Chapter 168 - The Beast & The Machine part 4

*(mood song: "I Am King - Impossible")

Erik was terribly hungry, when he saw a chunk of flesh floating by, he grabbed it, and through the chest port in his powerarmor, soon grabbing and eating it, electricity was giving him energy too, but it wasn't enough, the arm was like an insatiable black hole.

Erik: "can't I put the arm on battery saving mode or something? I'm getting way too hungry..."

AI 2137: *well... it already is in power saving mode...*

Erik: "what?"

AI 2137 shrugged: *of course, its working with much lower energy than what it was originally designed for after all*

Erik: "...damn, I will starve at this rate... sigh... let's get out of here first"

Erik got closer to Timberly and patted her face, waking her up.

Timberly oppened her eyes tiredly: "...what?"

Erik: "we need to go, can you walk?"

Timberly nodded, and slowly got on her feet, her powerarmor already repaired: "ugh... lets... go"

The three exited the room and went back to the intersection, but something was different though, Erik could hear lots of water currents in a weird cacophony.

Erik: "what the heck is that..."

Timberly: "I hear... it too... swimming... many...."

Erik then saw a fish approaching down the hallway that lead to the door to outside, the fish had no eyes and seemed to change color as it went, only the huge sharp teeth at the front visible.

Erik: "...chameleon piranah eel..."

Timberly: "wh...at?"

Erik: "...it needed a name"

Timberly: "I can't run... I will distract-"

Erik: "No, AI 2137 and I will- ...where is AI 2137?"

Erik turned around to see AI 2137 already running far away, whitout looking back.

Erik: "...cowards live long I guess"

Erik then felt weak as his body was extremely hungry, without the electricity cable connection.

He saw the approaching fish and gritted his teeth, about to start his chainsword but... his left arm was faster, like an instinct it turned into a whip and stabbed the fish, disintegrating it as the body was quickly converted to energy.

Timberly had her eyes wide open: "...since when... can you do that?"

Erik: "...new arm, still getting used to it... I know how to charge it now though..."

Screeches approached fast from the outside.

Erik: "Run Timberly! I got this..."

Timberly: "but-"

Erik: "RUN!"

Timberly gritted her teeth and quickly slumped away while holding her side, her broken ribs hurt a lot.

Erik saw hundreds of monsters approaching and smiled: "it's showtime... time to see what this arm can do..."

The monsters approached, but the arm divided into thin black tentacles as it speared through the heads of the monsters. Erik could feel his energy increasing through the process, but controlling so many tentacles was giving him a headache, it would have been impossible before his brain upgrade, but now it was just difficult.

The more he killed, the easier it became though, as if the tentacles were learning what they were supposed to do, his energy levels grew, as the hollow bodies of the monsters fell down, their insides sucked dry. Then it started, first one, then a dozen, and soon all of them started to move by themselves.

Erik was weirded out, but the moment he thought for the reason, he could feel wallnut sized lumps at the base of every tentacle.

Erik: "...it grew brains? I just need to think of killing the monsters and it does by itself... can't decide if it's creepy or convenient..."

At that moment, Rose sounded on his head.

Rose: [Amanda is in danger! get here now we need to open the- ...what... how are you doing that?]

Erik shrugged: [don't know... it kinda just happened]

Rose: [...interesting, do you need help?]

Erik sat on a pile of corpses as the carnage unfolded in front of him: [nah, I got this, I can feel the arm strengthening, and I'm even absorbing part of the energy]

Rose: [...hold the door and don't get surrounded then, we need to open the doors to get the submarine in, they are under attack by those creatures]

Erik stood up concerned: [hmm... I will speed up then] the tentacles moving faster as the crazed hungry monsters incapable of seeing the carnage in front of them just charged at the smell of meat and blood, soon becoming part of the bloody cloud.

Rose: [us too]

-- Back at the submarine --

Thousands of the weird eel like creatures crammed the bay area of the submarine.

At the door to the bay, the Yaksha along with Amanda and two bots used their spears along with a metallic furniture barricade to keep the beasts at bay, some of the Yaksha had been injured and had to step back, but they were determined to fight.

Yhana: "we fight! defend new home!"

Their spears pierced through the gaps in the furniture and pierced the beasts, but the bloody smell just made the ones behind even more crazed, quickly swallowing the corpses of those dead.

Amanda: "shit... there's no end to them..."

At that moment, she got a transmission from Rose.

Rose: *you need to hold on! we will open the doors and restart the security systems soon!*

Amanda: "you heard her! keep your positions!"

--- Back at the control room ---

Timberly finally arrived and brushed past AI 2137, muttering "coward..."

AI 2137 heard her, but just shrugged as the only response.

Jennifer then came running with a worried face: "sister! are you alright?"

Timberly faintly smiled: "yeah, some bruises but I will be fine"

Jennifer's sharp teeth clattered as she cried poison ink in relief, her sister was finally safe, but then she realized: "wait... where is Erik?!"

Timberly scratched her helmet in frustration: "well, he got a new arm and... it grew murder tentacles I guess? kinda hard to explain..."

Rose: "yes, Erik is holding the beasts at the door, but the submarine outside is in danger, we need to open the doors a bit to let it inside"

Timberly: "what are you waiting for then?"

Rose pointed at a screen on the wall: "well, there's one tiny problem..."

Timberly saw the huge monster on the hangar and her brain couldn't even process the scale of it: "...is it... the size of the submarine?"

Rose chuckled making Timberly relax: "Oh now, the submarine is quite small compared to that fat monster" making Timberly nervous.

Timberly: "so... we kill it?"

Rose: "not quite, we let the submarine in, we close the doors and drain the water from inside, we will keep this one barely alive and use her children as our war beasts in the future"

Timberly was wide eyed: "...war beast-"

Jennifer: "like expendable soldiers"

Timberly: "oh... I see..."

Rose: [Erik, how do you wanna call the clawed monsters?]

Erik: [got the perfect name, sea hounds]

Rose: [...got it]

Rose: "we'll use those sea hounds to fight on the frontlines and patrol in the future, that will save a lot of octopeople's lives"

Jennifer: "sea hounds?"

Rose: "Erik decided the name, the clawed monsters"

Jennifer: "oh..., and how would we tame such beasts?"

Rose: "we would need some artificial selection, only allowing to breed to the nicest ones, but since they all come from the same queen... the easiest would be controlling their queen of course, but anyway, gotta study them more to determine that, some live subjects... and if push comes to shove... I will just implant them control chips on their brain, so... no worries, let's go"

--- on the door ---

Erik had long lost the count of how many chameleon eels he had killed as the hunt became easier and easier. He slowly reached the hole in the wall, and his fingers seemed to lick the broken door.

Erik: "damn, I'm just netting them in at this point-" he had just imagined it, but his hand became a net full of spikes stuck to the hole in the door, the eels just impaled themselves on the spikes at high speed, quickly turning into nothing as they were quickly absorbed.

Erik was dumbfounded: "...wow... we are gonna need some keywords arm... some damn safety keywords..." his energy recovered way quicker now though, and with no effort "damn, how many are there, how could a species so suicidal like this survive..." he imagined them charging at bigger monsters "or maybe this keeps them alive? It's like an evolved version of a Candiru Acu... they could slide inside their prey's bodies undetected and devour them from inside... ugh... nasty bastards..."

Erik looked at the full net, the arm now feeling light and full of energy, but...

Erik: "...this is boring..."

--- Outside the control room ---

Rose and the others had exited the control room, and after walking down hallways were now in front of a destroyed door, the walls also ripped apart. Past the doorway, they could see a behemoth of a beast laying down.

Rose: "Okay, the pumps are operational so as long as we repair the circuits of the door opening system... then this plan will work" she pointed at the far away door "one of the claw strikes must have damaged the circuit, just search for the deepest claw mark"

Timberly looked and the sleeping giant beast and had second thoughts, remembering the one that almost killed her and Erik: "aren't you sure we can't just kill it now? it's trapped after all..."

Rose smirked: "don't worry, it won't be that hard" taking a probe out of her back "we will control her mind with this~"