Lulu the valiant scrubby shuffled back and forth, doing its best to ignore the things nearby that seemed to call out to be cleaned. Cleaning was admittedly one of the greater parts of Lulu’s existence, and was something of a joy to accomplish, but right now even the act of cleaning was downranked to secondary importance, if not something even lower.

As a slime variant, Lulu had no eyes, but somehow it was still able to perceive the world around it. A clever observer might even be able to tell by its shifting, boneless posture the direction that held Lulu’s current item of interest. Right now, Morgan’s little friend was shifting about at a rapid rate, attention darting this way and that in search of dangers.

Morgan herself was present, in a way. The flickering purple arcs of Mana dancing across its Mistress’s naked body were a strange indication of life, but one that was stronger than the faint but just detectable heartbeat. Lulu gurgled as noisily as it dared, puffling up against a bare ankle, and upon receiving no response yet again the cleansing scrubby seemed to deflate slightly in sadness.

Something scuttled in the depths of nearby plants, and the purple scrubby gave a tiny nervous purble. It had never before had to act on its own. True, it had recently made the valiant leap into the gaping maw of the [Wildlands Shadowlynx], but Morgan had been there to help extricate the scrubby in the confusing aftermath. On the whole, that had been a less than pleasant experience. Stomach acid was frightfully harsh on poor Lulu, and it had mentally filed the whole ordeal away somewhere under the region of learning first hand what it was like to be angrily scrubbed.

Morgan was here, but not here. Lulu was here, in the fullest of senses, and would defend its larger friend to the best of the young scrubby’s capabilities.

From behind Lulu’s current sphere of attention, something else came dashing across the terrain. Something not too large, but moving at frantic speeds. Lulu made an odd movement, less whirling around in alarm as it was a shifting of the body posture, and came face to face with a [Chittering Murdersquirrel].

It would have been waist high to its standing Mistress, and though it was smaller than Morgan, it was decidedly larger than poor little Lulu. Its poofled brown and grey striped tail was as large as the rest of its body, and whipped back and forth in rapid curls of anticipation. If slimes, and their variants, had teeth? Lulu’s would be gritting. If they had shoulders, its would be set back in order to present a stronger posture. If they had legs, Lulu would be poised at the ready, able to dart in any direction that proved necessary.

The little purple puffball had none of these things. It merely watched, and waited, and tried to set aside its fears.

The [Chittering Murdersquirrel] continued to close in with sure and steady steps, and seemed likely to be undeterred by anything. With a quick glance to Morgan to confirm that it was do or die time, Lulu gave a ululating warble and launched itself off from the ground in the strongest, fastest leap it could muster.

Instinctively, it had aimed for the shoulder. Morgan’s shoulder was a warm place, and a comfortable seat during travel at regular speeds. It was also a relatively flat surface to land upon on any given creature that happened to have limbs. Unfortunately, Lulu had not accounted for shoulder spikes hidden in what seemed to be deceptively soft fur.

TORN LACE! PAIN! BAD! The scrubby loofah squirmed slightly in discomfort as it sensed its green good feeling essence - Lulu had no better thoughts to describe it - diminish slightly.

A paw suddenly swept towards the scrubby, ripping the lacy body off of its own fuzzy shoulder. Without so much as a backward glance, the [Chittering Murdersquirrel] flicked its nails and tossed Lulu violently onto the ground, where it landed with a painful splat.

Pulling itself back into its usual round, fluffy stance, and thinking back on the events that had just transpired, an idea sprang to mind. Dashing as fast as it could, Lulu slipped back into the space between [Chittering Murdersquirrel] and Morgan. Then, taking careful aim, the valiant scrubby took another swift leap.

Now, Lulu had no eyes of its own, but through observation of the world it had come across the concept of eyeballs, and more importantly, the importance of said eyeballs. Mentally shifting from exuding its movement-assisting moisturizers to producing the sticky coating for its lace that it used to hold onto Morgan in her more speedy moments, the puffball landed with a resounding thwack onto the [Chittering Murdersquirrel]’s left eye..

With this first step accomplished, Lulu set to work, flattening itself down, around, and into the ocular cavity as much as possible in order to evade another angry swipe from swift, clawed paws. Its strongest skill, by far, was [Exfoliate], and though the scrubby was not in the least expecting the relative fragility of an eye it was delighted to discover that the combination of this skill and this target allowed for swift penetration into the head cavity.

The [Chittering Murdersquirrel] roared in agony and flailed at its own head, but Lulu paid it little mind. There was a certain reluctance for a being to reach inside of its own skull, and the lacey puffball instinctively knew this. The situation was, perhaps, a little unpleasant, but the scrubby had found a way in to potential victory, and for the sake of Morgan’s continued safety it was going to use it.

As a slime variant, Lulu was practically made to be flexible, and as only the core bead in the center of its body was solid and unshiftable it was this core alone that needed to pass through a potential opening. The rest of the scrubby’s body could fold and squish and slide through the space as easily as liquid through a straw. It was a surprisingly simple matter to [Exfoliate] the small gap in the skull through which the ocular nerve passed, enlarging it to allow most of Lulu passage inside the head. The passage inwards was not quite large enough yet to let its solid core through, but the scrubby gave a soft triumphant warble in knowing that it was more than deep enough within.

Eyes were important parts of the body, but brains - the squishy unseen masses that usually lurked within the head - were even more important. Lulu squirmed and writhed and [Exfoliated] everything within reach, eventually managing to slip all the way inside the [Chittering Murdersquirrel]’s skull. There, it spun and jumped and wreaked exfoliating havoc until it felt the world shake with a THUMP. The little scrubby paused for a moment, but when nothing further seemed to be happening it peered out from the empty eye socket.

As Lulu cautiously emerged, observing the world from a position decidedly lower to the ground than before entering the eye, messages it could not read and would not have cared about if it could flashed before its tiny consciousness before fading away. What it did care about was the surge of Mana in its center and the increased size it gained after a short pulse of glowing golden light. It couldn’t help but give a purbling trill of triumph at the simple feeling of becoming more.

With a happy wriggle, the lacy puffball skittered over to Morgan. Lulu’s frills danced in the sunlight as it tried to show off the new, upgraded self. The wriggle turned quickly to sagging as the human had still not budged an inch. The sagging itself shifted to a quiver of fear as Lulu spotted more things, larger still than the [Chittering Murdersquirrel], skulking around nearby.

Lulu pressed itself against Morgan’s ankle again, releasing a quick burst of soothing fragrant suds. Never you fear, Morgan, it seemed to be saying. Lulu is on patrol.

Then, the churple-stained scrubby leaped once more into battle with a purbling warcry.