"YOU DARE!"
Jewel was furious! This Stalker, who was basically a stranger even to her, had just decided upon itself that it would be one of her mates prime reproductive candidates. She was fine with the stalker calling itself with subjective and Possessive pronouns in her presence. It had been on its own for probably a few thousand years and the stalkers are very strange to begin with. She could forgive that, but the lack of respect regarding mating rituals in front of her was crossing the line.
Jewel was getting ready to eat the stalker then and there to save herself the hassle, but then noticed her loves confused face. He could feel her anger and was confused as to why she was so. Looking at the one thing she loved more than anything in the entire infinite, her anger subsided, A little, and relayed to the stalker in a less than pleased tone. "Listen here you, you may have had the last few thousand years on your own but you are now in the presence of your queen I expect you to act as such and not try to engage in mating with dear Apollo before I have. Are we clear."
The stalker was not scared of her queen, but no matter what loyalty to the hive was ingrained onto every bio-form in its fold even the quirky such as her so she knelt down in submission and spoke as any other hive member would "This one understands our queen. Forgive this ones excitement at meeting our mate, It caused this one to act above what is expected her." She relayed in her monotonous voice.
Jewel nodded her head at the change in decorum "Good. Now Apollo dear you can continue." I was just silent during that short outburst from Jewel. 'Her new body looks cute when mad' Is all I could think. Jewel caught on to that thought and tried her best to keep her regal showing she was displaying towards the stalker.
Deciding to turn my focus back towards the stalker, I examine her body in further detail. I am very impressed in her gene-splicing and augmentations she has gone through thousands of years of forced evolution to do her best at killing in her respective environments. as I was moving around her I caressed her tail I could feel segmentation inside of it as if , no reading my thoughts the stalker raised her tail and aimed it towards a nearby rock. The tip of her tail fired off with about 4 inches of spike behind it I watched it puncture straight through the rock before looking at the end of her tail I could see the tail expanding slightly and decided to grab it. As I was looking over end where the spike came out I asked a rhetoric "So from what i can observe the muscles in your tail act as a compressor allowing the air inside to build up so it can fire a stronger shot depending on what you need..." "How many times can this be fired?" The stalkers monotonous voice responded back. "80 times before I am required to feed to replenish the bio-mass I use in the creation of the spikes." As she relayed, another spike took its place and her tail was back to how it was.
"You are an incredible specimen stalker caste, do well and I shall grant you a name." Jewel and the nearby Orchid frowned at that but the stalker didn't seem to notice "If that is what you desire mate-Apollo I shall aid you either way my psionic foresight has seen it."
Deciding to finally stop gushing over the stalker I moved over to the final entity of the 22. I had not paid any attention to it initially as I thought it was just another variant but when I looked closer I had to turn to Jewel in a way that said. 'Are you serious?'
"I have seen in your sleep you have hallucinations of your prey species wearing a variant of these. The pray species elite we are going to attack soon also wears something similar so I thought you may like it." Jewel answered my look. And I indeed did like it.
Before me stood a 7ft tall suit of what the hive considered power armour. it was tan in colour with purple accents. the reason I had not noticed it earlier was because its legs and shoulders had an armour plate pattern similar to what Orchid wears. Although looking like its made of metal like I would have assumed most power armours are, this one was made out of a blend of both metal and bio-mass the hive has devoured.
Walking up and touching the armour I ran my hand across one of the 3 purple spheres on the front of the armour. I felt a familiar tingling sensation when I did so. "The armour runs on ambient psionic energy. "Thats powerful" I mused. These orbs look like the ones that float around jewel like ancillaries so they must be both material and psionic energy combined.
Looking back towards Jewel who was now right behind me, I gave her a hug and said "I love it, how do I get in?" Jewel smiled as she hugged me back. "The suit is technically a bio-form of the hive dear just with no conscious relay your desire to open it towards the spheres and it shall do so.
As I did what Jewel asked of me the suit opened from the front there was no whirring or clanking as I would of expected only the sound of pressurized air releasing from it. Now that I could see the inside of it, it looked vastly different from power armours I have seen before there were no gears springs or anything of the like. It more looked like an opened up body with metallic muscles and connective tissues maybe another human would have found stepping into the skeleton chassis uncomfortable, but i have been living with space bugs for 16 years what others find weird I see as normal.
After standing inside of it, the torso and legs closed up and the helmet covered my head. The visor lit up in a psionic purple. There was no fancy targeting system or anything like that the hive has no use for them so it never occurred to them to place one it but what it did do was scan the area for things it knew and brought them up in the corner similar to my bio-pad.
I called Zircon over through our link she was currently being sheathed on the back of a silk drone nearby that was following us around with my food and other stuffs like a pack dog. Heeding my summon, Zircon lifted into the air with the drone still attached, its legs milling around in the air panicked. Once Zircon reached me, I detached the poor silk drone and gave it a little stroke before letting it be free again.
With the suit on I could only wield her with one hand. The suit felt light despite its size and thickness and could easily recreate my training routine. Happy with the suit I was about to get out but Jewel interrupted me by saying "Relay to the suit, 'Standby'" Trusting Jewels advice I relayed to the suit "Standby." This caused the suit to piece by piece, move and shrink until nothing was left except a metallic segmented arm above my own left arm up to my shoulder I turned my arm around and rubbed the metallic palm with my other hand and I could feel it. "Why does this feel like my own hand?" I inquired towards Jewel who as usual had all the answers for me before I knew what I was going to ask. " The power suit has stored itself inside of its own genetic code in order to shrink itself but it cannot store its whole self so its borrowing the space inside of your arms genetic code therefore you can feel what it feels. And no need to fret, you can still take it off easily it will just grow thicker as you do so."
I started moving the metal cast of my arm off and sure enough with every inch it grew it became heavier unconsciously activated my Gyrokinesis onto the now very thick arm to be able to hold it. Even with the gravity lowered on it, it still weighed 60kg.
Deciding I didn't want to wear it until we arrive at our destination, I waved over Orchid. "Would you be my sweetheart and take this to wherever we will be staying." I handed over the arm to Orchid and planted a kiss on her forehead. She sauntered away happily at the kiss not even phased by the now 300kg heavy arm thanks to the high gravity of the planet.
Walking back over to Jewel we chit-chatted about my gifts as I finished my preparation before the both of us entered the ship.
Next stop: Ker'mins space.