Normally when someone gets a life-threatening injury, and lives to tell about it, they profess the injury was strange to them at first, not painful.

Lucky bastards. This was painful, immediately.

The stinger didn’t just stab into my delicate innards, it burned as it did so. Like sitting on the toilet after a hard night of beer and nachos, but in my chest.

I fell onto the beast, bashing it into paste with my shotgun butt. It raised its remaining good claw to fend me off, but I stomped on it and held it down to the ground. The other claw ineffectively smeared purple blood on me, in a feeble attempt to get me off. A few good blows to the creature’s carapace directly above its eyes, and it suddenly slumped as the heavy chiton broke apart and more purple goo shot out to spray my face in a fine mist.

Smelled like celebrity cologne but didn’t burn nearly as bad.

The barb slid out of my chest as I staggered a step back, and all I could think about was how hairy and disgusting it was, covered in throbbing veins as the rest of the creature was. I had just been stabbed with a needle pointed testicle. As I watched, those veins began a staccato rhythm before heaving one more final time and stilling.

Gross.

Fire spread throughout my guts, and I promptly fell over, clutching at my midsection. It was, of course, at that moment that BuyMort decided to throw an ad in my face.

ScorpBegone –Eliminates poisonous effects from any scorpion type from any universe. 37000 morties (x10 active engagement fee, loan pre-approved*), 4.1 stars

I almost chose yes. Things were crazy and I was dying. But that extra fee got me. Even sitting here dying there had to be a better way.

I shook my head, baring crimson-stained teeth at the sky. Nope. Purchase declined. I hauled at my shirt and pulled it off over my head. My own red blood poured out of the wound and mixed with the dead scorpion’s purple goo, creating muddy pools of vibrant color in the Arizona desert.

BuyMort popped up in my vision again. Unlike with the ad, this time I had accidentally summoned it by glancing at the icon too hard. The options were simple. Buy, sell, or custom request. I selected custom request and started trying to tell BuyMort what I needed from it. I thought of Phyllis and her mechanized war suit.

“Something to fix me.” I spit it out through grit teeth, clutching at my guts. “Completely.”

The liquid pouring from my wound had changed colors, and that was concerning. Even though I was being eaten alive by interdimensional scorpion venom, I thought back to how I had gotten into this mess in the first place and realized my stubby shotgun wasn’t going to cut it if I survived this encounter.

“Something to help me fight and stay alive.”

Finally, my anger at BuyMort for having done all of this to me settled in on top of everything else. My mortal fear slipped away, as did the pain in my stomach. My teeth clenched as I asked for the final element.

“And something to help me fucking destroy BuyMort!”

BuyMort put up a little icon that indicated it was thinking, then all at once a large notification dominated my vision. I desperately thought it open and was surprised to see a BuyMort Affiliate on the screen already, a store within the store festooned with banners proclaiming, “At Cost!” “All items must go!” and other sales jazz that usually didn’t fill my brain til the Fourth of July.

Bizarrely, the store looked like it had been abandoned for years. Grey dust sat on everything, and parts of the building were crumbling in disrepair. I could see something though, some kind of metal starfish with an engine in the center? It hung from a rack, by itself in the abandoned looking store. The text and product description wavered in my sight, and I couldn’t make head or tails of it, aside from noticing that the item was classed as a relic, whatever that meant.

BuyMort proceeded to deduct every single Morty in my account and plonked a smiley face emoticon in front of me. “Pod dispatched!”

I groaned and clutched at my melting innards, as whitish red fluid seeped from my wound. A pitiful sight, I’m sure, not that anyone noticed. Except the dead vein scorpion. It stared at me with already milky eyes, purple ichor oozing between them from its crushed plating. Still, of the two of us, I was of the opinion he had gotten off easier. This venom killed. Literally.

And then BuyMort swooped in to save the day. The pod arrived and flashed its beam at me. It warped in a sizable cardboard box and flew away with what I would learn was its ‘transaction complete’ whistle. Very cheerful and inappropriate.

Fuck you too, BuyMort.

I dragged myself to the box with one arm. My legs no longer worked at all, and were permanently clenched up to my midsection, in what was rapidly becoming a full body cramp. As I reached the box, I projectile vomited. Vibrant purple bile splattered against the sand and smoked. My eyes shot wide in horror, and I scrambled at the box.

It was wrapped in some kind of shitty alien packing tape. The thin, flexible material felt almost gummy, and it bent and warped when I applied pressure from a thumbnail instead of tearing. When I smacked it in frustration, I could see the strange tape jiggling all over the box. It was that good thick cardboard too, no way of just tearing into it.

I reached for my pocketknife and came away empty-handed.

Leaving the Airstream in a hungover rush today, I had failed to properly kit up for work. Usually I carried thick gloves, a good steel folding knife I had ordered online from Sweden, and a bright pink stun-gun. A guest left it behind and it worked great. Plus I’m secure enough in my masculinity to carry a bubblegum pink stun-gun. It was free, and that matters way more to me than misaligned societal expectations placed on color.

Anyway, dying in the desert sand, I missed my good knife. The scorpion to my left shifted and released its bowels. Did not know scorpions took dumps until just that second, but it was an illuminating and educational experience. In my near-death stupor, the stench of purple vein-bug diarrhea was actually pleasant. Like over-sweet fruit.

And joyous of joys, I had no choice but to go splash around in it if I wanted to live. Whatever, I came this far. The barb was attached only by a thin section of plating right at the top, and the tip was so sharp it was gleaming in the sun at me, directly in the middle of the biggest portion of the dripping shit-slick.

So back to my mortal enemy I dragged myself, one arm desperately clutching at my innards in the hope they wouldn’t fall out, and the other clawing at the Arizona sands to get me into a puddle of the last shit a giant alien scorpion would ever take.

I made it to the puddle, hauled myself directly into the sickly-sweet smelling pool of glop and grabbed at the scorpion’s tail. It moved easily enough, but that barb was really attached.

I breathed heavily for a moment in the muck, thinking about my options, before I shrugged, and bit the fucker. I didn’t even wipe the shit from it first, I just dove in and tore at it with my ape-teeth.

It’s funny what last-ditch survival will teach you about your own capabilities. The chitin crushed and cracked easily enough, and the internal parts tore free when I sawed at them with my teeth. Then, gory, shit-caked trophy clutched in my now cramping hand, I slowly and agonizingly dragged myself back to the box.

By the time I made it back, my arms and spine had begun to cramp. I realized that if I didn’t get whatever was in this box unpacked and set up really fast, I was going to be stuck in the fetal position and unable to do anything but whimper, regret all my life decisions to date, and die in melting agony.

So I started scratching furiously at the gummy alien tape on the box, and each scratch tore away a small strip of it, to flop jiggling to the sand at my side. Honestly, of the two, the flesh-tape freaked me out way more than the scorpion diarrhea. But I was pretty close to death at that point and not really thinking straight, so who knows.

That gummy tape shit is on everything BuyMort sends you, it’s the worst. Looks like skin. If you leave it out too long, it starts to rot and smells like a trucker taking a dump on a pile of burning tires. Not ideal potpourri.

Once I got through the tape, the box opened easily enough and I dragged out the device I had purchased, wrapped in a strange organic sheath. It felt like skin, looked like plastic, and smelled like your butthole-itching-finger the morning after taco night. But it came off easy enough, thankfully. The thing itself was a large metal starfish, with segmented plate arms and what looked like a turbine at its core. In freshly scored English letters, a single phrase was etched on the smooth metal underside of the thing. “Insert user here.”

I groaned and laid down, trying to stretch my legs as much as they would go. Not far, I was still crabbed up down there, but at least my chest and abdomen were exposed. I lifted my hand from the wound and a coil of intestine slid forcefully out and flopped on my chest. The entire thing was rotted through with purple and black splotches, and I stared at it with a cold, detached interest. It didn’t feel so bad anymore, like it was something I was watching instead of experiencing.

Little did I know that shifting to my side had caused the venom pooling in my abdominal cavity to attack my spine, and the sensations I was experiencing were a result of immediate and severe damage to the nerves there. But, as soon as I managed to slide the metal starfish onto my chest, everything got much worse.

Metal clamps slammed into my ribs. Right in the tickling zone. I heard and felt bone break, and a horrible sawing noise came from the underside of the device. Then I felt the familiar rush of painkillers and sighed. My head flopped back onto the sand, and what I thought was a hallucination began. A cartoon version of the metal starfish on my chest waved at me from the sand to my right. I flopped my purple stained face toward it and smiled faintly. It was kind of cute, and as I watched, it began doing a set of mock stretches.

“Good morning user! I am the SFR 37 extreme environment suit.”

The thing’s voice was cheerful and light and had a heavy Dutch accent.

“What the hell?” I asked. Information flooded into my mind. The damn thing had done a DNA analysis of me immediately upon contact, and after installing itself into my fucking sternum. It noticed I had primarily Dutch heritage and picked that accent out of our electronic zeitgeist to use to help me feel more at ease. Nice try but it didn’t work.

My starfish suit tried it’s best to be a good product, as it proved by getting to work fixing me up. “Your body construct is in bad shape, user! Don’t worry though, we’ll get you all repaired in no time.”

The turbine on my chest wound up, creating a small whirr in the air, and creating heat waves to crinkle the air above me. The voice began muttering.

“Oh my, yes, lots to do. I think first the spine needs to be recovered and repaired, that seems critical. Nearly a mile of intestine needs replacement, and this entire gastrointestinal area is in bad shape. User!”

It chirped at me, much louder than the mutters. “I require more charge to perform all of these repairs. Can you break something for me, please?”

As stoned on good pain meds and near death as I was, I didn’t get it at all. “Break something?” I croaked.

“Yes, user. I am charged by an expansional, diffractive atomic engine. If you use me to break something, I can gather the released atomic energy from the break, refine and refract it, and use that energy to heal and protect you.” The starfish surgically embedded in my chest explained helpfully.

“So, I just break stuff to power you?” My fogged and barely clinging to life brain did not understand the concept.

“Yes. Break anything to heal. I can also help you break things, as well as heal, and survive dangerous environments. Some of that will require difficult to find upgrades, and experience using me. I am a complicated relic, after all.” It chirped.

The scorpion’s barb was right where I had left it, in the sand to the side of the box. As I looked at it, one of the starfish arms activated. It gripped me and embedded itself into the flesh of my right arm, extending plate after plate after plate until the inside of my arm was covered in thin metal plating.

I gasped. This was like nothing I’d even dreamed of previously.

It spread out to cover my elbow in a shaped metal cap and did the same with the edge of my hand. A formed plate of metal extended and covered my hand all the way out to the edge of my pinky finger. It moved with internal hinges, and looked a little weird, but otherwise acted exactly as my finger had always acted. From the connecting pinky knuckle, a final plate extended and covered the rest of my knuckles. This time it flowed like liquid, with a connective wire frame beneath.

Once the metal was in place, a quick burst of freezing cold blasted from beneath it, and I had chrome knuckles shining in the sun. When the knuckles bent, the internal hinge system created a ridged striking surface. Pretty fuckin’ metal, in my humble opinion. The plating also forced my cramped arm to stretch out, which immediately alleviated what little pain I still felt in the limb.

With a faint, stoned grin, I brought the blade of my hand down on the barb and crushed it. The chitin cracked loudly and the barb itself ejected a stream of smoking purple venom into the air. It scorched the ground where it landed. The turbine on my chest wound up even further, and I began to feel some heat as things moved inside my body.

I clutched at the turbine on my chest, my hands scrabbling instinctually for some way underneath it. I could feel tubes and pipes being shoved into my body cavity, and the machine was grinding something as it happened.

Blood, purple venom, and chunks of flesh began to eject from the turbine, as my venom damaged body parts and internal organs were forcibly carved away and replaced with what I imagined was plastic.

(I was close; it was about as cheap and good for you as plastic. Turns out, this shit grows new parts of you from its own framework, and then sloughs away and gets processed by your body afterward. It’s INSTANT cancer, but that’s okay cause the suit just keeps sawing your parts away as they get cancerous.)

Then came the spine parts. Let me tell you, those felt pretty fucked up. Hard, boney parts shoved their way into and out of my torso, and when bone began to grind and erupt from my new turbine, I freaked out a little bit. I needed those parts of me, they were important! But my legs started to uncurl, and the ferocious cramping in all of my limbs began to fade. More purple gunk ejected from the turbine, and it wound down.

“Further repairs are likely to be needed, user, but you’re mostly healed now. You should be able to move easier, so go break some more things!”

The starfish was so fuckin’ cheery. But it did have good drugs, the whole world was glittery and pain free. I stood up and immediately fell over. My new spine was interesting to use. Took a little practice. After a few more attempts, I managed to get my feet under me.

As soon as I stood fully, the rest of the starfishes’ arms shot out and covered my limbs. I was horrified to discover that the starfish didn’t give a fuck about my clothes and just tore away my pants and underwear as it went. A metallic sheath formed for my junk, and I was relieved to discover that was retractable.

The rest of the starfish seemed to be permanent. At least it hadn’t force-installed an app in my eyesight. As soon as I began sobering up even a little, I noticed-and-accidentally-pulled-up the BuyMort app because of the icon.

Doing that is the plague of every sentient creature in the multiverse. Over my long years, I’ve seen alien warlords break down in tears, because BuyMort popping up was the last straw of stress on their backs. I’ve seen dogs groaning and swiping at the air with their paws or growling at nothing while looking up and to the right.

And me? At least a dozen times a day, even now, with how much practice I’ve gotten. Wouldn’t want to miss any opportunities for commerce, after all.

My focus was on breaking things at that point though, so I just willed BuyMort to go away, and then clenched my jaw and mentally clicked ‘yes’ when it asked if I was sure. They made it difficult too, the ‘yes’ button was tiny and hard to focus on.

I stood and flexed my metal plated arms. They felt good, despite being covered in purple goop. It was starting to dry and flake off, so I ignored it. I took a step and froze as the suit continued its expansion. Metal plates encased my heel, and then wrapped around to form a cup shaped shield around my toes. It of course, tore my shoes and socks off my body in order to do this. I sighed, glanced around at my nude ass cheeks, hung my head, and went to go beg for Phyliss’ help.

Again.