Chapter 45: Chapter 45 - Eating And Growing (1)
She made her way over to the area where her worm had stored the bodies, a large cavern she had the worms create under the tunnels.
It was isolated, with the only ways in and out being the tunnels made by the worms.
She planned to use this area in the future as her hive nest in New York, but for now, it was just a place to keep the bodies.
Upon reaching the cave, she looked over all the bodies she had collected during this mass hunt.
A total of 12 bodies lay before her.
12 innocent lives she had taken for her own selfish growth.
She wasn't proud of it, but she would do it again without hesitation.
It was the fastest way to grow; she would never jeopardize that growth over something like humane emotions.
So she ignored the emotions she felt about it and went about her plans to devour them.
First thing first, she didn't plan to eat them herself; in fact, she planned to have one of her worms eat one of the mutants to see just how much of their X-Gene she got.
She initially didn't do this because she was more focused on benefitting the most from the situation rather than testing the waters.
But she had enough mutants now to test the waters with, especially so since she had a few mutants that were useless to her.
Namely, the mutant that looked like a frog.
She had devoured multiple different types of frogs while in the forest, and due to this, she had a large portion of their capabilities, meaning this man would ultimately not be useful to her.
So she decided to use his body as the test subject for her experiment, ordering the worm to eat it.
The worm rose from the ground and grabbed the man in its mouth, its rows of teeth grinding the body apart and devouring it in chunks.
Blood, flesh, skin, bone, hair, everything that could be devoured from the man was devoured, and the only thing left when the worm spat him out was the clothing he wore and the parts not edible.
Once the worm had finished eating it, she could feel the rush of mass and information from the Hivemind, new coding being stored within her body at a rapid rate, as her Adaption kicked into overdrive, attempting to break it down and understand it.
Not just to understand but to alter it to fit her needs.
She realized that eating the mutant through the worm gave her fractured pieces of the coding needed to make the X-Gene; this made it so her body had to take time in order to try and piece it together and fill in any missing gaps.
It would generally be a waste of time and effort if it was used on a single body.
Still, she knew this could be useful later on when she started devouring on a mass scale.
A planetary scale.
For now, unless necessary, she wouldn't use her hive units to devour superpowered beings or beings with coding she wanted whole.
The mass she got from him was also not a lot, but it could also be to other factors.
With that test out of the way, she began to eat the ones she was least interested in first, saving the best for last.
The second one she ate was the man with the tail and ears; devouring him quickly, she could feel very minor changes happening within her.
His X-Gene was very similar to other abilities she had; even the X-Gene she got from the werecat dude before was somewhat similar to it, so the Adaption happened rather quickly.
She could feel the new power within her.
It wasn't much, she had capabilities similar to that of a dog, and if she wished, she could transform into a semi-dog form, growing ears, and a tail— like the man had— in order to boost her dog capabilities.
The power wasn't of much use to her currently, but she was sure that she could find uses for it eventually.
She moved on to eating the other man, that had an odd body, the one that looked like he had burned skin with boils all over.
She had her reservation about eating something that looked so odd, but her alien side didn't hesitate at all.
Devouring the body whole, she suddenly felt a burst of energy and mass within her.
She fell to her knees as her hand gripped the ground, cracking it, as she felt her body breaking apart from the inside out.
Calling it painful would be an understatement; it felt like her entire body was being ripped apart and pieced together again.
She could feel her body trying to Replicate the X-Gene from the man, but at the same time, it was trying to adapt the X-Gene to fit her body.
Radiation.
That was what she felt; she could just tell it was radiation.
She didn't know how; she just could.
The man was soaked in it, he was basically filled to the brim with radiation, and if she hadn't killed him as early as she did, he probably would've died in a few months or years at most.
He was a walking radiation bomb, and she had just eaten all that.
Her body tried to deal with the radiation the best she could, adapting and evolving at rapid rates.
Her skin was starting to burn, and boils began to appear on it, but in the next second, they vanished and returned to her normal skin.
The X-Gene from the man was the only thing saving her body at this point; it had the information needed to adapt a way to not only lessen but grant her a certain level of immunity to the radiation within her.
"Ah!"
She yelled as she slammed her hand on the ground, cracking it from the impact of her strength, her eyes dripping blood from the pain.
Suddenly her skin shattered like a layer of glass, and under it was a new layer of skin without a single blister.
Once that had happened, she released a sigh of relief, her body falling on the ground without an ounce of pain in it anymore, just tired muscles.
Her body had finally adapted to the radiation.
It fixed the X-Gene to fit her body, rather than how the X-Gene was trying to change her body to fit it.
Her body had evolved, shedding the old skin and starting anew.
All the injuries she had previously was healed, and she no longer had any pain.
She felt good.
She felt better.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ZeroX0666
ZeroX0666 This chapter ended up turning out much longer than I had intended and now I have to split it up. Sorry about that, hope you enjoy.
Chapter 46: Chapter 46 - Eating And Growing (Final)
She rested for a few seconds, allowing her mind to get used to the evolution of her body before she finally stood up and returned to eating.
The following mutant on her list to eat was the man that had the horns and odd skin.
Eating him was easy; what came next was the odd part.
Usually, when she devoured a mutant, her body would replicate their X-Gene and alter it to fit her needs.
However, this time it was more like her body was devouring the entire coding from the man, purging the X-Gene, and isolating a very diluted coding from within the man.
Suddenly as her body replicated the coding, her eyes turned completely black, and her mind blanked.
She felt as if her consciousness was suddenly pulled into another place; however, she was still anchored to the many hive units on Earth due to the hivemind.
She found herself staring out onto a place that could only be described as hell.
The land was filled with fire and stone, broken and dry as if rain had never graced the ground, and yet it also had tall buildings and castles that decorated it. Showing that life had lived here.
The sky was greyish with a tint of red as if reflecting the flames and lava of the hell below. A thick smog of smoke clogged out the space above.
She could hear the roars and screams of what she could only assume were monsters or some form of demonic creature.
People, if they can be called that, could be seen walking or even flying along the area; they had abnormal looks.
Horns and tails, some looked like they were made out of slime, others had tentacles coming out from their bodies, and some even looked like dwarves or horsepeople, like from tales of fantasy.
Her eyes glanced over the people around her, them walking by her as if she wasn't there until suddenly she felt a figure sitting near a window turn to look at her.
Before she could make out who the figure was or even get a good view of their cloaked figure, she was suddenly pulled back to her body, the vision fading into nothing but a memory.
Finding herself back in her body in reality, she looked around, confused as to what had just happened.
"What was that?"
She questioned aloud but expected no answer.
She glanced inwardly and observed the X-Gene she had just acquired, only to be surprised upon the revelation that she hadn't gained a new X-Gene.
Instead, she had gained an entirely new Physiology from an entirely new species.
Demon.
Less Demon, to be exact.
It seemed like the man was actually the descendant of some sort of Demon, and the X-Gene most likely attached itself to his latent demonic lineage, which triggered it to activate along with the X-Gene, which made it seem as if his mutant powers were his demonic form.
But that wasn't the case; his X-Gene negatively affected his true capabilities in his situation, so when she devoured him, her body purged it.
'Then was that one of the many Hells Marvel has?'
She thought to herself that the prospect of visiting one of the hells was intriguing.
Especially since it would have so much she could devour to grow.
But she wasn't strong enough for that yet.
Especially whatever the figure was, it felt very powerful.
Shaking her head, she decided to put that on the back burner for now.
She didn't have the power to figure out anything about it, nor the time, so she moved on to eating.
Moving on to the next body, she ate the woman that had the ability to create acid from her body, devouring her entirely.
She felt the adaption happening quickly, her body replicating and changing the X-Gene to fit her needs until, finally, it was finished.
It didn't take too long, but once it was done, she could feel the acid in her pores; it felt like she could create and excrete them at any time.
It was interesting, but there was a better place and time to test it.
Instead, she moved on to eating another person, the girl that was called Cara.
She devoured her and could feel the X-Gene being replicated at a rapid speed. It seemed as if her current body had something that was similar to the ability the girl had.
When it was done, she was able to find out why.
The girl had the ability to harden her skin, turning it into some sort of organic armor like that of a crab. This increased Lily's durability to an extent while in that form, but it wasn't very useful.
She moved along and ate one of the other people that were with her as well, the black-haired lady that seemed relatively normal, devouring her.
When she finished eating her, and the X-Gene was replicated and adapted to fit her needs, she suddenly felt a burst of energy following within her body.
It was a mixture of the mental energy she felt when she was attempting to read minds, but something else was also mixed in.
A different type of energy, if it was even a type of energy, to begin with.
Soul Projection?
The mutant ability of the lady was to project her soul outside of her body and survive independently from her body, meaning even if her body died, so would she if her soul survived.
It was interesting, but Lily didn't plan to use it yet, not until she was sure she didn't have to worry about the Ancient One at least.
Only a few bodies left.
Next up was the girl with the energy blast ability.
Lily ate her and replicated the mutation rather quickly, her body adapting it to fit her.
It was a rather odd ability because it allowed her to tap into some sort of energy within the air, condense it, and send it in a direction in the form of a wave.
It wasn't very strong, but she was sure it could improve with time, so she was pleased with it.
Moving on to the old lady, she decided to eat her quickly and move on.
When she did, however, she felt an odd change to her mental projection, like rather than creating a new X-Gene using the replicated gene, it was simply altering the existing X-Gene she got before.
Adding a new ability, and it did just that.
She could feel the change to the mental energy now; it was a good change, a change in quality rather than quantity.
She was now able to not only read the minds of others that her mental energy infected but also forcefully make them feel the emotions she wanted them to.
It obviously had limitations, such as their will, mental strength, and range, but it was advantageous.
Next up was the man with the superhuman body; he was someone Lily looked forward to eating the most since it would allow her to get a significant boost in her physical capabilities without wasting mass.
Eating him took a while; his muscles were quite dense and hard to chew on, but she eventually finished him.
When her body had finally finished adapting to his X-Gene, taking quite a while, she could feel the change in it.
She had grown slightly taller, not by much, just a little, but her body was more muscular than it was before.
She could feel the density of her muscles and bones, her strength had spiked by a large margin, and for the first time, she fully understood how much the man held back while fighting her.
To say it kindly, she could kill herself easily if she fought herself before getting the X-Gene based purely on physical strength.
She wanted to test it; it felt too good to not try.
With a smile on her face, she stood up and punched the wall; the banging sound it created upon impact echoed out like a thunderclap, the wall shattering into pieces from the impact of her blow.
And that was her holding back.
"This is dangerous."
She said.
She might squish anything she hit if she didn't hold back properly while using this strength.
That would be a waste of food.
Only two bodies were left, so she went to quickly eat them.
She ate the masked man first, her body quickly adapting to his mutation.
She could even feel part of his mutation being adapted to fit along with her Mental Projection X-Gene rather than forming on its own.
However, it seemed the man had two mutant abilities because an X-Gene still formed.
Ink Creation, it could have been more outstanding, but it could definitely be helpful for things.
What interested her most about the man was the mental ability she got from him, the ability to enter other people's minds and find their guilty secrets.
It sounded weird, and that was because it was.
It did literally what it said; she could find out things about them that they felt guilty about and wouldn't want others to find out.
Like things they would take to the grave, things they did that they regretted a lot, kinks they were ashamed of, and more.
It was interesting and could be helpful when fighting people that hide well.
But now she was onto the last person and the one she looked forward to the most.
Dreamer.
Lily devoured her quickly as if someone else would take her food from her.
And as soon as the ability was finished adapting, being added to her mental projection ability again, she could feel just how powerful it was.
It was perhaps the most remarkable change the ability had undergone so far, increasing in quantity and quality simultaneously.
It was potent enough to now affect much more people at once, and she could alter their memories.
That's not all; she could see, change, erase, or even implant her own memories into their minds.
It had its limitations, but to put it lightly, it was broken.
'This massively changes the game.'
She said with a smile, her mind already working on new plans for which she could use this ability.
She had finished eating. Finally, everything she could gain was gained, and she was happy.
She would finally head home, but not before checking her stats.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
ZeroX0666
ZeroX0666
This chapter came out much longer than I planned, but I decided not to split it. The next chapter will mainly be about her status and her heading home.
This also gave her a large boost in strength, specifically her physical capabilities, so there will be a lot more of that from now on.
Anyways, be sure to comment; I enjoy reading them. I read all comments.
Also for anyone curious I have a few interests in mind so far;
Emma Frost
Goblin Queen
Spiderwoman - Gwen
Satana Hellstrom
Nothing decided though.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
12 Power
stone 
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