[Absorption, Slime TF]

“Aaaah… There I go again, flying off course and hitting the wrong wind, sending me spiralling to the ground…”

The exhausted and saddened voice of one Amber, the Outrider of Mondstadt, echoed throughout the plains around her. Her enjoyment of flying through the air with her glider usually left her completely open to anything that would try to drag her down.

In this case, it had been a mere stray wind that caused her to lose her grip. If not for her prior experience with incidents like these, where she had taken much worse falls and ended up injured, she would’ve probably have sprained one or more parts of her body. Thankfully, she managed to divert her fall and land safely after scoping out a good spot, and leaving her to lie down amongst the grass as she tried to brush the thought of her accident out of her mind…

“Well, since I’m all the way out here, I might try and see if I don’t have anything I can fix up…” It was supposed to be her day off, but Amber was not the type to just slack off. She was going to slack off in style, by doing the stuff she slacked off on during her day off!

She grabbed away at the bag where she usually kept all the mail that she had to deliver, the special stuff that only an Outrider like her could handle. In that very same bag were all of the various tasks that she was behind on. One of which happened to be an assignment that came from Lisa, which quickly served to make her blood chill. She couldn’t believe it, she completely forgot about the devil librarian’s kind request…

After gathering her bearings and taking a deep breath to make sure that she could handle herself for later, she opened up the letter containing the task. She quickly skimmed the text, already wincing as she noticed several words highlighting thanks to residual magic within the parchment.

“Investigate the congregation of slimes near town, and make sure that they don’t cause trouble. And bring back a sample of their leader, if you could…” Amber muttered as she read the important parts of the letter, only to yelp as her fingertips grew a little numb. Saving her from what came next.

Her eyes widened in shock as the letter dissolved as millions of volts shot through it, incinerating it with sheer electricity. Lucky her, she could have received that punishment. “R-Right, so, to not get cooked like that, I just have to find out why the slimes started gathering. And then deal with them. Easy! Super easy!”

“Now… If I were a slime, where’d I hide?” The brunette in red muttered as she slowly got up onto her feet properly, rubbing away at her cheeks to try and stimulate her brain. “Maaaybe I just gotta act like one, and then it’ll come to me? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Amber put her mind to it, squatting down slightly as she bounced forward. Not unlike a rabbit, but more like a slime. She even shook around a little, just like slimes did whenever they wanted to spread themselves across the ground. Then she jumped again, this time keeping her posture more straight, following that jump with yet another one and then ano-

She tripped and fell, the strange way of bouncing causing her to tumble down a small cliff until she couldn’t distinguish right from left or up from down. “Next time, just try and use your brain instead of trying to act like a monster, Amber…” The dizzy Outrider muttered as she slowly but surely looked around her…

Only for her eyes to meet a couple of Hydro-aligned slimes, each of them looking at her and blinking in response to her strange behavior. They didn’t attack, as if they had been mesmerized by the way that she acted just a moment prior.

“Well, that’s the slimes alright.” Amber muttered as she slowly got up onto her feet, a few droplets of sweat pouring down the side of her head as she realized the size of those things. The normal slime was roughly half the size of a person, all of these were just as big as her, and they were all leaking water near the bottom of their mass.

If she had bothered reading the instructions and the explanation within Lisa’s letter, she would’ve realized that this batch of slimes were actually rather intelligent. That was why they thought that her hopping maneuver made her one of them. So they didn’t try to do anything to her, at least while still looking at her to assess if she was a friend or a foe.

“Hmmm… If I just try and hit them like this, they’re going to hit me back. So if I try something like… Yeah, that can work!” The brunette cried out as she snapped her fingers, causing her favorite partner and devoted doll, Baron Bunny, to appear on her head. “Hey, slimes! Look at this! It’s the best thing you’ve ever seen!”

The doll-like bunny version of the Outrider leapt off his original self’s head, only to start dancing enthusiastically as it made little squeaky noises. Seemingly distracting the slimes, who started leaping and jumping around in time with the noises made by the plush friend…

“Great! Now, to make sure that I get them all in one shot. Wouldn’t want to leave one standing so it can get a bite at me!” Amber grinned as she pulled back her bowstring, pouring a bit of her Pyro power into the tip of her arrow as she took aim…

Only to lose concentration and let the arrow fly right over the slimes’ heads, her jaw dropping as she noticed that dozens if not hundreds of slimes had started gathering behind them. Each of them just as big as the other, leaving her facing down a proverbial army of slimes with no easy out in sight.

“W-What the… How am I going to deal with this!?” The brunette rightfully complained, pulling back on her bowstring as she readied several arrows at once, while Baron Bunny started to glow and slow down at the same time.

None of the slimes understood what this meant, and were treated to a delightful burst of flames courtesy of the explosive doll. At the same time, the Outrider let loose a volley of arrows, quickly putting the arrows back on her bowstring as she pulled it back and kept on firing. She had no time to slow down. Every moment she took a breath, the slimes became visibly aware of what she was doing, and wanted to stop her with any means necessary.

Of course, since she was so focused on what was happening in front of her, she hardly noticed that a shadow was starting to loom overhead. Neither did she notice the droplets of Hydro slime plopping down onto the ground around her, forming teeny tiny slimes that jumped onto her feet and weighed her down…

“There’s just so many, how did Lisa think I could handle all of these!?” Amber cried out in desperation, losing grip on her bow as she manifested another copy of Baron Bunny and tossed it into the crowd, hoping that it would slow them down as she gathered her bearings…

Only then did she hear the sound of rubble slowly but surely rolling down the hill behind her. “...Eh?” She muttered, looking straight up to try and find out why she had just heard such a foreboding noise. Upon seeing the Hydro slime that was roughly the size of a small house hovering above her, weighing down on the edge of the cliff, she blinked a couple of times for good measure...

The scream that left her lips right afterward was priceless. “HOW’D IT GET SO BIG!?” She shouted into the air around her, as the slimes ahead of her swallowed her favorite doll alive. She was utterly trapped. Whether she tried to back away or she tried to head straight ahead, there was no escape. Maybe if she just shot one of them, then she could get a breathe-

Amber didn’t get the luxury to try and figure out an escape route. The weight of the Hydro slime waiting above her was too much for the cliff, causing parts of it to crumble. And with that crumbling, it couldn’t keep its footing, causing it to have to leap for the nearest safest spot. Which just so happened to be right where she was standing.

Rushing water poured down on her for just a second before she was forcibly submerged into the slime, causing her eyes to widen and her arms and legs to flail around like mad. She didn’t want to be stuck inside a slime! She knew what they could do, she hadn’t ignored everything that Lisa ever told her!

Prolonged exposure to a slime of any element, especially Hydro and Pyro, would result in the human being absorbed into them and getting turned into another piece of slime. She had to get out right now, otherwise she’d be toast! She’d be worse than toast, she’d be a little slimy nugget that couldn't’ ride the winds any longer!

And yet, as she started thrashing around, the slime began to sink into her, slowly but surely submerging itself inside her body. At first, it felt weird. Then it started feeling really nice, like a big blanket was being tugged over and wrapped around her to keep her nice and comfy. All while it slurped away at her brain and made all of those bad thoughts inside her head disappear. Especially the ones that were worried that being a slime wouldn’t be great…

Thanks to the girl’s natural mindset being easy to manipulate, as many different inhabitants of the city would recant, it was equally easy for the slime to pick away at her personality and slurp it up into itself. Her lust for exploration, her chipper attitude, her love for cute dolls, all were being soaked up into the slime and slurped away until they were nothing more than bubbles of thoughts bursting within her head.

Amber let out a moan as more and more of that slime became part of her. The semi-solid liquid filled her body, filled her mind, and slowly made her feel less and less like she mattered. Not because she wasn’t cute or had a purpose, but because she was becoming part of a greater whole.

Her eyes slowly closed as the rest of her body was absorbed into the slime, leaving her human flesh behind as it became nothing more than a part of the monster that had gotten the drop on her.

Almost directly after she had been absorbed into it, the intelligent parts of it started to integrate her into the rest of its form. And it did it quickly too, the house-sized slime compressing and growing more defined instead of a massive blob.

Legs formed. Arms took shape. A torso filled out with curvature that was greater and more appealing than that of the original Outrider. And a sense of desire filled that form, as the slime began to mimic the shape of the hair sticking out from her head.

‘Amber’s eyes slowly opened thereafter, a single line representing her formerly expressive eyes. All while a smile grew on her face, a giggle leaving the goopy girl’s mouth as she started bouncing around just like before, when she thought that she had to bounce to figure out where the slimes went.

The slimy mockery of the Outrider kept bouncing, and all the other slimes around her bounced in turn, joining their kin in having a bit of fun. Because that’s what any slime would do after becoming one with its prey.

Maybe later, the girl’s ego would reemerge. Maybe she’d even realize that she was super cute like this, considering that she had a body that many would kill for, and she didn’t really feel any heavier than normal.

But for now, the Hydro slime that had taken her form would take advantage of her knowledge. Starting with the knowledge of where to find other cute girls to slurp up and absorb into itself.

Thus, the small army of slimes departed. Ready to make more cute slime girls… and maybe figure out an intelligent plan after that. They were still slimes, after all.