I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see and I probably looked like a fucked up Greek statue from the outside. Great. I tried to wriggle around and while it worked this shit weighed… A LOT.
C’mon OP adaptation, work with me here! I don’t mind having a bit more protection but at this rate I’ll end up as a chew toy for anything that passes by! I tried to focus on my body. Original Doomsday couldn’t control his regular adaptation too much… I think, but I do remember him being able to create the bone spikes and shit on command.
I’d bet that bone was exactly what this was made out of, I closed my eyes and tried to feel the ‘armor’ I was entombed in. Little by little I could sense it, starting from my head and slowly making my way down… It was thick, like… the thickness of a regular human hand. Too damn thick… slim down and compress please… or maybe create 2 separate layers? I felt like I couldn’t get rid of it but some changes could be accomplished.
I tried to create a more flexible yet still tough underside… It worked but took all of my concentration to pull off… and I couldn’t even do it everywhere, just the joints and crotch since I sure as hell didn’t want a bony diaper… pretty sure it gave me a nosebleed too, guess Doomsday was never known for his amazing feats of brain power.
I stiffly hopped up, I was hoping for x-ray vision or something but it was still all black, I guess I didn’t prioritize sight enough- that changes now though, while I tried to get used to weighing about 5 times more than before I focused on honing my senses… I figured out very quickly that I was probably effectively deaf at the moment too.
I got back hearing way before I got back any ‘sight’, I didn’t get any holes for my ears or grow any new ones on the outside but I felt both sides of my head shifting and changing before- faint noises of my surroundings filtered in, river water over there, wind blowing here, it was noticeably quieter than my sense of hearing before but hey, a success is a success.
I still kept focusing on my senses, even though I had one back I wasn’t planning on being like that girl from Avatar and just sensing my surroundings while still being blind. Aaand I have another sense, again not sight… I’d felt my face changing before- Bam! I could ‘see’ the electrical signals emitted by every living thing in my vicinity. I could see the tree’s around me, the ants along the ground… and the crocodile in the water which was inching toward me… yeah nope.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
I used the trees as a guide to walk further up the river away from the sneaky bastard. If I wasn’t wrong this was a sense sharks had? I forgot the name but I remember the funny looking ones (Hammerheads I think) had a really strong version of it. Well… next! Listen adaptation, these senses are great and all but if the next one isn’t sight I think I’m gonna end up with sensory overload.
And the next sense… was not sight yet again. I felt something change internally… I swear if I get echolocation while still being stuck inside this…
It was thankfully not echolocation… though I almost wish it was now. I’d suddenly grown 2 dreads similar to the predator out the back of my head! They were quickly covered in bone with small gaps here and there… and good lord my prediction of sensory overload came true!
These things were a damn smorgasbord of senses, my electrical senses were boosted, I could also detect movement from the leaves swaying around me and I could ‘taste’ the air as well as feel its flow. This doesn’t sound too bad but lets run through this- boosted electrical senses? Before I could sense everything within maybe 20 meters… now? I’d walked a good distance away from that crocodile from earlier and I could once again sense it! That had to be almost 300 meters!
The movement of the leaves and air though sounding similar were very different, I sensed the leaves through movement and the air through… pressure maybe? But this made it so I now had both these senses plus the aforementioned electrical sense running at full blast, if that wasn’t bad enough being able to smell everything around me including the intensive rot of the underbrush was making me feel like I was having the worst headache of my life.
I persevered through the headache to try and dial some of the senses back… they may be good for certain situations but if they’re on constantly I’d rather tear off my new dreads than suffer through this bullshit. Thankfully it seems my immediate dislike and thoughts of self mutilation prompted a change, I felt the senses recede. I knew they were still there if I needed them but now felt that I could enable or disable them at will. Good thing too cos I was about to vomit from the smells and being still locked into my bony prison would have made that a horrible way to die.
I went back to my earlier attempt to focus on my senses… this time I focused even harder on being able to see, my eyes looking ready to bore a hold in my armor. This time it took way longer for something to change. It felt like my eyes were being modified… over and over again. I could already see in the dark and long distances usually, I wonder what I’d be able to see if I didn’t have this bony helmet covering up my head.
The changes continued for a long time. I knew it switched to night from how cold it got… so a few hours of sitting here at least. I noted these details but didn’t stop focusing on what was important, I wouldn’t be leaving here until I could see again. I half achieved my goal- I got ‘an eye’ but not what I was looking for, I think it was a light sensor? Probably that, a few appeared all over my body, I could use them to measure the ambient light level but saying I could see was a stretch. I disabled them and continued sitting.
I stayed sitting while going through many different sight options, 1 day gone… 5 days gone, on the 6th day I finally achieved my goal… right as the sun was rising I was actually just able to see it… X-ray vision achieved!