“And I told you to finish this project!” The suit screaming at the construction worker was holding his hardhat above his head, as if not touching his hair with it would protect him from a head injury.

  “And I told you we have direct orders from a Samurai not to.” The Foreman looked more terrified than annoyed but he was trying and that counts.

  [I’m gonna eat him.] I announced on comms as I landed. Having sent a feed of what I saw and heard to the others.

  [Have at.] Bomberman seemed amused, almost like he didn’t believe I would, or didn’t care.

  [That’s fine hon. It’ll speed things up.] Drag-On completely knew I would do it.

  [Wait what?] Gravitas was just as startled by what I said as the responses. Poor girl.

  I distended my mouth and jaw, growing my head and letting the facade drop as I pounced on the suit, eating him in a large bite. After a second of smacking my lips, as I began to reduce back to size, I belched up the helmet covered in blood. Licking the blood off I handed it back to the foreman.

  “I hate suits… but they taste good.” He just gulped, nodded and accepted the helmet. “Crunchy with a tang of… hair gel? Yeah hair gel. Kinda like lemon on top.”

  “Why did you do that?” Gravitas shriek was almost deafening to me, everybody else flinched too. “We could have told him to leave!”

  “I’m still hungry?” I was genuinely confused.

  <>Eating sophonts is generally considered Gauche by other sophonts.

  [Naylle… am I bad code?]

  <>No, you’re just different. You’re doing fine. You asked before you did it. It’s not either of your fault she wasn’t fast enough to provide her own input. And your reaction should have been the same. If you seek permission the majority rules, that was what you decided.

  Less than a second had passed since I had spoken before I added.“Oh… shit. Naylle told me why you’re upset. Sorry.”

  “Can you puke him up or something?” Gravitas was pale, white even. Definitely upset?

  “Yeah…. He’s still alive. For the most part.” I horked the poor suit up, well his body, his clothes were mine now. He was mostly intact, I even used a medical nanite suite I had a blueprint for to heal the bite marks. Although he was unconscious due to shock or something. “Probably gonna be traumatized. I can’t do anything for that, I’m still handling my own.”

  “You… seriously….” Gravitas sighed and ran a hand across her face in frustration.

  “Is she genuinely upset? I can’t tell?” I turned to Drag-On as the best judge.

  They nodded and sighed. “Let me talk to her. Can someone take him to lie down?”

  Drag-On pulled Gravitas aside, leaving Bomberman and I to talk to the foreman about getting down since there was a mass of rebar blocking anybody but me getting through easily. I let the foreman getsure to a couple of his guys to deal with the unconscious suit before addressing him.

  “So yeah. Ed? Your helmet tag says Ed. Can I call you Ed?” He nodded at me. “ Any way we can get an easy way down? Uh… Did I miss an official door or something? In fact why the fuck isn’t this an official door?”

  “It’s in the middle of a street Ma’am. There is a way down but it’s… convoluted and you’d have to take extra steps. If you want we can set up a way for you to get through here?”

  “Like prying back the rebar or something?” He nodded. “Do whatever you need to. That mech dragon needs to get through and I can’t put it in my extra dimensional storage. It’s full of more me.”

  “More you?” He blinked, confusion apparent on his face.

  “Oh! I’m Shoggoth! All around friendly Eldritch Horror!” I stuck my hand out and smiled brightly at him. He hesitantly shook it, nodding in complete incomprehension.

  “Ah, of course Ma’am. I’ll go get my guy’s on opening things up for you.” As soon as I let go with a nod, he hustled off to where a bunch of men in hardhats were loitering and watching.

  “That went well.”

  Bomberman snickered at me. “All around friendly Eldritch Horror eh? Is that what you’re going with?”

  “Would you rather I was an Emu?” I rapidly transformed into an Emu and menaced over him, this just made him laugh harder. Before I knew it he was mounted and I was running in circles making deep throated noises, and a mess out of the still moist concrete. Finally ending the antics with a whistle from Drag-On who beckoned us over with an amused smile.

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  As soon as we were on solid ground Bomberman hopped off allowing me to transform back to my new “Normal” form. Being able to transform into whatever I want is quite entertaining. But business is serious time.

  “Oggy, would you be a dear and turn to your battle form?” Drag-On smiled as they asked, gesturing for me to stay back a bit.

  I shrugged then acquiesced to their request. Eventually moving to my full form, one solid mass of me about the size of a city bus, loaf shaped and with only one “face” protruding in their direction. Though I didn’t bother to keep the mouth, eyes and nose approximations in order, it may have been disconcerting for them to see that jumbled mess.

  “What?”

  “Could you straighten your face out a bit?” Bomberman definitely had complaint in his voice, right?

  “It is? Is it? Uh….” I squinted all six eyes at them as I tried to figure out what the problem was.

  <>Perhaps this may help? Naylle gently nudged my face into some semblance of order.

  “Thanks Naylle. That better?”

  “Yes thank you sweety. It looks like they’ve nearly got a hole large enough to get through, shall we proceed?” Drag-On gestured to where a dozen men in high visibility vests and hardhats were cutting rebar out of the way at the top third of the street plug.

  In response I simply glooped in that direction, absorbing the face on one side and carefully extending the same one on the other. A loaf of nanites bearing down on you was apparently a little disconcerting. The men working almost had a collective panic attack until I stopped politely to wait at the edge for people to finish and move.

  Once they had, I formed a stairwell down onto the ramp, which was a dozen feet down at this point. After Bomberman, his drone dog and Gravitas hesitated at the top I extended a pole that formed a pseudo head and face.

  “Hurry up. I’m getting bored.” I gave them a cheeky smile. It was apparently enough to get even Drag-On and their dragon to calmly use me as stairs to get down. I promptly turned to the foreman, shifting my voice to customer service tones. “There should be a guy named Depth Charge coming in after us. Keep the entrance open until we get back. If we don’t come back you may want to send for more Samurai.”

  “Understood. I recorded the whole thing on my augs this time. Uh. If you don’t mind my asking?” I nodded and smiled at him to encourage him. “What’s going on down there?”

  “Sore wa himitsu desu,” I chimed out in my cheekiest singsong well pronounced japanese.

  He just blinked confused at me as I shifted to ooze form and disappeared below street level. The others were already trooping down the ramp in their own idiom. Bomberman and Drag-On riding their mechs, Gravitas floating along with her pontoons out and searching for targets. I quickly formed myself into a ball and started rolling, making sure to squish into a wheel to bypass them on the inside before going back to a ball until I got to the bottom and rolled well out into the vast aquifer or whatever it was.

  I only stopped because I splattered myself on a pillar instead of crashing through it. I may be crazy but I’m not dumb.

  “Wait up dude!” The cyber Mastiff came barreling up as I pulled myself together. “What was that all about?”

  “Easy way down?” I formed enough to shrug at him from my full form, then promptly went Loaf again to wait. “I was first, wasn’t I?”

  “...Fair.” He started chuckling and leaned against me to wait for the other two who were coming at a more sedate pace. I think he took a lot of effort to look effortless and bored, I didn’t have to try, I simply watched the world speed up as I waited a few short moments.

  “Are you two ready, or are you not done playing?” Drag-On had a knowing smirk as they rode up on their dragon. “It’s several kilometers to the lake.”

  “Just waiting on you.” Bomberman smirked, hefted himself off where he was leaning on me and moved to remount his dog. “Besides, the big lug here is the slowest one of all of us.”

  “Really now?” I shifted to be more compact, until I was down to minimum size for maximum acceleration with the flight module I had. As a teardrop shape I shot off down the river, right over the water at mach one.

  Once I arrived at the lakeside, I stopped, landed and became pillar shaped. Shimmering with my facade nanites to look like all the others. Turning more of my sensors to the water I slowed down time to watch and wait. The others would be a minute and I may have startled whatever was in the water.

  From my perception it didn’t take long for the others to arrive. They discovered that I was missing, and that there were several fours hanging out on the nearby roof. They figured that out when all thirty of the plant bastards dropped from the ceiling because they received explosive rounds to the face. I had extended enough muzzles to fire explosive micro missiles at each one. I may have been a dick, but I’m not a bastard.

  “Shit! Did that pillar just shoot rockets at those things?” Bomberman blinked and did a double take after passing a hand over his face to clear the exploded plant goop. “Oh, It’s you. Real Cute. You could have said something?”

  “Sorry they snuck up on me when I was slowed down. Didn’t want to get bored waiting for you.” I slowly lowered from touching the ceiling and went back to loaf with a face shape. [I kinda forgot comms were a thing. Forgive me. It's been ten months.]

  [Ten? It’s only been two?] Gravitas turned fully to look at me, she seemed intent to make sure I saw her face when she spoke. It was helpful as I could see the confusion written clearly there.

  [Uptime. I can experience five seconds for your every one or the reverse of it for downtime. I spent my time in therapy in uptime in order to maximize my gains. For you it’s been two months, for me it’s been ten.] I oozed over to the edge of the water. [Ready to get wet?]

  [You just…. Spent ten months in therapy?]

  [Yup. Should we wait? I can send down a full size drone scout? They obviously know we’re here.] I turned several eyes to look at Gravitas who was somehow more confused and dumbfounded. [What?]

  [Ten months straight in therapy and you're still this fucked up?]

  [Oh I’m much better now. Nowhere near complete but I’m in the right shape, mentally speaking, now.]

  [As interesting as this conversation is Love, we really should prepare for the fight to start.] Drag-On pointed to the water where there was some sort of eel with a shit ton of land models clinging to it.