[*Ding* Skill Acquired: Protein Spike]

Lucy focused on using the new skill to produce a spike, and this time, she understood how it was happening as she urged it along. The monster shook her off and flung her into the wall, but new proteins were already floating around in Lucy’s cytoplasm. They converged at a single spot along the inner membrane wall and set up shop, secreting enzymes that slowly built up the spike. Bit by bit, her first weapon formed.

As Lucy felt her energy begin to drain from the use of the new enzymes, she dismissed the obscuring notification of her new skill. She was really piling up the things to be sorted through later, but there was nothing for it. For now, the RNA she had stolen gave her intuitive knowledge of how to proceed, and she only needed to decide one thing.

Where to stab this damn overgrown bacteria! Or heliozoan or…whatever you are!

She decided all over was the right answer.

As soon as the spike was ready, she would—

As the weapon slowly materialized out of her membrane, Lucy realized frantically that she didn’t have any freaking hands. In addition, the spike was still forming inside her membrane, and it wouldn’t do her any good in there!

Remembering the way she’d almost managed to form little nubs earlier, she focused all her will and power on her membrane, then activated Reform Body.

This skill came easier to her, as it apparently only required an effort of will to achieve something basic like stretching out her membrane temporarily.

Unfortunately, she had to stab herself from the inside to get the spike to the outside, which was not only unpleasant but also felt disturbingly like Lucy imagined giving birth would. That probably wasn’t true, but she gave a little shiver anyways, making a mental note to secrete the enzymes through her outer membrane next time.

The drain on her energy increased as her body shifted and formed the spike simultaneously.

Just one, all I need is one hand, she pleaded, as the spike monster rolled onto her and thrashed, smushing her into the hard stone of the cave.

Too bad I’m squishy too, buddy! She pushed with her membrane as they bounced off the wall, sending them rebounding in the other direction until the monster was the one being crushed into the crags of stone.

Then the spike was in her appendage. Or did it still count as a hand even without fingers? Lucy wasn’t sure, but she gripped the dagger for all it was worth. It wasn’t like she needed precise control for stabbing anyway.

Stab she did, sinking the needle-point spike into the monster’s slimy outer coating until half her arm was buried in the heliozoan’s membrane. Then she did it again, and again. Little numbers were popping up around her, but she barely, noticed, focusing her entire will on killing the damn thing that had tried so hard to kill her. That had killed her.

Bad lucky, buddy! Turns out life does give second chances!

To her, at least. If she survived, Lucy would say a prayer of thanks to the Goddess Jade when this was over.

Spurts of sickly green fluid drifted out of the stab wounds, but the spike monster shook like a wet dog, and Lucy felt the tug of the water around her. Spikes poked into her body in multiple places, but she clung for all she was worth, feeling like she was on a carousel ride from hell with each jerk and thrash.

She checked her HP, having lost track of the hit-markers during the fighting.

[HP: 4/10]

Pain coursed through her. Lucy had never liked amusement rides.

I! Always! Hated! Six-Flags!

She stabbed harder with each word, digging deep into her reserves of energy and strength as she still clung to the monster with her membrane and maintained her protruding appendage to grip the spike. Then, with a fierce yell that shuddered her cytoplasm, she stuck her spike-dagger as deep into the monster as she could, and pulled.

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With all her strength she wrenched the spike down, ripping open the organism’s body. As she did she couldn’t avoid some of its own spikes, and she felt them tearing into her membrane. But she set the pain aside. This was her second chance, and she wasn’t about to let it go that easily. Her body was weak and torn up, but holding together, just barely.

With a final strain of her tiny body, it was done. The bacterium split open, its throes lessening even as she watched, and eventually its thrashing stopped altogether.

The monster was slain. She had done it.

Lucy collapsed to the stone floor of the tunnel and wept. A jumble of emotions seized her.

To her surprise, she saw tiny droplets of pale green liquid forming on the outside of her membrane and running down.

Somehow, the realization that she could cry felt like more of a relief than the defeat of the giant monster she had just barely managed to overcome. It may not have been quite so practical an accomplishment as gaining skills either, but…

It means I’m still me.

Along with the knowledge that her skills came from her, not just her current body, Lucy felt suddenly more at home in her little one-celled body. She was still herself, even if her form had changed.

As she stared down at the organism she had just killed, she felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo mixed with compassion.

Vertigo for the scale of it all. Unless she missed her guess about exactly how big she was, the entire fight had taken place in an area far, far smaller than a millimeter.

Compassion for the life she had taken. It had been in defense and she knew she would kill again, not to mention the fact that it was only a microorganism, but…

So am I, right?

She felt a bit silly for feeling so strongly about something so small, but when you’re the same size… She said a silent prayer for all the ants she’d killed over the course of her life.

Sorry, little guys. But those were my sugary snacks. Sure, I may have tempted you by leaving them on the counter a bit too long, but—

Lucy remembered something, a memory from playing video games as a kid.

Hey, shouldn’t I get experience or something for defeating a monster?

She frowned down at the corpse in front of her. It looked fragile in death, and already she saw green slime oozing down from the body into microscopic cracks in the stone.

Finally, her System showed her a tiny explosion of blue particles that went from the corpse straight into her own body, and a small bar appeared at the bottom of her vision.

[+8 Evolution Points]

Lucy wasn’t sure why there had been the delay, but the rush of satisfaction that overcame her then knocked aside her other emotions and sank into her body. She was satisfied, pure and simple.

Her cytoplasm rumbled.

Well, hungry too, I guess.

She would figure out what Evolution Points did after she ate.

Acting on instinct and trying not to think about it too much, Lucy positioned her membrane against the corpse and began to feed.

Exhausted and feeling hollowed-out from her expulsion of cytoplasm and usage of energy to win the fight, Lucy opened her membrane channels back up and allowed the passive exchange of ions and gasses to resume.

It felt like letting out a long-held breath and breathing deeply again, and a bit of color seemed to return to the grey world around her.

Then with her last bits of concentration she made use of the active transport proteins that allowed for the transfer of larger molecules across her membrane layer. A rush of energy started flowing into her as she sucked up the monster’s insides.

It was…a little gross, perhaps. But it felt so good that Lucy didn’t even contemplate it, sucking up cytoplasm and ribosomes like she was feasting on a breakfast buffet. The proteins in her own cytoplasm broke down everything she took in into its component molecules, and enzymes from her proteins dissolved them into basic structures her metabolism could make use of. Lucy was filling her body back up with the energy and nutrients it needed.

Try Bacteri-O’s! Part of a nutritious breakfast. Some killing required.

Lucy looked back through her System history at the Evolution Point notification, and with satisfaction and her cell bursting with new nutrients, she realized she would finally have time to relax for a moment and figure out her next steps.

After a few minutes of feeding, she sensed she was as full as she could get, and pulled back from the corpse, eyeing the still-dripping juices with true regret.

Downside of not having a stomach, I guess.

She sat down. Or slumped against the stone wall, at least. The only thing in her field of vision was the monster’s body and the grey-black stone of the tunnel, but Lucy could have danced for joy if she hadn’t been so exhausted.

She had done it. Defeating the spike monster may have only been the first step on a journey that seemed impossibly vast from her current position, but it was done. For the first time in her life, Lucy felt the thrill of overcoming a challenge so great that it had literally almost killed her. Twice.

She wasn’t sure if killing a microorganism was something to really brag about, but she had come out on top, and she felt the thrill of victory, of a completed hunt. With her body happily fed and her mind more tired than it had ever felt, Lucy found a nice little her-sized nook in the stone and fell asleep.

***

Jade watched her foundling champion fighting for her first victory, and smiled.

Lucy would need great fortitude and vitality to accomplish her task, along with the determination that Jade had seen glowing from her eyes even in this temporary world.

Something wriggled beneath her foot, and her smile faded. She heaved a heavy, beleaguered sigh and lifted her foot, revealing the smiling face of a black-haired man looking up from below the soil.

“What do you want, Simon?”