[You have gained 12 Biomass]

[You have gained 2 Biomass]

[You have gained 3 Biomass]

[You have killed an enemy]

I finish killing a Rock Stick.

I am trying my very hardest to get that 100 Biomass, I hate those Rock Sticks, and I don’t mean I want to kill them, they just creep me out. Me and Cake tag teamed on this one and I got the tongue launched at me and even if it didn't do too much physical damage, it most certainly gave me PTSD, Post Traumatic Stick Disorder, from being the one on the receiving end of that serrated tongue and getting little bits of my flesh ripped off.

The wounds healed after I regenerated them, but the mental image of that jagged tooth filled mouth did not.

GladOs, how much Biomass do I have now?

Stat:

Material Storage: 63/100

Seems I have passed the halfway mark with that last kill. Only 37 more Biomass to go, that's like 3 or 4 of the Rock Sticks.

...great.

In the distance I can see what looks to be a very big rock stick with an extra pair of thicker limbs covering their head, hunched over on the short ceiling.

Or maybe 1 of those.

I don't know very much about them other than that, they don't really move from that position and I haven't been too keen to go and prod at the possible evolved Rock-Stick.

But, if I can just manage to kill one...just one. I can get out of here and evolve. I can even get a surprise hit on them since they don't seem to attack.

I think a tag team surprise attack from me and Cake on the unsuspecting stick should be able to do enough damage to hamper them enough that they won't be a serious threat in actual battle.

But, just in case it's not I am going to need a back-up plan.

I make my way back to the safe zone of the maze and I decide to upgrade myself a little to be able to escape the Big Rock Stick just in case this plan fails.

GladOs upgrade my Flesh Flash Distance to Medium.

[Confirmed, using 8 Biomass to upgrade Flesh Flash: (Distance) from (Very Weak) to (Medium)]

I wake up and test out Flesh Flash. I use the ability and a tendril spreads along the ground about 5 times further than before, so about 15 feet.

The tendril locks into the ground and pulls me along at my maximum speed along the limb, like I'm a train and it's the rail. When the ride comes to an end I can tell something is different than before.

Why did my tendril not go back into the body!

After the little Joy ride, my tendril did not shrink back into my body like normal, instead it just entangled itself around my pill body like rope. I can’t move it either since it's sore from the ability.

‘Cake! Move my tendril off my body!’ I mentally call for help to get my own body part off of the rest. It won't actually hurt me to have it lay on my main body, well other than my ego.

*snip*

Cake scuttles over and picks up a piece of the long tendril and gets it off my body. The tendril has already shrunken down by about 3 feet but, it's still 12 feet long.

Cake manages to move the rest of it as delicately as possible off of my body as I wait for it to shrink back down to normal size.

I must have to upgrade Flesh Motor if I want to have it retract quicker, but for now I just need it to get away as far as possible. Moving 15 feet in the blink of an eye should be enough to confuse any dumb monster around here.

‘Meister. Cake. Upgrade.’ Cake tells me.

‘Huh? Oh sure you can upgrade. You don't have to tell me that you're going to upgrade, just make sure you do it in a safe location.’ I gave Cake some helpful advice and so she doesn't bug me everytime she has to upgrade.

When Cake wakes up again I get this message.

[Your subject ‘Cake’ has maxed out the mutation, Decapod Legs. You may choose, randomize, or allow Cake to choose.]

Oh it seems Cake maxed out her legs, I should let her choose the mutations for herself, but I don’t want her to choose something terrible, Cake has barely enough intelligence to form sentences, I'm not sure if letting her choose would be best.

I guess I can give Cake a little test and find out.

‘Cake, what would you choose for your mutation?’ I ask.

‘What. Meister. Want.’ Cake responds after getting up.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘What if I want, whatever you want?’ I respond in kind, unaware of the infinite loop I just started.

‘Cake. Want. What. Meister. Want.’ Cake responds in a very robotic way.

‘No I want what YOU want.’ I responded again.

...

This back and forth goes on for at least another two minutes and I end up feeling as if I am the one who ended up being tested. Cake ends up winning the argument in the end and I pick her mutation. It's impossible to argue with something with eyes that cute.

I end up picking just a basic defense boost for her, that makes her carapace harder.

I can't believe I ended up going through all that just to pick a boring defense boost. I picked it not because it was cool or had an interesting name, but because it was simply the best thing to protect Cake from monsters.

Alright with the necessary upgrades out of the way.

Shall we pay good ol’ sticky boy a visit.

We make our way back into the extremely wide but very shallow part of the cave and start to head toward the last location the large rock stick was spotted.

I spot it before Cake using my enhanced vision. It's still in the same position as before doing whatever it does while it just sits there...menacingly!

I just have to kill it and I can learn about my evolutions and evolve. Just think about evolving and not the creepy tongue.

OH GOD I THOUGHT ABOUT THE TONGUE! DON'T DRAG ME INTO YOUR MOUTH I WAS JUST BORN I DON'T WANNA DIE!

Cake see’s me agitated and tries to help in the only way she knows how, sharing Biomass.

Cake scuttles over to the nearest enemy to try and share it with me, which happens to be the big stick we were meant to surprise attack.

I manage to snap out of my tongue-filled horror of a mind and wrap a few tentacles around Cake to stop her from moving toward the big stick.

‘Cake, What are you doing?!’ I angrily send over the mind link at Cake nearly ruining my plan...that I never explained to Cake.

‘Cake. Apologize. Punishment.’ Cake says back to me.

‘Huh? But I forgot to explain to you the plan, I'm pretty sure it's my fault for you rushing in there.’

‘Punishment!’ Cake yells over the mental link; not accepting that I could ever be at fault even if I explained to her how I was.

‘No, I'm not going to punish you for something that isn't even your fault.’ I send back.

‘Punishment!!’ Cake sends over practically begging.

Cake, are you a masochist or something. You have to be joking with me, I don't want to actually punish you, especially not when you are giving me puppy eyes for it.

...

What if I just make something up as punishment and just word it as such, like I did before when Cake had this masochism craze.

Before Cake can try to snip off her eyestalks, I give her the ultimate punishment, the worst torture known to mankind, the most heinous of war crimes.

...Learning!

‘Alright, Cake your uhh, punishment, is to sit there and listen to me explain to you the plan.’ I tell Cake.

Cake plops her shell down on the rock and her black spotless eyes stare at me so attentively that it feels like they burn a hole straight through my suction cups.

I explain the sneak attack plan on the big stick.

Step 1: Cake comes from behind and tries to do as much damage as possible, but mostly to get it to focus on Cake.

Step 2: Once the Rock Stick is focused on Cake I can swoop in from the front and take off its antenna, blinding it.

Step 3: Kill it.

I think this plan should be enough to kill a big rock-bug monster. But if it's not, I can use my one time Flesh Flash to get away super fast. And Cake can use her shell to hide and be protected from the big sticks attacks until I draw its attention away from her.

I also explain to her the Backup plan and we start to set the main plan into action.

Cake gets behind the Rock Stick and I get in position hidden behind a pillar, still able to see what is going on due to my wierd radar eyesight.

Cake scuttles toward the big stick and jumps on its back and starts to use her claws to chip off its rock skin.

The rock stick starts to move and shift its body at the attacker. As it moves its heftier limbs away from its face, I can tell that it is no ordinary stick, because it doesn't even look like a stick now it looks like a rock covered praying mantis and Cake is just thrashing about on its back.

I immediately go into action to save Cake and to kill that mantis.

I activate anti gravity to move quicker and start to move my way over to the preoccupied mantis as it tries to get Cake off its back.

I move as fast as I can and activate Flesh Flash, not to its maximum but just enough to latch onto its head and give me a speed boost to its antennae and eyes.

The preoccupied mantis doesn't notice me until it's too late and I dig into its four eyes and cut off its antenna completely destroying its senses.

The mantis starts to go crazy after this and slashes all around cutting off 5 of my tendrils and managing to knock Cake off its back. The mantis starts to go completely crazy by slashing at a pillar thinking it might be Cake’s shell. The small pillar of rock holding up this area starts to weaken as the mantis just keeps attacking it.

‘Cake lets go!’ I yell in Cake’s mind.

*snip*

The short ceiling around that pillar starts to cave in since the pillar has been weakened. I activate my maximum Flesh Flash going all the way 15 feet away, I also make sure to wrap as many tendrils around Cake as possible so we avoid being caved in on. We are pulled by my single ground latched tendril and even if it slowed down by Cake’s additional weight it is still faster than running.

Although I ended up paying a price for that additional weight.

IT HURTS SO BAD!

It feels like I just ripped a muscle in my tentacles.

The ceiling falls behind us and dust fills the air around us. Cake is still entrapped in my tendrils, I let go of them and release Cake.

‘Cake! Don't step on my tendril, whatever you do!’ I yell at Cake so she doesn't step on my bruised and battered tentacle that carried us away from the cave in.

I can feel my regeneration trying to repair the damage but as I must have ripped the entire tendril apart by doing that, it is going to take a while before I am fully healed and I have to sit here and suffer until that happens.

‘Meister. Hurt?’ Cake asks me if I am hurt, since she can’t see any damage on the outside due to me ripping the muscle inside the tendril.

‘Cake don't worry about it, it will heal in a little bit.’ I try to downplay the pain.

I am forced to wait here in a cave full of monsters until my healing finishes, luckily I have Cake to guard for me, in case any monsters were drawn by the cave in.

Luckily it seems most monsters are too busy fighting each other to care about a cave in and they ignore us.

I start to slowly pull my tendril back into my body as it finishes healing. The pain goes away and I am left with a slowly shrinking 10 ft tendril. I am now wondering if I should buy that Deep Learning Upgrade or just spend everything on other mutations and evolve based on that basic info.

No! Picking the best evolution is definitely the more important thing.

I put away my doubts of buying Deep Learning and start to move through the rocks away in search of that presumed dead mantis.

If its not dead, it will be when I find it for making me go through all that pain.

Due to my monster body having no bones I can squeeze through gaps much smaller than my body so I am able to move in between most of the rocks and if I'm not I can just go in a different path. My radar vision is a bit clouded due to all the corners here but I am slowly making my way toward the last location of the mantis.

I eventually stumble upon the mantises head which has been crushed in between a large boulder, the monster is most certainly dead as I can even see some mantis brain poking through the rock. I start to spread my draining spike all around where I can see mantis and start to drain its body of Biomass.

[You have gained 38 Biomass]

I didn't gain any experience from it since it basically commited suicide, but I gained alot of Biomass and I am now one weak monster away from buying Deep Learning.

I make my way out of the rubble as a ball of tendrils covered in dust and blood and start to make my way to a nearby battle that has just ended in a crow-bats victory. The crow bat looks very weak as the fight it just had with that microraptor must have been a very tough one. I am going to easily come in and finish it off to get the last of the Biomass, I may not get as much as usual since it has been damaged considerably, but it should be enough to get to 100 Biomass.

I stab the bat-faced crow in the back of the neck killing it and I start to drain its body until I can't hold any more Biomass.

[You have maxed out your Material Storage at 100/100]

Alright! Finally something goes my way! I need to head back to Hole Base and get ready to evolve.

‘Cake, let's head back home.’ I tell Cake

*snip*

Me and Cake follow the claw trail through the maze all the way back to the rock door, not much really happened on the way back, I tried to teach Cake math but the furthest she got was 1 + 0 = 1 and that was only because I helped her by telling her to repeat the first number as the answer, after that she got pretty good at all math problems where you add zero.

I start to pry open the rock door since it seems it have sunk into the ground a little while we were away.

I eventually manage to pull it off with help from Cake, but not before I get this message from GladOs.

[You have Consumed 2 Biomass]

*angrily flips rock door*