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Dark Star: Farthest Flung Written by Trickster_D and Leo_Todrius Commissioned by Sanmer

The neutron star glimmered in the otherwise dark corner of space, casting out its last light after a long and passionate life. Its rays pushed past the dust that had once been planets and moons, dispersing the encroaching sea of interstellar medium. It was an ancient place, a quiet place, but it was not an undisturbed place. At the edge of the solar system a carbon and bronze colored ship drifted, collecting and sifting through the dust like a whale consuming krill.

The ship's hull had been scorched a few times by pulsars, not to mention the pock marks from weapons fire, but generally it was too far out to be bothered by anyone. The inside of the ship continued the carbon and bronze motif. The floors were metal gratings covering snaking tubes and wires while the walls were mass produced panels fitted together by brackets. Despite being an ARC ship, it was without the usual sterile decor. It was a ship of purpose. Lucky enough for one if its crew, that decor suited him.

Rane floated down one of the ship's aft corridors, on the way to particle control. He reached up and brushed some of his long, raven black hair out of his face, letting it float behind him as he drifted in the zero g environment. Rane's skin was pale and seemed almost like alabaster in the ship's industrial lighting. Rane and the Anemoi seemed like a good match. Both were gritty, both were well used. Rane's five earrings in each ear seemed to be made out of the same bronze colored metal much of the corridor was crafted from.

The young engineer had always stuck out at the academy, preferring to dress in all black and on occasion even wear guy liner, but the Anemoi had been an answered prayer. No longer did he have to conform to societal norms or put up with the masses that didn't understand him. Rane only had to tolerate two people. The Anemoi's mission wasn't a glorious one, but being so remote and so under equipped paid handsomely. With any luck Rane could achieve an early retirement if he just put up with everything a while longer.

Rane reached out and caught a metal hook in the ceiling to slow his progress, using his momentum to turn and head into a sub-junction. He reached up and tapped a small plastic triangle adhered to his cheek.

"I've reached particle control, I'll try and track down the problem." Rane reported over the coms. He approached a wall covered in rectangular panels and touched one. The panel retracted and slid out of view, giving access to the computer interface inside. They had been experiencing some power fluctuations for a few hours. It was vital to track down any problem before it became more serious.

Rane's finger traced the readings on the screen before his head tilted a bit. It seemed that the power fluctuations weren't coming from the reactor itself, but instead impurities in the fuel. While it was essentially fantastic news that the reactor was fine, tracking down the source of the fuel deficiency was likely to be tedious. Rane ran a diagnostic on their reserve tanks and found nothing out of the ordinary, meaning that the problem was likely from outside the system.

"Engineering level checks out, I'm going to head to the 'refinery' to check for damage." Rane reported, though his ship mates had yet to respond to any of his queries. Rane moved out of the room and headed down the hall, coming to a metal hatch in the floor marked with yellow and black caution stripes. He knelt down and entered his key code, causing the hatch to slide open, revealing a ladder down into the space below. Rane began his journey into the lower level, descending rung by rung.

The room was dark and steamy, the heat nearly uncomfortable. As he stepped off the ladder, Rane reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The machinery around him was humming with life, but the sound was off. Rane pushed deeper into the hot space, his eyes scanning the darkness, coming to a rack of filtration systems on the far wall. The Anemoi collected debris to process into fuel. What couldn't be refined and used was normally dumped back into space but a number of indicators had turned red. Rane's brow furrowed as he moved over.

If it was just a matter of purging the filters, it wouldn't be too terribly difficult. The goth engineer wrapped his hands around the metal bar on the side of the filter plate and pulled. The plate didn't budge the first time. Rane lifted one leg and braced against the wall before he pulled again. With great resistance, the plate lurched and came free. Rane stumbled backwards, trying to keep his footing so he didn't fall over. The filter clattered to the floor, but to Rane's surprise it looked completely wrong. The honeycomb structure was black and glistening like a rubbery oil slick. Every cell had been filled. There was no way that that much of any substance should have made it that deep through the filters.

The substance in the filter rippled gently, a couple of bubbles emerging on the oily, tar-like surface and exploding with what sounded like tiny sighs. Whatever it was, the presence of an organic heat source was reawakening its rudimentary senses and its simple, instinctive brain. It didn't have a name for itself, nor it needed one; like a computer program, its directives were clear: reproduce or prey. Convert or consume. Even though it couldn't see, lacking eyes or any other kind of sensory organ, it could perceive the presence of another creature nearby, a kaleidoscope of reds and yellows against the uniform black of its brain. It knew it had to wait for the right moment to act; it was still weak, and what it needed was a perfect strike to catch its prey by surprise.

Seeing the liquid bubble and shift, Rane felt quite concerned. He ran over to the wall and grabbed a portable scanner and aimed it at the substance, though the scanner immediately objected to being subjected to such a quandary. Sure, there were carbon fibers and elements it could identify, but it couldn't puzzle together the molecular structure at all, as if it was constantly in flux.

The dark fluid just pulsed and and writhed; its slick surface wasn't uniformly black, as it would've seem at a superficial glance. It actually reflected the colors of the room around it and of Rane himself, mixing them in a strange, dull and muted but still strangely hypnotic rainbow. It was just like it was beckoning the young man to come closer, to inspect that puzzling liquid more... intimately.

Gazing at it, Rane felt his concerns starting to drain away. It was so beautiful, like a living painting. Rane took a trudging step forward, then another, convincing himself it was just to get a closer look at such a unique natural splendor.

The fluid realized that the other creature had come closer, and its surface vibrated in anticipation: it knew it didn't have to waste time, that its mesmerizing ability wasn't particularly strong now that it was so weak and malnourished. With a sudden movement, it coalesced its mass into an ovoidal shape and projected itself right towards the source of heat... right towards its new, delicious prey.

Rane yelped, his calm and serene state disrupted as the substance launched itself and splattered across his chest. Instinctively, Rane tried to wipe it off with his hand, but all he succeeded in doing was to spread the goo around, connecting his fingers to his chest with long rubbery tethers.

If he had had a pair of lips, the fluid would have smiled; the landing had been a success, but he had to act quickly: even though the process of merging had started the very moment it had touched the other creature's skin, there were still ways to separate them as long as the process wasn't completed. The liquid started to secrete another substance, clear and dense, that acted both as a mild sedative and as a decomposing agent for any kind of cloth barrier that could get in the way. Multiple thin targets, no thicker than rubber bands, started crawling upwards: instinctively, the being knew that it had to aim for the control center of the creature body before it could alert some of its peers.

"No, no, no!" Rane muttered, feeling his shirt getting eaten away. Fearing acid, he stumbled toward the door, but as the last of his shirt was dissolved, he felt nothing but a vague, warm, comforting sensation across his chest. He hoped that didn't mean the nerves were already dead, but whatever this substance was, it wasn't following any of the newtonian rules for fluids. Rane opened a side hatch and moved toward the nearest chemical shower, panting hard as the black rubbery goo spread over his chest.

Under its rapidly extending body, the nameless fluid could feel the body of its prey getting frantic and moving, sense its fear and distress. Acting as quick as possible, it pumped out more and more tranquilizer, hoping to impair the other creature's reaction; its tendrils - merging and separating incessantly - caressed the contours of the prey's neck, and started their climb for the chin, their endings touching every inch of skin, seeking a way in.

"Fu.....ck..." Rane muttered, falling to his knees, panting hard. His heart was racing, his chest heaving. He felt scared to death, and yet oddly exhilarated at the same time. It was hard to avoid the sensation of claustrophobia as the substance spread more and more, coating him and covering him. It reminded Rane of the stories he'd read about ancient Earth and the coiling serpents it used to have. He wondered what the substance was, if it was sentient, or if he was getting covered in some strange meta-material.

The substance, detecting more harmonious brain waves coming from the subject - along with a faint, yet surprisingly clear mental image - felt more and more invigorated; its lower tendrils slithered down, starting to dissolve the fabric of Rane's pants, but it was the upper part of the mysterious fluid that had made the more interesting discovery: a rubbery pedipalp found a moist, humid cave past the young boy's lips, and began to caress and explore it, stimulating Rane's tongue and pushing itself deeper and deeper.

Rane tried to push the rubbery intruder back with his tongue, his arms feeling like limp noodles as he attempted any form of resistance. The slithering slime had almost no taste, practically sterile, though there was the faintest tang of ozone. It was almost disarming in its neutrality, giving Rane an odd feeling of being protected.

As the substance dissolved the pants and the underwear of its victim, it found a bizarre, elongated lump of flesh that started to become longer and harder as its tiny tentacles glided over it; it was accompanied by a dangling sack housing a couple of round egg-shaped glands. The liquid creature was confused by such a strange excrescence, and immediately begun the merging process, one of his countless elastic cilia probing and then plunging into the small cut on the summit of the tube-like organ.

Rane gasped sharply, the air blasting over the rubbery goo invading his mouth. His eyes were wide and watered as his the tendrils sounded the depths of his penis, but his mental reactions weren't the only response. The alien goo immediately felt changes to the human's skin conductivity, his body moisture, and then an almost overwhelming rush of chemicals in his bloodstream. The alien could taste hormones and neuro-transmitters associated with arousal, excitement, and involuntary pleasure.

The substance was somewhat pleased by the reactions that its victim's body was producing, as much as a living fluid could feel something like pleasure; a good mood would've made the other creature more cooperative and the merging process calmer and less traumatic for both of them. Its mass enveloped Rane's face, creating an organic, inescapable rubbery hood over the young man's face. Of course, the alien didn't want its victim to die, on the contrary: frantically, it accelerated the bonding, pumping mutagenic substances into the human's body to allow him to breathe directly from the fluid itself, absorbing the oxygen he needed from the air all around him.

Rane's muscles tightened nearly to the point of cramping. For a few moments he had feared his life was over as the world around him disappeared and his face was covered. Rane had spent time in environmental suits before, but never one quite as tight as his new black rubbery cocoon. Still, even without being able to draw in air, he didn't feel as though he was suffocating. He couldn't tell if the goo was sliding in and out of his nostrils and throat, or if it was sitting still, but somehow he didn't feel the mounting pressure in his lungs. To the creature's sensation, this produced a very welcome lack of panic in its prey.

Now that its victim was more relaxed, the alien slime felt more at ease in proceeding with the exploration of the strange, bipedal creature. A long strand of black goo extended from the groin area, caressing the skin of the thighs and following the curve of the body until it found a small, round hole encircled by a ring of contracted muscles; the tip of the tentacle started caressing the pucker while pumping muscle relaxants directly into the skin, until the gap was loose enough for the fluid to invade it; the tentacle became thicker as it slithered inside the young man's body, travelling quite swiftly through his lower intestines.

Rane drooled a little, or he would have if the coating in his mouth hadn't blocked his saliva ducts. He wriggled and shifted, his position on the floor moving to all fours. He tried to push back, peristalsis pushing back but ultimately failing to prevent the tendril from filling him. No doubt the creature felt that it had a much better anchor on the human now, filling him from so many orifices. Plunging into Rane's ears, it could feel sensitive bone and tissue structures for hearing, a sense that it lacked. Slight nerve impulses were translatable though and the creature became aware of whirring, of heart beats, of the muffled shifting of its own body over the human's head.

After a few seconds of disorientation and uncertainty, courtesy of the brand new sense exploding into its simple brain, the creature relentlessly resumed the invasion of the body of its prey. Thick but inescapable strands of black matter wrapped around its lower limbs, coating them in the same rubbery substance as the rest of the body while dissolving socks and shoes. Rane tried to wiggle and move his toes, but all he succeeded in doing was to stretch his rubbery prison like webbing between his digits. It was a skin perfect coating.

The creature's encasement of the human was nearly complete, covering and filling his body. Every centimeter of flesh it covered brought it that much closer to something more than just encapsulation... it brought it closer to a connection. What had started with brief flashes of sensation of its own scent, flavor and sound was becoming more. It was getting flashes of memory... of a bright star, of other humans, of fear and malice and hope and loss. They were foreign at first but slowly started to make more sense, even to the point of being worthy tools. Convert or consume... surely this human could be educated.

The fluid, through the nasal cavities, finally started to invade the only part of its victim's body that was still untouched. The creature, like a dark organic blanket, wrapped around the soft, delicate brain, and started the difficult process of merging its own thought patterns with those of the other creature. It was rough for both of them at first as their life experiences clashed in a chaotic sea of images and sensations, but moment by moment there was commonality... A need to seek out a better life, a need to gain power, a need to ensure one's survival.

The symbiont, for that was what it was learning itself to be, started to gain a deep and dark understanding. For Rane, he had found that strength in the occult, in darkness, in the macabre. From the human's imagination it saw a slithering, dark form like oil in the shadow of night... but then two fiery amber eyes opened up, staring into the symbiont. It was a black dragon, an image very important to Rane as a form of power and ability, of respect and fear.

The alien symbiont experience a surge of satisfaction: yes, that was a strong shape. Powerful, durable, deadly... In other words, the perfect image of a predator, and exactly what it needed to reproduce or prey, to convert or consume. For the slime, shaping the body of its victim to look like... no, to be like the dragon lurking inside its mind was no more difficult than dissolving the layers of cloth; its black surface pumped more and more mutagenic substances directly into Rane's bloodstream, in order to change it to its very core.

Rane's heart rate increased, not so much in speed but in power. His fingers began gripping the metal grating beneath him, panting and almost hissing as he felt his face throb, his teeth growing sharper and sharper. His eyes tingled and burned, changing color beneath the safe covering of the mask.

The symbiont, faithful to the image of the dark flying creature, focused its efforts especially on the body parts that were going to be radically different from the current humanoid shape; using the energy and the materials he had consumed and stored into its gooey body as it had dissolved Rane's clothes, the alien seeped through its prey's skin right into its skeletal structure, especially into its skull, shoulder blades and coccyx, bonding with the spongy marrow and reshaping the structure of the very bones as if they were made of rubber.

Rane groaned, throwing his head back, feeling the heat of a dozen suns seep through his body. His jaw popped and cracked, extending forward. Lumps formed on his forehead before the black rubbery shell began stretching over growing horns, curving out and away. Rane was becoming infatuated, even enthralled by the power surging through him. Even his ribs were widening, thickening, expanding. Sharp claws slid out of his fingertips like razor blades, the black coating honed down to the molecular level. The stress would have been enough to kill Rane if his body wasn't being so well supported.

Like a pianist playing their instrument with prowess and virtuosity, the symbiont was busy tweaking the body of its prey in a thousand different ways at once: changing the shape of its bones, simplifying the shape and the function of its internal organs, fortifying and calming down its heartbeat so to avoid an infarction, intruding into its bloodstream to merge with each and every red blood cell, altering the young man's blood and coloring it pitch black. The symbiosis was advancing at a steady pace, and the alien was growing more and more satisfied by the outcome... It was becoming the perfect predator, a force to be feared and reckoned with.

With every shift and change, their minds were coming more into harmony. Covert or consume. It seemed so natural, so right, especially for a dragon like him. Rane panted sharply, lowering his head to the ground, arching his back. The rubbery coated flesh rippled and shifted before a sticky mass began to separate. Strings of goo spread between his spine and the extensions as they unfurled and began spreading. Like the extensions of a solar glider, Rane's new wings began to expand into place. Strong filaments arched through the thin black panels.

Despite the form Rane was taking, the wings still adjusted so as not to overwhelm the confined space they were in. They contracted and flexed, getting used to folding for moving through doorways. Rane was barely cognizant of that though, focusing instead on the primal power he felt as his new form. Having his humanity stripped away had been so liberating. He snapped his pointed muzzle and licked at his sharp teeth. He peered around the room through his meshy coating. He wasn't Rane anymore, he and the symbiont were one, something entirely new.

There was, however, still something missing, at least according to the mental image in the former human's mind; his thought processes had been warped beyond recognition, sure, but the idea that had sparked the change was still there, perfectly clear. The gooey mass of the symbiont started working its dark magic again, converging towards the end of the dragon's back; the bones at the end of his spine were twisted and elongated, the skin tensing before extending with them, muscles and tendons sprouting like organic flowers underneath.

Rane let out a roar, gnashing his teeth as one last fleshy mass extended from his body. The black whip like extension writhed about as it grew longer and longer. It surged outward at incredible speeds, causing Rane to groan, his obsidian colored cock dribbling black rubbery pre. At long last the tail snapped into its full length, extending sinuously behind him.

Now that the process was finally completed and the bonding between the alien and its prey was total, a strange sense of euphoria filled the brain of the newborn creature. It was like a hunger, simple, powerful and primordial; the desire to feed, or the need to reproduce... or maybe both of them at the same time, a concept that no human mind could possibly comprehend but that was perfectly clear to the mind of the symbiont dragon. Still leaving behind a trail of rubbery black drops of precum, the creature formerly known as Rane started to climb the metal ladder, heading towards the main level of the spaceship. It was finally hunting time.

****

The Anemoi's armory was small but efficient, with a battery of the best photonic torpedoes the weapon market could offer and a state of the art targeting system. In a word, it was perfect... Too much perfect, even, at least according to Drei's opinion. The young, muscular man of Slavic heritage relaxed against his chair, exhaling an exasperated sigh while his pale blue eyes wandered all over the curved ceiling; after running the self diagnostic programs for twenty-eight times in a single day, he was starting to feel the stifling weight of boredom.

"If only we could do something interesting for a change..." he grumbled, the fingers of his arms contracting rhythmically into fists. "But no, Mr. Stop Having Fun Guys is all work and no relax as always..." Drei sighed again, gritting his teeth: he wasn't the brightest bulb in the shed, even though his knowledge about weaponry was unparalleled amongst the graduates of his year at the academy he had attended; he craved action, fights, stuff that could make his muscles ache and his blood burn... And yet he was stuck on a tiny ship, instead of one of the Bahamut-class frigates he had always dreamed about when he was a kid.

"Oh, well, at least we still get some action from time to time..." he murmured, his lips pursed. The fight against those space pirates the previous months had been quite tense... But it had been, well, a month ago, and nothing interesting had happened in the meantime. "If someone is listening, please... Make something happen! Anything, really!" Drei exclaimed in frustration. "Or else I'll probably die of boredom!" As if the universe was answering his demand, the com chirped.

"Drei, I can't get Rane on coms and the internal sensors aren't picking him up either. Something must be going on. Can you track him down?" The captain's voice echoed. Drei frowned at those words.

"Wait, what do you mean that the internal sensors aren't picking him up?" he repeated. "Are you implying he's dead or something?"

"No, we'd pick up his body if he was dead. We aren't picking anything up. Just check it out, Drei... This is no time for mystery." The captain replied.

"Yessir," Drei said before cutting the communication off. "Why don't you do it yourself, next time?" he grumbled, walking out of the armory. Although, well... It wasn't like he was gonna complain that much: he had prayed for something to do, and now he had that. The jock started half-walking, half-floating towards the engineering section of the ship.

"Rane!" he shouted, a grin on his lips. "Come on, where the hell are you? Don't tell me you hid in one of the air ducts to jack off again, you little pervert!" To be honest, Drei was at least a bit creeped out by what was happening: someone didn't simply disappear from the internal sensors, unless, well... unless that someone wasn't on the ship anymore.

"I'm not detecting any breaches in the hull, though the filtration system is---ill----aboard---" The radio continued to crackle before fizzling out entirely. Drei pushed the plastic com stuck over his cheek with crescent rage and worry.

"Captain? Captain? What the hell!" Drei growled and punched the corridor wall in frustration. He turned around, as if he was hoping to find Rane just behind him. "Come on, Rane, it's not fucking funny!" he shouted. "Come out immediately or I swear to God I'll fucking beat you to a pulp, and I'm not kidding!"

There was no immediate response, though as he worked closer to the engineering section it was becoming clear something was out of the ordinary. The lights weren't working quite right, the radio was down... and then Drei saw it, claw marks in the wall, slicing through the metal plating. The armory specialist took a step back, breathing heavily; images of countless horror movies flashed in his mind, films about evil aliens invading spaceships... Except that wasn't a movie, it was too damn real.

"R-Rane?" he tried for the last time, his voice nothing more than a whisper. "You here?" If he doesn't answer I'm taking the first escape pod, and screw the captain and the job, he thought. As Drei moved, the ship's speakers crackled.

"Warning: Automated escape systems offline." the computer announced, as if denying Drei the thing he wanted most. The jock growled beneath gritted teeth, his breathing heavy, big droplets of sweat running down his forehead.

"Seriously, what the fuck is happening here?!" he screamed in impotent rage; his hand immediately went down to his side, before realizing he had left his blaster gun in the armory. "Shit!" he exclaimed, before turning around: he had to reach the captain's room. Sure, Eric was incredibly stiffy and sometimes Drei thought that the stick in his butt had a stick in its butt too, but he'd have probably agreed on landing on the nearest colony available and let the authorities handle the... well, whatever the fuck was happening to the Anemoi. If only they weren't so far away from civilization.

As Drei moved, he heard an odd sound at the edge of his awareness. It was soft and subtle, like rubber on metal, sliding and scraping before going silent again. The shadows around almost seemed to shift and slither. The young man froze on the spot, his eyes darting around restlessly: maybe it was just his paranoia playing tricks to his mind and ears and eyes, but he certainly wasn't going to go and check more closely: that's how people usually died in those horror movies, by letting their curiosity kill them. Without being able to choke a half-scream, he started to run towards the captain's quarters; his legs were slow and unresponsive and ached a bit, as if he was inside a dream.

The corridor whipped by, Drei making good progress. The sliver of hope began to grow in his heart as he got closer and closer to his destination. It was within his grasp, at least until a glistening, inky black form stepped out in front of his path. It was tall, broad shouldered and dangerous. Its body was covered with spikes and extensions, its muzzle full of fangs, horns rising from its head and wings folded behind its back. The creature's gleaming yellow eyes turned, sizing Drei up.

The reaction of the weapon specialist was almost comical: he stopped running all of a sudden and almost fell directly in the arms of the mysterious dark monster; his mouth hanged open, as if his jaw had been broken, and strange, broken gurgles emerged from the depths of his throat; the creature in front of his eyes was so weird, so wrong and so bizarre that his mind was having trouble even accepting its existence. "W-what... the fuck...?" he finally managed to murmur, unable to move a single muscle.

Deep inside the rubbery shell, Rane was almost amused. The fact that such a big, strong jock had been reduced to such a quivering shell was surprising. He felt his instincts calling out to him; consume... consume... It would have been so easy to devour his prey, to get the nutrients he wanted, but something was holding him back. Rane held the quivering jock in his arms, looking at the perfect physical specimen. From his muscles to his hair, even the way his nose was shaped, it had been something Rane had always desired.

A shot of hormones raced through the symbiont, coloring his perceptions, tempering the drive to consume and pushing it ever more closer to something else - convert. Rane brought his muzzle down, tilting his dragon head as it came around Drei's lips. The jock's mouth suddenly flooded with black syrup, coating his teeth and tongue and pouring down his throat before it began wriggling out past his lips on its own.

Drei's eyes went wide and bloodshot for the extreme surprise. He tried to push the strange monster away, but his hands couldn't get a good grip on his smooth, rubbery body; in the extreme shock he was experiencing, he didn't even realized that the alien slime dragon was effectively french kissing him. The only thing he could feel was the weird, warm goo trickling down his throat and down into his stomach, leaving a pungent aftertaste of latex on his tongue and palate. Helpless and feeling progressively weak, Drei relaxed against the creature, his eyes open but blind, his limbs twerking and trembling slightly as if he was experiencing a mild epileptic seizure.

The goo spread over his face, covering his nose and chin, creeping down past his ears and eyes, wrapping around his head. It plunged into his ears and nostrils, adjusting as it went. The learning curve was much easier the second time around, but splitting from being one entity into two was always taxing. Rane felt somewhat like he was in two places at once, as if he was experiencing what Drei was remotely. Drei, however, felt a warm numb feeling in his brain as his memories were starting to get accessed. The creature peeled back the layers between the present and the past, moving past the academy days, looking for primal symbols of strength and voracity... and what it started to uncover was the mental depiction of a specific woodland animal.

The black rubbery goo spread down Drei's neck and across his shoulders, sizzling and eating up the uniform as it went. Each syrupy layer covering his pectorals was thicker than the last, bulking them up. His shoulders seemed broader and thicker as well as it worked. The coating over his head was far from finished as well, shifting and manipulating itself. Two nubs began building up on the top of Drei's head, triangular fins of glistening black. His skull seemed to grow a bit boxier, but the mass began shifting his face as well.

Drei could feel his jaw elongating, his teeth fattening, even his nose widening. A short proto muzzle was pushing out from his face and into the alien kiss. The jock's body began to conform to the otherworldly embrace, to reply more actively to the monstrous gesture of affection; his brain was not only getting coated with the alien substance, but with a hazy mist of dull pleasure. He didn't understand what was happening to him, but it felt just... good. And right. The dragon was making him stronger, faster, better, and why should he fight such a selfless act of kindness? As his clothes dissolved, feeding the goo that was enveloping his body, his arms wrapped around the body of the slimy reptile, his tongue reciprocating the kiss with greed and hunger.

"You want me, don't you Drei?" The dragon hissed gently, pressing into the jock, grinding their groins together. Those glowing yellow eyes drilled into Drei's head, reaching into his consciousness, massaging and finessing his resolve before dismantling it piece by piece. Rane practically purred with anticipation, reaching down to caress and rub the jock's hips. The dragon's claws sliced through the pants, allowing them to fall to the floor before they were absorbed. The spreading goo spiraled around Drei's arms, caressing and hugging the muscles. Drei's eyes, covered by a thin film of blackness, still managed to stare back at the dragon, subconsciously recognizing the voice of his former comrade, and a trickle of black drool dripped from the corner of his evolving mouth.

"Y-yeah..." the changing jock murmured dreamily, his naked lower body twitching wildly like a fish out of water; the amount of pleasure that he was feeling was almost wrong, as if his body wasn't made for such a sensation... But that, at least, was going to change soon. "I want to be one with you...."

Rane grinned at that with his sinister fangs, reaching a ribbed, veined and somewhat webbed dragon hand for Drei. The clawed fingers wrapped around the tactical officer's sensitive fleshy member, squeezing and rubbing it. As it firmed, the black goo began spreading from Rane's palm, coating Drei's meat. The black goo spread readily, squeezing and massaging the jock's member - but it was doing more than that. Drei felt an incredible pressure building as his cock surged longer and thicker. Even its shape was shifting, becoming tapered.

"Mmmgh..." Drei growled, his voice deeper and rougher. Down his throat, the slime was taking care of that, changing even his vocal cords. Just like it had done with Rane, the slime was converting the jock to the perfect form it had extracted from his mind; as Drei's fingers contracted arrythmically while being covered by the goo, his nails were warped beyond recognition, honing and strengthening into curved, deadly onyx black claws.

Like a complex web, the spreading polymer knit its way together, connecting the goo covering his groin with the slime dripping down his abs. It closed around his torso, a thick rubbery nub curving out and up from above the cheeks of his naked ass. Drei, who was becoming progressively bestial and animalistic during the change in order to simplify the merging between the two minds, let out a series of grunts and noises; the only thing that mattered to him in that moment was for the river of pleasure to keep flowing. His arms, now black and burly, squeezed the slime dragon a bit harder as their kiss became deeper and deeper; his tongue, now elastic and longer, coated the inside of Rane's mouth with its gooey, sensuous saliva, caressing the pointed teeth and the hard palate before resuming a complex and lusty dance with its thirsty twin.

Rane felt such power bonding with his former shipmate. While they didn't share every thought and memory, they each got glimpses and sensations. Still, there was enough of Rane left to crave a different dynamic than before. He grabbed the rubbery bear looking jock and turned him around, forcing him against the wall. In the limited light of the hall, Rane's pointed, tapered, ribbed dragon cock looked like some kind of weapon - a weapon he plunged into Drei's slick black ass. The dragon cock nearly vibrated as it entered its new tight home and in moments Rane was thrusting back and forth eagerly.

The newly born symbiont, that was now finishing the merging process in order to create a powerful ursine creature, cried in pain and pleasure as his virgin ass was penetrated. Inside his body, the slime was filling the prostate, making the sensitive organ dilate and expand. Pressed against the wall, the slimy bear still had enough space to grab his slick cock with a hand-paw and began to jack off; after no more than five seconds, he was rewarded by the first droplets of black, shiny precum.

"I've wanted this for so long... Now we are one..." Rane growled, licking the back of the black bear's neck, "But there's one that isn't yet with us." Drei murred, his body nothing more than a receptacle for pleasure and hunger.

"Yeah... The captain..." he managed to growl after a while. "We... must... convert..."

"And we will convert..." Rane growled happily. Drei produced a dumb and large grin, showing his pointed fangs, and his tapered dick sprayed a small geyser of pure dark slime over the gooey fur of his chest.

"Gooooooood..." he murmured, both from the afterglow of the orgasm and the notion that soon Eric would have joined the rank of their species.

**** The flashing indicator for the heat signature pulsed a few more times before fading out entirely. Brown eyes scrutinized the change on the status screen from behind silver framed rectangular glasses. The bridge lighting showed off the lighter highlights in his dishwater blond hair. Like the rest of his small crew, Eric was younger than most officers in ARC, but in his case it had come with his high proficiency at the academy. He had passed every test years early. It had only been his age and lack of experience that had landed him in such a remote region on such a small ship, but now that lack of experience was looking like it was going to get him killed.

Eric turned his chair and slid it across the track over to the tactical station. His fingers flew across the board, setting plans in motion. Every emergency bulkhead on the ship started slamming shut, sealing itself against whatever force had cost Eric two of his crew. Fearing that was not enough, Eric began siphoning off the atmosphere from alternating sections of the ship. If anything tried to breach containment, they would get quite a surprise when the pressures tried to equalize.

"Computer, emergency release from orbit. Plot course for relay Gamma Gem Two. When we have cleared the gravity well, launch the first record buoy." Eric ordered. Two interlocking spinning circles on the screen oscillated before a computer tone indicated the orders had been accepted and were being complied with.

A heavy shuddering ripped through the bridge, shaking the deck plating and rattling the captain's chair. He turned, looking toward the hatch to the bridge. Someone had bypassed a bulkhead in an adjoining section, the air decompressing into the vacuumed corridor. After a moment there was an even stronger shudder. Eric reached down under his chair, swiping his finger over a reader before opening a panel. He pulled out a pulse pistol and prime it.

Eric swallowed slowly. The only time he had ever fired a weapon had been during proficiency tests at the academy - but whatever was coming for him had killed Rane and Drei. There was no excuse, no escape. The captain would go down with his ship and avenge his comrades. Eric rose from his chair and lifted the pistol for the door, steadying his breath. The entire bridge shook as if held in the grips of an earthquake with each bypassed hatch, but a terrible realization began spreading through the captain's mind... there had been no alarms.

From the point that Rane's com went silent all the way through the explosive decompression, there were no alarms. The bulkheads weren't being forced open, someone was utilizing the ship's security codes. Eric briefly wondered if it was his crew coming to update him on how it was some terrible misunderstanding, that the coms and the internal sensors were down - but no human could handle that many successive decompressions. Whatever was coming had found a way to draw the codes out of Eric's crew.

The captain's fingers tensed on the weapon, his eyes darting back and forth between the trigger and the power indicator before looking at the door. The last shudder rolling through the bridge was the strongest and he could hear the hatch down the hall outside rumbling open. Whatever was coming for him was here. Eric supposed it was just like all the old holo-vids he'd watched growing up. They never saw the monster until the last second. Was that what he was destined for? One fleeting glimpse and then a grisly death? Part of Eric wanted to set the ship to self destruct, to ensure that whatever it was wouldn't escape, but if the ship was destroyed before it left the star system their story would never get out there.

"Computer! Begin full documentation of events, live stream to the buoy until the moment of launch!" Eric commanded, realizing that the fleeting glimpse he was about to get would be the only chance to protect anyone else from what was coming.

An ear shattering noise threatened to cover the last few syllables of the captain's order, and a big dent appeared in the steel door that was also the only entrance to the control room. Something had just slammed into the metal with enough strength to deform it... And judging from the damage, the door wasn't going to provide that much of a challenge for whatever creature was on the other side.

Eric backed up slowly, his heart racing. He tried to temper himself, to remember his training... but his success had depended on good academic scores. He knew all the right answers to the test questions, but there hadn't been a test for an invader that boarded with no ship, left no trace on the sensors, and left none of his crew. Eric tried to debate his options. There was still a slim chance for survival. The escape pods were offline, but the orbital surveyor was still intact. It would have to be his next destination, a hiding spot while the ship was decontaminated.

As the young captain was busy trying to weigh his escape routes, the steel door was torn from its hinges as if it had been nothing more than a wet tissue, and landed on the floor in a cacophony of agonizing screeches. On the other side of the threshold, a huge, muscled creature was staring at Eric with gleaming yellow eyes; it looked like a bear standing on his hind paws, and covered from head to toes in black, drippy, slimy fur. And yet, there was something different that differentiated that being from an actual bear, something inherently wrong in its structure and posture and in the wicked, malicious intelligence that burned behind its irises. The bear-thing growled, in a guttural way that made it almost sound contented, and took a first step into the bridge.

Eric looked at the beast with horror, shocked that something so alien could be in front of him... but to his dismay, another beast moved up behind the bear. It was glistening like rubbery leather, its shape far more reminiscent of a dragon but with the same gleaming yellow eyes. Eric looked at both of the creatures before he opened fire. Neon pink energy arched through the air and impacted the bear's shoulder. The captain fired again and again, but the blasts were diffused before cutting too deep into the beast. He fired at the dragon next, but the impact was negligible. It was as if his weapon did nothing.

The two creatures didn't seem perturbed at all by the fact that the young human had shot at them repeatedly with his weapon: they just advanced into the room, walking slowly in a deliberate way, towering over the scrawny captain. The grizzly monster just swatted with its massive paw through the air and sent the useless gun to impact against a computer screen, that exploded in a sizzle and a small shower of sparks; then he simply stared down at the cornered Eric, his fangs displayed in a big, predatory grin.

The captain grimaced, disarmed and cornered. His eyes darted around at his two adversaries before he faked right, then darted left. He bounded up onto one of the chairs, leapt onto a console and dropped down behind the dragon, running out of the bridge.

The two creatures, however, were more resourceful and dangerous than he would've ever imagined. The dragon moved to capture its prey before it got away, but its conventional speed wasn't fast enough. The dragon swiped a paw after the human and tendrils shot out from its fingertips, surging outward with incredible speed. The lines of goo wrapped around Eric's legs, binding them together. The captain's feet were pulled out from under him and he slammed to the floor.

Panting and aching, the captain looked back, gasping as he saw the tendrils merging into a gooey mass around his legs, stretching back almost five feet behind him. He thrashed his legs and whipped around the rubbery tether that was merging into a sleeve around his lower extremities.

The thundering footsteps of the bearish monster came closer and closer to the captain, and its black paws came down to grab the body of the young helpless man... although, not to maul or crush him: the creature simply carried him back into the larger room, a firm but almost gentle ride. The bear even took some time to caress Eric's cheek, a gesture that looked completely out of place considering how big, burly and ferocious the being appeared. With the utmost care, the bear placed Eric on the floor in front of the dragon and took half of a step back, his grin still on his muzzle.

With the movement, the rubbery bindings had detached from the Dragon's paw, but Eric was still immobilized. He looked down at the black tapered tube around his legs, trailing off near his groin and he thought back to a painting he had seen back on Earth, a painting of a desert creature from stories and myths - a part snake, part human called a naga. He pushed the thought from his mind and reached down to see if he could tear the goo from his body.

The goo, however, seemed to have plans of its own: it focused on the mental image that had appeared with perfect clarity into its newest victim's mind, and started basing the bonding process on it. Its fluids disintegrated Eric's clothes and a molecular level and soaked into his skin, dulling the pain receptors in order for him to feel less of a discomfort. The symbiont was an alien creature from a forgotten planet, sure, but that didn't mind it didn't care about the well-being of its preys.

Eric's heart rate slowed as his feet became numb, but more than that the impact from falling ebbed as well. He looked at the goo and tugged and prodded it, but he couldn't get it to detach. It felt like it was anchored into his skin. It was only then that a terrible, wondrous thought crossed his mind. The captain slowly looked up at the two alien beasts before him, the same number as his missing crew.

"It couldn't be..." he whispered softly.

The bear crouched down and, as a reply of sorts, took the silver framed glasses from Eric's face. "Don't worry," the monster grumbled, in a distorted tone that nonetheless was similar enough to that of his former weapon specialist Drei. "You won't need these anymore, just wait..." he said, before crushing them in his mighty fist. Eric inhaled sharply at that, instinctively because of the glasses, but more so because his wild theory had been proven correct.

"Drei?" Eric whispered, "Rane? What... What happened to you? What did this?" Eric asked. Rane moved forward and put a clawed hand on Drei's shoulder.

"You need to convert, to regain your strength..." Rane murmured, having already converted himself.

"It's the awesomest thing ever, Eric..." Drei added, one of his paws caressing the side of the dragon's muzzle, his eyes filled with need and desire. "Everything is so clear, so vivid..."

"It doesn't hurt? What is it?" Eric whispered softly. Rane moved and crouched down, coming eye to eye with his former captain. The yellow eyes almost seemed to glitter and Eric's posture went very relaxed.

"You're tired of being pent up on a ship in the middle of nowhere, you want something more, you want to be with us, Eric." Rane whispered.

"I'm... tired of being...pent up..." Eric whispered back, his eyes glazed over. Rane smiled with satisfaction at that.

"Rane is right, captain..." Drei's long, hungry tongue emerged from his black lips and licked the contours of Eric's right ear. "We can be free, bound by no one. Stronger and better than you could've ever imagined... Just let it happen, you won't regret it."

"Just let it happen..." Eric murmured back, feeling an odd contentment to have surrendered his will. The bear nodded, his paw once again caressing the cheek of his captain.

"Yeah, let it happen. It feels so good... Let me show you..." Drei bent over, and his muzzle brushed against Eric's lips before the bear-thing's mouth turned that into a full blown kiss. His tongue gently but firmly pushed against the barrier of the human's lips, trying to find a way in, to take the pleasure to the next level. The tongue found some resistance, but soon Eric failed and the goo had full access to the last human's body and mind, ripe for the taking.

It didn't take long for the alien symbiont to destroy the last resistances in Eric's brain; after that, taking the merging process to its natural conclusion was a matter of mere minutes. The only thought that remained for the symbiont was how to best match the mental image its host had produced. A dragon and bear were one thing, but how did it bond to a form that pictured itself as half human? While the fledgling creature started to attain its own individuality, Eric was still lost in a sea of bliss, making out with his former tactical officer, reveling in how erotic it was to kiss another male, to kiss an alien, to give up himself to this new existence.

After he was sure the bonding process was almost complete, Drei broke the kiss and looked at the new, beautiful creature in front of his eyes. Flashes of thoughts and memories coming from Eric filled his mind, and a smile appeared on his ursine muzzle as his paws were busy exploring the slick serpentine body of the former captain, until they found what they had been looking for and the grin intensified. "Mmmh... Look at what we have here..." Drei almost purred as his sausage-like fingers caressed a brand new slit that had appeared where Eric's groin once was. "I wonder what's inside!"

"What are y-y-y-" Eric stammered before his eyes slipped shut. An intense, incredible tingling filled his lap. Somewhere nestled deep inside he could feel his balls throbbing, but the stimulation they sent out went to not one but two destinations. The slit expelled a syrupy black substance before two tapered, pointed tips began emerging. Eric fell onto his back on the floor, gasping as his new hemipenis emerged into the air. Drei's irises shone, the yellow in his eyes becoming deeper and more intense.

"Mmh... Who knew Mister Stuck Up was hiding such wonders?" the bear murmured. "Well, if you don't mind, I can't wait to see how they taste..." the massive symbiont switched position, his greedy muzzle engulfing one of the two hemipenises and giving it a long, thorough massage with his drippy, elastic tongue.

From his vantage point, Rane began to lick his lips before the dragon dropped down onto all fours and leaned in. Soon both tongues were slurping at the captain's dual members. Eric gasped sharply, gripping at the floor grating, his eyes so wide he practically couldn't see. His fingernails throbbed and began to darken, growing out longer, curving into claws as the pigment in his eyes began to shift, turning from brown to green and then yellow. His pale skin took on a strange hue as well as the symbiont began bonding with his blood. Red cells turned black, pale flesh turned grey and Eric's blond hair began to bleach out, turning silver.

Not content with just sucking the reptilian dick, Drei's hand-paws were still busy exploring the smooth, rubbery skin of the former captain; it didn't take him long to find another tight slit, just underneath the one that had produced such wonderful toys. The bear stopped slurping down black precum and exchanged a glance with Rane. "Our new friend is full of surprises," he said, before teasing the pucker with the tip of one of his claws. "Mmmh, so nice and warm..."

"Rane, Drei, I... need you sssso much..." Eric panted sharply, his black tongue extending, his teeth sharpening into fangs. A lattice of black webbing began sliding up his torso, anchoring into his skin, leaving portions exposed like flesh scales. It left Eric far more vulnerable than the others, but at the same time he still stood out like a captain. The lattice looped over his shoulders and spiraled down his arms, almost like a hexagonal fish net of rubber coating over grey skin. Eric's ears stretched to points and his nose flattened somewhat, his features shifting just as Drei and Rane's had beneath their black shells... but his was open for all to see.

"And we need you, Eric," the bear replied, his finger burying itself deeper and deeper inside his friend's anus, wiggling around in order to find the right spot. "We are made to be together... That's what my symbiont tells me. It's like... being part of the same creature."

Eric tried to respond, but as the bear's clawed finger found his adjusted prostate, he tipped his head back, hissed and unleashed two streams of tacky, black sperm from his two shafts. His long diamond printed black tail flopped against the floor as he came, moaning deeply. Rane inhaled sharply, closing his eyes, smelling a brand new scent in the air - the scent of a very virile new member of their species completing his unison with them.

A flash rippled out through their minds, more images flooding their perceptions. The academy, primary school, Earth, the colonies, slip space, the neutron star, a dying hot world full of creeping black goo. The three were becoming one, and their purpose was clear - consume or convert, but converting had been a glorious amount of fun so far.

"What do you think, Eric?" Drei asked, pulling his finger out of his butt hole. "Do you want to become one physically, too?" he added in a malicious tone.

"What do you mean?" Eric asked, panting softly, reaching up to caress Drei's massive bear head. The mammal-like symbiont glanced at Rane.

"Wanna do the honor? Or would you prefer a second tour inside the bear's den?" he growled playfully.

"That sounds great for round three, but for now..." Eric trailed off, his tail wrapping around Drei. The bear found himself pulled into the naga's clutches and Eric began humping agaist his former protector, three black clad cocks slapping against one another. A clawed finger reached out and scratched Rane's chin before drawing him in for a close kiss. The three disparate spirits had at last found a unanimity together. They were one; one crew, one family, one being... and one pile of sexual pleasure. The boundaries between their forms even seemed to shift as they cuddled. The cohesion of their symbionts shifted, black goo from one officer flowing into the next and back again.

The sounds of the rubbery flesh rubbing together, shifting between liquid and solid, the three beings were content and whole. They knew a peace that they never could have attained before. The Anemoi had become something more than an occupation to them. It had been the birthing ground of a new life. The stars drifted gently by outside as the ship continued on its course, though on one small screen two spinning circles indicated that a task had been completed.

As the ship slipped out of the gravity well of the neutron star, a small panel on its underside opened up. There was a flash of light before an ovoid slate grey pod was ejected. The pod arched down through the endless sea of space, summoning its energies. Veins of bright blue light illuminated around its equator and several meridians before it disappeared in a brilliant aurora of energy. The Anemoi's record buoy had flung itself back towards civilization, carrying with it the record of the strange intruder and the ultimate fate of the ship's crew.