Brooklyn has been walking for about two hours back toward the city of Gumtrap, after leaving Puffball in that cave. She needs to get Puffball out of that cave along with any of its weird creatures it has with it. If she could manipulate that creature or control it somehow, she could be one of the strongest villians on this planet, it might take a while for it to become strong enough but a monster’s growth cap is unlimited, unlike most humans with powers. All of them have different levels of growth; some may get really strong at first but end up being stuck at that level forever and others through training can increase their power’s to a certain amount.

It is common knowledge though that a monster never stops growing, however almost all monsters die before they are able to reach a point where they could be considered a serious danger to society, monsters are a big issue still but a reason they haven't been more dangerous has been their intelligence.

Which is a very good thing for humans since almost no city buster level monsters have ever been found and there are no recorded powers of being able to control monsters…

But that creature has both the intelligence to match that of humans and the ability to control other monsters and give them intelligence too and on top of that it seems to have a type of empathy toward humans...not to mention it's cuteness.

Killing Puffball would be a huge waste of potential and cuteness in her eyes and trying to control Puffball is off the table, it might be too smart for her to control all by herself and taking it to a villain organization with resources would just be inviting a war over Puffball. The best way for Brooklyn to benefit from its potential is to form a sort of partnership with the monster...and that’s why she regrets trying to trap it in a cage, again.

She wasn’t thinking straight at that time due to a mixture of being completely awestruck at its abilities, her need to see her sister, and not wanting to leave it behind. That weird hermit crab girl could be brought back once she figures out a way to sneak something that big into the city without causing a massive uprising. Puffball would be easy to sneak into the city as long as it’s in a cage, people might be surprised that it's an albino suctioner but new monster varieties pop up all the time, a white suctioner is definitely one of the less weird ones. A crab monster humanoid that’s almost as tall as her and carries a shell that must weigh at least 200 lbs, is not something you can hide in a city as densely packed as Gumtrap the Walled City.

Overpopulation in Gumtrap has gotten so bad that they have already started dismantling roads and using that extra space to build buildings onto. The local government started building another tier of the wall to keep out any monsters that roam the monster filled wastelands outside but progress on that has been slow, mostly because of an increase in crime due to people not being able to find jobs simply due to the number of people. That means fewer heroes are able to assist with monster’s outside and more are having to focus on internal affairs and at the same time if someone does gain powers, they are becoming less and less likely to choose being a hero over a villain due in large part to more kids having to do illegal things to survive, Brooklyn was apart of this group, and it never once crossed her mind to choose becoming a hero since she was fine with just stealing something instead of working for it. However, even if the margins are inching closer, people are still more likely to become heroes after getting powers due to a little thing called having morals, not like Brooklyn would know too much about those though.

Brooklyn’s actually been having more problems with other villains lately rather than heroes. A prime example being her last boss, Mr. Yankee, Brooklyn can’t really get any sort of revenge on him as of right now since that would just be suicide to attack a villain like him without having any form of backing.

Brooklyn may want to kill him for guiding her into that volcano, but she isn’t going to put revenge above living. Brooklyn may be able to avoid detection from anyone associated with him but she is going to have be extra vigilant now that someone might be trying to kill her, it’s not the first time this has happened but Mr. Yankee is the biggest villain that has put their crosshairs on her so far.

While Brooklyn is trying to formulate a plan to lay low and making her way back to Gumtrap to see her sister and grab some equipment and pills before coming back to find Puffball, she sees a mining truck with a destroyed tire in the distance getting attacked by Grave Drakes, large agile monster’s covered in a mixture of fur and scales, 4 strong legs that bend backwards, claws that can cut bone, a mouth filled with tiny sharp teeth, and a unique feature of the Grave Drake is their thick tail with a bone blade at the end of it. The mining truck must not have brought enough security on its journey from the mine back to Gumtrap, when it crossed paths with a pack of Grave Drakes during a repair stop.

Brooklyn figures a way to get back to Gumtrap quicker and stealthier is to steal that truck and disguise as its driver to enter into Gumtrap through the industry sector, she decides a quick way to steal the truck would be to sneak into it from behind while the driver fixes the tires, she could just drive off as soon as soon as they fix it, but one of those guards might get the bright idea to shoot out a tire.

Brooklyn is tried of walking and she won't let some under-paid security guards ruin her express ticket into Gumtrap.

===

“Call backup!!” A burly security officer yells at his fellow officer.

“I called five minutes ago, they said it’ll take an hour before help arrives!” The officer says as he shoots a Grave Drake in the face using his pistol.

“Shit,” The burly officer says under his breath.

The two officers keep shooting the Grave Drakes. The Grave Drakes need almost a full clip each to kill or to hit their weak point which is a breathing hole protected behind their slanted scaly heads.

“Did you fix that tire yet!” Yells the burly security officer at the old frail bearded man trying to quickly put on the tire.

“Alright fixed it! Get back in the truck!” The older truck driver shouted back after just fixing the tire.

The burly man throws his only flashbang into the pack of monsters incapacitating them for a few seconds to retreat back to the truck.

“Alright let’s go! Our best bet for living is to move toward backup; they can deal with these monster’s better than we can!” At that all three of them quickly move toward the still running truck to at least try and flee from the agile monsters.

They all quickly enter the truck after blinding the Grave Drakes and shut the doors behind them. As they enter back into the truck, they notice it smells more of blood and sickness in here than it does outside with the monsters.

The driver gets the truck moving, and they start to quickly move toward backup. The truck is similar in speed to the grave drakes, which will hopefully cause the grave drakes to lose interest in them and even if they continue to try and chase after the truck. They will soon have backup to easily take care of them.

A solid plan if it wasn’t for the slightly crazy goth girl hiding in the cabin behind them.

“Wooh! I know we just nearly died Greg, but did you really have to shit yourself!” The burly man tells his other officer in the back.

“You're the one who was yelling at me for back up every 30 seconds. If anyone shit themselves it was you!” Greg defends himself as he pinches his nose shut.

“Well the smell is coming from back there, and you’re the only one back there, so it was definitely you.” The burly man argues back.

“Will you two quit arguing about it! Greg look behind you, I think I left some air freshener in the back.” The old driver says before a can of air freshener is thrown at the back of his head knocking him unconscious.

Brooklyn quickly brings her sharp knife to the back of Greg’s neck, killing him instantly and dives to the seats in front of her to kill the last officer. The last officer shoots a stray bullet that misses Brooklyn by an inch and he is quickly put to rest.

Brooklyn moves the unconscious driver out of the way and starts to drive the truck toward Gumtrap.

She looks in the mirror and sees some of the grave drakes trying to catch up with the truck and since she is going to be trying to avoid that backup they called she needs to get these grave drakes off her trail and, a good way to keep the grave drakes busy is to throw them some treats to occupy their time and what better treats than two dead security guards. She opens up the door to her right and pushes the bodies out and continues on her to Gumtrap to grab a few pills, tell her sister she’s still alive and most important of all.

...taking a shower.

===

Finally, I made it back to hole base! I can’t wait to see what Kiwi looks like hopefully it looks better than an average mantis monster but if it doesn’t...well hopefully, I can evolve her into a monster girl like Cake.

As I move the rock door to access the hole. Cake greets me on my way in.

‘It is great to see you in excellent health, Meister,’ Cake mentally tells me as the mandibles on her face turn slightly up as if to form a smile.

It is still quite surreal that Cake looks somewhat human. She wouldn’t pass as an actual human, but you can see the resemblance especially in the chest. Cake may not have nipples and her chest is not at all soft but it does at least resemble it. As I’m thinking about hermit crab boobs, I spot my new mantis Kiwi in the back sitting still with its rocky forelimbs holding up its body.

Kiwi is missing about half of its rocky surface texture on about half of its body. It still retained its rocky texture on its forelimbs and abdomen but everywhere it got replaced by a smoother and lighter carapace. Its forelimbs are very rocky but also have a very fine line that splits them, likely due to that Scythe Splitter mutation. Kiwi’s face is still very mantis like but it seems to tone down the creepiness of the other ones quite a bit and even giving it small dark pupils that contrast its lighter eyes.

In conclusion, Cake was cuter as a pure-monster than Kiwi but maybe Kiwi can redeem itself if it gets transformed into a monster-girl too.

I’m also not entirely sure on its gender or how that whole skipping an evolution worked, like did Kiwi just skip the first five level’s or did the first evolution move from being level 5 to 1 just for Kiwi. I’ll ask Kiwi, I guess?

‘Kiwi, what level are you?’

‘ZzzzzZ...Maistear! Back!’ I watch as kiwi jumps up from presumably sleeping and looks toward me with its piercing mantis eyes.

It is a little more creepy than I would like but I am no stranger to creepiness as a mass of tendrils and I should be able to get used to it pretty quickly, but something I might not get used to is Kiwi sleeping. I did know that it might happen but still why does a parasite need to sleep.

‘Level. One,’ Kiwi says over the mental link, trying to formulate words.

Okay, so I guess the first evolution must have lowered its standards down to level one for Kiwi...wait a minute can Cake understand Kiwi?

‘Cake, can you understand Kiwi?’ I ask Cake.

‘Yes, I can Meister, although Kiwi’s vocabulary seems to be about as limited as mine was before my evolution.’ Cake say’s over the mental link.

Okay, that means that the mental link I share with them must be similar to a group chat, in which we can all communicate together instead of me having to relay any and all conversations between them, which would have been a serious annoyance if that was the case, but luckily I don’t have to deal with that.

I, instead have to deal with a mantis who fell asleep again!

I could probably order Kiwi to quit sleeping, and I would do it but, I think I’ll try to avoid giving my mantis insomnia.

Kiwi better turn into a monster girl, and I guess the only way to find out is to fight some monster’s, for their Biomass, experience, and ridding this planet of their ugliness.

I look at Kiwi sleeping on the floor in front of me.

‘ZzzzZzzz,’ Kiwi’s sleeping sounds come through the mental link.

Sleepy Kiwi, sounds like a cute nickname, although I do hope Kiwi sleeping doesn’t turn into an issue.

Nah, it'll be fine...........probably.