Melty Mercury from Outer Space: Chapter 7

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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Melty Mercury from Outer Space

Chapter 7

This had been a long, hard day for Nikki. She had a feeling that things weren't going to get any easier for her. She woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather; maybe she caught a cold on campus, jogging late at night, but... she never imagined something like this would happen to her. 

Her mind seemed to acclimate well enough to her new alien form. She worried that the lack of bones, or ligaments, or joints, would make movement strange, but some part of her felt... strangely liberated. Her brain—wherever it was in her metallic biomass—had been rewired. She didn't feel like she had conscious control over the nuances of her body. Her twintails, more akin to writhing tentacles than anything else, lazily drifted through the air, as if studying her surroundings.

Nikki had a feeling she could at least refamiliarize herself with a form she knew well. Her own human form. She imagined taking a step forward and, effortlessly, the column of slime that comprised her lower body split into two legs. Her eyes stared curiously as her heels clicked against the floor. 

She held her hands in front of her, examining her fingers. With a tentative wiggle, they responded to her thoughts. She paused, standing next to her bed, as she examined them closely. She made sure to hold them up in front of her. Aside from the shiny smooth surface and texture they had, they were, at the very least, a vague facsimile of a human hand. 

"Ah... I wonder..." Nikki muttered. She extended her arm in front of her, focusing her attention on her hand. Her bright blue eyes focused. There wasn't any change as her hand drifted further away. No matter how far away her hand was, her vision of it was crystal clear. 

"...Oh-"

Nikki gasped silently, watching as her forearm began to extend to an inhuman length across the room. The joint of her elbow smoothed out, resulting in a long appendage that continued to reach the length of her entire apartment. It only stopped when she felt the palm of her hand press against the kitchen stove.

That wasn't what she was trying to test, but... it was startling to see happen regardless, how the limitations of humanity didn't apply to her anymore.

"I gotta be careful about doing that in public, I... I wasn't even thinking." Nikki cooed, astonished. She tried to pull her arm back; it arced sideways and thwacked a cupboard, before retracting back to its normal length. She observed it one more time, wiggling her fingers to see if they still worked.

"...My near-sightedness, it's... gone." Nikki blinked. Her eyes lowered to her pair of prescription glasses; in her rush to get out of the door that much more quickly, she left them at home. She never really thought of the consequences of that decision... it was kind of like she had them on the whole time.

Her hand lowered to grab her glasses by the frame, holding them up to peer through them. A look of nostalgic sorrow crossed her face, and she let out a sigh. 

"Guess I really don't need these anymore, huh? They were kinda cute too..." Nikki lamented quietly. She liked the lavender rim they had; it reminded her of Easter with her family. 

As she reflected on what had happened in the past, a strange, familiar sensation rose up inside her. One that excited her. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she had a feeling it had something to do with...

"...eh?"

Her fingers, gently gripping the frame of the glasses, began to melt and deform, Thin tendrils snaked around the side arms of the glasses, coiling around like miniature vines. Nikki jumped in surprise, and would have dropped them... but her hands, now reduced to formless ends of tendrils, held on.

Her eyes watched carefully as the silvery substance slithered, coiled, and then coated the metal hinges and arms of the glasses. The goop spread all over the glasses, taking no time at all until they had been completely enveloped in a thin layer of slime. A jolt of energy coursed through Nikki; it was pleasant, but a little disappointing, like having a single hors d'oeuvre when you really wanted a big turkey dinner. 

Robotically, she raised the encoated glasses to her face. For a moment, she couldn't see through the lens, thoroughly coated by an opaque layer of liquid metal slime. But as her glasses rested on her face as normal, the frame seemed to... merge with Nikki at points of contact. The side arms, curving behind her ears, simply lost form after a point.

And then a layer of metal slime covering the lens ebbed away, allowing Nikki to see as normal through her surprised, blue eyes. Her hands reformed once more, again with their familiar human digits; they pressed against the frame, giving the impression that she was trying them on for the first time. 

She stared for a spell, wondering what just happened. Her glasses took on the same glossy metal look as the rest of her body. On some level, Nikki felt like they could be a part of her now, but... that's insane, they're just an accessory.

"That's... really odd." Nikki muttered. She tried to remove them...

...But they simply melted in her hands! The bridge of the glasses split in hand, and each lens simply merged into the backs of each of her hands. Nikki flinched, her fingers suddenly tensing.

"What!? W-where did they go!? They can't just disappear, they..."

Nikki's flustered panic quickly subsided, as something inside her reassured her that everything would be alright. For a moment, she thought she had lost her glasses forever, but...

...She felt them inside her. The memory of them, at least. And maybe, with a little concentration...

She closed her eyes, and mentally lifted a switch. From behind her ears, she could feel two twin tendrils, no thicker than a strand of spaghetti, snaking out from the side of her head. They brushed together in front of her face, meeting at the bridge of her nose, and quickly shifted its shape, even gaining some semblance of rigidity. 

Nikki opened her eyes and smiled. With a little bit of mental legwork, she had fashioned herself a pair of glasses from her own alien biomass. And, aside from colour and texture, they were identical in shape to her old ones...

"This is so strange, but... i-it's kind of a relief, too." Nikki admitted, adjusting her glasses. "I can accessorize a bit, and..."

She paused. Another idea crossed her mind. Her ravenous, metal-hungering body had done a fine job raiding her kitchen. But she ate her glasses too, and she remembered their form and shape.

"...It doesn't really matter if I can make a dumb pair of glasses, if I look like a moving statue wherever I go..." Nikki muttered, hugging herself. Her arms seemed to sink slightly into her biomass. "I can't go out in public like this, it's..."

Nikki trailed off, her train of thought stopping at the tip of her tongue. She got to thinking about how she woke up a few hours ago.

"...That's right, I looked normal then. Before all... this stuff, came out, and..." 

Her eyes widened, looking back and forth. She needed a photo, preferably a recent one. Her eyes drifted to the laptop, an apprehensive look crossing her face. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to approach that thing; her body made a point of consuming things indiscriminately, and she kinda needed it for work things...

She could've checked her phone... but it was inside her, and it was way more complicated than a dinky pair of glasses. She anxiously adjusted her glasses, thinking if she could call it up as easily as a pair of glasses.

"...Whoa!?"

All of a sudden, the lens of her glasses illuminated with a faint, artificial glow. Nikki's eyes had to momentarily adjust, but when they did, she found that the previously plain lenses of her plain glasses had turned into some kind of advanced display. 

"...Ohhh myyy..." Nikki cooed. The user-interface was surprisingly intuitive; it took only a few glances of her eyes to navigate the shrunken-down menus that she recognized from her smartphone. And everything was here! Her messaging apps, her cellphone, an assortment of mobile games she barely played anymore, and...

"The photo album... I-I downloaded my photo album?" Nikki muttered, astonished. With a quick blink, she opened it up, displaying a spread of familiar photos. Including her most recent photo of the meteorite itself...

"..."

A pang of regret hit her in that moment, but she shook it off. With a nod, she sifted through the library until she hit upon one of her gym selfies—a show of triumph over hitting a goal for bulking up.

"...Alright, that's what I looked like. Maybe not after eating my entire kitchen, but... there's a guideline." Nikki nodded, raising her glasses. Their purpose fulfilled, they melted back into her silvery hairline. She hurried over to the mirror, and psyched herself up.

"Alright, from the top. Brown hair, green eyes, freckles, a white tracksuit... fleshy flesh, that last one's important." Nikki reminded herself, keeping the image of herself squarely in her mind. She had a chin that was a little too pointed, a nose that was a little too flat, and hips a bit too pronounced for her modest size. It wasn't the sort of profile a supermodel would boast, but she couldn't deny her own body.

A tingle coursed through her body. From her chest, spreading in all directions, The silvery skin glimmered and flashed, before settling into a nice, pretty looking shade of pink skin. From her scalp, travelling down her twintails, a deep, chestnut hue of brown coloured her hair, its texture becoming coarse—like tightly bound and braided human hair, instead of a smooth tendril. She could feel herself shrinking, the gained height and proportions from her ravenous binge melty away...

For a moment, Nikki stood naked. In but a few moments, her human-like skin rippled in turn, puffing out, expanding, fluttering, and dying itself all new shades of colours. Her breasts were blanketed by a loosely-fitting track hoodie, while a pair of track shorts hugged her waist. Her feet were quickly wrapped up in a pair of sneakers, and the shoelaces even tied up themselves.

Before long, Nikki felt the changes around her subsiding. She held a breath of anxiety in her chest, before opening her eyes. 

"...Haa...! It, it worked!"

Nikki leaned forward, clutching both sides of the mirror. All of her old features that she identified with... they were all there, just as she remembered! It was like nothing had changed at all, like the last maddening, insane hours never happened! She jumped for joy with a giddy fist pump!

Shlorp.

"...Eh?"

She looked down cautiously. While her legs were just the same as she always knew, she found herself standing in a thick puddle of the same ooze she had become so familiar with. A defeated grimace came to mind.

She tried to step out of the slime, but it adhered to her in some way. She tried staggering to the left and the right—the puddle slid along the floor with her, a sickening squelching sound compounding her movements. She could raise one leg or the other, but jumping up was pointless; it was like trying to get rid of a wad of the most persistent gum in all of existence. 

"...Nooo... d-did I eat too much?" Nikki pondered the thought, watching in awe at the size of the puddle she stood in, reaching almost eight feet in diameter... the puddle which was as much a part of her as her own flesh and... well, she didn't have blood, but...

A pang of anxiety hit her gut. It was small, but the puddle felt out of place to her. 

With an unsteady breath, she nodded, willing the ooze to incorporate itself with her. She'd simply have to make space for it...

"...Hah??"

All at once, the ooze shifted towards her, clinging to her legs, and undulating upwards with wet pulses of life. It proceeded to just underneath the bottom of her hoodie, and slipped underneath it. She braced for the ooze to enter her through the only holes in her body that would be accessible from such a position, but...

...It simply melted back into her skin, adding its form to hers. Strangely, unevenly, Nikki began to grow, and she staggered just to keep her balance.

The world around her grew a little bit smaller, as she regained the foot in height she had lost a few moments prior. She could feel movement underneath her skin, muscles forming where there were none before.

"O-oh no-"

And then, right in front of her, she watched with awe as her breasts inflated from a pair of A's to D's, in almost no time at all. It was like someone stuck a hose in them and filled them with helium. Her hands cautiously rose to her chest, carefully caressing them. They felt full to burst with... something.

She could feel a similar heft in her ass. It would appear that, exaggerated proportions be damned, these were her preferred areas to store, well, her extra material. She wondered why she didn't feel her clothes stretching out, but... upon further deliberation, she wasn't really clothed like a normal person. Technically, she was still very naked... but the slime had done an excellent job at shapeshifting into a proper disguise to hide that fact. Even if her attire was rather... form-fitting now.

Nikki grimaced as her breasts wobbled with emphatic jubilance. "Ohhh, god, I turned into a cow... there's gotta be a better way." 

Despite this, Nikki continued to gawk at herself in the mirror. Some part of her felt... pretty good about this change in her stature. Even if her rational side told her this wouldn't pass an eyeball test with anyone remotely acquainted with her; people already knew her to be kind of a short-stack, and people don't grow a foot tall overnight. Despite all these worries, she still felt strangely... okay with this.

...Except for one part. Focusing on her bigger changes, she missed the subtler detail—the slight blue glow her eyes had. In this well-lit room, it was barely noticeable, but... her eyes were supposed to be green.

"..." Nikki frowned, leaning closer. She brushed back some of her messy hair to get a closer look. True enough, they gave off the tiniest glimmer of blue light. 

"I guess... some things aren't negotiable." Nikki sighed. She looked down at herself. "...W-well. I can make this work. It's... different, but... I can pretend I got enhancement surgery over the summer. Yeah..."

Nikki tried to reassure herself that she could manage, but she wasn't terribly confident. What would the people at the gym think if they saw her? What would Brad think?

"...Brad... Brad, he..."

Her eyes drifted to the kitchen countertop. It slipped her mind completely, that he left a thermos of soup behind for her. For a moment, her worried expression subsided into a bashful grin.

"Ahh... he didn't have to do that." Nikki strolled over. "I guess he really thought I was sick. What a sweetheart."

Her eyes drifted to the corner of the countertop, and a wry smirk rose to her lips. "I guess I can forgive him sneaking into my wheaties. This time."

As she casually unscrewed the lid, one of her twintails reached up to the elevated kitchen cupboards, grabbing a suitable bowl for soup. She poured herself a bowl. She grinned to herself: it was chicken noodle, and it didn't skimp on the protein either. It was very considerate...

She elongated her arm, reaching for the drawers where she kept her utensils. She thought she knew where she kept her spoons, but as she felt around, she found the drawer to be completely empty.

"Huh? Where did they... o-oh, right." Nikki's mouth flattened, bringing her hand back to her. She stared at the bowl. She could just pick up the whole bowl, but...

"...Wait a sec..." She tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully. If she was a shapeshifter... were there other applications for her eidetic memory? She wanted to experiment a bit. 

She glanced to her hand, imagining a silver spoon in her mind. There was a pause, and she stared at her palm expectantly. 

Before long, her entire hand lost its fleshy colour, picking up a familiar mirror sheen. Her fingers melted together and hollowed out into a gentle curve. Before her eyes, her hand had shapeshifted into a spoon!

...A pretty oversized spoon at that. She grimaced, looking it over. It was the size of her hand... which meant it was essentially as big as the bowl itself!

"N-not like that, smaller, smaller..." Nikki muttered, trying to fix it. With a little bit of mental tinkering, the silver spook extending from her wrist shrunk to a more manageable size. She felt a strange twinge, feeling the excess material sliding up her arm and back into her center. But at least she could eat now...

She tried a few spoonfuls of the steaming soup. She could feel an intense heat that, perhaps, should've indicated to her that she should've let it cool, but it didn't burn her mouth or anything. If anything, the scalding heat was pleasant. The energy flowed through her body, helping her relax all over. It was kind of like sinking into a hot tub.

And the soup was okay! Nice and savoury, with plenty of veggies and chicken to go with it, without being too salty. Nikki loved this kind of homemade cooking with love... it got her a little nostalgic for home. 

Shlorp.

One of her twintails rose on its own, coiling around and hovered over the half-empty thermos Brad had left behind. Her brown hair was quickly transitioning to a metallic sheen, and it reared up like it was a cobra ready to strike...

"No. That doesn't belong to us. We're borrowing it." Nikki's free hand pushed it further towards the center of the table. 

Gurgle. Her stomach growled indignantly, and Nikki had a pang of regret. A thought crossed her mind that the thermos would be really good inside her...

...But then she'd have to explain it to Brad. It wasn't worth it. She was determined to control her cravings.

"The soup's fine, okay? Settle down." Nikki's tone was more insistent; her hand clutched her twin-tail and jerked it back. This time it seemed to get the message, and it simply drifted to the floor.

She watched it in the corner of her eye for a moment, before tapping her spoon against the bowl and returning to her meal. 

"I'm in control. I am in control..."

Nikki repeated to herself as a mantra. Maybe she could make this thing work out after all? So long as she made it clear, she was in charge. And she could control herself, act in moderation.

She was glad she could still have a normal meal, in the privacy of her home. Or, well, as normal as one could have, when their right hand was transmogrified into an eating utensil. Maybe she could make this crazy thing work out after all...

It was an encouraging thought. The comfort food helped reinforce that comforting idea.

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