You are late.
Seriously, look at the time. Or rather, look at the mess you missed.
I assume you rushed here hoping to catch a glimpse of the aftermath of the dinner party, or perhaps you wanted to see if I finally dragged Shorty back to my lab for some... supplementary experimentation. Well, the good news is that you are partially correct. The bad news is that the main event has concluded.
If you look over to the corner of my lab, past the bubbling centrifuges and the holographic displays projecting double helixes, you will see a small, rabbit-eared lump under a thermal blanket on my cot. That is Shorty. She is currently unconscious. Not from injury, mind you, but from a sensory overload that I administered with a precision that would make a neurosurgeon weep with envy.
She was frantic. She was scared. Her cortisol levels were threatening to shut down her adrenal glands. So, being the benevolent genius that I am, I provided a solution. A thorough, exhaustive, biological reset involving myself, two clones, and a very specific vibration frequency.
She passed out three minutes ago. You missed the squirting. It was... anatomically impressive.
But do not look so disappointed. I am not heartless. I know why you are here. You are a voyeur of the intellectual variety today, aren't you? Or perhaps you are just staring at my chest.
Go ahead. Look.
I am not wearing my uniform. It is restrictive and hampers the creative process. I am wearing only my lab coat, and it is unbuttoned. Underneath, I am completely exposed. My skin is pale, smooth, and perfect. My breasts are small but sensitive, currently reacting to the cool air of the laboratory. And yes, my Irita is resting, soft and flaccid against my thigh, a stark contrast to the hard science surrounding us.
If one of me is not enough for your greedy eyes, take a look around.
There are four of my clones moving about the room. They are not wearing lab coats. They are entirely naked. They are extensions of my will, my desire, and my intellect.
Clone One is calibrating the mass spectrometer. Notice the way her back arches as she leans over the console. Clone Two is mixing a volatile reagent. Watch how her hips sway with the rhythm of the magnetic stirrer. Clone Three and Clone Four are currently analyzing blood samples, standing so close together that their bare skin is touching, creating a friction that I can feel in the back of my mind like a warm hum.
We are beautiful. We are efficient. And we are currently trying to save a life.
Capt's life.
Or rather, what is left of him.
I can feel your confusion radiating off the page. You are wondering why the atmosphere in here feels heavier than usual. You are wondering why I am not currently buried inside Shorty or letting my clones run a train on me.
Pull up a chair. No, not that one, that has acid on it. The metal stool.
Sit.
I am going to tell you a story, and I need you to listen. Because if I have to repeat myself, I will use you as a test subject for my new nerve-toxin delivery system.
This is a spoiler alert.
What I am about to tell you changes everything. It recontextualizes every erection, every battle, and every desperate gasp for air you have witnessed so far.
It starts with the war.
The Krall have been eating us for three hundred years. You know this. You have seen them. They are red, sexy, monkey-tailed nightmares that turn men into walking dildos before consuming them. Humanity was losing. We were cattle. We were fading into extinction because our men could not keep it in their pants long enough to fire a gun.
Then came the Inquors. The saviors. The heroes with the golden sperm.
But have you ever asked yourself where they came from? Did you think God just looked down at us, saw we were screwed, and decided to drop a few super-men out of the sky?
Please...
God left this galaxy a long time ago.
The Inquors were made.
They are the product of desperation and ethically questionable science. It started with the Nine Bosses. The first nine Inquors who turned the tide.
There was Gaunt, the Martian with bones like steel. Ziggy, the lunatic from the Moon who could breathe in a vacuum. Kerbero from Jupiter, who was so massive he had his own gravitational pull. Quaros from Earth... yes, that name should sound familiar. He is Ragia's ancestor. Syntac, the first Wif Inquor. M'awoto, the Mer from the deep oceans of Earth. Bunja from Saturn. Maxwell from Neptune.
And the ninth... the most special of them all.
Izzam.
Izzam was an Alumos. Like me. She was a woman. But because of our unique physiology, because of the Irita, she qualified. She could produce the seed. She could fuel the Melitos. She was the only female Inquor in history.
These nine... they were not just lucky. They were survivors of a genetic modification program that killed thousands.
The scientists of that era did something insane. They realized that the only thing strong enough to kill a Krall was a Krall. So they took human DNA and spliced it. They mixed it with the genetic material of the enemy.
That is right.
Every Inquor, including our beloved Capt, is part monster.
It explains everything, doesn't it?
The libido. The stamina. The immunity to pheromones. It is not that they are immune! It is that they are already part of the hive. Their sperm is toxic to the Krall because it is a corrupted version of the Krall's own reproductive code. It is a biological error that acts like a virus.
It explains the Melios.
We Melitos... we are not just getting power from them. We are being infected. Temporarily. Benevolently. But infected nonetheless.
But there was a flaw. A massive, glaring flaw in the design. The Krall are an all-female species. Their DNA is aggressively feminine. It consumes male chromosomes. So the scientists built a fail-safe. A biological dam.
The limit.
Six times a day.
If an Inquor ejaculates more than six times, the fail-safe triggers. To prevent the Krall DNA from completely rewriting the male code, the body purges the testosterone and reverts to a female state. It is a reset button.
A desperate attempt by the human side to say, "Pause! We need to regenerate!"
For Izzam, it was different. She just lost her Irita for twelve hours. But for the men? You have seen it. You have seen Ragia turn into that dark-haired beauty.
That is not magic. That is his body desperately trying not to turn into a monster.
Usually, it works. Twelve hours of downtime, the testosterone rebuilds, the dam is repaired, and the penis returns.
But this time...
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. My clones pause their work, sensing my distress. One of them walks over and rests her hand on my shoulder. Her skin is warm. Grounding.
This time, the dam is cracking.
Remember the story of Bunja?
The Saturn Inquor?
History books say he died heroically fighting a horde.
History books are lying.
Bunja didn't die in battle. He was wounded. Deeply. Just like Ragia was on the Gyra. His body was weak. He had overexerted himself. The Krall DNA sensed the weakness. It saw an opening.
He didn't turn back after twelve hours. He stayed a woman. Then, his skin started to turn red. His mind fractured. The hunger... the hunger that drives them to save us... it twisted. It became the hunger to consume.
Bunja became a Krall.
And not just any Krall. He became a Queen.
Ragia fought a Queen recently. He almost died. He told me he felt a connection to it. Of course he did. He was fighting his own kind. He was fighting a fallen brother.
And now, look at where we are.
Ragia has been a woman for days. Shorty saw the changes. The eyes. The vertical slits. The red creeping into the roots of his hair. The poison from the Krall from the Gyra... it didn't just hurt his heart. It acted as a catalyst.
It woke up the sleeping monster in his helix.
My clones are working on an antidote. We are synthesizing a compound that can target the Krall DNA and suppress it. We are trying to strengthen the human side.
But...
It is tricky. If we suppress it too much, he loses his Inquor powers. He becomes a normal human. Useless to the war. Useless to us. We would all die within a week without his Felt.
If we do nothing, he becomes a Queen, and he will eat us. He will eat Vice first, then Private, Shorty... then me.
And he will enjoy it.
So we walk a tightrope.
I look at the sample in Clone Two's hand. It is glowing a faint, sickly purple. There is a final contingency. One I have not told the others. One that Shorty suspects but refuses to voice.
If the antidote fails... if Capt starts to grow a tail...
We have to kill him.
And...
The only thing that can kill an Inquor effectively is their own weapon. We have to inject him with a concentrated dose of his own sperm. A toxic overload. It causes a cellular collapse. It is a painful, agonizing death. Irony is a cruel mistress, isn't she? The fluid that gives us life will be the thing that ends his.
I stare at the beaker. I can see my reflection in the glass. I look tired. Even my clones look tired, and they are essentially biological robots.
We love him.
It is illogical. It is chemically induced. But it is real. I do not want to kill him. I do not want to watch him turn into a monster.
I want him to burst into this room, naked, hard, and making a terrible joke about test tubes. I want him to bend me over this counter and take me until I forget about chromosomes and viral loads. I want him to be Ragia... my Captain.
But wanting is not science.
I walk over to the door. I need to focus. And honestly, your breathing is distracting me.
Get out!
Yes, you. The tour is over. You have your lore. You have your naked bodies. You have the impending sense of doom. What more do you want?
If you are still looking for a show... if you are desperate for the friction I denied you in this chapter... go to the gym.
Chef is there. She is currently disciplining Navi for the soup incident.
I heard Navi screaming five minutes ago. It sounded like she was having a... very intense time. Chef has a creative way of using her kitchen tools that you might find... educational.
Go!
Leave me to my science.
And pray that I am smart enough to fix this. Because if I am not... the next time you see Capt, he might be trying to lay eggs in your chest.
Goodbye.