Chapter 170 - The Beast & The Machine part 6

*(mood song: "Amaranthe - Hunger")

Erik got in front of the massive doors as they started opening, and his left arm surged like a tide, transforming into a net to fill the hole, the effort felt straining, but the eels soon impaled themselves on the spikes on the net, the energy powering the arm as it expanded, the absorbed energy increasing.

He could feel the impacts, and even bigger eels were hitting the net now as they were swiftly absorbed.

Erik sighed: "what a waste of good DNA..." at that very instant though, he felt a warm current coming from his arm "w-what?!" the current got stronger as his stomach was soon full of the warm liquid, the warmth soon extending all over his body, painfully like ants crawling under his skin, organs and muscles.

Erik clenched his teeth as he realized what had happened, his arm and new stomach had filtered all the raw DNA from thousands of chameleon eels, directly pumping the DNA to his stomach. His body was quickly absorbing the raw DNA material as new was constantly pumped inside him. His teeth hurt like they were about to fall, his skin burned as if burnt by the sun, and even his nails hurt.

Erik: "s-stop!!!! not now!"

The flow of DNA stopped, instead getting refined and stored in a bump inside his left arm, but the large scale mutation had already started.

Rose: [are you okay?!]

Erik: [pain, itching.... everything ugh... it's driving me crazy!]

Rose: [you gotta hold on now! Amanda is about to get the submarine inside, just a couple more minutes!]

Erik clenched his growing teeth: [I... will try..., but I feel... like I could... faint any time... urh, since I'm mutating already... let's go for broke! bring me some hound corpses too! ]

Rose: [...you are crazy...]

Erik: [hah... one mutation is better than two, this... hurts like hell! haha... hahaha... my mouth tastes like blood... my freaking teeth are falling out]

--- Submarine ---

Amanda started the submarine between a literal sea of eels, the helixes cutting down hundreds with every rotation and attracting even more.

The inside of the submarine was full of huge eels slimily searching for food as they dragged themselves around, meanwhile the Yaksha were also inside the control room with Amanda, while thumping sounds came from the closed metal door.

Most of the Yaksha were injured and bleeding, especially Yhana, she had been bitten and three of her tentacles had been ripped off, even her forearms had cuts, luckily no one had died.

Amanda: "hold on tight!"

The submarine had been going around in circles outside to try to keep the creatures away, and finally, she could see the doors opening. At first sight, the opening appeared slow, but that was just an illusion due to how huge the doors were, the submarine was the size of a toy in comparison.

The submarine quickly accelerated, scraping a bit on the doors as it quickly went in, and started to decelerate, finally crashing against a wall with little damage to the reinforced metal beast.

-- In the Hangar --

Erik saw the submarine quickly get inside and finally hit a wall in the back, incapable of decelerating enough, leaving clouds of blood behind, as the creatures were sucked up by the sharp propellers.

The doors started closing instantly, but even then thousands of eels got inside, sliding through the thinly stretched net of metal, and through the spaces between his arm net, the door was simply too big to cover in the end. The turrets started shooting all over the place as huge clouds of blood and bits of meat clouded the water, as the colossal beast inside the hangar writhed in pain. Erik's arm divided once more, turning into dozens of tentacles that moved by themselves as they consumed one eel after the other, some eels as thick as a horse taking longer to consume. Meanwhile, the bots and octopeople concentrated on holding the narrow entrance to the hangar, avoiding suffering any injuries.

With the help of the turrets, and the pumps quickly reducing the water level, the eels were soon finished. It took only one hour, but the now injured huge beast stood panting and looking at them in a mix of anger and pleading, as the bots started climbing all over her and scanning her body, as they healed her.

Meanwhile, Erik was panting inside his power armor, and fell to his knees, his body was mutating rapidly. First, the small scales covered and reinforced his entire body, even more, then he could feel all the skin over his body, almost going crazy, the feeling of ants crawling inside him, but that was still bearable, that feeling soon extended to every part of his body though.

Gills soon appeared behind his ears and on them tiny veiny hairs, like an axolotl started growing, his teeth fell as new sharper teeth started growing, his nails fell, regrowing thicker and sharper, and his skin even started changing colors inside his power armor.

Erik fell to the floor as the room finally emptied almost completely, with only one meter of water remaining, there were elevated platforms all over the room and Erik crawled on top of one and out of the water, quickly taking off his power armor and taking deep breaths, his bones were crackling now as new materials seemed to come from his arm and into his body, tentacles from his arms still sucking dry the bodies laying around.

His body was growing, and he was about to lose consciousness. A metallic body then landed beside him.

Rose: "Erik! are you alright?!"

Erik: "DNA... arm... absorb... take care... of... Molly..."

Rose's face got serious as she slapped him: "forget about the cheese and the beast! your body is undergoing deep mutations, the mutating field reacts to what you ate"

Erik: "Can't you... change... ugh... the field..."

Rose: "....sadly, it's in an area deep inside me I have no access to, some of the ARK systems and other things are inside a locked vault that I can't open..."

Erik: "that's... interesting..." and went unconscious.

The octopeople had felt the commotion when they had seen Rose running over earlier, and they were now also looking at Erik worriedly.

Timberly on the other hand, was looking at his arm absorbing corpses like a Roomba cleaning a dirty floor, and had a thought: 'I want an arm like that...'

Inky got on her knees beside Erik, carefully supporting his head.

Inky looked at Rose and worriedly asked: "is he gonna be okay?"

Rose nodded: "yes... probably" her arm connecting to Erik's arm as she introduced some orders "it will just focus on muscles and bones now, that should be enough, there's a limit to how much can be absorbed after all, instead of just DNA he recently installed a second stomach that should be able to pre-process all the nutrients for quick and easy absorption, but since he's at it... bring all the sea hound's corpses here, meanwhile, another team go inside the submarine to help clean up and see if they require medical help"

Timberly: "do as she said"

Soldiers: "yes, Second Elder!"

As the soldiers dispersed to carry out their orders, Timberly looked at Rose: "so what now, won't more meat make it worst?"

Rose: "yes and no, it will hurt more for sure, and there will be more changes, but in a more desiring direction, too much of anything produces too many changes in just one direction"

Inky: "what do you mean?"

Rose shrugged: "we can just reinforce the important areas, like more bone, skin, and muscles, that way we can compensate to get a better result"

Soon Amanda and the Yaksha came out of the submarine, accompanied by the octopeople that laid them on platforms where the bots started healing them, to the side, the bots were also almost finished healing the huge beast Molly, installing sensors on her to sense her condition, she had been bitten quite a bit, but thankfully her huge size and thick scales helped in keeping her safe.

Soon, sea hound corpses and pieces including huge ones were also brought next to Erik where Rose directed his arm to absorb them. The change was immediate as Erik's eyes snapped open.

Erik: "AAAAHHH...!!!" falling unconscious again after a pained shout.

Rose scanned his body: "hmm good, now it's developing properly... the kids are also okay..."

Timberly grabbed a piece of a sea hound and bit off a huge chunk: "how is he okay if he shouted like that?"

Rose: "his bone density and mineral composition should improve, also now he will have conflicting DNA, the color changing skin properties of the chameleon eels, and the reinforced skin of the sea hounds... eel style scales will probably be dominant, their defense ain't that good though..."

Timberly: "stronger and bigger is always better..."

Rose: "yes and no, an enemy you can't see is really dangerous, I do have the solution though"

AI 2137 bot then approached with a metallic box, Rose opened it and grabbed a dozen green cubes from inside, inserting them in slots that appeared on Erik's metallic arm.

She then connected to the arm and seemed to code something, as the arm started to grow and cover Erik's skin.

Inky gasped surprised: "what did you do?! it's eating him!"

Rose stopped her: "now that it has enough energy with enough power cores, this becomes possible, its designing and creating a suit of power armor to suit its wearer's needs in real time"

AI 2137 pointed at Erik's actual power armor that was patiently waiting for orders by the side: "can I make that my body then?"

Rose: "...not for now, and don't worry, I have backups of you ready in case you need a body relocation"

AI 2137: "...I understand..."

The dark purple goo grew all over Erik, covering even his scalp, and slowly started to take shape, as thousands of green lines expanded over it like a vascular system.

Hexagonal plates started forming on the surface, stacking on top of each other like scales, as the interior bulked up with strands of artificial musculature and tailor made life support systems, like a water respirator on the back connected to his neck, and finally, a reinforced circular dome grew around his head, with a 360° screen inside and cameras on the outside for maximum protection all the while a dim green glow could still be seen.

*( https://www.pinterest.es/pin/557179785125630350/ kinda like this, but with small cameras in all directions on the helmet, for a 360° view inside, green power lines, and a surface made of small shiny hexagonal scales).

Rose: "it seems like it finished deciding its shape, Erik should be able to make changes when he wakes up"

Timberly finished another huge chunk of sea hound meat as her eyes gleamed: "I want that"

Rose sighed: "we don't have the power necessary right now or the materials, but I should be able to recreate the same technology in a few months, wearable prototypes would need to wait until we obtain new power cores, we could liquefy and compress the cores of deep sea titans, and create new power cores though"

Rose then connected to the power armor: "functions seem correct, execute the command, monitor wearers health condition.... good, he should be good for now then" she looked to the left and the huge creature now panting like a pair of huge bellows, as the air didn't give it the oxygen it needed "time to examine Molly now"

Inky: "what?"

Rose pointed at the beast: "Molly, Erik gave it that name earlier, anyway I need to take some milk samples and run a health check, probably pump some more water inside again... sigh"

Timberly: "milk?"

Rose pointed at Timberly's boobs: "...what comes out of the boobs"

Timberly: "the blue liquid? Erik needs that?"

Rose: "...yeah, he wanted some for making something called cheese from Earth, I need to make sure it won't poison him though... sigh..."

Timberly: "blue liquid gives baby octopeople strength against diseases, and the ability to start producing poison from their parents... it would make adults sick if consumed though..."

Inky nodded: "yes... I've tried that cheese before though, Erik had some on his spaceship inside shiny bags, and some of the dishes he made for me had some grated on top... it didn't last long though, when I ate the last one Erik didn't talk to me an entire day..." she grabbed her own boobs and squeezed a deep blue drop on her palm, offering it to Rose "can cheese be made with this?"

Rose scanned it with her hand, and soon shook her head: "it doesn't contain fats, just a fluid full of vitamins, probiotics, and beneficial bacteria, as well as poison, hydrogen peroxide, lactoferrin, and lysozymes..."

Inky pointed at Molly: "then does her milk work?"

Rose shrugged: "no idea, that's what I'm gonna find out, meanwhile..." she looked at AI 2137 "take some bots and start repairing that manufacturing room, we will be able to make much more resistant equipment using the plasma furnace condensers than the molecular laying 3D printers, after all, make sure to make the proper repairs"

AI 2137 was pensive: *indeed, by my examinations earlier though most of the systems could be stuck with debris inside, luckily the poisonous alloy seems to have worked in keeping marine life growth at bay at least*

Rose nodded: "good, get to it"

AI 2137 bowed and left: "as you command"

Rose then came next to Molly, and lifted the same scale Erik had, the dozens of babies inside seemed to have trouble breathing too, but a mental command from Rose quickly let in some tons of seawater, making the level go up by one meter, completely submerging the babies.

Rose: "that should do it, now..." her hand squeezed slightly one of the nipples, taking a drop of yellowish liquid and scanning it "...well would you look at that... high fat content, perfect to make butter and cheese... I'm sure this will cheer Erik up when he wakes up" she came out and looked at the damaged submarine nearby, now full of scratches "sigh... there's a lot of work to do..."

Two days passed as everyone cleaned, restored, and reactivated the installations following Rose's orders. At that moment Erik finally opened his eyes, seeing a screen in front of him.

Erik: "...wtf... didn't I take the power armor off..." and saw his power armor standing nearby waiting for orders "what?... then... what... am I wearing?"

It felt weird, like having two bodies one wrapped around the other, but the outer body was really different, even his own inner body felt different.

Erik: "...did Rose make it? how do I take it off-" the moment he thought about it though, the power armor started tearing apart, and soon it was back inside his left arm, he could feel it there, like a huge lump of stored energy. He then looked at his body, now two heads taller and covered in thick and thin scales.

Erik: [...Rose... I have questions...]

Rose: [oh, you finally woke up]

Erik: [finally? what happened]

Rose: [you were unconscious for two days]

Erik: [...that would explain why I feel like shit, really hungry too...]

Rose:[well, I have some news that might cheer you up]

Erik: [what is it?]

Rose: [I scanned the octopeople's fluids qualified as milk, and their fat content is minimal, cheese production would be almost impossible...-]

Erik:[how would that cheer me up?]

Rose: [let me finish, but Molly's milk, on the other hand, the fat content is super high, I just finished making some trial dairy products, come to the submarine's kitchen to try]

Erik felt strength fill his body as he quickly stood up. Inky was sleeping nearby and also woke up.

Inky: "huh? Erik! you woke up!" hugging him, and touching his body "hmm you got taller... and bigger..." a lewd smile on her face.

Erik looked at her seriously though: "there will be time for that, now... to the kitchen!" and swiftly ran off.

Inky was dumbfounded: "wha-.... wait for me!"

--- Far in Space ---

A hole rippled in space as a spaceship exited through it.

Spaceship AI: *Captain, I've received a set of nearby coordinates, shall we head there?*

Sarah: "estimated time?"

Spaceship AI: *at our current acceleration it should take between two to three weeks*

Sarah: "good, we are almost there..." murmuring to herself "hold on a bit more Erik... "

--- back on the ARK ---

Erik was eating fresh cheese inside the submarine's kitchen.

Erik: "hmm... not bad but it's quite bitter, would need to age with some mold first..."

Rose: "I wouldn't recommend that unless inside a quarantined environment, as contamination could easily happen"

Erik: "you are right..."

Inky was eating a toast with melted butter on top: "I like it"

Erik shrugged: "Yeah, it's better than nothing I guess" as he also grabbed a toast, taking a bite.

Rose: "by the way, I forgot to tell you with all this dairy fun, Sarah is almost here"

Erik almost choked, and spat his toast to the ground: "w-what?! can I talk to her?!"

Rose shrugged: "last satellite already burned in the atmosphere, we would need to launch another one"

Erik: "let's do that then, I can go on top of the ice again"

Rose shook her head: "that won't be needed, this base has a launch site, once it's repaired we'll use that"

Erik was confused: "from here? from the bottom of the ocean?"

Rose: "well, this ain't the bottom, but yes, also there's no surface ice in this area at this time of the year, just some floating icebergs"

Erik was doubtful: "how?"

Rose: "well, you know how hydrogen is really light right? imagine a balloon with enough internal pressure released from this depth, and with a small rocket module attached with the 200Kg satellite inside. As the balloon goes up, it will quickly expand, so it will need to ignite the rocket engine and release pressure, and even once outside the water, it will continue to float up in the dense atmosphere of the Ark, going up and up, and depleting its fuel through the rocket exhaust".

Erik was still doubtful: "an elastic buoyant fuel deposit? it would probably rupture if subjected to pressures like that... what would you use for that?"

Rose pointed at his chest: "its made of a similar nanomaterial as your diving suit, once in space, it will change shape, and become a protective cover for the satellite, only the rocket module will go to waste as space trash, but oh well, there's enough debris on orbit already..."

Erik: "debris... wait! how will Sarah's spaceship approach with all that debris?"

Rose shrugged: "the same way as you did I guess?"

Erik: "I crashed at high speed against the surface of the planet..."

Rose: "yeah, like that... what? don't look at me like that, I can't do more than this"

Erik: "can you slow her spaceship?"

Rose shrugged: "...hmm... I can try but... she seems to be going way faster than you were, I would know for sure once the satellite is in orbit though"

Erik: "how long would that take?"

Rose: "well the launch should be ready for tomorrow, luckily most of the sealed installations were in pristine condition"

Erik sighed relieved: "good, tell me when you know more please"

Rose: "will do~"

Inky: "hmm sorry to interrupt but... who was Sarah?"

Erik: "I told you about her, a human like me, remember?"

Inky then seemed to remember as her face got serious "i remember... your partner from your planet...", but then looking at Erik's belly her face got smug: "I win"

Erik: "...what?"

Inky: "nothing~"