An Ton's Journey

On the burned patch of land, I saw a droideka's leg, stabbed right into the stone that cracked, but was still standing strong.

Through the clouds, light shined onto the leg and it even reminded me about Excalibur. Sword in the stone...

Ok, back to reality. As I closed in and climbed onto the stone, I saw a reflection in the distance, so I put the stone and a sword inside my inventory, and walked to the place where I saw reflection.

As I was getting closer, I heard a growl to the side of it. In there, I could see very massive animal that looked like a mix of wolf and rhinoceros, it had six horns - two in the front, two on the top of the head, pointing to the front, and two below the mouth, a little bit to the sides.

It's head was elongated just like wolf's, but it had thick skin and scarce fur with scars from battles all over it's body.

It's legs were pretty massive, but spine was not so much.

As it growled, two more animals came out of the tree line, trying to surround me.

As I didn't want to fight, and was sure that I am much slower then any of them, looking at how they moved to surround me, I decided to move forward to any of them.

As I was getting closer to one in the front, they all rushed at me at the same time.

As they were closing in, I took out the stone with a leg to the front, making it fall on one of them, and two bodies to the behind, effectively blocking their rush and making them stop for a moment.

At that moment, stone finally fell on to one to the front, and as I was not close enough to pierce it's head, it growled from pain. Effectively making two from behind attack me.

These wolverhines used their horns to push me right into the stone, making me feel pain from the impact, but they didn't break any part of my carapace.

While I was being pushed against the wall, and feeling pressure on my body increasing with time, I released my tongues and tried touching the wolverhine, but my tongues were not long enough, and it only lead to me looking like tentacle monster pinned by an animal...

As I was beginning to panic, stone behind me cracked and I was freed for a moment, but some of my tongues got caught by the pieces and it made me screech in pain, successfully making them stumble a bit.

But this didn't make me feel better as right now I felt increasingly burning pain. And at some point this pain increased a lot as one of my tongues got cut by fallen droideka's leg.

This led to me blacking out for a second and liquid began flowing out of my separated tongue, successfully dissolving tongue and spreading around, boiling at it.

And as I was still feeling pain, the trio of animals began getting back their mind and closed in. As they close on to me, they threw me again and rushed at me to stomp me down.

But as one of them was rushing at me, it fell right on me, successfully covering me with it's body.

After this, I heard it's two friends try to push it out and call it, but after couple of minutes, I stopped hearing them.

After being under the body of wolverhino for couple more minutes, I decided to check if it is alive, as I didn't know why it fell on me. And being under one of them was beginning to get uncomfortable.

As I tried placing it in my inventory, it disappeared and I saw how two other animals were lying down dead and bleeding inside yellow gas that was spreading from the liquid that came out of my tongue.

As I was still in pain from my tongue being cut, I decided to get further from the gas until it flies away, but turning around I could see that I was already inside it and everything was ok with me.

It seems it is not working on me, I better try and get some of this liquid with me. Wait. I have nothing to place it in!

Will corner of a box work? I tried scooping up leftover liquid, but it was already evaporated so it just left a residue on the rock.

Fck. Well, it saved me, but it is painful!

Argh.

As I was getting closer to the leg that bounced away, I remembered that there was something shiny at the tree. So, after placing leg and pieces of stone inside inventory, I crawled to it.

It happened to be one of the blasters of my modified droideka, making it one of four blasters in my possession.

The only thing now, os to find energy generator and connect it back to the blaster. I already can imagine myself carrying a backpack with core and four blasters coming out of it to shoot at my target. Ouf. cringe.

But well, I can't really imagine any other way of me using it with this body.

So, in search of the core and all other details, I went to another destroyed parts of the forest, destroyed by crashed droideka's parts.

As they were pretty much modified and strengthened, with connections between parts being weaker, I think I would be able to find the core - the most protected equipment that droideka had. Especially as it was paired with shield generators.

As it would be a long task - getting to one of the parts, I decided to try and find closest and mist optimal place to start, considering that I am still pretty far from speeds I could reach as a Probe.

As eating through the tree was bad idea, I tried using my short legs to climb, but the only thing that I achieved by this, was understanding of me being able to hold on the tree. But when I tried to climb it, I was falling again and again making me think more.

After trying different things, one of them was successful. I used my tongues to hold onto the droideka's leg, and used it as climbing equipment. giving me a way to slowly climb.

And when I say slowly, I mean it.

It took me two hours getting bȧrėly used to it and climbing the tree. From it I could see some of the surroundings, and it gave me approximate positions of my targets.

So, the collection began, collection of parts that would provide me with feeling of safety.

As it all took a lot of time, after two weeks I collected around half of the parts, some of them had no wiring inside, some of them were separated in too many parts for me to connect with my present abilities.

But the most important thing, is that I found the energy core and it was absolutely fine, just buried in the ground a little bit. So, I dug it out and began my examination.

At this point, I began searching through the debris that I found for intact adapter between the blaster and core.

After not finding perfectly intact one, I tried using slightly damaged one.

As I connected, nothing bad happened, so I decided to try and shoot. After a minute or so of trying to hold the blaster steady, as it was bigger then handheld version, I tried finding shoot buŧŧon, but It had none.

Fck! how could I forget about it? It was a part of fuċkɨnġ robot. And it needs it's 'brain' to control.

As it led me to disconnecting the blaster, blaster itself made a shot the moment I disconnected it. oh. wtf?

As it showed a way to allow me to shoot, I tried to connect and disconnect it couple of times, and each time I disconnected it, it was shooting. Noice!

But now comes the problem, how would I use it, disconnecting it every time is uncomfortable and I would need to be stationary for this.

Hmm...

After searching and finding no normal intact cables that would be able to allow me to move disconnection point closer to my tongues ( hands ), I collected all the parts and moved to the next part.

At this point, my legs grew hardened skin, allowing me to stab these hands in some things, making me move and climb faster.

Also, with new length, I grew four more pairs if legs, making me a centipede.

It's not like I am complaining, but it feels strange when I try to feel myself. having ten legs and eating around fifty kg of meat every meal, was a little strange.

But as This forest seems to have enough wildlife, I had no problems with food. As Now my food storage had food for at least two months of my new appetite.Even though I am becoming worried about it.

As I grew bigger and bigger, I was being attacked by bigger animals, that I could hide from before.

On of these animals is now in front of me, looking right into my eyes.

Snake with length of at least twenty meters, looking in my eyes, waiting to attack.

As I didn't want to be swallowed or poisoned, I took out my small construct of gun and a core placed on one of the plates. As I took it out, snake began rushing at me. As I was not yet experienced with my new contraption, I could shoot only once before being swallowed with it in one swift motion.

F for the snake. It is good that It swallowed me, but this feeling of being pushed from all sides is not really comfortable.

As I took away my gun, I was suddenly being moved forward at faster pace. At that moment, I opened my mouth wide, and released my tongues that grew in length and strength with time. The tongue that was cut, is regrowing steadily.

As my tongues made contact with the giant snake, It began trashing, making me feel the nausea a little. For the first time in a pretty long while.

As it didn't last long, I cut the snake and place it's now dead corpse in inventory.

As bow I knew that this kind of snake just swallows the prey, I didn't need to worry anymore.

Now, after collecting all the parts that I could find from droideka's body, I had two working blasters, working shield generator that I couldn't control, armored plates, broken eyes and a 'brain' that I couldn't use. Brain was programmed to follow the orders of mine, but now I am a centipede, and it would most probably not recognize me, making it worse.

The legs, only two were found. Other legs were somewhere I couldn't find.

All the parts that were used to move droideka were turned in scraps, except for one arm that I couldn't control.

This made me a little depressed and I just began my journey to the hill, from which I wanted to find where I should go, or at least understand that there is nothing and begin making a home.

After climbing on a hill, and looking around, I found a few patches of destroyed trees, that if connected would create a line connected to the burnt patch that I left.

So, I decided to move from the burning patch to the closest broken group of trees, making me hope to find something good.

My current speed reached a Normal human walking speed, so I was finally able to travel bigger distances in the same time.

After a month and a final group of fallen trees being on the side of the mountain, I saw a sight that made me extremely happy. I saw Arbiter in the distance, on the same mountain range.

As I found the crashing spot, I rushed there with all my speed. Not lasting long, I made a stop to eat.

Currently, my body was around two to two and half meters long, if I am not wrong and my eyes are not lying to me, and half a meter in height and width.

In last month, I grew new legs and now in total I have twelve pairs of strong and spiky legs, allowing me to not crawl.

Now I am finally walking like a centipede, and in last months my carapace grew harder and bigger, leaving only bottom part of my body with a hardened skin, that was tough enough to resist bite from the wolf, but not strong enough to resist being penetrated by the wolverhines.

It was a painful experience that I don't want to experience again. Even though it showed that my blood is not red, but purple with blue shine on the surface of the pool that appeared after our fight with group of wolverhines.

I won and now I had a lot of food in my possession.

As I finished my lunch, I moved to the Arbiter.

After four days and now only one climb left until my target. With my presently awesome legs, I latched on to the 80 to 90 degree wall and climbed it like nothing, like I was walking on the normal and straight terrain.

Yes, now I could so this. Awesome!

As I climbed, I saw Arbiter up close, and it was mostly fine, except for a little bit of deformed and melted hull, and broken glass that even melted so much that I saw chairs being inside of solidified glass.

Should I call it glass? It isn't really a glass, but who cares. I would call it glass.

As I walked inside through the now opened window, I saw that nothing much was broken inside, except maybe chairs and a table that flew from its hinges and crashed in a chair pushing it deep into the glass.

~ After reading logs and accepting the situation ~

I don't think that I was supposed to be in my body, but now at least I know that I and a system are inside the Pylon-like crystal that I saw inside the Probe's body.

Hmm. So, there is information about creating many things using my droideka's hands that I didn't find, and information about some emergency protocols. But none of them said about me becoming a centipede.

Well, It is good that I found Arbiter, now. Where was the weapon box.

hmm. Aha! Here it is. four nanocostumes, four psi blades, one energy shield generator and four psi guns.

Psi guns would be useless for me, but I would still take them. As for costumes, I would use them all at the same time. It would take almost no time for them to connect to each other, as they were made to have this function.

Especially with four costumes and a barrel of nanobots to supply them if needed. Now. Here we go.

Ahh, tungly tinhly ahaha.

Uff, it was interesting. Spreading nanobots.

Now, I should pour more nanobots on myself, until the limit on the amount of nanobots would be reached.

After taking around 10% of the barrel, Limit was reached.

Now,it is time to use these nanobots take my life better.

First of all, I used them to place myself with back half a meter part on the floor, for stability, and lifted middle part to be as a spine for a human, successfully allowing myself to look like 'Z'.

After stabilization of my position, I created hands out of nanobots and began looking through more logs, as I couldn't do it easily before.

At last, after a day or so of reading I found information about where I most probably was.

It was a planet, existence of which was calculated by system according to the movements of other space bodies. Arbiter was supposed to be captured by it's gravity field and be placed on to it's orbit, but in the logs, it seems that melted glass made a difference enough to crash on the planet itself.

Currently, my goals are to collect and burn trees, hunt and not die.

As of now, I will have to survive without system.

And thinking about it, Is there any sentient life on this planet?

Collecting trees, just like in the beginning, brought back memories. Ah, it was so long ago, and yet feels like no time at all.

So, after clearing some trees around the Arbiter, I started automatic integrity check.

And as it would take time, to check everything in detail, I decided to collect melted glass and eat.

After doing it, and getting back to the ship, Check was done.

Ship's hull was melted from outside, but still would be able to maintain it's function.

Main weapon was damaged while being in hyperwarp. Secondary weapons that were hidden behind the hull plates were in working condition and could be used anytime.

Arbiter's generator was working and after I find a way to connect it to system, I would be able to hasten it's return, but for this to happen, I would need to read manual that system left for me. And in this manual, I was supposed to be inside the droideka.

So, this idea is postponed until it wakes up.

For now, burning trees will work fine.

Engine is working only with half efficiency, and automatic repair system is working on it.

Automatic repair system? there is something like that?

As I read other parameters, radar was repaired, invisibility field generator is turned off to use all the energy for repair, lights are repaired, automatic artificial gravity is broken, awaiting repair, and so on.

After sleeping and eating again, I decided to connect my two blasters to the core and use nanobots to control them.

As nanobots were extremely advanced and could be controlled by mind, they created a backpack needed to keep energy core and shield generator. Also, they connected blasters to the core and cleaned all the dirt from them.

After connecting to the core, I ordered nanobots to connect psi blades and psi blasters to it, as this core was already modified to use them.

As this was being done, I ordered nanobots to control the blasters. Now, I wouldn't need to care about them. I would use psi blades and my tongues to fight and hunt.

Well, and cut down trees.

A lot. I mean, A LOT.

Energy required for comeback of system is insane, so I even feel like this forest would need to be destroyed.

Wait. How could I be so stupid? Blasters from droideka could burn the trees easily!

And if I use my two other blasters, nanobots could be used as connection cable!!

Well, as it was using all more and more nanobots, I had to use my own legs to travel, but now on my back, I had a turret with four blasters that were shooting in all directions, penetrating the trunks and making trees fall. In addition, these shots were making them burn, successfully providing me with more fuel for system.

~ month later ~

I almost didn't meet any animals in last two weeks, they must be scared of my work.

I thought, looking at the empty plain full of burnt stumps, while standing close to the Arbiter and using all my weapons, ship's included, to melt the glass so Arbiter's Automatic repair system would be able to use it for creation of new glass.

This repair system was not really complicated, so it was working pretty slowly.

It was couple of repair probes that were integrated in the ship itself, making them unable to move outside the ship.

If they ever need to do outside work, they could create tools or even probe if they would have necessary details.

For now, making protoss pylon or anything protoss related is highly dangerous. My Arbiter was disconnected from their network by system, but any standard protoss structure would be connected to it. So, this is no go.

As the glass was beginning to melt after what looked like eternity, heat was making me feel hot what lead to me thinking, what if I heat up something using my energy weapons and just use it instead of burning trees? It might be better and more reusable source of heat energy.

After glass was finally melted fully, I brought it in the ship and ' Probes ', that didn't look like probes began spreading it like a bubble with help of shield and gravity control, successfully making in pretty uniform.

After reinstalling it, the part of the hull that was holding previous glass was reinstalled successfully making Arbiter a spaceship once again!

Well, now it only need repair in couple of functions, but it is not important for now.

Now, it is time to lift off!

Yay!!!?

* Splash*

What was it?

I looked at the glass and it had a bird stuck on it, at least parts of the bird.

Oh, and it was not alone, now while I am in the sky, a flock of birds is passing by me.

Food? hmm.

Yes, food.

Shoot them down! yahaha!!

* Pew pew pew*

I was shooting them down and catching their bodies using tractor beams.

* Splat *

What the heck us that? What is this white stuff covering my whole window?

As it was cleaned, I saw the reason for it. It was bird poop.

And a big one.

it was from a massive flying whale-like animal.

Fck you!

I said, using nanobots to show five middle fingers, and using sixth hand to shoot at it.

It's skin was so thick, that my side weapons didn't even make it flinch, so I decided to leave it be, as it was useless.

After collecting few tens of pretty sizeable birds I flew to the orbit and began scanning the planet.

________________________

Thank you [ Gray Knight ]

pa treon.com/Muraveyy

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``` Author's note ```

`` 72 +- words ``

` 3789 words in chapter `

Thank you for reading, and enjoy if you can.

Well, here we go. our mc arrived at the Arbiter and soon zerg action might begin.

I can't wait to see what will my imagination bring us. I hope nothing too ridiculous xD

leave comments... or don't.

p.s: Join pat reon to read chapter one day sooner ;)