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Prelude

Tarrex Shots: Chapter 0

For TeryxC by DolphinSanity

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(Author's Note: think of this as a recap episode. Most of this text is clipped from Chapter 4 of "Of Rain and Storm." If you've read it recently enough that it's fresh in your memory, you won't miss much if you skip this and wait for the new stories that follow.)

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Before the Storm, there was calm. After the Storm, there was also calm -- or at least the perception thereof.

However, for what traces remained of the Storm -- there was only wrath... and hunger.

These are the glimpsed tales of how those sentiments, lingering like mud, began to resolve themselves.

These are the tales of...

Well, perhaps we should let it introduce itself.

* * *

In a manhole beneath the streets of the city, a black ooze plied its way forward, clinging to the ceiling to stay above the weather-flooded sewer below.

Stupid, stupid, stupid...!!

He was absolutely outraged. Livid! He'd find that Alter and control him. He'd control Rain, too! He'd control everyone!! All swept up in his wind, spray, and thunder!

Just... as soon as he found a suitable body to attach himself to, again. It was hard to be as commanding as he preferred without being able to take some semi-stable shape.

Not that he hadn't already tried: by thinking of himself, he had been able to generate a grotesque arm here, a head there... slimy caricatures of his Storm-self's features. Transient phantoms in a medium not meant to hold a shape for long. He had a goodly portion of the orb's magic, absorbed into his gooey creation's body... and he had his own perfect mind, also so-infused.

Now he merely needed to find someone suitable.

A key problem, of course, was lack of remotely reasonable candidates. For the most part, the whole populace of the city were all scum, uglier and filthier than he could possibly tolerate. It was no fun unless he could take someone of high beauty and esteem and cultivate them as he saw fit. A stodgy old politician would not do, nor would some random lower-class sort on the street. Nor would he accept some sweaty bodybuilder who lacked a mind worth playing with -- an amusing distraction for his lusts, doubtless, but not a true host in whom he could dwell primarily for a long time. He would by no means accept a female, either, so that was half the population gone in one thought. A strong, brainy, handsome, well-to-do, self-starting man whose will he could bend and erode -- and in so doing, prove once again his strength. Was that really so much to ask for?

Perhaps it only made sense if he waited for the cover of darkness and then snuck back in through some clever means to re-infest his original body. That blueness, the handsome blueness and goldenness would be his again! Everything would be better again... soon.

Yet, as mere minutes passed and his formless wandering continued, a truth became abundantly clear: something was... wrong.

He didn't feel sluggish, nor weakened, but he felt... off, and angry about some uncertain affront. It was how he might have expected to feel if someone served him wine when he asked for a stout, or if someone tried to address him by... that other name.

His malaise deepened when he realized a moment later that he was having trouble remembering what "that other name" was. Further attempts at thought saw other named concepts slipping rapidly away from him, replaced by a base and primal intuition.

He began to feel... empty. Hungry? He no longer knew the word to call it. A feeling of vacancy, so great and distressing that it must be filled. If it was not filled, it would grow and grow until it engulfed all of his experience.

The black goo paused under a manhole. The footsteps of pedestrians drew his attention -- reverberating into his mass, inciting strange feelings and instincts. Without quite knowing why, he pressed against the manhole and... envied them.

Fools with flesh. Fools living in this world without him. His mass trembled with raw rage, even though he could no longer think out the reasons why.

Take them... control them...

He now heard articulate thoughts in his own mind... but it was as if the one thinking them was an external being, oppressively compelling him to do so. This confused him: wasn't he also that one?

My servant. Go. Find vessels...

The ooze felt a hot pulse of... hunger. Now remembering only the vague imprint of that blue, attractive form, he forced the shape of the head to merge from his mass and burbled aloud, "I... Tahr... ryx," before losing focus and letting it disperse.

No, you are inadequate to carry our name without a vessel. Now go and find one, you stupid beast, before more power leaks away!

The head-shape arose again in protest. "Tahrix, Tarrix!" it insistently burbled, as if clinging desperately to the half-remembered name. "Tar-rex, Tarrex, Tarrex...!!"

A surge of compelling power rushed through it.

You were born my servitor. You will not resist your creator. Bear my will into this world, even in your amnesia.

The ooze quivered. Its confused, child-like rebellious consciousness was suppressed as the lingering malevolence of Storm resumed forceful control.

What that detached part of himself had not mentioned was that the servitor's amnesia would become his own, too. That momentary master-servant consciousness split had not been sustainable -- merely a desperate measure as part of reorienting himself to ensure that his purpose would still be fulfilled.

This servitor would know hunger. This servitor would know emptiness, envy, and the craving for form.

In a vibrating frenzy, the ooze pressed out of the manhole and glided its tar-black path down a nearby side street, keeping out of view while feeling the ugly proximity of so many people -- hearts, steps, breaths, voices.

From among them, he would search. Devour. Shape. Enjoy.

* * *

As in all sprees of assimilation, there was a first victim. Prey zero. Lucky or unlucky -- well, that depends on one's point of view.

As for the fact the victim in question happened to be Teryx's friendly rival in the adult watering-hole industry -- that was not a coincidence either. There was a fleeting memory within Tarrex -- something marking the tiger, Harry Pasir, as familiar and desirable.

He was in the middle of thinking about something else as he emerged from his cab onto the street near Teryx's building. He was not expecting assimilation at all. Nevertheless, that's exactly what he got.

Harry took five brisk steps toward it before a dizzying, oppressive pain filled his head and prompted him to shut his eyes.

He swore under his breath as the pain persisted for a few seconds before fading away. Just as it was fading, some asshole walked straight through him, winging him with a shoulder and arm and sending him stumbling forward.

"Hey asshole, you mind giving a man some room?" Harry growled as he turned to confront the person, who turned out to be a muscle-gutted elephant wearing a black tanktop. Not that much taller than Harry, to his surprise -- half a head at most -- but as stout as a tank.

"Maybe don't stop in my way, prick," said the elephant, who was staring him down.

Harry felt violent but knew he shouldn't. It would be crazy to attack somebody right there on the street... especially that guy, who looked like he was spoiling for it. This wasn't the back room of his club. Nonetheless, he hungered to put that guy in his place...

"You best hope we don't run into each other again," said Harry darkly, before turning and walking into the alleyway between Teryx's building and the next one over.

That pain came back again... fainter this time, somehow with a soothing edge to it. That guy deserved it, whatever happened to him. Anyone who dared to affront him deserved their fate.

The elephant had apparently decided to leave him alone and was already wandering off as Harry glanced back. The tiger rubbed his temples with one hand as he strode forward in an odd delirium, the thought of going up the building having slipped his mind.

He needed to find him. To find Teryx. The only one who would understand. Him.

There was an odd, oily odor on the air as he walked past a large, well-kept garbage bin that adjoined the building. He might have assumed it was the rubbish... but it seemed familiar somehow, despite his simultaneous certainty that he had never smelled it before. He also felt so... exhausted. He breathed deeply as he leaned up against the bin and shut his eyes, wondering if he was having some kind of unforeseen health problem.

Harry... you need me...

The voice drifted into his thoughts without warning. It didn't sound like Teryx, but the reminder was uncanny. It was the strength of that earlier, stormier version of him, yet there was a burbling, liquid distortion to its tone.

There was a yawning feeling of hopeless emptiness in Harry as he pondered what was happening. He felt anxious, like the world was out to beat him down right now and that the voice's words were true. As a normally strong man, feeling this so viscerally was unfamiliar.

Not being taken seriously... being ignored... It's a crime. A crime against us.

There was an oppressive hum in Harry's mind. His vision faltered as if flashed with a bright light, causing him to blink hard as if that would help. When it didn't, he stumbled around in confusion, looking down at himself and his clothing... his meaty tiger hands.

Something about his body felt like it... wasn't his. Like it was an object -- something which he was only observing through the convenient camera lenses of its eyes.

Something cool, wet, and somehow familiar flowed up Harry's ankles -- spread like spilled oil over the broad structure of his footpaws.

There was a spark of visible blueness in Harry's eyes as they relaxed open. An electrical crackle -- and a sudden expression of contentment.

"This vessel will do," his mouth uttered before he sank compliantly to his knees. The blue spark faded, but his eyes gazed happily into the space of the alleyway as the oily substance flowed up him, coating more of him, seeming to dissolve his clothing away as it did so.

Feelings of exposure, nakedness and insecurity kept him paralyzed. Simultaneously, feelings of protection, adequacy, and purpose began to fill the void left in his mind. He had only to remain still and receive it -- let the guiding power of Storm fill him as it had filled him hours earlier...

The black goo was already at Harry's chest before he managed to have an original thought. Some sensation stirred him... it rubbed his nipples wrong, triggered a flash from a bad night with a bad bondage partner. He roared in alarm and lunged forward as if trying to get the attention of others, only to have his mouth plugged with a lunging tendril of goop a moment later. Grotesque gargling followed, before the goo around his legs and midriff exerted itself enough to force him to roll back behind the bin again.

Harry was on his back in a heap, fighting with his controlled lower half, as the corrupting tar swept over his eyes -- engulfed his ears, and began penetrating his body through every available spot. It sank into his skin, wormed its way into his parasympathetic nervous system, and began sending instinct-warping signals through his body. His prostate spasmed so harshly and repeatedly that he had an orgasm-free ejaculation, the thing rudely yanking his seed right out of him while making his entire lower body feel hot and anxious, like he needed to run and fight and fuck.

Seconds later, a similar connection came online for Harry's brain, and all of the confusion and resistance gave way, crushed under the creature's influence.

The ego known as "Harry" fell silent, trapped beneath the smooth black gelatin which had now encased his body and mind alike. He felt calm. He felt good.

He thought to himself, I am the Tarrex. The one, true Tarrex. The hum of the Storm within him lingered in the background, like a capacitor being slowly charged, but Tarrex hardly noticed it.

Despite now having a body, his thoughts remained quite irrational. There was so much hunger still: so much hunger to claim the something and make the completeness.

He thought to himself, Who else can Tarrex claim? The thought was followed by a massive info-dump of every person Harry knew, the host's memory responding in service to the symbiote's needs. "Teryx Commodore" was of course on the list, but he thought of that one only as "Rain" and felt an odd compulsion to shy away from him, as a quiet voice in his intuition told him not to feed on that one yet, but to amass power first.

Who would give power? Tarrex knew: anyone touched by the effects of the recent weather. Anyone who had been touched by so much as a drop, silently marked by the scorn of the thunderclouds. Others could be converted for a lesser value, but those already present in the city, right now, were best. Evan the bear was also an important source, having been touched by the same power that Harry had been.

He must acquire them. He must grow, spread, contain, convert -- so that he could grow, spread, contain, and convert. He was Tarrex. He would expand. He would turn rainwaters into the blackest nightmare: the impure cocoon of himself.

"Tarrex Komo..." the entity burbled as his body's surface erupted with new features: a dragon-like maw, a boneless wing-like cloak-membrane, and a latex frill connecting his upper spine to the top of his head. All still totally black.

The creature touched his wings and knew they were not right. He also felt his head, his neck... and suspected something was missing.

He tried to remember. When he tried, he felt pain. Claws. Struggle.

In response to that thought, glowing blue scars appeared at his sides, along his right pectoral and shoulders, and along his arms. Other blue accents formed on his frill.

He felt at the top of his head alongside his frill and knew something else was supposed to be there. He touched his puny cloak-wings and growled, knowing this was definitely not right.

He felt anger.

Envy.

Loss.

The memory... the hurt.

He must... more.

Roaring low to himself, he ran off down the alleyway before leaping up to the second story of another nearby residential building and crashing bodily through the window as if it was nothing.

He arrived in someone's bedroom, tumbling clumsily but standing without harm and treading upon the broken glass without the slightest worry. He blinked twice, and his black eyes took on a deep red color as he began to look for... suitable ones.

He already had a signature. Someone who had heard the sound and reacted by standing bolt upright. Perhaps he caught them napping.

He didn't care who it would be. He only knew that he could feel the seed of another of himself already lurking inside of them, waiting to be brought to life by his touch.

He was Tarrex. He would grow.