Chapter 181 - Awake and Alive

* (mood song: "Skillet - Awake and Alive")

Rose sensed something and turned around, flipping her remaining hand as a menu displaying Sarah's brainwaves appeared on the recovery pod.

Rose: "Her brainwaves seem to be stabilizing... good good~ I should tell Erik... better not now though, he seems busy..." [Dig to your left]

Erik: [thanks!]

She then slowly disconnected her hand from Sarah's body, leaving behind only some stitches made of nanobots that would fall by themselves once it all healed completely.

Rose smiled: "that should do it"

A knock was then heard on the door, Rose got to the door and saw Amanda and Timberly holding a very scared huge lizardman, almost the height of Timberly's shoulders as he nervously looked at Rose.

Amanda: "Interrogation subject successfully delivered"

Rose: "Yes yes, good job~"

Timberly: "What are you gonna do with him?"

Rose: "Oh, nothing much~ just extract his memories~"

Timberly: "...I see, I- I have to go check on the perimeter"

Rose waved at her: "Bye ~ have fun, I will~"

Amanda: "You seem in a good mood?"

Rose: "Yeah, it feels nice when things are going well"

Amanda held the lizardman to his knees while Rose's hand turned into tendrils and pierced his head, but didn't give it any importance as she kept conversing calmly.

Amanda: "Like what?"

Rose pointed at her back: "I finished healing Sarah and thankfully her brain seems to be responding" She pointed at the lizardman "These guys might give me some answers" and then pointed to a wall "And if not, a device Erik recovered might have them.... well also, back at the base great things are happening hehe~"

Amanda: "Great things?"

Rose smiled calmly: "The octopeople eggs are starting to hatch, only the scout and hunter caste for now, but the warrior caste are also starting to hatch~"

Amanda: "...increasing our numbers is a good thing indeed, I wonder how it feels to have descendants..."

-- Back at the octopèople city --

Shana stood on the plaza as more and more warrior octopeople were born from the eggs, the past week lots of them had been born from the scout and hunter eggs, and now it was the warrior's turn. The mood was cheerful as all gathered for the occasion.

Anhuka and Crabina were also there, and Crabina carefully grabbed a baby in her arms and smiled widely.

Anhuka: "Hold her properly okay?"

Crabina: "Okay ~... when will they grow big like me?"

Anhuka: "Hmmm well it should take some years?... I don't really know..."

Crabina looked at Anhuka: "Okay" and looked around, seeing Shana looking at the pool with the Elder's eggs and running to her "Auntie Shana, auntie Shana, when will those eggs hatch?"

Shana turned her head slightly to see Crabina with a hunter octopeople baby in her arms, while lightly poking the baby's cheeks with her fingers. Shana smiled "These little ones will take a couple of months till they can swim by themselves" and carefully took it from her arms and gave it to a nearby hunter "Take it to the nursing room"

Hunter: "Yes elder"

As the hunter went away Shana turned back to Crabina and kneeled next to her, observing the eggs bathtub as she patted Crabina's pointy head.

Shana: "As for mine and my sister's eggs... well it depends, our eggs are usually raised by our partners, but these... will at least take around two or three more months to be born for the smaller ones, while Timberly's ones usually give birth to strong warriors that can take longer to completely form and hatch..."

Crabina: "Is that so..." turning her head to Shana "How will you know who's the mommy and daddy?"

Shana chuckled: "We raise the kids as a community, everyone will be their... mommy's and-"

Crabina insisted: "And the daddy?"

Shana pondered: "Well, that's a human term based on their... genders, but in our case, I guess the birthing one would be the mother and the inseminator the father..."

Crabina: "Oh... what does inseminator mean?"

Shana: "its-"

Anhuka then interrupted: "ehem! that's not an appropriate topic for a child"

Shana: "Questions left unanswered only lead to wrong answers and mistakes, I believe a clear path is better"

Anhuka: "Sure, but she ain't your daughter"

Shana didn't respond ignoring Anhuka as she looked back at Crabina: "The inseminator... is the father, you just need to know that for now"

Crabina: "Oh, okay..."

Shana: "...So, how's school? they told me you are doing very well in class"

Crabina was distracted looking at the eggs in the pool: "yeah, I like school, they teach interesting things"

Shana: "Have you made any friends?"

Crabina: "Yeah, I have friends, Shukua, Nhasa... Vickthy, and... also Bretka... and Ekty!"

Shana chuckled: "Is that so... Bretka should be... a descendant of Timberly, are you two friends?"

Crabina: "Yeah, I won the duel so she now has to be my friend"

Shana: "Duel huh... the hunt I assume, tell me about the rest..." and turned to Anhuka "Or... maybe your mommy knows them better? seems like something a MOTHER~ should know right?"

Anhuka: "I... the small one was... ehm..."

Crabina: "Nhasa mommy! She just needs to eat some more, but she has no mommy or daddy..." her face turned sad, but it quickly recovered "But I will teach her how to hunt!"

Shana chuckled and asked: "Have you learned any new skills in school then?"

Crabina nodded excitedly: "Yes! I learned how to use ink from the other's ink sacs to coat our spear tips, and we also learned how to weave seaweed to make baskets and containers!"

Shana smiled: "That sounds interesting. And what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Crabina's eyes sparkled with excitement: "I want to be a warrior like you and daddy, auntie Shana! I want to protect our people and hunt for food!"

Shana ruffled Crabina's spiky head: "You'll make a great warrior one day, I'm sure of it. But remember, being a warrior is not just about fighting. It's also about being a responsible member of our community and working together to ensure everyone's safety and well-being."

Crabina nodded: "I understand, auntie Shana. I'll do my best!"

Anhuka smiled at the conversation between Shana and Crabina, feeling grateful for Shana's guidance and support for her daughter. She looked around the plaza and saw the joyful expressions of her fellow octopeople as they welcomed the newly born octopeople into their community. She couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and hope for their future.

As the sun began to set, Shana gathered the young octopeople who had just hatched and led them to the nursery room, where they would be cared for by the nursing octopeople until they were strong enough to venture out on their own. Anhuka and Crabina followed behind, their hearts filled with joy and anticipation for what lay ahead.

-- Hours ago, floating lizard man city, techno church --

Erik had finally arrived below the tech priest temple after a lot of effort, and as he finally broke through the ground, Erik found himself face to face with the automated defense systems. Turrets swiveled in his direction, targeting him with deadly accuracy. But Erik was prepared.

His power armor morphed, as the nanobots shifted to form a railgun that he aimed directly at the turrets. *ZBANG!* The railgun fired with a deafening roar, destroying the turrets one by one.

Rose, her voice calm and controlled: [Great job, Erik. But be careful, there could be more defenses inside the temple]

Erik nodded as he stepped inside, his power armor shifting again to form a sword. He looked around and saw he was inside a smal room around ten meters wide, the broken down turrets now laying on the floor, his left arm extended and readily consumed the turrets as a scaled down version grew on both of the shoulders of his power armor. The temple was dark and ominous, the air thick with the scent of rust and metal as Erik exited the previous room and came to a room full of shelves full of weapons and gadgets.

Erik: "Do these have any use?"

Rose: [hmmm just try not to damage them, I will have a look later]

Erik saw some metal ingots: "What about those?"

Rose: [refined bio alloys... could be useful, you won't need that much for your skeleton, but an amount like that should reinforce your power armor's composition]

Erik: "Hm? isn't it better to just turn it all into energy?"

Rose: [...that is extremely wasteful actually, what will you do once the power cores run out?]

Erik: "...ask you for more?"

Rose: [...sigh, good luck]

Erik: "Rose?... Rose?... I was just kidding... well maybe not" His power armor extended tendrils like a spider web, grabbing any metal alloy pieces or parts in the room, and easily testing their grades of hardness, ductility, and conductivity, arranged the nanobots made of them over his armor, the energy pathways glowed more intensely and the armor plates became thicker after the arrangement "that should do...".

As he came out of the storeroom he encountered more turrets and automated defense systems, the turrets got easily defeated by his shoulder turret railguns, but other traps like blades popping out of walls or floors, on obvious covers or blind spots on the turrets range, was always covered by some kind of trap, even at some point a flame thrower bathed him in flames, thankfully he was wearing his power armor, so he easily grabbed the pipe and clamped it shut, causing an explosion to be heard from the next room.

Erik entered the room and saw the corpses of two young lizardman girls, their corpses full of shrapnel and now set in flames.

Erik: "Sigh... well, saves me the trouble..." With a wave of his arm, nanobot tentacles extinguished the flames as they consumed a layer of matter "This place will be ours, can't have it burning down now~"

Erik: "...Rose? am I close to that tech you wanted? I don't know what I'm looking for here..."

Rose: [...hmmm you are close, cross the room, take the hallway to the left, and open a set of big doors to the left, there seems to be a big chamber there with a lifeform... probably the techno priest]

Erik: "Probably?"

Rose: [yeah, his brain signals seem jumbled... it's strange]

Erik shrugged: "well, that's alright, not like it would change anything"

Erik did as Rose had told him and arrived in front of a pair of thick steel doors, with carvings of a solar system with twelve planets surrounding a star, and a lot of symbols next to each planet.

Erik: "Their solar system?"

Rose: [yeah, seems like it]

Erik: "Do you know where it is?"

Rose: [yeah, I know where it was]

Erik nodded: "good enough" and pushed open the pair of doors "We should go finish them-"

*ROAAAAARRRR!!!* a loud roar caught him off guard.

Erik was surprised as his eyes focused on a metallic figure standing six meters tall, an old lizardman laying lifelessly on the chest of the monster, with hundreds of cables still connected to terminals still stabbed on various parts of his body.

Erik: [what the fuck is that?]

Rose: [seems like a rudimentary bio transference of his mind to a metallic body]

Erik observed the metallic lizardman's body, it was rusty, but had huge metallic claws, and cables connecting the tail to somewhere.

Erik: [is the power source...]

Rose: [yeah, a generator in the back room, seems like this was just a pieced together prototype...]

Erik: [that explains why it's not charging over... was it expecting to scare me just with a roar~?]

Rose: [maybe, get his data storage intact and we'll know... although I don't expect much]

Erik: [why?]

Rose: [corrupted data, a rushed transference like that will lead to millions or errors and missing memories, I doubt it even remembers its name...]

Erik: [...I will check]

Erik's helmet opened enough to reveal his face: "Hey lizardman, do you remember your name?"

* GRK! ROAAAAR!!!* But the only response back was another roar.

Erik: [yep, he went crazy]

Rose: [¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

*ZBANG!* Erik shot a shot from the railgun on his right shoulder, but it just bounced off the side of the lizardmachine's head.

Erik whistled: "pretty though aren't you? what about-"

But before he could finish the lizardmen opened his hand and and from inside *ZBAAAAANG!* a huge shot hit Erik's sword, breaking it and then hit his chest, sending him flying out the room and rolling back the hallway.

Rose: [Erik! are you okay?]

Erik slowly crawled out of the way in case a second shot came and sat with his back resting on a wall.

Erik: [No, I'm not okay! ugh... my boobs... it hurts like hell, think it cracked some ribs too...]

Rose: [can you stand up?]

Erik: [I think so... just need to rest for a while... hah... hah...]

*ZBAAAAANG!* another shot hit the floor of the hallway, sending shrapnel everywhere *ROAAAR!* followed by a roar.

Rose: [seems like it overloaded its arm gun... you should be fine for a while]

Erik: [that's... good...] tendrils grew from his back and supported his body to stand back up again [but I don't give up so easily]

-- Back at the submarine --

Sarah woke up and opened her eyes, she could feel the cold of the fluid around her, but more than anything she still felt the pain, she frantically touched her chest and back but there was no sign of injury, but the pain was still there.

Rose: "Ready to come out?"

Rose saw her from outside the tube and was about to empty her tank.

Sarah: *wait!* the speakers on the machine transmitting her words from the respirator in her mouth.

Rose frowned: "hm? what is it?"

Sarah: *Are you the doctor here?*

Rose: "hmm you could say that... you don't remember me~?"

Sarah was confused: *wha-*

Rose: [Maybe this refreshes your memory~? ( ◠‿◠✿)]

Sarah's eyes opened wide: *Rose...*

Rose: "Exactly child, so... what is the problem?"

Sarah: *my back still hurts, I'm worried there could still be injuries remaining*

Rose: "No, the reconstruction was anatomically perfect, perhaps a phantom pain... it should be fine in a couple of days..., so... ready to get out?"

Sarah nodded.

Rose: "alright~"