Melty Mercury from Outer Space: Chapter 13

Summary: Nikki is taken over by an extraterrestrial symbiote that changes her into a metal slime girl. While this comes with great power, she's unsure if she can control herself, or handle the extra baggage that comes with it.

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CHAPTER 13

As Nikki rested, her mind raced. She dreamed of an alien world, a world quickly becoming familiar. Too familiar. Her body twisted with familiar awkward sensations; the heft and weight of a body that was not her own, the intense heat emanating from two suns above; the strange sensation of soil caking around her cloven hooves. The hair tendrils that sprouted from her head weren't far removed from the twintails she was used to in the real world.

Nikki found herself in the body of an alien creature once again, seeing through their eyes. The name "Gumnapa" cropped up in her memory. Terror gripped her, welling up from her subconscious. Terror that seemed to be shared with the individual, whose body she currently occupied, an unwilling hitchhiker. 

She remembered this dream. It had ended terribly abruptly, but it continued unabated now. A snake-like creature, composed of the same mercurial substance Nikki was so intimately familiar with, leering over Gumnapa's body, poised to strike. Gumnapa could only clutch an alien musical instrument to his chest, stringed like a harp. 

Nikki had a bad feeling that, whoever this... individual was, they were about to die. She braced for the worst...

Dling...

Suddenly, a strange tune filled the air. Nikki could feel her hand—no, Gumnapa's hand—brushing against the strings of the strange instrument he held, playing a melodious tune. 

Out of the corner of her eye, the mercurial creature... paused. Frozen, seemingly. The beast straightened out, silently eyeballing Gumnapa. The air of hostility... wavered for a moment. They stared each other down. 

Nikki was baffled; why weren't they dead yet? Gumnapa seemed to share the same sentiment; Nikki could feel his eyes widen.

Dling! Another strum of the loot sent a wave of energy through the beast. It twisted and writhed, like soundwaves were shaking its amorphous body to the core. Narrow tendrils emerged from its sides, curling and spiking into exotic, tesseracting patterns. They reminded Nikki of snowflakes, or kaleidoscopes. 

The pretty visual effect wasn't lost on Gumnapa. His eyes lowering to his guitar, he strummed the instrument again in a melodious tune. It started sombre... and then crescendoed into a more upbeat, high-energy rhythm. 

The creature swayed in turn, its patterned branches unfurling into more elaborate patterns that expanded. They shimmered in the light, attracting the eye. It seemed to vibrate with every sound Gumnapa's instrument—it looked kinda like a harp to Nikki?—Gumnapa's harp played. 

Gumnapa continued to play, his eyes squarely locked on how the creature reacted. It was hard to determine the emotional disposition, but Nikki assumed that the creature was... happy? Almost like it was dancing. It was kind of goofy looking.

Gumnapa raised his hand from the strings, awaiting the creature's response. Lifelessly, the creature lurched to the ground, pooling into a puddle of ooze, before shifting upwards into a pillar. The pillar shifted slowly; its posture decidedly less... aggressive.

A long awkward pause hovered between the two. It was difficult to comprehend the ooze's intentions. Moments prior, it was ready to eat Gumnapa alive. Even Nikki seemed to be at a loss. 

The world twisted around Nikki, followed by the clopping of hooves. Gumnapa seemed to be interested in walking away. Slowly. 

...But the ooze lurched along behind him. Like a lost pet, Nikki mused to herself. At that scale, it hardly seemed a threat, though Nikki was intimately aware of what it was capable of. Could music really work so efficiently to pacify such a creature?

...It appeared to be the case as they slowly traveled through the jungle foliage, down the dirt trail. Gumnapa periodically glanced behind him, on alert for an attack. But it never came. The walk was decidedly... peaceful. Gumnapa walked with purpose. Nikki had the feeling that he was up to something. 

It wasn't long until they had returned to the outskirts of the village. Other creatures like Gumnapa wandered about, going about their daily tasks. This region didn't seem far removed from the sort of farming communities Nikki was used to seeing. A sense of familiarity came to Nikki, though Nikki didn't understand these nostalgic feelings. 

A few of the other quadrupedal creatures stopped what they were doing to sneak a glance at the oozing creature that trailed Gumnapa. Quizzical looks flashed across their faces.

"Gumnapa! What did you find?" One of them hollered.

Nikki mentally performed a double take; she distinctly remembered her inability to understand whatever the hell they were saying before. It all sounded like gibberish to her, aside from making out the odd word. She figured out this guy's name with some issue, but... now she could parce their language, and interpret it as plain English? Like some babblefish thing from that hitchhikers thing she read as a kid. Was her brain rewiring the more she persisted in her alien form?

Nikki had to push these pervasive questions to the back of her mind as Gumnapa held up his hand. A small crowd was quickly forming around them, the locals growing increasingly curious about the small creature he had at his feet. 

Gumnapa glanced to the creature and took out his stringed instrument. He looked around to the crowd, anticipating their hushed silence. As they quieted down, he raised his fingers to the strings and began to play...

Like before, the creature undulated and swayed to the rhythm, branches of stunning tessellating patterns sprouting from its core in all directions. A stunned sense of awe filled the air as the patreons watched on, murmuring as the light reflected the elaborate patterns the creature could produce effortlessly. A dozen stars sprouted along its limbs, spikes eruption, then melting away as quickly. It swayed in a circle, trying to get the attention of the whole crowd as it performed in response to the slow melody Gumnapa played.

The performance from the material matched the steady beat of the strings, and the crowd was enamoured. A few stomped their hooves in approval, before others followed in turn. 

Cling! One of them tossed a coin at the hooves of Gumnapa. Others followed in turn, Gumnapa stepped back, holding his instrument to the side as he saw coins litter the ground at his feet. His eyes lit up. 

"Thank you! Thank you! Many blessings!" He waved, reaching down to pick one up...

Shlurp. The mercurial creature was quicker, a tendril lashing out to absorb the lion's share of the coins, pulling them into its central mass. It settled down, gurgling contentedly. 

Gumnapa blinked, looking down at the creature with a weak grimace.

"Those are the terms with you? I see..." Gumnapa uttered. 

The applause from the village filled the air. For some reason, it seemed to drag on and on...

---

"...see you next time, on Jeopardy!" 

The television was still going, the dull light of the screen reflecting off the shiny surface of Nikki's formless body; the ooze had been content to drape around the sofa, nestling between the covers, and pooling around the floor. 

"...Mrgh... rgh..." Nikki's muffled voice muttered something incoherent, her entire formless body writhing and shuffling. Whatever sat atop the couch cushions shlorped to the floor as a pillar rose from the center of the mass. Nikki was stirring awake.

"...nn... did I pass out again? What's with these freaky dreams anyway." She warbled; she hadn't reformed her head, so her voice simply reverberated all around her body. These visions seemed to follow a logical progression. And they felt real. Like a long-distant memory recollected with a sudden epiphany. 

Nikki was sure that these dreams weren't just random neural firings. They felt strangely personal. But these were someone else's memories, right...? Some... other alien. She didn't understand the connection. But she felt a connection, somehow. 

Content to sit there as a formless mass, Nikki pondered her situation. Even in a heap of herself, she could make out the familiar tune of that famous game show.

"...Ohhh, Jeopardy's over..." She muttered to herself. "...W-Wait, that means it's 8 o'clock. Gotta get going in a jiffy, or the night class'll start without me." 

The ooze rose up on its own, quickly reforming into Nikki's familiar form, almost reflexively. She was getting better at this sort of thing; it was taking less concentration for her to pull herself back together. She already had the strategy from before in mind; pretending she was carrying a big old backpack, instead of a sopping heap of alien goo upon her shoulders, worked great in broad daylight. It should be easy at night! 

Clip, clop, clip, clop...

"...?"

Nikki's purposeful gait slowed down. Something felt different. Like the weight distribution on her feet was different, concentrated to a single point. Her twintails flexed behind her, seemingly for balance. She turned to the mirror.

"...What the..."

Her body looked normal, but as her eyes trailed downwards, her feet were something entirely different. She thought she had sneakers sorted out down there, or at least a facsimile of them. But she was surprised to find her legs had slimmed from the knee down; her heel and toes smooshed together into a solid mass, kind of like...

"...Hooves?" Nikki raised one above the ground. It lacked the flexibility that toes offered, and she thought she'd tip over at any point. But she found that her center of balance was perfect, and standing like this felt... strangely naturally. 

She grimaced, testing her balance a few more times. She hopped on one. And then the other. She bounced in place, the hooves clacking against the linoleum. 

"...This... raises further questions." Nikki muttered, running a hand through one of her hair tendrils. She wasn't even thinking about it, and her feet formed into a pair of hooves. She never even relished that idea, so why was she so... relaxed about it? 

"...mm. I... can't go out like that." With a mental nod, ooze bubbled up from around her calves, collecting around her feet, expanded and flattened out into a more familiar pair of sneakers. Nikki frowned slightly, feeling herself lose a few inches. With a cursory check of her sneakers, she turned to the mirror.

"...okiday." She nodded, seeing familiar pigments flush across her body, the hues of fabric and dye washing across her clothing. She studied herself in the mirror one more time.

"...My t-shirt's a bit... plain." Her mouth flattened.

Like an LCD screen, her shirt flashed between various patterns. Tie dye was probably too flashy... argyle was probably too folksy... 

"Aghh, what am I doing? I'm in a hurry here!" She exclaimed, opting to settle on a design feature the McDaniel's sports mascot; a cartoonish crow with a competitive sneer.

Grasping the straps of her "backpack", she hurried out the door. One of her twintails tensed behind her, its end morphing into her room key, quickly locking the door behind her before she forgot. 

---

The night bus was pretty empty, so Nikki got to stretch her legs and ride along in silence. It was a bit of a close call—she just barely caught the bus before it was about to leave—but the university wasn't too far away, and this was faster than walking. 

She glanced at her bus pass, grimacing slightly. Her eyes rose to the bus driver, coolly oblivious to her actions, as she lowered the card against her thigh, covering it with her palm. The card subtly melted back into her. Nikki was surprised her simulated pass worked with the card reader. She made a mental note to be more careful about the personal belongs she made prolonged contact with...

Vrr vrr!

Nikki winced, clutching the seat as her entire body vibrated and buzzed. It was the same feeling she got from her phone getting an email alert, or a text... only it reverberated her entire being. She gasped sharply, grimacing as she settled down. She raised a hand to her glasses, adjusting them as she brought up her smart glasses UI. 

Looks like she got an email. An email from... Professor Riviera? He's the one teaching her night class. She squinted, reading the email.

"Tonight's class is... cancelled?" Nikki muttered to herself, eyes widening. "Whaaa?? That's... way too short-notice, ughhh..." Nikki rubbed her forehead. "Like, it's supposed to start in five minutes, and I'm basically... already... there..."

Nikki trailed off, her eyes glancing out the window. Parked along the front of the school were several jet black vans. Nikki wasn't sure what to make of it, but she got a really bad feeling about this. 

The bus stopped not far from the gate; Nikki was tempted to stay on the bus and ride it out, but she was worried about Riviera. She recalled how he appraised the meteorite she brought in. Sure, it was worthless then, but Nikki didn't know she was harbouring an extraterrestrial being at the time. 

She hurried off the bus, her eyes anxiously locked on the scary black vans. Was there any chance that she got the professor wrapped up in shady government business? It was hard not to worry about him. 

She wanted to hurry onto campus right away, but she didn't see a single other student. Agents in black suits seemed to be swarming the place. Plus, there were two figures—a man and a woman—flanking the gate, their arms folded authoritatively. 

"Stop right there." The man held out his arm to stop Nikki. "This campus is temporarily being examined by Homeland Security." 

"All night classes are cancelled. Be on your way." The woman chimed in with a similar drole, authoritative command. 

Nikki tilted her head. She recognized them. They were the same agents she encountered on one of her exercise runs. The man was named "T", the woman "B". 

"You guys are Homeland Security?" Nikki tilted her head. She was very skeptical about this kind of response, and all the black suits gave her more of a "men in black" vibe. "What're you guys doing on a university campus for?"

"Information is on a need-to-know basis, ma'am." B muttered.

"But... I'm a student here."

"Okay, that changes things." T responded, absolute staunch in his tone. "We got a tip about illegal contraband on campus, and we've been authorized for a full investigation." 

"..." Nikki cocked her eyebrow up. That was a pretty vague assertion. She leaned over, trying to get a good look at whatever was happening on campus; T stepped in her line of sight. 

"Well, is... is Professor Riviera in? He was supposed to teach my class, and-"

"Currently in for questioning. He'll be released later tonight." T affirmed.

"Did... did he do something wrong?" Nikki tilted her head. 

"Need-to-know basis." B restated, cocking her head in T's direction. 

"...Aren't you the lady we saw at the site last night?" T turned back to Nikki, leaning forward to look her over. 

"...Ah! Y-yes, I..." Nikki raised her arms to her chest, backing up a step. "I don't mean to get in the way of you guys or anything! You... you keep doing what you're doing, standing and looking menacing!"

Nikki got a bad feeling from these two. She wasn't sure how exactly. She preferred to call it a hunch; it was a more positive euphemism than the feeling of her mind filling with static, like a crowd of voices telling her to stay away. 

"Stop going out to run in the dead of night." T cautioned her. "The streets get dangerous around this time."

"Yeah. Find a running partner." B piped in. "T and I got our own route we-"

"Good advice! I-I'll just, I'll just go now-"

It'd be a while until the next bus would come around the block, but Nikki didn't want to stick around any longer. The stare these agents gave off felt like she was being dissected, and she didn't like that. 

She hurried off, aiming to put as much distance between herself and the agents as possible. Nikki prayed the professor was someplace safe...

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