It was time to hunt once more.
The tip of Lucy’s dagger slipped into a growing crack in the goo-softened stone in front of her. Behind, Rikorlak and Sam floated in their own positions, ready for the rush of worms to come barreling in.
Her dagger broke through and she swam back, waiting with enzymes primed.
Nothing.
They had planned for this. After multiple days, it was possible there were only a few worms left in the area, and they would need to be drawn in.
Lucy produced her bait: the last of the worm corpses they had stockpiled. Slicing it open from stem to stern with her dagger, she thrust it through the hole in the stone, which crumbled more as the last of her corrosive goo ate away at it.
She left the corpse dangling halfway in. With the trap set, the trio settled in like fishers watching a lure.
They didn’t have to wait long. Before a handful of minutes had passed, a wedge-shaped head full of teeth was pushing its way through the hole.
“Shit, that’s a big worm,” Lucy mumbled, as Rikorlak stiffened behind her and the water filled with the acrid scent of Sam’s defensive slime.
It was a behemoth, and Lucy was sure that it wouldn’t be able to get through the hole she had made. But the thin film of corrosive goo had continued working, weakening the stone.
The worm pushed and twisted to get through, and in a moment, it was upon her, ignoring the bait entirely.
Before it could get clear of the hole, Lucy squirted destructive enzymes straight into its mouth.
At first, Lucy thought the fight would be over as soon as it started. She had raised her large tentacled arm up to the hole in preparation, and the worm charged straight at it.
She felt a thrill of adrenaline surge through her as her tentacles bit, digging deep into membrane.
But the worm bit back, and with the stone wall to push against, it sprang outward like a spring and shoved her back in the water as it gnawed painfully at her tentacles.
Then it pulled itself free of her arm in a tear of wet flesh, and Lucy reevaluated the situation. Despite the damage she had already done and the burst of enzymes it had eaten, the worm was still going strong, pushing her back even as she strained to swim forward with her flagellum as hard as she could.
The worm was huge, and by the time it had finally finished bringing itself through the hole, its body seemed to take up half the room, twisting around itself like a messily coiled rope.
Lucy released another burst of enzymes, but the creature was fast, and she had to aim her attack to the side to avoid Rikorlak, who had approached to block the hole back up. That was part of the plan, but the room had suddenly become a chaotic whirl of confusion, and he came in too close.
Caught half in the cloud of spreading enzymes, Rikorlak began to hack and flail, trying to nudge the blockage into place as the worm swam around the side, giving Lucy a wide berth and swimming with its mouth closed.
Clever worm, she thought. Unlike filter feeding microbes with their more porous membranes, the worm had to ingest the enzymes for them to do serious damage.
She struck out with her dagger as it passed, scoring a glancing blow.
But it had smooth raised ridges all over its membrane, scars of previous battles won, and one small tear in its membrane wasn’t going to be enough.
Lucy swam towards it and raised her tentacle arm, but the massive worm writhed away from her, twitching as the enzymes it had already ingested got to work. It stalked around the edges of the room, circling for an opening as her enzymes dispersed completely.
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And looking for easier prey.
Sensing Sam floating near the entrance to Lucy’s private tunnel, the worm charged, knocking into the smaller microbe and sending them careening down the tunnel.
Lucy flung herself to intercept, but was forced to split her attention when Rikorlak cried out for help.
Another worm had appeared at the hole, bigger than the first, and Rikorlak was losing the fight to keep it out. He tried his best to continue shoving in the blockage, but the worm was simply too strong. Before long, it would break through.
Lucy made her choice, shooting forward to help Rikorlak.
She just had to hope that Sam’s defensive slime would be enough to hold off the first worm until she could come back to help.
The next few moments passed in a blur. Lucy strained with all the strength she could muster to get the blockage into place, hardening it with a puff of her enzymes before she rushed back to help Sam.
The red-membraned microbe had been knocked back into Lucy’s section of tunnel, and when Lucy entered, she feared that it was too late.
The worm’s scarred membrane was splotched with sizzling red slime, and she couldn’t see Sam anywhere, only tangled coils of membrane.
It wasn’t until the little glowing worm that Lucy had been experimenting on darted forward out of the patch of fungi that Lucy realized what was going on.
The creature let out a long, deep hiss as it uncoiled from around Sam, its mouth gummed with red slime.
Lucy flung herself forward and saw that Sam was alright.
She watched for a brief, Scooby-Doo-like moment as the larger creature chased the smaller glowing worm in a circle around the patch of fungus.
Then it broke off in frustration and went after Lucy, who happened to be the nearest target who wasn’t covered in defensive slime or swimming around madly.
Unfortunately for the worm, she was ready.
With Rikorlak still in the main chamber and Sam backing off down the tunnel, Lucy was clear to attack more freely with her enzymes, and she pumped them out in a wall of fog.
Enraged by pain and frustration, the worm let out another loud hiss as it charged, teeth full of slime.
Lucy’s enzymes catalyzed and hardened, forming a blockage in the worm’s mouth.
Confused, the worm continued its charge even as its mouth sludged up completely.
Lucy’s tentacled arm caught the worm’s charge head-on, and this time its teeth could do nothing to her. The momentum shifted as her enzymes ate away at its insides, and as the rest of the worm’s length thrashed in panic, Lucy devoured its head.
Bright yellow cytoplasm bloomed in the water around her hand, and she brought up her dagger in a vicious underhand stab for good measure.
After a few more moments of fierce struggle, it was over, the worm’s body growing slack as it slowly stopped twitching and settled to the ground.
----------------------------------------
After the successful hunt, the trio fed.
A continuous stream of cytoplasm rose from the worm’s body and spread through the room. Lucy watched it as she chewed up a bit of membrane with her tentacles.
Even after the three of them had eaten their fill, there would be a sizable amount of cytoplasm left. Lucy was happy with the 15 EP she’d been awarded for the kill, but hated to see the waste, especially when things clearly had not calmed down outside yet.
But as she listened to Sam explaining to Rikorlak how the little worm had played a key role in the battle, she got an idea.
“He helped,” Sam insisted, “we have to give him a name now. I told you he was a good worm. Didn’t he help, Lucy?”
Lucy nodded as she swam up. “He was a very brave worm and deserves every honor. Do you mind if I take some slime?”
Sam assented, spitting out a glob that Lucy plucked from the water.
Wincing slightly as it burned against her hand, she spread the paste-like substance against the hole where the worm’s head had been, then blasted it with her enzymes.
The flow of cytoplasm stopped, and Lucy beamed at Sam. “Look at that, huh? Food storage!”
Even with the flow stopped, huge clouds of cytoplasm drifted through the chamber, and it was a long time before the three of them broke off their conversation to rest.
When she finally trundled off to her own tunnel, Lucy felt something like peace settling over her. Her friends were safe and well supplied, her cave was secure, and her membrane was full to bursting.
After feeding the fungi, she let herself relax, and had nearly drifted off to sleep before remembering there was one more thing she wanted to do, something she had forgotten earlier.
Swimming to a divot in the ground on the far end of the tunnel, she picked up her magical stone.
The shell that encased it had started to crack, and radiant light shone from the enlarged opening on one side.
Lucy was starting to think that the light wasn’t harmful at all, but she curtailed her enthusiasm, telling herself that if the worm was still unharmed in a few days she would start to experiment on herself.
Ignoring the ache she felt to know more, she covered the stone completely in a new layer of goo that would harden to repair the cracking shell.
Feeling eminently responsible, Lucy went to sleep knowing that she had done the right thing by playing it safe. So she was very surprised indeed when she woke up completely bathed in magical light.
Despite her best efforts to be careful, it was time for human trials.