Food…Food…Food…there used to be so much food! But it's all gone now. After growing there was so much live food! It's all eaten now. No matter how hard it looks new food almost never appears! And the walls never open like they used to… perhaps it shouldn't have eat the living food all at once? But the Hunger is unbearable! Need Food…Food…Food…
FOOD!
SMACK!
The once cat eagerly smashes its face into a chunk of beetle it quite literally stumbled upon. Have not noticed the trail of beetle bites for the past 2 circuits though the hallways of the 6th floor. Unhinging its jaw the disproportionate fleshy abomination swallows the beetle chuck whole. After eating it's treat, it begins loudly sniffing and trundling after the laid trail, happily repeating the eating process with every morsel it reaches.
The two young would be survivors watch with morbid fascination and discust as the monster unhesitatly advances.
"There's no way this works… the beetles will overwhelm the cat and why would it even go down the stairs?"
"It's not like it's protecting anything up here. Unlike the mantis its and cleary just eager for more food…why wouldn't it go down the stairs? It a place that might have food. Plus I don't really care how many beetles mister whiskers kills, any progress the cat makes clearing the floor is better than me having to fight everything myself. If the beetles kill it instead then we've at least cleared out this floor."
"So ether way your the plan will work?"
"Unless they start working together. Yay my plan will work."
"You shouldn't say things like that! Now it's gonna happen!" Ghost seaths at me.
I roll my eyes and watch as the mutant cat reaches the steps and seamingly hesitates at wearer the door once was. After a moment though it trundls on down the stairs all hesitation gone.
15 minutes pass in relitive silence with only occasional gurgling eating sounds echoing up the stairs. But eventually they hear the crash of the cat bariling though the ditached door of the 5th floor in order to reach a morsel place just out of reach. This is then followed by angry sick sounding growls and the buzzing of dozens of beetle wings.
"Well let's follow."
"Are you mad!"
"We have to be there to finish off the victor. Otherwise we'll have just shuffled around our problems."
Ghost dosnt elect to follow me down the stairs. At the bottom I get to witness my first real fight between monsters in this new world! Mister whisker is almost unstoppable happily letting itself get impaled only to then crunch through the now imoble beetles and quickly healing itself with the power taken from it ls meal! All the while a veritable wave of insects and electricity contenuesly washes over the monster stunning, piecing and biting what ever parts they can reach!
Slams, crunches, sparks, even a touch of fire that's quickly smothered by the roiling hord and I do mean hord. Whether it's the noise, or some sort of instinct more beetles keep leaving their territorys to join the fight. Some turn on there own clearly seeking general dominance, but most seem united in getting rid of the new monster intruding on there sanctum. Whether they'd trun on each after winning is unknown?
I'm not left spared ether, inevitably one or two beetles overflow from the fight and spot me. All I can really do is dodge any thing that gets close and hack away at any beetle that impales it's self inside the wall, floor…or me.
Getting stab…is apparently not very fun. Getting tazed is oddly worse? Getting tazed by the thing stabbing you is not an enjoy able experience!
Having dodged 5 or 8? Beetles now and killed 4 that were stuck I, inevitably fail to notice when one that was stuck behind me freed itself from the wall. Not happy with missing the frail little blade welding invader it launched its self at me form behind. Managing to impale my left forearm arm clean through with its lance like horn! Almost unconsciously I cut off the flow of force feeding into my left arms shoulder seam and breath a deep sigh of relief as the electricity stops flooding my whole body. Only to then watch as the beetle flies away with my limb!
"T that's mine!"distaracted and not really thinking straight from all the electrical pain raidiating from my severed limb I charge after it into the swarm!
-
My thoughts feel hazy…I've been plaled a dozen times now and I'm developing a new hatred for electrictricty. Unlike the mutant cat, my body is to small to shrug off the charge the beetles output. While I could detach my limbs to isolate the invading element… after having lost my arm 2 separate times now I've stopped doing that… instead I tried something dumber and over changed the Force holding my seams together by flooding my body with half the compressed Force I'm receiving from killing these damed bug! The result, each seam across my body acting as a flood wall for foreign power. Or perhaps it's just sending the electricity deeper cause in feeling oddly tired?
It doesn't matter. After a few more minutes of fighting It's now just me, filed with many different needle like beetle horns. Mister whisker who's gained an extra 2 feet in height, 100Lbs of fat, and is no longer properly healing from is many grievous wounds. Then finally theres the mother of all Beetles, the Shock horn Matriarch she's almost the size of me is out putting enough power to put my hair on end form several feet away.
We stand there in a three way stand off…I don't think I quite belong, but simultaneously I'm oddly the least injured? At first glance the Matriarch is perfectly healthy having not engaged in the fight until the last minute. Yet her movements are jerky, almost mechanical, wile steam slowly dissipates from her shell, as if she can't quite control her own electric output and is cooking herself. Then while ordinarily the once cat would easily kill both of us, having been reduced to 4 of 7 functional limbs including the extending neck and actively bleeding out from not leaving the needle like horns imbedded inside its wound's like I did leaves it in a sorry state despite its new mass and size.
Trying for a quick victory the Matriarch makes the first move. Unleashing a bolt of lightning at me and then flying at mister whiskers.The once cat takes the lance horn happily to the chest and uses its new proximity leverage and pain to begin wailing and mauling the matriarch.
Meanwhile each horn imbedded inside my body acts as conductors, dragging the lightning through several of my Force charged seams setting my my soul ablaze as I finally realized partially how my trait works.