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Amber had been living on New Wirral for about a year now. She had gone from a rough time on the Mars Tube Colony project to waking up on a beach surrounded by more liquid water than she had seen in her life. Going from a landlocked state to the red planet had meant that she had first really seen the ocean with her own eyes from space, and that wasn't the same as having to get out of a tunnel suit that was never expected to have to deal with salt water waves.
A year of dealing with a world where you could breathe the atmosphere, but you were just as constantly worried about the food and safety of the city. It was strange to see the similar and different parts of the two small communities. However, Mars didn't have giant monsters that always threatened your way of life.
Amber had joined the Rangers, something between the local government and the Service Segment from Mars Tube, basically to get back to a routine that felt somewhat normal. It had been a tough process, with the need to track down time to meet with twelve Ranger Captains and help them all with a bit of process planning using her skills from her old life. In the end she was put onto the task of helping to work out emergency procedures.
Which had turned out to involve turning into those same giant monsters to fight them off when needed, or sometimes just to make use of the abilities of the creatures. The second one was much rarer, not many monsters had things they could be trusted to do even with a human turned into one, and it was a bit of a risk to change without a fight going on. You could lose yourself in the form if you weren't careful, or something similar. She had a Weevilite tape that didn't help much beyond fighting and she couldn't imagine getting comfortable enough with it to become that lost in the sensation.
"A fusion of Jellyton?" she asked a farm hand at the Piper Farm to figure out how exactly the latest disaster for their food supply happened.
"Yeah, two of them merged together. The new Captain handled it," the young man, born on New Wirral if she remembered right, confirmed. "I don't know what we would have done otherwise. We don't have a good way to get it across otherwise."
"I'll be checking on that," Amber admitted. "Have you heard of any other issues in the area?"
"Been seeing some spider webs to the west," the young man confessed. "I think they are from a cave over that way, and I think I heard Josh talking about getting a recording of one of the spiders."
Amber admittedly had not been around a long time, but if a true local thought that was noteworthy it might actually be a new monster. Which was always a risk. "Is he around? I'd like to get any information he has on that," she requested, and was shown to another young man who looked a little worse for wear.
"Yeah, I have a tape from one. Ferriclaw apparently," Josh seemed far more unsure. "You want the thing? Its got too many legs for me to handle."
"Sure," she agreed quickly, because having a tape on hand for a new monster was even better than a description. "Were there a lot of them?"
"I only saw the one, near the entrance to a cave I don't think I saw before. I had been trying to avoid the jellies, but ran into the thing as it wandered around," Josh admitted a bit nervously. "My normal tape might have been broken, but I had a blank one." Amber shuddered at the idea of being caught in the marshes without a tape with Jellyton after you. "Recorded the spider quick, and, well I might have gotten some help from the other one to fight off the Jellyton and then ran before it got curious."
That wasn't as uncommon as it sounded. Monsters weren't always hostile at first, or could be occasionally bribed to help, but getting away quick was better than trying to make friends. "What sort of things can it do?" she asked to see what she was getting.
"It is metal, but the other one could use poison too," Josh said, and then gave a few more details before she started off to see the cave herself.
---
Amber had not recorded a Dominoth yet, and as a result could not form the strange wings many inhabitants of the island could form to glide. It was mostly because she had not given up hope of making it back to Mars yet, there had to be a way off this strange island, but because of that she had no idea how to get down the deep pit that was the only thing inside of the small entrance to the cavern.
"Well, not 'no idea'," she said to herself out loud as she finished that thought. "The Ferriclaw are getting up here." The giant webs were a clear sign of that. "So a Ferriclaw should be able to get down there too." Weevilite had quite a few legs, so it probably wouldn't be too odd to her.
With a sigh she swapped out her typical tape for the new one, and hit play. With a flash of static her body reshaped into a large abdomen with four long legs, two shorter almost arm like legs, and a head adorned with a large rusty death mask. The webbing holding the mask to her head flapped in front of her face like a curtain of hair, and she angled her head around to test how secure the mass of metal actually was.
Amber chittered a bit as she took in the small room, suddenly filled with a strange comfort at the sight of the webs and tried to work out why this felt so much better than the traffic light crab form. Without finding a reason quickly she absentmindedly made her way down the hole she had wanted to check out.
There she found herself staring with awe at the massive crystal studded and webbing wrapped cavern that rested at the bottom of the pit. A second pit that looked just as deep was open near the bottom, but Amber found herself exploring this level with a mixture of amusement and happiness she couldn't quite place.
It was almost like the best days of inspecting the ancient lava tubes for good places to seal up to expand. The idea of using this new shape there, of taking advantage of this other world to improve her home when(if) she got back, filled her mind even as she lost track of what her body was doing.
In fact it wasn't until she found herself against a Cluckabilly that she vaguely recalled that she was changed, and not until she found herself on the ground in human form again that she shook herself out of the change.
"There you are, Amber. Captain Cybil was getting worried when you didn't check in," the ranger who normally worked with the musical captain said after reversing his avian change. "I guess you liked that one a bit too much."
Amber took a moment to collect herself after that. "I'm keeping that one," she said before the moment was actually over. "Um."
"Heh, alright, but you better get a handle on it first," the more experienced ranger laughed. "I don't think you want to be knocked out of it like that again."