Chapter 59 – Underwater Prospection

Hours later when he woke up he really regretted not cleaning, there were sexual juices dried and crusted over the floor and the smell was fishy, with a sigh he picked up the still sleeping Inky and took her to her bathtub, but she woke up midway and kissed him.

Erik: "let's take a shower and then you can help me clean"

Inky: "I don't mind, no need cleaning"

Erik: "We did that together we clean it together" his tone was serious.

Inky pouted but nodded, so they took a shower to remove the crusts out of their bodies. After the long shower scrubbing each other clean, Erik dragged Inky with him to the module and both scrubbed the floor as clean as it could be, but even then a fishy smell still remained.

Inky was grinning as they finished cleaning and Erik noticed.

Erik: "what are you grinning about?"

Inky: "hehe~ my smell remains, the smell of our love can't be removed"

Erik facepalmed to that 'she's cute but that's also kinda gross'

Erik: "so… can you smell it?"

Inky: "yeah taste in the air, my smell, you don't like my smell?"

Erik: 'okay, that's a trap question' "no, sweety I like you and your smell… but not in my lab okay? In the bathroom is fine" 'since it's easy to clean there'.

With the cleaning done and since he was already there, Erik inspected his DNA and could see new connections on his third DNA helix, they looked stable too so it was good progress.

Then he went to the gym with Inky and was pleased to see the reinforced bones and extra muscle fibers allowed him to lift much more weight and his more oxygenated blood allowed him to exercise much more and lactic acid didn't even get to form as there was more than enough oxygen.

Erik then went to the armoury and put his power armor on, it adjusted to his new size comfortably as it was made of a skin-like flexible interior, it fit itself to the wearer without a problem.

Then he along with Inky went and grabbed Crabina that had been very unwilling to leave as she was watching a kids movie about a white wolf, but Erik convinced her saying she could watch it when they were back. He wasn't afraid to let her watch what she wanted also as he had set as restricted all other kinds of movie genres to her, for her own mental safety as Erik wouldn't do the same mistake that with Inky, and Crabina was still probably a little kid also, he wasn't 100% percent sure but she should be, and kids movies were a safe choice to keep her entertained anyways.

They reached the pod safely and the 3 of them started going down inside, he had made sure to make it silent so it didn't attract predators, but it still generated movement so he had added a sonar and they paused when anything got too close for comfort.

--- 9 hours later ---

They arrived at the narrow cave entrance, it took way longer than he expected, or with the drone, they had to stop and even turn the sonar off on lots of occasions as beasts got way too close for comfort, he was deeply glad he made the pod look just like a rock, he had also thankfully carried food and water inside, breathing wouldn't be a problem as he also has his gills connected, once out of the cabin he wouldn't be able to eat or drink water so he made sure to drink and eat plenty, the suit could deal with waste anyway so drinking too much wasn't a problem. He breathed deeply until he calmed down and closed his suit's helmet with a thought, equipping the air hammer to his side and grabbing a plasma spear he nodded to Inky that was also carrying one and they came out, with Crabina taking the lead, the waters were dark and it was way too dangerous to use strong lights as they would literally become a lighthouse in the dark, even though his suit he could feel the cold in the water, it was an almost absolute darkness as he could even see the surface anymore, he hadn't been scared to use the light while piloting the drone but now... it was way too real, he was gambling with all their lives, he just hoped that Rose told him if anything got too close.

Inky was also really nervous as she guarded his back, the only one looking relaxed was Crabina, perhaps in her naivety she just wasn't aware of the danger.

Erik took deep breaths, more to calm himself than breathing as he could already feel the cold oxygenated water coming from the gills, he barely needed to breathe, it was a strange feeling. With extreme care, he started the hydrolysis pressurizer and connected it to the air hammer and power suit, using electricity it would generate oxygen and hydrogen creating air pressure to make the air hammer work. He put the air hammer against the rock and started it, no matter how silent he wanted to be, the reverberations it made as it hit the rock traveled far and he had to stop every once in a while and listen in case he heard anything, after just 30 minutes of doing this he had enlarged the entrance quite a bit, but still far from being able to fit with the power armor on, he was also getting more and more paranoid as time passed, something could get behind them at any moment, and the almost absolute darkness wasn't helping as it only fueled his imagination, any current he heard seeming like a monster, his adrenaline was pumping through his veins before long as he tried harm to calm himself, he was never trained for something like this but there was a phrase that he always remembered "those that remain calm survive longer" Antonio had told him that as they trained together, Antonio was more than 3 times his age so he always took his teachings seriously.

Erik: [Rose...]

[Yes? (･ิω･ิ)]

Erik: [Can you... please talk about something, I can't calm down, and if anything gets even a bit close tell me inmediately]

[even if it's not a threat to your life?]

A chill traveled his spine hearing that and he thought 'it can't be right?'

Erik: [yes Rose, anything that can or would try to harm me or those around me, or even better, anything and I will judge if it dangerous]

[oh... would it affect your mentality if an unknown to my databases but seemingly harmless creature was observing you right now?]

He felt the urge to run to the pod right that instant as cold sweat started dripping down his forehead and he thought 'dammit!, calm down my body! CALM DOWN!!!' his hands were trembling by now.

Erik: [please... describe how it looks and its position]

[well, it was looking at the pod earlier and touched it a bit, now it's getting closer to Crabina to your left, but it doesn't seem to have any interest in you as it appears to be blind ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

Erik slowly dropped his hammer on the floor and activated his helmet's lights since it was blind anyway, grabbed his spear, and him and Inky imitating him pointed to his left, he still couldn't see anything.

Erik: [tell me quickly how it looks and distance!!!]

[i don't understand, with your suit it can't find you anyway]

Erik: [JUST TELL ME ALREADY!!! ]

[fine! but if it eats you too it's your fault hmph!] Erik gritted his teeth as she continued [it has tentacles in front to sense water movement and can also sense the electric field produced by living creatures, maybe even a sonar, if you turn the lights to max power you should be able to see it now, it's just 20 meters away]

Erik did so and he and Inky almost collapsed, it had the mouth of a leech and lots of feather-like tentacles around the mouth, it was also a size capable of just gulping down the pod if it wanted. Erik almost panicked but forced himself to calm down and had an idea, he slowly indicated to Inky to enter the cave tunnel and as she nodded and slowly went in, the cheerful Crabina that had her back facing the monster just cheerfully followed her in, there was no way Erik would fit in there so he just slowly retreated to the side and stayed still as he really, really, REALLY HOPED, that Rose was right...

The beast approached, its feeler tentacles covering and touching everything around, it seemed to still feel Crabina and Inky as it started probing the cave entrance and soon its teeth started excavating the stone wall, ripping huge pieces of rock every time. Erik's face paled considerably at that, it seemed the beast wasn't willing to give up, the only good thing was that it was actually helping him dig the tunnel, Inky would be in danger though, he knew that Crabina could fit but Inky would eventually get stuck.

His heart was almost beating out of his chest as he was convincing himself to do the most stupid thing he had done in his life, well if he didn't count going into that spaceship, he sighed at how humans do lots of stupid things for love. He gripped his spear tightly and slowly aimed at the truck-sized creature as he charged the plasma spear to the max until the plasma made the water bubble and buzz, that's when the creature paused and started turning in his direction slowly, it took his entire willpower not to just run away, the maw of death stood above him as he slowly aimed inside.

Erik: [a pleasure meeting you Rose, here goes nothing]

[same here (ó_ò) (｡ŏ﹏ŏ)]

BOOM!

RHRHRHRH!!!!

The moment he pulled the trigger, the overcharged plasma shot right into the throat of the monster, exploding and releasing an enormous cloud of gore and a chilling screech, it then looked back at Erik as he kept shooting while tremblingly retreating away from the cave, he refused to just die for nothing, at least he would lead it away.

The beast charged at him and gulped him down, it wasn't a pleasant feeling as he could feel his armor like his own skin, thankfully he had broken the mouth of the beast with the first shot so it just ate him whole without chewing...., it was still a disgusting feeling though. As he was just barely 3 meters in he stabbed his spear sideways using the entire strength of his power armor, he felt the beast's muscles contract in response, just managing to stab the spear deeper into himself as Erik was overcharging another shot, if he was gonna die he would make it hurt. He then also grabbed his vibrosword and started stabbing and slashing around himself, he could feel the creature rolling around in pain underwater, the contractions were dangerous for his visor though so he released some Neon(Ne) inside his suit to equalize the pressure.

He felt the creature turning and then he shot the plasma spear, blood and chunks of meat just exploded inside, the sheer volume almost pushing him in as he stabbed his sword to the hilt, as he had his lights on he also noticed the blood and meat of the beast were blue but he wasn't in the mood to think more about it in that situation. He set his spear stabbed again and starting carving a way out with his sword, he really didn't wanna find out what was by the end of its throat.

He worked quickly and dislodging his spear, he stepped into the wound and saw what looked like a vein so he stabbed the hydrolysis generator from earlier and started pumping the veins of the being full of oxygen and hydrogen, with luck that would give it narcosis or give some sort of problem like make it float away, also added an extra touch injecting all the poison shots he carried on him inside.

After 5 minutes of this struggle, he could feel the beast much weaker and calm, and then he muffledly heard.

Inky: "release my mate you beast!" apparently Inky was back to help him, he vowed to create a helmet for her too so that they could use radios and talk underwater.

Moments earlier, Inky had been really scared and the tunnel was getting too thin for her, then she heard the boom and decided to go back and got to see the beast gobbling Erik up, she was instantly horrified, but when she saw the beast thrashing around she knew that Erik was still alive and fighting inside, she quickly charged over and stabbed the beast with a charged shot on the neck, shouting as she did so to motivate herself, the beast was spewing clouds of blood out its mouth already, and Inky's shot seemed to finish it as it sunk to the side of the cliff, and Inky started to frantically slash the beast open, as she saw a bulge move in that area, finally she saw a hand come out of the flesh she grabbed it and helped Erik out of the creature.

Erik finally stabbed through and saw Inky through the crack, she grabbed his hand and helped him out, he would have nightmares about this for the rest of his life unless he saw even worst things, that was for sure.

He really wasn't in the mood to continue working but if he waited it would get way more dangerous with the blood floating around, so he stopped caring about lights and sound, he grabbed the air hammer and started chiseling at the tunnel walls at max speed, making enough space for himself to at least crawl through on his power armor, he would make it bigger once he was on the inside and a bit safer.