Chapter Seventy-Eight - Xenocide Act VI; It's Not A Dick!

"Cat Fact No. 1: Retractable claws grant felines the ability to switch effortlessly from velvet to steel."

– Booklet on pettable pets, 2053

 

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"Tynea, is my skin ready?"

Almost, sixty seconds to go.

Okay. Not enough to really do much.

Uh.

I looked around myself and spotted the two ATVs.

Hmm.

Leah was probably going to stick with her egg. Better protection, more guns, less risk of messing up.

And I was faster on my feet, and with the spikes, I wouldn't even have to worry as much about efficiency while running.

So. ATVs.

They weren't particularly big or heavy, meant to be used by two girls within the woods.

Ah, yes. I looked at the towed cannon, specifically at the tail of it. I could probably just tie them down on top of it. From Leah's explanations, I figured the pod wouldn't care about a few extra kilos, and we'd still be able to use the things on the old highway…

Leah's voice broke me from my musings. "Buy it!", she exclaimed, kneeling next to her egg, which had angled itself left side up with its long legs, so that she could see its belly.

Two rectangular flaps opened at the egg's bottom and revealed some sort of hardpoint. Several slots cut themselves into the surface of the shell, positioned to form a cross around the hardpoint.

Two considerably larger holes appeared a little further to the rear, roughly the size of my forearms when I was still Aden.

And then all of them were occupied when the egg grew a giant penis.

No really.

A long…phallus poked out the front from beneath the egg, and it had two big black balls bulging at the rear of it.

Golden veins, I mean, lines, circled and arced along the huge…barrel, and the balls, and at the thickened tip, which was glowing slightly, white…vapor dripped from the…muzzle.

Laughter hiccuped in my chest and I worked hard to hold it down.

Then Leah caressed one of the, uh, magazines with her palm.

A high squeak escaped me, as I desperately held my mouth shut with both hands.

Leah glanced at me and arched one of her eyebrows in confusion. I shook my head.

She turned back to her, um, cannon, and flicked the magazine she'd had her palm on.

It clunked. I blew my cheeks up.

"Alright, Ypsi. Load one up."

More clunks. The barrel elongated, rotated slightly, then snapped backwards.

A huge wash of white stuff sprayed from the front.

I snorted. I couldn't hold it anymore. I pressed my hands against my mouth and tears gathered in my eyes from the pressure.

I whistled like a teakettle on a trip.

Leah looked at me again, even more confused. Then her eyes flicked back and forth between me and her cannon.

The metaphorical light-bulb came on.

Her face was alive with a variety of expressions. There was exasperation, facepalming, unwilling humor, a question of "Oh god, why?!" as large as her new gun and its balls, accusation, and a whole lot of promised ass-kicking.

She groaned and put her face in her hands. Then she looked up at me. I was still smushing my mouth with my hands, staring at her with wide eyes.

"It's not a dick!"

I exploded with howling laughter, my knees went weak and I toppled over, helplessly holding my belly as tears streamed down my face.

Leah didn't want to laugh, but it twisted her grimace into a hilarious mix of involuntary amusement and the vein-popping strain of seriousness.

I watched her bite her lips, and tried to get some semblance of control over myself.

I blocked my mouth again, trying to calm down, but I still couldn't quite stop the laughter from squeaking past.

The vision of me dying to a penis joke must've been a touch too much for Leah.

She wheezed.

Like that one decades old meme that just wouldn't die.

She just wheezed and wheezed at me.

I couldn't. No fucking way. I was getting headaches from laughing so hard.

I was gonna need an oxygen mask and Leah was red as a fire engine.

It was kinda cute, and that thought of something besides raw amusement finally let me move again.

I dragged myself over to Leah, both of us muddy beyond belief, and pulled her shoulders into my lap.

Still giggling, I cradled her head against my chest and pushed my nose into her hair, and closed my eyes as I enjoyed the faint herbal scent of her shampoo.

She turned slightly and hung one arm off my shoulder, while petting my back with the other. Feeling her breath spill slowly down my decolletage further calmed me, and Leah, too, relaxed and squeezed a little closer.

The rain slowly washed the splatter of mud from us as we sat there, letting companionship and shared warmth spread, combatting the mild chill of the weather.

I gently dug my fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp.

Her satisfied moan and subsequent burying of her nose in my cleavage put another kind of smile on my face, one not of amusement, but of simple touch-happiness.

Eventually the Myriad's stiffness digging into my thighs made sitting on the ground too uncomfortable, and I pinched Leah's ear lightly, who was still resting nose-first between my boobs with her eyes closed.

"Come on, Leah, wakey-wakey," I giggled easily. "I promise I won't laugh at your giant penis cannon anymore. Time to move."

She groaned and shook her head, burrowing deeper into me instead. I laughed softly, absolutely charmed by this adorable creature.

I squeezed her, kissed her hair, and then I grabbed her underneath her arms. Using the power of my enhanced muscles, I simply stood up and planted her on her own feet with twinkling amusement in my eyes, which I found mirrored in hers.

She smoothed her hand down my back and snuggled me one last time, before she finally let go and stepped back.

She looked at her cannon and shook her head with a bit of chortling.

"How about a cowl?" I asked, giggling. "To make it less…phallic. Maybe even see if you can move it up into the egg itself a little? Most jets with a cannon like that have it integrated into their fuselage, right?"

"Yeah, but there isn't enough space in there. Not enough sound-proofing either. Ypsi'll dump the shells into the magazines from the inside, and those ports are already going to let in a lot of the bang. This setup wouldn't be practical if I didn't have the ear protectors." She said, pointing at the two fluffy devices covering her ears.

"I see. Um. I've got a skin upgrade to test and the ATVs to sort out. Shall I leave you to it?"

She smiled at me and ruffled my hair until I caught her hand and trapped it against my skull with a grin. Then I reached out with my other faster than she could react, and tickled finger up her waist.

She jumped and wiggled away with a breathless wheeze and I pointed her at her pod, which she moved to with a cheeky salute thrown my way.

Shaking my head I returned to the towed cannon and sat on the tail.

I focused on my organic AI selves, and with their help, started to develop an understanding of the new capabilities of my skin.

AI-I prepared three catalogs for me, and in each, I sensed the options available to me.

First was the stuff the skin came with by default. 

Hair of chitin or keratin, spikes and bristles, a variety of saeta designed to be long rather than wide. These I could shed quickly and replace in seconds. Many of these had structural breaks and faults that would make them very painful irritants if inhaled.

I'd tried some of those earlier as spikes on my feet, and they weren't properly anchored for friction.

Oh, here was something I hadn't looked at all.

A variety of tiny scales. These weren't particularly tough, but they'd considerably enhance the skin's ability to absorb impacts. They were shaped such that they interlocked with each other to distribute force more evenly before breaking. Some of these were also the most hydrophobic variants of all the saeta, while the ablative nature of other versions would protect against slow acids or low-powered energy weapons.

I let a set of the hydrophobic scales grow over my hands, which took a few seconds. They had a beautifully iridescent rainbow dusting that shimmered mostly a dark green in the current light.

When I trailed a finger over the scales, they felt a little leathery, and very dry. The rain drops just pearled right off and left zero trace. I dunked a hand in mud, and when I drew it out again, it just left the dirt without a ripple. It was as if the hand hadn't existed while it was submerged.

I tried the same with my feet, and found that walking was a lot less squelchy and a lot more comfortable.

Huh. 

I used the skin's ability to change color to tint the scales black instead, with the same diamond glitter the skirt had. Now it looked like I was wearing skin-tight toe socks. Or maybe stockings?

Nice. You couldn't even tell that I was still barefoot.

Hmm. There were places where dirt was not fun, built-in showerhead or not.

I let the scales grow all the way up my legs, until they covered everything up to and including my privates. Except where the skirt hugged my hips and butt—no way was I giving up the luxurious hugginess of it.

Actually… Here we are. Touch cells and follicles. These weren't new, but I hadn't looked at them before. 

Yes, there were really sensitive ones. They weren't meant for combat. More for scouting, and they were almost as sensitive to the air currents as my antennae.

I had a better use for them.

I replaced the skin across my hips and butt with a sample, and Oh. Oooh.

My, this is positively sinful.

My eyes fluttered with the unbelievable opulence, or sumptuousness, of the Myriad's caress. If a touch could be called voluptuous, this would be that.

This was sex without the sex.

I hugged myself as I involuntarily shivered at the sensations of walking slowly back and forth, with the skirt shifting slightly around my body.

Okay, maybe this is a bit much. 

I reverted the skin and almost regretted it. Crap that's addicting. Uh… Maybe I'd better reserve that for, um, certain other purposes…

Yeah. I could see a lot of fun to be had with that. Later. At some point.

The second catalog held the claws, and their anchoring structures. Sheaths, tendons, muscles… And they weren't bound to be used as one.

Alright.

Oh! Interesting. I hadn't realized that I'd get retractable ones. Ah, and there were different types. Some had hinges of sorts, where the claw, or rather its anchor, would get retracted. But far more just had a chitin or keratin sheath around the claw that would either be retracted instead of the claw, or would just loosely cover it to be pushed up naturally when the claw dug in.

I tried replacing my toe nails with chitin claws. The process was a lot more complex than just growing a few scales, and it took nearly a minute to complete.

But I found that I could freely change the shape and size of the claws, and even how they connected to the bone.

I could also change the mechanics of their anchoring. I went for something simple and straightforward. Nothing extra to allow for retraction meant that my toes just looked almost normal. No knobby bone levers. But in return I gained a lot of sensitivity at the tip of the claw. Any vibration was conducted directly to the bone and the nerves within.

Hmm. If I stood on stone or hard ground, I'd have a tremor sense of sorts, wouldn't I?

They were wicked sharp. I was actually able to puncture my own resistant skin, without trying very hard.

Huh. I'll have to be very careful, won't I? The lacerations I could cause would be no joke.

Maybe I should've gone for something retractable after all? Hmm…

Oh! I could just "eject" the claws, sort of. As long as I didn't undo the anchors, I could regrow new ones in just a few seconds…

Ah, but what if I tried reabsorbing them instead? Yeah, that worked. Much slower, but I didn't lose the invested minerals and proteins.

Hmm. Alright. Running spikes next, and then some armor!

 

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