*(mood song: "Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle")

Then, as the creatures got closer to the light, both from their helmets, and light coming through the ceiling cracks, they became visible, they were octopeople, but... with major differences, they were wearing skull masks, as well as crudely made clothes and armor, bone spears in their arms, and the most distinctive feature, they were smaller than a scout and also bone thin.

One of them came forward and "GRAGAKAAA KRUKUTULUKA!..." and started saying something.

The translator wasn't translating so Erik looked at Inky by his left, but she shrugged, she didn't understand either, he then looked back to Shana, and saw her face's brows were tightly locked together in thought.

Erik: "do you understand anything?"

Shana seemed to ponder a bit but finally sighed and shook her head: "maybe a word or two, but without context, it's almost impossible... sorry..."

Erik: "Nah, it's fine..., Inky didn't know what I was saying at first either..."

Inky: "indeed, you looked scary, but the food was nice... and it was clear seeing it in motion, here though... we didn't bring screens right?"

Erik turned to Rose: "did we?"

Rose: "Well, no but... oh well..." her eyes then closed as a small screen started appearing on the chest of her armor, barely the size of four large fists "that should do..." she then saw Erik's disappointed face and frowned "...what?"

Erik: "that's barely visible... can't you make it bigger?"

Rose rolled her eyes: "NO, now think in the story I HAVE to animate"

Erik nodded and pondered, finally coming up with an idea, and relayed it to Rose.

Minutes later, as the creatures were getting restless and talked louder, Rose stepped forward in front of their representative, and a crab man, the former Trebetuk appeared on her screen, making the representative visually cower, and point her spear at Rose's chest, but the screen then showed Rose ripping the crab man with her bare hands, as the real Rose pointed at the one in the screen, and then at herself.

The wild creatures were amazed, but also appealed at the violent demonstration, most of them retreating further back in respect for such a dangerous being.

Rose then pointed at Erik, and he appeared on the screen defending the creatures from a huge crab man, cutting it with a chainsword.

But this confused the creatures, as they had no memory of such a thing happening, looking at each other and seemingly asking each other.

Rose didn't give them time to ponder too much though, she pointed at the stone tablets all around, and a video appeared on her screen, of them loading the tablets onto the submarine with their help, and then a scene of them all eating delicious food happily.

The creatures seemed deeply interested in the food part, and the representative stepped back, and seemed to whisper with the others for some minutes. Finally, the creatures grabbed some stone slabs, and offered them to Rose, who passed them to a nearby battle bot.

With the slabs delivered, the representative pointed at its mouth, seemingly asking for the promised meal.

Rose looked back at Erik and both nodded, with Rose's screen displaying the creatures following her.

The creatures were cautious, but they slowly came out of the shadows, most not even one meter tall.

Erik: [are they... adults or.... kids...?]

Rose: [not sure..., I could scan their bones to know more, want me to give it a try? it might scare them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Erik: [Nah, it's fine... it ain't that important for now anyway]

Erik then exited the library with the elders, as the small creatures slowly followed him out, and to the illuminated exterior, with the submarine hovering above them.

Meanwhile, Rose remained with the bots and the octopeople soldiers, as they organized a pile of stone tablets in front of the library, ready to be taken to the submarine.

Erik approached the submarine hatch, and was about to use the power armor's turbines to go up, but had a lingering thought and paused.

Erik: [Rose... will the security system attack these creatures?]

Rose: [of course, is that a problem?]

Erik: [...won't that kill them?]

Rose: [huh?... wasn't that the plan you thought?]

Erik: [Of course not! that... was just part of the brainstorming..., we will use them if possible, don't just read my first idea and go along with it...]

Rose sighed inside, as she said [a pity... I liked that plan better... but fine okay, charm those creatures into your servants or whatever if you want, its all the same to me]

Erik: [they have lived in these ruins for who knows how long... they also seem young, and in need of help...]

Rose: [sigh... so you will adopt them like that crab girl or what? you are not their mom, and they might be adults...]

Erik: [I... it's good to get information out of them anyway, helping them a bit won't hurt]

Rose: [hmm... you might be right, security system exception added]

Erik: [by the way, did you manage to read those tablets?]

Rose: [actually yes, although some are damaged or in a seemingly old dialect, I'm sure I can translate, and document all this knowledge]

Erik sighed relieved: [good to know, also... did you stock food to the kitchen?]

Rose: [yes, armorlisk meat since it was available, and algae products from the farm (⌐▨_▨)]

Erik: [good, that will make some good roast, thanks as always Rose]

Rose: [(✿◠‿◠)]

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Erik then started moving again, as his mental conversations with Rose never took much time in the real world, just some seconds of pause. Erik entered the submarine's lower hatch, and arrived at a pool inside, but noticed a flaw, or thing to improve on at least.

Erik: [Rose, can you add some stairs to the submarine's hatch pool in the future?]

Rose: [huh? ...just pull yourself out and roll over the edge?]

Erik: [well, I have guests so...]

Rose: [sigh...give me a moment]

The robotic arm in the garage descended and picked Erik up, placing him out.

Rose: [happy now?]

Erik: [well, maybe Timberly-] but he then saw Timberly jumping out of the water like a metallic giant, while all other elders, or the mutant guests had no problem coming out.

Rose: [just do that next time, jump out of the water... (◉ω◉)]

Erik: [...okay... sorry]

The creatures seemed nervous at their surroundings, constantly looking around, and tightly gripping their spears, but Erik urged them to follow him. They soon arrived at the canteen, where Erik signaled for them to seat, with the elders also sitting by the right side of a big table. The representative of the creatures, that was one point three meters tall, stood up and insisted on following Erik though, Erik didn't mind so he went with it to the food storage in front, seeing basketball sized meat squares, the creature following him was visibly shaken at the sight of all that meat, Erik grabbed three meat cubes, and then went to the kitchen, dragging the unwilling creature by the shoulder out of the food storage.

The kitchen was similar to that at the base, but on a much smaller scale, both in the amount of devices, and in size, but still more than enough to cook for thirty people.

The creature observed curiously from behind, as Erik put the frozen meat into a defreeze appliance, it was similar to a microwave oven, but much faster, as even the air inside it turned into plasma, and soon the meat unfroze.

Erik took the meat out, and put it on a metallic chopping board, all under the attentive eyes of the small creature standing now to his right, barely reaching the tall kitchen counter. Erik cut the meat onto steaks using a thin and sharp vibroknife, the knife easily cut through the meat, and he soon made a couple dozen steaks from one of the huge blocks of meat, the meat was surprisingly well bled and even a bit marbled.

"ggrahk yhaan"

The creature beside him seemed to want a piece of meat to chew, frantically making sounds, so Erik cut a thin slice of meat, and offered to it, but before the creature's hands grabbed it, he raised his arm with the meat up with a chuckle.

The creature looked at Erik, making sounds as if complaining, tapping the floor with its spear as she complained, Erik didn't mind it, and put his right hand firmly on its shoulder, making the creature instantly calm down, now nervously shivering.

Erik moved his hand, and slowly removed the mask covering the creature's face, finding a face quite similar to that of an octoperson underneath, accompanied by a jagged scar that blinded her left eye, but scales covered her skin that was almost stuck to her bony face, and she lacked ears or fins on her head.

Erik then used his right thumb to open her mouth, observing fine shark like teeth inside, and put the slice of meat inside, finally releasing her.

She had been frozen during the entire ordeal, like scared prey in the hands of a predator, the moment he released her though, she started to chew frantically, with fine sharp teeth like those of a lemon shark easily cutting the meat.

Erik chuckled "you were hungry I see..." he observed her closely as she chew, quietly observing the rare specimen.

Erik: [are you seeing this Rose?]

Rose: [yeah... it seems like they have mutated quite a bit living down here, and that scar... a tough life indeed...]

Erik: [sure looks like it, what you expect from a place like this, now... the tough part, extracting information... what should I ask?]

Rose: [hmmm... dangers? monsters? weapons?]

Erik: [...I think I know what to ask, but better after she's full, she will be more cooperative then]

Erik oiled one skillet, and started frying a steak on it, meanwhile, he separated the other pieces with oily kelp so they didn't stick, and put them onto a couple of oven trays, that he then put inside an electric oven integrated into a wall to the left, it had a capacity of 1m^3 inside, so a couple of dozens of steaks werent a problem. He promptly set the oven to 180°C, and let it start cooking.

As the meat smells filled the kitchen from the skillet and oven, the little mutant started to get restless, her mouth salivated, and her tongue seemed to taste the air.

Erik chuckled, and almost out of reflex patted her head, making her freeze again, and look up at him, he quickly noticed his mistake though, and turned around, focusing on cooking.

The mutant behind him first frowned, but she then touched her head closing her eyes. She then approached Erik's right side, as she kept alternating between observing his face, and then the food, making Erik a bit uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, Rose was going for a walk around, with the orders given to Amanda to supervise, she didn't need to be physically there, so she decided to go for a walk while Erik tamed the mutants.

She easily traversed the dark streets, as the light from the submarine came from his back, the buildings around her were full of carvings of octopeople, heroes, deities... she didn't know, but still... this was life that had evolved on her, it was a rewarding feeling, but also tragic knowing their end, she sighed as she muttered: "All good things come to an end... but every end... can be a new beginning...".

In one mural, she saw a huge octoperson surrounded by generals, and a big army around, but... as she advanced to the left she saw crude carvings of crab men slashed onto the stone mural, making Rose frown as she muttered "tch!, damn savages..."

But her head suddenly spun to the left and looking into the dark cold waters, her helmet lights couldn't penetrate far enough, but... her senses went beyond sight, her vision changed, and she could see thousands of colorful silhouettes approaching, in fact... she looked around, and she could see them in all directions.

She wasn't afraid though, this was just a disposable body after all, so she activated the submarines defenses, making turrets emerge from hatches inside, while she herself bolted forward with a weapon of her own invention and use, a super heavy mace with seventeen glowing spots on its surface that emitted plasma based on her commands. The entire handle was full of electric slug's electric organs, all packed and snug inside, and since they fed on electricity, it was the perfect bio battery that could be charged back at base.

Finally, one of the beasts came into her view, it had ten sharp legs, like those of a spider crab, a mouth full of sharp conical teeth like those of an Idiacanthus back on Earth, six eyes on its head, an eel tail, and two frontal scythe claws like those of a mantis.

The creature seemed to be avoiding the light of her helmet and going around him.

Rose murmured: "o its like a *gibberish* or like a Tiger on Erik's world... interesting..."

The creature got irritated after several failed attempts to avoid the light though, it was impossible for it to avoid Rose's senses, and so, full of frustration at such a tricky prey, it jumped forward to catch it, but... sadly for it though, all it caught was a blue plasma orb, that with a bubbling sizzle went through its torso, and out the back, a cloud of dark yellow fluid now floating in the water.

Rose sighed, it wasn't a tough fight at all but... there were way too many, more and more forms were appearing in her sight, she would be swinging her mace for days if she didn't go back now, she sighed once more and muttered "I wanted to explore more... guess I will go back for now...".

Back at the submarine, the mutant creatures were happily eating large amounts of meat, as Erik kept bringing trays, their little bodies surprisingly elastic.

When Erik suddenly heard something in his head.

Rose: [Erik... you might need to prepare]

Erik: [huh? what happened?]

Rose: [thousands of legged fish are surrounding the area]

Erik: [can you make a screen on the wall to show it? I wanna tell the elders]

Rose: [alright]

A screen then appeared on the wall, showing a realistic image of one of those creatures, but before Erik could say anything...

*shwoosh! shwoosh! shwoosh!* three spears flew and got lodged onto the screen.

Erik looked back to see the mutant octopeople had stood up, the one eyed leader, and two others were dead serious, as they had thrown their spears, while the others instinctively hid under the table.

Erik sighed and dislodged the spears from the rapidly repairing screen, much to their confusion, and the elders' amusement.

Erik looked at the amused elders though and said "well... we are currently surrounded by thousands of those creatures in all directions, so... " they all turned serious as Erik started giving orders "Megan, recall the squad, the rest gear up and come with me, we ain't gonna let them harm the submarine if we can avoid it"

Minutes later, both the Elders, Erik, the elite squad with Amelia directing it, and the battle bots with Amanda all stood in a circle right under the submarine, with the mutants tremblingly standing in the middle, as they saw a figure carrying a glowing blue mace come running fast, hordes of monsters behind her.

Rose: [jeez, so annoying to be so wanted right?]

Erik: [still in the mood for joking?]

Rose: [always~ so... did you name the creatures something stupid yet?]

Erik: [...spider fish?]

Rose: [... well why not, spider fish it is]

Erik: [they have long legs and it so-]

Rose: [yeah yeah... I got it, now get ready, I will start with some artillery!]