Mengusikaa

Mother - Andressaa

Father - Atrocity

Midform - about 6'8" tall, chalky grey-blue chitin, black-blue hair, blue eyes, voice you don't want to hear

Shapeshifting - to almost-fully human (very tall, over 7', with the same chalky blue color skin, black hair, and vibrant blue eyes) and almost-fully Xeno (loses eyes and hair, head grows long, and becomes less bipedal and more 'raptor' positioned, at around 8' tall)

Personality - casually observant, cruel, bewilderingly sensible

The first to 'hatch' and latch on to a host body, the female burst through her host's chest cavity and began to look for food. She didn't have to look far, after all, that was what the body was there for. Warm, still twitching, food. The female xeno-creature had legs with sharp toes, a long tail, and a small, oddly round head. Covered in chitinous skin, she was marked as a warrior right off with her smooth skull and single set of arms. But she was tiny, perhaps no bigger than a human infant at the time. Bulkier than one, and certainly much bigger than any xeno that had true blood in its shell...

She noticed even in her oddly fetal state that she was being observed, and she turned to hiss. When she did though, she detected a strong emotion-scent from this male watching her. Pride? This thing was proud of her? Why?

She barely registered any emotions yet, hunger and anger were competing. The desire to hide and sleep also showed up soon. And the male thing (soft, but big, too big for her to take down easily) offered her a dark and cool chamber where she slipped quickly away.

***

Not more than three days later, the female came from the dark room - hungry again. She didn't necessarily need to eat, but she certainly wanted to. And there was a distinct smell of decay, death, warm but cooling flesh.

She did not blink, now that she had eyes. She had no eyelids. But there was a halo of dark, straight hair on her strange skull, and while she could 'smell' things, it was perhaps only through her smooth chitinous exterior that she did so. Her mind was rich with thoughts. She could sense the male, now she knew him to be her 'sire' whatever that meant. But she also detected other xeno-blooded creatures, and had she been furry she would have bristled.

She exited, and Atrocity turned to greet her. He didn't even know if she'd understand his words, but he tried anyway.

"Welcome to the world, my dear daughter," he said. The thing across his brown head, a bright set of teeth, a smile, forced her own face into an immitation of it.

Atrocity's face jumped at that, either he wasn't expecting it, or he was actually creeped out by it. More than likely the latter.

"Thank you, father," she said. Her voice was nails across chalkboard, but low. Her adult size now achieved, she could look Atrocity almost in the eye. "Who am I?"

"You ... are..." He searched around in his mind, apparently looking for the right name. But before he could do so, Recht and Makot stumbled past in an angry dance.

What is she!? This is food, right? Makot hissed, while Recht sniffed the air around her new 'toy'. The newly raised female snarled, drew her clawed hand into a ball, and thwacked Recht across her nose just hard enough to warn but not enough to hurt.

"She is not food, she is waiting for her name." She said, of herself. "Father. These... are hardly a fitting welcome committee."

"You know some awfully big words for just having hatched," Atrocity laughed. "Makot, Recht, Thedakaliss and Ecothet," he introduced each, "your brothers and sisters perhaps," he waved a long hand at the line of captives in their states of agony along the wall, "and you are now Mengusikaa, daughter of Andressaa and Atrocity. How does that sound?"

"Entertaining," the xeno-child stated. Then, she gave off an odd humming sound, Thedakaliss perked up and then went back to eating. "I am more than merely this," she said. Atrocity nodded once.

"You might take after your mother, she was a shapeshifter." He indicated Thedakaliss, "perhaps try her tricks and become more ... like this?"

Mengusikaa tilted her head, and began the long work of learning how to shapeshift. Perhaps she'd never be very good at it, or she just wanted to savor the slowness with which she did it. Atrocity knew that her mother had done it very quickly indeed, almost instantly, so she had a ways to go. But then again, she was only a few days old.

***

Menguiskaa never did learn to quickly shift but she certainly did learn. Over the course of half an hour perhaps, she moved from one shape to the next. She enjoyed hunting in the lower caverns, chasing after the other Hydra that lived down there, and avoiding Baeris Kshau - who she was told would most certainly have all of them not killed but exiled, and that was worse.

"Why, father?" She asked. "Why would being told not to come back be so bad? What if we liked it better somewhere else?"

She picked the wing off a flitter she'd caught. The Healing Den was full of the little things, in fact there were rooms with nothing but eggs and blasted pregnant females! A veritable buffet! The flitter shrieked, and she put her other hand gently down over it's throat to quiet it. If she hadn't been asking questions, she would have savored the sound just as much as the fear and pain sensations she smelled/felt from it.

Atrocity had to consider his words carefully. "Finding a new place is the hard part, daughter," he said. "One with good accomodations for not just humanoids like us, but dragon kind like them," he thumbed at the gigantic Ecothet and his smaller but growing female xenodragon companion. "It has to have a good food source, and things to occupy our minds."

"But father, you use that portal to go places, why not find another? This place is... a bit cramped. And it will get more so when my siblings begin hatching." Mengusikaa pointed out. "What if I could find my own place?"

"I'm sure you will, soon enough," Atrocity said quickly, and she got another strange emotion from him, one she couldn't place a title to. "But ... let me enjoy your company for the time being."

That company remained while two of her siblings hatched, but then shortly Atrocity indicated that Ecothet had found himself a new mate. This didn't faze Thedakaliss any, she was still years away from being old and big enough to fly and mate with him. So now, they were off to visit a new place.

"The Citadel of Shadows," Atrocity said, indicating the sinister looking place. Ecothet stood proudly next to his mate, the three-headed whorling named Lao.

"She has had many eggs with Ecothet," Atrocity said, "would you like to see them?"

"I would love to," Mengusikaa said. Proudly she walked up to the pair, bowed, and then went straight to the eggs. Though Lao was a bit angry, perhaps there was something more to this than other invaders.

Shortly, the xeno-humanshifter would be signed up for the clutch. There was no turning back - Mengusikaa was meant to be here. Perhaps she'd even stay on- with the cramped quarters that the Healing Den's bottom side could offer, what if she did remain?

She could enjoy hunting new creatures, one which might fight back a bit better than the harmless flitters she usually ate. She would be able to fight - really fight - some day... Yes. This would be a good place for a warrior child.

Mengusikaa enjoyed her stay in the Citadel in ways that perhaps no one else could. She challenged herself to shapeshift and then stuff herself into narrows, ceiling nooks, anywhere she could surprise a passerby. She knew better, like her father did, than to hunt in the halls. The hunting would be done outside, where proper food sources were found. She discovered a deep instintcual dislike - fear perhaps - of the ocean. The Citadel was right on the edge of an ocean. She did not stray toward the cliffs.

Her father occupied by one of the riders, Tialdusk, Mengusikaa was content to uncover things here on her own. Perhaps she would claim a portion of the place, it certainly had room. Much nicer than the cramped twisted corridors of the Healing Den. Then one evening the queens on the hatching sands began their shrieking song announcing their eggs were hatching.

Something within Mengusikaa's blood sang as well. This was her true calling, indeed. She was drawn near but remained outside, watching. It was a huge, messy, bloody festival of birth and death. Tiny hatchlings fell to their larger siblings. As it should be. Mengusikaa slid into the room to watch from above, clinging to the ceiling rocks and masonry expertly with her shifted limbs, snaking her tail around a hanging pillar. She saw many headed beasts - her father's dragon's brood - dominate the sands. She also saw her father attempting to pull a bit closer to the mistress of the Citadel, perhaps he was starting to like it here as well. The smells that wafted to the ceiling were of pride, fear, posessiveness, hunger. Something else came to her sense-gland then - after the bulk of the eggs had broken.

The last remaining hatchling stood out on the dark sands, amidst the remains of her fallen siblings and the shards of scattered egg shells. Looking about, the dark blue beastling shrieked in rage, then her gaze moved to the chamber ceiling. Mishuvel looked up as well, and smiled. "So that's where she was hiding...."

The chitin gray of Atrocity's daughter, Mengusikaa, was visible on the upper walls of the chamber only to those that looked. The xenoshifter had been watching the entire hatching in absolute silence, but here was the one hatchling that had broken her veil of stealth. Mengusikaa! The female beastling flapped her wings in agitation, unable to fly to where her Chosen was perched. You will come! Xiophe calls you, as my sire called your father! Let us show them the world we shall make! And Mengusikaa smiled that terrible, frightening smile, and began her descent.

Mengusikaa smiled again, as the rest of the hatchlings had dispersed. Xiophe and she went to rest in their new chambers. The xenoshifter stared at the ceiling as her triple headed beast slept next to her. There was a sense of such calm - but Mengusikaa knew better than to think that the dragon's mind was calm to anyone else! The trio of brains, perhaps, made reading the dragonet's thoughts difficult at first. But as she slept Mengusikaa sorted out how to 'read' her bond. Tainted, this hatchling was very strong indeed. It was as if worlds of other minds were open to her now. Perhaps a kind of bleed-through on her part, Mengusikaa's bond probably could still feel the other candidates and members of the Citadel in her mind. That made the xenoshifter smile again, sinister thoughts came to her of how she could manipulate this situation to her liking...

***

Xiophe chewed on a thigh bone - of a cow - while Mengusikaa paced around. She'd gone back to her father's lair, to find him gone for the time being. He'd left a note, oooh, a note. But at least she knew he would return. She had learned how to read and write while in his care, so she left him a note explaining that she would drop in now and again, but for the moment she felt much happier out by the Citadel. Because she had bonded a hydragon that could eventually learn to teleport (how she got there to begin with) they had worlds to discover.

Given the protection that the fierce three-headed wonder afforded her, Mengusikaa could safely traverse nearly any world without having to worry someone was prying into her mind. She knew that people like her sire's 'master' Renaud and his dopplegangers would love to get ahold of someone like her.

I would never allow that, Xiophe asserted. I would like to breed. And so would you, correct?

Laughing - the sound was like glass shattering in a steel tube - Mengusikaa agreed. "I believe so... We are both adults, we both have time, take us somewhere we will find mates, my one."

With that, they took a last look around. Teleporting back to the Citadel was easy, Xiophe would always seem to have an affinity for the place of her birth. Then, they whisked away - elsewhere - elsewhen perhaps... To places far and wide.

Chosen: Mengusikaa
Name: Xiophe
Gender: Female
Dam: Lao
Sire: Echothet
Breed: Mix (Whorling/Hath-Hydra)
Abilities: Telepathy, Dark Vision, Fire Breath, Poison, High Psionics
Notes: Xiophe is Shadow-Tainted. Her mental strength is incredibly strong. Her psionics gives her many abilities, including, but not limited to, exerting control over others, teleporting, reading thoughts, and causing hallucinations. Her mind is uncontrollable and unreadable to anyone but Mengusikaa. Mengusikaa's connection to Xiophe protects her from all potential psionic attacks or probes.