BlossomThing
Chapter 10: Chapter 8: Experimentation
Previous Chapter Next ChapterBlossomforth woke from a fitful sleep. Odd half-remembered visions of galaxies and planets that she had seen before in a textbook danced in her head. She rubbed her eyes trying to remember what she was dreaming about. What little she remembered was slipping away, the dream was bizarre, that's for sure.
She was also vaguely excited about something. Ah yes, she smiled. That stunt she pulled yesterday surely left an impression on anon. It was cute how socially awkward he was, trying to pretend that he wasn’t enjoying watching her show off her bendiness. She put on the innocent act but in reality she was enjoying watching Anon squirm.
Speaking of squirming, Bloss had barely squirmed her way out of getting a massage from anon. She was a bit worried about controlling her baser instincts which seemed to randomly assert themselves. She would need to find some fresh organisms she had not assimilated before in the Everfree forest to sate her hunger before the evening. Blossomforth’s strange dreams had caused her to oversleep so instead of actually sitting down and eating she reached out with a few tentacles and engulfed a few apples and pears. She needed to get a head start if she wanted to find a robust variety of organisms to really sate her hunger.
Blossomforth trotted out of her house and flew briskly towards the Everfree Forest whistling a tune on her way.
Every time she went hunting she was able to experiment with a whole library of biological functions left to her by the Thing. She was becoming more and more efficient at her hunting. It still felt a bit wrong for her to eat another living creature but, the Thing's instincts had dulled her guilt. She was still happy that she had not actually killed anypony, or any sapient creature, she just borrowed some of their bodies- temporarily- without permission, and compromised the sanctity of their free will. Blossomforth frowned and tried not to think about it too much.
Blossom was also becoming better at concentrating and getting a feel of the different biological functions she had at her disposal. But there was a problem, there were a LOT of different functions. Every time she imagined an appendage or organ she would need to accomplish a task she would get an overwhelming selection. Instead of trying to go through every iteration she decided to instead pick something that felt right and practice with it for the day for her hunting. Maybe not the quickest or most straightforward ways to catch her prey but it was an effective way to practice and become familiar with herself.
Blossomforth never liked assimilating animals, they were always so scared before she assimilated them but it was a necessity to sate her hunger and control herself. But yesterday she meditated, shifting through the masses of biological data inside her to find a way to quickly and painlessly subdue the scared animals before she assimilated them and birthed their new bodies back out. Blossomforth was a pacifist at heart, she didn't want to hurt anyone but having her mind melded to the Thing had changed her. Really, she was no different than a predator in the forest. What she was doing really wasn't wrong. Sometimes, especially if the animal didn't have any dependent family members, she would consume them fully. It was simply easier and quicker to gather energy this way. She felt guilty but her guilt was dulled by the Thing's instincts. Still, she only took what she needed. She didn't allow herself to become addicted to having a larger body.
As she was meditating and shifting through her data she found two biological constructs that could prove to be very useful. The first was an enzyme that produced an extremely impressive neurotoxin cocktail. When injected into the bloodstream it would numb and paralyze the muscles it flowed past, producing a dull warm feeling. It was also a powerful depressant, quickly dulling the mind and nervous system causing the victim to quickly pass into unconsciousness. The other biological construct she wanted to utilize were microscopic stingers usually found on the tentacles of a jellyfish which could be used to deliver the neurotoxin. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJiBc_N1Zk) If she covered her body with these things, warm numbness and paralyses would flow from where she touched her prey and fall unconscious shortly after, allowing her to dissolve their bodies without struggle. This would hopefully make the process much more smooth and easy.
Blossomforth also wanted to test her hivemind capabilities today. She had experienced it before when she split herself to find and assimilate her mangled weather team but it was mostly a blur. If she could master these abilities, sating Thingpone's hunger in the future would be a breeze.
Bloss reached the forest, flying over the canopy. After flying for a few minutes she found what looked like a secluded clearing and landed.
First thing first, she wanted to test out her microscopic stingers. Bloss thought it would be interesting to assimilate a hummingbird but the problem was that they were very quick and if she tried to assimilate the hummingbird using brute force she could injure or kill the poor thing before she could assimilate it which is something she wanted to avoid.
There happened to be a butterfly bush, a favorite of humming birds, so she decided to set up shop there and wait. Hummingbirds loved to stick their beaks into the flowers of a butterfly bush and lap up the nectar which made the plant an ideal attractor. She walked up to the bush and decomposed herself, melting into a blob of flesh. She slid her mass through the branches to the center of the plant where it was rooted to the ground. She felt each of the branches and grew tentacles which curled around each of the branches. As each of her thin vinelike tentacles reached the end of the branch she grew small beady eyes on the ends of her fleshy vines to see what became attracted. Blossomforth could not focus on so many eyes at the end of each branch so instead she formed nerve clusters in each of her tentacles to take care of basic visual tracking and identification. Flashes of information were fed into her mind. A honeybee, she had already assimilated one of those last week. A moth, a fly, a beetle, all things she had tasted before. Ah! Finally! A hummingbird. She focused her attention on the tentacle near where the hummingbird was about to feed. She concentrated and microscopic stingers sprouted from every surface of her body ready to spring out and inject their neurotoxin at the lightest touch. Ever so slowly while the hummingbird dipped its head into the flower she extended her thin tentacle into the air behind the hummingbird careful not to startle it and gently wrapped her tentacle around the little bird's torso. Instantly, the stingers fired and released the powerful neurotoxin into the bloodstream of the little bird. The hummingbird squeaked and trilled in surprise, feeling the tentacle and darted out of the tentacle's grasp. The bird would have gotten away, but with a fast beating heart and such a small body the neurotoxin was extra fast acting causing it's wings to slow down until it dropped out of the sky. It did not get far and Blossomforth quickly reached out to catch the tiny bird, it's eyes closed as the toxin reached its brain.
Bloss retracted her other tentacles and slid out of the bush reforming her pony form minus the tentacle that was still grasping the bird. She tilted the bird in her tentacle, it was a beautiful, delicate, and cute little thing with holographic plumage that ran down the bird's neck and changed color as the light refracted off of it. Despite being unconscious she could feel its tiny heart beat at quite a fast rate. Well, down the hatch she supposed. Once again the wave of information and pleasure from assimilating a new diverse life form hit her. All of the intricacies and ingenious designs that made a humming bird were quickly processed, compressed and stored for future use.
Blossom then proceeded to reform the bird’s body using the information she had harvested and placed its nervous system back where it belonged. She lay the bird on her hoof where it woke up from its unconsciousness and slowly balanced itself on the edge of her hoof. It stared at Blossomforth fluffing it's tiny feathers in a kind of questioning way, flicked its long tongue at her, and buzzed off.
Blossomforth smiled, she was proud of herself. It was the first time she was able to release an animal she had caught without resorting to memory alterations. The bird did not even know what had happened to it.
Now to try something a little more advanced. Being able to exist in more than one place at once was a powerful thing. She had experienced it before but she wanted to see how far she could take it.
Blossom prepared herself and slowly deformed into her usual viscosity and performed cytokinesis like she had done before. She mostly let Thingpone's instinct take over as she went. It was an utterly bizarre feeling to be split in two but it seemed that her mind was still whole which was curious. It seemed like the telepathy she utilized was like a data transfer system that allowed the architecture of her higher order thought functions of her mind to be divided into different bodies but communicate as if it was still whole. Her lower motor skills, other "dumb" portions of her mind, and central nervous system were copied into both of her bodies while higher thought and more complex logical sectors were shared between her two bodies allowing for centralized thought.
She tried to form her normal pony form with both of her bodies. Curiously the forest seemed to be larger than before, it seemed that she would need more biomaterial or nutrients to make two normal sized bodies. She tried walking with one body and rolling over with her other body. She was not able to critically examine both of her actions at the same time but it seemed that she could quickly set a task and the "dumber" copies of her mind would carry it out effectively.
Now to try something more complex. She split again and reformed. Now there were four foal sized Blossomforths loitering around and examining each other with curiosity. Her higher mind was able to form complex thought and emotions but could not concentrate on all of her bodies at the same time. The copied parts of her lower order minds were able to act independently and focus on different things. She thought of a complex task that required coordination and teamwork. Hmmm, jumping rope would work, but she would need rope. Wait! She didn't need rope!
Two of her bodies faced each other and their tongues snaked out of their mouthes and expanded outwards towards each other in a tentacle-like fashion, they touched and fused together. More tongue came out until their fused tongue had enough slack to get to the floor like a jump rope. Her other two bodies walked forward standing in front of the rope in preparation. One, two, three! Her bodies coordinated and swung their tongue over the other two and the two jumpers jumped as the ropy tongue passed under them.
Incredible! This process guided by instinct was seamless! Blossom did not know that Thingpone’s ancestors relied on this method of hivemind immensely in order to effectively multiply and harvest a planet. It was so important that they had spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting the technique.
She split again. Now there were eight miniature blossomforths. They looked like plushies. Blossomforth was now sensing a hierarchy. When in her base decomposed form, her mind existed as “thinking muscle” spread throughout her body. However, if you were to compare her mind to a brain the highest order thought and decision making existed in the frontal lobe. It was what gave sentient creatures their spark of creativity, emotion, complex thought, and problem solving. There were a spectrum of other functions between the frontal lobe and the brain stem. The brain stem and brain matter around it contained the most basic motor skills, reflexes, and other passive functions that regulated the body.
There was a hierarchy in her newly developed hivemind that governed the group as a whole. At the top was the core of the mind that contained core personality, morality, emotion, and empathy. This was divided into eight, each part stored inside of each of the bodies and joined as one functional highest order mind via telepathic data link. Next were high order thoughts below the highest order: creativity, strategic thought, problem solving, and other complex thought. This portion was copied into two and each copy was split into four allowing for two independent mind portions focusing on complex thought for the two groups of four. Below that were lower order thought functions that were not quite passive but not as complex as the above functions. This was copied into four with each copy split in two allowing for four independent mind portions for four groups of two. Lastly were the passive reflexes, motor controls, and other passive functions. Each body got its own complete copy of this lowest order mind allowing the bodies completely independent mind functions.
This hivemind structure was utterly ingenious. It allowed for centralized strategic control but it also allowed for independent tactical thought and focus for more mundane tasks. This structure would more finely divide depending on how many times she split herself, with the most complex mind centralized and shared at the top and the most passive mind copied and independently utilized at the bottom.
Now to try something crazy. She split and split again. Now there were 64 tiny masses flesh on the forest floor that each formed into a hummingbird. The Mind hierarchy was much more complex and more finely divided the mind giving each of her hummingbird bodies a thin slice of the highest order mind and a complete passive mind. She directed herselves to start feeding from the flowers of the butterfly bushes. All of her tiny bodies buzzed from the ground and flew towards flowers of the bushes independently maneuvering and flying around each other. She focused on one hummingbird and it hovered above to survey her swarm giving her centralized higher mind a good view of the action. They descended upon the butterfly bush each of her diving and darting between each other to find a flower. Blossomforth concentrated on the information stream processed by the lower order copies, there was a veritable torrent of information. This flower tastes better than the other, this flower has more nectar than the other. Her mid level minds were able to coordinate their local groups effectively, moving in a clockwise rotation around the bush to harvest all of the nectar in a sweeping motion much like the rotating arm of a galaxy she dreamed of. It was all utterly amazing and the implications were astounding!
If she wanted to she could have a dedicated body to harvest life information in the Everfree while she did her weatherpony job elsewhere! She could be more productive! She could assimilate the world. While her central mind was busy thinking of the implications, her hive had sucked the butterfly bush dry of nectar and moved on to some nearby flowers. But now every hummingbird in her swarm hovered still in midair. Blossomforth’s central mind was flabbergasted. Brief images of homogenized and assimilated worlds flashed in Blossomforth’s mind. So that’s what Thingpone wanted. It was tempting, oh so tempting to just let go and proceed to assimilate everything in sight. Her swarm gathered together and melted into a puddle of flesh. Blssomforth rose from the puddle, a grimace on her face. She could not. She would not. She had a responsibility, damn it! She needed answers, more-so than ever. She wished she had never started experimenting with her body.
Blossomforth suddenly realized that she would soon be meeting with Anon to stretch. She needed to seriously think about what to do. This was getting ridiculous. Was she really a threat to all the life in the world? It was now more clear than ever that it was a realistic possibility. Dark thoughts crossed her mind as she sullenly took off to fly back to Ponyville.