Of Sentience and Predator

D6: Into Hell

Afri looked at Gwen before saying, "Transform into Tiamat. Crow, copy the Volann DNA once she transforms." The disguised Sotoraggian looked at Ben. "Transform into Starray. We need to check if the Cyber Squids are doing anything to harm the environment. Psychobos, will Rat transforming affect the call in any way?"

"It will make it audio only," Psychobos shrugged. Afri nodded in reply as Damana took off his ID mask.

A green flashed caused them to look over. "Tiamat!" the pale purple scaled fish proclaimed.

As Kevin absorbed some DNA from Tiamat, Psychobos commented, "ID masks are not known to survive very well underwater. I would recommend taking them off."

Afri looked at the hologram before it broke to static as Ben activated the Nemetrix. The now mutated Kevin placed his ID mask to the side as Tiamat and Ben approached the water. A red flash and Starray flowed into the lake. Kevin rushed to join them as Tiamat slipped under the surface and Afri walked to the edge of the water.

"Kevin, keep your badge's commlink on," Afri called. Kevin threw up a thumbs up before splashing down through the surface.

Starray glided through the water, lowering to the sandy bed of the lake's floor. His sun-colored eyes scanned the lakebed as Tiamat swam above him. The bioluminescent light from Tiamat's lure shone through the water as they swam, Kevin close behind them with his badge in his mutated hands (claws?).

"There!" Tiamat suddenly proclaimed, beating her tail faster. Starray shifted slightly to follow the Piscciss Volann, as did Kevin.

The horde of Cyber Squids gathered in a swirling orb in the water. The fish that swam around actively avoided the swarm as they touched each other with their mechanical tentacles. Inside, through the blue-tinted glass, was a strange liquid that seemed to be an orange color.

The Nemetrix badge beeped slight, then Psychobos's voice said, "If I could get an image of the horde, I could pinpoint what they're holding in their tanks."

Tiamat came up to the horde, her lure's light shining upon the closest members of the horde. Starray glided over as she said, "I think it's a liquid, but I can't see through it at all."

Starray commented, "The liquid looks... brown I want to say? The glass is blue, I think."

"An orange liquid, then?" Psychobos asked.

"I dunno, maybe," Tiamat shrugged.

"Thick orange liquid... the only thing I can think of with those properties is minor-cooled Pyros stored magma," Psychobos muttered.

"That's a long name," Kevin commented, before releasing a weird cough.

"No talking," EightEight's voice snapped through the badge Kevin held. "If it was stored magma, it would have tiny chunks of rock in it."

"While I'm not too familiar with Pyros storage habits, when Khyber was retrieving Crabdozer DNA from a bioreserve, he mentioned the Pyronite who watched the Crabdozer drink some without the rock chunks," Psychobos commented.

"Weird as towerspark, I'm not counting that."

"Not surprising, really."

Tiamat looked at Kevin, who was just staring at the badge with a weird face, then at Starray who was still looking at the horde of Cyber Squids.

"Should I break one of them or...?" Tiamat asked.

A pause, then Psychobos said, "Don't try to completely destroy it, but go ahead."

Tiamat swam up the horde, then paused. The water swished pass her as the horde swam. She held a claw back, then thrust it forwards. Quickly, she bolted away as the Cyber Squid began thrashing as the orange liquid spilled and quickly hardened.