Dawn of the Tunmu

[Razonatair]

Chapter 1: Desperate Escape

On a bleak, barren, blackened world floating through the depths of space between star systems, there was a frenzy of activity around simple launchpads on the surface. Thousands of very small, very black humanoids with only eyes and mouths, equipped with the ability to photosynthesize, were desperately cramming themselves into rockets. They were without feature; their skin incredibly smooth and silky everywhere except the two sockets that housed their silver eyes and the slit in their skin that formed their singular mouths.

It had already taken centuries to gather the energy to facilitate the growth of the Bodily Colonies, to mine the ore, smelt the ore, build the transports, synthesize the fuel, and other numerous activities, but those centuries had finally led to this moment. The Tunmu had only one chance at escape, and the time had finally come to leave this worthless planet. If the transports failed, there was no more ore beneath the surface to build more. If the transports failed, the Tunmu were doomed to extinction, calculations having projected that this world was destined to be incinerated in a collision with a star in two millennia. To the Tunmu, that collision was extremely soon.

The whole of the Supreme Hive had a feeling of anxiety and nervousness, as all understood the implications of what was about to occur. It would be the first important usage of the faster-than-light drives, which had been forgotten once the Tunmu had fallen into the old Civil Wars. Now, the unimproved and rarely tested designs from so long ago were being trusted to work as planned. The logic of using the drives was that there wasn't time to collect the energy necessary to keep alive a sizable group of Tunmu Bodily Colonies for a ten-thousand year trek or more, nor could the transports adequately harvest enough solar energy to maintain themselves and passengers. Thus, the drives simply had to work.

After hours of movement, all was still until the chemical fuel, so painstakingly synthesized, began to be ignited as the rockets began to lift off the surface. There were about a hundred of the rockets, each them rather large in order to defeat the slightly heavier gravity of their world. Mistakes were bound to be made. A few were immediately vaporized in spectacular explosions, something having gone wrong in the first stage, leaving around ninety left. The Hive quaked with fear and anxiety, wondering if even one of the rockets would reach their destination chosen by the telescopes on the surface.

Before the third rocket had broken from the gravity well, two dozen more rockets had failed in other ways, exploding or even just falling to the surface. Eventually, the hundred were culled to become forty-seven, and awaited the next stage; activation of the drives. Very quickly, the majority began to fail explosively or simply refused to work properly, dooming those transports. However, a solid nine functioned properly, and had quickly slipped into the unknown of space.

Eight of those burned up as they entered the atmospheres of their destinations, leaving only a lucky one which slammed into a great lake despite thrusters to slow the rocket down. After letting the hull cool for an hour or so, five humanoid Bodily Colonies timidly placed a leg in the water, testing to see if it burned. Once they were sure it didn't burn, one was chosen to drink from the water. It bent down over the metal covering and stuck its head in the water, drinking deeply, and brought its head back up after a few moments, the others immediately feeling how elated it was. All five jumped into the water and began to swim to shore, feeling revitalized by the far more plentiful starlight from the system's star.

Once they stepped onto the beach, there was an unconscious agreement to break contact with the old world, and the five formed their own Hive as they set about consuming soil for the necessary elements to begin photosynthesizing more energy. Meanwhile, the rocket's controlling Tunmu was satisfied with having completed its mission and promptly began to die, as it had only been given enough energy to make sure it completed the journey.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 2: A New Home

The five explored their surroundings with curiosity, noting the generally docile wildlife of the grasslands, which stretched out in all directions along the shores of the lake.

However, they soon turned their attention from the surroundings to their camp. The five took the time while exploring to adapt two of their three fingers to have tough, iron claw grown by filtering iron particles from the mineral rich soil on this planet. With these claws, they began to dig a circular pit, in order to establish a defensive position. Once finished, they extensively plowed the circle.

Their work complete, they joined together in a huddled mass in the center of the circle, staying still for months, until they were one large, organic, photosynthetic mass. The mass quickly began to lay down roots throughout the plowed soil, spread massive leaves, and grow. By the time a year had passed, its roots spread many meters in every direction, having grown under the pit, and its peak was much, much higher than the distance the roots spread out, covered with black leaves as the rest of its skin ceased being black, returning to red.

More years passed, and the treelike Tunmu was enormous, having spread of fan of trunks, which had their own fans of branches and leaves, blood being pumped by a great heart in its middle. However, the "tree" was now showing signs of being something entirely, as sizable pods grew on the ground, each an egg. Within the hundreds of eggs, grew more black, photosynthetic Tunmu. Their growth was rapid, as the eggs were filled with fluid that allowed the Cells to coalesce from every direction. A few short months later, the little humanoids emerged from their eggs, quickly setting to work.

More eggs were grown, but these were different, had roots around them, and much larger than the previous ones. The blacklings carried these to new positions, digging up the dirt and then placing the eggs in the soil, at which point they covered the dirt back over the eggs. This process they repeated for years, planting the seeds of hundreds of thousands more Trees, which themselves grew and eventually "sprouted" their own Blacklings. The grassland quickly became a black and red forest of vibrant Tunmu.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 3: Alone, No Longer

For all of their intelligent existence, the Tunmu had felt alone in the universe. Their collective nature even reinforced this, as there were rarely "others" of themselves. They'd attempted some efforts at detecting other civilizations, but all of them had failed. Their status as the only sapient life in the universe was about to end.

A pack of exploring blacklings were wandering through the outer reaches of the grassland, scouting new positions for growth-trees. One of them noticed a strange break in the foliage, and walked onto a hot, black patch of land that seemed to stretch endlessly in two directions. The others quickly came over to examine the ground, trying to bite it, tapping it, but it was completely unlike the other soil around it. The ground was the most perplexing thing the Hive had ever seen.

A few minutes later, there was a strange noise emanating from one of the directions, and the blacklings stood to watch and see what it was. It grew closer, and a fast moving vehicle began to appear, growing larger and larger. The driving alien didn't seem to notice until it was too late, causing it to quickly swerve to avoid the curious Tunmu. The car quickly hit a few rocks and flipped over a few times, eventually coming to a rest on its top.

The blacklings quickly ran to it, inspecting the wrecked vehicle, but they soon noticed the strange, groaning occupant who appeared to have lost one of its arms. The blacklings pulled the bloodied alien out of the car, dragging it over to a patch of grass, as another retrieved the torn-off arm. There, they examined the alien, looking it over, feeling its strange clothing and tough hide, tasting its blood, and eventually deciding with the rest of the Hive that the only thing able to make such a vehicle had to be sapient.

It was obviously injured and in disrepair, ruled the Hive. Thus, it was quickly decided that the creature would be taken back to the growth forest. The blacklings used their combined might to lift the creature, which was nearly three times the size of any blackling, blackings being about seventy-five centimeters tall. They took the wounded animal back to the forest, where it was far too delirious to realize that it wasn't dreaming.

There, in the center of the forest, at the base of the original tree, a mass of blacklings accumulated around the creature. Its arm had been left behind, but the wound hadn't had pressure applied to it, so now the creature was on the brink of death from blood loss. However, the Tunmu did not understand that significant loss of blood led to death, for no Tunmu had ever truly "died," as they were essentially one being. They did, however, realize that the creature was very hurt, and went about using their methods of healing to try to fix the creature.

The creature was submerged in a Tunmu shaped like a tube, filled to the brim with a Cellular Colony. At first, it resisted, feeling as if it were drowning, but it eventually gave in, letting the specially-designed, oxygen-rich Cellular Colony flow like a liquid into and out of its lungs. At the same time, Tunmu flooded into its body through its various wounds, targeting damaged organs and working to repair them, based on what the creature's genes designed the organs to be. The work wasn't flawless, but the creature stopped bleeding internally, and its missing arm was eventually replaced with a Tunmu-based replicate, complete with nerve connections.

After a few weeks of repair inside the tube, the creature eventually awoke and realized where the hell it was...

[Razonatair]

Chapter 4: The Language Barrier

The creature slowly opened its eyes in the red-tinted Cellular Colony, wondering where it was. Slowly, the memories of the wreck began to come back to it, memories of the strange black creatures being most prominent. It then began to look around itself, wondering what kind of forest this must be, to be so black and red. Then, a few hazy blacklings ran by, carrying an egg destined to become another growth tree, and the creature began to realize where it really was.

Panic swept over it, causing it to begin punching the sides of the organic tube, trying to escape from this hell. At last, finally, its once missing arm punched through the tough skin of the tube. Slipping a few more arms through, it pulled, ripping the hole open, causing the Cellular Colony to spill out onto the ground. Soon, the hole was big enough for the creature to slip through, and it took fell to the ground, coughing up the "sludge" of the Cellular Colony. Once more, the feeling of drowning that had occurred when the creature was first submerged, resumed, as the switch was reversed from Colony to air.

This practically convulsing creature quickly drew the attention of the Hive, which soon clustered around the alien in the form of a multitude of blacklings. This served to only panic the creature more. Once it was finished coughing up the Colony, it unsteadily stood, its muscles having gone unused for quite a while. But when it was at its full height, its panic and fear subsided slightly as it discovered it could practically trample the much shorter blacklings.

It spoke in its own language, "Who are you?" However, the blacklings did nothing, and simply stood there, staring at the creature. It motioned to itself, "Derean, I am Derean, who are you?" The blacklings blinked, but made motions with their mouths, wondering how the creature made such noises. However, what the creature did not see, were all the blacklings of the Tunmu making the same motions, seeing if any of them could accomplish these vibrations from the mouth.

Derean seemed to understand, "Oh, you can't talk... Obviously... You don't speak my language, of course." He looked around at the grand growth trees, with their massive fans of black leaves and tough, red trunks. Then, the podlike eggs caught Derean's eye, and he walked towards the nearest one, the crowd of blacklings moving accordingly to maintain their circle. Derean wiped some dust off of the egg, and stuck his face against it. His eyes caught sight of a growing blackling, "You're... grown... from trees?" Derean moved over to one of the larger eggs, destined to become another growth tree, and looked into it as well, finding nothing but a mass of red, "This is different... same tree, different sized egg, but different result? That's odd. Perhaps the trees are their females, and these little creatures, the males?"

It was at that moment that Derean began to realize that something was up, "Wait... this is our world... the same sky... but you are here... on our world... setting up homes... are you colonizing us?" The blacklings didn't respond to Derean's question, only continuing the movement of the mouths, causing Derean to smack himself, "Right, right, you don't talk... You must be colonizing our world, that's the only explanation. Colonization has always been hostile... but you didn't kill me... perhaps you want to use me to trick everyone else... or maybe it was a genuine show of goodwill..."

At that moment, numerous gunshots were heard in the direction of the wrecked vehicle from which Derean was dragged, and the blacklings quickly scattered, leaving Derean practically alone in a swarm of frenzied blacklings running to and fro, "Gunfire... the others... the police... they must've found these creatures..." Almost immediately, Derean began to race towards the sounds of rifles firing, trying to warn the others.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 5: Twelve Angry Men

Derean raced as fast as his feet could carry him, even leaning forward to his arms to move faster, as his ancient ancestors had once done. It was of the utmost importance that the others not see these creatures as aliens or enemies, though Derean knew they would.

He broke through some shrubbery to find twelve police officers with hunting rifles shooting blackling after blackling, as they slowly walked through the outer edges of the growth forest, yelling things like, "Pop goes another one," "That makes twenty," and "Kill the little bastards!" The only problem was that the officers couldn't seem to kill the blacklings, who, though wounded, continued to desperately crawl away, often dragging themselves with a leg blown off. Derean noticed that most of the older stumps where the blacklings had arms and legs had stopped bleeding when they would've been spouting blood in the case of the Drazu.

Derean waved, "Stop, stop, I'm alright," but stopped in his tracks when a few of the officers pointed their rifles at him, the leader asking, "You're alive? How? Have these creatures done something to you?!" Derean shrugged, "They healed me..." A wounded blackling dragged itself by Derean, its mouth moving furiously as if to try to talk, as both of its legs had been removed. One of the officers ran over and picked it up by a leg-stump, "The bastards don't die... They should've bled out out by now, all of 'em, yet they keep going... Do you understand any of this?"

Derean shook his head, "All I know is that they're some kind of extremely advanced organism. They regrew my ar-" Derean stopped talking for a moment and looked at his arm, remembering how he had lost it in the wreck, then he had an idea, "Quick, do any of you have a knife?" The officer carrying the struggling blackling handed Derean his knife, wondering what the Drazoo would do. Derean immediately sliced his arm open, letting blood pour out, "It doesn't hurt as much as I would've thought... oddly enough." After a few dozen seconds, the blood had slowed to a trickle, and then once a minute had passed, the wound had clotted. The officers seemed stunned for a moment, but soon narrowed their eyes and pointed their rifles at Derean, "They did do something to you..."

Derean quickly threw his arms into the air, "What? Don't shoot me, I promise I'm not one of them. I don't even know how they do what they do. Wouldn't I not show you what I just did, if I meant to betray you?" The officer holding the frantically struggling blackling pulled his pistol on Derean, "Or maybe that's what you want us to think..." Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the blackling suddenly struck, slicing off the officer's arm that was holding it with its sharp iron claws. The officer dropped his pistol and quickly began to scream, holding the mauled arm and falling over. The stunned onlookers watched as the "halfling-blacking" (its was missing its lower body) began to wail on the officer, tearing his torso apart and ripping his organs out.

The eleven remaining officers quickly looked at Derean with hatred in their eyes, causing him to say, "Uh... I didn't do that. Come on, guys..." The officers didn't care, and unloaded their rifles into him, bullets riddling his torso, limbs, and finally, a single bullet finding its way through his brain. Derean's lifeless corpse fell backwards to the ground.

Moments later, a swarm of blacklings erupted from the surrounding shrubs, far more than the eleven officers could handle, and the Drazoo were quickly shredded. Derean's corpse was brought back to the heart of the growth forest.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 6: I, Derean?

Up until now, the Tunmu had been growing lazily along. However, the Hive now recognized the need for military forms, as there were apparently hostile creatures on this world, wielding strange fire-sticks that could rip a blackling in half. It was an unusual form of warfare, the Hive predicted, as the Tunmu had never encountered such strange technology. Thankfully, the fire-sticks were utterly failures when it came to truly killing a Tunmu, merely causing the loss or injury of a limb.

While the fire-stick wielders had taught the Hive that the enemy's weapons were ineffective, they had inadvertently given the Hive a valuable piece of information; that these creatures were actually vulnerable to pain. Pain was something the Tunmu only used to know whether or not something was dangerous, and having strong pain receptors served little purpose for them. However, these creatures had this weakness. From this, the Hive managed to extrapolate that this would be an experimental war, as the Hive would begin learning about its first non-Tunmu enemy, feeling around for other weaknesses.

However, the Hive was now presented with one of the creatures, supposedly dead, but whom had been infused with Tunmu Cells. Consequently, its bleeding had quickly stopped, and the Cells within its body began to repair the creature the moment it received damage. The question now was how to deal with this creature...

---

Derean woke from a two week slumber, once more floating inside the tube. Now, however, he noticed that a number of the blacklings walking around were now different, larger, tougher-looking, in a way. One of them looked at him, revealing four eyes instead of two, and a hand that was now three clawed fingers instead of just two clawed and one normal finger. It also bore teeth, and was eating some kind of meat. The blacklings never ate meat; only soil. This was something different, Derean ruled.

The tube suddenly opened up, and dumped Derean out, but this time, there was no feeling of drowning. He got to his feet, and a few of these meaner blacklings stopped to look at him. It was then that Derean noticed their skin was segmented into what appeared to be an exoskeleton, probably made of the toughest stuff these creatures could grow from the surrounding resources.

It was at the moment that their eyes met Derean that he suddenly fell to the ground with a massive head ache, causing him to double over with all four hands holding his skull. His... skull? Derean blinked and felt along it. It wasn't his skull... something different. Something with the same texture as the warriors' armor. His mind seemed to give him an answer of 'look at the rest of his body'.

Derean stood slowly, and looked out his outstretched hands. They were covered in the same armor. His arms; covered. His torso; greatly covered. His entire body was suddenly almost insectoid in nature, but Derean could still feel his bones as being firmly inside his body.

Confusion swept over Derean. He began to recall the events of that ruinous day, the day Derean died. But if he had died, how was he here? It was an odd thing, to recall what seemed to be death. But if he was here, he certainly wasn't dead anymore. His mind raced to reestablish himself as Derean, trying to recall all of his memories, but he found disturbingly large holes in his memory. Much of his childhood was gone, even parts of his recent life. He knew he had had those memories, or did he?

Suddenly, his own mind seemed to stop being his own mind, as he fell to the ground once more. His sense of "self" seemed to dissolve, as the strange songs in the back of his mind grew louder. They seemed comforting and repulsive, beautiful and grotesque, ornate and primitive. But most important, they were undeniable... The chaos of the songs filled Derean's mind, eating away at Derean himself. At the last moment, they suddenly seemed to cease their acoustic growth, and began to subside, until they became a monotonous droning in the back of his mind.

Derean shakily got to his feet, wondering if he would fall over again. He opened his eyes and noticed that all of the strange creatures had stopped moving, and were now staring directly at him. It was both an unsettling feeling, and one of extreme comfort, as if he were home. They all pointed to the sky, and Derean instinctively mirrored their movements, pointing upward. Then, Derean knew the truth. He didn't quite understand how he knew the truth, but he suddenly felt as if he had lived for eternity and only a few dozen years. It was indescribable even to Derean himself. All he knew, was that he knew.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 7: The First Ambassador

Derean's mind brought many new discoveries to the Tunmu; that "bullets" and "rifles" were highly effective against these weaker organics; that the brain should be the primary target; pain could drive a Drazu mad; the Drazu tired quickly; the Drazu required large proportions of food and supplies; the Drazu were greatly divided into suspicious nations; the Drazu knew "Fear," something it took the Tunmu days to figure out from Derean; and, most importantly, the Drazu had barely begun to make use of airplanes or tanks, their technology level being roughly equivalent to Europe during our WW1. The Tunmu quietly hummed to themselves, sure of victory against the Drazu if the worst scenario unfolded.

It took a few days before more police arrived in the area, and the Tunmu had to tread lightly, for their growth forest would not rival the might of the surrounding small nation's army. Instead, the officers were silently removed, as well as all traces of there having been a wreck or other vehicles. The Drazu were easily knocked unconscious, and trapped near the heart of the growth forest by tough, muscular bondings that had been quickly grown by a "prison" tree. When they awakened, the Tunmu soon set about using them as research subjects, experimenting on them, their screams unable to escape the organic masks that covered their faces.

Derean quietly watched these proceedings, but what should've been a feeling of anger at the Tunmu was instead, a feeling of indifference. The Drazu didn't know the kind of unity that the Tunmu did, and the Tunmu had shown Derean the error of many of his ways. Now, he truly placed himself among the ranks of the Tunmu, and not the Drazu, though he would never be a full Tunmu due to his mission.

Derean had been saved by the quick action of the Cells within him, which managed to preserve what they could of his brain. The unfortunate result was that many of his memories had been obliterated, and many of his motor controls had been gone. Using Derean's own genetic code, the Tunmu managed to rebuild his motor controls with some effort, and restore some of the memory nerves to his brain, but the lost memories were gone forever. For the most part, the hole in his brain had been replaced by a growth of Cells that connected themselves to his brain, acting as the link between Derean and the Hive.

This link was what gave Derean his mission. He knew that the Hive did not wish a genocide upon the Drazu; it was merely acting in self-defense against the officers who had attacked it. However, Derean also understood that the Hive would have no qualms about wiping a minor race like the Drazu off the face of the planet if they dared to launch a full-scale assault on the Tunmu. Derean's mission was to act as an ambassador to the Drazu, able to articulate speech, and, of course, having once been one of them, far more able to connect to the Drazu. Derean was personally doubtful about the probability of success, but many of the Drazu would quickly bow before the Tunmu, if only the Tunmu displayed such a show of force as to make total destruction of their armies inevitable. It was not like the Drazu to fight an impossible war.

Meanwhile, the Tunmu continued their war production, no longer growing at their leisurely rates. Now, new growth trees were being planted at greater and greater rates, and tougher strains of Tunmu were being grown based on the information from Derean, strains able to shrug off the riflefire of the Drazu basic infantry like it tickled, and inspire fear in their ranks to rout the Drazu soldiers. The bulky tanks of the Drazu were hardly advanced enough to carry a single cannon, so the tanks preferred machine guns, which were hardly better than the Drazu rifles. The flimsy aircraft wouldn't even begin to hold up against swarms of basic Tunmu flyers.

Despite the obvious advantage the Tunmu held over the Drazu, the Tunmu did recognize that they could learn much from the creatures. The concept of the rifle or gun had never even presented itself to the Tunmu, who had generally fought their wars on the cellular level, long ago. And if these creatures were already at this technological level, that that implied that there were other creatures out there among the stars, creatures who might be more advanced than this simple civilization. Perhaps even creatures who had experienced the same eons of existence as the Tunmu?

[Razonatair]

Chapter 8: Dead Zone

While police became more concentrated in the area near the growth forest, and the government was becoming aware of an issue, the Tunmu consistently captured any prying eyes to become new test subjects for their ghastly experiments. Though this brought more attention to the area, the Tunmu were more than ready.

Eventually though, the government caught on, though it was slow to do so, as the conventionally warrior Drazu often fought between their nations, and the nation which the Tunmu had landed in was involved in a world-wide war, though it was only a small player. A small company was sent in, and immediately never heard from again. A scout plane was ordered to fly over the site, and disappeared. Within a few months, the government managed to extricate enough forces from the front to send in a sizable division to clear the area, sure that something was up. The division's only radio message was, "Oh my god, oh my god... there so many of them! There's... there's more than one type! What the hell is this?! Some kind of alliance of strange creatures?! Is this God's punishment? They're ripping through the infantry like they were butter, and the armor isn't fairing well either... Our bullets just seem to bounce off the creatures' armor. Some of them are huge... others, small... but they're all scary as... Oh shit, shit, shit! A big one's coming this way! Reverse, damn it, reve-" The voice was recognized as belonging to the division's commander.

The Tunmu responded with a massive aerial operation wherein they obliterated every single broadcast tower in the nation, conducting the raids as if they were an enemy force. The population quickly bought into the idea that the enemy suddenly had extremely advanced aircraft, and flew into a panic. The government, in contrast, was solemn and fearful, for it knew the truth, though the truth moved a bit more slowly without their communications array; that something alien was residing within their borders.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but the government of the nation began to recognize that the creatures would be unstoppable soon enough, at least with the apparently lesser weaponry of the Drazu. They quietly sent in a diplomatic envoy to the find whatever the hell was causing this, and try to reason with it. It was an insane idea, but they had little else to turn to except insanity.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 9: The Devil's Offer

Ambassador Granadant or Granad sat in his chair in an interrogation room, staring at the cup of water in front of him. He'd been staring at it for hours, hardly blinking, and it was beginning to disturb the questioners who had been watching from behind a one-way mirror. They felt that whatever had had happened to the Drazu was deeply tormenting, but they had a job to do.

One of them entered the room, and sat down in the chair opposite Granad, "I'm Chief of Interior Investigations, Mr. Granad. My name is Ramadant Jazzule." Granad nodded, "Everyone knows of you..." Ramadante, or Ramad for short, fiddled with a few papers, eventually producing a horrific set of sketches, and moved them in front of Granad, "You drew these when the soldiers found you just outside the Dead Zone. Mind informing us what they mean?"

Granad fidgeted a moment as he looked at the drawings. The first was simply a few crude sketches of the various Tunmu forms Granad had seen, "The... the Tunmu... that's what he called them..." Ramad pointed at the second sketch, a hastily drawn depiction of Derean, "Is this 'him'?" Granad nodded, "He's one of us... was... one of us. Now, he's one of them, yet still one of us... complicated... the Hive itself is... confused... he is Derean." The Chief narrowed his eyes, "Is he their leader?" Granad shook his head, "No... more like... conduit. They don't talk. He does. He speaks for them, to us. Without him, we'd already be dead. Derean is more... like a hybrid."

Granad's eyes seemed to lose focus, staring into nothingness, "I come before you as the representative of what I call the 'Tunmu', meaning 'Great Chaos'. The Great Chaos is unlike anything your mind can comprehend; it is far above and beyond our Drazu thought patterns. They are both plural and singular, one and many. I walk among them in peace, part of the Chaos, or Hive as you may call it, if you need to organize that which is without description. I am Derean, Ambassador of the Tunmu, and I implore you to speak with me, for the fate of the other Drazu hangs in the balance." Ramad blinked, "So... that's the first he said?" Granad nodded, "Once I'd woken up... the Tunmu had caught me, knocked me out. Derean noticed I wasn't a soldier or police. Or, maybe the Hive noticed I wasn't. Accurately distinguishing one Tunmu from another is... nearly impossible."

Ramad sat back in his chair, "My god, they've got a hybrid... Derean rings a bell. He was the first disappearance in the Dead Zone. Makes sense, now that I think about it." Ramad fumbled through a few more files, pulling Derean's description, "Derean Maladana, formerly a mechanical engineer. Designed and built new cars after designing several military vehicles mostly centralized around the armor design. Never had a record of issues with the police or government, even displayed an uncanny level of patriotism." Ramad wiped his face, "God, who knows what the bastards know now. Derean brought pretty much all of our engineering knowledge straight to them... they know exactly how our armor runs, how our planes fly... They know every god damn thing about every god damned military advance we've made in the past twenty years. The situation is even worse than expected..."

At this, Granad's eyes focused on Ramad, "The situation was always FUBAR. From the moment they landed, the Tunmu had sealed the fate of our world. They've traveled the stars... I've seen it... They offered me immortality, you know? Derean asked me to join him. He said the Tunmu have strangled the Reaper for his body, and they can do the same for us... Interesting offer..." Ramad's eyes narrowed, "What are you getting at, Mr. Granadante?" Granadante lifted his head, pointed at an injection mark on his neck, and smiled, "I took them up on their offer... No one needs to die, Mr. Ramadante. They said they could save us... save all of us... from death. We just have to become like Derean. Said death is a result of the deterioration of cells, but their Cells can repair ours. That's their offer, to all of us. Join them, or perish. Derean said he did what he could... convinced the Hive as best he could, to spare us. Said it was angry for our aggressions, and the Tunmu had never fought a war without the total subjugation of one side by the other."

Ramadante's jaw was practically on the table, as he stared in disbelief at the injection mark, "Y-you... you... you want to join them?" Granadante shrugged, "There is no other choice. Immortality, or death. That is the offer. We pissed them off, Ramad, we really, really pissed them off. What would you rather do?" Ramad's hand had balled into a fist, "Fight. Fight until the last man... this isn't a war. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for the losers or traitors, like previous wars. This is just... just total assimilation. The Drazu won't exist anymore, don't you see that?" Granad blinked, "I exist. Derean exists. I am beginning to hear the Hive, and its beauty is unparalleled by even the best symphony or ballad, yet my mind is still my mind. I am still Drazu. Derean is still Drazu. He is simply more enlightened..." Ramad suddenly stormed out of the room, saying, "You're nothing but a fanatic nutcase."

Back behind the mirror, Ramad consulted with various heads of state. They were very discomforted, but they all recognized that this war was apparently unlike any other that had occurred before, or was occurring now. It was not a war in which the Drazu could simply weasel their way out of a fight, as doing so would result in the assimilation of the Drazu. The incredibly patriotic Drazu leaders could not accept such a hybrid fate, and flatly refused the offer of the Tunmu by beginning artillery bombardments of the Dead Zone.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 10: Blitz

Derean had hoped the Drazu would've agreed to his offer as he walked through the ruins of the capital of the nation he'd once lived in. There was an eerie silence as Derean walked along towards the capital building itself, as all the bodies from the fighting had been taken to be eaten, broken down, and then recycled into new Tunmu. The silence was only broken by the shuffling of blacklings moving to and fro, scanning for what could be metals and vehicles could be recycled, and which ones should just be left alone.

As Derean walked along, he noticed that the only bodies were those near still-burning fires, the Drazu lucky enough to recognize how the Tunmu feared fire. All of them had been impaled by dozens of high-velocity, spinning Tunmu spines that acted like a fusion of bullet and arrow, with the extremely painful property of arrows in that pulling them out simply did more damage. Derean shivered slightly at the thought of the spines that had been used on test subjects and then pulled out by blacklings to test the effectiveness.

The Tunmu had learned quickly from Derean and the subjects. They understood the Drazu feelings of pain and fear very well, and used these to great effect. All of the military forms, normally simple and unflashy, had been decorated in horrific ways, simply to inspire fear in the ranks of the Drazu. As the war dragged on, many of the military Tunmu wore pelts and skulls of Drazu, a sight which dug itself into a Drazu soldier's mind and refused to be expelled.

The war was truly unlike anything the Drazu had ever faced before. Within days of the first artillery bombardment against the Tunmu, the fleet-footed armies of the Tunmu had overrun the small country, even though their numbers were relatively small and somewhat limited by the minor growth forest from which they hailed. However, this time was somewhat skewed by the number of defectors from the civilian and military population.

Derean had issued an ultimatum to the population of the Drazu hours after the bombardment began, giving the message of immortality or death to all of the Drazu. The other nations scoffed, but some of the smarter (or crazier?) Drazu overheard the message on their home radios, and immediately took towards the "Dead Zone" declared by the government. In perhaps one of the greatest migrations of Drazu populations in the small country's history, more than a third of their people silently marched toward the Zone, defeated psychologically. Four days later, as the final strongholds of the country began to break, almost all of the leaders were found dead, having shot themselves.

After five days, the country was now controlled exclusively by the Tunmu, and the future hybridized Drazu were well on their way in joining the Hive. Derean felt some measure of comfort in having fellow hybrids to speak with, inwardly remarking that the hybridization process was the milestone for the Tunmu, as nothing like it had ever been done before by them.

However, as Derean reached the capital building, and the strong antennae set up on its top, he pushed these thoughts away as he stood before multiple microphones, and spoke, broadcasting to much of the civilized Drazu world, across all of their major frequencies, "Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers, listen now to my words, for I bring you a ticket to forever-life. I am Derean of the Tunmu, or Great Chaos.

"We have conquered the small nation of Manatu in five days. Imagine what our armies, navies, and air forces will do the rest of the world. The Tunmu hail from another world, which itself is from another galaxy. They have traveled faster than light. Their technology far surpasses anything I, and we, once knew. Their aircraft fly faster than the speed of sound; their armies run tirelessly; their navies can move silently beneath the surface of the water. There is no resistance that can be mounted by the Drazu that can stop them.

"But it doesn't have to be like this. The Tunmu and I do not have to annihilate the Drazu. More than one third of Manatu's population is now well on its way to living life, forever. The rest received merciless death. That is my offer, the Tunmu offer. Join us, and experience life forever after. Refuse us, and experience the cold embrace of death. There is no price to pay for immortality, as becoming a hybrid and joining with the Hive is an experience beyond your wildest imagination. I implore you to experience it as I have experienced it, rather than experience death.

"I will be speaking to the rest of you again soon to report on the advance of the Tunmu. I expect droves of future immortal hybrids. This had been Derean, the first hybrid in Tunmu history."

Derean looked around the ruined capital building, recognizing it as his major home for quite a while. Soon, the newer hybrids would take over his job as ambassador, and Derean would be relegated to psychological warfare duty. He took a seat in a pristine chair, considering if perhaps there was another offer that could be made to the resisters. The total annihilation of the Drazu could be a major loss to research in later days, and Derean considered that perhaps a few island nations could be spared. At the same time, he was relaying his thoughts to the rest of the Hive for consideration.

[Razonatair]

Chapter 11: End Of The World As We Know It

The other countries of the world laughed at Derean's offer, denying the possibility of aliens, and assuming it was some cheap trick Manatu was trying to pull to win the World War.

This denial annoyed the Tunmu further, and Derean's idea of allowing safe island nations was flatly rejected in favor of genocidal destruction of these idiotic creatures. The Hive generally assumed they would saving the universe a burden. The Tunmu built up their forces for a few more months, while managing to capture anyone trying to explore Manatu, mostly outcasts who bought into the offer. After that, they unleashed hell upon the Drazu, raining down destruction from the air, with Derean once more repeating his speech to the world, adding the phrase, "Okay, you idiots, there's your proof. The Tunmu want you dead. Now I'm going to repeat what I said..."

The massive air bombardment convinced most of the rest of the Drazu nations to immediately surrender. A few others tried resistance, but the Tunmu quickly crushed them until they too surrendered. Ultimately, the Tunmu possessed nearly three billion hybrids of the Drazu, but Derean managed to convince the Hive that preserving a useless, tiny island chain with Drazu civilization on it was a good idea. The islanders signed an accord that the Tunmu would supply them with technology, food, and survival, but the islanders would provide an annual number of Drazu test subjects for the Tunmu.

It took the Tunmu a few decades, but they eventually set up growth forests across the planet, surrounded by the hybrid-cities. The hybrids, being not entirely of the Tunmu, eventually set up a basic government with Derean as King, in order to police themselves so that the Tunmu would not merely execute any dissenters.

There, the Tunmu ruled for a century, building their population to cover the planet combined with the hybrid-cities. The hybrids, being immortal, had no choice but to become sterile, in order to prevent an unstoppable flood of growth, an action they voluntarily took. Over the course of the century, with the ideas of the hybrid-Drazu combined with the technology of the Tunmu, the Tunmu built a capable exploration fleet.

While the Tunmu thought expansion was pointless, the hybrids, and most importantly Derean, thought expansion was the key to preserving the Tunmu for the rest of eternity. Derean argued that the Tunmu were living examples that powerful interstellar beings existed, beings which could threaten their survival. It was a logical argument, so the Tunmu adopted their policy of expansion, and sent out hundreds of nimble, minimalistic scout craft that couldn't even carry a single Bodily Colony or Hybrid.

The craft merely jumped into a system, surveyed it, and moved on. The information they brought to the Hive indicated a plethora of civilizations, as well as extremely valuable solar and planetary data. Information in hand, the Tunmu set out determined to ensure their survival.

End