[Episode 212687] [Episode 212687]There was no one around to witness the beautiful and mysterious swirl of colors in the air, be blinded by the bright flash of light that followed, or to be disgusted by the mass of flesh, bones, and blood that fell to the cavern floor with a splat.
This mass was only a third of an organism, pushed across dimensional boundaries by a science experiment gone wrong. Not a specific third, either, but a random selection of parts which happened to make up about a third of the organism's mass. This selection happened to contain a few small pieces of the organism's brain, containing a few memories and some muscle-memories - nothing the rest of the organism couldn't recover from the loss of, should that other part actually survive. With so little of the brain present, the parts on SR-388 weren't able to even form any thoughts, but their presence would become important later on.
If the third-an-organism had arrived in the caverns of SR-388 a few months ago, it would have soon been found and devoured by one of the many carnivorous creatures inhabiting the caverns; or it might have had it's energy drained by a larval Metroid.
A life-form did soon find this rapidly dying sorry mess, but it was a creature that had been exceedingly rare until recently - a free-floating gelatinous mass (orange in this case) of a species that would eventually be named "X". X were a sort of parasitic shape-shifter. Due to their gelatinous nature, they could easily infect most forms of life. Once inside, they would begin spreading throughout the host's body, consuming the organism from the inside, growing and multiplying as it went. Unlike conventional parasites, X also had the ability to transform parts of the X colony into duplicates of the consumed organs, thus allow the host to survive far longer than would be otherwise possible. Furthermore, once the entire host had been consumed, the X colony could remain in the host's form, using any abilities (mental, physical, or otherwise) that it possessed.
All X colonies had the ability to split into smaller colonies, each possessing all of the forms and memories of the original colony. Furthermore, once a colony had become large and powerful enough, it became a Core X, capable of releasing many new small formless X colonies.
As it just so happened, the X that found the mass of dying flesh was a young colony, searching for its' first host. It would have preferred a healthy host, but since the extinction of the Metroids, X had flourished to such an extent that it was hard to find new non-X life-forms to possess.
The X flew down into the partial-organism, and began consuming and replacing parts. It quickly determined that the organism was dying, it's organs and cells shutting down. As a dead host was of no use to it, the X began taking steps to save the organsim.
Examining the host organism's condition, the X determined that the two highest priorities were to stop the loss of internal fluids, and to get the most essential bodily systems running again. The first was easy enough - the X just consumed some of the lost fluid and used its' mass to produce a thin layer of X-gelatin to coat the wounds. The second was a bit more of a challenge, as the X had no idea which organs did what, or how this species' bodies worked.
This confusion was not just a product of the X's youth. X were generated with certain instincts and some minimal knowledge which would assist them in their early possessions. In addition, they possessed a mental link with the rest of the nearby X colonies which allowed a sort of telepathic communication - though with no language and with the majority of X colonies having only simple minds, the content of this communication tended to be rather simple. However, what this X found in this organism bore only a passing resemblance to what both it's' instincts and "conversations" had led it to expect...
This organism possessed muscles, organs, internal fluids, and an outer covering, like the X expected. It also possessed an internal skeleton and a nervous system, like many larger creatures did. However the outer covering was thinner than the X expected, most of the organs were unfamiliar, and there were some odd things about the skeleton and nervous system. The most glaring difference, though, was the internal fluids, which possessed much more iron than the X had expected.
Luckily, X possessed the ability to "read" an organism's genetic code - an essential skill for proper emulation of it's host. Even reading the genetic code of this organism proved a challenge, though. It possessed none of the genes common to most species on the planet, genes which the X would have instinctually recognized and understood. Instead, the X had to puzzle out the code at a very basic level, something that consumed time the X didn't have.
If the host died, the X would just leave it and continue its' search for a host. However, the X wanted to get a host as soon as possible. Also, while the X did not have enough curiosity or critical thinking in areas not related to the workings of biology to wonder how this organism got this injured or why it was so different from what the X had expected, the X did have enough curiosity to wonder what such a strange creature would be like. And so, the X colony tried its' best to understand the organism and repair it.
One organ the X was pleased to figure out and repair was a powerful fluid-pumping organ. As the main internal fluid was responsible for delivering oxygen to the body's cells, and oxygen was vital to the operation of this organism's cells, this was a huge step. However, there didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the body at this point. The X started pulling in oxygen from the air through its' exposed gelatin and transferring it directly into the internal fluid; the body's cells responded favorably to this, and began to recover.
The immediate crises averted, the X was able to continue it's repair work at a more leisurely pace. Using the instructions from the genetic code, it repaired the other internal organs and replaced those missing. It also began work on the nervous system and other bodily structures.
One overall challenge to this possession that the X soon had to start dealing with was the fact that the organism was missing two thirds its' mass. The X couldn't rebuild it as a full-sized healthy individual without first replacing the missing material. However, the X had no means of retrieving mass without a host. The X instead built the new organs at their smallest possible size, and began shrinking down the over-all body. It could always return the host to it's proper size once it had acquired more mass.
A bit later, the X discovered yet another oddity of this organism when the X realized that a pair of organs it was building were air-intake organs. The organs were designed to take in oxygen from the air, but they could be interfered with by certain gasses, and would take in other gasses that would be harmful to this organism's biochemistry. The problem was, some of these gasses that would be harmful to either the air-intake organs or the entire organism were present in the air of all caverns the X had visited, including this one.
While the X had known this organism was strange, this was the first evidence that this wasn't it's proper environment. At this point the question of how it got to where it was now did occur to the X, but the X pushed the question aside as not immediately relevant.
Still not wanting to just abandon this organism as a host, the X left exposed protoplasm in the air-intake organs, to filter out the unwanted gasses.
The X had started with the internal organs and worked its' way outward; when it began working on the organism's four limbs, it discovered that the existing muscles were significantly stronger and faster than the default suggested by the organism's genetic code. Examining other parts of the body in light of this new knowledge, the X realized that much of the original flesh had been optimized for speed and strength, including thicker surface covering in some places. Naturally wanting the most powerful host possible, the X modified the new muscles to match the old, and made a mental note to similarly optimize the rest of the body as soon as it understood the best way to do so.
Another oddity the X found was that the organism's eyes did not seem sensitive enough to heat to function underground, it's nose was rather weak, and while it had reasonable hearing it didn't have any obvious means of producing the echoes required for echolocation. The X didn't know what other means of navigating organisms might have, but it couldn't think of how any other parts of this organism could be used for navigation.
The X realized the creature's eyes would be useful on the surface, but as the surface was a very harsh environment, it thought it unlikely that even this strange creature spent much time there. More likely, it had some other method of navigation underground that the X just didn't recognize.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment to the X was the organism's central-nervous-system. As very little of it had been present when the X found the organism, it would not be able to provide the X very many memories. Reading those memories, and understanding the mental processes in the newly constructed parts of the nervous system would be a challenge as well, as - like most of the rest of the organism - the nervous system was not of a sort the X could instinctively recognize and understand.
Finally, after many hours of constant work, the X finished it's repairs. The organism was a third of it's pre-injury mass, and to replace the missing parts the X had needed to consume more than half of what remained of the organism, meaning that only a little over a sixth of the pre-injury organism now remained.
The X was a bit concerned, as it's hosts teeth were small, and it had no claws or spikes. Even with its' muscles optimized it was average in strength. It must have some method of attack - all creatures did - but the X couldn't figure out what it was. Hopefully, the X hadn't taken on a weak host - it had been hard enough finding this host, finding a more powerful one that hadn't been taken would be even more difficult.
The X intended to consume the rest of the organism eventually, but doing so would take some time, and the longer the organism laid on the ground defenseless, the greater chance a predator would discover them. It was time to activate the parts of the central-nervous-system that the X was emulating and see what this body could do.
The X just hoped the host's instincts and what was left of it's original brain were enough to run the body...
If anyone had been present in that cave, and able to see in the dark, they would have seen lying on the floor of the cave a short, dangerously malnourished, naked human teenage boy with long unruly black hair. Due to his reduced size and his skin-and-bones appearance, they probably would not have recognized him, even if they knew him. However, if the observer had been able to sense auras, and had met him before, they would have identified him as Ranma Saotome...
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(Posted Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:12)
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