You know... I thought getting my arm shot off by a beam cannon would be the worst pain in my life. The second worst was getting disemboweled by a raging Dragon-man. But this next fit of unimaginable pain was probably going to be number three.
As I finally opened my eyes there was an obnoxious beeping sounding off in my ears. Red flashed everywhere on every display where I'd awakened. I could recognize it was Ragnarok's cockpit which was a little busted all to hell.
"Arrrgghhh!" I bellowed as the pain from my organic arm registered in my brain. When I looked over I saw it'd been snapped in half. One of the upper plates in the cockpit broke through and landed right on top of my arm. Unhooking my prosthetic from its fixture I heated my hand to the point where it glowed a bright orange. Tearing into the plate I pulled it out from over my arm.
"Multiple fractures in the right arm... Please apply medicinal Ether to the affected area."
"Thanks, Sheila but I don't need it."
I closed my eyes focusing on my right arm. The heat from my prosthetic began to migrate through my body over to the other arm. The arm slowly began to heal. A neat trick I learned from Edwin during our cruise between systems. I'd been unconsciously healing before and every time it took a lot out of me. It's too bad whatever crappy ability Lucian has messed up my arm for life.
When I regained feeling in my arm I reached under my chair and opened the hidden compartment. Inside was a survival backpack that could link up with my pilot suit and my jacket. As I unhooked myself from my seat I pulled the backpack out and hooked it on the back of my suit.
The backpack connected itself to my helmet and oxygen began to circulate between it and the backpack. Throwing on my jacket I reached under the seat again and withdraw a beam pistol.
As good as Astrea was as a weapon it was a bit too lethal to use.
Now that I got myself together it was time to assess my situation. Opening the status screen for Ragnarok I could see that there was extensive damage to the frame. The head was a bit damaged and the legs and back suffered as well. It was all fixable but I could already hear Talia screaming at me about it.
"Ugh... Dammit... Oh well... Sheila where are we?"
My A.I. whom I've recently named Sheila because calling her A.I. all the time was getting annoying. The crew liked the name so it stuck. She'd been working on a quick scan of the surrounding area since Ragnarok was powered down for the moment. Powering the Eidolon up would just be a waste of time and a colossal "kill me" beacon for anything that was on the planet. Not like I knew anything could kill me on this planet. The pain was still pain so I didn't want to feel any of it.
"According to the Prime System records we are currently on Logress II in the Praxis System. It is the fourth planet away from its solar body. The planet itself is uninhabitable due to the noxious gases that permeate from its core. Despite this, the planet does contain a wide variety of flora and one species of fauna."
"One species? I thought it was uninhabitable?"
"The Planet is uninhabitable for life forms that require air or water to breathe. The fauna on this Planet does not require air or water as they have a gelatinous physiology."
So I'm basically on a planet full of slimes. Great, not my first pick but it beats the alternative. With our location in mind but the trick now was to figure out where the rest of my crew was.
"Sheila... Are there any other Neo-Arcadian signals on this planet?"
As she initiated her scan I began to prepare to exit Ragnarok. The Eidolons onboard decontamination system would expel any noxious gases while I'd been out and about. I had several hours of mobile oxygen and a few weeks' worths inside Ragnarok. Going out and coming back every once in a while wouldn't hurt.
"Scan complete," Sheila chirped. "Scans show there are two other Neo Arcadian Eidolons on the Planter's surface. NAE-006 Pele and NAE-013 Rudra have been detected."
"Pilot status?"
"Both Pilots are alive. However, both have temporarily abandoned their craft."
Great, I'd been stuck on the Planet with Edwin of all people. On top of that Haumea was here as well. In retrospect, it's probably best that no one else was here.
"Right... Finding them will be my top priority. Then searching a way off this death trap will be a second."
"Commander Xenthos... There is a fourth signal on this planet."
A fourth? One of ours maybe? No, Sheila is usually specified when addressing friendlies so at best this fourth signal was an unknown.
"Any corresponding IFF?"
"The Signal's code originates from the target world the Asterism was originally on course to. However, it appears this signal is a distress beacon. The signal's strength is not sufficient enough to hail from outside the planet."
Meaning there was someone else stuck on this planet as well. Another to worry about.
"Very well... Go ahead and start the self-repair procedures. Focus mainly on articulation and thrusters. Weapons can wait."
"Affirmative..."
I reached over to the emergency release hatch opened it and grabbed the lever. As I pulled the mechanism it opened the hatch causing a green cloud of gas to fill the interior. It'd likely be vented once I allowed the hatch to close. I climbed up to Ragnarok's shoulder to survey my surroundings. The place was sprawling with trees and overgrowth. It was the greenest I'd seen since I'd been to Earth a few years back. Though unlike Earth it wasn't controlled. I felt honestly a bit bad that Ragnarok made a crater through the place.
The skies had been extremely cloudy which probably signaled my day was going to be extremely short. Gripping my gun tightly I started climbing down Ragnarok. When I reached the ground I activated the wrist blade function in my arm. Talia made some modifications given its recent change and now it was virtually a swiss army arm or whatever it was the humans called it.
Before I'd even reached the edge of the forest something moved in the bushes to my left. I aimed my gun right at the movement without really thinking about it. There were only one species of fauna that lived here and aiming a weapon at it was on the list of "don't".
"Who's there," I shouted. Whatever it was it gave me a little time to remember the Prime Systems' first contact laws. The number one rule is to always engage with diplomacy before hostilities. Lowering my aim I began to approach the bush until whatever was hiding crawled out. It was a large green gelatinous blob with something pink in the middle of it. It hopped up and down until it planted itself right in front of me. I felt and holstered my weapon then reached into my pack and pulled out a small ration. I didn't know whether or not it could eat but it didn't hurt to try.
"I won't hurt ya, little guy. Just don't hurt me please."
The blob got closer as if it were examining the ration I'd given it. Then it jolted at me snatching the ration and dissolving it into its body. It kinda hurt to be honest almost like the thing bit me. Then I noticed the bit of blue that colored its inside.
Crap it punctured my suit. I reached into my pack again and grabbed a can of sealant spraying it on the affected area. I didn't know how much of the noxious gas got in but hopefully, it was just enough to make me puke.
The little bite aside, the blob didn't seem to try attacking me any further, but it was doing something. The blob was morphing, its shape began to stretch and change into something more humanoid.
That's when more of the blobs began to appear from the bushes. "Crap..."
I drew my pistol, even though I didn't know how exactly how to disable them but hopefully I could. Firing with reckless abandon would probably get me killed faster than whatever the first blob which by this point formed into half of a person. It was still this green jelly thing but the way it molded itself. It almost looked like... Me.
"Ugh..." It moaned as the rest of its body formed. As its legs took shape it began to stand up and approach me.
"In...va....der " it said. "Cap... ture..."
Now the other blobs began to move now making their way toward me. As I turned to run back to Ragnarok I found more surrounding me.
"Double Crap..."
I'd fought with skilled warriors, an evil overlord, my demon of a sister, and Clarke's little ogre. But this was how I was going to go out. By RPG slimes. I'd rather Lucian just kill me while dancing a little jig on my corpse.
Being wrapped up in my head the Slimes ended up enclosing me. One leaped in the air and latched itself onto my hand sticking itself to my gun. Welp there went that option. Closing the wrist blade I swatted another oncoming blob out of the air. But now they began to leap in groups. I didn't know if the gases around the planet were flammable so I could've easily caused a big enough explosion but at the cost of being heavily injured.
"This is pure bull [Expletive Redacted]!"
The slimes threw themselves at my limbs restraining me and one slammed right into my stomach knocking me down into a bigger slime. The morphed slime then approached me, struggling to keep its balance as it walked. Its green skin slowly turned pale as its body took its complete shape.
It was me... Mostly me. It had white hair and red eyes and it was short like me. But it was completely naked and definitely not a guy.
"Y-You... Will be taken... To our master..." She said. She placed her finger on my forehead and the worst screech I'd ever heard bombed in my head. My brain felt like it'd split open from how loud it was and it became hard to stay awake. There I was out like a light.
The next time I'd wake I'd be staring at the sky. My wrists and ankles were bound together by two smaller slimes. The girl version of me was walking right beside me. She seemed a bit used it by now which was probably a bad thing. I tried not to stare so much since she'd been nude. I did notice that she even copied my scaring and my mechanical implants. It was probably due to the fact that my metal was grafted into my skin.
"H-Hey...," I mumbled. "Could ya at least cover up?"
She looked at me placing a metallic finger on her lips. "Quiet invader... We're almost there."
"Sorry, but If I'm going to be captured I'd rather not be weirded out by... Well me as a girl being naked."
"You're just wanting to escape. I'll pass."
Ugh... Weird, she even sounded like a girlier version of me. She stopped and as she did her followers did as well.
"Look I've got nowhere to go. I don't even know where this planet is and I'm a long way from home. You're basically me so can't you just trust me?"
She thought to herself for a moment. Then she began to mouth something. I could tell what she was speaking and a sound didn't come out. But the slime that was carrying me lifted me up in a sitting position. Then the ones that bounded my wrists split apart and hooked themselves onto their friend. She pulled the jacket off of my shoulders only releasing one of my wrists for each sleeve. Then as she finished the slime laid me back down and we were walking again. They'd at least allowed me to sit up a bit to see where we were going. Ahead there was a small village. A lot of the buildings appeared to be made out of wood and there were two massive insect-like humanoids standing guard with makeshift halberds.
Their mandibles twitched as we approached and my female counterpart began to mouth words again. The insectoids moved in unison allowing our entry into the village. Inside there were a lot of the other slimes moving along, carrying different things. But the strangest part of it all there were other species I hadn't recognized. Some were cat-like beings with six legs instead of four and others even looked like vargits. There were humanoids who had no hair on their heads but eyes that made up a ring atop their heads and even some of them were machine-like. But the thing all of them had in common the most was their way of communicating. It'd just been like the girl-me with the insectoids.
As we approached the center of the village I began to hear something a sort of uniform rumbling coming from up ahead. Since all I could see was the sky and the girl me, I couldn't tell what had been going on at all. Looking to the left I noticed some of the slimes and different species kneeling while some were carrying wooden spears. The spear-wielders were lifting their weapons and smacking them down to a four-beat tempo. Finally, we stopped.
The slime that'd been carrying me raised me up once more and I'd come face to face with a throne-like structure. Two massive six-armed snake women held large leaves to cover up who was sitting on the throne. The one on the left began speaking but again, no sound came out. After a minute of "speech," the women lifted the leaves from obscuring the figure and I swear I had the worst migraine as soon as I saw him.
There Edwin was, sitting there with a leaf crown over his head. His face had been painted with something that looked like tribal tattoos and he'd been acting like it was his rightful place on that throne. "Oh!? Soran! It's you, my boy! I didn't think I'd see you so soon."
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me... What the fresh [Expletive Redacted] are you doing there!?"