I tunneled into the smasher titan's chest like a reverse chest-burster. The more I thought about it, the more that felt like a fitting comparison. We're both alien monsters, apparently, so why not? I'd somehow managed to both largely ignore the existential implications of that revelation and also adapt way too quickly. It also didn't take me long to stuff my entire body through the impromptu orifice I'd created. Despite our size difference, something like that would have already killed a normal creature, but Anathema didn't play by the same rules. All I'd done so far was piss it off.

  Consider it payback. While my newfound durability meant I wasn't even close to incapacitated by getting pancaked, I'd be lying if I said it didn’t still hurt. The upside, though, was that it had given me a good starting reference for how much abuse my new body could take. Thank you, Mr. Titan. It would have been really annoying if I found out way later that I'd been putting effort into dodging a bunch of shit I didn't really need to.

  Like guns, for instance. A whole-body crushing was more than a bit different from a small, high speed projectile, that was true—but it made me confident I could test getting shot at some point. There will be time for that later. Stay focused.

  Staying focused turned out to be easy. I just had to surrender my desires over to my hunger, and my hunger would do the rest.

  Slipping back into that feral, semi-conscious state was easier than I would have liked. Before long, I'd lost track of the outside world. I didn't even know which way was up. All I knew was heat, and wetness, and the rippling pressure of flesh twitching and squirming against every side of me. It was quite intense, but it was also nothing compared to getting blasted halfway into the ground earlier. Besides, I could just eat my way through it. I was eating my way through it. Where does it all go?

  I wasn't sure. I was sure that I'd chewed through more than my own weight in smasher flesh, though, but I don't think I'd gotten meaningfully bigger. I was like an earthworm, chewing my own tunnel through the soil. Even putting aside the blatant conservation of mass violations, it was strange that I could eat so much so quickly. Like, I'm pretty sure a human being is physically incapable of chewing and swallowing at this rate—or size. I wonder if that has something to do with whatever transformation happened to my face?

  It was hard to tell at the moment, given that I was in the middle of doing my best parasitic worm impression. It was so good, and there was just so much of it that I was starting to get rather lightheaded. There was also a growing burning sensation, which was concerning, but not enough for me to bother addressing it. Too much good food. I just kept clawing my way forward, devouring anything in the way—until finally, I got my first breath of air again. My chest heaved. My head was spinning, and that burning feeling hit me in full force.

  Oh shit. Was I suffocating the whole time?

  I'm pretty sure I was. I'd sort of forgotten that living things mostly didn't have any air inside of them. I'm sure there were some kinds of Anathema that would be an exception, but not this one. It also seemed like I still needed to breathe. Or at least it's still beneficial. I didn't know how long I'd been inside of the titan, but it felt like at least a couple minutes. I also knew that Anathema tended to have powerful healing abilities.

  The general tendency for Anathema to regenerate from extreme injury with supernatural speed was another widely known basic. It was the reason why a significant portion of Guardians specialized in abilities that would continue inflicting damage over time. The goal there was to stop the Anathema from regenerating, making the rest of the fight much easier. The same went for anti-Anathema weaponry, as well, to a lesser degree. Without the esoteric abilities available to Guardians, it was usually more effective to obliterate a threat with overwhelming destructive power. That wasn't always an option, though, and chemical weapons had made a surprising comeback.

  It wasn't surprising that everyone started using them again when the situation changed enough that they were actually practical, because that's why everyone stopped using them in the first place. It was kind of the opposite of nukes, in a way—against anything except Anathema, there were a whole bunch of reasons why chemical weapons were basically just crap.

  But I digress.

  It looked like I'd succeeded in taking down the titan. Fully extricating myself from what remained of it was a rather disgusting affair. The only good thing about it was that none of the green-black blood stuck to me—or rather, to the weird metal plating now covering almost every inch of my body. That was new. Wait, shit. Did anyone see me?

  I didn't know what would be worse—the other two really having run off, leaving me with the titan, or that they might have just seen me eat my way back out of the damn thing, covered in some kind of metallic monster shell. Looking around, it seemed like I was momentarily safe from prying eyes, as the enormous smasher had flopped over on its side. The bulk of the dead Anathema blocked any sight from the other side.

  The first order of business, then, was to deal with my unexpected new look. I seemed to have gained a lot more metal, but it definitely wasn't the same substance. It was darker and duller, and, in some sense, looked far cruder. The burnished gold stuff was what still tipped my claws, but there was actually less of it there. That was because about half of it had migrated to other places around my body, forming small conduits running across the surface of my alien, armored body.

  The fact that I'd gained a tremendous amount of a very different kind of metal had to be significant, as was the observation that the original gold-like bits looked ever so slightly lighter and more polished. Also significant was the fact that I had zero interest in eating any other part of the dead titan. It had been positively delicious, very different from the humans I definitely took a bite out of earlier, and in some ways it was even more satisfying. But now, when I looked at it, it looked about as tasty as dirt. Not so much unappetizing as uninteresting.

  It has to have something to do with the fact that it's dead now, right? That was the only explanation I could think of. But that doesn't even make sense, because I remember Mr. Trousers looked super tasty, and that was before Sidekick made him get up again with her weird necromancer power. There was, of course, a major difference there—Mr. Trousers had been human. So humans taste good dead or alive, but Anathema are only good alive?

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  I had no idea why that would be the case. It was a starting point, though, and I really didn't have the time to think about it any longer. I needed to deal with making myself look less like a monster again.

  The crude, dark gray metal that now covered me looked more like a biological exoskeleton than any kind of artificial armor. That's probably because it is... but that's not really the impression I want it to give. Guardians wore all kinds of crazy equipment, much of it violently anachronistic, so a full suit of plate probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows. By this point, I was also starting to get a sense of the overall image I needed to portray.

  My ability to succeed in combat had relied on being strong, resilient, and good at tearing through shit at close range. I didn't know if my nature as a chamelium would grant me any more esoteric abilities than that, but I felt like what I had was already a strong start. It put me squarely into the role of a front line powerhouse, so I should lean into that with my branding. Ha, look at me, already worrying about marketing myself as a Guardian. To be fair to myself, it matters way more for me, given the special circumstances.

  Naturally, all of that fit right in with my idea of making it look less like some kind of carapace and more like fantasy armor. Easy enough, but there's more than one way to play that, and it's not the only thing I'm leaning into. There was also the voice situation, and I'd handled that by pushing it into a celestial, angelic aesthetic. Blonde hair, blue eyes... I was also fucking tiny as well, and pretty feminine. Yep, we're definitely going full warrior angel with this one.

  I really hope the name Valkyrie isn't already taken. Nah, it totally is, don't kid yourself. Really, what I needed to hope for instead was that whoever had already claimed it wasn't powerful or important. Not that that's for any particular reason.

  I'd worry about that in due time. For now, I had work to do. I needed to get a decent prototype established for my look, and I needed to do it before anyone else showed up. I wasn't really sure where to start—maybe try figuring out what's going on with your face? That sounded like a good idea. Also, getting a proper look at myself would both make the design process easier and possibly give me some inspiration. The metal exoskeleton was hardly featureless, and if I were lucky, parts of it might already serve as a good starting point.

  I quickly dug a dinner-plate sized depression in the dirt. Then, I got down on my knees and started spitting into it. Had I still been working with regular, human saliva, the processes would have been laborious at best. That was no longer the case, though, and the mercury-like substance dripped out in fat globs. It took about thirty seconds to create a wide, continuous surface. It still wasn't very pleasant, though. "Blegh. Fucking gross. Decent enough mirror, though."

  Staring up at me from the rippling silver surface was a metal dragon. That's—I can't say what I would have expected, but it definitely wasn't that. Admittedly, 'dragon' wasn't truly accurate, but I didn't know what else to compare it to. My head remained surprisingly close to human, but that was only insofar as it retained the most general size and shape. My hair had become something closer to a frilly, lizard-like mane, and there was even a pair of thick, stubby horns.

  As for my face—well, the upper part around my eyes was the most human-looking part. Part of that was due to it being one of the only areas of my body that was still pinkish-white, although even the 'skin' there looked hard and artificial. The lower half, though—ha. It's like the human equivalent of a regular ass dog and some flat faced pug. But like, where normal humans are the pug. I tilted my head to the side to get a better look at it in profile. Wait. Oh, no. God fucking damn it. I'm literally just shaped like standard furry OC number fifty thousand, three hundred and sixty seven. Fuck.

  It could have been worse. At least I'm not fluffy. Or rocking a tropical skittles ass color palette.

  The rest of me wasn't especially draconic, thank God. If anything, it was more arthropod than reptilian. That being said, I was pleased to find that the several components of the look did provide a source of inspiration. It was clear from the beginning that I would be incorporating some kind of helmet, and the dragon shape proved strikingly close to a masked Valkyrie look. By shifting the horns further apart and morphing them into something like a cross between horns and miniature wings, I instantly transformed it into something already resembling a badass warrior lady. From there, most of what I did was just regularize the spikes and frills into something more strictly geometric. I also leaned into making the totally inhuman bottom portion even chunkier, which ironically humanized the whole thing by making it look more like a helmet or mask.

  All in all, the shift from dragon-kin to battle angel was super easy.

  I then went to work on the rest of my body. It was mostly the same, just less interesting and more tedious. Organic ridges straightened and stiffened into sharp-edged accents, the segmented portions barely needed any change at all, and bony protrusions warped into imposing couters, pauldrons, and whatever the kneecap part was. Hey, I feel like remembering the word for 'couter' is already more than anyone could reasonably ask for, here.

  I also cinched the waist a lot. That was important because, one, it was just how historical European armor tended to look, and two, it did a lot to emphasize femininity, especially in the context of more modern aesthetics. While I was at it, I resculpted the chest area and shaped myself a skirt-like tasset. I felt like playing up feminine features was genuinely important. It was the biggest thing I could do to humanize the whole look, and it would also go a long way towards the brand I'd decided I needed to pursue. Totally can't wait for the first keyboard warriors to call it impractical and somehow problematic.

  It was pretty much the opposite. I was taking the image I presented here very seriously.

  It wasn't perfect. There were a lot of ways it could still be better, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the best person to design something like this. Still, it looked a lot better than before. I felt ready to go out and face the world again—humans and Anathema both.

  And, given that I was now about to hunt down two other people in the middle of an incursion, that confidence was important. I'd seen more than one Anathema wander by while I was working, but they were mostly just more skinners and none ended up approaching. Fighting the smasher titan had been fun, and it had made me just a bit stronger. At the very least, it had given me some cool armor. Time to see what else this incursion has to offer. Oh, and also find Rambo and Sidekick.

  I wasn't about to forget the way she'd run off and abandoned me. I mean, sure, I basically did the exact same thing, and it was even on purpose. The difference there was that it was her, not me—and besides.

  It wasn’t like anyone else needed to know about that.

  Spotify Link

  1. Hunger (TheFatRat): barely needs explanation, this is just the perfect vibe in every possible way, main theme, title track, absolute cinema. Just perfect.

  2. Universe on Fire (Gloryhammer): this is how Alex feels when she starts having too much fun. (No that's not an understated way to say killing things. Like it also includes driving really fast on the highway or going clubbing.)

  3. Flight Of The Silverbird (Two Steps from Hell): For when Alex needs to Git Gud via a training arc.

  4. National Anathema Crime Awareness Week (Sparks): PoV Alex waking up and checking the news after she acted a little too silly.

  5. Archangel (Two Steps from Hell): PoV you finally defeated Alex's second phase but then a third health bar appears...