Chapter 38: Alive

On my first day back, I had retreated to Qiv's former hideaway and slept. Since only Gaarurra knew where it was, it was probably my one safe place in the academy.

Nevertheless, I set a few of the probe droids on alert status to let me know if someone got close. I had been in no condition to be able to defend myself.

After I woke up the next day, I set about trying to clean myself up. Thankfully, I didn't have any injuries more pressing than a few bruises.

For some reason I've never been able to explain, I hated wearing red. I quickly discovered that it also applied to being red too. On the upside, I found it slightly easier to connect to the Force. Downside, I utterly despised every minute of it.

Three days. I was dyed red for three fucking days. The blood had seeped through my clothing and armor to stain my skin, which not even a sonic shower could get off.

Peeling off my blood-stained robes had proven to be a painful endeavor after it dried, taking more than a bit of hair and threatening to rip off skin.

On top of that, I was regretting letting my hair grow out. Not only had it turned red-red instead of its natural copper color, it had been sticky. My laziness in that regard meant that it had turned into a notted tangled mess that broke even the strongest combs over its figurative knee.

I ended up cutting it to a much more manageable length, though it now looked like a choppy mess.

The less said about how much effort went into cleaning the gunk out of my cybernetics, the better.

After those three days, the red dye had finally started to fade…to pink. I was able to pass for a Zeltron at a distance. On the bright side, at least at the academy no one batted an eye if you walked around in all-encompassing black robes.

During those three days, I kept myself hidden away, save for the occasional trip out to get food and use a refresher. While one reason was because I didn't want to be seen until my natural skin tone returned, the other was because there was science to do.

...

Despite being left out for a day, the terentatek hand was still as fresh as when I had picked it up, save for the fact that the blood had congealed.

Normal surgical tools were enough for the task at hand as I had already peeled back some of the chitinous shell back in the trial cave. All that was left for me to do was cut apart the cauterized flesh and excise the venom sacs located between the finger bones in the palm.

With a pair of foreceps and a scalpel, I carefully separated the first organ from the surrounding tissue. Halfway through my work, I had to get a new scalpel as the congealed blood under its skin started to eat through the metal and destroy its edge.

It was exactly that reason that I wasn't wearing gloves. If it was strong enough to melt durasteel, it would melt through any glove I could reasonably get a hold of. Better to have the dexterity over useless protection.

I eyed the half-melted scalpel before tossing it aside.

Note to self, alchemically enhance a set of tools for future projects. Having to replace my tools every few minutes would be killer on a budget. In the meantime, I had plenty of replacements on hand thanks to several generous donations from Lord Renning.

Fortunately, I also didn't have to go far to find them as I had transferred almost all the equipment that I didn't carry on my person down here. I rummaged around in a case for a moment before plucking out a new scalpel and returning to my workstation.

My dorm room had already been breached once, it could be done again. For now, the hideaway would do. If this place was found, I'd just move to a cave somewhere in the valley.

Before beginning again, I paused and set down my tools.

It was too damn quiet down here. Levitating my datapad to my hands, I quickly searched on the Holonet for something to listen to. I wasn't feeling anything calm and soothing, but not quite loud and screaming.

I finally settled on…something. My datapad said it was something from a band on Zeltros.

Huh. Who knew Zeltrons made rock?

My aversion to my current skin pigment aside, the music was just what I wanted, despite not being able to understand a word the singer was saying. Just slow enough to fade into the background, yet fast enough to not put me to sleep.

With the silence now filled, I got back to work.

Unlike the tough skin, the connective tissues holding the venom sac in place parted easily under the sharp blade as I maneuvered it around the channel running down the finger bone and into the claw, carefully separating it from the bone and muscle.

I had to stop and pry more chitin plates off with my plasma cutter. I set them aside as I might have a use for them later. Using a small handheld circular saw, I split the massive claw down the middle while leaving the tip intact and connected to the organ.

With a few more cuts, I gently lifted the fleshy-pink organ and piece of claw with a pair of tongs and transferred it to a tall beaker of water, slowing lowering it into the liquid. Ideally, introducing the acidic blood to water would dilute it enough to handle the organ safely.

I was hoping highschool chemistry wouldn't fail me, but this was also goddamn space magic I was dealing with. There was a not insignificant chance of it telling conventional science to go fuck itself and explode.

Thankfully, there wasn't a reaction. Once I'd thoroughly sluiced the blood off the venom sac, I set it down on a transparisteel tray, which it did not start eating through. I still wouldn't touch it with my bare hands though.

I looked back to the hand. One down, two to go.

Excising the other two venom sacs was the work of nearly an hour and a half as I had to pry off more plates. But soon, all three were layed out before me as I thought about what to do.

Despite the immense size of the beast itself, the venom sacs were surprisingly small, no bigger than two fingers each. I supposed they would have to be to be able to fit in the terentatek's dense musculature without being crushed every time it moved its fingers.

I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do with it, though it was quickly taking shape in my mind. I raised my left arm up into view, examining the pitted and scarred vambrace on it. Maybe…

I slipped the piece of armor off and set it down on the workstation. Taking up one of the venom sacs with the tongs, I pressed it against the underside of the vambrace and began to shape.

While Terentateks were mostly immune to the Force, one of the only exceptions was Sith Alchemy. I could understand it from a certain viewpoint. It was like leaving a backdoor in a firewall to retain access to the system.

The venom sac accepted my power more easily than I had anticipated, but the vambrace was expected. After all, I had enhanced it with my own power before. It obeyed me still and eagerly devoured my offering.

Flesh began to sink into steel until I could no longer see the dividing line as the metal wrapped around the organ. The long fleshy channel that stretched down to the claw was slowly drawn in, lazily dragging the claw tip towards the armor until they met with a soft clack.

The metal rippled like water. Soon, there wasn't any visible sign that anything had changed, save for the small claw now dangling from it.

I ran a finger over it. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but as my skin brushed it, something pulsed just beneath the surface. Once. Twice. Thrice.

"It's alive," I muttered aloud.

I probed at it with my senses, but I didn't find even a rudimentary intelligence. So it wasn't sapient or sentient, but alive nonetheless. Closer to a plant than an animal. Now, was that temporary or was it permanent? Would the venom sac still produce poison? Did it weaken the armor at all? All things that could be tested.

I cautiously slipped the vambrace back onto my arm. The claw wriggled but did nothing else. I turned the limb over a few times, seeing if anything else had changed.

Now how do it…

I pointed my pink-skinned hand at the empty air, making sure it wasn't in the way, and said, "Strike."

The claw shot out nearly a foot past my extended arm, connected to the vambrace by the thin channel, now as black as the enhanced durasteel. Just as quickly, it snapped back into place.

I repeated it a few more times using different words. Attack. Kill. Inject. Each time, it did as commanded.

But commanding it aloud ruined the purpose of a hidden weapon. For the last test, I didn't say a word, instead using just my mind. The claw lashed out.

Excellent.

It didn't take long to fit the other vambrace with a stinger of its own. I tested it like I had its twin and found it satisfactory. Even if the venom sacs no longer produced poison, the stingers could be used for distraction during a bladelock.

I eyed the third venom sac. A smile broke out on my face as I decided where it was going to be attached to. Once that was done, I leaned back and let out a sigh.

Now I just needed my skin to return to normal and then I'd be having a long chat with some doctors about ice-proofing my cybernetics.

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