Catherine smirked, tension building in her body. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered in delight. Oh, how she missed this feeling, it had been too long since she felt despair from someone. She reveled in the intoxicating sensation. This cat was just too easy of a mark, and a bonus was she got something useful out of it.

To be honest, she was unsure if she could morph into something she hadn’t eaten before. Testing it in this relatively safe space were only lifeless machines passed by was an ideal chance, the only negative was now she had to drag the unconscious Nyoka around. She shrugged, then had her body perform basic movements to see if it would hold it’s shape. Satisfied it didn’t bend unnaturally, lose shape, or collapse entirely she nodded to herself.

She then compared her body to Nyoka’s. Lifting up a her limbs to compare, prodding at certain areas, and making sure their wasn’t any weird discolorations. Satisfied with her inspection and the positive results that she was a perfect copy, besides the hair color which she preferred it to stay white to match her actual slime coloring, she wondered how far she could push this ability of hers.

She imagined Dolan, the annoying little imp of a dungeon master and tried to morph into her. She pictured her dimensions in her mind and her current body lost form, attempting to morph into the imp. She got shorter, ears growing out and two horns popped out from her head. Catherine felt her body solidify into a more solid form, and figured she was done but… it felt off.

She looked down and immediately noticed the problem, her entire body was jagged, bumpy, it lacked a defined form. She raised her arm to inspect it, the color was right, the length was right, but it was crooked? It also lacked the definition of her elbows, and did she have five fingers? Speaking of extra limbs… Catherine turned around, a thin and fluffy white furred cat tail greeted her vision “She definitely didn’t have a tail…”

Catherine started to feel worried, she glanced at the unconscious Nyoka and tried to morph into a copy of her again, a much clearer image entering her mind and after a moment and a fast inspection she was once again an exact copy of the cat thief. she breathed a sigh of relief, thankful she didn’t have to repeat the earlier process. “So I either have to eat the creature or do a detailed examination…” She said, gathering a deeper understanding of her shapeshifting skill.

She also figured that she could make small changes to anything they can mimic, like how she was already doing with hair color, height, or partially morphing her body parts. How far she could push this… would have to be tested later. She was curious to see if she could mimic another human she has yet to eat using another human as a base but she figured it wouldn’t work without the finer details, anyone that knew the person could probably tell something was *off* about how they looked.

Catherine picked the unconscious Nyoka up and proceeded down the passageway, every once in awhile glancing towards the flying machines overhead. She walked for a few minutes, idly morphing one of her hands into different forms to stave off the boredom before finally reaching a massive gate that, frankly, lead into what she could only describe as organized chaos.

The passageway opened up into what Nyoka described earlier, an open highway that dwarfed the one Catherine experienced when they were riding that vehicle to the dungeon section, and as mentioned, a whole lot more chaotic. Countless machines of different shapes and sizes flew haphazardly, weaving passed each other, barely colliding as they made their way to their destinations. Zooming in and out of smaller passages connected to the highway.

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“So this is the guts…” She said in a low voice, amazed at the high some of these machines were going and still managing to not collide into each other. Even if one suddenly stopped to make a 90 degree turn, the machines would just adjust themselves and fly around them. “So how do we…” she looked for a way to navigate this area. Thinking they could just hitch a ride on another containment cell she watched as one immediately picked up speed as it exited the passageway and soon she lost track of it.

“OK, that’s a no go.” She then looked to see if they could walk along the walls, several pipes did line the walls but with how long this highway was it would take forever to reach anywhere, speaking of which. Catherine reached to her shoulder, picking up Nyoka and moving her in front of her and started shaking her rapidly “Wake up! Time for you to do your job!” Catherine yelled.

Nyoka started to stir, then her eyes shot open “h-h-huh, what, h-h-he-stop! I’m awake!” Nyoka, sshakily replied before she was cruelly dropped to the ground. Landing on the ground she let out a yelp as she bit her tongue. Whimpering she looked up at her copy, frowning “stho it wasthnth a dreamph.”

Catherine’s cat ears twitched, she then smirked and pointed to the highway “we are here, were to?” She asked

She turned around, her eyes widening “Oh, we are… “ She said, taking it all in.

“Why do you sound so surprised? Didn’t you say it would lead here?”

Nyoka snapped back to Catherine “Yes I did! It’s just… my first time seeing the guts, OH but I can still figure out where we need to go! Don’t worry!”

Catherine looked at her suspiciously, not really believing her “right… so where to?”

“Right!” Nyoka scrambled to her feet, ignoring how she felt seeing Catherine make that look with her face she ran over to the edge of the passageway. She looked around and frowned “None of these gates are labeled…”

“Problem?” Catherine asked, walking up beside her.

Nyoka jumped, but calmed herself “uhm, I figured I could figure out where we are if I just looked at a gate to see where it went but…”

Catherine looked for herself, looking across the highway to the nearest gate and just as Nyoka had said, despite the numerous machines going in and out, it wasn’t labeled. Curious, she stuck her head out further and looked above the gate they were in, and she could barely make out some faded symbols. “Huh, not that it isn’t labeled, the labels have faded.” She said.

Nyoka looked for herself, inspecting the same spot and finding she was unable to read the faded symbols “For it to be this faded… “

“Hey, how old is this ship, anyways?” Catherine asked, glancing at the cat girl.

Nyoka shrugged “Don’t know, but people don’t come down here, if they do they would have a map so… guess there was no need to relabel anything.”

Now watching the machine traffic, Catherine just shrugged “Welp,” she jumped down from the ledge, landing on a pipe just below them.

“What are you doing?” Nyoka asked “We have no clue where we are going!”

“Yeah, but you have an idea of where we need to, right?” Catherine asked, “No use wasting our time here, lets just find a gate that looks promising, and if you don’t recognize anything we just come back and try again.”

“Yeah but…” Nyoka looked into the guts, it would take hours, days even, to potentially reach anywhere useful. She worryingly placed a hand on her belly at the thought of how long it could take.

“Do you have a better idea?” Catherine asked, watching the girl shake her head she sighed “So let’s get walking.”

With no other choice, Nyoka climbed down from the ledge, landing onto the pipe and followed Catherine. As their long trek down the guts commenced.