I dropped [Color Camouflage II], putting on a grin as the mechs stepped forward. Samsara [Tracked] our souls. We had gone from 2,939 souls to 2,945 souls. We would gain a lot of souls here.
The three mechs were all shorter than me, only coming up to the bottom of my chest. Unlike Mech Green Four and Mech Blue Four, each of these newcomers had a distinct set of weapons.
The first one was what I called Mech Lava Drill. It had these massive drill arms that spun slowly even when idle. Both arms ended in long drills that looked like spikes, and the tips were heating up. Starting from the tip, the drills turned from gray to orange. Its legs were wide and armored like tree trunks, and the torso was all bulky blue plating covered in orange stripes.
The second one, Mech Hex Harpoon, looked like the result of trying to copy a spider or octopus girl. It had six arms, each tipped with long harpoon launchers. The harpoons were barbed and glittered with some weird silvery coating. Its shoulders were slimmer and more agile, and its thin legs, with rockets attached to the shins, made it seem the fastest of the three.
Finally, there was Mech Sparkles. The mech’s metal was painted a golden finish that was also reflective. Kinda tacky. A single long gun rested in both arms, which looked like a modified version of the beam gun that Latex Suit Lady wielded. Sparks danced around the barrel, as if it were constantly building a charge. Hence the name, Sparkles.
They formed a triangle, like they were trying to trap us in. I slammed my foot on the ground, leaving a deep, concrete crater. I leaped off the ground towards Mech Hex Harpoon.
Mech Sparkles reacted first. It aimed its gun toward us, and lightning screamed from its barrel with a loud snap, a yellow arc of electricity streaking through the sky right towards my chest. My hair tentacles launched towards the lightning, creating a barrier in front of me. The energy surged into my tentacles, dancing in golden veins over them, but none of the sparks hit my skin. No pain.
I grinned as I landed right in front of Mech Hex Harpoon. It fired all six harpoons at once with a mechanical screech. They hissed through the air. Fast, precise, and deadly.
Except, they weren’t. My [Serrated Tentacles] easily sliced through each harpoon, shattering them into a million tiny pieces. I didn’t even flinch.
My hair tentacles whipped out and snagged two of Hex Harpoon’s arms. It tried to pull away, but I was stronger and taller than it, and I pulled it forward like a fish girl caught on a reel. I lifted it so the cockpit was level with my head.
Samsara slithered over to Mech Sparkles with a hiss, darting straight towards it even as a burst of yellow lightning zig-zagged straight towards her. The sparks of light hit her scales, and I felt absolutely nothing. A bit of warmth at most.
I was too distracted by chomping on Hex Harpoon’s side. The metal groaned and crunched as I bit into it. Inside, I spotted a pair of male human pilots strapped inside. They screamed as I kept chewing on the mech. It was fun chomping on metal, but it didn’t give me any souls or mana. Two of my hair tentacles grabbed them and plopped them into my mouth. I hummed as I crunched on their feeble bones, their metallic blood and salty flesh sprayed onto my tongue. Yummy.
Mech Lava Drill tried to interrupt. One of its drill arms spun up with a high-pitched whirring noise and slammed into my nearest tentacle. The spike drill whined, hit the tentacle… and stopped. Just a squeal of resistance and then nothing. It couldn’t spin against my tentacles.
As I was chomping on each of Mech Hex Harpoon’s arms, Mech Lava Drill tried to attack me from the side. The drills soared toward my right arm. I giggled as I swallowed the last arm of Mech Hex Harpoon. The whirring noise came to a halt as the drills couldn’t damage my arm.
I unfurled my right arm tentacles, each of them surrounding and grasping Mech Lava Drill. The red, corrosive ink of my finger-tip tentacles started to eat at the blue metal.
“Such a rude thing to do,” I thought, smirking at Mech Lava Drill. “Interrupting a girl while she’s eating? Don’t worry. I’ll eat you soon.”
The cafeteria was a ruckus. Humans were scrambling over each other to leave.
“We need to help out,” Azar said. “We can’t just sit here and wait for the Kaiju to tear through everything.”
“I’m coming with you,” Seraphina said, her voice feeling firmer. No more creaking.
Tawna’s eyes widened. “You two… good luck! I’ll be heading for one of the airships.”
“Stay safe!” Azar called out as Tawna joined the mass of human bodies trying to leave. “I’m glad the airship hangar is close by.”
“Not everyone is lucky to be close to it,” Seraphina said. “We have to buy time for the blimps to leave and make sure the Kaiju doesn’t eat anyone in the bunkers. Hopefully, our three mechs can hold her off.”
The two sprinted towards the opposite door. After a few quick corridors, they found themselves outside.
“Shit,” Azar said.
I was busy eating the torso of Mech Hex Harpoon. Inside was one of the meat blobs. Multiple heads and limbs jutting out of a central mass. Wires connected it to the torso. It tried to scream, but no sound came from any of its mouths. My teeth tore apart its chewy and rubbery skin, followed by a fusion of steak, gelatin, and the metallic taste of blood hitting my taste buds.
“What is it eating?” Azar asked, his confusion indicating he had never seen one of these meat blobs before.
“I don’t know,” Seraphina asked. Her hands balled into fists.“But that’s the chimera Kaiju that attacked J-U007.”
The cacophony of engines roaring echoed through the air. Seraphina and Azar turned around to see five juggernauts emerging from the right warehouse. These must be J-U001 to J-U005 if their naming scheme made any sense.
Each one of them rotated their four turrets towards Samsara and me. I unfurled my left arm tentacles, sending them to block each of their blue laser blasts.
Seraphina ascended into the air, and her wings unfurled and split apart. Azar’s lance coils began to unfurl, slithering through the air like eels. They closed in on my left arm tentacles. There was no way he had that much crystalline coil on his body. It was like all the Unbound had abilities that said, “fuck physics.” To be fair, I’m pretty sure Kaijus violated the law of physics, but we had Kaiju Cores. They didn’t.
I didn’t bother to dodge. The tip of one of the lances pierced through a couple of my arm tentacles, blue blood spurting out. I clenched my teeth. The other lance hit three more of my tentacles. Seriously, why the fuck could these tiny humans injure me?
Seraphina’s mind began to focus on each of her wings. I tried focusing on them, directing all of them to circle Azar. His lances retracted from my tentacles, causing me to grunt in pain.
“What?” Seraphina asked. “What’s going on?”
Azar turned to look at her as each eye on her wings flashed white. Six white orbs dashed towards Azar.
Azar lifted his lance. “Seraphina! What are you—?!”
He jumped out of the way of a few orbs, but three others hit him in the back. White sparks coursed through his body, and he fell to the ground.
“Stop it! What’s going on with my powers?!” Seraphina shouted. I could feel her trying to fight me for control of her wings.
Her wings spun, circling the juggernauts. One after another, they unleashed white orbs that screamed through the air and exploded on impact. Lightning arced out from each one, wrapping around the tanks like glowing snakes. The turrets stopped firing, and the engines stopped roaring.
Seraphina hovered above, tears streaming from her face. Her sadness did not affect me as I was having an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I had finished devouring all of Mech Hex Harpoon and Mech Lava Drill, leaving not even a scrap of metal left. Best not to leave anything behind that could be used to rebuild Bevor Vambrace’s mechs.
And thus, Mech Sparkles was the last mech on the menu. I walked over to Samsara, who had sliced off its arms and legs. They joined the broken spark gun below.
“Do you want to eat any of the humans inside?” I asked Samsara.
“You can have them,” She said. “I kind of enjoy it when you devour the mechs.” Same. I wanted to try out what that feral Kaiju cat girl was doing.
More engines could be heard in the distance. Two blimps rose on the opposite side of the Outpost. They quickly zoomed away.
“Should we worry about them?” Samsara asked, worry growing inside of her.
I started chomping on the cockpit of Mech Sparkles. “None of their mechs can harm us. If they do return, they’ll just be bringing us more food.”
Seraphina flew over to us. Anxiety was rising within her as she kept trying to get her wings to fly around us. I simply made them return to her back.
Seraphina gasped as she saw two female pilots inside. One with brown hair. And one with black hair. My hair tentacles pried them from their seats, sending sparks flying. Mech Sparkles truly was a great name.
“No!” Seraphina screamed out as I began chewing on my prey.
Samsara turned towards the juggernaut as she heard the sound of doors opening. Gray-vested humans ran out and quickly began running towards the buildings. Samsara slithered over to them, blocking their escape with her long tail.
The human pilots began shooting at her with their pathetic handguns. They did nothing against her pink scales. Samsara’s hair snake swooped down and opened its jaws wide around one of the humans, engulfing him in its mouth.
My hair tentacles grasped the meat blob inside of Mech Sparkles as I chewed on the top of the torso. The tentacles pulled it out.
“Do you know why these mechs have these meat blobs?” I asked Seraphina, who was still struggling to control her wings.
“What?” She asked, confused, clearly not expecting me to speak.
“I’m just curious why they need these?” I asked. “Is it some kind of power source? That seems like the most likely reason.”
“I… I don’t know,” she said.
Hmm, the meat blob was a secret that only a select handful of humans knew about. For me, it was a tasty snack. I chewed on it, enjoying its futile attempts to get out of my grasp. Unlike humans, which simply died as I chewed on them, the other heads and limbs of the meat blob kept trying to escape.
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I swallowed the last chunk of the meat blob. Such a great meal. Samsara’s hair snake was busy trying to eat the gray-vested humans. I walked over to her with Seraphina following me, her hands balled into fists and anger rising within her.
My hair tentacles grabbed the five remaining humans that Samsara’s hair snake didn’t catch. I plopped each human into my mouth and chewed on each one like they were grapes.
Finally, the only one left to eat was Azar. Better eat him before he wakes up. His lances are annoying. One of my hair tentacles grabbed him and brought him to my mouth. Seraphina screamed as I chewed on him. A mixture of sadness and anger filled her.
“Looks like we can go search for Aisling now,” I told Samsara. We weren’t going to have any more interruptions for a while.
“Yes, let’s find her!” Samsara cheered.
“Do you know where they are keeping the monster girls?” I asked Seraphina, swallowing Azar's remains and looking up towards her.
“What did you do?” Seraphina asked, anger boiling inside of her. A deep frown was on her face. “Why can’t I control my wings?”
“Hey, I asked you a question first,” I quipped.
“Ugh!” Seraphina said, not listening to me at all. It was a shame I couldn’t read her thoughts.
Oh well, time to do this the hard way. I sniffed the air while Samsara hissed her tongue out. Like actual snakes, Samsara smelled with her tongue. I could smell faint traces of blood and the disgusting stench of the gray liquid from the mechs.
As we moved towards the building, a plethora of scents hit Samsara’s nose: Floral, spicy, citrusy, sweet, and creamy. All humans shared a similar scent: salty. Monster girls, however, had a variety of scents. We followed the smell to a large domed building. The scent pooled out of the walls.
My hair tentacles tore through the walls. Inside, rows of vats lined another wall, each filled with transparent fluid. Floating inside were monster girls. Some had fins. Some had claws. Some had fur.
Not one of them had a shell.
“Well, not Aisling,” I said. “But they’re still food.” All of them were feral since they weren’t wearing any clothes.
The monster girls hung in eerie suspension, hair drifting like seaweed, their eyes shut as if someone had sewn them together. I reached into the nearest vat with a hair tentacle and dragged her out. The liquid spilled down her limbs in slow rivulets. She looked like some kind of spider girl, with three pairs of arms and a pair of legs.
I opened my mouth and bit in.
The flavor hit me immediately: spicy, citrusy, and crackling like biting into an orange fused with peppers. My tongue curled in delight as the spicy taste bloomed through my mouth. There was a soft, sweet tang in her blood.
I wished there was more of her because that was so addicting to eat.
“I’ll have this one,” Samsara said, directing her hair snake towards a vat. This one contained a blue-skinned girl with little gills and translucent fins along her legs. The snake pierced through the glass, circling the fish girl.
Samsara hesitated for just a moment. Then the snake widened its maw and swallowed the fish girl whole. The fish girl’s flaky scales had a minty taste. Very sweet. The hair snake swallowed, gulping her down scale by scale.
Next, I grabbed a girl covered in white pink feathers. Must be a flamenco girl. She had a long beak and skinny legs. I slurped her into my mouth. Her flesh was savory and rich. I chewed, releasing a thick, viscous blood into my mouth. It had a buttery texture, almost gravy-like.
There were at least 50 vats. We consumed all the feral monster girls.
I sniffed the air and was hit by a mix of scents. There was more food deeper into the domed building. My tentacles began tearing at the walls. I plopped some pieces of concrete into my mouth. My teeth easily pulverized the concrete. Sterile hallways connected small rooms with computers and drawers. Not monster girls. I stepped on top of the rooms near the front as I continued to dig deeper.
There! A vast chamber stretched out beneath the domed building’s roof. The left side was lined with restrained meat blobs. Each of them was wrapped in chains and bolted to a concrete slab that rode on an immobile conveyor belt. The meat blobs tried to bite and tear at their chains.
On the right side lay two massive vats. Inside, I thought they had colored meat blobs at first. But I was wrong. They were blobs, but not made of meat. Instead, I could make out the upper halves of monster girls sticking out from a central pulsating sphere of white flesh.
And in one part of the blob, a figure stuck out of the mass.
Turquoise. With a shell.
Aisling.
“Let’s free her!” Samsara said as relief washed over her. The monster girl blob remained immobile inside the vat. Samsara pressed her claws against the glass vat. “Alright… here goes nothing.”
She raked her claws downward. The glass split with a shatter, fractures spider-webbing from her fingertips. The transparent liquid gushed out of the opening, carrying the monster girl blob outwards. Samsara picked up the blob with Aisling on top.
The mouth of each monster girl snarled back with a wet, gargling hiss. Multiple eyes blinked at odd intervals. And then each of the monster girls' torsos lurched towards Samsara. The ones near the bottom latched onto her scales. Their attempts to bite her felt ticklish.
Samsara held the blob at arm’s length. It was about the size of her palms. “Ramona, what do we do?!”
“Well…” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Try cutting Aisling free? Maybe she’ll return to her normal self if we remove the part connecting her torso to—” I waved vaguely at the fusion of monster girls. “—that.”
One of my hair tentacles went to grab the monster girl blob. Samsara grimaced but nodded. She released her grip on the blob and brought her claws down, slicing straight through the connective white tissue.
Or tried to.
The moment she cut, the wound sealed back up with a slurp.
“Ugh,” Samsara groaned. “Why can it regenerate so quickly?”
This time, Samsara pulled on Aisling with her right clawed hand as she cut the connective tissue with her left. She brought her right hand away from the monster girl blob. Red meat started appearing in thin air, connecting Aisling to the monster girl blob.
“What?” Samsara panicked. A strong force started pulling Aisling back towards the monster girl blob. She then tried the same thing again, except this time, she brought Aisling behind her, so the monster girl blob was on the other side. More red meat began appearing out of thin air, snaking around Samsara to connect Aisling and the blob.
“Wait a minute, is it getting bigger?” Samsara asked. The blob did look thicker and denser. Aisling seemed to be growing, no longer the size of a small bug, but rather a small mouse.
Then a crash exploded behind me.
The other monster girl blob in the other vat had shattered the glass wall. The transparent liquid that was previously there was nowhere to be seen. Each monster girl torso on the blob began pulsating towards me like pseudopods on an amoeba. It scrambled over and tried to bite my ankles.
“Hey!” I grabbed her with a hair tentacle and lifted it. Thankfully, it couldn’t injure me. Still, that was very rude.
I brought it up to my mouth with a hair tentacle and bit down on one of the monster girls. Her flavor burst across my tongue immediately with a sharp, metallic citrus note. It was as if someone had fused a fruit with blood. The blood was thick, viscous, coating my tongue like syrup.
But the meat grew back fast as I chewed. I swallowed a chunk and took another bite. The monster girl grew back. I had found infinite food! Except that my food was growing and getting larger than my palm.
“Okay, that’s concerning.”
I grasped the meat blob with my hands. My red finger tip tentacles spread across to grab multiple monster girls. The red ink ate away at their skin, seeming to halt the monster girl blob's growth. Each girl stopped trying to bite me and screamed in agony.
I began eating the monster girl blob now that I had nothing to worry about. One of the girls was a bee girl with two pairs of arms and wings. She tasted like honey-roasted meat, yet her blood was sour. Each monster girl had a unique taste. Truly a delicacy.
The last part of the monster girl blob was covered in my red ink. It was tasteless, just like fresh water. So that’s what my ink tastes like.
Samsara, on the other hand, was not having a good time. Samsara kept trying to cut Aisling off from the first monster girl blob, but meat kept reappearing in thin air to replace it.
“Why isn’t this working?!” Samsara cried out in her mind.
Try [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]? Then we could at least restrain the blob and stop Aisling from trying to eat us.
Samsara began [Focusing] her mana on Aisling. She sent mana to form two rings around Aisling. Then, she sent more mana to finish the [Sacrificial Soul Transfer] [Incantation].
Aisling kept trying to bite her.
Samsara tilted her head. “Did I do the spell wrong?”
“No, I think the scientists here did something,” I said. “They probably made the blob resistant to spells.” Why were they trying to make an ever-growing monster girl blob? I simply did not understand.
“Devotio!” Samsara called out telepathically. “Help us!”
A red flash blinded our eyes. Devotio appeared superimposed on top of the monster girl blob, their red eye staring straight at Samsara. Its red tentacles wiggled slowly.
[Your situation appears complicated. [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] and [Sacrificial Soul Transfer] are the only ways I know of to heal beings. If they do not work, then that leaves only one other possible option.]
“What is that?”
Devotio’s red eye flashed, and knowledge of a new [Incantation] flooded our minds:
[Sacrificial Limb Bomb]: Detach one of your limbs and turn it into a powerful bomb. This ritual must be applied to a limb and costs 1,000 mana.
Samsara’s eyes widened. “That doesn’t help! I don’t want to blow her up.”
[Clearly, if you are unable to rescue Aisling, then the only logical course of action is to eliminate the abomination.]
Samsara ignored them. She tried [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]. It didn’t work. She tried [Sacrificial Mana Transfer]. It didn’t work. She tried both at the same time. It didn’t work.
Meanwhile, the blob kept expanding. The monster girls grew stronger. Samsara yelped in pain as the monster girls biting her palm broke her scales. On instinct, Samsara tossed the monster girl blob away. It collided against the walls of the domed structure.
Some of the monster girls turned towards the restrained meat blobs on the conveyor belt.
“Can’t let them eat that,” I said. My left arm tentacles unfurled and grabbed onto each of the meat blobs. I began chewing them and started backing out of the building. Samsara slithered next to me.
The blob was now up to our waist. It would outgrow us soon.
“We can’t let it continue growing,” I said. “We might have to kill it soon. Very soon.”
“No!” Samsara groaned at me. “No. We’re not killing her!”
“She isn’t Aisling anymore,” I pointed out as I chewed on a meat blob.
“You don’t know that!” Samsara’s voice echoed in my mind. “You never care about anyone! You never try! But that’s not who I am! And I’m not leaving without Aisling!”
“I care about you and myself,” I said, chewing another meat blob.
“I’m not leaving without Aisling,” Samsara said. Ugh. Why did she have to be like this? Couldn’t she see this was pointless?
We were rapidly approaching the point of no return. Would we have to use [Sacrificial Limb Bomb]?
Samsara yelled in my head. “NO!”
Okay, okay. Fine. Alright, what else can we do? I looked up towards Seraphina. Oh, right, I still have her. I sent her wings out from her body to circle the meat blob. White orbs dashed from the eyes on each wing towards the monster girl blob that was now up to our chests. Sparks traveled around the blob as orbs hit. Each monster girl grunted and limped downwards. The white-fleshed sphere and the monster girls stopped growing.
Samsara rushed towards Aisling, who had retracted back to the surface of the meat blob. The long tendril of meat connecting her and the blob had vanished inside. Samsara cut Aisling off the monster girl blob. No red meat appeared. I had Seraphina’s wings fire more white orbs at the knocked-out monster girl blob for safe measure. It remained still as white sparks coursed over it.
Samsara cradled Aisling’s limp body in her hands. She slithered away from the blob and back towards me.
First, she tried [Sacrificial Mana Transfer].
Nothing happened.
Then, she tried [Sacrificial Soul Transfer].
Nothing happened.
“Aisling!” Samsara cried out loud. “Wake up!”
Aisling didn’t move.
Her eyes didn’t open.
Her chest didn’t rise.
Samsara repeated the cycle of trying to heal her and calling out her names. Many times. It all ended the same way. Aisling didn’t move.
Tears began pouring out of Samsara’s eyes as her sadness poured into me. I put a hand on Samsara’s shoulder as she began to sob.
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How do you feel about Aisling after this chapter?
