I do not own Sym-Bionic Titan or any of the characters.
Lizard Trouble
Jet smirked as he kicked the snake-shaped ship, listening to Lance's question of whether or not Ilana had been on a normal date get turned into him maybe trying to ask her on one.
"I'm talking about when a guy brings you flowers, tells you you're pretty-"
"You think I'm pretty?" Ilana interupted eagerly, Jet chuckling.
"What?" Lance asked. "No!"
"You don't think she's pretty?" Octus asked.
"Okay, sure, she's pretty, but that's not what I'm talking about," Lance said. "I'm talking about a boy, a hypothetical boy-"
A roughly han-sized creature that was obviously Mutraddi crashed into Lance's chest, tackling him to the ground and clawing at his armor uselessly. Ilana spun, and when it leapt at her, Lance and Jet both opened fire, their bullets punching through it rapidly before Octus electrocuted the thing with enough power to fry the circuits of a skyscraper in the city. They all returned to the surface, Jet dropping the thing a safe distance from Isabella, who was finally finished her rehab, minus needing to regain balance. Fortunately, Jet had found some form of training called yoga to help with balance.
"Is that it?" Ilana asked.
"The Mutraddi must be loaing it if they think this could stop us," Lance said.
"I'm sure there's more to this than we're seeing," Jet said as Octus sprayed the mud off of Ilana's armor. "There always is."
Ilana nodded in agreement. "Anyway, we're supposed to be celebrating Isabella finishing her rehab, right? Let's go!"
Just then, the thing leapt up, shrieking and smacking Lance, sending him flying. It slammed Octus into the ground and flun him, but as it lunged at Jet, Jet pivoted, ducking under its swipe before his default sword, the double-edged one with the end of the blade curved backward slightly and the crown-shaped guard, slashed it along its right, Isabella's sword slicing through its left. It shrieked in pain, its tongue lashing outward and grabbing Ilana by the ankle, only for Jet's blade to remove its tongue. It shrieked again and spun, leaping awaaway just ahead of his and Isabella's blades, disappearing into the trees.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Ilana groaned, holding her leg just above a burn. "It hurts."
"Is she going to be okay?" Lance asked.
"It appears to be a topical venom burn," Octus said.
"Can you stand?" Lance asked Ilana.
"I'm fine," Ilana said, Lance and Octus helping her to her feet. "We'd better get moving before it gets away."
The others nodded and they headed into the trees. However, after a few minutes, Ilana needed to stop for a rest. He leg looked bad, but after starting them a fire, Octus said he could use some of the plants around them to make a salve to help.
"We'll scout around the area," Jet said. "We don't need that thing jumping out at us. Lance, stay with Ilana. And maybe figure out whether or not she's pretty."
Ilana laughed, Isabella raised an eyebrow questioningly, and Lance scowled. Jet led Isabella into the trees and they began to carefully look around.
"Well?" Isabella finally asked.
"Ilana probably likes him, but I'm not sure about him," Jet said. "The comment was from a conversation earlier where he was asking if Ilana had ever been on a real date with flowers and a guy telling you you're pretty, and Ilana turned it around to him saying she's pretty."
"And his natural reaction was to deny it," Isabella guessed, grinning and nodding. "It's only a matter of time."
Jet chuckled. "Probably."
Once they'd finished clearing the immediate area, they returned to find Ilana lying on a log to sleep.
"What happened?" Jet asked quietly.
"She god mad over nothing," Lance said. "She freaked out that the salve hurt her leg when Octus put it on, then was suddenly mad at me for asking her personal questions."
Jet frowned. "We'll need to keep an eye on her. I doubt that thing's saliva is healthy."
"Well, yeah," Lance said. "It's acid."
"Not what he meant," Isabella said. "You'll see."
A few hours later, they headed out again. Except now, Ilana was running, jumping like a professional gymnast, or someone with absurd ammounts of superhuman leg strength, and was keeping almoat a hundred feet ahead of them. One particular jump was from one broken log over water to another, a distance of fifteen feet. She landed several feet onto the next log. Lance fell short. Octus hovered across the gap and Jet and Isabella walked across on a path made from her hexagons, but all three Galalunians recognized the discrepancy in her jump. Then, a couple minutes later, they all saw her hop over a low, knee-high log, only for the log to be chest height qhen they reached it.
"Does she seem...taller to you?" Lance asked.
Octus shrugged.
"It's the venom," Jet said. "It's a mutagenic."
"Has to be," Isabella nodded. "We need to catch her and see how much she's changed already."
Jet and Lance nodded and all four took off after Ilana at a sprint. Except, they'd fallen behind her obviously elongated stride.
"Ilana, where are you?" Lance asked.
"Over here," Ilana said, dropping down in front of them and crossing her arms.
Except, as she did, Isabella yanked them back out. Ilana yelped, trying to retract them, only for Isabella's bracelets to switch to Ilana's wrists, holding them immobile. Her hands had mutated, becoming blue-grey, scaled, and with claws. Her face looked pale, as well, though that might be from the infection.
"You were right, Jet," Lance said. "Octus, what do we do? Can we fix this?"
"I'm not sure," Octus said, scanning her burn again, as well as her hands. "I will try."
"We still need to kill that Mutraddi," Ilana said.
"Okay," Lance said. "But stick close to us. Please."
Ilana hesitated before nodding. After a few more minutes, they found an enormous, dead reptile, a crocodile, Jet was pretty sure.
"What happened here?" Lance asked.
"Perhaps the creature was feeding?" Octus guessed.
"Then it must still be nearby," Lance said.
He and Octus headed to the right around the water, Jet and Isabella heading left. Ilana began to walk around the reptile. Then, suddenly, the thing came alive, slamming its tail into all of them and hurling them.
"Ilana!" Lance shouted, as soon asas he was standing.
"Boy, nothing stays dead today," Octus said as Lance activated his Manus.
However, Ilana burst up from the water, eyes glowing yellow, and began to wrestle it, slash it with her claws, punch it. Finally, it leapt at her, and both crashed down in the water. Everyone stared in stunned silence for a moment before they re-emerged. Ilana hurled the crocodile into a log, smashing the log, then grabbed it by the upper jaw and snapped the top of its head backward, killing it.
"Ilana?" Octus asked as Lance deactivated his armor.
Ilana turned to them, pulling her hood down, and all of them gasped. Her skin had turned the same scaly blue as her hands, her teeth had become jagged and messy, the bottom row having several stick up in front of her upper lip, her head above the top half of her forehead had become transparent, exposing her brain, and the only reason he knew it was still thair was her decidedly more pale hair still covering her head, which seemed to be pointier on top now.
"Ilana?" Lance breathed.
Ilana looked at her reflection in the water before shielding her face. "Don't look at me! I'm hideous!"
She fled into the trees, and they all sprinted after her. As they ran, Octus explained that the creature's DNA was replreplacing hers, causing the mutation, but that he was unsure of his ability to help her. Just as he said that, however, they all skidded to a stop as they found Ilana standing before the creature. Ilana took a few steps toward them before stopping as the creature's throat began to inflate and shrink like a frog. Then, Ilana hurled off her coat, exposing her tattered clothes and shivelled, inhuman body as she let out a high, piercing shriek. Her body mutated further as she did, a second se of eyes appearing on the corners of her jaw, her mouth and nose growing into a snout, the end of her tongue growing odly bulged. She was nearly fully transformed.
"Destroy them!" the creature ordered, pointing at them.
"Oh, fucking perfect!" Jet growled.
"Lance, Octus, restrain her!" Isabella ordered, she and Jet charging the creature with their swords already, Jet holding his laser revolver in his left hand.
Lance and Octus both moved to delay Ilana, which seemed to be easier said than done given her new speed and agility. As they struggled with that, the creature leapt at Isabella and Jet, flipping over their blades before swiping at Isabella from behind, only for her barrier to block it. The thing leapt over several shots from Jet's gun, then flipped, landing between the two, only for both to duck under its swipe, slashing at it. It leapt over them, avoiding the strikes, and Jet raisedraised his gun, only for the creature to crash down on him. Isabella's barrier exploded into the creature, throwing it off, and Jet stood, his sword shrinking back into a ring as his revolver expanded into a minigun.
"Just die!" Jet snarled, his gun roaring to life.
The thing leapt out of the way of the initial spray, and Jet turned, firing again, once again making it leap away. He shrunk the gun back down into a revolver just as the creature landed in front of him, roaring victoriously, claws descending. Then, its arm spun away anand Isabella pivoted around it, kicking it away. Several energy bolts punched through its head and torso before it crashed to the ground, and Jet's revolver grew into an energy rocket launcher like G3 had used when they were breaking out of their fortress, something Galaluna lacked, in favor of the Manus. A moment later, the body exploded and Ilana collapsed.
"Ilana!" Lance shouted, kneeling beside her as they all watched her heart slow inside her transparent chest. "Don't do this! Please!"
Slowly, the beats of her heart grew more and more lethargic and weak until they subsided entirely. Jet stared at Ilana helplessly. They'd failed. Modula won.
"No," Lance breathed. "You can't die. You can't."
Jet looked to the despair on Lance's face, then back to Ilana, only to frown. Her blue skin was paling. Rapidly.
"Octus?" Jet asked.
Just then, her heart pulsated. Then again. and again. As they all watched, her body began to return to normal. Her hands regrew their efimgers, her feet reshaped themselves into human feet again, her snout shrunk back into a face, the transparent parts of her body returned to their original flesh appearance, and her scaled flesh returned to normal, leaving an almost fully restored Ilana lying naked before them.
Lance hurriedly pulled his sweater over her head as Octus started a fire. Jet eyed the warts and creases in Ilana's face and grimaced. She was not going to be happy. However, she seemed to be in a good mood when she woke up ten minutes later.
"I've decided," Ilana said, everyone looking at her. "When I get home, I want to go on a date."
"You might want to wait a bit," Lance said, eyeing her warts and disshevelled hair.
"What?" Ilana asked. "Why?"
"Just trust me," Lance smiled.
Jet elbowed him before leaning over to whisper. "This is the part where you make a mental note to buy flowers and tell her she's pretty."
Lance's face darkened slightly, but he nodded. "Whenever you're feeling better, we should get home."
Ilana nodded, and they waited for another hour before all heading home, Jet carrying Isabella as he used his Manus to fly.
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