Kodoku

A recent review called attention to the fact that I could potentially make Issac Clarke into an ultimate bio-weapon. That is a feasible idea that I have already considered, but… what good is a weapon without an equally excellent, if not better, user?

Ultimately, a weapon does not get to decide whether or not to kill. It is the manifestation of a decision, an imposing of the will, of the user onto the weapon, just another tool at his disposal.

I need to build Issac Clarke's character from the ground-up to make him capable of controlling two highly intelligent parasitic lifeforms, and he still has a long way to go to even be remotely capable of harnessing the power and intellect of over a trillion minds in one body. Not to mention, the ability to alter his body as he so pleases.

Something no human in their right minds would have the ability of accomplishing or comprehending.

But who's to say Issac Clarke needed to be sane?

"Emotions make us human. Denying them makes us beasts."

-Victoria Klein

'Then what does that say about me?'

Curiosity.

A strong desire to know or learn something. An unusual or interesting object or fact. That was the definition that a human named, James Gregory Cutter, used to describe Professor Anders when frequently engaging in rituals of the flesh. That was also the emotion that the Proto-Gravemind was currently feeling as it felt movement through the sensitive flesh receptors at the exterior of what the humans called a spaceship. With its' interest piqued, it wondered what could possibly be out there and opted to travel through the hive mind it had created to take a quick look, and what it saw baffled it.

There was a human out there?

An armored human?

How did the human even get out there?

In the view of the many tiny, reformed eyes growing on the sensitive flesh, per the orders of itself, it secretly spied on a solitary figure shaped typically like a male human being but in a peculiar suit that it had never seen before on this ship. The eyes twitched. The suit, if it could even be called that, was covered in bone matter. Literal bone matter of its own species, though warped and changed in shape to fit over the human. Was that even a suit in the first place!? It was confused, for the first time ever since the start of its existence, on why the human being that created the suit didn't just use strong metals like the rest of their kind. Why go out of their way to create such a suit in the first place? Another matter that baffled the Proto-Gravemind was how the human being got out of the space ship in the beginning, all the airlocks that lead to the vast expense of space was shut down by yours truly as they were near the middle of the ship, where the ongoing conflict between its kind and the meager amount of humans was currently raging on. That thus begs the question, how did he escape unnoticed in a hot spot of conflict? And moreover, according to his current trajectory, if he doesn't deter from his current path, it looks to be as if he is crawling back to the middle. From whence he came. Back to the airlocks.

Why? To serve what purpose!?

What it saw out there did nothing to satiate its curiosity, instead, it intensified the emotion in question.

Luckily, it had a source of information that it could refer to. It traveled back to its main body in the hive mind and with one of its fleshy tentacle, shook awake the sole human entombed within its gooey pink confines. With a muffled groan, James Gregory Cutter woke up to his own personal nightmare. Immediately, he started to struggle within the grips of the Flood flesh growing around him, trying desperately to break free. All the while screaming loudly into the flesh stuffed inside of his mouth, in a vain attempt to attract attention with the muffled noises to seek out aid for himself.

The Proto-Gravemind just sighed within its hive mind.

It was used to this sort of thing whenever James Cutter woke up, the human was always desperate to get out of its control. It thought that the human would learn after its many futile attempts to escape but it still continued, where he got his energy from it would never know. It couldn't wait for the time when he finally got integrated into the hive mind, but for now, it would let him be. It didn't want to break him and lose the valuable source of information it had garnered from his mind by assimilating him too quickly, and on top of that, it also needed time to learn. Besides, there was no danger of him breaking out of the tough exterior of its skin and there was not a single one of his species nearby that could save him. Not that he needed to know that. It would let him hope so that he didn't lose himself to the emotion humans called despair, that would make him less fun to assimilate.

Despair, the Proto-Gravemind had learned earlier on in the past when it was just a flood variant, made humans less likely to fight back and more easier to infect as they lost themselves to the negative emotion. But this was something the Proto-Gravemind didn't want. Sure, it made its job easier to take over the spaceship and assimilate the humans, but it was at the cost of its enjoyment. For some odd reason that it couldn't quite fathom, it loved it when the humans fought back. Seeing them try desperately and futilely to drive its own kind back was something that the Proto-Gravemind took primal joy in. Those were the times the humans would be at their best, at their prime in both their distinct traits of intellect and strength. Resisting with all their might against the Proto-Gravemind's many kinds. It would then marvel at what these humans come up with, cunning plans and technologies to drive back its kind.

That was mainly the reason why it chose to capture one James Cutter, captain of this space ship. He was a good captain that had beautiful relationships with all of his crew mates before it yanked him away from them while they were hibernating in the cyro-chamber. It could have ended all of them that day when it stumbled upon the cyro-chamber in its variant form, all of them sleeping peacefully in their respective cells, not a fight in them while they were in this state. But it chose otherwise. And it paid off, paid off in terms of entertainment for the Proto-Gravemind. When the crew of the spaceship woke up, albeit missing one captain, they immediately seethed in anger. At first, the crew recklessly charged at its own kind, desperately fighting with all their might, fueled only by their emotions, to try to save their captain that they knew was still alive and not infected as informed by their ship's A.I.. Oh how their expressions twisted in many myriad forms of anger! It took great joy that day in observing them, occasionally taking part in the fight to revel in their anger. When their unorganized push proved to be futile and only drove them against the wall, they retreated and planned for another day. Professor Anders and the A.I. took the mantle of the commanders that day as seen when it saw them leading many future attacks on its kind. They were the closest to the captain and felt the loss heavily, however, they came out stronger because of it. They improved themselves; improved their strategies, planning and commandeering. All because they were heavily invested in the captain; one physically, the other emotionally.

Nevertheless, it knew to differentiate between work and play and didn't let the other party get too carried away with resisting its own kind. Giving them sufficient hope was one thing, but giving them too much was another matter altogether. A nice side bonus to all the fun the Proto-Gravemind had with the humans was that they turned out more intelligent, something that it could get behind when it finally consumes them into the hive mind to eventually get the end goal of a Gravemind form.

As a wise human once said, 'The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size', pity his older brother from another planet rushed to ate him up. They could have milked him for more intelligent quotes if they were patient.

Onto matters at hand, the Proto-Gravemind halted its thoughts from drifting away in the hive mind and begun to project its past vision and memories of the single human in outer space onto James Cutter. Like a burning brand, the Proto-Gravemind seared the information into the mind of James Cutter. Not giving him much of an option to resist as it cut down the feeble mental block he hastily tried to put up when he realized what was happening. Like all humans, James Cutter was weak to psychic influences and he quickly turned into a screaming mess. It imagines the pain from this experience to James Cutter is like getting shot in the head, repeatedly, without the sweet release of death following swiftly after, until all the information the Proto-Gravemind needs James Cutter to know is absorbed. Once that was done, it inquired him using the hive mind link on who the person was based on the distinct suit he was wearing.

'I don't know…'

That was the smart answer James Cutter chose to gave it after he recovered from the intense sensation of pain wrecking his mind.

The non-proverbial eyes of the Proto-Gravemind narrowed. He knew better than to lie to it. He should know better than to lie to it, in fact, maybe it should teach him again? What happens if he chooses to defy it, if he chooses not to cooperate. It didn't like to break its' current source of information too much but that doesn't mean it wouldn't if the need arises.

I will give you one more chance…, it was feeling giving today.

James Cutter's eyes widened and fear coursed through his veins, not missing the underlying threat underneath. Good, he still remembers, the Proto-Gravemind thought to itself. 'Wait! Wait! I am telling you the truth, I really don't kn-AGHHHH!', his desperate thoughts were interrupted by the screams of his flailing mind as it was ripped asunder by the Proto-Gravemind's large consciousness being forced into its tiny spaces. Wrong answer. James Cutter now only knew pain and blinding whiteness as the Proto-Gravemind barged in and sifted through his memories like books in a library.

Really, I thought that perhaps punishing you once like this would be enough for you to learn but it seems like you are a glutton for punishment. Now, let's see where have you seen this suit before…

The Proto-Gravemind flipped through the pages, expecting to get the answer easily as the suit was too distinct to be missed, but what it didn't expect was that it didn't find a single thing related to the person in outer space or the creator of the suit for that matter, even after it had read the entire story of James Cutter's life until now. It couldn't believe it, James Cutter was a captain, an excellent captain, he would have never missed something like this, especially not when it comes to his crew or their equipment. Moreover, he knew from the captain's interactions with Professor Anders that inventors like her usually flaunt their works, trying to get exposure for better funding and work places that can enable inventors to create more of whatever fascinating magic that goes through their heads. Was he actually telling the truth? The Proto-Gravemind was left in a state of disbelief, it reread the books again, hoping to find something,anything, that it may have possibly missed. Tracing line after line, highlighting word after word, like this it scanned all the books in James Cutter's library.

Yet again, it found nothing.

Impossible…, it wanted to go through James Cutter memories again for the third time that day but when his screaming reached a higher pitch, the Proto-Gravemind knew it was the signal to stop. It exited his mind and James Cutter forthwith lost consciousness, losing out to the mental strain and pain. It would have to wait for a long time before it got to use its source of information again. The Proto-Gravemind cursed in the hive mind, its act of sifting through the memories of James Cutter brought about no solution to its questions and instead, provided another conundrum. If the person out there wasn't part of the crew, who were they? A renegade? A crew of another ship? Or perhaps…

No! It wouldn't let its mind drift to that thought, it wouldn't, it shouldn't…. But like all minds that refuse to think about negative thoughts, the Proto-Gravemind's latched onto that negative possibility it just almost thought of and pulled. The image of a green helmet with a yellow tinted visor appeared in the middle of the hive mind.

The Proto-Gravemind screamed in utter fear.

It swiftly retreated to the far corner of its hive mind, trying its damnedest to get away from that cursed image, even going so far as to put a mental flesh wall up, trying to block the image physically in its mental realm. It didn't care that its act had made the entirety of its own kind sung in fear in correspondence with its own actions, it didn't care that it revealed their positions to the humans, it didn't care about anything at the moment. Anything except the helmet. The vile helmet. It wasn't the helmet that the Proto-Gravemind was scared of, it was the wearer. It just found it easier to take it out on an inanimate object then to think about the wearer. It cursed again. It shouldn't have even mentioned the slightest bit about the wearer, now its' traitorous mind was drifting to the stories it had heard about him.

The Green Charon.

That was what the rest of his species called him. Back when it was establishing itself as the Proto-Gravemind, it had a temporary link with the rest of its' brothers and they used that momentary link to give advice to its new, youngest family member. They gave it many helpful advice and Flood forms that it could use in battle along with its purpose, but they also gave him one warning. Never approach the Green Charon. That warning was followed by brief images of absolute anarchy in different worlds and in all of them one figure stood out. The figure wore a green suit with the green helmet and in each of the images, he always stood tall among mounting corpses of its kind. From normal flood Human Combat Forms to advanced Pure forms, they all didn't stand a chance against this monster. They were just insects in the way of the true monster that was this human being. It also didn't help that its' brothers told horrific tales of the memories of those that had brief encounters with him and without exception, they always ended tragically. When the link with them was finally cut off after it finished its transformation, it truly felt that the name was befitting of the human.

The Green Charon, the hardworking ferryman of the souls of its kind.

Going out of his way to make sure they died painfully and stayed that way.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't think the person outside the space ship could be him, the armor was too different. But yet, it also remembered that the some of the brief images showed the human wearing different, unique suits of armor before. Who's to say he wouldn't wear one made out of the bones of his own kind? The Proto-Gravemind shivered in the corner of its hive mind at the possibility. If the person was indeed him, it was screwed. There was no going out of this encounter alive, it was just too young, too inexperienced, to even be able to put up much of a resistance, much less a fight against the true monster. It was just born to this world and still haven't even gotten to explore even a smidge of it. It had so many things it wanted to do; it wanted to explore the wide spectrum of feelings, it wanted to see the different species the universe had to offer and more importantly, it wanted to reunite with its brothers. The brief moment when it had contact with the rest of its brothers, it felt a warm and safe feeling exuding from all of them, almost akin to the feeling one gets in a human family. It desired that feeling again very much, especially after it had spent its time alone in the space ship. It was cold here, cold, dark and very alone. And maybe absorbing too many humans without variety in its diet was causing it to adopt their mannerism, but still, it didn't like it, and if its' guesses were true on who the human was, it most likely would end up staying this way. Permanently.

Snap out of it!

The Proto-Gravemind shook its hive mind and slapped James Cutter in the face with a tentacle to induce pain onto itself as a distraction. That was too close there, it almost lost itself to the emotion that it so detested, even in humans. All because of a stray thought that fleeted through its mind.

Never the mind, it now had a problem to take care of. From the sensations transmitted by its flesh at the exterior of the spaceship, the human was close to getting to one of the airlocks to get to the middle of the ship. It couldn't allow that, especially with very recent suspicions that arose on the identity of the human. It had to take caution and strike preemptively to prevent the human from getting any aid from its kind or getting a weapon at the middle of the ship. If he was the Green Charon, which the Proto-Gravemind hoped was not the case and prayed to god to not let it be so, he would become an unstoppable killing machine with weapons and allies at his side, if not, will, a little paranoia never killed anybody. Paranoia, in this case, would be a heightened sense of awareness and having the right information. Admittedly, it was lacking the latter, but that problem will be solved not too soon now as it transformed a large tentacle from its own flesh and dragged the human to the inside of the spaceship, to where the Proto-Gravemind had an advantage over the human, its infested territories.

There it laid in ambush, putting forth a single Human Combat Form as bait and a deciding factor on the identity of the human. Meanwhile, more than a dozen of the Human Combat Forms hid inside the darkness of the corridors and the crevices of its flesh, armed and ready as they all turned their pairs of eyes on where the human roughly landed. A little overkill yes, but it all depends on the identity of the human. It fears even this might not be enough if its guesses were to come true. With a keen interest, it observed from the vision of the many pairs of eyes on every slight movement the human made to help it determine his identity faster.

At first, the quick recovery from the landing and combat-readiness of the human from hearing a threat in front of him was startlingly similar to the Green Charon. Then and there it almost ordered the Human Combat Forms to open fire at the human in panic, but luckily for it, or the human, the confused body expression in seeing a Human Combat Form halted its command. The Proto-Gravemind was overjoyed. The Green Charon would never hesitate or show confusion in attacking a Human Combat Form, he detested its kind just as much as they detested him and that hatred would make him never forget about them. Unless of course if the human wasn't him in this case. With jubilation at disproving the worst of its fears, it ordered the hidden Human Combat Forms to stand down and the sole Human Combat Form to eliminate the human to make him easier to infect and join its ranks.

Jubilation turned to trepidation, then to confusion as within minutes, the human rapidly eliminated the Human Combat Form with its own weapon after it failed to take into account another armor underneath the bony carapace, fell to the floor and rose back up to eat said dead Human Combat Form. The small tentacles of the multiple hiding Human Combat Form reared back in confusion as the Proto-Gravemind looked on at the scene in front of it. The squelching sounds followed by the frequent retching of the human rang out in the dead silence of the space ship. It reckons the meal must taste disgusting…? It didn't know what to think. First, the human's decision of going out to space then heading back whence he came, then this, this act of self-aided suicide by consuming its own kind. All of it confused the Proto-Gravemind.

The Proto-Gravemind tried to comprehend what it was seeing. Putting the hundreds of minds absorbed into its being to work, but it proved to be useless, only giving it a giant headache. The combined thoughts of the Proto-Gravemind put forth many theories on the actions of the strange human, but they were just that, theories. Nothing concrete that the Proto-Gravemind could work on as it was severely lacking information on this individual. With nothing to help it, it just shrugged the tentacles of its main body and watched the infestation process, if it couldn't guess his motives, he would do it for it.

With the feasting act of the human the infestation process was surely going to be quicker, it didn't have to wait long now before the assimilation of his memories joined its hive mind. As it sat back and watch the human get infected, it gradually, subconsciously, felt the parasites flowing through the human's bloodstream getting eliminated cell by cell, almost as if it was done deliberately. Wait a minu-

'He is MINE!'

A shout, no, a loud mental broadcast the Proto-Gravemind quickly identified as it felt the hive mind ringing in pain, suddenly burst forth from the downed human. The mental broadcast was filled with anger and an intention tohurt it as the message burned itself into the hive mind. The sudden psychic attack left the Proto-Gravemind reeling back in shock and pain to its main body, leaving the dozen and more Human Combat Forms hidden in the vicinity of the human to go back to their own base instincts; attacking any living lifeforms. The Human Combat Forms shambled out of their hiding spots and rushed towards the downed human, some firing their battle rifles and some charging headlong, all of it happening at the exact same time as they succumbed to their instincts. The attack was uncoordinated and clumsy at best due to the Proto-Gravemind relinquishing the control of the Human Combat Forms, many front-liners were caught in the friendly fire of their allies in their quest to quickly reach the downed human being, and the Proto-Gravemind even realizing this made no attempt to stop them. This was because it wanted them to eliminate that threat, whatever that was, without it getting close to them. That initial psychic attack was absurdly strong, it had eliminated a quarter of the minds fueling the hive mind in just one mental broadcast, and it made it fear the creature.

Yes, creature. It didn't believe the human-shaped creature sharing the same similarities in biology with a human male could be a human, it believed that something was sharing that human's body, a disguise to bring one's guard down. A masquerader of the human flesh. And it had worked momentarily against the Proto-Gravemind with its psychic capabilities, but it had learn its lesson. It now kept its distance from the creature and lead to nudge all available Flood Infection Forms towards the direction of the downed creatureand relinquished control when nearby. It didn't spare anything when it came to bringing down this creature, bringing its entire flood army to their last known location. There was another psychic in town and there can only be one.

Admittedly, it was weaker in psychic powers to the creature after its first rodeo but it was not ashamed to admit that it was going to eliminate the threat with sheer numbers. What it lacked in psychic capabilities, it more than made up for with its large army. To be exact, an army of different flood variants numbering in the thousands. It had three types currently under its belt; the Human Combat Form, the Flood Carriers and the basic Flood Infection Forms. Each providing a different form of lethality in their charge towards the creature. The Human Combat Form had their deadly battle rifles, the Flood Carriers had their overwhelming numbers of Flood Infection Forms stored in their bulbous flesh sacks and the Flood Infection Forms with their ability to infect any living species and flexible three red tentacles. When combined together, they made a formidable wave of monsters. It had one more special type but it was currently experimenting on it and it didn't believe the sheer strength and durability of that type was required against the creature.

What was one creature compared to its army.

It snickered as it remembered a human phrase, "You and what army!". It wished it could say that to the creature to taunt it but too bad it couldn't get close to the creature's psychic influences. The humor was still not lost on it though.

That humor very soon returned to fear.

At first, it started with the deaths of the dozen and more Human Combat Forms it had left behind nearby the downed creature. The fragmented memories of their death painting an alarming picture through the eyes of the Flood Infection Forms embedded in the human bodies as they returned to the hive mind. Through those eyes the Proto-Gravemind saw them charging towards the form, some of the bullets from the battle rifles even hitting the downed creature, and when one of the variant lifted its large bony claw to bring it down upon the creature's body, all hell broke loose. Instantaneously, all the Proto-Gravemind saw was the metallic structure of the ceiling. At first, the Proto-Gravemind was confused, wondering how the view suddenly changed from their targets. It didn't have to wonder long though as through the view of one of the variants that stood to shoot at the furthest back and the one memory that came in the last, it saw the creature deforming its human body into spikes made out of its back skin and hair that pierced through the Human Combat Forms in copious amounts and embedded them into the ceiling. Thereafter, it ripped them apart in half, losing all of their memories to the Proto-Gravemind, and brought their dead bodies to the its still downed form wherein it began to what the Proto-Gravemind can only assume as consuming them as it saw the creature melding their flesh into one form. That one form being the shape of the same human being, though no doubt dense and packed with flood flesh now. It then rose up unnaturally compared to a human being and noticed the still lingering Human Combat Form through unfocused, milky white eyes as it turned its head at an unnatural angle to stare at it. A flash of almond skin tone was all it saw before darkness enveloped it.

The encounter brought about… unsettling revelations to say the least. It now knew the creature had biological manipulation, something on a level far above itself as it showed precise levels of coordination of the spikes and what little it had to work with on the human body. That combined with the fact that it was psychically more powerful than it and it could absorb bio-matter into its being made the Proto-Gravemind's fear of it spike even higher.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't hesitate. It now knew the dire consequences of facing against this creature so it quickly put its hive mind into overdrive. Death was inevitable screamed the many weak human minds, but those voices were vehemently blocked out by the strategic minds tempered by the Great One's form of 'enjoyment'. It had a plan and it needed precious time to complete said plan so the first thing it needed was a temporary distraction. It commanded the rest of the remaining army to retreat and in random directions so as not to give the creature any more biological fuel to no doubt turn into weapons. But even then, it felt them dying one by one in a similar fashion. The more flood variants that died, the faster the rate of deaths became. The fragmented memories were starting to come at an alarming pace to the Proto-Gravemind, so much so that it was unable to process all of them in the manner of their deaths, but it was still able to paint a general picture of what was happening. The creature was streaking here. To where its main body resided. All the while somehow killing the running flood variants along the way.

It believed it was time to use that special type now. It didn't have enough information on how to make it completely whole but even an incomplete version would do against the unstoppable momentum of destruction of the creature. The figurative, temporary brakes to the unstoppable momentum. It didn't believe the special type could end the threat, but it was at its wits end and needed a solution that could buy it some more time to complete the plan.

Its brothers called this type a pure flood form, an amalgamation of purely flood flesh molded into the hardiest variant known to its kind, the Flood Tank Form. This form could withstand plasma grenades and conventional gunfire without breaking a sweat, however, it was tweaked by the Proto-Gravemind into a much larger form and skipped the entire mutation strand of the Stalker Form due to the impending doom coming towards it direction so there was no telling what it could withstand. It just hopes that it would prove to be enough.

The Proto-Gravemind started to pool the outer sensitive flesh into the spaceship that was painstakingly made by it to enable flood flesh, hardened by the heat of the sun. Once all of it reached into the corridor just outside of the command center of the spaceship, where its main body resided, it used its tentacles to shift and mold them into shape. Starting with its legs, it formed them into two chunky forms representing elephant hooves, these legs didn't have any joints and connected to a bony pelvis that was joined together with the entire mid-section of the body of the variant. The mid-section was a bony outer covering that had broad shoulders which reached to each end of the corridor, with two massive hardened spikes as arms. And lastly, it crafted the head made of several flexible tentacles into the creature. The head in this case was meant to restrict the creature's movement to prevent it from moving forward before it could enact its plan. The inner sections of the body of the variant was filled with compressible flood flesh that transferred the loads to the legs of the variant and into the floor. This would allow the variant to endure the speed of the creature's momentum and any damage that may come from blunt force of trying to counter the variant's tough outer shell. This entire process took a long time as molding hardened pure flood flesh proved harder on the tentacles than the Proto-Gravemind first thought, luckily for it, having many minds proved to increase its skill in multi-tasking and this allowed it to continue working on its plan while the tentacles pounded the flesh into shape like mochi.

As the Proto-Gravemind was finishing the final touches on the variant, it felt the corridor leading to command center start shaking and creaking ominously. With hurried tentacle movement, it rushed the job and didn't take the time to appreciate it's creation like it would normally do and retreated back to the command center, closing the door along the way and sealing it tight with flood flesh as best as it could. It felt that it would need however much time it could get at this point.

This feeling wasn't unfounded as moments after the Proto-Gravemind's retreat, there was a loud bang that came outside of the command center. This bang was momentarily followed by another. Then another. Then another. It could almost feel the shock wave coming from the blows happening outside.

The Proto-Gravemind again prayed to whatever deity that may be listening to it for the second time that day. It worked the first time, so there was no harm in trying again and just god wouldn't be enough this time to stop that creature. There was nothing else it could essentially do besides pray and work on its plan. It was blind as far as it concerns on the fight happening just right outside its doorstep and the only time when it will know what happened will be when the Flood Tank Form perish, which it hopes will not be happening any time soon. The banging noises continued right outside for a long while and the Proto-Gravemind had counted them in the hive mind as it worked on the plan. 36 and still going, the counter to its doom. While it was counting, it learned that fear was a pretty good motivator when it comes to getting work done. It's amazing what fear can do to you when you know death is just awaiting right outside of your home, thought the Proto-Gravemind as it finished up the last part of its plan.

Just in the nick of time too as the memories of the Flood Tank Form started flooding in.

It didn't look through the memories or review them, it no longer had the time to do such a thing as the door, along with the flood flesh, came flying open, and in came the creature in a shower of dust. The creature was in its human form and surveyed the room it was currently in. It's cloudy eyes locked onto the giant green mass in the center of the room and a terrifying grin spread across its face.

'Found you!'

The creature happily singsonged in the hive mind of the Proto-Gravemind and launched itself onto the giant green mass. The creature hugged the giant green mass and assimilated their hands and legs into the green mass, turning and twisting with them in a way that brought intense bouts of pain to the Proto-Gravemind. It's body writhed in pain and struggled to break free of the creature's grasp. It would seem that the creature was torturing it before they went in for the kill but what they didn't know was that they had fallen right into its trap. Coincidentally, right where the Proto-Gravemind wanted them. With a snap, all six tentacles that were holding the giant green mass upright in the center of the room broke off from their respective corners and rapidly wrapped themselves around the green mass and the creature. The creature, now trapped and ensnared, quickly lost their happy demeanor and started to shift their flesh around to get out of the hold they were caught in, only to find that they couldn't manipulate their flesh like before.

'Surprised?', thousands of minds echoed in the head of the creature and they looked around in bewilderment, 'You're not the only one who can mentally broadcast their thoughts.'

'You must be wondering what happened to your amazing abilities, well let me tell you something, absorbing tons and tons of my flood flesh make them as malleable to you, as it is to me! And you just brought yourself closer to the body that is controlling them.'

'No, no! Let me go, this body is mine! You can't have it!'

The voice tinged with the same anger and intentions to hurt rang out in the hive mind again, however, this time it had no effect. The hive mind just thrilled along with the voice, after all, they were now part of it. The Proto-Gravemind let loose a tentacle, knowing that the creature can't escape, and used it to slither to a dark area where a human body was half-hidden by the flood flesh. It lifted the body up, bring it close to the green mass and turned the creature around so that they could see James Cutter.

'See this?', For emphasis, the Proto-Gravemind shook James Cutter upside down like a rag-doll, 'Let me give you a lesson on our species, this was the human that once made up my source of information, a captain by the name of James Cutter. Once. Until you decided to come along and destroy everything we worked so hard for!'

'So I thought, since you are oh so powerful and great at psychic manipulation, you must have more minds than my hive mind and that means you must be smarter than James Cutter. More filled with knowledge than James Cutter.'

At this, the Proto-Gravemind tapped the creature's head with the one free tentacle while holding James Cutter in a loop. The creature growled.

'You get what I am saying here?'

'Release me at once!', the creature continued to struggle against their bindings, ignoring the Proto-Gravemind in favor of trying to escape.

The Proto-Gravemind was annoyed. Very much so. It seems like the creature didn't understand the position they were in, even when they were clearly trapped and unable to fight back. It seems the creature and James Cutter were the same; they needed to be taught a lesson to understand the futility of resistance in its grasp. It touched the black marker. The creature stilled. It seems even a creature can understand after all.

'H-How…?'

'I am glad you asked! Well you see...'

And it went into a spiel. Talking to the creature about how hard it worked on its plan to capture it, how it twisted itself, changed itself to be able to accommodate switching hosts, how they should appreciate what it had done for them at the cost of all of its resources. It babbled on and on, making itself take on the tone of an evil villain found in a movie one of the humans had watched. It found itself loving it, so this was how it felt to have complete victory over it's nemesis and still be able to completely reveal its plan in safety. It could see the appeal.

So much so that it didn't notice the creature was no longer struggling outwards, but inwards. With the ability to control the little amount of human flesh left in their body, they launched the black marker into the giant green mass, essentially launching their consciousness into the hive mind of the Proto-Gravemind.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't notice until it was too late. Now it was their turn to be James Cutter as it fought a losing battle in its hive mind, it's tentacles writhing around in pain.

'Get out! Stop it!' it begged, but the creature showed no mercy.

As such, it will show none in return.

The Proto-Gravemind didn't have a back-up plan should it fail, a plan B so to speak, but it had a plan E, a plan to end all plans.

The writhing tentacles stopped their writhing, a final act by their master, and they wrapped around the giant green mass tighter and tighter still while its consciousness wrapped around the creature's in the same manner.

Until finally, everything stopped, both in the inside and outside.

I have no excuse to explain my disappearance from FF… ok, maybe I have one, it's not so much an excuse as it is more of a distraction for me. Two months ago, I found a fandom named 'Worm' done by its esteemed author Wildbow and I have been hooked ever since by the story and their fan fiction. This had made me deteriorate in my writing skills and go back to when I was just a reader of books and fan fiction and I guess I just lost the interest to write.

Until… it came back again and I am back! Temporarily for the time being and there wouldn't be much of a schedule now. Also you might find that the writing quality deteriorates at the end.

Please excuse the fickle mind of this author and do enjoy the story.

P.S. credit where it is due to FilmComicsExplained a YouTube channel that inspired me to take up writing this story yet again and aided me in the biology of the Necromorphs and Floods in their summary videos.

P.S.S Almost reaching 7000 words, another new record! Also I might need to edit this post for errors later on.