After a few minutes of contemplation, she decided to go with the clone option— it was after all the best option she had.
While using the mass right now to physically improve her body would help her get stronger in the short term, having a clone would grant her more freedom and benefit her in the long term.
With a clone, she could sneak out more often— eating things while she was out to make up that loss of mass and gain even more. Plus this way the likelihood of her finding her targets to eat was much higher.
Not to mention, some things she wanted to try and get her hands on required a time-sensitive operation— as such she couldn't risk delaying it too much.
Plus she didn't feel the need to overly focus on improving her physical attributes currently— her mental attribute was perfectly high enough that she saw no need to improve them further currently.
Her physic was already on par with people like Captain America and other Super Soldiers based on her physical limits alone— when she included the capabilities she evolved from animals, it would surpass them.
At least that was her assumption from her understanding— since she hadn't met them yet she couldn't fully tell.
So with the decision to make a clone made she stood up from her bed and walked over to the shower— it was the only room she found that didn't have any cameras, even her room had a small hidden camera in it that she picked up on earlier.
In the shower, she focused her mind on what she wanted to create, a hunter unit that took her form.
It was something she hadn't done before— as not only did it need to perfectly replicate her looks currently but it also had to have a certain level of intelligence to pretend to be her.
The black slime-like material leaked out from her body and slowly took shape— took her shape. The bones, flesh, and skin slowly formed before her eyes until finally it was finished.
It was like looking into a mirror— it looked just like her current form.
She was amazed by how perfectly crafted it was, even though she was the one that made it herself. In total, she had poured all her remaining mass into the creation of this clone, and even then it wasn't as perfect as she had hoped.
While physically it looked just like her— she was unable to implant it with the level of intelligence she had wanted, only being able to give it basic capabilities.
That is— unless she directly controlled it which she could do easily.
Raising her hand the clone raised the same hand along with her— she was testing out how controlling it would work since this was the first time she had done something like this.
It felt— odd.
It felt like how moving her own body would feel, yet different. It was like playing a game on the same screen but on split screen mode— she could control both at the same time but with her current mental level it wouldn't be as smooth as she had hoped.
But that was fine— the hive was her and she was the hive, eventually, she would be able to control the entire hive as if they were an extension of her body.
No.
They were an extension of her body— they were her.
Moving those useless thoughts out of her mind she gave the basic order for the clone to go and pretend to be asleep— which it did; walking out of the shower and heading into bed.
As for her, she decided to use this chance to sneak out of the house and explore the city for a bit since she had the chance, and being new here she was rather curious.
Sneaking out wasn't actually as hard as one may think— even with all the cameras around. She used her newly developed abilities to alter her body to blend in with her environment.
Camouflage— an ability she had gotten from the numerous reptiles she had eaten. Combined with her ability to alter her body structure to an extent, she lowered her body temperature to mimic the environment and simply snuck past the camera.
Free from the house she easily left the house and entered the city, heading in a random direction without much of a plan— since this was just a trip out of curiosity rather than something she had done with a certain plan in mind.
Though she was sure she could easily find something interesting to do in Lower Manhattan if she decided to do so— she could already smell it.
Gunpowder lingering in the area.