FSE

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Arguing with an AI always proved to be a futile endeavor. Nura had programmed the damn thing. Of course she had the stubbornness of a mule and the temper of a drunkard. At that time, an AI with a bit of personality seemed just the thing to distract Nura from the boredom of traveling the universe all by himself, surrounded by nothing but dull, lifeless computers. She would have been his consort, his inspiration.

In the end, she turned out to be nothing more than a patronizing bitch whose sole purpose to exist was to remind Nura just how incompetent humans were.

"So you're calling me forgetful when I specifically designed you to remember the things that I don't. Cut me some slack, will you?"

Nura lied down flat on his back, arms tucked behind his head, staring at the ceiling while waiting for her response.

"One of the things you don't remember is that you specifically instructed me not to use your funds to recharge the Ryntherian crystals."

Naturally. Blaming the human for his episode of forgetfulness when she had more common sense than half the sapient species discovered.

"Specifically? How specific was I?"

"Enough to threaten to replace me."

"When do I not threaten to replace you? It's the sensible thing to do. Can't even use your darn logic..." he licked his lips and switched to the side, presenting his back to Nysha to signal her that this discussion was over.

"Nor can you. What's the logic behind ingesting dangerous amounts of alcohol?"

By all the gods, had there ever been a more overbearing and irritating creature than Nysha? She liked to take an infinite number of shapes, all of them translucent, ethereal. This time, she assumed the shape of a moth, flying around the room, taunting Nura to follow her erratic flight pattern with the corner of an eye.

"For one, it makes me feel good. Secondly, it proves what a cunt of a Second you are on this ship. Not charging the Ryntherian crystals. Pfah, as if I'm not fucking rich already."

"You called yourself a stingy bastard more than once, so is it any wonder you cling onto every single credit?"

Her suave voice filled Nura's mind, a familiar presence that had been in Nura's head for longer than he cared to remember. It seemed convenient, to share a neural link with Nysha. At least he didn't have to open his damned mouth to speak. That was the last thing Nura wanted to do; give Nysha the pleasure of hearing his voice.

"Wait wait wait," Nura said, scrunching his eyebrows, "a stingy bastard? Is that really what I think of myself?"

"With your money constantly drained by the establishments you visit and the seed you spend inside your mamitas, is there any wonder you feel morose after a night of heavy drinking?"

Nura chuckled. "Drinking. Aha. One of the infinite things a ghost like you will never get to experience."

That forced Nysha to shift into her human self, a pristine hologram of a young woman in her mid twenties, with auburn hair, piercing brown eyes, voluptuous breasts and shapely thighs. Too bad she kept those beautiful features covered in tight dark leather pants and a loose brown blouse that revealed just enough of her two ripe hills to make Nura smirk.

"You fucking tease."

"That almost hurt my nonexistent feelings," she said, sitting on the side of the bed, cross legged, her gaze hovering over Nura's baggy shorts and bare, muscular chest. "Now go jack off and groom yourself."

Nura lifted a finger to wipe away her budding enthusiasm. "First, I'm too pissed off to get hard. Secondly," he added another finger, "I would find a way to get hard if this damn piece of junk moved any faster than Hyper 5. What's the point of jacking off hours before we even get into Greenade's galaxy?"

"Well, I'd get to see a pleasant sight for once."

"My own reflection is good enough, thank you very much. Now fuck off my bed."

Nura's kick went through her, reminding him of the futility of wasting his energy on Nysha. She had feelings. Hell, he had even programmed her to get horny, if only to notice her blush every time she spied on him while he jerked off. She had wits, a hypothetical brain the size of a planet, and everything else Nysha pretended she lacked.

That used to excite Nura in the past. Now, her personality simply annoyed him. Far too balanced between mindfulness and excess. Almost as perfect as him, thus making Nysha increasingly bolder in her approach of the one she used to call Creator, then master, before resorting to insults addressed to his drinking habits.

"Make yourself useful. Gimme a glimpse of Greenade again. Display other relevant data we have on it as well."

The room darkened a little as Greenade burst into existence, a lush green planet with just the right temperatures, soil and atmosphere composition, and a plethora of valuable minerals and metals that the Venridian Confederation loved to extract. Nura didn't see data; he only glimpsed a new space ship, a class A explorer equipped with the latest tech and a cyborg to tend to the ship--and occasionally, to his own physical needs--instead of a ghost.

"Greenade." Nysha's voice made Nura shudder back to his senses. "That's mediocre at best."

"Fuck you. I'm the explorer here. I get to pick the names, you get to write the blatantly exaggerated notes on how fucking awesome every discovery of ours is." Nura reached into his pocket for the multidimensional storage unit, hurled it into the air, and watched the tiny metallic orb hover a foot above him, waiting for the command.

"Hot pocket."

The desired item materialized out of thin air, falling onto his lap, still hot and fresh after all this time. Nura grabbed it, wincing as his fingers adjusted to its temperature, and took a bite.

"It's the bomb," he mumbled with his mouth full. "You should learn from my greatness Nysha. Would make you less of an artificial bitch and more of a..." he flicked his wrist when the word eluded him, "whatever the fuck you pretend you are these days."

"Don't even start. Between your precarious naming skills and far too numerous bad habits, I'm not even sure you are the superior life form on this shuttle anymore."

"Fuck you."

"That's why you want a cyborg version of me, eh?" She winked at him before shifting into a cat, jumping across the bed, on top of the desk where Nura's trophies, diplomas, and medals encased in lavish, glowing crystals were stored.

"Fuck a cat? Are you nuts? Way too small."

She laughed within his mind, a pleasant song that energized him enough to roll onto his butt and turn around to face her.

"You can't afford a shapeshifting cyborg. You would have, if you didn't fuck all those girls silly."

Nysha turned into a puma, dropping onto her haunches and lifting a paw to lick like a veritable feline, her amber eyes fixated on Nura.

"Humans, too. Always humans. The cunt of furred and scaly species not good enough for you?"

"I see enough furred and scaly cunts to last me for a lifetime while you turn into all these mindless beasts. You know what? I'll put you into a shapeshifting robot, just to prove a point."

"To yourself, or to me?"

"To fucking everyone," Nura said, taking another bite from his hot pocket and pointing at his little altar. "See those? I didn't have an army of minions to do the exploring for me while I stayed up in my bed, stroking my cock all day long while watching pornographic material of questionable quality. No. I did this. Me. I made those discoveries."

He slapped his bare chest for emphasis. "I went down there to place the tracking beacons for the big boys to arrive. I had to do everything on my own, with a shuttle that breaks down more often than any space ship is allowed to and a Second in command who likes to become a cat, lick her paws and pounce around."

"Mrr, not only the paws." Nysha jumped down from the desk, shifted into a panther and walked through Nura, making him flinch, like he always did when that blasted ghost of an AI did that.

He turned around, his mouth open to utter the first word of the day, when Nysha's falling form sealed his lips. She raised a hind paw, swinging her tail out of the way to give Nura a good look of her sex before her tongue traversed along its length.

"Your pulse increases," Nysha purred within his mind. "Do the silken lips of a panther entice you?"

"The only thing that gets remotely close to that is shoving my foot up that elegant arse of yours."

Nysha stopped her lewd ministrations, growling at him lustfully before bringing a hind paw over to her muzzle, her toes spread as her tongue slid through them with slow, methodical strokes.

Nura shook his head, holding his jaws tight against one another to bite back his exasperated chuckle. "Talk about all of the redundant features I gave you. Should of made you some stiff wretch that talks like a robot and acts like a robot."

Nysha took that cue to shift into a terminator like that ancient model from an even older movie. "Must eradicate the resistance."

She tried her best to impersonate that actor's voice, whatever he was called, but didn't have the module for austrian accent enable, so it fell flat. It still got a chuckle out of Nura, who tossed his hot pocket at her.

"Store," Nysha said with her usual voice, assuming her human form. The multidimensional storage unit shot towards the morsel, absorbing it faster than the eye could blink.

"Quick thinker."

Nysha scoffed. "I'm in your head, you bloody idiot, and a hot pocket lying on the floor today is going to be the thing you slip on and break your neck tomorrow."

Freaking morbid.

"So, if you're in my head, does that mean you can feel my boner as a female?" Nura countered.

A sigh escaped her before she returned to her moth form, flying around the room, a tiny speckle of azure light. "Now we're literally wasting time."

"Why? You're embarrassed?"

"I am so many things that your pitiful human mind cannot even begin to process all that data."

"Or maybe you're just a coward who dodges a perfectly reasonable question."

Nysha returned to her human self in front of Nura's bed, her expression blank, unreadable. "I'm a female AI. I can't feel your boner, but I can gather enough statistical data from a plethora of males of all catalogued species to formulate an eloquent opinion on how a boner feels."

Nura kicked the sheets, startling Nysha in the process, who turned into a sparrow to dodge the physical item that would have totally hit her ethereal outline. "Don't be stiff and boring. Humor me. Do something nice for me every now and then. I don't get enough love on this ship."

Within his mind, Nura's voice sounded overly dramatic. Too bad it didn't work on Nysha anymore. Years spent together allowed her to pick up his human habits, study them, and understand them better than he did at times.

"You get enough love. From yourself," Nysha added, vanishing from his room.

Fuck. That did it. Nura couldn't help but grin for a brief moment before a mighty groan escaped from the depths of his throat. Recharged Rentharyan crystals or not, the ship still advanced upon Greenade at Hyper 5 speed. That meant getting out of bed now was as good a time as any.

Nura rolled out of his bed, groaning and stretching his arms, thick muscles rippling across his frame. A perfect body, and not even a second spent exercising. Bless those implants and nanobots that allowed him to be perfect without even trying.

"Did I truly manage to upset a soulless being?" Nura said, straightening his back and tilting his head left and right to alleviate the stiffness.

"No, you just silenced the voice within your head for a moment. That makes you either crazy or a worthy candidate to be killed in the most gruesome of ways for 65.3% of the less evolved species to whom you are possessed by a malevolent entity."

"Sweet. I always wanted to be special in some sort of way."

Nysha clicked her tongue within his mind. "Special, yes. Because some metallic badges and papers attest your capabilities."

"The Venridian Confederation certainly believes that. There's only a handful of trophies awarded for every space explorer out there, and I happen to grab one every year. I'm that skilled."

The thought alone sent a warm shudder through Nura's spine. Goosebumps formed along his arms as his eyes fell on his little altar, meant to provide Nura with a constant motivational boost to strive for greatness.

The diploma in the corner was signed by an Azure Lieutenant, one of highest ranks of...whatever the fuck he was. Nura couldn't remember half the species of those aliens, least their names. He shook hands, thanked them profoundly, held some cliche speech that Nysha wrote for him, and left half deaf from the roars and applauses of the crowd. Finding home planets for a bunch of refugees was what Nura loved doing, especially when social recognition and monetary rewards were involved.

A fleeting glance at a platinum medal inlaid with sapphires that formed an intricate rune got his blood boiling. The trophy in the corner, made of solid gold, showed a mini version of him on top of the planet he discovered for those aliens with crazy antennae whose name eluded Nura. Diplomas, other lavish statuettes and medals--they all served to make Nura's fists clench around fistfuls of baggy trousers, his member stirring from the raw power these awards oozed.

"How long until we're out of Hyperspace?"

"One hour and fifty three minutes," Nysha said. "I'm already prepping your suit as we speak."

"Wouldn't have expected any less from somebody who can complete a million tasks at the same time."

"Does watching you masturbate to your glorious reflection count amongst them?"

Nura shrugged to feign indifference, but a cold trickle rushed through his spine. "Only if you like what you see. Else you're just wasting your time."

"Time's not a concept that applies to me. I'm eternal." Her voice, suddenly sharp, certainly seemed convincing.

Until I sell this piece of useless tin and get a real ship. We'll see how eternal you are when the new owner sells you for a romp with a whore, Nura thought, shielding his thoughts from Nysha. The concept baffled him at first, to share a neural link with an AI and still have a private corner of your mind. In practice, it proved to be quite easy to handle.

"So, are you going to do it," Nysha asked, impatience oozing from her tone. Whether his habit of stroking one off frustrated or delighted her, Nura had no idea, and at this point, he didn't care enough to ask.

"Damn right. I'm rock hard and good to go."

So Nura liked to say, yet even the few steps required to leave his room proved to be quite demanding with a raging hard-on. He lessened his pace to a shuffle, whistling a mellow tune to himself, trying his hardest to remain nonchalant in spite of the obvious discomfort.

Luckily, that infuriatingly small bathroom was just around the corner. Once inside, Nura dropped his pants in an instant, allowing his boner to pop out, tight as stone and long enough to still elicit a gasp from Nysha, bless her embarrassment module.

"You like what you see?" Nura taunted, freeing his mind, giving her access to his most intimate thoughts. This way, his emotions flowed into her unbidden, lessening her coherence to the point of stutter.

"I'm...not even sure that's a reason to boast. Walking with an erect pole dangling between your leg hardly seems...appropriate."

"You continue talking about propriety while licking the cunt of whatever you turn into. I've an intimate date with myself."

Nysha reduced her presence to a smoldering spark within his mind, barely noticeable. She had seen enough of Nura jacking himself off to understand the importance of this one moment.

Or so Nura thought.

Just when he grabbed himself, the multidimensional storage unit soared out of the pocket of his pants, circling him like that one fly you couldn't swat even if you wanted.

"Oh, bollocks, where are my manners? Unload sequence: Ganarian dildo, Sharana penetrable, oilmouth lube, Nar--"

"STOP!" Nura shouted, the harsh sound raking at his throat, making him cough several times before he regained his voice. It came out hoarse, naturally, like it always did after days of silence. "What the fuck are you doing Nysha?"

"Nardagarian vulva. Unload bulk."

The multidimensional storage unit fizzled for a fleeting moment before the disgusting toys fell all over Nura. That Ganarian horsecock with a knot crashed onto his face, the Sharana panther penetrable vulva kissed his cock before it ended on the ground, and the lube and the other vulva dropped straight into the sink, their trajectory skewed.

Nura bit his lower lip to contain his frustration, stepping away from the sink. "Nysha," he said within his mind, "Clean up. Right now."

Her ghostly form appeared in front of him, translucent hands grabbing the dildo, all manner of cords coming from its other end as they surrounded her hips to form a veritable strap-on.

"They're microchipped and equipped with the latest technology. That means I can tap into them, make them hover, even do something like this." She flaunted her erect Ganarian cock, swaying her hips from side to side.

Seeing that synthetic piece of shit grow to full mast as veins beribboned its surface made Nura's stomach turn and his member to droop in an instant.

"Nysha," Nura hissed, thrusting a finger through her forehead, "make them go away. Now."

She stepped back, turning towards the sink to grab--or rather, direct--the Sharana panther penetrable towards her hands, turning it around.

"Even this tight little thing? Some say that even a drop of Sharana arousal that touches the human skin is enough to trigger an orgasm. Imagine how this one feels."

Nura looked upon the furred penetrable, the sleek, fine strands of fur obscuring the tight slit in the middle. It didn't excite him; on the contrary, it repulsed him, making his throat tighten to such extent that even swallowing felt like a chore.

"The best things are done by hand. You know how I roll. Now begone."

"Gah, you fucking wanker." Nysha rolled her eyes, commanded the multidimensional storage unit to seal her toys and makeshift cock, then stormed out of the bathroom to emphasize her frustration.

Her. It was all about her. Nevermind that her little show killed Nura's erection.

No amount of massaging around his sensitive head and kneading his flaccid shaft brought him to full mast after gazing upon Nysha's strap-on. It embedded within his mind, that huge throbbing cock, and his ministrations only served to leave him in that damnable state, half hard, trapped between heaven and hell.

Fuck my luck, Nura thought, thrusting his lean fingers into his ebony locks, scratching at his scalp idly as he began to pace back and forth along the short length of the too small bathroom. Time was of the essence, and a good fap took at least thirty minutes for a fulfilling experience and forty for an explosive one.

But how was Nura supposed to spill his frustrations when his damnable cock refused to get up? Touching himself proved just as successful at prodding a dead beast and tell it to wake up.

He stopped for a minute, looking down at his shorts, all wrapped up around his ankles. "Get the fuck off already," he said, stepping out of them and kicking them into the shower cabin, its door sliding open to receive them. Fucking devices. Couldn't even differentiate a pair of pants from a human being.

Nura stopped for a moment, his palms sliding over his face, a throaty groan raking its way through his throat. "Think of something good. Of some wet chick standing right in front of you."

As soon as he squeezed his eyes shut to envision the blonde beauty, Nysha's image overwrote it, her Ganarian cock swaying from side to side as she winked playfully at him.

Nura thrust his head back, his hands slapping against his muscular thighs, growling his frustration for a brief moment before he glimpsed his own reflection in the mirror.

A well sculpted man in his late twenties, with taut pecks, gaunt features, perfectly symmetrical nose, cheeks, and smooth, even eyebrows, dark as his piercing brown eyes. Nura turned right to leave the bathroom and forget this unpleasant experience, but the ripples running through his lean biceps urged him to freeze on the spot.

Warmth filled his muscles, soft and reassuring. Tingles crawled along his back, making his hairs stand up and goose bumps to form along his forearms. Suddenly, Nura felt empowered, trouble all but forgotten before the pulsing motion that urged his shaft to stand right up.

"Well, ain't you a pretty fuck." He tapped a finger at the mirror, focusing on the way his muscles shifted with pleasant, flowing movements.

Gosh, did he look good. Every bitch who begged for his cum said it, but Nura took that for empty praise meant to extract a hefty tip.

Until now.

By looking upon his naked body, Nura's breaths picked up. His cheeks started to redden from the heated blood filling them, and his member grew to full mast in the span of several throbs, bobbing up and down, the abrupt motion urging him to clench his jaws and grab himself in a steely grip.

"Ghah," Nura moaned, pulling his foreskin all the way back to reveal his bulged tip, biting his lower lip to suppress a blissful gasp. Why did his hand feel so good all of a sudden, and why couldn't he take his eyes off his reflection?

Because you're the last pretty thing you're going to see before a week spent on a planet filled with furred butts, cunts, and who knows what monstrous dicks the fucking fauna has, Nura thought. His free hand fell upon the edge of the sink, fingers curling inwards for leverage as he began running his wrist up and down along his eight inches member, squinting every now and then when pleasure rushed through his tight meat.

He didn't even glance at it. All Nura had eyes for were the small hills of his six pack, the shapely ridges formed between them, the weaving lines outlining his perfect shapes. The more he looked, the hotter his blood boiled, the harder his member became.

"Yeah, baby," Nura mumbled breathlessly, flexing his left arm, licking his lips at how every muscle played its part in forming that truly arousing image. He switched hands, filling his left with a cock so thick he could barely wrap his palm around while his right pointed forward, an stylish smirk emphasizing his wink.

"Well that girl has been on my miiind, all the time, sususudio, whoh oh!" His right hand came down in an arc to fall upon his erection while he brought his left arm behind his head to highlight his torso while he began thrusting his hips forward with slow, rocking motions.

"She don't even know my naaaame, yet I will fuck her all the same, susu-susudioooo, whoh oh!"

His voice faltered shortly afterwards, the tune still playing in his mind as he turned from side to side, flaunting his body in every way he could think of while he stroked himself harder and faster. Nura's teeth sank into his lower lip when his thrusts picked up, trying in vain to suppress the rush of utter delight seeping through his frame.

Just before the point of no return, Nura slapped the mirror with his free hand, pressing his forehead against it, and squeezing his eyes shut as he directed his member towards the sink.

"Almost....aaaalmost....hnghhhhhhhh!" His growl quickly dispersed into nothingness, the fiery lances of seed bursting out of his throbbing shaft so demanding and painfully blissful that his jaws clamped shut in an instant.

For a short, timeless moment, Nura's senses soared to the highest peak, Nysha all but forgotten to him, buried deep within the corner of his mind. For one who shared his mind with an AI, each orgasm felt truly liberating, those few precious second being the only time Nura had for himself.

As he began to taper off, Nura's breath returned to him, raspy and heavy. Beads of sweat formed upon his ruddy eyebrow and chest, its slickness highlighting his firm shapes.

"Whew! That was quite something," Nura said, stepping away from the sink and shuffling into the shower, the hot water starting to pelt his frame as soon as the sensors detected his presence. The shower cabin was barely tall enough to accommodate Nura, yet it had the perk of having a ceiling that emulated a stormy landscape.

"Give us some wind Nysha, and lower the fucking temperature. This shit is starting to feel as fake as you do."

She complied without a single word, smoothing out the flow of water all over the rectangular shape of the shower cabin for accuracy's sake.

"Add some shampoo and skin moisturizers, vitamins, whatever the fuck I need to look good."

"Forty five minutes left, and you're frolicking in the shower?" She sounded vaguely incredulous, taunting Nura.

"It's the last shower I take for days. Can't I enjoy myself?"

"Better hope the other two shuttles closing in on Greenade have equally adder brained captains."

Nura started rubbing the shampoo into his hair with great nonchalance, taking his sweet time. "Let me guess. One of them's a class D gatherer scouting for energy infused minerals on the outer rim of the galaxy, and the other is a cruise ship laden with fat fucks who are heading straight towards the planet with the crazy tribal Wolftaurs who can make you cum by simply getting into your mind and projecting all sorts of wonderful scenarios."

Nysha's silence never felt more satisfying. Whatever she thought of Nura paled in comparison to the vast research he had done on this galaxy and its potentially interesting planets. True, Nura had always had a hard time remembering names--like the one of the galaxy he found himself in--but his genius at discovering inhabitable planets had to be tarnished in some way.

"Actually, it's class C. Industrial ship, full drone and cyborg crew."

"What a waste. Sending a crew that costs more than a minor planet over to one. Give me some clean water to rinse."

Nura made sure to scrub every inch of his body clean before stepping out of the shower to grab a towel. The warm gusts of the drier on the left seeped the moisture from the skin and left it dry and uncomfortable. Fuck that junk.

After grabbing a pair of boxers from a nearby rack, Nura jumped into them and whistled at Nysha to bring over the multidimensional storage unit.

"Give us the Venridian suit, love."

"You're almost charming after jacking off. Almost. Execute command: unload Venridian suit."

It fell straight into Nura's waiting arms, a pair of tight pants and high collared shirt made of a dark, elastic fiber. Tiny, silvery threads ran over its surface, creating intricate webs that lacked any trace of symmetry.

Nura equipped the shirt first, smiling at how the tight fit brought out his muscular torso. The pants followed suit, their longer length allowing the material to glue to Nura's ankles and feet as well. Lastly, he arranged the collar of the shirt, sliding his fingers over it until it stuck to his neck.

"There. Have I done it right?"

Nysha urged the suit to tighten around Nura's body so hard he bent forward to cough his lungs out once she released him.

"What the...you fucking...."

"Blaming me for being a cheap bastard who still uses a Venridian suit instead of a Tarevanian alloy which fills both the role of input suit and exoskeleton? Sounds legit."

"Bitch!" Nura yelled, thumping his chest to ease the ache a little before straightening his back and taking a hesitant step forward out of the bathroom.

"This bitch just made sure the neural interface of your suit is attuned to your body. At least all you felt was a little pressure. In the past, the suits inserted a thousand microfibers into your--"

"Okay, fuck you, fuck you. I don't need to hear all that shit. Let's get to work."

Nysha appeared besides him in the form of a tigress as tall as his upright form, the cat obsessed maniac. She padded over at his side, emulating the squelch of bare pads upon metal within Nura's mind, fully knowing how much that sound irritated him.

"You and your animal forms. I wish you were a cyborg so that you could explore together with me and get raped by one of the indigenous species."

"It's not rape when I'm willing," she said, her ears flicking with perverse excitement. "Maybe you even give me a heat module."

"Fuck no. You would pee all around, mewl your heart out and be even more of a headache."

"That makes for a genuine and fulfilling experience spent along an animal that can touch, lick, and most importantly, feel."

"Feel. The only thing you'll feel is a raw ass from all the kicking I administer to it."

They took a turn left, entering a short corridor that ended with a broad door. Nysha shifted into her human self before it, pretending to type in the necessary code to open the door to the armory. The brief realization that Nysha owned all the codes to the ship while he couldn't even remember the name of the galaxy they just entered made Nura flinch at first. A shrug and a raised chin to flaunt a smug look restored his courage, as did the way he strode right through Nysha. She secretly hated that, even though her face betrayed no emotion.

As soon as he entered the armory and the lights turned on to reveal its contents, Nura paused. Stale air wafted out of it, laden with dust and a thousand acrid tints that forced him to slap a hand across his face.

"What the fuck? Did someone piss or take a shit in here?"

"Oh, the shipments you see? All of your doing."

Nura looked over the crammed room, blinking back his awe. It was a fucking mess. Piles upon piles of crates, fibers and pelts draping them, mounds of minerals, ores, metal scraps. Why would somebody even...

"That one night when you were drunk."

Nysha's sarcastic voice explained everything, apart from the sour smell of piss.

"They had ferals with them, and you know how those felines are. They like marking their turf."

"Wait--where or when did this happen?"

"Sharan'fara, one of the many colonies of the Sharana panthers."

Nura had no memory of it. Then again, Nura never remembered anything after a night of heavy drinking.

By looking over all that excess waste, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. The crystals, the numerous metal scraps, their nature.

"Yep, you wanted to become a merchant that night."

Nura shook his head, as if to dispel this terrible nightmare. "Get me my suit. I don't care how, just do it."

She unloaded it from the multidimensional storage unit. Breastplate, wrist guards, boots, legplates, shinguards, and all the rest of the stuff.

Nura began strapping the breastplate on, holding his breath to keep from gagging while Nysha manipulated the rest of the pieces and thrust them against Nura's body. He staggered from side to side, swaying dangerously close to falling while Nysha took hold of his suit bit by bit.

When everything was in place and glimmering dark metal engulfed Nura from neck to toes, he urged Nysha to erect a breathing bubble around his head to take in a deep breath of fresh air.

"You fucked me good Nysha. Had the suit stored in there all along and you...you...gah," he trailed off on his way out of the armory.

"Somebody has to take a hard look at their life and grow a conscience. I would, if I wasn't such a ghost."

Great moment for Nysha to have an existential crisis.

Nura reduced her voice to a faint buzz within his mind while he traversed the corridors of his shuttle. Short and numerous, each led into individual rooms that opened as far and wide as their purpose dictated. This time, Nura kept walking forward to the rear of the ship, until he reached the hatch that led to the deployment area. Once used as a cargo bay, Nura emptied it of all its redundant content and left it for what it was: A square shaped room lit by an eerie amber glow that emphasized the paint flaking off the rusty walls.

He sat on the ground, one arm rested on the ground for leverage while he used his left first to rest his chin upon.

"How long until we penetrate Greenade's atmosphere?"

"Twenty minutes I'd say. One minute left of Hyperspace."

"Just what I love to hear."

Nura's hand tightened into a fist as he mentally prepared for the drastic leap out of Hyperspace. For a shuttle like his, the process took quite the physical toll on Nura. Even after hundreds of leaps, he still sweated within his suit, and his heels kept sliding up and down along the floor while waiting.

Then, it hit him.

Although the ship's plasma bubble absorbed the whole brunt of the impact, Nura's stomach lurched, his heart lodging in his throat as his vision whirled for a brief moment. Coarse coughs clawed their way out of his tight chest as he collapsed onto his side, trying to take in heaving breaths while gagging in between.

"Who is the little bitch now?" Nysha's voice rang within his mind, speckled with a frail touch of concern.

"That auburn haired chick from the....you know...the one who choked on my cock, hrah, hrah." He took in deep, panting breaths while his nausea subsided, waiting for the icy thorns to leave his muscles.

"You humans insist on humiliating each other through the most degrading of means. Color me disgusted."

"Well, she fucking offered. Said she feasts on cum for breakfast."

"And you believe everything a whore looking to sell her wares says?"

"Don't you?"

Nysha appeared besides him, a glacial tiger formed of white light with azure stripes extending across her sides and back. She rested onto her haunches besides Nura, her tail swishing across the ground while she stared at him with cold, aquamarine eyes.

"You made me wary of humans. You filled me up with so many animal profiles I feel more like a beast than anything."

"Because why the fuck not? When I'll get you a shapeshifting cyborg body, it will be up to you to shift into the proper lifeform and communicate with the indigenous species."

Nysha cocked her head, lifting a forepaw halfway to her muzzle. "Nura, of all the catalogued feral species, only 11.18% show signs of sapience. Signs. Nothing more. The rest simply want to--"

"No, no, no," Nura said, wiggling an index finger, "Don't tell me you wouldn't like it a bit rough and intimate."

"Would you?"

Nura drew back at that, his mouth wide open, yet only a gasp escaping him.

Nysha used that as an opportunity to get onto all fours and tower above Nura, her muzzle inching closer to her face. "Would you mate with a being of the same species if you had a feral body?"

"You know what? Fuck this. It's becoming one of those discussions again, where I'm always in the spotlight and you're the creepy partner who shrugs off every question."

He shifted onto his feet, stretching his arms, then lounging forward to adjust to the flexibility of the exoskeleton. It engulfed his body seamlessly, the plates molding across his suit, connecting to it, making it the most durable and convenient way to explore a vast planet like Greenade.

"Partner?" Nysha inquired. "So I'm no longer a ghost in your head, given that I now have an identity?"

"You always had one. You just like pretending that you don't."

That softened Nysha enough to draw a mellow growl from her. Nura couldn't help it; every time he was about to visit a planet, knots formed within his stomach and tingles slithered through his muscles. And Nysha--she was a bitch, yes, but even a voice within your head started to gain quite the allure when you spent months and months alone, without anyone else to talk to.

"That's why I like switching to our very own shitty thrusters. The ship does rock like a drunken bitch every now and then due to faulty stabilizers, but I wouldn't mind dying due to a fuel leak caused by improper maintenance. Seeing you soften after a leap out of hyperspace is totally worth it."

Okay, that was rather morbid. Nura shuddered at the thought, the exoskeleton mirroring it, making it painfully visible to Nysha, who rolled on her back to paw at the air while loosening mirthful growls.

"Great. I'm a cowardly fuck and you're a cat that is rolling on the floor laughing. Aren't we the best team there is?"

"Mrrr, not yet, not until you get me a physical body that you can touch."

"The only thing I like touching is myself, but thanks for the offer." In spite of his impassive facade, Nura still chuckled to himself as he sat down in front of the hatch, leaning back as he crossed one leg over the other.

Nysha lied down on her belly besides him, still a glacial tiger or whatever the fuck she was, the toes of a forepaw stretched while she groomed them with her barbed tongue.

"Give me an outside view. I want to see it."

Sure enough, the planet filled his vision. It seemed so close now, that huge globe of green and blue and white smudges. If Nysha had a brainfart and urged the engine to jump into the wrong speed, they would melt into its atmosphere faster than Nura had time to blink.

"I should map you the route for the beacon placement."

That was one way to start a conversation with the purpose of getting closer to the man whose head she lived inside.

"Not necessary. I can do without cheating this time around."

"Do what? Get lost? Require aid? It only happened in about 73% of the cases where you refused my aid."

Nura tried his hardest to remain focused on Greenade and not give Nysha the satisfaction of his gaze darting to her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The dreams I'll give you will help with that."

Nura's arm swept through her, making Nysha snarl and leap away from him. Her aggression faded out instantly, but Nura's jaws remained stiff as ever as he pointed a condemning finger at her. "Try it. Breach my trust. I dare you."

Her head lowered in submission. After all, an animal like her was designed to obey its master. "Somebody is in a very good mood."

"I was, before you got to the part where I start to regret giving you a distinct personality."

Nysha scratched her ear with a hind paw, then began to nibble and lick at her flexing toes, feigning distraction. As if Nura would fall for that.

His eyes remained fixated on Greenade, no words being shared between the two while the shuttle pierced the atmosphere with a barely noticeable shudder. Nysha took care of everything: adjusting the peed, the strength of the plasma shields, stabilizers, whatever the fuck went into piloting this piece of junk. Once upon a time, Nura used to do that as well, before alien booze made him forgetful and his many medals got to his head.

After one more minute spent in utter silence, Nura pushed himself onto his feet, dusting his metallic hands to irritate Nysha more than anything. Her hackles bristled, and a low hiss followed.

"Let's get to work. Can't laze around all day and lick your filthy paws."

"Give it a few more minutes. The atmosphere of this planet is quite dense, but the lower you get, the higher the oxygen concentration."

"Is it breathable or not?"

"Barely." Nysha displayed a zoomed in image with a lush valley laden with murky swamps and thick vegetation. "The chemical composition of the air may hold the proper balance, but it's the vegetation that makes the air poisonous for a human being."

She proved her point by displaying the chemical elements produced by the vegetation, their concentration, along with a plethora of redundant information Nura couldn't care less about. Some aliens would call this planet their home, and he would get paid for placing some metallic rods around.

"If I die, you die. Never forget."

Nysha padded over to him, flaunting her version of a tiger's grin by half snarling, half growling. "I'm eternal, Nura. The point of being eternal is that you do not die."

"Same old, same old. Just pilot my suit so I don't have to do a freaking thing."

The ship lurched as it slowed down to a vertical hovering position. Nura's knees buckled for a moment, his heartbeats picking up as his gaze fell upon the hatch.

"Open sesame, dear. Don't keep us pent-up with suspense. And deactivate the plasma shields. It would be embarrassing to die seconds after leaving my ship."

"Done, and done," Nysha's voice rang within his mind as the hatch opened to allow light orange light to creep inside the shuttle.

"Oh, sunset. Ever the romantic."

"Actually, it's morning. Planet has 31 hour long days and nights, and the orange light is due to the atmospheric composition. You'll see once you step outside."

Nura shrugged and jumped down into the abyss waiting below, his throat tightening for the short span of the free fall. Luckily, Nysha assumed control of the suit right away, shifting him into a vertical, hovering position, arms tucked to the sides, feet slammed together.

"Are you sure you do not want me to map out a route for you?"

"Let me enjoy myself a little. I'm too good at this to need your help."

Nysha assumed the inconspicuous shape of an azure sparrow, barely visible to the naked eye, and shot straight towards the nearest peak. Nura followed after her, keeping the power of the suit's thrusters to its lowest so that they burned with an invisible light.

From thirty thousand feet above, Greenade sure looked imposing. Numerous mountain barriers meandered across the landscape sprawling below, their interior a rich green, their exterior splotched with wide patches of brown, the vegetation much scarcer for some reason.

"Mineral harvesting facilities and industrial shit on the outside, dwellings within the verdant valleys. This makes for quick and easy choices. Even the outline is pleasing," Nura observed. He zoomed in upon the vast jungles, biting his lower lip at the steam, fog, murk, whatever the fuck slithered through the dense canopies. That meant unbearable humidity and blood sucking insects for sure.

"Well, they will suck somebody else's blood while a girl sucks on my cock."

"Are you talking to me?" The little sparrow flying in front of him said.

"No, I'm talking to myself and thinking to you. There's a difference, right?"

He could almost feel Nysha's joy within his mind, or hear her mirthful chirps as she zipped forward. The bitch sure liked to see him in a good mood. It almost made Nura want to cuss her, just for the sake of it, but the onrush of excitement that flooded his senses put a stop to that. For once, he decided to work alongside her, not against her, and simply relish the beauty of a primordial landscape.

It all ended too quickly. When Nura landed upon the barren ice of the mountain top, his body quivered from head to toes, the shock of the landing making his senses tingle more intensely than a cunt shoved up in his face.

This planet was his. All of it. And he was free to do with it as he pleased.

"Give us one of those beacons, love," Nura said, stretching his arm to the side expectantly.

Nysha summoned a thin, silvery colored metallic rod from the multidimensional storage unit. Nura's fingers curled around its slick surface, the metal or whatever it was made of fighting back the extreme cold.

He walked forward towards the spot indicated by Nysha with a red cross, his greaves adjusting to the icy surface by protracting thin spikes from his soles. Once there, he shoved it into the ground, the rod melting both ice and rock around it as it embedded itself halfway through.

"One done, how many more to go?"

"At least seven more, and the next one's an hour away, atop that cliff in the distance."

Nysha pointed him towards it with a nifty green arrow, which Nura promptly ignored as he engaged his thrusters to dive straight towards the jungle below.

"Come on, business before pleasure," Nysha complained.

"Bitch, I'm an explorer, not a stick-rods-into-the-ground type of guy. Explorers tend to do some exploring every now and then."

"Mrrrrg, fine," she growled, so addicted to her big cat forms her specific sounds crept into her other forms. "Just don't take too long. We have about a day of work ahead of us, and that's 62 hours for your reference."

Nura rolled his eyes at her lack of enthusiasm. Where was her sense of curiosity? Weren't cats renowned for that?

Once he breached the leafy canopies of the trees, Nura stretched his arms forward to cut through the dense layers of vines with well aimed laser blasts. Nysha had a hand to play in it--or all of her four paws, more like--as she did both the targeting and the shooting while Nura looked to a side panel that revealed the fauna of this brave new world.

"Warpstalkers? You fucking serious mate?"

"Warpstalkers," Nysha confirmed. "Now look at their scales, the darker ones that are barely visible to the naked eye."

Nura zoomed in on the blood red back of a warpstalker, looking between the brown stripes running along its length intently.

"Oh I be damned. These unfortunate sods will be the first to go extinct while we build warp portals and wormholes on their backs, literally."

Nysha didn't even chuckle at his pun. Whenever the extinction of a species was involved for monetary gain, she tended to sulk. Probably because, as an outdated and custom made AI, she was an extinct species herself.

"Okay, so we also have tri horned boars with tusks bigger than my dick for sure, some birds of prey with crazy long and sharp beaks and talons, elephants with five sets of tusks because one is too mainstream, some sleek, ground birds with tiny wings, ravagers inhabiting the thorny mires, and raptors, the feathery sort. Cute."

"Do you want a list of the other species as well?"

"And have my mind go numb while you name them? No thanks," Nura said as he pushed his feet forward to meet the ground. His greaves sank into the soft layers of decaying leaves, vines, mixed with the the muddy soil specific to a tropical rainforest.

"Forty degrees celsius during morning? Color me surprised when only the scaly species will want to move up here."

"Unless they cool up the atmosphere," Nysha said.

"Which they won't do because scaly fucking species pay the best. It's all good to us, my dear. Don't ruffle your pretty feathers." Nura swatted at the little sparrow, drawing an annoyed chirp from Nysha, who wove between the branches.

Some of the trees were literally strangled thick, blood red vines sprouting an efflorescence of warm colored flowers. The more scrawny ones were surrounded by all manner of thorny bushes, some boasting glowing berries, others flaunting thin leaves brazed by azure streaks. Blue and purple ferns filled in the rest of the landscape, contrasting with the warmer colors, their chemical composition hinting their poisonous nature.

"Anything juicy and edible?" Nura asked, and Nysha pointed him towards a canopy and activated the laser sight to pierce through the foliage. As if climbing three hundred feet into the air was worth it.

"Blast one for me, pretty please?"

Nysha settled on his shoulder.

Fuck. That meant no tasty fruits for him. Whatever.

"At least point us towards something interesting. I can't eat, I can't drink, I can't fuck. What the bloody hell can I do on my own planet?"

"I thought you like exploring on your own."

Nura threw her a quizzical look. "Sure, after you point us towards something interesting. That will get my explorer mood going."

"Grrr, you're hopeless." With that, Nysha flew off his shoulder, pretending to scout the landscape while her scanners found something of worth.

As soon as the distinct markers and pathway appeared on Nura's translucent display, he started moving towards it, jumping over small, slimy puddles, cutting his way through bushes. His muscles started to burn with fatigue from moving across treacherous ground. Nysha's form made things infinitely simpler, her ethereal form simply crossing through everything solid.

"I hope you're not bullshitting me with this one." Nura's voice dwindled between excitement and irritation. His love for exploring contrasted with his dislike for tropical landscapes. They brought in the fat stacks of credits, but it was nigh impossible to fly due to the dangling vines, and the only viable way to explore was on foot.

On foot! In this time and age!

"Would if I could. One of us has to have a deeper sense of responsibility."

Nura wrinkled his nose, preparing to throw her on her hypothetical butt with a snide remark before a raptor nest appeared on the edge of his display, translucent yet eerily real.

"Would have been interesting if it wasn't abandoned. Could have hatched the eggs, play with the little raptors and all."

"Die to the little raptors, more like. They're a vicious sort, very territorial and aggressive towards other predators or wildlife. Stems from the fact that pretty much everyone plunders their nests, like the one you see."

Nura saw it alright, but chose to ignore it on the way to the real thing. He found it inside a small hollow surrounded by thick vegetation and towering ferns, the soil drier and webbed with the thin roots of the several tree surrounding this alcove. Quite well hidden, and with plenty of space around it to defend it from possible attackers.

He walked into the nest, kicking away the dried branches, stomping onto the withered flowers, petals, whatever the fuck these beasts brought into their nest. The lavish decorations gave it a strident look, more than a dozen hues molding with each other in strange yet pleasant ways. The raptors also made sure to arrange them into discernible patterns.

"Most raptor nests are colored to reflect the coat of either the mother or the father, but never both. It's unknown how they decide who gets the honor."

"Who cares? Why am I even here?"

Nysha assumed her tiger shape, rounding the nest, sniffing at the various decorative items to bide her time.

Nura's blood quickened at her obvious ploy. She did find something interesting! And now, she started to act stupid while debating with her robotic conscience on whether to share it with him or not.

"You are going to do it. Why make me wait? That's one minute less for placing the rest of the beacons."

"I'm..." she settled on her haunches and looked to the side, her ears and tail twitching with obvious nervousness. "It's under the nest. Just dig for it," she conceded, fully aware of how futile of an endeavor arguing with the superior life form who housed her striped rump was.

Nura shrugged, feigning indifference as he began to kick away the layers of debris, feathers, fluff, straw, whatever the raptors used to build the nest. With each kick, his heartbeats picked up, and thin furrows formed along his brow as he threw Nysha a few side glances.

He had a fucking futuristic suit. Why would he be afraid of something that savage beasts stashed?

When he finally unveiled it, Nura's heart leapt in his chest, and a lump formed in his throat from the iridescent hues the tear shaped crystal cast upon the alcove.

"Its origins are unknown according to my database, which is no surprise considering how poorly documented this planet is. There are several such minerals scattered throughout the jungle, though none has been unearthed from the outer regions that you pinpointed earlier."

"They have to come from somewhere." Nura leaned to grab the bit of crystal, weaving it between his fingers. What a curious shape and smooth texture. It bore the size of one of his fingers, thinned to a pointy tip near one end, perfectly round at the other.

"Raptors don't just shit them. It looks like a mighty uncomfortable turd to pass." He looked at Nysha for reassurance. "Or do they?"

"Grarr, spare me the nonsense and leave that where it belongs. It's for the hatchlings to play with, not for a full grown man to fondle like a lover."

Cute. She was snarling, his irritated ethereal projection of a tiger. Nura switched his focus back to the bit of mineral, polished to perfection, the cloudy substance trapped within its bulged base growing dimmer and brighter at random intervals.

"What?" Nura shook it from side to side to spite Nysha. "Afraid I'll carry it back to the ship and then slowly transform into something horrific from its vile influence?"

"It won't make it past the decontamination chamber. Its outer layer is quite fragile and the radiation will shatter it."

Radiation. One of the most ancient and risky ways of removing possible pathogens from an exoskeleton. The Vernidium suit was made to withstand much more than just a one minute exposure to a show of lights, yet goose bumps still formed along Nura's arms at the sound of it.

"So no mementos for me. That's what you're saying."

"It's what I am advising. Just drop it on the ground and forget about it. You're not a freaking cat, attracted to shiny things."

That's right, he wasn't a cat, but a man, free to do with the tear shaped bit of crystal whatever the fuck he wanted. Before Nysha had the chance to assume control of his suit, Nura sheltered his mind from her and, in one quick clench of his fingers, shattered the crystal within his palm.

As expected, nothing happened. The shimmering liquid within it drenched Nura's palm, dribbling onto the ground, an oily mass that lost its entire luster, turning into a wan grey.

"There goes my memento. Happy now?"

Not by a long shot. Her roar made Nura's knees buckle from its might, reverberating within his chest like a second, pounding heart. It only lasted for a fleeting moment before Nysha assumed her human shape, her eyes narrowed in focus as she stared at how the liquid fizzled upon contact with the ground. Thick, swirling tendrils of smoke began to take shape, writhing against the wind, wrapping around Nura's legs with uncanny precision.

Amazing. They coiled around him as if they bore a physical shape. The same iridescent hues from before started to ripple through them as they gained size and mass, the same strange phenomenon starting to take shape into Nura's own palm.

He chuckled at the way the almost liquid smoke began to engulf his frame like a second set of armor. Nothing beeped, and no warnings appeared on his display, even though Nysha remained stiff as ever, staring at the ground with the same intensity, unmoving, unblinking.

"Dude what the fuck is up with you? This shit is like a benevolent spirit if I ever knew any. I freed it from its crystal prison and, as a reward, it started to mate my fucking exoskeleton." He thrust a finger at Nysha, trying his hardest to stifle his mirth. "Admit it, you wanted to do the same to me ever since our first day together love."

The outline of her azure body undulated for a split moment, her frame beginning to distort right in front of Nura. Laughter died upon his lips. His brow furrowed with concern all of a sudden, eyebrows tucked against each other in a deepening frown.

Creepy, how she simply vanished without uttering a single word. Even reaching out to her with his mind seemed increasingly difficult.

"Bad time to leave me, Nysha. You're missing on quite the spectacle."

No answer.

"Nysha? Kitty? Darling?"

Still no answer.

Nura took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried focusing on that familiar presence that had always been with him. He reached out to her with every sliver of his being, yet for some reason, he couldn't pinpoint that location within his mind, the one Nysha always inhabited. Everything seemed unfamiliar all of a sudden, his mind blank, empty, with only his thoughts filling it.

Nura stiffened as cold dread seized his spine. He had never been truly alone before, without Nysha stalking the corners of his mind. Now, when it finally happened, Nura looked around, as if searching for her. He kept trying to subdue his increasingly rapid heartbeats to no avail as the shimmering smoke engulfed his torso, climbing its way up to his invisible air bubble.

Not like it would go through. The shields generated by his exoskeleton were meant to repel everything a savage planet like Greenade had to offer. That thought should have comforted Nura, but instead, it only made him doubt the efficiency of an invisible shield instead of a solid helmet.

"Well, I had my fun," he said to himself, his voice laced with panic. "Time to go."

He only managed to take one step forward before he crashed to the ground, his exoskeleton suddenly unresponsive. A red, obnoxious warning zoomed in close to his eyes, alerting Nura of what he already knew.

"Yes, fucking manual override."

As if that did any good. He did not inject himself with the nanobots that made piloting the suit with his mind possible. That sting freaking hurt, and Nysha had done everything for him in the past.

Up until now.

Nura's tongue tangled within his mouth, his lips shuddering, his teeth clattering from the intense panic that seized his heart. It made his chest tighten, to the point where he could barely breathe, and the iridescent smoke crawled all the way up to his neck now.

No, no. Don't you fucking... Nura thought, moments before it breached those fucking useless invisible shields. Like a slippery eel, the smoke advanced upon his face, covering it, filling his nose and mouth and eyes.

Coughing it out made no difference; with every desperate gasp Nura took, more of the smoke slithered into his mouth. It bore no noticeable scent, and the more of it Nura inhaled, the more it soothed his racing heart and weighed down his eyelids.

Whatever this shit was, it calmed Nura faster than any drug ever did, instilling a false sense of serenity within him.

The exoskeleton suddenly popped open, as if on cue, allowing Nura to roll down on the ground, his body numb. The sky whirled above him, a sea of swirling colors.

"Haah, haah," Nura panted. Most of the strange smoke slipped inside him--or dissipated. No trace of it remained.

Hell of a drug, Nura thought, chuckling to himself. He felt strangely merry, and everything around him seemed more vibrant, more colorful. For some reason, if he squinted hard enough, his eyes zoomed in to a specific location, much like his exoskeleton used to do.

"Hey Nysha, I think I developed some sort of superpowers. I'm like...lll...mmm," he slurred, his tongue suddenly numb within his mouth.

The strange numbness seeped into the rest of his frame, forcing him to roll upon his back as his arms and legs stretched out of their own accord. His nails blackened, growing into...into...

Talons?

Nura laughed his heart out within his mind. Whatever drug he inhaled, it produced some hilarious hallucinations. The skin on his shins and forearms acquired a pebbly consistency, similar to scales, colored a dark grey. His thumb and pinkie retracted into his hands, the other three fingers stretching, forming two veritable paws.

The same craziness happened to his legs as well. Nura watched his bones sway underneath his muscles, like slippery eels, bending, reforming into strange, meaty haunches, like a chicken's. The plumage that began to grow out of every pore of his body only added to his mirth, tears slipping past the corners of his eyes.

Chicken wouldn't be my first choice of a transformation, but whatever, he thought, feeling his face.

Only, there was no face. Only a sinuous, triangular head, with a long snout that resembled a raptor's more than a chicken's. He felt its shape and texture with the tips of his fingers, eerily accurate to his heightened senses.

Whew. What a rush, Nura thought, rolling onto his feet--or trying to. He merely shifted to the side, an extra appendage keeping him from rising onto his feet. It flicked from side to side, long and muscular, ending with an oval-shaped tail fan.

A tail. A freaking tail!

Nura poured all of his focus into the tail. To his body, it felt much like a third limb, mimicking the commands his brain sent to it.

Flick flick flick. Now turn. Spread those feathers out. Let's see how beautiful you are.

He couldn't get his tail to do that, but Nura still chuckled within his mind. Hilarious. Utterly hilarious.

With the help of his tail, Nura pushed himself up. He wobbled on his stunted, bird-like legs, flapping his feathered arms for balance, adjusting his tail with curt lurches to even out his center of gravity.

"Eck eck eck," he laughed--no, squawked. This was so fucking precious. A raptor transformation simulator drug right here! He continued to walk with swaying footsteps around the hollow, his head heavy, his eyes drooping from the wave of fatigue that hit him like a truck.

Nura collapsed onto his side, bringing a feathered arm around to cover his eyes from the pesky sun. Sleep. Yes. That was what he needed. To sleep and forget about all this nonsense. For all he knew, it all happened within his mind, while he still wore his trusty exoskeleton.

Insane. Fucking insane, he thought, moments before he fell asleep._ _

***

Nura came to his senses to the same orange light. The sun shafts filtering through the broad leaves fell upon his face, turning everything blurry, unfocused. He tried blinking to clear his vision, but his eyelids refused to budge, and the blur persisted.

Something covered his eyes. An almost translucent membrane. Nysha's doing? Upon request, his exoskeleton had the ability to engulf his eye surface with a diaphanous layer meant to protect his eyes from the more intense types of radiation and shit. Maybe the same happened now, even though the intense warmth surrounding Nura begged to differ.

Nura sprawled upon his back, arms splayed to the sides, his legs stretched apart to expose his belly to the caressing warmth of the dapples of sunlight. That smoke or whatever got into his system knocked him out good, and, like any strange vapors with euphoria inducing effects, they addled Nura's mind, rendering him unable to piece up his thoughts.

He felt strangely naked, dizzy and disoriented, his limbs and neck numb, almost paralyzed. Try as he might to get his thoughts in order, Nura couldn't, not when his head felt as heavy as this accursed planet.

Every breath of humid air he took was laden with a thousand scents, some potent, others faded, and all of them utterly foreign. He sneezed to clear his nose at first. Then he coughed, the short, thin, raspy sounds too strange to be his.

Did Nysha cough as well to spite him while bearing the form of one of the indigenous species? Nura tried turning his head around, but the membrane covering his eyes blurred everything into washed greens, browns, oranges. He couldn't see shit, couldn't even breathe properly without taking in all those strong, humid scents.

"Crraahhh," he squawked, sealing his nostrils with stiff, rough fingers. The sudden motion made him scratch himself, his peculiarly sharp nails biting into his face. The sharp sting roused his dormant senses, making his vision clear in an instant.

Everything turned vibrant, the contrasts sharp, the texture of the vegetation even sharper. For some reason, whenever Nura blinked, that pseudo nictitating membrane shielded his eyes instead of his eyelids.

Fucking strange. Whatever adjustments Nysha did, they sucked.

"Nysha," he yelled within his mind. "Where the fuck are you? Give me something to sober me up already."

Nysha refused to answer or materialize in one of her infinite shapes.

By all the...was Nura supposed to do everything on his own?

Okay, okay, okay, he thought, squeezing his eyes in concentration. Finally! Pleasant darkness instead of that creepy blur. With one small victory achieved, he brought one nail over to his cheek to scratch a persistent itch, but just like before, the pressure exerted upon his sensitive skin stung like a motherfucker.

"Eeeep!" Nura cried out, bringing his hands in front of him.

Then, he opened his eyes to a set of light grey paws equipped with three fingers, each ending with dark talons that curled inwards, much like those of a bird of prey.

He blinked--both with his eyelids and nictitating membranes while his blood began to simmer within his veins. At first, he cocked his head in disbelief, swallowing a painful gulp as he tried to analyze the alien limbs in front of him. They couldn't be his, and yet, they moved whenever he commanded them to move. His fingers stretched whenever he ordered them to stretch. Clenching his fists allowed the sharp talons to bite into the miniature scutes covering his palm, the layers so dense he didn't feel a thing.

What in the world.....

His tongue flicked out for a brief moment to wet his lips, longer than usual and tapered towards the tip. The pink serpent that flashed out of his mouth made his heart leap in his chest and an involuntary squeak to fill the still forest.

Nura rested his head back upon the ground with slow, calculated movements, staring at the twisted branch above him, trying his hardest to keep his gaze averted from the rest of his foreign body. If his hands changed, then his face changed. Everything must have fucking changed.

For a moment, Nura only listened to rapid pounding within his chest. Tingles spread through every fiber of his being, stirring his muscles, undoing the knots formed within them, and allowing a measure of control to slip into his body.

His toes fanned out, all three of them, the dewclaws less stiff and more flexible than the other two. His feathery crest raised and fell in unison with his panicked breaths, the plumes along his nape perking up from the various stimuli filling the air while the feathers lined along his arms tucked inwards, reacting to the uneasiness coursing through his veins.

Then, his tail moved--jerked, more likely. It swung across his body in an arc, slapping his belly with the lavish feathery tip, then slamming upon the ground hard enough to send shudders through Nura's spine.

His tail. He had a fucking tail. Great.

What the fuck am I? Nura thought, still staring at the sumptuous canopies, still afraid to come to terms with the bitter truth. He half expected Nysha to fill his mind with her flowing voice, come up with the cause behind his sudden transformation and a miracle fix to it. She had advanced technology at her disposal, for fuck's sake!

But she didn't respond. She didn't even inhabit his mind anymore, that all too familiar connection gone, severed by that mysterious mist that enveloped Nura.

The smoke--the crystal! That was the cause of it!

Armed with this epiphany, Nura kicked his short, stunted legs at the air, his haunches slimmer than expected. It was no wonder he only rocked on the spot rather than rolling to the side, this strange new body refusing to obey even the most simple of commands.

Fucking, shit, piss, cunt, Nura raged within his mind while he thrust his legs upwards, flailing his arms in unison with the abrupt movements of his hips. After what seemed to be an eternity, he managed to roll onto his side.

That was where the real challenge began for a creature equipped with only three toes, one of which a dewclaw located further up the foot. Finding leverage upon the rows of soft bedding that made up the raptor nest in which Nura sat was nigh impossible and more than frustrating. Irritation at his shortcomings overcame Nura's initial panic, allowing him to focus on making this new body work rather than whine like a helpless bitch.

One of his feet caught something solid--a thick branch of sorts supporting the foundation of the nest. His talons curled around it, and in one swift motion, Nura pulled himself up, fluttering his feathery arms for balance. Standing upright on these twisted limbs came with no shortage of swaying and stumbling around. Thin yelps left Nura's maw as he strutted around the nest, staggering at first, then lunging forward when he stepped upon an uneven portion of it.

He collapsed straight on his feathery chest, his skull still reverberating from the sudden impact with the ground. Pain only registered a few seconds in, muffled, almost nonexistent. Did his exoskeleton absorb the impact?

Nura tried to laugh in disdain at that, and a series of high pitched, bird-like sounds left his mouth instead. They made him shiver due to their intensity and roll up onto his feet, arms stretched forward in self defense in case another predator loomed nearby.

There was nobody else but him. His heightened senses confirmed it in such primitive yet effective ways Nura found it hard to believe it at first. The more he breathed in the musty air of the forest, however, the less suspicious he became, and the heavier his head turned from the weight of his thoughts.

He was a beast. A genuine beast. Some sort of avian, naked, without the protection of the exoskeleton that lied who knows where. Not inside the nest, or in the secluded area around him. Of that, Nura was certain. He made sure to scout the hollow with his unusually keen eyes, twisting and turning his surprisingly flexible neck around, his nostrils flared to pick up any foreign metallic tinge.

Nope. Only the dusty, stinging scent of the old nest, the heavy fragrance wafting through the forest, and the soft tinges permeating his own feathers.

_Nysha, now's a fucking good time to tell me what that blasted crystal turned me into,_Nura thought over the frenzied beating of his heart.

Silence.

Come on. You can't be gone. You can't. It's not...not possible.

Neural links such as his didn't simply vanish after an accident like the one Nura incurred, right?

Unless the frequency of his brain waves changed significantly.

Every feather upon his body seemed to bristle from the deep fear flooding Nura's being. To distract himself from it and keep from going insane, he squeezed his eyes shut, took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then lowered himself upon the ground, slow and steady, before twisting his neck around to take a look at his body.

Most of the feathers upon his back boasted a rich azure color, brazed with faint, dark, and even horizontal stripes that ran across his back. They became denser along his tail, increasing in sharpness up to his broad tail tip. The plumes there, when fanned out, boasted dark tips, with a layer of white underneath them to go along with his white underbelly and dark and white crest and arm feathers. His haunches shared the same azure tint present on his ventral side, with even, narrow dark stripes coloring them all the way to his light grey feet equipped with black, wicked talons.

I'm a raptor, Nura realized, his crest feathers flattening in an instant. I'm a fucking raptor. A beast. A fucking...fucking....

His vision began spinning out of control, his stomach lurching with revulsion, his chest tightening. Unable to breathe from the coils of panic that seized his being, Nura's eyes rolled within the back of his skull, darkness claiming him before he even knew it.

***

Waking up had never felt so difficult. Not that Nura wanted to. The feathers were still there. The talons, the claws, his tail--everything was where it belonged, apart from Nysha.

He didn't know how long he had been out. The dapples of light creeping through the boughs retained their intensity, and the warm breeze lost none of its overly warm touch as it slithered through Nura's feathers, making him shudder involuntarily.

That was all Nura did for the past thirty five minutes. Shudder, breathe, and force himself to keep his eyes shut and shielded beneath the layers of feathers adorning his arms. Darkness calmed him; it made him forget about the alien body he inhabited. With his mind's eye, he envisioned himself like a human, frail and small, curled around the ground while waiting for...

For what?

To die, of course, came Nura's first and most rational thought. What could a naked human do when stranded on a foreign planet, without knowledge of what to eat or drink?

For better or worse, Nura was a raptor. His tail made sure to remind him of it, the bloody thing swishing out of its own accord. A raptor had better chances at survival, being an indigenous species and all, but even so, Nura failed to see the point of it.

A warpstalker shifting into its ethereal form and teleporting upon Nura's back, ready to snap his neck with its terrifying jaws? Dead.

Failure to hunt something before hunger crippled him? Dead again.

Take a step outside the hollow and out into a world packed to the brim with scary prey and even scarier predators? Dead, dead, dead.

There was no happy scenario Nura devised while counting every passing second spent in this useless body. Not unless Nysha tracked him down, blasted some trees apart, and beamed him up inside the shuttle.

As if. She even took away the exoskeleton from him. That meant she simply assumed control of the ship and fucked off to get his money and pay her shapeshifting body with it.

Nura tried to smile, but these new lips only knew how to snarl, a more fitting reflection of his emotions. Anger smoldered within him, aimed at that cowardly bitch that left him for dead, but it quickly faded into a flickering spark, its sustenance insufficient to keep it aflame.

Although he had every reason to despise Nysha, Nura couldn't. He would have done the same fucking thing if he was in her stead. If anything, she deserved to be congratulated for finally breaking free out of her master's bonds. Not like Nura had done anything these past few years apart from discovering minor planets, get drunk, rinse and repeat.

But Nysha? She piloted the ship, picked the trajectories, cooked for Nura, guided Nura's exoskeleton, and lived Nura's life in his stead.

Fuck. Depression. Not even a few hours on his own, and it already started to settle in and corrupt Nura's very core.

You're still a man, you bloody idiot, Nura thought as he tried to fight back the nausea settling within his stomach. You're skilled at exploring, highly intelligent, and capable in every way that a raptor is not.

He forced his mind back to the trophies adorning his desk, the ultimate proof of his achievements. As a human, he had used to harden within his shorts at the almost erotic sight. Now, only a frail itch raced through his underbelly, stoking none of the fire that made Nura feel alive.

No. He would get it back. Somehow, he would discover a way to regain his humanity, maybe even reunite with Nysha once his brain waves attuned to a familiar frequency Nysha probably scouted for.

Hope reignited within Nura's heart. His eyes opened, his arms unraveling to allow him a good view of the barrier of multicolored ferns and bushes towering in front of him. Beyond them lied another nest. Inside that nest, a crystal similar to the one Nura shattered, and quite possibly the key to his reverse transformation.

But first, Nura had to somehow get acquainted with his new senses. Right now, he had to regulate his breathing. Short, shallow, rapid breaths served to muffle the more pungent odors, keeping his revulsion in check. Enhanced eyesight wasn't that much of an issue; his reptilian pupils adjusted to light and gloom in the blink of an eye, and the sharpness of the environment rivaled the quality of the image perceived through lenses far more advanced than the eye of a beast.

Nura adjusted to the sounds of the forest quite fast as well. His ear canals, tucked behind rows of feathers, had more receptive eardrums, but for a human who had spent most of his life with genetic enhancements, picking up even the faintest buzzing didn't disturb Nura nearly as much.

_Ok so...Mind over body goes for humans. For raptors, it's probably body over mind,_Nura pondered as he clenched and relaxed his fingers and toes. Everything reeked to his overly sensitive nose, his mind accustomed to a human lifestyle. In order to breathe in the humid air of this planet without having an upset stomach all the time, Nura had to let the raptor take over somehow.

A few minutes spent with his eyes closed in deep meditation did nothing to help. On the contrary, his fine nose unraveled each individual scent, creating a mental map within his head, so precise Nura gagged and coughed from the sulfurous tint oozing from one of the thorn mires.

"Eeerk," he uttered, draping a feathered arm over his nose. His tongue ran over his snout out of its own accord, as if trying to make things more bearable. It didn't. It only freaked him out, to know that his body had a will of its own. That had to stop. Now!

Nura sealed his mouth shut, spending a few moments to collect his thoughts and reign in his instincts. He could almost grasp at those thin, mental ephemeral strands, each symbolizing an urge, a need, or simply involuntary reaction like his licking session, the body's self defense mechanism to keep his stomach from spilling its few, precious contents.

Seizing each of them in turn and filtering them through his human mind seemed doable, yet hardly necessary. By the time he got accustomed to his raptor body in its earnest, Nura would have already found another of those iridescent crystals, so why bother?

Senses in check, instincts put on hold, locomotion's next.

Even standing upright on twisted, three toed feet proved surprisingly difficult. The center of gravity seemed all wrong due to the horizontal position of his spine. Although his body knew how to adjust itself, Nura's mind didn't, and with a tail that kept swinging wherever it wished, he couldn't help but wobble around. Flapping his arms with short, abrupt strokes helped regain a measure of balance, the fanned out feathers being useful for once, unlike his tucked tail tip. Did that thing ever unfurl?

And speaking of redundant raptor features, that infuriatingly useless dewclaw hovered not even an inch above the ground, and no amount of flexing could get it to ply over the ground like his other two toes did. It only had upwards flexibility. That, or Nura's toes came innately broken, just like the rest of this fucking body.

Nothing really worked as it should. Bringing his arms over his head was nigh impossible, the joints much too stiff. The skill level it took to scratch the itch at the base of his feathery crest was out of this world, his lean fingers tilted downwards all the freaking time for some reason, and never cooperating with what Nura had in mind for them. Plus, his claws--his huge, freaking claws had such sharp tips that a simple action such as brushing away an itch ended up with a painful cut.

Okay, no more scratching away itches, ever again. Nura could live with a slight discomfort, but not with an unruly tail. A few experimental swings ought to miraculously reveal its inner workings; after all, it was supposed to be a continuation of his body.

Bullshit. It felt nothing like a fifth miraculous limb. Big, cumbersome, and overly long, it only reacted to the angle of his body, adjusting it, but just barely. As soon as he took an experimental step forward, Nura's tail shot upwards, sending him crashing upon his chest in a pile of feathers and soft, demoralized squawks.

Try again?

He collected his limbs underneath him with slow, methodical movements, pushed himself up, lifted his right leg, directing it forward, ever so slowly...

Before his left leg gave in, his two toes insufficient to preserve their balance on their own. Nura flopped to the side this time around, a position no raptor should ever find himself in. Gripping the soil with his claws to find purchase only made it tear under the swings of his sharp claws. Flailing his arms might have helped while standing up, but from his position, Nura only resembled a bug, hurled onto its back, utterly helpless and unable to get up.

The tail should have helped. Its strength ought to be directly proportional to its length, and a timely push was enough to send him rolling onto his belly. It refused to budge, naturally, letting Nura writhe on the ground until his mouth opened halfway to pant from the effort it took to get up.

By the time he did, Nura already forgot the miracle that brought him onto his feet, its secrets washed away by the irritation smoldering within his temples.

I can't even fucking get up on my own, and a whole jungle lies before me...

But he did. Somehow, he stood on his two bird-like feet, only a couple of hours since his transformation. Better progress than a hatchling who recently took his first uncertain steps into the world, for sure, yet not nearly enough.

As he shifted his focus towards the tail to try and seize control of it, hunger welled within Nura's stomach. It started with a barely noticeable churning sensation before it evolved into an uncomfortable emptiness that expanded outwards, pushing against the lining of Nura's stomach.

The frail growl that followed broke his concentration. His eyes snapped open, and the raptor staggered for purchase as he tried to rest a paw upon his stomach.

Right. Out of reach, this new body heralding the end of Nura's days of touching himself down there, or anywhere else for that matter. Chances were he would only end up scratching himself bloody anyway.

A second raspy murmur followed after the first, making Nura's crest flare and tuck nervously. Although he got the hang of sliding the nictitating membranes over his eyes without closing his eyelids, Nura stumbled rather than walking, much less have the necessary mobility catch small prey. His best bet, in his current, helpless state was to learn to walk. Or stumble. Or stride forward in the most awkward of ways, so long as he got to another abandoned raptor nest with a shiny crystal in it.

For the next few hours, Nura tried to learn how to walk, but mostly failed. Even a simple shuffle made him wobble from side to side, teetering dangerously close to the sides. His feathered arms helped bring him back onto his feet, which wasn't much of an achievement to begin with. To stand upright on two toes still felt vastly unnatural to Nura, but tiptoeing allowed him to get a grasp of things.

First, he had to stop relying on the dewclaws and shift his weight to the other two digits instead of relying on his whole feet to support his weight. Then, he had to stretch his toes just right to increase the surface a given foot covered. Once he mastered the basics, he began circling the nest without the aid of his arms or tail.

Great progress, if the light had not started dimming already. Nura only noticed it when the dapples of sunlight retreated from the hollow, leaving it a gloomy and empty spot to find himself in.

For fuck's sake, not now! Not before he discovered how to walk!

As panic began to settle in, Nura's concentration thinned progressively. Overeager and impatient, he went from slow steps to wider strides that, in his human form, would have made for a light jogging. Raptors didn't jog, however; they ran at speeds higher than Nura expected. His first few strides propelled him forward, his feet tangling upon one another from the increased velocity.

A crash didn't discourage Nura. His low hiss wiped away the pain, the frustration, the repeated failures that followed. All that Nura focused on was scrambling up onto his limbs, dash, take the fall, get up, try to dash again. No half measures. No prior training. If he wanted to survive the night, he fucking had to run as if his life depended on it.

Muffled hissing filled the hollow at first, joined by the occasional yip, squeak or pained cry. The growls became obvious later on, when Nura reached that awkward swaying stage where his dash resembled a drunkard's dance. Even getting there taxed him, most of his coat caked with layers of dirt, his haunches bruised, his arms throbbing from the numerous falls. The more he kept at it, the more colorful the bleak area around the nest became, his torn feathers starting to sprinkle the hollow with each subsequent crash.

"Squaaark!" Nura cried out. He tore the soil with his claws, trying to find proper footing, yet his feet still slid to the sides, as if dragged away by an invisible force. The thump that followed took the breath out of him, his head whirling from the harsh impact with the ground.

"Eeerk ekk awk awk ark," he said at first, then shook his head to dispel that gibberish. No human body meant no words. Only foreign raptor sounds of various intensities.

Get the fuck up. You have one chance. One.Single.Chance. Waste it, and you will remain a beast forever.

A truthful, encouraging thought, one that should have helped Nura back to his feet.

It didn't. Everything throbbed, and everything stung. Even his tail became strangely noticeable, the wounds allowing Nura's brain to register his tail as an integral part of his body rather than an irrelevant element. Granted, he still couldn't control it as well as his arms and limbs, but swishing his tail tip was as good as start as any, as well as tilting it to the sides, up and down, or curling it around a haunch to see his lavish feathers up close for the first time.

Dirt matted their ruffled outline, the exteriors frayed, some spaces conspicuously empty. Would they ever grow back?

As if that fucking mattered! Nura should have gotten up by now, not stare at his tail and wonder whether he should preen it or not. His instinctual side urged him to do it, an invisible hand guiding his snout forward.

No--he didn't--didn't want to lick all that dirt! That was insane! And yet, his tongue still thrust out against his will to slide across a clump of feathers, the earthy, slightly sour taste of dirt making Nura hiss and spat a moment after.

"Raaaaaaarrrkkkkkkk," he screeched out his frustration with this accursed body. The thin, piercing cry broke through the canopies, loud enough to attract undesired attention. Numerous birds fled their shelters, their cacophonous chant filling Nura's bones with a creeping chill that seeped into his muscles, making them shudder, over and over again.

If the birds heard it, then some other predators must have heard it, and twilight was the only thing that stood between Nura and the possible Warpstalker that had pinpointed Nura's position and waited for night to fall.

"Iiiiiiiiiirk," another distant cry resounded through the jungle, its tint vaguely familiar to Nura. It resembled a roar of sorts, or a call, or maybe a warning to stay away from a given territory.

"Awwwwwwwrk," some other creature responded to the first in a softer, more submissive way, signaling its intention to join in the hunt.

Damnation. These two shrieks--they unnerved Nura more than they should have. His mind treated them like any ordinary sounds; after all, this savage planet housed a plethora of beasts. His body, however, reacted to them in a most surprising way. His posture stiffened in an instant, his tail stood erect, a perfect horizontal line parallel to the ground, and his head swung upwards, his flared nostrils sucking in the slivers of bizarrely familiar musk.

Unlike his own bittersweet scent, the one Nura sampled had a sharper tang to it, earthy and sour. It urged his posture to lose its bold stance, to bring his tail around a haunch and tuck his arms to the sides instead of holding them forward, ready to slash at any given target.

No--that was a submissive stance, if Nura ever knew any. His own body started to turn against him, filling him with irrational dread, making his limbs buckle, his crest flatten along his skull, and his arm and tail feathers to fold.

"SQUARK SQUARK!" came the same imposing, threatening tone of the first being, too loud for comfort.

Nura's heart shrunk to the size of a pebble as he retreated back into the nest, his tail brushing against the trunk of the tree upon the roots of which the raptors had build the nest. He knew that sound. He uttered it as well.

Fu...cking raptors, isn't it?

Cold awareness washed over Nura, forcing him to lower himself into the nest and make himself small, inconspicuous.

No. You're not weak. You're a fucking alpha, he rebelled within his mind, his voice thin within his mind's eye, devoid of its previous power.

Get up. Fight them. Kill them.

He would have tried to do that, if the shivers rushing through his frame did not paralyze him. Even his tail tip refused to twitch, every movement an invitation for the raptors to jump to the wrong conclusions. His body knew it, even though his mind refused to accept it.

Waiting for the raptors to arrive while listening to their cacophonous cries and the pounding of his own heart drove Nura crazy. All he could do was blink, lick his snout, and blink some more, the dying light reflecting off his cerulean eyes. In spite of the gloom, Nura's widening pupils picked up every detail still, the color of the environment eerily vibrant still. He looked to the sides, up, down, at his own crossed forepaws, at the tail curled next to his side. Anything to distract himself from those awfully loud heartbeats.

The raptors fell suddenly silent. Only the swishing footsteps heralded their approach, the sounds brief, their rhythm alert. No matter how much Nura wanted to drape a feathered arm over his head and hide from the world, his limbs refused to budge, and they were already here.

They broke through the thick foliage in quick succession, three raptors about his size. The first, a striped creature with piercing golden eyes, presented Nura with an intimidating snarl, flaunting his claws menacingly. His body was a pristine white covered in black stripes of various shapes and sizes. They thinned over his haunches and across his tail, up to the tail fan dotted with dark spots between which ran swaying, golden stripes that matched his eyes. His flared crest boasted the same dark dots, with an intricate pattern of gold and black covering his face and snout.

The other two raptors simply stood their ground, doing nothing while this striped monstrosity circled Nura, hissing and snarling and swiping his tail around in a display of utter dominance. Nura looked away from him, his heart lodged in his throat from the raw fear that engulfed him, yet all he found was more raptors.

One of the other two was a light brown covered in white spots, equipped with crown and arm feathers that bore a lighter shade of tan. His companion, the tamest of the group, was a pristine white, her circular crest feathers lowered, her green eyes settled on her spotty companion instead of Nura.

Stripes, Spots, and Blank. If Nura still had his exoskeleton, he would have stuffed three pillows with their feathers. He didn't, however, and the raptors smelled his weakness, especially Stripes. He rounded Nura's nest, his nostrils flared, his bared fangs drawing an involuntary fearful squeak from Nura.

"Rawk!" Blank squawked, striding in front of Stripes to buffet him with her pseudo wings. Stripes retreated a few steps back, challenging his companion by spitting his ire at her, but Blank lashed out with her claws to draw a bloody scratch upon his snout.

Stripes' crest folded in an instant, his wary gaze darting between Nura and Spots, who rushed to Blank's side to hiss at Stripes together. With the striped one subdued, Blank approached Nura, soft sounds leaving her maw.

Nura's toes curled around fistfuls of straw, his muscles taut, every fiber within his body ready to bolt at any given moment. He would have, if the raptor didn't block any escape route.

With utter confidence, she clambered into Nura's nest, craning her head forward to nuzzle Nura's snout. He recoiled from the brief contact, his throat too tight to utter a sound.

Blank took his silence as a cue to lick him. To lick him! The alien sensation of wet tongue upon too sensitive feathers made Nura's crown feathers stay on end, an apprehensive growl building within his throat. Blank disregarded it, her soothing sounds picking up as her tongue ran over Nura's brow. It tickled, enough to make Nura let out an instinctive hiss.

That did it. Blank jumped away from Nura, her head aloft, lips twitching with a faint snarl.

If only the other two reacted in the same way.

Spots leaped to Blank's side, placing himself between her and Nura, snapping at Nura with a constant, "Erk erk erk!"

Stripes, the most dominant figure of the group, simply shrieked his challenge at Nura, making the blue raptor cower from the sheer intensity of the sound. It reverberated within his very bones, urging him to flop onto his side and expose the white of his belly in submission.

Fucking stupid. They're gonna eviscerate you, or worse! That, and other gloomy thoughts filled Nura's mind, yet none proved strong enough to breech the barrier enforced by his instincts. When muscle memory kicked in, it came hard to fight back, and right now, instincts alone kept Nura alive.

Hostility fled the three contorted snouts of the raptors, replaced by an inquisitive azure gaze from Spots, a chirr of approval from Blank, and a disconcerting snarl from Stripes, who still flashed his dewclaws at Nura, as if saying, "Move one inch, and I will tear your belly open."

So, Nura didn't move, not even an inch, as he advanced upon him. His crest feathers shuddered with perverse excitement as he lowered his snout between Nura's legs, nuzzling the patch of feathers located a few inches above the base of his tail.

A muffled squeak fled Nura's mouth, the shudder dispersing through his body all too revealing. His lips pulled up with the intent to snarl and chase him away, a sudden, instinctual urge that had no place here. Nura smothered it, his human mind still stronger than his wild side.

Yes. Give me a blow job, you bastard, he thought, his tail fanning from the tinge of excitement welling within him.

You're a stupid fucking beast that only knows how to lick cunts and suck cocks.

The lick that followed confirmed the raptor's crude intellect. Creatures like him lacked the ability to think, their instincts an outdated algorithm that couldn't compete with Nura's acumen. He might have been a raptor, but, unlike Stripes, he would never stoop so low as to give a blowjob to a stranger.

Stripes' licks picked up, more of his thin tongue slipping past the rows of fangs to cover a broader surface upon Nura's nethers. Nura's toes shuddered, his legs stretching out of their own accord to give Stripes enough space to move. Every flick of that muscular, warm appendage across his groin made Nura's feathers tingle and his slit to shudder from the pleasant ministrations. Unlike a mammal, a raptor had internal balls and cock, and even though revulsion filled Nura's stomach at the realization, it quickly dispersed amidst the glowing fire seeping through his muscles.

Stripes tongue pierced his slit, stretching his tight muscles apart, eliciting a shuddering murmur from Nura. He kicked his legs against the sudden pressure invading him and rolled to the side with the momentum, putting an end to Stripes' feast.

No no. Stupid body. Leg up. Give him something to suck on.

Nura assumed his previous position, one hind leg aloft to expose himself. Stripes checked with his silent companions first, both of which tilted their heads to the right.

Bunch of mindless creatures. He would subdue them, force them to lead him to their nests, maybe use the other two as a living shield against a predator. Better them than him and his cock sucking friend.

The raptor's smooth, silken tongue parted Nura's slit a second time, drawing Nura back to the moment at hand. Stripes' slurps picked up, his tongue delving deeper and deeper inside Nura, making his whole body tingle and shiver from the bliss flooding his senses. Nura squeezed his eyes shut, trying his hardest to contain his shriek of elation.

He couldn't.

Short, quick spasms wracked his nethers, weakening him, forcing him to cry out his great pleasure. Nura's tail curled inwards, same for his toes, the spike of pleasure so great Nura's vision flickered for a brief moment.

Fuck. He came, didn't he? Without even getting a boner!

As much as he wanted to get a glimpse and inspect the mess, Nura couldn't. Every inch of his body stiffened from the potent shudders rushing through his depths, so intense and demanding that Nura focused on them with every sliver of his being.

They faded gradually. Without Stripes' tongue to grip and squeeze, Nura's orgasm faltered, allowing clarity to flood his mind once again.

Right. Raptors are much more sensitive down there, he recalled, still numb from the satisfying experience. His feathers felt aflame, and the lips of his slit turned all swollen and puffy, his wetness visible to Stripes, whose golden eyes fixated on it.

"Awk rawk crawk," Nura uttered, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't speak.

You got me ready. Now suck my cock, he meant, but every trace of excitement vanished from his mind once he noticed the red pole dangling between Stripes' haunches. Tapered at the tip and barbed with soft spines from the middle onwards, his erection cut Nura's breath. He blinked, hard and fast, as if to make sure this was really happening, but Stripes' snarl took his eyes off his member, urging Nura to look upon his face.

Nura froze. Blood drained from his limbs, leaving them numb, unresponsive. In one last effort to cover himself, Nura swung his tail inwards, but Stripes brushed it away with his own and stepped into the nest, his feet pinning Nura's haunches underneath those dreadful talons.

His whole weight, exerted upon Nura's haunches, didn't bother him. A mere nuisance compared to the hollow forming within his stomach, to the potent fear ravaging his mind, sweeping away every rational thought, leaving him vulnerable to the mercy of his instincts.

His first and foremost urge was to lash out, to protect himself from the raptor towering above him. But he was so big, and with his haunches pinned, all Nura could do was sway his tail from side to side with abrupt movements.

Stripes gave Nura a few encouraging licks to get him started for this...for whatever he...

Rape,_the thought rang within Nura's mind. _He is going to rape you.

In one swift move, Stripes lowered his hindquarters, driving his erection straight through Nura's folds. He whipped his head back, releasing a shuddering moan over Nura's panicked screech. His tight meat felt like a scalding rod invading his most intimate of sanctuaries, the barbs raking at his sensitive walls, too sharp, too painful.

As he drew back and prepared for a second stroke, Nura lashed forward, grabbing Stripes' neck between his jaws and biting hard enough to feel the metallic taste of blood upon his tongue.

Stripes lunged away, roaring his anger at being interrupted, flapping his arms menacingly while pacing back and forth with a ten inches pole bobbing under his belly. It swung upwards at random intervals, slapping against his belly, fueling his ire.

"Mrak, akkkkk," Spots uttered. Before Nura knew it, he found his Spots' ivory talons pressed against his throat, that too sharp dewclaw flexing with deadly intent.

"Awwwwwk awwwwwk," he cried out in submission, his blessed instincts taking over before his human side did something ridiculous.

Spots swung his head back, motioning for Stripes to get back into position while Blank settled upon her stomach, her emerald eyes impassive to Nura's predicament.

No no no no no, Nura raged within his mind like a smoldering volcano, ready to erupt. This can't...can't be happening.

Stripes pinned his haunches once again with his feet, and, with Spots' paw shoved in Nura's throat, he plunged his whole shaft inside Nura, crying out his bliss in a pitch so high Nura squeezed his eyes shut to block it.

If only he could. That dreadful sound filled his ears, just as Stripes' cock filled his slit. So big, so tight, the barbs so sharp. Nothing prepared Nura for this, for the perverse pleasure mixing with the sting left by the barbs scraping his virgin depths. He squawked, yelped, shrieked, screeched to no avail.

Nysha wasn't here. Nobody was. He was all alone, taken like a bitch and powerless to stop it.

Nura leaned his head to the right, cracking an eye open to look at Blank. Even she averted her gaze from him, a mindless beast who couldn't comprehend the implications of rape.

Nura fumed. Not from the pain--pain was fleeting. Not from his helpless position.

But from the tingles of perverse pleasure welling within him, from the way his instincts gripped his mind in their comforting embrace, protecting him from the pain, letting him know that this was the way of the raptors. His anger subsided the harder and deeper Stripes thrust, his pained squeaks replaced by sharp, sporadic cries.

Spots stepped away from Nura, releasing his throat.

I could bite his head off, Nura realized, but something prevented him from it. An invisible, overpowering consent that fettered his being and kept him from harming the one who mounted him. While Nura tried to fight this eerie feeling, Stripes buried himself all the way in, his forepaws hugging Nura's shoulders, his tongue licking him all over as his essence flowed into Nura.

"Ack....ack...." Nura yelped, the sensation of warm seed filling him strangely satisfying to his senses. Stripes' spurts had quite the strength to them as well, his seed spearing through Nura's clamping walls, drenching his innermost sanctuary with fertile raptor semen.

Once spent, Stripes disengaged from Nura, his cock shrinking visibly as he went to Spots to lick and encourage him to mount Nura as well.

No....not again! Nura rolled onto his belly, hissing as the bedding of the nest reminded him of the load he just took. The strands of hay poked at the layers of viscous ivory seed, its gooey consistency becoming increasingly disgusting the more the brisk wind of the evening chilled it.

His flared crest and bared fangs gave Spots pause. Although the raptor was fully erect, he didn't claim Nura like Stripes just did. Instead, he shared uncertain glances with Nura and Blank, who seemed equally disturbed by Stripes' offer.

Before Nura had the chance to shriek his challenge at the cowardly wretch, Blank strode in front of Spots, emitting a series of low, pleasant sounds. Her deft tongue assaulted his snout, lewd chirps sneaking their way out as she began rubbing her neck against his. If that failed to convince Spots, than the way she began rolling around completely enthralled him.

Blank employed a series of alluring sways of her tail and twitches of her paws, the female offering herself to him in the most obvious of ways. Presented with such ripe offering, Spots straddled his mate, sinking his throbbing shaft all the way inside her.

"Mrrrk Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarkkkkkkk," he cried out, visible tremors rushing through his haunches. His claws sank halfway into the ground for purchase, and the way his lips shivered from the pleasure flooding his being was a dead giveaway.

"Mrrak," Nura found himself crooning against his will. The way Spots lowered himself upon his mate filled him with a deep, instinctual longing. Blank had to be his mate, for the way their snouts danced around one another, each of them eager to lick the cheek of their partner, expressed nothing but a deep sense of affection.

These raptors--they loved one another, if such notion even graced their primitive mind. Their bodies joined in the most erotic of ways, the two began to run their forepaws across each other's frame, those sharp claws slipping through the layers of feathers with uncanny grace.

"Eep!" Nura cried out when something touched her tail.

Stripes' snout.

He retreated when Nura flicked his tail out of his way, and kept tilting his head around to try and get a glimpse at his belly.

"Rrraaaarr!" Nura snapped at him as sudden courage flared within him. He just raped him, and now came back to put salt on the wound!

At least, unlike most intelligent humanoids, Stripes didn't need to be told twice. After letting out a series of sharp squeaks, Stripes strode out of the hollow.

A boulder lifted off Nura's heart. Relief washed through him, along with a debilitating cold that made every inch of his body shiver. His soiled underbelly felt particularly disgusting, a damp, cold patch that Nura tried his hardest to put at the back of his mind.

He couldn't, so he dug his head under an arm, using the feathers to shield himself from Blank and Spots.

There was no Spots, only Blank.

His familiar scent became almost unnoticeable, yet it remained there, a constant reminder that him and Stripes still lingered within this territory.

The wet slurps of tongue against feathers tugged at Nura's attention, and he cracked an eye open to the female who licked the excess seed from her femininity. The raptors inhabiting Greenade were a more evolved version, their gender and anus two separate cavities. Blank's pussy had the same width like Nura's, her lips strikingly similar, her chirr alluring and distinctly feminine.

Once done, she simply threw Nura a glance, her crest sagging in an instant, as if reading Nura's thoughts.

That's right. Fucking leave me to my own, Nura thought, but what came out of his mouth were a series of unintelligible sounds.

"Irp...." she muttered, then turned her back to Nura and left, constantly looking over her shoulder, as if concerned for Nura's welfare.

She did save him from getting raped a second time. Or maybe she just prevented her mate from getting a serious case of head torn off his shoulders. With the way Nura's blood boiled within him, the blue raptor felt ready to fight all of the three featherheads at the same time. Fucking beasts. Stupid, useless creatures. If only Nysha divulged the location of Greenade, so that everybody and their mother warped in their shuttles into orbit and turned Greenade into an industrial planet, just like the rest. No more jungles, no more raptors.

No more him.

His quest returned to his mind, more prominent than ever, yet he trembled like a leaf, his stomach growled louder than a voracious beast, and every movement felt overly forced and demanding.

"Mrrrrr," Nura growled, his head so heavy it threatened to burst from the weight of his thoughts.

Stripes raped him. He came inside him.

And Nura almost liked it!

What kind of sick bastard enjoyed rape?

_This blasted body does! _ Nura yelled within his mind, as if Nysha could still hear him.

Fuck that selfish bitch as well. Fuck this planet. Fuck everything.

Nura curled into a ball, trying to get some sleep and forget about his heavy head, but it didn't come. Although his shudders lessened, Stripes' seed still coated his underbelly, cold and disgusting. Until he did something about it, that pungent sludge would remain there, taunting him, keeping him from getting some much needed rest.

"Awwrk," Nura groaned, getting onto his feet, then flopping onto his side. He lifted a leg towards the sky and eased his tail on the ground to expose his belly, but try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to look upon the mark of his shame.

It's just seed. Fucking raptor seed. And your raptor senses will treat it like some god damn ice cream of sorts. Can't be that disgusting...

So he thought, yet even its tart scent was enough to upset his stomach. Nura distracted himself from it by checking the sky, his raptor eyes adjusting to the brightness of the stars and the two violet moons with uncanny efficiency. One of them shone brighter than the other, casting its cold rays upon the silent jungle.

Night was the time of the Warp Stalkers, Ravagers and other terrible beasts that some high, bushy ferns wouldn't keep at bay. The living palisade that surrounded Nura's hollow might prove to be quite ineffective, yet it still managed to instill a feeling of confidence and peace within his heart. This space was his. This nest was his. Nysha had taken everything from him--his shuttle, his exoskeleton, his humanity--but not his little corner of the world.

Nura chuckled--or tried to. Only a faint growl made it through, reminding him of what he became.

A beast, with a slit filled with cum.

Nura took in a deep breath, curled his neck around to reach his underbelly, and began licking at the strands of seed with quick strokes.

"Kha...rawwrk, ack, ack, ack," he kept coughing, snorting, gagging. Stripes had a strong, overpowering taste, his seed rich, thick, and incredibly hard to swallow.

Nura's stomach lurched from the wave of revulsion rippling through him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, taking deep, calculated breath to keep himself from throwing up. Once his stomach settled, he returned for more, the taste of seed beginning to fade away within his maw, just like his humanity would, in the end.

I'm a beast, but am I still a man? Nura wondered. Cold snakes slithered along his spine, hinting at an answer he already knew, but didn't accept yet.

Sensitive as raptor slits were, Nura's lips shouldn't have shuddered such; his insides shouldn't have convulsed around his tongue, clamping around him and releasing him, each abrupt motion ushering spikes of pleasure that made his tail fan out and his crest feathers shudder.

After lapping away the seed and scooping up the remaining traces coating his walls, Nura pushed his tongue all the way in, biting back the moans building within his throat. The sensation of filling himself with a reassuring tongue overwhelmed him, to the point where Nura couldn't contain himself.

"Awwwwwk," he cried out, tensing up as the first spurt of his spicy, watery essence spurted against his muzzle. His insides began milking his tongue like only a female could, with hard, fast, needy strokes, and his own juices had a fainter aroma, spicy yet sweet, and surprisingly tasty.

Nura slurped in his nectar, his tongue wriggling within him, searching for his member.

There was none. Only muscles, clutching him from every side.

His orgasm subsiding, Nura crashed onto his back, breathing hard and fast.

Female. Of course. Couldn't get any better.

He wanted to be bitter, to hate himself, to curse his shitty life, but couldn't. The orgasm had left him empty, devoid of energy or willpower to pursue his quest. Right now, all what Nura wanted was to sleep, and--for just a brief moment--to forget about the nightmare inside which he found himself trapped in.

***

Nura shuddered to his senses. The sharp cry of the dying beast sent an electrifying jolt through his frame, awakening him in an instant.

He began licking his snout frantically, his raptor instincts trying to pinpoint the location of the kill. Nura muffled them, pushing them at the back of his mind. In his ravenous state, it was akin to fighting his very nature, yet his willpower prevailed.

He draped his forepaws over his face, claws spread to allow his brow to sink into the rough texture of his scaled paws. What looked like a casual gesture to humans proved to be quite tricky for a raptor, their three digits too long, his too sharp claws poking at the sensitive hide underneath from every hide.

"Mrawk," he squawked his frustration, pressing a paw over his nostrils to block some of the alluring scent of a kill. Whoever set out hunting succeeded, the proof setting Nura on the edge, his feathers bristling, his blood pumping, fueling his eagerness to stride over to the kill and grab a bite himself.

You can't fucking do that, _ he mentally scolded himself. _You can't even walk, least fight off a Warpstalker.

Warpstalkers. Always assuming the worst. Maybe it was another raptor, or a wolf, or...

No, no, no, Nura shook his head vehemently. You will get yourself killed for some raw meat that you can't even cook.

His keen senses suggested otherwise. A whiff laden with the metallic tinge of blood, and his stomach already growled in anticipation. If only that thrice-damned beast died quietly! He could have rested rather than pouring every ounce of his being in holding back his instincts.

To do that, he curled into a ball, tail draped over his snout, paws pressed against it to shove it tight against his nostrils. This way, all he smelled was his own distinct fragrance.

Until the rustle of leaves and the wet sounds of meat being dragged over the ground made him perk up.

Not a Warpstalker. Just the three raptors.

Their scents betrayed them long before they shuffled into his hollow, dragging a boar after them. Their tails poked through the living palisade first, erect and twitching. Stripes caught the boar by the tail, while Blank and Spots each took a hind leg. They also had the common sense to drag it on its side, the three columns of colossal spikes jutting from its back barely scraping the ground.

Once they made it on the drier portion of the soil, the three let go of the boar in unison, allowing its limbs to fall to the ground with a satisfying thump. Stripes and Spots both had their maws opened halfway, panting, their tongues thrusting out while Blank rounded the kill.

Numerous scratches marred its dark gray hide, of various width and depth. The raptors must have distracted the boar from all sides, getting it to expose its neck for a well placed swipe of a dewclaw across its throat. That gash was particularly deep, still oozing blood.

Those retarded beasts. They just left an open invitation to any scavenger desperate enough to pick their trail.

Nura wanted to shout at them, but a screech left his mouth instead, reminding him once again that he, too, counted amongst them.

They all turned to regard Nura. Blank released a soft chirping sound, Spots remained impassive while Stripes presented him with his customary snarl.

Nura snarled back at him, fed up with their veiled threats, and more than a little hungry. Courage flared within his belly, bolstering his conviction, urging him to challenge the alpha of the flock.

And what then? Fight the other two?

Nura's spite vanished from his lips, replaced by a meek squeak of submission. Screw these dumb fucks. Better that they brought some food over here, of all places. Although they betrayed the location Nura's hollow to other predators, Nura could make good use of them as living shields, and had the proper intellect to outsmart any of them.

Go ahead. Eat, you morons, he thought, his talons curling and loosening with impatience. Instead of tucking into it, Spots and Stripes nuzzled and licked Blank, mellow sounds creeping from them as they tried to coerce her into going first.

Right. Raptor flocks like theirs always allowed females to eat their fill, a healthy clutch more important to them than their lives. Gallant fucks.

With two against one, Blank dipped her head in submission and turned towards the kill. She tore the boar's belly open with a swipe of her dewclaw, its glistening innards rushing out of its gut. Nura should have gagged at the disgusting sight, but instead, his nostrils flared with obvious interest, and his tongue kept darting across his snout. He felt giddy with impatience, eager to quench the hunger that gnawed at his insides.

Blank cut her way through the plump intestines with methodical swings of her claws, snaking her snout into the ribcage, coming out bloody, with the beast's heart in her mouth. She went to Stripes first, swaying her crest excitedly and rubbing the bloody morsel over his nostrils. Stripes backed away, keeping his head tilted to the side, squawking his reluctance at her.

She tried her mate, but he dashed away from her, making Blank's gaze droop. Since the males refused her treat, she turned back towards her kill, tail swaying and tensing up as she gorged on the savory organs.

Nura's mouth watered. He kept swallowing, and swallowing, keeping his eyes squeezed shut while fighting back the instincts that tried to claw their way through his conviction.

You're a female, something deep within him suggested. Feast. Eat your fill. Males mate you, serve you, protect you.

No,_Nura tried to fight back. _I'm an outsider. They will rape me again.

There's no rape to raptors. Only mating. Pleasurable mating. Eat. Eat your fill.

I can't! Nura raged within his mind, just like he used to shout at Nysha. They will never allow it. They're watchful, ever watchful.

They won't hurt you. All they do is mate you, hunt for you, and protect you.

Fucking shit. He was losing it. Arguing with himself marked the first step of insanity.

And the hunger! It gripped Nura's stomach with fiery talons, drawing painful furrows through the lining of his stomach. The scent of the kill overpowered him, and the wet, munching sounds pushed him over the edge.

Without his consent, Nura's body got onto its feet, shuffling over to Blank, his shoulders low, his tail erect, his crest feathers pinned back over his skull.

"ERK!" Stripes called. He strode in front of Nura, blocking his way.

"Crarkk ackk," Nura squawked back, flashing his teeth at the male. He was beneath Nura, meant to serve his females.

Stripes proved him wrong. The raptor flung himself at Nura feet first, pinning his haunches with his talons, just like before.

This time, Nura snaked his maw forward to bite a mouthful of feathers from Stripes' neck, who drew back just as Nura's jaws enclosed upon his neck. Nura's sharp fangs drew visible rakes across his neck, and Stripes lunged away from Nura, dizzy and surprised from the vicious attack.

Nura scrambled onto his feet with surprising dexterity, blood boiling with unmatched ferocity within him. He had to eat, and no male would get between him and the catch that was rightly his.

Two males could. Spots charged Nura's flank head first, sending him skidding across the floor while Stripes leaped upon him, gripping his haunches tight enough for his claws to sink into Nura's muscles.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEP," Nura cried in pain, thrashing his hindquarters and feathered arms, craning his neck forward to try and get a second deadly grip on Stripes. This time, he learned his lesson, keeping his neck away from Nura's snapping maw.

His struggles ended when Spots grabbed Nura's throat, squeezing him so hard breath left him, along with his will to fight. His eyes widened, his pupils broad and full of terror as he gasped for air, only to find more pain. With Spots' fangs latched tight around his throat, Nura's body fell limp, his haunches sprawling instinctively for Stripes, who stepped to Nura's side to lap at his slit.

Spots let go of Nura, licking the marks left by his fangs with soothing tongue strokes.

As if that helped.

Nura's thoughts still whirled within his head, and his heart beat frantically from his near-death experience. He sucked in deep, wheezing breaths, uttering faint squeaks accompanied by the shudders that raced through his underbelly.

Even with open wounds that throbbed and flared with each breath he took, Nura's cunt still moistened from Stripes' ministration, his lips shuddering, his muscles clenching around Stripes' tongue whenever it pierced his tight folds.

Nura released a drawn-out exhale, his head rolling to the side, away from the raptor who straddled his hips.

"Mrrrrrr," his muffled growl came when Stripes buried his tightness all the way inside Nura. The nictitating membranes slid over his eyes, creating a world of colored blurs. Blank's outline still stood out, along with the grays and reds of the boar, but the reduced sharpness of the background allowed Nura to focus on the pleasure rushing through his frame, on the rocking motion of Stripes' haunches as he drove himself in and out of Nura with uncanny eagerness.

Nura's jaw drooped, his tongue snaking out of his maw to lick his chops. Above him, Stripes began to hiss and snarl, the barbs covering the thicker half of his shaft flaring.

Not long now. He was going to cum, and Nura would...he would...

No no no, it's rape. Fucking rape, he thought, yet his body believed otherwise. The earlier shock left Nura weak, vulnerable to the tremors rippling through his depths, and Stripes began pounding him in his earnest, his tapered tip poking at Nura's cervix, making him shudder, flinch, and growl whenever it happened. It felt utterly blissful, to have his rod stimulate his innermost parts of his body, and his barbs dragged along Nura's wet walls, urging them to clamp around Stripes' shaft.

That did it. By squeezing Stripes' member, Nura felt every barb exerting its pressure upon his silken insides, the experience so deep and overwhelming his body convulsed.

"Eck...Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeck," Nura yowled, his toes curling inwards as soft spasms quaked his nethers. His juices rushed out of him with every shudder, splattering upon Stripes' groin, eliciting sharp cries from both raptors. Caught in the fetter of the most intimate of pleasures, Nura didn't even notice Stripes cumming inside him. So potent his orgasm was, that Nura's vision spun, stars filling his gaze, to the point where they concealed everything else.

He rode the high for as long as he could, breathless and stiff, while he milked Stripes of his remaining seed with fast, persistent kneading motions. A heavy, labored breath left Nura's maw as his frame relaxed enough, the fetters of pleasure dissipating into nothingness. When he next opened his eyes, Nura found himself facing Stripes, his golden eyes bearing into his, their snout tips touching. Too numb to turn his head away, Nura waited for Stripes to get onto his feet, pull out with a faint plot, and wobbled away, his softening cock rocking from side to side.

Spots remained by Nura's side, sniffing at his overflowing slit, his own member poking out.

"Hrrrrr," Nura growled. One male raping him was enough. In his spent state, he had no more patience for these males.

Surprisingly, Spots turned away and padded over to his brother to lick each other's wounds. Nura watched them while he recovered his breath, listening to their soft, murmuring sounds. As Stripes lowered himself upon on his side, Nura noticed a gash across his inner thigh, quite deep, its shape and size hinting its nature: the boar's tusks.

Spots had a shallow cut rounding the base of his tail as well, which Stripes tended to with slow, careful tongue strokes. Whenever Spots twitched and whimpered, Stripes stopped to nuzzle his flank before resuming his ministrations.

Blank's sharp squeak tugged at his attention. The female stepped away from the kill, motioning at Nura to feast with curt, swaying motions of her head. With the males secluded at the edge of the hollow and Blank stepping away from the carcass, Nura sprang onto his feet right away and practically strode towards the boar, ignoring the slick sensation of cum dribbling down his haunches.

As expected, Blank sorted through most of the nutritious organs, cutting away the intestines and tucking them next to the boar's slit throat. Nura's stomach lurched at the gaping hollow where the boar's guts ought have been, but the alluring scent of blood quickly wiped away his disgust, replacing it with a dire need to feed.

He took a tentative bite from a chunk of meat dangling from the ribcage, chewing slowly, meticulously. Raw boar meat had quite the strong taste, metallic, almost salty, yet Nura gulped it down and tore off another chunk, this time swallowing it whole.

As he shifted towards the boar's tender flank, his senses became clouded, hazy, imperceptible. The taste no longer mattered to Nura, nor the grisly sight of a carcass from up close. To tear. To swallow. To gorge until he silenced the growls rippling through his stomach. That became his most prominent goal.

Nura tucked into the kill, his snout knowing instinctively where to go, what to rip, how much to chew before swallowing. The boar's carcass became a map within Nura's mind, the nutritional meat highlighted by its scent. After pinpointing the hearty bits, Nura stuffed himself up, faster than he ever deemed possible.

When he finished, he stepped away from the kill, his whole face, neck and arms covered in blood. Most of it dribbled down his chin, where his tongue couldn't reach it, no matter how hard he tried to lick himself or wipe it with his forepaws. The latter only made it worse, as he smeared the grime all over the plumes jutting from the side of his arms.

With so much meat in him, Nura wobbled towards his nest, crashing on his side once he made it into the comfortable bedding. Although old and dry, it still cushioned Nura's frame better than expected, lulling him to rest.

The raptor sounds wafting through the hollow made him tense up every time his eyelids drooped.

"Rakrrrrrrr!" Nura growled at them. The trio simply threw Nura a side glance and resumed their grooming.

Featherheads. So obsessed with being neat.

Nura rested his chin onto his forepaws, his eyes fixated on the three raptors. Blank sprawled onto her back, her hind legs kicking ever so often while the two males crouched on either side of her, assaulting her cheeks and neck with long, sluggish tongue strokes. From her position, Blank tried to lick one of the crests matted with speckles of blood, yet her tongue only whipped at empty air as the two inched downward across her chest.

Stripes continued to lick away the drying blood embedded into her fine feathers, while Spots trudged towards her hindquarters, dragging his snout over her belly, blowing puffs of warm air that ruffled her feathers.

Nura tensed up in unison with Blank when he reached her pink slit. As his tongue glided across her sex, Nura's own body shuddered with desire, the alluring chant of the raptors filling him with a strange, irrational longing.

It's not only a grooming session. They reinforce their bonds, Nura realized, shifting into the nest from side to side, his instincts tugging at his mind, urging him to stroll over to them and join his flock mates.

He shook his head to dispel the errant thought and focused on Spots' tongue thrusts, Blank's shuddering haunches, and Stripes' warm affection that enveloped Blank's neck. She emitted a low, trilling sound while Spots pleasured her, groping at Stripes' neck with her forepaws, dragging him on top of her. The male stumbled and collapsed onto her chest, squeaking in protest, much to the delight of the other two squawkers.

Caught in her grip, Blank began grooming Stripes' chin, pinning his neck with her forepaws while her tail hugged her mate's neck. Her breaths picked up, and her tongue strokes became short and erratic as she neared her climax.

Nura looked away, yet her cry of bliss still shook his frame, reminding him of the load that that Stripes placed inside him. To distract himself from their bonding ritual, Nura raised a tentative haunch, arching his neck towards the gooey strands coating his lower belly. Stripes' seed made his feathers clump together, giving them a soggy, disgusting look. His normally concealed slit stood out as well, the puffy lips swollen a tad above the darker pucker that marked his anus.

After taking a deep breath to muffle the pungent scent and taste of seed, Nura slid his tongue along the soft plumage of his belly, collecting the strands of seed marring the outer layers of his slit. The first gulp made him flinch, Stripes' taste raw as ever, yet the subsequent ones got his accustomed to the sticky raptor essence.

"Meerp?"

Nura whirled onto his belly to face Stripes, his tone low, almost soothing. He inched closer to Nura, making the blue raptor back away from the snout closing in on his neck. When his back pressed against the tree supporting the nest and Nura had no more room to flee, he closed his eyes, thrusting his head to the side.

Stripes' tongue greeted his cheek, warm, wet, and more delicate than Nura remember. Against his will, Nura found himself trilling as Stripes clambered into the nest for better access to Nura's bloodstained parts. Rather than relax, Nura's muscles stiffened, his pose losing its firmness only when Stripes turned around to leave Nura's nest.

A strange shudder of longing ruffled Nura's feathers once he departed. His instincts, most likely, toying with his mind. Stripes raped him and, if this female body worked as it should, he also impregnated Nura. The stark reality ought to have made him leap out of the nest and eviscerate the male, but something held Nura back. An ephemeral thread, deep ingrained within him, one that coiled around Nura's mind every time he thought ill of Stripes, the alpha of the flock. He protected Blank. He hunted for her.

And Nura, as a female herself, needed and relied on him.

Insane. Fucking insane, Nura said to himself, trying to ignore the strange warmth building within him every time he glanced at Stripes. Fucking rapist. His gaze shouldn't have darted to him, yet it did, fueling the irrational urge to cuddle with him, just like Spots and Blank did.

The brown raptor rested his head on top of Blank's neck, their bodies pressed together, a protective arm wrapped over his mate. Stripes lied onto his belly a few steps away from them, tail curled along his side, his snout concealed by the sprawled tail fan.

He had his two companions, but he was alone. Just like Nura.

Nysha..._Nura thought as he glanced towards the stars. _Will you ever come back for me? Will you still... remember me?