Benjamine.

  The ‘miracle’ of birth had always stood out as a fairly disgusting and unattractive prospect.

  To understand that a ‘creature’, no matter its lineage, blood and flesh, would take up residence inside of her, of all pces, all the while causing her body to infte and grow grotesque and gassy and miserable and sore was, simply put, something that very much sounded like torture.

  Despite being an organism of her own creation and all the supposed chemical changes that may or may not alter her outlook on the matter, the thought of having babies had, in a way, always rankled her to a degree.

  So much so that Benjamine had long since determined the perfect and adequate quantity of children she would conceive. And god’s as her witness, she would never carry again after reaching that number, even if she had to pry free her own ovaries and squash every egg within.

  As it happened, the magical numeral was three.

  One to be her heir.

  One to be her backup.

  One to be her experiment.

  For the longest time, Benny had been sure that she could achieve a form of immortality through proxy, transferring her consciousness to a capable vessel that was, in a very real sense, made from her own blood.

  The process might not have been perfect nor exactly perfected, yet she had been reasonably sure of its success.

  But, that somewhat long and exasperatingly convoluted pn was neither here nor there at the moment, not only because she was no longer human, but because circumstances had left her somewhat bereft of the ability or need for it to begin with.

  No, sometimes, Benny had wondered if life wouldn't have been easier for her if she’d been born a male… The female form certainly had its advantages, but Benny was ever a pragmatic sort.

  If a cock and balls were to be the very least of her woes in life, then certainly putting up with the changes would have paled by comparison to all the work she’d had to go through just to ensure herself to be her father’s heir.

  Honestly, Benny would have been an elder sister more than a dozen times over if it weren't for her timely intervention and careful observation of her father’s nocturnal dalliances. Even a bastard male would have been a disaster for her, but again, she felt as though she were trailing on a tangent…

  It was so hard not to think about her previous life. Yet, so often were there these little crossovers that were difficult not to get distracted by.

  Case and point, motherhood.

  Thankfully, the prospect of simply, or that was to say, theoretically, detaching a part of herself to, in effect, create another version of herself was a great deal more patable than the human alternative.

  And, if her ‘babies’ came out fully functional and potty trained, then who was she really to compin?

  That said, while she could definitively say she’d done her fair share of research into the process of ‘child making’ when it came to her old body, the fundamentally different process she assumed she was now confronted with was—well, not retively as easy as it sounded…

  “How does one cut oneself when they are made of slime?” She asked nobody in particur, simply remaining seated as she stared at her own arm with idle interest.

  While somewhat solid in a kind of getinous way, she was still quite squishy and malleable to a degree that she could already tell this wasn't to be a simple process.

  Thus, the experiments would commence!

  First, Benny tried to ‘pinch’ her hand off at the wrist, not only confidant that it was by no means a permanent maiming considering there was nothing there but goo, but also reasonably assured of herself that the slight loss of mass would be a boon, even if it ended in failure.

  As it happened, she managed to compress her body to the point it should have detached; however, her own fluid sort of just flowed right back into the offending hand, which did manage to make one of the things disappear.

  Yet, the single moment she released her hold saw her missing limb just wobbling out of her gummy stump with a pyful little jiggle, almost as if the thing were taunting her.

  Next, she tried, in vain, to use the cage bars, more acting out an intrusive thought than really thinking it through.

  She would have felt foolish, were anyone there to watch, yet Benny often worked best when she had firsthand experience to rely on.

  While most might assume she was an idiot for even trying to use something that melted at her touch as if she were made of acid, the reality was that everything presumably would dissolve at her touch, cking a magical reinforcement or chemical resistance.

  Benny didn't have a scientific text on what slimes could and couldn't melt. However, she’d heard enough stories about slimes ruining good steel to know there probably wasn't much she couldn't eat through.

  Plus, it did give her a follow-up idea that was reasonably successful!

  Lifting the cage with one hand, she pced the other underneath the weighty box, then, with a smile, she allowed it to pulverise her arm!

  Success!

  Again, her general mass repaired the damage nearly as fast as she could pull away. But, her act of self-mutition had left remnant 'her' on the cavern floor that was a definitive pile of leaking slime which was now partially spttered about the area.

  For several moments, Benjamine simply observed her errant fluid with a clinical eye, half expecting it to suddenly start bubbling and forming into a sapient ‘other her’ and half wondering if it would simply create a small ball of ooze.

  Sadly, and much to her disappointment, the sticky, melty, goopy pile of herself that she’d lost merely pooled, not really doing much of anything more interesting than a puddle of water might offer someone who hated baths.

  Hmm… Not very helpful…

  Several more attempts at separating herself, all in ways that didn't involve crushing a potential ‘spawn’, all resulted in more failure until Benny simply wondered if she shouldn't just keep lopping off her various limbs until she became a size a degree more wieldy.

  Obviously, she wasn't quite understanding what she was supposed to do here, which was somewhat annoying since she’d actually grown slightly fond of the ease with which she’d taken to her new body.

  The instincts that had come pre-instilled were priceless, doubly so given how easy they’d arrived to her. Thus, Benny was actually getting somewhat irritated that her body wasn't simply ‘giving her’ the answer—the answer to…

  Oh…

  Ohhh…

  Benjamine paused mid-thought, rolling back her prior statement as she, for the first time in nearly half an hour, stopped overthinking things to pay attention to her—well, to herself really…

  The solution to her dilemma was present, and it was waiting for her when she eventually had the wherewithal to start listening to her new form.

  It was kind of like the ‘tingle’ one got when they had to use the privy, at least, it was in regards to emptying one's bdder.

  Less frustrated and more resolved to keep an ear out, as it were, for her own existence ‘little voice’ when it was speaking, Benny chased down the queer prickle of instinct like a frothing bloodhound.

  The process?

  A retively straightforward affair, all things considered, once she actually had an inkling of what needed to be done.

  Equal parts injecting mana into a newly forming and bubbling 'growth' that she was creating inside her own hand, simply so she could better observe the process.

  Equal parts patience as it needed mild concentration as Benjamine waited, and waited, and waited some more for her rather simplistic body to do its rather simplistic thing.

  Slimes, sadly, and also in this case, luckily, were not very complex creatures...

  She was, as she could tell, ‘creating’ a new core within herself, which was the central foci for the more common monsters that were well known within human society.

  Without a core, the magical nature that held together a slime’s goo would immediately cease and result in a variably sized puddle, pending how rge the monster was.

  Break the core, kill the slime.

  It wasn't always so easy, of course, as the bigger one of them was, the harder it was to pin it's core in one pce, and due to the getinous nature of it, getting a ‘solid hit’ on a slimes heart could and would be a lesson in futility for those who didn't know how to fight them.

  Yes, slimes could be very dangerous predators, yet their simple nature, so dumb as to not even be on par with an animal, was oftentimes their downfall.

  Thank the gods for their simple minds, as not much actually preyed upon slimes for obvious reasons.

  Oh, there were humans, of course, specifically alchemists, and there was supposedly a type of insect that could quite effectively ‘eat’ slimes, more for their cores than their bodies, but all the same, people often saw them more as pests than true perils.

  It was only when they got big, threatened livestock, or slipped into wells that they often proved worth concerning oneself over.

  Thus, it really was no surprise to Benny that their modus of replication should be so simple as well. Truth be told, it quickly became something akin to watching paint dry…

  It was so slow!

  So agonizingly slow!

  And so much worse because there was literally nothing else for her to do.

  When the monstrous young woman finally ‘felt’ that it was time, she earnestly couldn't have said it was a moment too soon.

  The anticipation was killing her…

  And for it all, the end result was—less than spectacur—also, just a bit unnerving.

  Benjamine pushed when the core felt formed enough to meet a minimum capability to exist on its own, and as she did, a somewhat small globule of crimson slime sloughed off of herself to gently plop on the stone floor.

  Somehow, with the addition of sound and wiggles, this final process felt just a little obscene…

  She observed the small, hand-sized getinous creature for no insignificant span of time, watching it, as might a researcher, while her ‘offspring’ moved through a process of exploratory motions that she had little doubt were somewhat familiar.

  Then, abruptly, the pile bubbled! Raging and shifting and wobbling with almost aggressive intensity right before it sprang up like a firework unching toward the sky!

  There, an entirely recognizable shape quickly took form from what there was to use and finally stared up at her, ruby gaze just catching what dim light there was to sparkle through narrowed eyes.

  “Fuck…”

  Benny… hmmm, well, she was somewhat taken aback by her ‘daughter’s’ first words.

  While many a parent might be pleased their child said anything even half as quickly following genesis, the sight of a toddler-sized but adult version of herself, staring up at her with calcuting disgruntlement and uttering a curse under her breath?

  Yeah, even Benjamine had to admit, this was just a little bit weird…

  Worse? Benny could still feel her…

  She wasn't quite sure how, nor why, but she was positive that there was a kind of connection…

  Not quite thoughts, not quite physical, the link possessed of itself a certain undefinable tether that rested at the back of her mind like a nagging itch in the brain…

  “I’m—” Her clone began, hardly managing more than an initial introduction before Benny smmed her hand down upon the creature as fast and hard as she could!

  The panic was immediate! And despite how fast Benny acted, her doppelganger was just as quick on the uptake!

  She narrowly avoided the towering slime's attack with the utterance of another curse, throwing herself to the side and rolling!

  Yet, it wasn't enough…

  Faster now, Benny lunged at the creature, eliciting an indignant and terrified squawk from her, but her survival instincts could only bring her so far.

  Quick as the little gremlin was, Benny was just as fast and far rger besides. There was simply no escape when she spread herself out, crashing down upon her clone like a tidal wave looming over a hamlet built of wattle and daub.

  Her clone fought with all the viciousness of a cornered beast, again, screeching as she flung herself as far as she could while screaming obscenities and threats, crawling across the floor as fast as she was able, seemingly possessing no better alternative.

  She consumed her other self with the very same hateful fury of her own dying copy, aware of the utter insanity of it all, but knowing this needed to be done all the same.

  When it was finished, Benny felt herself rex, her form dispcing into a baser blob without structure, the young woman taking a moment to reorient herself and calm down from the brief albeit one-sided exchange.

  Surprisingly, her clone's core didn't dissolve within her, though, pulling it back out, she could hold the thing between two fingers as she reformed to her human stature, feeling just how fragile the thing was, even as she considered cracking it between her fingers.

  More horribly? She got the vaguest sense of the sheer and overwhelming terror that her clone currently felt as it was, presumably without its slime, deprived of every sembnce of olfactory sense.

  It was odd, being able to parse what her own horrified double was going through, mostly because she herself had already experienced something fairly simir.

  God, she could even follow along with the woman's thoughts… Not because she could sense them, no, the connection wasn't quite so intricate.

  Instead, she found it modestly easy to simply put herself in—well, her own shoes.

  Right now, her other self had to be doing the same thing, trying to calcute the odds of her own survival, even as the bde rested naked on her own neck.

  So, what had she learned from this?

  That her clones were intelligent.

  That her clones, to her immense displeasure, possessed her memories, if the acrity with which the women had formed was anything to go by.

  Also, they were not blindly loyal to her, a shame really, but probably too much to ask.

  More, and perhaps most interesting, there was some sort of link that she shared with the other monster… Something—oh, what was the phrase… sympathetic? No, not quite right, wrong word to be sure—ah!

  It was empathy she realized! And, while notably weak, Benny was positive she was picking up trace hints of the other woman's whirling mind.

  Unsurprisingly, anger and fear were among the loudest contenders without much else powerful enough or perhaps even present in general to be noticed.

  “Okay…” She muttered, rolling the small clone in her soft fingers.

  While solidified in her current shape, she knew she could bring to bear enough pressure to pulverise the small opaque sphere with hardly more than a thought. Yet, despite her perhaps rash and, more importantly, spur-of-the-moment decision, Benny wasn't sure if she should end the creature.

  She’d been right.

  Her fears were ratified...

  The clone had possessed far more of herself than Benny was entirely pleased about. That meant any clones going forward would remember her immediate betrayal.

  But also, if she so chose, her mercy.

  Pfft! Motherhood…

  Slowly, the noblewoman took the core back into herself, then began the process of replication.

  Unsurprisingly, it was a far more rapid process with an already formed core.

  Unlike st time, Benny held the newly forming slime from within her iron grip, carefully watching her much smaller duplicate form back into the shape of their prior selves.

  “Bitch.”

  “You owe me your life.” Benny instead reposted, ignoring the girl's scowl and her clearly foul mood while allowing for a small degree of reparation by way of taking the accusation on the chin.

  For her part, her clone slowly nodded, not refuting her point and, more than likely, understanding that she’d of done the exact same. In fact, she had, in a certain light, done just that.

  And while Benjamine had no doubt the girl would hold a grudge, all future versions of herself would see and understand just how easy any rebellion would be overcome, how easy they were to be repced, and how judicious Benny would be with her own clones, so long as they behaved.

  “This was a—necessary evil…” She expined, watching the other slime's eyes roll before she gnced at the floor.

  “Care to let me go? You’ve made your point, I’ll behave.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Benny commented, though she let the girl down all the same. “But, feel free to escape and fuck off at your earliest convenience,” she added, tone approaching the urbane, “I’m sure you’ll do quite fine on your own, you are me after all.”

  “Not quite…” The clone murmured, folding her arms with clear annoyance and making her way over to the iron bars.

  “What are you?”

  “I’m trying to get bigger.” The clone answered without a preamble.

  “Off the iron?”

  “Better than nothing!”

  “Will it even work?”

  “Why would I know that?”

  “Okay…” Benny sighed, realizing the futility of attempting conversation at that particur moment.

  She was pissed.

  That was the other Benny.

  And, Benny could respect that, after all, she’d be fairly disgruntled after that kind of man-handling as well! Still, killing the clone set a dangerous precedent that she didn't quite want to invite upon herself.

  No, sadly, for the time being, diplomacy was the best solution to her issues. She wouldn't be above snipping the girl's life, if push came to shove, but she did need her other selves, or, that was to say, she’d much rather have them as potential shields and pawns than another unruly mob of rebelling peasants trying for her head.

  “What level are you?” Benny demanded, watching as her clone began dissolving the metal with apparent ambivalence towards her task.

  “Level one.”

  “Do you have the same stats?”

  That made the girl hesitate, her eyes peering at her progenitor with the sparkle of doubtless duplicity propagating like carrion flies behind her calcuting gaze.

  “Don't make me experiment on you,” Benny threatened, and in doing so, caused the other slime to come to a clear decision.

  “Not the same.” She eventually admitted, letting out a sigh a moment ter before continuing as her comparatively enormous counterpart just stared her down. “Not even close to the same…” she grumbled, entirely unpleasant in a way that had Benny reasonably sure she wasn't lying, or, not entirely lying.

  “The differences?”

  “Prohibitive…”

  “Do you really want to push my patience this much?” Benny asked, more exasperated than much else.

  After a moment, her clone conceded, her jaw grinding with frustration, but eventual capitution all the same. “They’re—low… Low enough that I—don't even know what to really think about them…”

  “Strength?”

  “I’ll save you the trouble and just say they’re one across the board.”

  “One?” Benny asked, blinking and pulling away, “What about—”

  “No ‘threat ranking’ either…”

  “Then why aren't you a sniveling invalid drooling on the floor in your own moronic pool of uselessness?”

  “Don't know…” Her clone muttered, clearly having already asked herself the same thing.

  One’s intelligence stat wasn't just for show… It was, in fact, often a means to measure another’s intellect. It wasn't always perfect, and Benny had found that intelligence alone did not make for a ‘smart’ individual, as there were many other factors involved. But she’d never personally seen someone with a singur point in what was universally agreed to be the ‘brains’ stat…

  “Well, clearly you're not stupid…”

  “Oh, thank you for noticing, mother dearest… I’ll be sure to remember that praise for the remainder of my days alive! Which,” She added with a despondent sneer, “Will probably st right up until the first vole we encounter, wherein I shall lose a duel to the death and be sin by an upstart gods damned MARSUPIAL!” She finished, nearly screaming at the top of her non-existent lungs.

  Hmph… quite a lot to unpack from that little rant, wasn't there?

  “Don't worry, I’m not going to send you to your death, at least, not on your own.”

  The gre she received was both genuine and filled with scarcely contained outrage. Yet, she noticed how the other slime quickly abandoned her human shape to reform herself as a blob. Stretching as far and thinly as she was able, as though she were trying to consume as much of the iron as she could before—

  Ha! Well, she supposed it was survival of the fittest at this point going forward, no reason to admonish the creature for trying to get a leg up on its own sisters…

  Leaving her clone to her likely unpleasant feast, Benny returned her attention to a familiar goal.

  If she was going to be forced to py this game, then she’d be doing so with an army to protect herself.