Chimera felt energized as she finished off the last of the crew members, fixing an old war wound from a previous encounter with the Hood.

  It was pretty gruesome, something about the acid that some of their forces spit made it hard for magical means to heal certain wounds. This was no problem for her though.

  After all, it wasn’t magic, just incredible amounts of mad science and super powers.

  Totally different.

  “There you are, good as new.” She said to the old engineer.

  “T-Thank you Captain. I never thought-,” he froze for a moment as his arm, which previously didn’t exist a few minutes ago. He flexed it, gave it a few fists, and threw a punch.

  “-That it would feel so normal?” Chimera offered.

  “Yeah, it’s like it never left.” He smiled back.

  “Because it didn’t, the blueprint was always inside you. I just borrowed it and told your body what it had to do to fix it.” She stuck her nose in the air with pride.

  “Though it couldn’t have been possible without my expertise, it was at least partially you.”

  The old engineer laughed with his belly, “you remind me of my niece Captain Mera.”

  Chimera smirked, “smart, charming and incredibly gifted?”

  He gave her his widest smile, “and a genius to boot. Most of the weapons we use today are because of her. That's why I’m glad where we’re heading.”

  Chimera’s own smile froze, “she… lives on Torsca?”

  A nod was her answer.

  “Then we better hurry up with the upgrades. Gather all the personnel and have them moved to the loading docks. They can house the whole crew, yeah?”

  “Should, with room to spare.” he answered, confusion on his face.

  “Good, I’ll be in the bridge, make sure everyone's away from the walls. I’m not sure how this is going to go but It would be better if you guys weren’t next to anything walls or ship related.”

  “Captain, the whole ship is one piece of Yggdrasil’s daughter, that’s impossible.” He spoke as though it were obvious.

  Well whatever, she could worry about that later.

  First, upgrades!

  “Move it old man, I got toys to build and no patience.” She cracked a manic smile which only seemed to make the old Elfari laugh.

  “Just like her to a ‘T’ it seems.”

  …

  Chimera waited for a minute before teleporting herself to the bridge, which was now empty of all personnel save for Bark. He was waiting in the captain’s chair with his staff channeling energy into the orb that represented Meras’ brain.

  “She’s all ready for you, Captain.” The wiry fellow said, his eyes closed in concentration.

  “Alright, let’s start this up.” Chimera rushed to the orb and jumped.

  Landing on the orb, she splattered across the entirety of the orb and began to suffuse into the orb a moment later.

  On the outside, it appeared as though she disappeared from sight all together, absorbed into the ship like water from the ground.

  Inside however, Chimera was inside a mental room similar to the one she was captured and placed in. It was identical to when she met and first spoke to Meras, before she realized she was the ship itself.

  Now, Meras stood opposite of her, her true form that of a massive plant that was decked with ivy and spikes, something that screamed ‘the only clothes I wear can count as lethal weapons’.

  Chimera loved it.

  “Hey partner, ready to get the upgrade of your life?” Chimera said, barely concealing her own excitement.

  Meras smiled back with a row of jagged teeth, “do lets.”

  Chimera wasted no time, and exploded, sending all of her excess mass out of her body to fill up the entire chamber. Just as before, whenever she had more mass than she needed, she would place the extra within herself, a pseudo-pocket dimension that could hold a great deal of things within it.

  The extraneous liquids of her body filled the chamber, surrounding Meras in a pod as tiny tendrils did their work to access her body.

  “Oh… that tickles a bit.” She spoke, the words bouncing off the walls as the liquid carried the sound.

  “Yup, it’s going to be like that for a bit. For now though… what do you want to try first?”

  Meras connected with her mind, which was much simpler since they were technically inside Chimera’s body now.

  A deep dive, but in reverse.

  “Oh, like that. Maybe some of this? Yes, that, all of that right now!” Meras practically squealed at the choices.

  But it made since for someone like herself the more Chimera thought.

  She’s basically been living like a thing instead of a person, so these make sense.

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  Meras specifically chose to become like Chimera in most aspects, with the DNA recombination and regeneration, but she also wished to be able to create… not clones, but things she could use as surrogate bodies.

  Damaged as that DNA strand was in Chimera, she could do that much with the massive influx of energy she just received from the crew.

  All that unused biomass, now fueling the vessel they all were living on.

  Some of Meras’ choices though were very interesting.

  “Electrogenesis and terramancy?”

  When she asked, the plant made a face and smirked back at her, “I like this idea you humans have about launching big rocks really fast. Is it true that it works like this?”

  Meras’ question came to her in the form of a video showing a classic rail gun design that Chimera would have expected millennia ago.

  Chimera sent back the most accurate rendition of a more modern design, “yeah it works like that but this would be better if this is what you're going for.”

  “Oooh, much better, less energy usage this way.”

  Voltaic branches grew on the side of their vessel, trees coursing with the power of lightning and electricity. Grabbing a nearby asteroid using her new gifts, Meras demonstrated her new gravity cannon on another bigger asteroid, which was blasted into space dust with the speed.

  “So much fun! I can pick up rocks without having to have rocks on board! This is so great!”

  Like a kid in a candy store, Meras kept picking more powers and sub-systems for herself with wild abandon.

  Chimera tried to keep her on track, but there were times when the ancient space barge would give her ideas of her own.

  Tractor beams, laser lances, and even a gravity tether for cargo of captured vessels were just a few that the space tree offered up.

  In the end, the two of them settled on the following changes.

  First, the gravity cannon. Chimera was able to create three of them with one on top and two on the sides of their squarish rectangular base.

  However, the Second function was that Meras was able to reshape her hull as she saw fit now, and she took a design from one of Asta’s dreadnought class ships. This shape was more like the ships that Chimera knew of, resembling the old model star ship that she remembered Sarah kept as a child.

  It made getting around the ship faster as well, since no longer did the crew have to run along long hallways to get to other parts of the ship, now it was all centralized, with a cross-like pattern with the major and sensitive ship systems in the middle of the vessel.

  The Third new function was a personal favorite of Chimera’s, which Meras shared as well.

  A fully functioning perpetual energy generator, only this one was the size of an entire warehouse. The three normal magical generators were enhanced with mini P.E.Gs of their own to help them conserve mana, but this monster of a generator was a colossal beast, capable of running the ship systems twice over. All for the low price of a short burst start up, which the three magical generators could easily provide now.

  Essentially with this new baby in the engine, they could go twice as fast while still running everything, all without losing a drop of power to other systems. It also had an overclocking ability as well, allowing it to function at four times the normal output.

  Meras loved it as she could now devote the magic generators to another project, one that she chose as her fourth option.

  This option was the one she wished for the most of all the changes, and it showed as the new generator and the magic generator all stored power for this part of the ship.

  It was a summoning circle, one that would allow Meras to summon a clone of herself that she could pilot whenever the ship was landed.

  Finally, she could move and converse with the locals, partake in missions, and find more spikey clothing.

  Chimera thought it would be fun to have the ship join them as well, and so helped as best she could with the set-up and testing.

  Lastly, the coup de grace of the entire refit. Chimera wanted to have the Meras be able to handle any insane situation they likely would run into. But she knew nothing of space combat, and didn’t know what they could hope to expect.

  Before she merged with Meras, she didn’t know, but now, she had a massive array of knowledge at her fingertips, and it gave her all kinds of ideas.

  Rubber hull for kinetic dampening in case of stray meteors or enemy fire.

  Solar arrays for handling small missile fire, with the added bonus of being converted into power syphons in case of irreparable damage.

  A souped up gravity cannon to fire large munitions that weren’t just asteroids!

  The best part of it all was that as long as she was connected to Meras, all of them could be realized. They just needed a bit of time and a whole lot of power.

  Placing this delivery system on the very top of the middle section of the ship, Chimera dubbed it the Chimeric Accelerator.

  A weapon device that could become anything they might need at the speed of thought! Even defensive structures were on the table with this omni-directional powerhouse.

  After creating it though, it became obvious the energy output alone would use most of the ship’s own supply, and thus a P.E.G of its own was built.

  Now the ship was ready for the changes that would need to take place to bring all of their ideas to fruition, and with a pulse of her own energy, Chimera started up the recently built P.E.Gs herself.

  The thrum of energy came over the two like a tidal wave, creating a pool of energy that quickly got syphoned by the greedy systems in place.

  “Meras, how are you holding up?” Chimera turned to stare at the representation of her friend.

  Who was spinning like a top!

  “Weee!”

  “M-Meras?!”

  “The colors! The smells! Holy Mother’s Tits I’m high right now!” Her friend said with a bit of a lisp.

  “Crap! This might be too many changes at once. Meras! Meras are you alright?!”

  Chimera began to panic once she noticed the energy dunked her friend like she was a toddler in the deep end of a swimming pool. She did her best to reach out and pull her friend, but the energy, her energy, smacked her hand away.

  “No… touchy…”

  Shit, please tell me I didn’t just kill the ship!

  Chimera panicked for a few more minutes before she noticed the energy starting to slink away, bleeding out of the room to reveal her friend.

  She wasn’t a plant with spikes anymore, that was clear.

  Instead she was almost like Chimera, smaller with Elfari ears and eyes and a tiny body to boot.

  All of her was a shade of green however, from her eyes to her hair and even her skin.

  She opened her mouth to smile and a row of black teeth greeted Chimera.

  “This is so awesome! I can’t believe that I can change myself this much. Your cells are really incredible Mera! I can actually see now!” Meras started to laugh as she moved closer, opening her eyes even more to peer at Chimera and their surroundings.

  “Erm… well as long as you're happy I guess?” Chimera shrugged.

  “Happy doesn’t even cover it, I can move! I can speak without magic! I can touch things with these sausage fingers!”

  Chimera laughed awkwardly as Meras began to use said fingers to touch her own face and arms. Then she moved on to start touching Chimera’s body.

  “Hey! Don’t do that, it tickles.”

  “Is that what that feeling is? I kind of want to laugh but also cringe when that happens.”

  “Oh boy…” Chimera face palmed herself as she sat down to try and explain to her ship friend how bodies were supposed to work.

  It was a good few hours before either of them were satisfied with the answers.

  …