Re: The Dividing Line - Station
Draven whipped around so fast Nadia might swear he generated a wind gust of 50 knots, looking at her with a stunned look before genuine fear flashed in his eyes. A flick of a button closed the doors to the ship, and he spoke very low, and quietly.
"We're shape-shifters, all of us. Before I go any further, I'd like to ... request that you not tell anyone of what you now know about us. If word got out the Ingrali were shapeshifters to the Ashotur or Nnyarthall ... if they ever found a way to neutralize our species and take our ships, our technology, it would mean the end of everything you or I still know and hold dear."
Slowly, he sagged into his chair, and he was silent for a long moment before he looked up to her.
"We assume the forms of a race that can pass as something ... understandable when we encounter another species, usually anyway. I chose this form before meeting with your people for it's physicality, it's durability and such. Unfortunately we also assume a few of the ... weaker points of the shape we take, in this case anger issues. Our natural form ... well, I guess there's no harm in showing you now ... I warn you, what you are about to see ... it won't sit well with your, dare I say, primitive ideas of how life exists."
To that, he allowed his body to completely melt away, and assumed his natural shape. It resembled nothing short of literal walking black mist, with a pair of glowing red eyes. When he spoke, his voice was the same tone it had been with in the command center, an almost raspy sound, but clearly the same voice.
"This is our natural form. Perhaps you can see why we choose not to use it around humans and more humanoid life forms? Only a small handful know what we truly are. It's not something we divulge easily, and most who discover what we are, they are sworn to secrecy, or if in battle, we end their lives. In fact, it is because of someone who knew what I was that I am even here in your galaxy. Let me show you something else."
He pressed a button on the panel next to him, and a holographic display showing a series of genetic codes flashed up. She might not know exactly what the intention of said code was per se, but she'd be able to recognize it for what it was with the clearly marked engineered parts in it's structure. What she was looking at was a biological weapon engineered. Specifically with Nnyarthall bio-coding.
"The bugs as you call them, they used it at the height of our war with them. The first planet they hit with it was my home. I was unaffected by it being able to shift the toxins out of my body. Allison and the other humans however weren't so lucky."
He broke off again, a flash in his eyes indicating that whoever this Allison was, she'd been someone extremely close to him, something confirmed a moment later.
"She didn't die immediately, rather he body was consumed from the inside out, a necrotic flesh eating disease you might call it. It was a slow, and painful death for her, she died in my arms, and there was nothing I could do to save her life, or anyone else on that world. It wasn't long before THEY came, to clean up the bodies and claim the world as their own, but they didn't stop there. They defiled the remains, those blasted fish heads actually having the gall to tear off limbs from the bodies, including hers and chew on them in celebration. None of them who stepped foot on that world ever left it again when I was finished. Allison was the only person who didn't care what I was, who ... cared for me despite knowing I was the walking definition of insanity. They took her life, I took theirs. Until we discovered their kind existed here. My people have not forgotten what they did, and there are some amongst us who wish to return the favor as you might say. Some of us wish to use a bio-weapon of our own to rid your galaxy of their existence once and for all. I will not allow that."
