C'est La Vie (Worm / MtG) #2.2
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Pushing the smokey Green light into the golden scarab, I tried to guide, and control, its rate of absorption as best I could while the beetle began swelling in size. One and a half times, two times, three times— With a surprisingly loud "Crack" the head carapace suddenly split and green light shone through.
Seeing the now familiar inner glow, I immediately cut off the flow. But it was too late. A moment later test subject #27 exploded, scattering globs of gooey off colored insides and bits of carapace across the desk to rest in pieces among its predecessors.
"Fuck."
-I-
Pieces of gooey insect guts splattered on my glasses... hurray for eye protection, I guess.
Pushing the frames up I rubbed at my strained eyes. "Damnit."
I rocked back in my chair and stared at the desktop, barely illuminated by what little late afternoon light came in through the doors and littered with uncountable bits of broken carapace and arthropod squishy bits. Why wasn't it working as it— catching a whiff of something sour and metallic, I sniffed. Oh, yeah, it was starting to smell.
With a thought, fliers and crawlers descended on the table to clean up the mess of my experiments with the Green… Energy? Smokey stuff? Whatever it was... I suppose The Green, or just Green, worked well enough, though.
And I'd been taking it slow that time too. But again, splat.
Too much in one area, and it explodes. Too little in one area, and it explodes. Too much altogether too quickly, and it explodes. I was careful, but no matter what I did, there was always a weak point. The growth had to be symmetrical for it to not fail, that was clear enough by this point.
Perhaps if I primed the scarab and somehow made it stronger beforehand… or preceded the growth with a much smaller amount of Green to reinforce any weak spots…
I cleaned off my glasses and putting them back on glowered at the chitin covering my desk.
The idea had been so simple, see what happens when I put X amount of Green into Y Bug. Seeing a centipede grow like Bastard being empowered and remembering how easy Atlas had made things… I sighed.
"Rachel could probably help me figure this out if she were here..." I grimaced. Hopefully, she was doing well and had someone keeping her connected. It was one of those memories that were blurry, but I thought she'd been there after we won.
Thinking of Rachel I recalled her explanation of how she empowered her dogs, all at once or over time… all at once.
Narrowing my eyes, I held that thought and concentrating on the Jungle, the sounds and the smells, I drew out another wisp of Green from the Impression. I fiddled with it for a few moments, moving it this way and that around the hand with gestures of my missing fingers, double checking what I already knew, before closing them into a fist.
Before my eyes, the thickened smoke of the light condensed and concentrated into a bright marble of emerald light.
"Maybe an all at once method to completely saturate it would work better."
-I-
Beetle bits splattered against my hand and my teeth ground together, splintering a twig I'd picked up while out getting some fresh air.
Pressure pulsed in my temple and spitting out the twig and splinters I kneaded my thumb into my temple to try and alleviate the headache that had come out of nowhere not long ago.
No, that was wrong. I knew where it had come from, and the frustration from the continued failures that had spawned the thing wasn't helping one bit.
Why. Wasn't. This. Fucking. Working.
Directing yet another golden scarab onto the slaughtering grounds, I took a moment to take stock of just how many I had lef— I blinked at the near infinitesimal number left in my swarm, momentarily forgetting the throbbing in my head.
Oh. Wow. Well… crap, at this point I'd lost count of how many beetles I'd exploded, but the way I was going I'd deplete the local population before long.
Tilting my head back I, idly stared up at the veritable factory the Orb Weavers had set up among the drop ceiling frame and supports suspended from the barrel ceiling. Breeding, food storage, and silk production with various things in the process of being woven. All contained overhead on lines of golden thread.
And I'd need to release them into the surrounding whenever I left so I couldn't afford to wipe out the large beetles. They were just too large a food source for the spiders.
"Just one more then."
Exhaling, I reached in to draw out a fragment of the Jungle… But nothing, no wisp of smoky green light appeared, not even a— A fresh spike of oh so lovely agony throbbed in my brain and I rocked back again, my eyes squeezed shut against the flash of bright color.
Ok ok ok. Right. No more Green stuff and don't push it. Got it.
"Well — Ech," I rubbed at my temple even harder. "At least now I know it can run out. That's one question answered."
-I-
Sitting in my creaky chair at the desk, with the early dawn light coming in through the hazy glass window now clear of plants, I let out a long, slow breath.
Ok.
Gently pushing aside a rim-down, cracked coffee mug uncovered from the semi-reclaimed lavatory, I guided a mottled brown and black Tailless Whip Scorpion off my shoulder, down my arm, and onto the desk.
Scuttling sideways it settled down in front of me as the test beetles had. This time wasn't going to be a test, though. This time it would work… maybe… hopefully.
No. No maybe's, it would work this time.
I slowly drew in a long breath, and letting it out I slowly siphoned off a fraction of energy from the Jungle. I breathed in as a long streamer of smokey Green light writhed about my missing fingers and with a gesture injected an infinitesimal amount, barely the faintest wisp, into the arachnid.
To my eyes, there was no visible effect, but through it's connection to the swarm I could feel it being absorbed into the carapace and soft tissues and fortifying the tailless whiptail.
Waiting only a moment to make sure the first bit of energy had taken effect, I gestured again, almost something not dissimilar to a 'princess wave', and a layer of the Green shrouded the spindly legs and main body before being absorbed. But I didn't let it disappear entirely.
Wafting my missing hand back and forth over the Tailless, I repeatedly applied the shroud as it continued to be absorbed and the arachnid's two inch long main body rapidly grew in size. Sometimes I needed to add a little here to help its book lungs grow to accommodate its new size, or a little less there to keep its segmented abdomen from becoming a hair too thick until it was... done.
"Balance," I muttered, "it's all in the balance." All at once, with a little extra attention where necessary to keep the growth stable, though, the concentration needed to micromanage it all was almost extreme. I'd have to practice for it to be effective in combat.
Now with its main body nearly the size of my hand and its once-spindly legs were much thicker and almost a foot in length. It's muscle density and organs had grown accordingly, but nevertheless, I had it rise up to test its movement and dexterity. It scuttled back and forth, stood as tall as it could and ducked and leaned to avoid an imagined blow, then dropping back down into a low stance, it snapped out its long barbed pedipalps like a boxer and grabbed with its pincers.
Physically, there was no comparison. It may as well have been a different organism than when what it started out as.
But the physical changes weren't the only differences, the enlarged arachnid… glowed, in a sense. Not visibly, but its presence in the swarm was like a dim light in the night. And while the senses were the same distorted mess as always, the input was… sharper, the resolution finer than before with shapes becoming slightly more distinct. And didn't that deserve later investigation?
Sliding the mug over, I lifted it to release a small, brown furred field mouse I'd captured the night before. It took off in an instant, bounding across the desktop. But the tailless whiptail scuttled after hot on its heel. The mouse gained ground, but the pedipalps unfolded and lashed out lightning quick.
The tailless whiptails barbs caught, punching through the brown fur and deep into the organs beneath with strength and sharpness leagues in excess its original capabilities. But that had been when it'd been sized for crickets and other small insects, now that it was sized proportionally to a mouse… actually, it was stil beyond overkill.
The mouse just barely managed a weak squeak before being pulled close so the arachnid could sink its fangs into its skull.
My lips spread in a toothy — and likely somewhat manic — grin as the arachnid began to dig in.
Finally. After three long frustrating days of experimentation and who knows how many beetles sacrificed, I was finally making progress.
It was still far less than what I'd aimed for, but simultaneously far more than I could have ever hoped for.
It would take time, and practice, but I would have my Atlas 2.0 and then… then I can really get things done. Although, it would probably be worthwhile to continue exploring what could be done with the tailless. Get it a bit bigger, maybe the size of a dog, and then it would really be something.
Rolling back from the desk, I stood and let the tailless keep eating while began gathering my things. Things to do, places to track down, food to find before I start having to eat my swarm. Much to do much to do.
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A/N: Decided to end it here rather than add on a few hundred unnecessary words already summed up in the last sentence.