Ch. 96 - Favors (II)

Favors (II)

As she let her consciousness meld with her biological system, Alice sank into the largest and most visible organ of her body, her skin; a complex and multilayered sub-system that interacted with countless others while protecting the organism in the meanwhile.

Just the epidermis, the outermost, thinner strata, was composed by at least five different sub-layers working in symbiosis to maintain that thin defensive bastion safe from any external danger, be those injuries, pathogens, or even the too-quick displacement of fluids between the outside and inside of her body.

Between those five, Alice instantly focused on a normally-uninteresting strata of cells that produced a small but almost constant amount of tiny and durable proteins that were then distributed throughout the skin, her eyes knowingly scanning those structures for a few long moments before moving deeper, past another sheet of growth-focused cells and, finally, into the dermis, the thicker and lowermost part of the skin.

Divided into two sub-sections, the dermis provided some decent protection from external impacts and strains while also housing countless small organelles, glands, nerve endings and blood vessels that restlessly worked to keep her body nourished and interconnected throughout its entirety, the vast majority of them coming from the equally-thick blanket of subcutaneous fat that rested beneath that final layer of skin, working both as energy storage and additional cushioning padding for the complex system of blood vessels that moved through it, bringing oxygen to the more peripheral cells.

It was between those two thick protective strata that Alice found the perfect placement for the first of her changes, a smile of satisfaction appearing on her physical lips while her consciousness hovered just a centimeter under her skin.

This is perfect, she finally told herself after a bit of reconnaissance to locate the places she wanted to focus on the most, I’d rather do this as quickly as possible since that damned beetle might be getting some strange ideas after all. Let’s get started.

Thus, with a simple prod of her mind, she accessed the completely replenished well of her power and shredded the thin barrier that kept the energy contained, expertly redirecting a tendril of magical energy towards her arms and legs, the first parts of the body she had decided to focus on.

If I only manage to strengthen them, I’ll already be very happy. They always get the worst in any fight after all.

She began by accessing the thin layer of tissue that she had observed in the epidermis, finally using the new, strange skill that had recently replaced her Biomagical Instincts to quickly confirm that those cells were the ones tasked with the production of keratin, a durable protein that she knew to be the main component of her nails, hair, and even skin; its structure and characteristics the closest her body had available to the flexible and durable internal armor she had seen and experienced during her fight with the monstrous eel.

As it always did, the foreign knowledge that appeared in her mind whenever she used the skill didn’t wait too long to resurface from the folds of her subconscious, immediately confirming that she was correct in her assumption.

This time, however, that stream of information was offered in the form of whispering words that reverberated strangely in her mind, their language unknown to her but still replete with everything she would need for the process; the murmurs leaving her with a sensation that was a mix between physical and mental fullness.

Oh damn, I don’t know if I like the changes,she whispered in her mind, It’s like talking with that thing all over again…

Nonetheless, as soon as she was certain that the cells were the right ones, Alice forced herself to shy away from those uneasy thoughts and, instead, made sure to check the nutritional reserves her body had available to produce what she needed, silently dreading a repeat of what had happened when she was rebuilding her bones.

She was therefore extremely surprised when she discovered the vast amounts of vitamins that, along with proteins and other minor components, had been stored throughout her body and that, even in that very moment, were being harvested from the remnants of her previous meals, still being digested in her stomach and intestines.

I knew I would need proteins but I guess that the fruit must have contained whatever else the cells required, she pondered as she hastened the keratin production, gradually moving those completed building blocks through the layers, away from the surface of the body, and towards the dermis.

While the cells kept synthetizing and storing more keratin, Alice started forming a completely new structure between the bottom of the dermis and the layer of subcutaneous fat, using that line of demarcation to maintain a steady position while her brain worked to form into reality the picture in her mind.

As time passed, the proteins started slowly congealing into what would become a durable mesh of interlocking strips of nail-like tissue that, much like chain mail was used in the Middle Ages to protect from slashing sword blows and glancing arrows, would hopefully prevent some of the weaker attacks she received from reaching the inner parts of the body.

It’s not metal, that’s for sure, she reminded herself as she worked, trying to remain realistic, but I’m definitely going to be more protected against sharp nails and rocks at the very least. I just need to keep this up.

As Alice was soon reminded, however, the process was not an easy one.

The two layers she was working betwixt weren’t perfectly separate but instead connected by the hundreds of different cells, nerves and organelles that traveled from one to the other, their presence constantly forcing her to change the shape of the structure and the way it interacted with the surrounding tissues, sometimes spending precious minutes and resources to reroute some of the obstacles to prevent the protective layer from weakening too much, the displaced vessels and organelles moving along with the mesh and snaking through the gaps in order to maintain those previous connections.

Thankfully for her and her sanity, the design she had created in her mind was quite forgiving and, much like when she had first started reinforcing and recreating her bones, the initial structure was almost as thin as a hair, a feeble web of proteins that seemed to be on the verge of splitting with every twitch made by the muscles of her body but that easily stretched, splayed and deformed when it was needed.

She was pretty proud of her work despite all the setbacks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first, she made the initial protection end right at the knuckles of her hands, leaving untouched her fingers; and at the shoulders and hips, where she had initially decided to stop to first observe how the structure worked.

By the time she was finished with the first draft of the process, however, Alice quickly decided to continue with the rest of the body before improving on the design, soon creating an almost continuous layer of paper-thin keratin strips that, from the bottom of her feet, reached up to her neck, only avoiding her head and some of the more delicate parts of her body that she decided to keep unchanged, not only because she didn’t want to alter too much of her appearance, but also as a matter of practicality, the skin there being too thin and soft for the protection to be of any use.

I’d rather keep my face the way it currently is, she thought to herself as she observed the rather substantial changes, after all, if something is going to slash at it I’m going to regret it either way.

Many hours had likely passed as she worked but, thanks to her enhanced physique, Alice didn’t feel particularly tired, her own magic having been spent so perfectly over time that it had managed to replenish as it was being used, the reservoir remaining almost full the whole time.

Thus, as soon as the first draft had finally come to a conclusion, she immediately set out to improve on it, continuously using those strange, insightful whispers to modify the structure wherever it was needed, making it so that it wouldn’t prevent any movement once it got thicker while also providing as much protection as it could offer.

As she worked on improving the design, she also proceeded to direct the countless keratin molecules that were being produced to the places that most required it, making sure to make the strips only as bulky as they needed to be, some of them remaining less than a millimeter in thickness while others growing as much as she was comfortable with; their dense hardness pressing strangely under her skin and pushing back against her muscles whenever she made them twitch.

By the time she was done with the design, Alice was unhappily looking at the way the layers interacted between themselves, displeasure filling her mind as she observed her skin strain against the armored mesh even when she didn’t move; the hard, nail-like material already shearing through the softer tissues like a metal wire through clay.

This is not enough, she swore, I need to make it work somehow. I know I can do it. I just need something more.

Leaving her recent creation to grow on its own, she moved deeper into her body and roamed its organs and systems in search of something that could offer her what she would need, suddenly stopping, almost by chance, in one of the interstitial zones between her ribs and the sternum, her eyes immediately landing on the thick, bluish-white cartilage that kept the two bones interconnected, a bit of hope blooming in her chest when she felt at the tough but springy texture of that gel.

I think I have my winner.

Excitement filling her mind, she quickly found the surprisingly sparse cells that were tasked with the production of that material and, after spending a long time to learn their structure and inner workings, she started replicating them over the keratin strips, smiling in satisfaction when they instantly began producing a thin and transparent coat of cartilage right over the armored mesh, gradually easing the way the rigid material pushed against her flesh, the feeling more muted in her perception despite the layer being even thicker than before.

While that took place, Alice also proceeded to strengthen the skin itself, quickly accessing her enhanced sinew, derived from Spear Spider silk, and using that improved design as a base for the proteins that formed her epidermis.

As soon as she began experimenting with those microscopic changes, she was surprised to discover that the structural modifications she wanted to make were much easier to enact than before, the proteins reacting far quicker and more smoothly to her bidding, leaving her with a working—and clearly improved—design in no more than an hour.

Mhhh, maybe that new skill is not so bad after all.

Finally content with what she had created, Alice left her body to change by itself, her hazel and silver eyes opening to the leafy undergrowth of the verdant forest, her back still pressed against the grassy carapace of the beetle while birds and insects filled her ears with their songs.

Feeling the gentle slithering of Basil over her arm, her hand went to grasp at the lithe reptile, only to stop on its tracks when her digits pressed lightly on her forearm, a shiver running down her spine at the foreign texture she was perceiving.

Lowering her eyes, she dumbfoundedly stared at her new skin, surprised despite being the one responsible for those changes.

The pale skin of her arms was already much smoother than it had been, strangely reflecting the few rays of sunlight that managed to pass through the lush canopy over her head. Whenever she flexed a muscle or pressed against it with a finger, however, Alice could see a completely different texture appear from underneath, revealing the still-thickening but already visible net of keratin strips pushing through and moving along with her dermis and epidermis, ready to prevent an attack from sinking deeper into her flesh.

“Oh damn, that’s going to take a while to get used to,” she murmured as she picked up her snake, watching it coil around her wrist and raise its head to stare straight into her eyes, its forked tongue flicking out of its mouth every now and then, tasting the smells contained in the air.

“Hi Basil, was everything all right? I’m not sure how long I’ve been down but it must have been at least a day… did anything strange happen?” she asked, enjoying the way the creature swayed along with her words, hissing when she stopped, almost as if it was replying.

Patting it gently on the head, she stretched her arms, trying to warm up her cold muscles as she prepared to get up on her feet, ignoring her pet as it started slithering back down towards her torso, believing it to simply be happy to finally move around a bit.

It was only when it started repeatedly sliding up and down her right calf that she looked at it once again in annoyance, the sensation far too ticklish for her liking.

“Could you sto—” she started saying, the words dying in her throat when she finally spotted her bare ankles, completely devoid of their vegetal bindings, their shriveled up forms laying on the ground just a few centimeters away.

As if zapped by lightning, Alice sprung up to her feet and rushed through the trees, moving away from the clearing and towards her belongings, starting to pick them up in a hurry while she got ready to run as far away as possible from the massive titan.

It was only after taking a couple of steps that the overburdened woman finally stopped, her eyes moving back to the barely-visible clearing and the immobile creature waiting for her.

“Ah, dammit,” she finally swore, stomping back to the beetle and letting everything she owned crash on the ground in a mess of silk, metal and vegetal fibers right in front of the massive compound eye of the massive monster, swearing even more when the unfinished rope started tangling with itself.

With a huff, she made sure that everything was intact and then, without saying a single word to the titan, she started once again climbing over the huge exoskeleton, her hands gripping on the lush grass while her legs easily pushed her upwards until, finally, Alice found herself in the middle of the small grove of crystals that, like transparent arrows, poked through the beetle’s shell, reflecting and refracting the sunlight in countless directions, a strange calm filling her chest despite the mess of emotions flowing through her brain.

It was time to fulfill her promise.

--------------------------------------------------------

With a sigh, Alice approached the first of the remaining crystals, a chunk no larger than her calf that was however embedded particularly deep, the line of demarcation between the two materials hidden by a circle of weeds that she quickly ripped away without effort, clearing a small circle around the ancient wound before grasping the object with both of her hands, a barely audible crystal escaping her lips when she started pulling on it, using the strength of her enhanced muscles to slowly and carefully remove the surprisingly long and heavy shard from the creature’s flesh, a small shiver making the ground tremble under her feet while the omnipresent magical energy circulating in the clearing rippled wildly, some of the smaller plants around the shell instantly decaying and growing back in a matter of minutes.

The moment the fragment was removed from the entry wound, the bore was filled with the resin-like blood of the creature, its greenish hue turning darker and thicker as time passed, coagulating into a thick scab that would probably turn into armor over time.

In the meanwhile, she moved to the next target, repeating the action and wincing when the spike was accompanied with a sickly slurping sound, her hands already covered in fluids.

Nonetheless, over the course of a few hours, Alice sweated and swore as she pulled out crystal spike after crystal spike, her forehead and back quickly covered in beads of sweat that trickled along the shape of her rippling muscles and drenched her silken clothes while she worked; her newly-enhanced skin glinting under the rays of sunlight and revealing the silk-like quality of the modified proteins that composed the tissue.

It was mid-afternoon when, after a few long hours of tireless work, she finally found herself standing in front of the largest spike, the one she had left for last, her expression one of utter uncertainty as she stared at the massive crystal reaching up to her neck, a clear sign of the size of the shard embedded in the creature’s flesh.

“I guess it’s time to see what happens,” she said as she gently pried her pet from her body, placing it in the grass a couple of meters away and smiling when the tiny reptile rose from the green blades and stared at her from its spot, content to stay there and wait.

Fidgeting a bit with her hands, she approached the jagged crystal and sized it up once again before suddenly turning around and stomping closer to the large horned head of the titan, stomping a couple of times on the ground before shouting as loudly as she could.

“I still don’t know if you can understand me,” she screamed, “but this is likely going to hurt a whole lot. Get ready.”

With a final deep breath, Alice moved as close as she could to the translucent pillar and literally hugged it, creating as much contact surface as she could with her hands and arms, feeling the cold material pressing against her skin while its edges, once sharp enough to cut her, only pressed unpleasantly against her flesh, sliding on the smooth silk-like epidermis.

Bending her knees in an almost perfect deadlift pose, she inhaled as much oxygen into her lungs as she could and felt her chest press against the glassy material before starting to lift, her body immediately halted by the seemingly immovable obstacle she was fighting against; the muscles of her legs, back, shoulders and arms immediately starting to bulge from under her skin as she attempted to pull it out while her complexion turned a deep red, her blood hastily pumped straight into her muscles, consuming glucose and oxygen in massive quantities to keep up with the incredible effort.

After a couple of seconds that felt like hours, under her feet something finally gave out, a shiver once again shaking the exoskeleton as a deep rumble echoed from the inside of the rhinoceros beetle’s body, the incredibly deep sound making the air in her lungs vibrate with the soundwaves as the shard emerged by a couple of centimeters, instantly placing most of its considerable weight on her own body.

Her knees popped painfully as her legs were pushed downwards along with the rest of her body, a straining groan escaping her lips as she fought back against the relentless gravity, sweat already trickling down her shivering body.

Stilling in that position, she ignored her trembling thighs to inhale as much air as she could, her eyes focused on the crystal a couple of centimeters away from her nose as she prepared for the next push.

With a scream, Alice let the magic contained in her reservoir circle through her body, along with her bones and through her shivering muscles, letting it nourish them and push them further as she started lifting once again, her bulging muscles pushing so much against the skin that a perfect silhouette of the armored mesh appeared all over her flesh, the thin layer of cartilage she had built over it the only thing preventing the hard keratin from slicing through the softer tissues and exposing the muscles underneath.

The crystal rose a few more centimeters while a dark, multicolored ichor started spewing from the wound, covering the ground and her feet with a warm lymph that smelled of chlorophyll and copper. Unseen by the girl, the forest around them started changing, the magic released by the titan affecting the trees around it, their leaves changing color, falling and growing back again while the ground underneath was repeatedly covered in decaying and blooming plants, the temperature raising significantly and causing a warm fog of vapor to rise up to the dome, coating it with a layer of condensation that immediately started raining back down on the ground below, creating a concentrated weather cycle that she didn’t even notice, too focused on the herculean task she was trying to complete.

Unable to even think coherently, Alice moved some of the magical energy freely flowing through her body into her brain, activating a massive Aestus that caused her body to be filled with adrenaline, her weakening muscles suddenly strong once again, her pupils dilating and her already frantic heartbeat quickening once again, the pumping so fast and strong that it would have probably damaged the cardiac muscle if she hadn’t already enhanced it.

With an animalistic grunt, Alice suddenly let go of her coiled muscles and literally pushed the crystal upwards, feeling them release all their energy at the same time as she liberated the crystalline pillar from its ancient sheath while every blood vessel in her eyes and nose broke from the pressure, a massive gush of blood flowing out of her nostrils as her ears popped and a floaty feeling in her head made her stumble on her feet.

As she teetered on the brink of unconsciousness; the huge, meters-long shard finally slid out of its hole and thudded right beside it, a fountain of the beast’s ichor flowing out of the now-open wound and streaming down the hill while the crazed shiver continued, the insect’s six legs spasming and twitching on the ground, digging through the soil and pulverizing the stone underneath while it attempted to recover from her operation, the flora around it acting just as crazily in the meanwhile.

As all that happened, Alice dropped on the ground, feeling the light-headed blankness of oblivion attempt to get a hold of her, barely pushing it away as she laid down on her back, some of her muscles already attempting to repair themselves after the excessive strain while she shivered, hysterical chuckles shaking her panting chest all the while.

She elected to take a couple of minutes of break.