Mary walked over to the terrariums and looked intently between them.
Hmm... It seems pretty clear to me that if I teleport with an animal, I'll gain some of its attributes. And I bet when it comes to these "enhanced" animals, I'll get their enhancement too.
She slowly walked along the row of terrariums and quietly considered what each animal would likely do to her. At the lizard terrarium she was just about to leave when motion attracted her attention. There, just behind the glass was a convulsing... Mary leaned closer to see it more clearly. It was a lizard tail. Just a lizard tail - no body or anything else. Mary quickly recognized it as being a skink tail - she'd found them around the house a couple of times.
Motion behind a small cluster of leaves drew Mary's attention. Another tail that she failed to notice resting among the leaves started to convulse. A small skink sans-tail raced across the empty center of the terrarium and perched up on a wood branch. A new tail rapidly grew from the skink's rear.
Oh, very interesting. Where were you hiding earlier, little skink?
Using her 4th pair of arms, Mary grabbed a travel terrarium from a table and passed it up her body until she held it open with her 2nd pair of hands. She also grabbed a nearby cane with a small loop of twine on the end. The top of the terrarium propped open with no trouble and she carefully lowed the cane into the terrarium. The skink dropped its tail and ran off when the loop of twine got near it.
Mary silently cursed and located the skink again. This time it sat inside the hollowed out front of a wood log. Mary couldn't help but grin at the cornered skink and quickly caught it in the loop when it tried to flee a second time. She deposited it into the travel terrarium and closed the lid. Mary glanced around to look for a good spot to keep the travel terrarium then had a burst of inspiration. She held it backwards behind herself, and grabbed it with arms on her segments. She passed it a few segments down her body and placed it on her lower back.
I hope the skink's genetics will let me temporarily assume a more... "natural human" form for interacting with people.
Hmm, I wonder if it hurts to sever the tail like that. Oof, it probably does.
Mary moved over to the aquarium with the piranha and collection of starfish. Once again, the piranha rushed out of its hiding hole and used its xenomorph tongue mouth to bite a floating starfish in half. It quickly devoured one half of the starfish and swam back to its hiding cubbyhole. Mary carefully watched the starfish. She noted that despite coming under attack and being severely wounded, it barely reacted.
Interesting. It looks like the starfish doesn't even feel pain. And it has no trouble regenerating.
She procured a small travel aquarium and propped open the aquarium top. With no trouble at all she used the cane to catch a starfish. But as she was removing it from the tank, the piranha raced out and used its large toothy maw to bite into the starfish. Unlike before it didn't bite through the starfish, but seemed to be holding onto it.
Whoa, that's some very possessive behavior. Huh... Do I want a xenomorph tongue? Yeah, that could be fun!
Mary slowly lifted the starfish and attached piranha out of the water and quickly moved the travel aquarium under them. As they fell out of the hoop into the travel aquarium, the piranha stuck its inner mouth out and tried to bite Mary, but came barely a quarter inch short.
Oh crap! That thing is aggressive. Then again, piranhas just generally are... Well, hope this doesn't come back to bite me.
She closed the top of the travel aquarium and passed it back to herself where she placed it on top of her 1st segment, right behind her upright torso. Mary momentarily checked her orange goop vision and was pleased to see that her Dad was still in the kitchen, sitting at the table and slowly drinking a mostly-full cup of coffee. Satisfied that she had enough time to carry out her plan, Mary cautiously walked over to the teleporter control panel - her focus was on making sure she didn't accidentally drop or knock over the aquarium or terrarium sitting on her 4-segment long lower back.
The panel automatically turned on when she tapped the screen. A quick browse through the various icons arrayed around the edge of the screen located a button to suppress alarms for 1 teleportation. She activated that, then set the teleporter on a 1 minute timer.
Now a little more confident in her ability to walk without dislodging or dropping the aquarium and terrarium, Mary walked over to the origination teleportation pod and stepped inside. She glanced around and quickly realized that it was going to be a cramped fit in the 5' diameter circular pod - she only had her upper body and 1st segment inside.
Mary backed out and re-entered at a different angle, this time following the curvature of the wall. She walked in a tight circle and was pleased to see her naked butt and 5th pair of legs enter the teleporter about 1' before her upper body finished a complete lap. She let out a sigh of relief and playfully reached forward and squeezed her butt. Mary was genuinely impressed with her firm her fanny was, and also with the synchronized feeling of having her glutes groped.
A beep from the console drew Mary's attention back to the teleporter itself. The door slid closed next to her and she heard a thrumming. Then, everything went black and a moment later reality returned...