One of the students made a tiny yelp as the cave wraiths stopped fighting over whatever ragged remains they had pulled apart and slowly turned to “look” in their direction. Their eyes were large and bulbous but clouded over, suggesting blindness.

For a fleeting moment KickBack’s mind began to wander, thinking about what other senses the creatures might use; but he easily cast it aside as a remnant of Prime’s flightyness and lack of focus. KickBack was decidedly not Prime, as far as he was concerned, and wouldn’t allow himself to get lost like the source code often did.

A feeling of scolding tickled at the back of his mind and he casually looked over his shoulder to see Shrapnel mentally warning him. KickBack slightly dimmed his optic lights and barely nodded his head. While not always convenient, a wandering mind could be useful for discovering new solutions to things. KickBack would keep it in mind.

The cave wraiths weren’t speedy creatures in the shallow water. They threw their long, gangly arms forward and pulled their fish-like bodies along behind them, splashing and thrashing. They hissed, displaying large, gaping mouths lined with needle-like teeth and split lower jaws. How did they hunt, making so much noise and movement? What was their usual prey? It couldn’t be random students wandering through their territory.

“Ah, Oceapithecus Antrus... Or more commonly known as a Cave Wraith,” the Professor explained. “A distant cousin of modern merfolk known to inhabit underground river systems and caves. If memory serves, they are born with sight but are completely blind by adulthood, navigating by touch and minute vibrations in the air and water. They tend to be ambush predators in deeper waters or leave their caves for open waters to hunt. We should be fine in these shallow waters.”

“Two of them shouldn’t be too bad,” Long’er suggested doubtfully as she nervously flexed her claws.

“Yes, that’s odd isn’t it. They are highly communal, if sometimes cannibalistic, creatures that often will overwhelm their prey with numbers,” Rechts said, tapping a tooth in thought.

Numbers? Numbers... Shrapnel scanned the surface of the water around them. The ground beneath the water was uneven with dangerous pockets of deep water and even tunnels branching off. More of the creatures were slinking just under the surface, using the thrashing two as a distraction.

Shrapnel mentally cursed his inability to shout or make noise and launched himself off of Long’er’s horns. He collided midair with BombShell, flipping end over end. Pseudo claws in his feet clamped onto her shoulders, locking into hidden ports. Her lower half split apart and reconfigured into long legs as her back plating and armor shifted upwards to lock into Shrapnel, pulling his body down over hers. KickBack slammed into the pair, already prepped for combination. His long legs had converted into long arms, his feet changed into three fingered hands ending in steel claws. The new hands grabbed Shrapnel around the waist and thrust him inward as his own body split open to bite down on Shrapnel like a mechanical wolf jaw clamping down on prey.

The combination head of Swarm flipped out and snapped into place. The large, bulbous eyes of an insectoid predator blazed to life as if lit from within by green flames.

Notification log

SubRoutine consciousnesses aligning...

SubRoutine consciousnesses aligned...

Aligned SubRoutine consciousnesses given temp designation `Swarm`...

Unlocking all individual abilities and granting perms to `Swarm`...

...

`Swarm` is online

Swarm hung in the air, their three sets of wings buzzing loudly. Their head twitched as they assessed the situation, taking in as much information as possible. An attack from below. Swarm’s aura shield flared to life as the needle teeth of a cave wraith strained around them. Swarm’s shield might be much smaller in radius than those for the big folk but it was much, much thicker.

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Swarm looked at the insides of the cave wraith’s jaws with curiosity and casually lifted one of their upper arms. They extended a hand and shot twenty four flaming shuriken somewhere in the vicinity of where Swarm thought the cave wraith’s brain might be.

The first shuriken pierced a hole into the cave wraith’s head and out the other side with the remaining twenty three forcing the hole larger and larger. The corpse was slowing sliding off of the aura shield. Too slow. Swarm had other things to do, there was another attack coming from the side after all.

Swarm dropped the shield to let the thing fall away and brought the shuriken back with their telekinesis, swinging them around like a flaming whip. The spinning blades slashed across the hand of a lunging wraith, removing its fingers. It recoiled from the assault but Swarm threw themselves at it, slamming their small claws into its chest.

Swarm was curious. What would happen if Swarm created an aura shield around a different focal point. Swarm flung a hand in the direction of the wraith’s face and conjured a shield around its head. The thing thrashed and clawed at the shield. Did it breathe through its mouth? Swarm noticed gill slits along its ribs so maybe not. Blood. Blood couldn’t get through the shield and up to its brain, right? Swarm mentally chuckled to themselves at the thought, but it was too slow. Swarm was getting bored.

Instead of waiting around for the thing to die from a heart attack or lack of blood to its brain, Swarm wrapped the “whip” around its neck and sawed the head off. Yes. Efficiency would be better right now. Swarm could experiment some other time.

The severed head of the cave wraith hung in the air, floating in the aura shield bubble. Swarm giggled inwardly at the spectacle. It was hilarious. Swarm threw the head at the next closest wraith and plunged themselves under the surface. The flames went out around the shrunken, of course, but that was fine.

One had tried to sneak past Swarm and get to the students. Naughty naughty. Swarm punched their upper arms into the wraith’s gill slits and formed a tiny, little aura shield. No bigger than a marble really. The thing convulsed a bit in pain or maybe discomfort. Full size time. The aura shield rapidly enlarged to its full size of a one meter radius causing the wraith to literally explode. Heh. It popped.

Oh, there’s another one trying to be naughty. The wraith was all teeth and gaping maw as it threw itself at Swarm. Swarm balled up into as small a size as they could and let the creature bite down. Swarm easily fit inside the jaws of the monster but it took some wiggling to force themselves down its throat.

Swarm threw all of their limbs outward, activating their shield. Blood and chunks of wraith meat splattered around Swarm making little splashes around them. The wraith must have surfaced. The sensation was.... wet... and sticky... and thick fluids were trying to gum up Swarm’s wings but Swarm didn’t hate it. It was different from tearing open Automata but not unpleasant.

A student’s scream brought Swarm back from their sudden revelation. A big, naked oni was slapping one of the critters away but it looked like he was getting scratched up.

Swarm shot forward, ignoring the bits of flesh and entrails hanging off of their armor and wing casings. They punched their shuriken whip into the wraith’s back, letting the individual weapons run wild tearing the thing apart from the inside.

As fun as this was, Swarm had a job to do. Swarm should stay focused. Swarm pushed off of the dead wraith before it toppled over and flew through a cluster of the creatures, slashing and spinning, cutting and exploding the beasts.

One of the creatures flew over Swarm’s head and impacted with a sickening crunch against the cave wall, high above. Swarm didn’t care. Were there more? Naughty fish stick was trying to get away. Swarm grabbed a wraith from behind before it could dive into a tunnel. They sunk a set of clawed hands through the wraith’s eyes and started pulling its skull open.

Swarm noticed the mana within the creature swirling around like it was trying to escape. Could Swarm absorb that? Swarm didn’t have the systems for it but Swarm remembered Elita doing it once. Was it tasty?

The wraith’s head pulled apart as Swarm was pulled off of the creature. Swarm struggled and squirmed in the grip of... Swarm looked down and noticed the large, armored, crimson fingers of an Automata holding onto them.

“Let’s take a step back from that edge, buddy,” IronHide cautioned.

Did Swarm go too far? Swarm was just having fun.

IronHide didn’t wait for an answer and instead plunged the combiner under the water and started thrashing them around like they were in a washing machine.

“You’re pretty gross right now,” IronHide said, conversationally. “Don’t get me wrong, you were badass taking on all those wraiths on your own and I fully get giving in to the temptation of strength... but that’s probably not a path we want to walk down, yeah?”

Swarm was pulled back up, out of the water and examined for more gore, but they folded all of their arms and sulked. When they turned their head to pout they saw the combined form of the Automata sisters, Solus, send the last of the wraiths flying with a swing of her massive hammer.

Around them was nothing but corpses and chunks of cave wraith. The water was polluted and thick with their blood and fluids.

“It’s weird, right?” IronHide asked. “Like, it’s okay to have overwhelming strength so long as you don’t enjoy it. You’re given the weapons and skills to hurt and kill but if you start having a good time then you’re the one that’s wrong.”

Maybe Swarm did go too far. Maybe.