Clinical Trials 2 (Patreon)

Her legs were growing stronger. This turned out to be a blessing, as the more eggs that developed in her belly, the more tight and sensitive her skin across her middle became. Despite forcing egg after egg after egg from her shifting body, her large, mutant womb-egg-sac hybrid still grew ever larger. After her increasing discomfort grew too much to bare, she forced herself up to her feet, which had now finished turning green and were now encased in some kind of segmented shell. She didn't have toes, but the bottom of her feet was flared out enough that she could still stand, even if it was a little weird to get used to.

The Change was coming for her face now. her body was half green shell and half tan underbelly, and both colors were bleeding up to her chin. Her nose had also begun to turn green and swell, growing wider and fatter between her eyes. She felt her nostrils close and disappear, but with a twitch of the antennae that she only now realized she had, she realized that she could still smell, of a sort. It was a little weird, but her brain made the connection and interpreted the inputs in the same sort of way.

Then, her face began to hurt. She tried to just let it happen but her skull itself was reshaping, and it did not feel good. "A-aaaaaah!" she shouted as the bump that was her nose grew forward and dominated her head, making her face and skull look somewhat egg-shaped. Her eyes were pushed to either side, but they grew larger and more bulbous in process. She could see further around her now, but looking straight ahead was a little fuzzy in the direct center. She held a hand up to her face, only to realize that both had finished changing into strange, solid scythes.

She steadied her breathing, looking down at her hands and her still-expanding middle passed them. Besides her growing hoard of eggs, The Change seemed to be complete. Her belly and even her egg-sac had started to sting, however, and the tan underbelly became flushed. It only got worse by the second with each egg generated within her.

"U-ummmmph..." she called out, her mouth feeling strange with the addition of two long fangs. "My... my belly is starting to hurt. My skin feels really tight! Am... Am I going to be okay? I feel like I'm going to explode!"

The water girl reached for a button on her console, presumably a microphone switch. "You wont burst," she assured through the intercom. "However, that feeling will only get worse if you don't speed up your laying. We used a fairly potent formula on you, and you're going to be absolutely massive and stretched pretty thin if you don't pick up the pace. We're estimating about twenty to twenty-four thousand eggs here for your initial clutch here. Just be glad they're infertile!"

Erika paled and her heart dropped. Twenty four THOUSAND!? she thought to herself. I can't take that much! This is it, this is where I die, there's no way!

"Relax," the water girl said through the intercom, seeing Erika's panic. "It's been done before, and they didn't even have an egg-sac to make it easy like you. Just push, and let your body do it's thing."

Easy for you to say... Erika thought bitterly. Nevertheless, she did as she was told and began to push in earnest. Eggs came quicker now, and every egg she laid, the next one became easier. Soon, they seemed to be pouring out of her, but when she need to stop to catch her breath, her belly began to swell again. Seems like she was only maintaining her size when she laying. They eggs were growing so fast! Her belly swelled inches wider in just the few short breaths she took before pushing them out again.

Hours later, and what felt like an eternity for Erika, her belly began to shrink, only after it had grown larger enough to hide an elephant. That's to say nothing of her egg-sac, which could fit a car, maybe even two. The whole room was buried in large, white eggs and sticky slime. The fact that all of that came out her was mind-blowing. Still, she wasn't done yet, and she continued to push.

An hour after that, she kneeled on the floor, panting. Surprisingly, her belly had become completely flat, and her egg-sac was fairly small, only the size of a back-pack or so, even as it expelled the final egg. For now, anyway. Her limbs shook, her whole body of all energy she had. She felt like could sleep for days. Her cheeks were dry, all of her tears of frustration and exhaustion were already spent hours ago.

Two pairs of legs appear on either side of her. Erika slowly looked up, eyes unfocused at the two scientists from earlier that were now standing by her. They smiled sympathetically, and the plant one offered her hand. "You did really well, Erika," the water girl said soothingly.

Erika stared the plant girl's leafy hand for several seconds as she tried to collect her thoughts. She swallowed, then slowly, painfully raised her right claw to her, and allowed them to aid her to her shaking feet. "That... was... the worst thing... I've ever done. How... How do people put up with that...?" she asked. A thought came across her and terror flashed across her face. "I'm not going to have to do that again, am I!?"

The green one shook her head. "No, no, of course not. That only happens on the first change. You'll still make eggs, of course. That was the point of all this. And quite a lot, I'm afraid, like we said before, the formula was quite powerful." She looks to her coworker for affirmation. "Like, what, a hundred? Two hundred every three or four days?"

The water elemental nodded. "Its the harshest of any of our bug girls besides Erin," she mentions, "But we needed to make sure whatever we come up with will be strong enough to work on even the most vigorous of egg cycles."

Erika nodded slowly. She signed up for this, after all. Still, she ran the numbers through her head, glancing at the eggs around her and her own body. "Am I even going to be able to move with that many?"

The water girl looked uncertain. "You'll likely be immobile on your final day of the egg cycle until you lay them. So plan to be stuck in one place every four days or so. Still, if that does happen, us, and a whole team of specialized workers and caretakers will be there to make sure nothing bad happens, and that you're still comfortable for that time. It sounds bad, and I'm sure it'll take a lot of time to get used to it and come to terms with it, but eventually, I think you'll grow to like it. Most of The Changed do. And besides, if our research succeeds, you wont need to lay anymore eggs! So it wont be forever," she explained.

Erika sighed. "I guess not. Um... Now what?"

"You need time to recover. Your body is generating more eggs even now, so you'll need to get some sleep so the stress doesn't kill you, or worse. We've got a housing unit set aside just for you. I'll take you there!" the plant girl offers.

The thought of sleep made Erika feel hundreds of tons heavier all of a sudden. "I think... I'd like that."

~~~~~

Will this event have an impact on future Glimmer Note plot? Maybe so! We'll just have to see.