Cleo’s jaws crunched the Gullenoids shell with ease. The cryogenic ink she had sprayed it with did an excellent job of rendering the alien crustacean shocked, its biology ready for the boiling daytime temperatures and vulnerable to the sudden brittleness. It always tasted good too, a soft slimy flesh that her long tongues tugged out from the nooks and crannies of her four rows of teeth, keeping them clean.

It took her form mere minutes to consume the beast, compared to the hour she’d spent devouring it the first time she took one down. When she was basically a child, dazed and feral, writhing with mutagen from the egg that was the augmentation chamber. The shock of feeling it meet her stomach had nearly overwhelmed her primary brain, but now it was second nature.

X V M V X VVV M X G X F VM XF GX

The genetic sequence was analysed by her gut as she swam, making her way with swift fluid movements through the thick primordial soup that covered her planet. Wakes of her vast tail stirred currents in her wake, feeding the reefs with more micro organisms, helping them grow and repair the large and obvious bite marks that adorned almost every specimen.

She remembered. It was strange, but second nature now, she remembered the genetic sequences of the species, true- but more urgently, every individual had a different genetic sequence. Judging from the alleles, her latest meal was probably a spawn of her first encounter, it shared approximately 33% of the genes, fitting with the Gullenoids trisexual reproduction.

A smile touched her maw as she reached the wrecked crash site, and curled up in the comfortable crystalline nest that had once forged her flesh. Her tail alone filled the primary chamber now, or would if she hadn’t crushed it, but her growth spurts seemed to have stabilized at this point- she’d have to consume maybe twelve or twenty enormous reynivans to accrue energy reserves, and their blubbery flesh was like bubble wrap to her taste buds.

Besides, it had been a year and ten months by her estimations. Soon Circe would return for her abandoned and ill mannered daughter, and pick her up for the vast troves of species and wonders Cleo knew. And then Cleo would demand she be sent to a new planet- and they would agree! What was the alternative? Waste her trillion asset value?

Her stomach gurgled as she kicked walls and screens aside and prepared for night, willing her nitrogenic stimulation to subside and thermal heart to roar into motion. Heat flooded her body, and she relaxed her hide, before sliding long razor sharp fins across herself in an embrace. Mild pain stung as her thick scales parted, though it clotted almost immediately as always, ready to regenerate as soon as adrenaline surged. Yet the heat and blood would draw scavenging cryaltterns while she slept, free to nibble on her regenerating flesh.

They’d die of course. Nothing bit her and lived. And when she woke, she’d have a breakfast of delicious little specimens to enjoy, adding hundreds of new genetic codes to her endless stores. She wanted to break two billion by the time Circe returned.

Two months- it was a challenge, but it was certainly doable!

---

TSV Circe was late. Maybe she counted wrong?

---

Thanks all for joining in! This feels like a good end for the sequence here, I hope you all had as much fun with this sequence as I did! And if you have ideas or questions about my characters or Cleo, always happy to chat and discuss!