Three's a charm

Marcus sat in the forest, trying to put some order in the chaos of his thoughts.

Besides him, there was the body of the humanoid creature that Cooper had slain. The "dog" was not too far, sitting while looking at him.

What confused Marcus the most was the apparent lack of emotions he was experiencing: he had just killed someone for the first time and he felt nothing at all.

To be fair, the thing he had killed wasn't exactly human and it had tried to kill him... but nonetheless, he would have expected to feel something.

But looking at the body of the creature, a thick lump of muscles covered in scales, he didn't experience any emotion.

No, to be honest, he was feeling something: by looking at the exposed flesh of the humanoid, he was feeling... hungry!?!

"NO!" he cried, "Nonononononooooope! Not happening! I am NOT gonna eat this thing! Why am I even thinking about it!?! What the fuck is wrong with me?"

But despite that he couldn't help, but he looked at the lifeless body as if he was looking at an all-you-can-eat buffet. His rational part didn't want any of that, screaming internally that it was disgusting to eat another humanoid being, but his instinct was equally loud, roaring of hunger inside of his head.

To be fair, he considered that eating that creature would actually be the most logical thing to do. Not only it would give him sustenance, but if his powers worked as usual he would even learn a lot of things about those gremlins biology, and maybe he could even give birth to spawns with the traits of those humanoids...

He shook his head firmly.

"No." he said to himself, adamant "No matter how much I want to eat this thing, I have standards for fuck's sake! I am NOT gonna turn into a cannibal if I can help it! And if this gremlin's friends come back and see me munching at their pal, well then I won't be able to blame them if they want to put me down like some dangerous beast!"

He then raised his head, looking at the woods in which the humanoids had disappeared.

"Speaking of which, I better get the fuck away before they come back. I'm pretty sure they won't help me now. But I don't want to kill them or be killed by them either. This was a huge misunderstanding, and I'll be damned if I'll drag this on longer than I need to. Let's go Cooper!"

His desire to keep his humanity won over his instincts, and he walked away, with Cooper limping right behind him.

It took him a bit of effort, but when dusk came Marcus was finally back at his cave.

The reason he had been able to get back so fast was because he had gone through the swamp. He had done so despite the danger because he didn't want to risk being tracked by those humanoids. Going through the water seemed like an excellent way of losing them, and luckily he hadn't been attacked by any leeches or turtles on the way.

As soon as he was safe inside his cave, Marcus let himself fall onto his bed of leaves, with Cooper sitting right next to him.

He was dead tired and demoralized. All of his hopes of finding civilization and help had gone up in smoke. Luckily for now he was too exhausted to process all that, but he knew as soon as he had rested a bit he would receive all the emotional shock of these facts.

He looked at Cooper, which seemed unperturbed as always. The animal was still quite hurt, but nothing too serious. It had recovered quite a bit during the afternoon, a sign of the resilience of its species.

Of our species. Marcus corrected himself bitterly Let's face it, I'm not human anymore... and probably there aren't humans in this world either. Just me and a bunch of other monstrous creatures that want to kill and/or eat me.

He sighed, hopelessness sinking its claws into his heart. His plans of getting rescued weren't feasible anymore, and now he feared that he was completely alone in an hostile world... safe for Cooper. But the dog-like creature alone was not enough to keep him safe.

Wait a second... if I need help, couldn't I just... make more helpers? He suddenly realized I mean... if I can make more creatures like Cooper, I could actually be reasonably safe. I could even start building a house, and try to get a living in this god forsaken place.

The downside of this was, obviously, that he had to actually give birth to the creatures himself. And laying eggs was something that made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

But at this point, his pride and comfort had to be set aside, at least for now. He desperately needed some help, and that was the only way to provide it.

He sighed again with a dejected look in his eyes.

That plan seemed good, but he didn't really like it.

At least he could get a good night of sleep before starting to pull it off.

If there was any upside to his latest plan, was that Marcus was finally able to eat as much as he wanted.

Since apparently he needed a lot of nutrients to produce offspring, the following days he and Cooper spent most of their time hunting. Between the two of them, they managed to get more than enough food to sate their hunger.

Also, in order to expand the traits that he could give to his minions, he tried to eat as many different animals as possible.

The first day after getting back to the cave he caught a big lizard, the same species as the one he had grilled before, but this time he ate it raw, absorbing all of its genetic information. Cooper also managed to hunt down another one of those big rodents.

Finally, he had also found a small praying mantis that resting on a leaf before he grabbed it and ate it whole, absorbing its nutrients and, more importantly, the traits that it possessed.

The next day, Cooper had completely healed from his injuries, and was out all day hunting. By the evening between the two of them they caught a couple of snakes, a rabbit and a weird animal that seemed like a mix between a monkey and a racoon. Marcus left one of the snakes to his "dog", eating everything else himself. The monkey-racoon provided him with some nice traits for a prehensile tail and nimble, human like hands.

The third day, Marcus started feeling something funny in his tummy, and upon further inspection he saw that his belly was a bit bloated. He decided to rest his body that day, keeping his energies for the egg laying (although the prospect of that still dreaded him). So the dog had to hunt alone that day, but it still managed to catch a very big lizard and another snake.

Again, Marcus consumed most of the food, even though he felt quite full at that point. If things would go like last time, he'd need every last bit of those nutrients.

Later that evening he was tending to the fire at the entrance of the cave, when he suddenly found himself thinking very vividly about what kind of creature he wanted.

Well, here we are. He thought bitterly Let's see... do I make another dog like Cooper? No, it'd be better to get some more versatile minions for starters... something kind of humanoid would be good, if possible.

Images of a six limbed reptilian-insectoid creature were flashing in his mind. Taking inspiration from the large creature he had first seen when he had appeared in this world, he elected to make it like a centaur, with the lower body of a quadruped which ended in a short, reptilian tail, and a quasi humanoid torso, similar to that of a mantis. The legs were very strong, allowing the creature to jump and run very fast, while the arms were long and had human like hands covered in chitin, pretty much like his own, only they had four fingers instead of five.

The chitin armour of this creature was actually a lot smaller than Cooper's, leaving a lot of their skin unprotected safe for its arms and legs, but it had some sort of chitin helmet to cover its head, with a single horn sprouting from its snake like head.

The end result was a creature that wasn't really a hunter or a warrior, although it could serve as one, but more of an unspecialized drone that could adequately perform most tasks.

Good, this way they could even help me build stuff. He thought, and then stopped for a second. Thinking about building had drawn out some potential traits that he didn't know about What's this? The ability to make... a mold wax like substance? Where does it comes from? I don't remember eating something with this ability... but it seems useful. The wax is sturdy enough to build structures with it, it grows like mold with just some light and humidity and it's even edible!

Quickly, he added the glands necessary to produce that substance to his mental project. He also had to decide about the size of that creature; at first he was tempted to make it very big, but since a bigger size meant it required more food and it would be too clumsy for an unspecialized drone, he opted to make it rather small, no bigger than Cooper in size.

When the project was finally ready, he took a deep breath and gave it his mental approval.

Here we go... he thought with dread.

He didn't have to wait long, and suddenly he felt an acute cramp in his belly.

"Oh GOD!" he cried, squatting and starting to push "Oh god! Oh fuck! This feels even worse than last time!"

He kept swearing while pushing and sweating.

He suddenly realized that Cooper was sitting in a corner of the cave, looking at him. With horror, he realized that he could see himself through the animal's eyes... a small creature, similar to a little girl, trembling while squatting on the floor in a very unsightly position.

"Go the fuck away Cooper!" he snarled with panic in his voice. There were few things he had less desire to see than himself giving birth, as it would most likely give him a mental scar that would last forever.

Luckily, the dog obeyed his command, trotting out of the cave as soon as he desired so.

When he was finally alone, Marcus resumed the birth, breathing spasmodically while shouting an occasional curse from time to time.

"Shit shit shit shit!" He said, squinting his eyes. To be completely honest he wasn't exactly in pain, but the sensation was simply too intense and intimate, making him deeply uncomfortable.

After struggling like that for a few minutes, he finally left himself fall on the ground, breathing wildly.

In front of him there were three translucent eggs, each with a small larval drone barely visible inside.

Marcus looked at them with a mix of fatigue, horror and embarrassment. He still didn't really want to process the fact that he had produced such things, but the circumstances didn't leave him any choice on the matter.

"Well, you can come down now, Cooper." he said with a sarcastic voice, giving a mental command to the animal "Come and see your little fucking brothers."