I had cut off one of my hands before making this, and it reformed in less than 2 minutes, but then I had just removed my hand, forcing my body to unhook it from my arm before even trying to build this. I had been worried that if I took parts of myself off, they would just reform, but that wasn't the case. I also could not absorb the platinum my body was made from. My body registered it as Numerian Platinum, and it just absorbed back into my body without any improvements. I had to assume it would be the same for the other Numerians, but I could possibly absorb them to gain more mass.
The process of changing my body was taking a bit longer than I had planned, but it was taking off over 83% of my body. That dropped my weight from a whopping 1600 lbs down to trim 275, and it was still taking off things and making changes. I hadn't really considered how much I weighed, but with the size of my body, and it is made all out of platinum, the 1600lbs kind of felt light. That was like saying I weighed half as much as a small car.
Once it was done, the room opened up, and I stepped out in my new form. It was smaller than even I had expected, but that just made me smile. The small body gave me more of an advantage, letting me fit through places others couldn't go and giving me a boost in speed. With the extra weight gone, I felt like I had wings, as I could almost take off if I tried to run, but flying was something for another day. Part of me assumed with magic that I would see more skyborne vehicles or people flying, but that didn't seem to be the case.
'You have been busy,' Numera said in my mind as I fitted the dark cloak that I had worn before when Fawna was riding with me.
'Not busy enough, but it looks like I am going to run into my first ambush tonight,' I said as I quicked checked my bugs before leaving the warehouse to a place where there were no guards or people on the other side of the wall.
Then I jumped thirty feet into the air, over the wall, and onto the roof of a house close to the wall. Even before I jumped, the sensors on my display told me how high I would jump and my exact trajectory, but it still surprised me. Considering how big I was just a bit ago, this was like having a completely new body, and I guess that it kind of was. As much as I wanted to admire it, some of the Shadow Rats started to notice the dead bodies on the main floor of the building Coron was hiding in. I sent bugs to taser them, but these ones had magic shields, so I was forced to detonate some of the bugs in their shields.
Unfortunately, that just attracted more attention, so I was heading across the rooftops now to reach that part of the city, but I was limited to how fast I could go since I still needed to stay out of sight. It only took me ten minutes to get to the building, and I had guided Coron to the roof, where he was waiting for me.
"You came! I knew you were keeping me safe, but I started to get worried when the fighting stopped outside. They all seemed to want to know what is up here that killed all those men," Coron said, and I nodded.
"Yeah, I want you to stay out of sight up here. Do you have anything to report? Are there any bosses or higher-ups here?" I asked, and Coron nodded.
"Well, not a boss, but Rick is, and he is second in command. He has red hair and always had a cigar in his mouth, so you can't miss him, but shouldn't we just leave?" Coron asked, but I just left him and headed to the hatch he had come up.
I needed to get down there before the men got up since I wasn't sure just how much I could take with this body. This was taking a risk, but this was also a good chance to get a meeting with the leader of the Shadow Rats. That is, if I didn't have to kill them all first.
I reached out to the other bugs in the area and opened up a comm link with each one so they could communicate with me. As I started to scout the area, I learned that there had been a meeting going on when I arrived, but everyone was now heading for me, which meant things were about to get interesting. So I scurried around the shadows and found a place to wait for them. I heard Rick's voice before I saw him, and he was walking up to me with a dozen men at his back.
"Don't look around you, don't move, or act like you know this place. Just focus on the target," I told my bugs as I waited for them to pass by.
When they finally did, I jumped out and started to lay into them, using my bugs to wrap them all in wires as I started to kick the shit out of the ones that got free, or the wire was melted off them with fire. So, Rick, the redhead, was back up, and he pointed the finger at me, making the man I was holding break away from me so hard that his shirt fell from my hands.
"Burn, abomination!" Rick growled, and time slowed down as a ring on his finger started to glow red.
I watched in slow motion as the fire started to erupt from the ring, and I felt my fear spike as I knew it was headed right toward me. I moved my hand as fast as I could as the flames rushed to me, placing it on my chest and hoping to my goddess that this was going to work, and she answered me.
"This does not look very good," Numera said as I felt my body bathed in flames and started to fuse with the fire. My fear turned to anger as I felt my chest expand, pushing my hand away as my body started to change.