Too Many Materials

“Oh, thank goodness! I am so happy to see you!”

That wasn’t the reaction Yisini had expected as she entered the blood-red glass castle, slithering her way past a handful of guards. It seemed that Epani had immediately detected Yisini’s presence, and quickly popped into existence in the main hall. She looked a lot… different, compared to the last time Yisini and Epani last met.

“Hello, Epani, how are you?”

The weirdest thing about Epani currently was that she was rather… upright. Most of the time, the Panelix had a rather aquatic body, floating around on puffs of anti-gravity. But currently, Epani’s body was… Yisini-shaped. Serpentine, long tail, a pair of arms and breasts. Not as beautiful as Yisini of course, but still rather attractive, something Epani normally shied away from.

“You have no idea…” Epani frowned, taking Yisini by the hand and leading her down one of the many corridors that spiralled out from the main hall. The Allbirther quickly realised what was going on though, as every room they passed was full of either large vats or filtration devices.

“Been busy?”

“You haven’t been busy?”

Yisini shrugged. “It seems blowing up the universe kinda broke most of the mortal races. They just accept that we are doing things and let me get on with everything. You though…”

Epani snarled, dragging Yisini through more rooms, before realising she was going the wrong way. She abruptly pushed past Yisini and started dragging her back to the main hall. “I have converted every single one of my domains into filtration labs. Yet I am still getting more raw materials from that stupid loot fountain than I can process. That is why I am happy to see you.”

Once they were back in the main hall, Epani took a moment to pause and look around. She counted the various corridors and sighed. This wasn’t her main palace, it was her secondary one, so the map layout was different.

“Let me guess…” Yisini sighed. “You want an organic way of processing this, rather than doing it all chemically and mechanically.”

“Ideally, I need as many ways to process this as possible!” Epani snarled again. “Sure, Kinisis has made it so the Beings-Like-Her are coming along and buying this damned goo, but I cannot process it fast enough to meet her demands, and, at the same time, the loot fountain is producing so much raw material that I have only just managed to catch up on storage space!”

Yisini hesitated, then shrugged. She had a lot on her plate already, but, really, she should have been helping Epani too. After all, this was their shared universe. Responsibility fell on them both.

“I… I might be able to do something. Should be some sort of bacteria that can at least start the process or finish it off…” Yisini muttered. “Gonna need some time to work from it… and something from you as well…”

Epani rolled her eyes, tutting, then tutting even louder as she pulled out a watch on a gold chain, before hastily putting it away. “I do not have time for sexual pleasures. I barely have time to stop and have a conversation with you!”

“Can you spare five minutes so I can give you a back massage at least?”

“No. Uh. Um…” Epani stuttered, then pulled out the watch again. She glanced at it, sighed, then shrugged. “I can spare five minutes, I guess…”