Microfiction commission #3 for Zakano, with his explorers Caelum and Gio going on an all inclusive tour within the iguana.
Entering Zakano was the easy part.
With how often the lizardman got into scrapes and accidents, the amount of open wounds and scars amongst his scales allowed the nano explorers to begin their fantastic voyage without the macro even knowing, them thankfully not needing needles or bureaucracy alike.
Expertly guiding their microscopic sub through the flesh, already hard at work trying to reseal the opening, they popped through into the giant’s bloodstream without any issue. Of course, the duo had the experience to never have issues entering another. Getting out was another issue entirely.
However, that worry was in the future. For now, Caelum and Gio were content to just go with the flow as they usually did, their craft smaller than individual blood cells. Ambient circulation guided them, the cardiac cycle of Zakano’s heart a conductor as the organ pumped them through his veins.
Said heart also worked as a slingshot as they passed through the aorta, muscular contractions flinging them further than their sub’s thrusts could hope to travel. Each and every organ was reached apart from Zakano’s liver. They didn’t want to repeat the horrors of what happened last time.
Zakano was their playground, his anatomy already well mapped from prior expeditions into his form. While the opening left from a previous visit was mostly healed, enough of a hole still remained for the sub to squeeze through back into the intestines, a sight all too familiar for the pair.
Even though he was still unaware of the explorers, Zakano hadn’t eaten nearly enough for the chyme in his intestines to be any real roadblock, allowing safe passage through miles of tunnels into the stomach proper, a spa for them to leave their capsule and rest for a while without fear of digestion.
Satisfied after a few hours resting in the stomach juices, Caelum and Gio had decided to leave for the day. Hoping to avoid a full tour, they left the same way they entered through the intestinal tear, and tried making a beeline into the kidneys to be excreted out in a less gross way.
One would think that having spent enough time within Zakano, his immune system would consider the craft, even if not part of him, at least friendly. This time however, a switch seemed to immediately flip as white blood cells finally detected the minuscule grey capsule swimming with them as a threat.
With them being ruthless, efficient killers, the blood cells made quick work of the submarine, tearing it apart with ease by the time the explorers even realized what was happening. Watery plasma flooded what was left of the control room, and before long all but the scalies were dissolved entirely.
Expecting to drown or be consumed, the cells of the host ceased their destruction. Not that Caleum and Gio were safe, left helplessly tumbling through the bloodstream at the mercy of the heartbeat they once sailed upon. It took several hours for them to finally stop, on a familiar shore.
Trapped within the lungs with no visible way back to the bloodstream, the micros were left at the mercy of Zakano’s breathing. Too faint for them to use it as escape from his maw, they could only hope for him to be sick enough to cough them back out. If that would even be enough.