FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Cluster Written by Leo_Todrius Commissioned by Cidius

Glinting stars, exotic planets, robust nebulae... The IJ-662 cluster had it all. It was a scientific marvel at the forefront of human exploration, but only two crews had dared to venture so far... and for one, the risks had outweighed the benefits. It had been eight years since the DeGama was lost with all hands on board. Just as in ancient times, the people of Earth had fled back to myths and legends, fearing ancient monsters and omens as a reason not to return. It had been hard to convince them otherwise... but after so many years, they had finally made it.

The Cortés fell into an orbit of a small planet at the inner edge of the habitable zone. The planet was not as rich in minerals or resources as some of the other planets, but the ship wasn't there just to mine. It was there for a survey of all planets in the system to establish a communications and data network... and with luck, to discover what had happened to the DeGama. The captain had selected a methodical approach, starting with the hottest planets and working outward.

The door to the launch bay hissed open as the crew moved in, their bodies covered in form fitting black and olive green materials emblazoned with the Cortés mission patch. While the uniforms stripped them of most of their identity, the crew still had ways to stand out from one another. Ricky managed to figure out how to die his short buzzed hair turquoise green while Kyle kept a short ponytail, the longest regulation allowed. By most standards Eric had the simplest appearance, but he was far from simple.

Eric glanced around as the crew each moved toward alcoves in the wall, turning around to face out as they stepped back into them. Panels on either side of the explorers slipped open, mechanical arms moving out with bronze colored pieces of environmental suits to fit together like puzzle pieces. The boots locked into place, the legs, the chest pieces and the arms. As the helmet came down, the crew took one last look at each other.

Eric was the senior explorer at the age of twenty four. He'd trained longer and harder than any of the others and his effort showed. In their body suits he was easily the most fit with a broad chest, muscled arms and a thick neck. Eric had always felt that strength defined him and he didn't need to do anything else wild. His blonde hair was swept outward in every direction, requiring nothing but a comb to keep in check. His only truly distinctive feature had to be his sideburns, running down his cheeks to his jaw line. For a man as streamlined as Eric, his bushy sideburns stood out.

As the helmets came down and locked into place, the explorers checked their air pressure and ran diagnostics, signaling to the bridge that all systems were green... but the alcoves were not yet done. The back wall opened up and much thicker components slipped out, locking around the environmental suit clad explorers like a chrysalis or a coffin. The metal locked and bolted itself into place.

"Launch pre-check complete." an automated computer voice announced over the coms of each explorer, "Launch initiating in five, four, three, two, one."

With that simple period, the silence and calmness of the launch bay fell away. The floor of the ship opened up and the six explorers dropped out like missiles, arching toward the planet's surface at equidistant points. Eric's heart raced as he gazed out through two layers of visor, seeing the Cortés above him, the stars pulsing gently. There was a silent flash as a com dish shot out from the front of the ship, unfolding slowly to enter orbit... but the explorers were still headed downwards.

The entry capsule shuddered as Eric hit the atmosphere, the outer visor growing red with heat until it became useless to see out of. Eric watched the progress of the others on his head's up display. They had started out mere feet apart from one another but each second took them all kilometers further. Atmospheric entry was harrowing enough, but the idea that they'd all be so remote was the true test of a man's mettle.

Descent had taken its toll on the entry capsule, etching and scoring the metal... but it had served its purpose. Eric had pierced through the atmosphere and the temperatures had dropped within the safety margin. The capsule hissed and then exploded outward, the pieces falling toward the surface. Jets erupted from Eric's back, slowing his descent further. It had always seemed wasteful to Eric, but on the other hand it saved massive amounts of fuel and kept the ship secure, requiring the Cortés to enter the atmosphere only once to pick them up.

Eric's eyes scanned the ground beneath him, spotting plant matter. There were red and orange mosses, a few yellowish green vines snaking across the wide open plain... but something didn't quite seem right. In the distance there were trees, bushes, shrubs, even a jungle of sorts... but the ground beneath was perfectly flat, almost welcoming. Eric had hoped for a clearing to land in, but his mind searched for an explanation. It didn't come in time as the descent jets on his back ran out of fuel.

The explorer braced himself for landing on ground, but as his feet hit the surface, the plant material pulled away like a thin crust of scum on the surface of a pond or lake. Eric's suit sunk into the muck, brownish green slime coating it. Eric grunted, knowing the suit was too heavy to float. He tried to use the scanners but they couldn't penetrate the swamp. Eric tried to remember where the closest trees had been and started walking, moving through the muck.

Each and every step was laborious, pushing against the thick slop. Eric's suit was trying to identify the compounds he was bathing in but the interference from entry and the thick soup was too much for anything but an immediate readout of the slime he was in. Even that was complex, rich with plant mater, liquids and some acidic compounds. Eric knew he had to get out of the liquid as fast as possible.

Step by step, Eric eventually made it toward a shore of sorts. The slime ran down off his bronze helmet as he emerged from the deep, plant roots and rotten leaves clinging to his visor. He wiped some of it off with his hands, flinging the muck to the ground as he stepped all the way out onto solid ground. The explorer turned, looking into the distance. The sky was faintly reddish orange, a pair of moons hanging above a small mountain range in the distance. The slop of the swamp had already started to knit back together after his entry, though one of the pieces of his capsule had landed in the swamp as well, knocking a fairly wide hole into it. Eric had to smirk to himself, wondering if any of his teammates had such an adventurous entry... but it was time to get to work.

Eric turned and moved further inland, heading between the trees. He had to wait for the com satellite to orient and report in, but he could use that time gathering samples of the local soil, water and life forms. If the plant life was evolved enough, perhaps there would be some interesting insects or small mammals to research. Eric smiled a bit at the thought, continuing deeper into the forests. With each step he took, however, the seals of his suit began to harden and tighten, the metal sizzling ever so slowly. ****

The journey into the forest was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. A vapor hung near the ground, something Eric wanted to consider fog... but it was too hot of a planet for that. It would have been like seeing fog during a heat wave back home. Eric's boots stepped through the vapor, but his eyes were directed upwards, gazing through the canopy of trees and vines, getting glints of the red dwarf star in sparkling radiance.

The fact that red dwarfs stayed stable so much longer than other starts fascinated Eric... While larger stars were born, grew and died in the ticks of the cosmic clock, there was a significant chance every red dwarf that ever came into existence was still there. The universe simply wasn't old enough for them to reach their expiration. That being said, Eric had no idea how old the IJ cluster was. Had it once developed life and had it gone extinct, or was it on the way to developing first life?

Eric continued on through the jungle, though he stopped as the texture changed beneath his food. He'd been walking on soft plant matter... Leaves, twigs, things composting naturally into soil... but something had crunched beneath his boot. Eric paused, crouching down, waving his hand back and forth to try and clear the fog. As the vapor was swept back and forth by his hand, Eric saw something he hadn't expected... a piece of some sort of shell, a curved surface that was crunchy like an egg.

The excitement Eric felt was incomparable. He moved around carefully, trying to keep from crushing anything else. As the explorer shuffled around the base of the trees, he managed to move into a small clearing at the base of a rocky outcropping. The black stone climbed high into the air, pitted out like coral. Eric stopped every time his foot grazed something. He'd sweep away the vapor, finding rocks at first... but then his hand swept across a grayish blue speckled surface, covered with little bumps. Eric reached up, tapping his helmet to initiate log recording.

"I believe that I may have just found evidence of life... Object appears to be an egg, approximately the size of a large watermelon..." Eric said, looking around. The wind had changed and the vapor was thinning out a little. As it pulled back, Eric saw the upper edge of more and more eggs... Twenty, thirty, maybe even more. It was a large clutch, a cluster of eggs... almost as if he was in a nest.

Eric's heart raced. He debated fleeing from the site, trying not to disturb it, but Eric's eyes caught sight of something far more shocking... an egg almost three times the size of the others. It was as tall as his waist and as wide as his shoulders. Like the other eggs it was grayish blue but the bumps were more defined, forming ridges and grooves, spikes and contours. Countless seams and cracks covered the surface of the egg, almost like a network of puzzle lines.

"I've never seen anything like this... It is almost as if the eggs themselves may grow and-" Eric was interrupted by a chirp.

"Flash memory compromised. Recording interrupted. Switch to backup data source?" The environmental suit asked.

"Yes, switch to backup." Eric grunted.

"Backup non-functional, system com-com-com-com-" The stuttering speech fizzled out into garbled sounds and computer chirps before the light in Eric's helmet flickered. Then came a sound Eric was very familiar with from training... the hiss of his over-pressured suit starting to spew air out into the outside atmosphere. It was a last stop-gat to prevent alien atmospheres from getting into the suit, but it didn't bode well for his own air supply.

Eric reached to his waist, opening a utility panel. He pulled out a can and shook it before spraying it around the seams of his suit. There were no holes on his shoulders or hips. He reached behind his head, coating the seam of the helmet. The tell-tale hissing slowed to a stop as the sealant took hold, the foam solidifying into uneven lumpy plastic. It wasn't pretty but it was going to get the job done.

"Damn swamp..." Eric muttered, knowing its caustic effects had to be to blame. Eric returned the sealant to his waist before he opened a control panel on his wrist, trying to restart the electrical systems in his suit, but he soon hesitated from his work, his blue eyes glancing around. He could have sworn he saw movement, but it had to be a reflection in his visor. The explorer went back to work, unaware of just what he had unleashed into the air around him.

As an explorer in a self-contained environmental suit, Eric had a limited effect on the environment around him, but the cracks in his suit had introduced extra carbon dioxide, pheromones and the scent of human and sweat into the air. The plants around started to change color slightly, moving more from red to green... and the eggs had begun to quiver.

While the small eggs shifted and wriggled in place, the largest egg began to secrete a clear gel from its seams before the panels began to unfold. The hard outer shell crackled slightly as six segmented legs pulled back, the ends of each looking like scorpion barbs. The weight of the egg shifted forward, the hard object standing up. A thick tear drop shaped abdomen flipped out from behind the legs while an odd, wide head unfolded at the end of a narrow neck that seemed almost as if it would be unable to support the extension.

Mandibles began to click and clatter on either side of the head while two long, curved, dark blue antennae spikes flipped back along the head, hanging down behind the head. In the space just above where the antennae came together in a bony V, three tiny eyes opened up in a triangle across the small curved oval surface. The creature stretched and shifted, ensuring every part of its body still worked. Small tendrils wriggled on the underside of the legs and neck while bright blue liquid squirted from the spike tips at the end of the legs and abdomen.

With the unfolding complete, there was no trace of the egg that had been there. The creature had been waiting in dormancy, completely enclosed and egg shaped until it had sensed an intruder, an intruder that it now was staring at with its three eyes. Its abdomen quivered dangerously as it prepared its attack. Eric was none the wiser, focused on his suit.

The explorer clicked the switches back and forth before the lights flickered on in his helmet, the heads up display coming back on. It rebooted shortly before giving a proximity alert. Eric turned just in time to see the sixty pound mass of blue exoskeleton lunge at him. He grunted as he fell back, but he yelped as the barbed feet cut through his suit. Alarms sounded as his arm piece was cut into, the bindings snapping. The machine that had assembled the suit around Eric couldn't have compared with the speed at which the destruction came.

Bronze pieces of metal and plastic fell away, revealing Eric's muscled, fit, tanned arm. Eric felt the air hit his arm at once like a hundred and twelve degree heat, making him sweat. The air stung faintly as well, but nothing was as alarming as the feeling of an alien leg brushing against his flesh. Eric summoned his strength, pushing the creature off him with a loud grunt.

Tossing the creature wasn't as easy as Eric had hoped it would be, given that the creature had six legs to steady itself on. Eric had to give up on pushing, grabbing it by the legs and swinging it. The creature hissed and tried to fold around him but as he let go, the creature was lobbed through the air, hitting the black rock and falling onto its back. The legs swiped around, trying to gain a footing. Eric panted in relief, looking to the ground to see if there was any way to reassemble the armor around his arm... but movement again caused him to look up. Trapped on its back, the creature easily folded back up into its egg shape before unfurling again. Eric turned and broke into a sprint, heading through the trees.

Eric was fast and fit from his training and the decreased weight of his suit with a missing arm sped him up even more, but this was the creature's natural habitat. It scrambled through the trees, darting from side to side, clambering over everything with the chittering taps of its six barbed feet. The three tiny eyes gazed at the human impassively, or at least it seemed that way from the outside.

Eric grunted hard, realizing that he must have upset the insect queen or guardian, trotted into the nest and now he was a threat. He only hoped that fleeing the territory would be enough, that showing no interest would be an option. He kept going, watching as the trees around him grew more open. He could see the swamp in the distance, the mesh of vines and moss having covered up the presence of liquid completely... but it couldn't hide the sulfurous scent. Eric's heart sank a little. The alien atmosphere was starting to get in... His pressure suit was pumping air out, but he was running out if the atmosphere was equalizing.

The thought of suffocating in the alien atmosphere didn't please Eric any more than the idea of being eviscerated by a nest guardian. He glanced over his shoulder to see if the creature had given up. He slowed down, not spotting the insect. He sighed with breaths of relief, knowing he had likely left its territory. He reached down to his waist to pull the sealant out again, knowing it would burn the flesh a little that it came in contact with... but it would seal the atmospheric leak in his suit.

Eric opened up the panel and reached for the can, but a shadow fell across his hand. The explorer wasted no time in lunging forward, but it was already too late. The insect cut through his suit like butter. The chest panel fell forward and tripped Eric, knocking him onto his hands and knees. Two dark blue legs slipped over his shoulders, sinking through the form fitting body suit, stabbing into his chest just next to either nipple.

A pulsing, throbbing, ice cold sensation pumped into his veins, his nipples hardening. Eric let out a shout, grabbing onto the legs, pulling them off his chest as he struggled back to his feet. The legs tore the shirt open, the fabric falling away and snapping backwards without the tension to hold it in place. Eric stumbled over his chest place and moved forward, wearing only his helmet, pants and one sleeve of suit... but that wasn't enough to breath with. The atmosphere pack was on his back. Now it was on the ground.

Eric stumbled forward, his head growing dizzy as noxious gasses invaded his lungs. His skin burned, his head throbbed. Even his eyes felt a little like they were going to burst. As he got more and more incoherent, he didn't even feel the environmental suit's legs sliced and pulled off. His body suit slunk down around his ankles and Eric nearly fell over, grabbing a tree to remain standing. As he panted, his sleeve slipped down and fell to the ground, gravity taking its toll on the clunky material not designed to stay on without a chest piece.

In a most absurd visage, Eric stood there wearing nothing but a useless helmet, stripped naked by the rigors of the planet and the attacking creature... a creature that was coming up behind him. Eric was too worn out to fight back, suffocating on the alien atmosphere. He stood there as the insect crawled back up his back, wrapping its limbs around him. Once more the front legs slipped over his shoulders and sunk into his chest, his veins visibly turning blue as the venom began pumping in again.

With the front legs in place, the insect pulled itself up, wrapping its middle legs around his ribs, coming down in the front to inject venom into either side of his belly button. The last legs folded down over Eric's hips, curling around the front of his legs before locking into his thighs. The creature held on tight, straddling Eric like an armor plated backpack, buts its work was far from over.

Every so slowly, the heavy head and gangly neck slipped up the back of Eric's neck. The head butted against his helmet, knocking it off, revealing his blonde hair and fuzzy sideburns to the open air. Eric felt like he was melting, the atmosphere so hot and toxic. His brain couldn't think. He should have passed out already. The mission briefing had made it clear that no explorer could survive that long without a suit, but the icy cold burning that filled his chest seemed to keep him awake, but just barely.

Eric struggled to think, to process, to remember where he was or what he was doing, but as tiny squirming filaments began to sink into his back and sides, he cried out in pain and an odd sense of exhilaration. The insect's filaments tapped into his nerves and then his spine, pushing through flesh before melding with the spinal cord. Eric began to get flashes of thoughts, but they weren't his own. He felt excited to be dominating a human, to have found a compatible mate. The thoughts were alien and strange and faded soon enough, leaving Eric in his stupor again... but with just enough resolve to try and break free.

The explorer turned suddenly, trying to scrape the bug off his back with the tree trunk but as he hit the exoskeleton against the bark, all it did was reverberate through his body. Eric moaned at that, barely able to think again. His stance widened as something began pushing between his legs. The bug's abdomen was curling up between his legs, moving back to its dormant egg shape, but as it curled up under his taint, the panels of the abdomen opened up, revealing an urchin like squishy interior. More filaments quivered and wriggled as the abdomen came around his shaft, taking it in.

Eric gasped as his cock and balls were taken into such a hot, warm, wet embrace. The abdomen closed up across his crotch, the tip stabbing into his stomach, pumping more venom into his body. Eric grunted hard, feeling so much heavier with the insect mounted on him, but it hadn't yet bonded completely. There was still one act left to do. The heavy insect head tilted back, the small oval head gazing up into the sky as the mandibles popped out wider, revealing the bottom of the bug skull and the horizontal oval holes it had there.

The head continued to slip forward, the long skinny neck attaching to Eric's neck. With the insect's head tilted up, the hollow interior was revealed along with all the squirming filaments there. The head piece came down over Eric's skull, fitting his skull a little awkwardly at first before it began to settle. The naturally occurring holes in the bug's head lined up with Eric's human eyes and the bug's oval face came to rest above his forehead. The mandibles came down along Eric's jawbone on either side, acting almost like a jaw guard rather than teeth. The burning in Eric's lungs slowly ebbed and he took a few furtive breaths, able to handle the atmosphere a bit more. His skin was toughening up against the heat as well, taking on a more leathery feel. As the atmosphere grew less oppressive, Eric's head started to churn again, his thoughts slowly returning... at least for the moment.

Eric's mind repeated the events leading up to his predicament, as if trying to analyze the possibility they could be real. He had come to an alien planet, hoping to find life. In the end it had been the life that found him, but now? Now things were a lot more complicated. Eric grunted sharply as he got feedback from his own thoughts, as if things weren't quite in sync yet. Words bounced around his mind in a jumbled mess. Parasite? No, it was keeping him alive... He could breath the toxic air, he could stand the excessive heat... but was he surviving? Was he even breathing?

The explorer looked down at his chest. Sure enough, his lungs had given up. His chest was stationary but his heart kept pumping. Whatever the creature had done, he was still alive because of it. There was a soft cracking as part of the insect's back began to split and pull apart, the hard outer plating revealing a softer underbelly. The abdomen the bug had in its attack form had mounted to Eric's waist but a much larger, thicker abdomen began to tilt out from his shoulders. The underside was flat and deflated, but slowly sacks began to fill, a gelatinous substance bulking out the ribbed, segmented, translucent underside.

As the true abdomen grew, Eric let out a growl of pain, falling forward onto his knees. Once more his skin and eyes burned, his body aching, but it felt far different, far more painful... too painful to stand. Once again Eric started to feel light headed, like he was going to pass out, but then something happened... the tendrils bathing his cock in a tight embrace began to wriggle and move, stimulating him. A gel filled up the slot and soaked the shaft and soon it felt like he was actively fucking something. Even his balls felt massaged and treated.

Eric let out a soft squeak of shock as he felt such a strong embrace of pleasure flowing into him, off-setting the pain. It was so good he started to gyrate his hips forward and back, embracing the changes, unaware that they were having such a profound effect on him. As Eric gave into his sexual gratification, his skin began to slough off in places, the leathery skin falling away to reveal fresh, new layers of skin... but the new layers were darker blue, tougher and thicker. The tissue continued to grow at a rapid pace, replacing itself with ever tougher layers.

As the layers of skin became even harder than leather, cracks became seams and indents. His arms remained as thick and muscled as they had been before, but the flesh was now hardening into exoskeleton. The armor plates covered his biceps and triceps, his forearm and wrist; even his hands were being affected. In some places the armor was tight and perfect, in others it over-lapped to allow movement and sliding... almost like sleeves of an environmental suit.

The advanced maturation of his skin continued to spread, but it wasn't enough. His ribs were growing thicker as well, his own bones hardening. Minerals leeched from his blood to reinforce his musculature and his body began to produce a thick, sticky blue sweat. The liquid collected across his chest, hardening into crystallized translucent slicks... and those soon cracked and gave way to exoskeleton beneath.

Eric's pectorals were hidden, replaced with an organic armor chest piece that covered his chest and sloped down on either side of his stomach, leaving his washboard abs as chiseled as granite. His arms and shoulders connected together almost as if he had on the shoulder pads of a football player, everything locking into place. In a short while it looked as though Eric had put on some sort of costume for Halloween back home. He had a mask, a shirt... now he just needed the pants and the transformation seemed happy to oblige.

As much pleasure as Eric had been experiencing, the pain was starting to return to his mind. It hurt to have his organs change and move; it stung to have so much tissue replaced. Eric's compliance began to wane as he groaned, but the symbiont was not eager to let its host become that uncomfortable. The pleasure around Eric's groin amplified until he threw their heads back and let out a moan, feeling his balls churn and his cock quiver before he came... and then came again... and again. The orgasm didn't let up, the human pouring his seed out constantly. Eric's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he left conventional limits behind. Even the gel in his translucent bug abdomen began to grow milky and thicker, all that semen being transferred. The bug absorbed it, absorbed the genetics, learning and feeding and still Eric came in a constant state of orgasm.

With the new pleasure, Eric was too happy to fight it any more. The gel rolled down his legs, hardening into exo-armor that covered his thighs, his knees, then sank down lower. The segments all fit over one another with enough room to move, giving Eric bug legs that almost matched those around his chest, the legs that had fused into him and become a part of him. Eric felt as if he would have been panting but his other half had taken care of that for him.

The bones in Eric's feet began to pop and stretch, his toes aching as the flesh grew together but the foot elongated, adding on an extra six and then eight inches in length without widening. The skin flaked off to reveal thicker and thicker armor until his foot wasn't human anymore at all. It was long, pointed and faintly barbed just like the bug's legs. The armor hardened, the dimple settling into place. The transition was intense.

From head to toe, Eric was almost unrecognizable. He had antennae, he had an exo-skeleton and he had an abdomen... but the one thing that hadn't changed was his face, at least in shape. While his skin had turned grayish blue, he had the same cheeks, the same chin, the same lips and nose. Even his human eyes peered out from gaps in the bug's skull. It was haunting, potentially even terrifying. It wasn't so much the monster that made Eric what he was now, but what parts of the man remained.

Eric's pain began to decrease, fading away. His constant orgasms lasted a few minutes longer before his cock gave out, stinging and throbbing and aching. Eric attributed it to over use, bur his mind soon went elsewhere as he felt an odd shifting on his lower back and then shoulders. Once more, panels of the bug began to open up. This time thick, slimy transparent greenish clear wings began to extend from the gaps, unfolding as the ribs hardened like a kite being assembled from smaller pieces.

The wings dropped down a foot, then two, then tree. They slowly pulled apart from one another like fly paper avoiding sticking to itself, unfurling. The wings were segmented and numerous, four like that of a wasp... but Eric was hardly a wasp. He was something more, something far more magnificent. Eric slowly reached out, pushing himself up, rising to his new alien feet. His eyes glanced around before he looked down.

There was a soft pop as the alien bug panel covering his groin slipped out of a tiny hole in his stomach, hardened and toughened almost like a port. The panel pulled back, but it also folded out to the sides and top, opening like the blossom of a flower. Every surface inside was covered with wriggling tendrils... but the shaft in the middle was a deep and vibrant royal blue. While it remained human in length and had a mushroom shaped head, beneath the head there were two more bulbs like the base of his head. The three round edges made for a very sophisticated looking rod, one that would anchor well... and inject his seed.

Eric grinned at that, groaning as almost neon green spunk sprayed out of his shaft, landing on the ground near by. The seed was so rich and thick that it practically wriggled from the amount of sperm inside it. Eric groaned happily at that, feeling not only his pride but the pride of his bug... but the sensations were so strong and intense, Eric couldn't figure out where he ended and the bug began.

His memories remained; childhood, school, the air force and then being selected for the mission. He was still Eric, and yet... he had all the memories from his other life. Tending to the eggs, caring for them, yearning to reclaim an ancient glory lost to the cosmos. He felt the longing to be awake, the sadness and despair to have a race dormant and asleep... but that could change now. The humans had come and nothing would be the same ever again.

All of the sleeping bugs would awake, a cluster of them were rising from their sleep even now. The bugs would return to the cosmos, gain strength and spread out once again. Worlds that had forgotten the presence of the bugs would fall beneath the shadows of the colony ships once more. The cluster would awaken and Eric was one of their kings, charged with the task to make drones and protect the hive, to spread his seed and make his royal honey. Eric licked his lips slowly, thinking about the other explorers. They were roaming on the planet already. He knew some would find the bugs like he did, but for the others... he would have to visit them personally.

Eric's wings began to flutter, then move so fast that a buzzing filled the air. He took a step, then a bound, Soon he broke into running before he pushed off. Eric's body lifted into the air, the new bug king floating above the swamp. He gained altitude, soaring over where his entry capsule touched down. As Eric gazed to the horizon, he was still impressed how beautiful the world before him was... but he also remembered how beautiful it had always been. This was his home, his bastion... and but one jewel in the empire of the bugs.