I had literally had nightmares about something like this fight. The Kickadas were ridiculously fast and they leaped at me from every angle. Their scythes cut my steel body a centimeter deep with every hit—fortunately, I was covered in eight centimeters of steel, so it didn't matter too much. It still hurt.

Their wings were just as dangerous as the scythes; they hit hard enough to knock me down. Granted, that was easy to do since I had two damn watermelons on my chest that were always on the edge of overbalancing me. I needed to shrink those down if I wanted to be able to fight. Or walk. Superhero comic book artists were pigs.

"Waaa-CHAW!" one of them shrieked, leaping at me with its hind foot extended. I ducked aside and swung, wrapping my right arm all the way around the Kickada. I pulled it in, slamming it against the barbed spikes on my chest and stomach, and then yanked it down so that its head scraped across me. The gelatinous body wasn't much bothered by piercing or cutting attacks, but as soon as the chitin on their head or limbs was breached they died amid a fountain of disgusting black blood. I was soaked head to toe in the stuff and could barely see.

"That is just wrong," Carl grunted. I glanced over to make sure he was still leaning on the doorjamb of the saferoom, out of the way.

The Kickadas were ten levels below us but the moment I engaged them it was clear that they were a bad match-up for Carl. One hit from a scythe would have cut him in half. One hit from a wing would have broken his spine. He could have killed any one of them—they were all offense, no defense and he hit so hard they would have exploded—and he could have easily taken the whole group by using his Protective Shell and a boomjug. Still, they didn't fight one-on-one and they came from too many directions for him to defend against without using his once per day magic.

"What's wro—crap!" A Kickada had jumped on me from behind, knocking me down on my face.

"Katia!" Donut cried, blasting the Kickada in the head with a Magic Missile. Carl started to move forward.

"Stay back! It's fine. I got this!" It wasn't the first time they had knocked me down. I was a lot stronger than they were and could have pushed myself to my feet and kept up the melee. Instead, I lay down. It was time to show off my new trick.

Six more of the Kickadas were around me, trying to find a way to bite or kick without hurting themselves on my spikes. I made it easy for them, retracting the spikes and allowing myself to melt downwards, slumping into a puddle that spread out across the floor of the hall. It hurt to shift this quickly into a non-preset form. I really needed to upgrade my makeup table so I could have a few more presets. It was going to hurt even more because I had tossed the shoes into my inventory; couldn't afford to have feet right now because they would become attention-drawing targets and I wasn't sure I could protect them and still meet the AI's standards of sexiness.

As soon as the spikes were gone the rest of the Kickadas, maybe a dozen of them, leaped on top of me and started slashing and stabbing with their scythes. It didn't matter; I only needed to protect one side now, so I was able to keep a thick layer of dwarf metal on top of me. They could cut furrows in it but they couldn't penetrate to my actual flesh and I could close the furrows fast enough that they couldn't focus on one spot.

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"You sure you're okay?" Carl asked nervously.

I couldn't speak in this form, so I couldn't respond verbally. Also, my eyes were underneath me so I couldn't see what the Kickadas were doing. That was okay. I could feel them on top of me, and I could see their locations on my minimap.

Katia: Can't talk in this shape but I'm fine. Watch this. I wasn't going to mention the pain currently shooting through me from the damn shoes not being equipped. I didn't have a human form right now so the pain was simply everywhere.

"Let us know if you need help," Donut called.

I watched my minimap and waited until all of the the Kickadas were standing on my topside, chopping furiously away, and then I showed Carl and Donut why I was so excited about my transformation speed.

I could go from 1cm puddle to 166cm woman in two seconds. That was 83 cm in one second. Or, alternatively, 16.6 cm in two-tenths of a second.

The Kickadas, all but three of them, shrieked in agony as steel spears lanced up through their feet. I shrieked too, the pain of transforming that quickly feeling as though I had stuck my arms into giant garbage disposals. I ignored it and transformed further, unfurling the sides of the spears into dozens of sharpened barbs before yanking the whole construct back down into my main mass. The Kickadas' lower bodies were shredded; black goo flew everywhere and the insects collapsed like string-cut puppets.

Three of the Kickadas shrieked in surprise, not agony. Instead of lances I had erected shackles, steel bands that sprang up, looped around their feet, and linked back into my main mass. I was too slow with one of them; he leapt off as I started to transform, clinging to the ceiling and chittering down at me. The other two went into overdrive, chopping frantically at the metal in a desperate attempt to escape, but I thickened it, flowing more and more metal up to stay ahead of the cuts that they were making. It hurt like hell to shift that fast but I ignored it, reaching higher and higher until they were wearing six-centimeter-thick boots made of me. Of my dwarven steel.

At that point I stopped and rested. My whole body was screaming in pain at how quickly and massively I had shifted, and the shoes were causing me pain in joints that I did not currently have, which was making me queasy.

You aren't really hurt, I told myself. It was only pain, and the part that came from shifting was fading quickly. Besides, it must have looked amazing. I would get viewers out of this, right? Was this what you wanted, you disgusting aliens? You wanted violence and oversexualized caricatures of the human body, right? None of what made humanity great. None of Monet or Picasso or Rembrandt. No, you wanted sex and violence and death, you bastards.

Calm.

The Kickada on the ceiling was still there, skittering back and forth and clicking angrily. The other one, the one I had trapped, was getting tired; its attacks were slowing down and it was panting.

"Fuck you, bitch," it whined, finally going still. "Fucking aimbot bitch. Fucking hax, bitch. Fucking fuck."

Katia: Donut, feel free to shoot the one on the ceiling. Give me a couple minutes to get mine wrapped up.

"You got it, Katia!" Zorp! went the spell. Splut went the gelatinous dead body, splashing against the floor.

Slowly, I expanded myself upwards, wrapping metal around more and more of the Kickadas. I took my time, shifting slowly enough that it was only uncomfortable instead of painful. It was probably ten minutes before I had the things fully encased in a thick metal mesh and under control. I completely covered their eyes but I left their mouths clear; I wasn't sure if they breathed through the mouth like a person or through the body like an insect. Either way, they weren't doing anything to us while covered in a net of steel.

"Wow, Katia," Carl said, grinning. "That was totally metal."

"Damnit, Carl!" Donut yelped. "You stole my line!"