish out 0.68 tons. 

For speed, she’s able to both dodge AND perceive bullets in slow motion, which when calculated, would be moving at 130 miles per hour. 

While the Monster may start off stronger physically, the Bull Shark herself wasn’t far behind. With greater AP and speed, she could safely chip away at the Monster with her attacks while the Monster would only be growing weaker as it loses its biomass. 

With that said, the Bull Shark takes stats. 

Arsenal & Abilities

Onto their abilities, both had plenty of abilities and counters for each other. 

The Monster excelled in close quarters combat. With teeth, scythes, spears, and hooks to use, it could be a dangerous threat to the Bull Shark if it got too close. It would struggle when fighting at range, however, as it’s really only got webbing for a projectile.

Inversely, the Bull Shark excelled in ranged combat, able to fire lightning bolts, toxic orbs, and atomic blasts from a safe distance. Just as the Monster struggled with range, so did the Bull Shark struggle with close quarters combat. With only bites, headbutts, and tail whips, she couldn’t quite match up to the Monster’s array of mutations. 

Overall, the Bull Shark just had everything she needed to counter the majority of the Monster’s kit and then some.

With Healing Factor and Shadow teeth, she’d be able to passively heal any damage the Monster might do. While the Monster could set up hives to heal, this requires time and is not something it can pull off in the middle of a fight. 

Sonar was a valuable tool here, being able to counter the Monster’s photokinesis. Though it may hide the Monster from light, it would not hide it from sound waves. On top of that, sonar would both empower the Bull Shark, weaken the Monster, and cause damage if it got too close. 

Even further, the Bull Shark had plenty of methods of widening the stat gap in her favor. The Shadow set of mutations alone would double her reaction speed and the poison she creates would slow the Monster, make it more susceptible to damage, and reduce its damage output. This is not accounting for other organs or mutations that would again lower the Monster’s stats. 

The Monster wasn’t entirely outclassed, though. it had a few tricks up its meaty sleeves. 

For one, it could potentially siphon electricity off the Bull Shark should she decide to use her bio-electric set of mutations. It is, unfortunately, more likely that the Monster gets hurt if it came into contact with the Bull Shark’s bio-electricity, just as it gets hurt when making contact with a security guard’s electric shield. The Monster would also be immune to any lingering effects caused by the Bull Shark’s atomic mutations, as it can handle radioactive cores within itself without a problem. 

Now, the big question remains: could the Bull Shark avoid or survive getting parasitized? This is a tricky question when considering that the Bull Shark’s go-to method of attack is biting. This isn’t to say parasitism is inevitable, though. 

With her ranged options, she would never have to get in close and with her speed advantage, the Monster would have to get really lucky if it wanted to pull off a stray parasitism attempt. 

Her bio-electricity, which is capable of paralyzing large animals like sperm whales, would also render the Monster incapable of moving and giving the Bull Shark the opportunity she needs to land a few free bites. 

The Monster would also have to rely on the Bull Shark immediately going for a bite without first poisoning it, using sonar, or electricity. If the Monster gets too weak, it’s unlikely it would even puncture the Bull Shark’s hide. Also like, the Bull Shark fires blasts of atomic energy from her mouth. Not the safest play to try and invade someone through an orifice that can just as easily incinerate you lol 

The Bull Shark takes abilities.

Tertiary Factors

Finally, their smarts. 

Starting again with the Monster, it was undoubtedly the smarter of the two. Able to trick humans, speak English, pilot vehicles and mechs, fire guns, it easily outclassed the Bull Shark in intellect, though the Bull Shark herself fleas certainly smart in her own right. 

Where the Monster fails, however, is in skill and experience, things that the Bull Shark had plenty of. 

Remember, she had to fight the minute she was forcefully cut out of her mother's womb and thrown into foreign (and heavily polluted, might I add) waters to fend for herself. 

After that point, she’d fight her way up and not only encounter, but defeat and consume several types of predatory fauna. From mere barracudas to sperm whales to atomic sea monsters that dwarf her in size. She’s killed her fair share of humans as well, famous shark hunters with impressive tech and even the damn Navy stepping in to stop her. 

She’s not stupid either. While she may not be able to use technology or speak English like the Monster can, she’s still smart enough to hold grudges, return explosives to senders, hit switches, and target specific individuals. 

And although the Monster did have experience fighting, it never fought against another monster like itself, only picking on lowly humans who only sometimes have a gun or mech.

The Monster may be smarter, but the Bull Shark takes skill and experience.

The Monster

“BECOME THE MONSTER.”

Advantages:

• Slightly stronger physically at first…

• More melee options for close quarters combat.

• Immune to radiation sickness.

• Smarter.

• Could set up hives to heal and establish control of the terrain…

• Could potentially use the Bull Shark’s bioelectricity to recharge its abilities…

• Parasitism is a valuable wincon…

• Has a BAFTA award.

Disadvantages:

• …but weaker AP and it would get even weaker as it lost biomass.

• Slower.

• Less experience and skill.

• No reliable method of getting close to the Bull Shark.

• …but this requires time and the hives themselves are defenseless.

• …but its more likely the Bull Shark’s electricity damages it instead.

• …but would be difficult to pull off.

• Less reliable methods of healing in combat.

• Could not access all of its abilities at once.

• CARRION 2 PLEASEEEEEE

The Bull Shark

“A shark fin is a sinister reminder to humans that the ocean remains a wild and untamed domain.”

Advantages:

• Greater AP.

• Faster.

• More experienced and skilled.

• Wider array of abilities.

• Could keep the Monster at bay with projectiles.

• Better methods of healing in combat that don’t rely on eating prey.

• Sonar counters Photokinesis and would inflict various debuffs.

• Could widen the stat gap even further with various mutations and organs.

• Able to access all of her abilities. 

• Chris Parnell

Disadvantages:

• Slightly weaker physically at first.

• Would be unable to inflict radiation sickness on the Monster.

• Less melee options for close quarters combat.

• Biting could be very risky and could lead to being parasitized if not careful.

• Less control over the terrain.

• Not as intelligent.

• MANEATER 2 PLEASEEEEEE

Though the Monster may have started off stronger initially, it just couldn’t keep up with the Bull Shark’s superior AP, range, speed, skill/experience, and versatility. 

The Monster was no doubt a terrifying opponent to face down but when against an apex predator like the Bull Shark, it couldn’t carry on.

The winner is The Bull Shark

Final Tally

The Monster (0):

The Bull Shark (3): Barbatos, MC Punk, mew

Credit

Credit to VSBW for the various formulas/calcs used and to the creators of the Calvin vs Carrion blog for the gifs.