55. Venus
There was a certain part of Celia that was almost offended at how easily she gained wait. A part of her that was slowly losing ground to a nascent and burgeoning enjoyment of the process. From filling her gut up to the gills, to growing just a bit wider after every meal. It was addictive in a way that was hard to understand. Probably worth some concern as well.
Unfortunately, she was too busy for that at the moment. Stomach churning away at her meals as she slowly meandered towards her destination. A bit of regret brewing within at her hunger - and Vice - getting the best of her once again.
Still, so long as nothing else got in her way, she should still be able to make it to the first “search site” before anything crazy happened. At least, that was what she told herself. A single hand resting on her enormously stuffed middle as she slowly waded through the forest. Each step she took echoing throughout. Long, sinuous, and metal tongue cleaning her face from mouth to neck. Something that, in the not so distant past, would have definitely freaked her out.
Now though, it only reminded her of her increasingly aberrant nature and the black hole she called a stomach. A black hole that she couldn’t help but pamper as she walked. Taking small - relatively speaking - bites out of the nearby trees. Each one slightly slowing the digestion of her three coarse meal.
It was also, very slowly, adding onto the width of her lower body. Which was getting increasingly, and to put in a word, unwieldy. Cheeks swaying from side to side with all the subtlety and noise of a thunderstorm. Which was another thing that probably would’ve bothered her in times past, but was now barely worth mentioning.
If anything, she was kinda beginning to like it.
A thought that made Celia stop dead in her tracks and make her question how much of an impression Vice was having on her.
Or maybe how much of an impression you had on me, eh? The alter ego in question whispered into the quiet of her mind.
Both Celia and Discipline shuttered at the thought. Conveniently ignoring it just long enough for them to stumble upon something more interesting and far less taboo.
A plant.
A living, possibly breathing plant, with a nasty set of fangs. Fangs that not only poured out of a snout like mouth, but erupted out its stem as well. Almost as if the entire thing was made out of mouths. And not even green ones, they were pink and fleshy looking. Which, in Celia’s humble opinion, was disgusting.
Her senses on the other hand, disagreed. To them, the plant was a beacon of all she desired in the world. It smelled like food, it kinda looked like food - though that was more of an everything sort of problem nowadays - and she was ninety nine percent certain it would taste like food. If she ever managed the courage to take a bite out of it.
Which bid her to look down at her still swollen with food gut. A monstrous orb of heat that hung nearly to her knees at this point. It should’ve been a clear sign to her brain that she had already eaten far too much. But there was a part of Celia that was already given away to her new nature. A part of her that still wanted more. A hopeless desperate part of her that raged war against all reason.
But Celia put her foot down. Told herself that she wasn’t hungry and prepared to carry on.
And was hastily interrupted by her digestion picking up the pace. The contents within her rapidly converted into a few extra inches of padding all around her body, and her hips increasing their girth by a few inches more. Transformation brought to a close with a hungry roar erupted from within the core of her middle.
It was loud too. Like a lion letting a trespasser know who’s territory they were walking in. Noise that alerted not only the plant alone of her presence, but of the other half dozen that she hadn’t even noticed.
Her response was slowed by a fraction of a second as a screen popped into view. Black words blocking her vision of the world before she dismissed it.
Modification(s) absorbed =< Lash >=
Combining with newly added resources!
Modification upgraded!
Lash <~> Rebuke
Celia only partially acknowledged the screen before she sprang into action. Wings erupting from her back and carrying up into the air. Out of the way of a mouth the size of her body smashing into the ground. And once airborne she pelted the world below with a mix of damaging notes of sound and molten fury.
Plants died, wilted, and were burnt away under the barrage. Some even gasping in a fashion that was eerily human and definitively uncomfortable. But some was not all. For every one of the plants that died it seemed as if two more took their place. The forest slowly swarming with a horde of flesh colored ‘greenery’. And each one that fell filled the air with a disturbingly potent scent that reminded Celia of fresh meat.
Her mouth, in response, watered. And as it turned out it was pretty hard to sing destruction with a mouth half filled with gluttonous saliva.
Celia switched tactics. Diving down in a blurring meteor of teeth and steel. Instinctively calling out to her lashing limbs, and found herself surprised by their answer.
Space tore in a smattering of light, portals opening up as a storm of dark purple tendrils stormed out. Limbs that Celia felt she was directly tethered to. Each violent appendage surging outward in accordance with her will and absolutely decimating the plants below. Ground deformed as craters were born beneath the rain of thundering blows. Great gashes left in the dirt as she swept away the horde of antagonistic flora.
Arms raised high, a command sweeping through her army of newfound limbs. Portals opening wider to let the tendrils under her command move with more freedom and destructive agility. Limbs swiping and swatting away her foes.
And as they continued, Celia moved herself. Dashing forward as a swarm of limbs herself. Three sets of claws cutting away at every plant she got close to. Sword serving as an additional limb as well, reaching out where length of flesh failed her and tending her enemies in two. All the while the taste in the air grew harder and harder to resist.
Discipline swapped with her as temptation grew beyond her own strength. And when it met the walls of her doppelgängers mind, it found them more than able to prevail. Senses were reeled back in and rendered unable to persuade her. Smell ceased to be as hunger was restrained behind an iron curtain of restraint.
It’s energies redirected to the mass of steel in her hands. A hunk of sharpness itself given form. Edges like a scythe brought to harvest. Blade drinking in the sweet nectar of victory. Her form itself becoming a bulwark of triumph as she cut her way forward, the rain of alien limbs never ceasing their calamitous purpose all the while. Path opening up before her. Forest shrinking as she advanced, nothing able to resist her momentum.
It was testament to potential. A source of inspiration that struck Celia in her core. Lit a fire within her to do better. To be more.
To wield herself as the version before her did.