The feminine-looking extragalactic invader slowly approached Arkhan and Asharia, its tail slowly swaying back and forth as it executed a perfect supermodel catwalk. Its lower pair of arms were folded in a way that let the long, claw-like fingers on its hands cover up its chest area, although the fact that the creature was buck naked made its futile attempt at some degree of modesty look a bit out of place. Thankfully, the entity seemed to have no reproductive bits that could be seen, so Arkhan thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t spotted anything that would have made him heave.

What on a Tyranid or Xenomorph would have been back-mounted biological air vents were replaced by tendrils about one third as long as the creature’s tail and its ‘hair’ kept switching from being tentacle-like pseudo-dreadlocks to a more human-looking hair, despite it being roughly the same color as the rest of the creature, from tip to tail; a kind of unnatural and off-putting shade of something that was green but also very much not green. What gave Arkhan the most heebie jeebies was the creature’s face, which, on the surface, seemed to be supermodel/ movie actor-level attractive but the more you looked at it the more you felt that something was wrong, not that you could put a finger on what it was that gave such a feeling to begin with.

But what concerned Arkhan was not what Asharia was concerned about, let alone those living troops who stood around. When the hangar doors had shut, the interior had been repressurized and the automatic sensors in the troops’ armor had begun letting outside air filter in. Now they were looking very, very uncomfortable, as if they were smelling something so rank and foul yet also sickly sweet that it made their minds unable to truly process what they were experiencing. As Arkhan looked through the HUD in his power armor, he realized that what Asharia had said was truth. The air was practically overflowing with pheromones that were flooding from the creature, and as he let his filtration systems give him a minor dose, he quite nearly hurt himself with how fast his… ‘Collapsible Baton’… was readied.

The creature placed the third of its four hands over its chest along with the other two which, as previously stated, were folded over where a human’s breasts would be, and began to speak in Common.

“We are Zeyhris, and This One is an avatar made for the purpose of meeting you. We have changed from the primal self We once were, and now We are greater. We once desired solely to sate our hunger, to advance our biology and become truly perfect, but now We desire coexistence. And…”

The invader bioform identified itself and slowly narrowed its eyes as its mouth began to curl into a smile.

“And?” Asharia asked, fully ready for a fight.

“We desire That One.” the avatar said, gesturing towards Arkhan. “That One’s existence is like Our own. We would be stronger, more perfect, if We were to be joined. We want only to-.”

“Nope.” Arkhan stated curtly.

“Excuse Us?” Zeyhris’ avatar asked in seeming disbelief.

“Not going to happen. I will not join your Gestalt.” Arkhan said, his tone slowly becoming more irritable as he continued. “I already am having a tough time distinguishing myself from my people and my creations, and I, for one, don’t want to slip any farther.”

Zeyhris tilted its head in confusion before half yelling in disbelief.

“That One does not want to be part of something greater than Itself?!”

“That isn’t how I would put it.” Arkhan said dismissively with Asharia nodding along. “I was not originally the hub of the gestalt that we now effectively are. I, and all others like me, were completely independent; isolated minds that worked perfectly well without the need for a collective. I, and those like me, don’t want to lose that independence, that individuality.”

Arkhan then narrowed the eyes of his powered armor to show that he had done the same underneath.

“I am me, and that is what I desire to be. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Zeyhris’ avatar seemed to be mulling over the revelation it had received regarding its former foe inside its own Hive Mind. It stood in place, unblinking and unmoving, for what seemed to be an eternity. After a total of three minutes of waiting for the Hive Mind to finish its internal dialogue, the avatar spoke.

“Then, We wish for something to seal our coexistence; something that is both That One and not That One.”

“I have a name, you know.” Arkhan grumbled, but Asharia’s words were louder than his.

“And what, pray tell, do you want from him?”

Zeyhris’ avatar opened all four of its arms wide and stood straight and tall.

“We desire That One’s genes. That One will grant Us its genes, and then We will consider Ourselves fully at peace with That One’s hive.”

The words spoken by the avatar were heard by all, and Asharia in particular seemed to be absolutely livid about this demand.

“And if we refuse?” Asharia growled through her teeth.

“Then We are not at peace and merely have a ceasefire. We would only ever ask for That One’s genes this once. Is That One concerned that We might give That One a reason to be with Us over That One?”

Asharia clenched her fists and was about ready to kill the creature in front of her, but for seemingly no reason she relaxed and let a rather twisted smile crawl onto her face.

“You think you can take what is mine, little thing? A young, inexperienced and barely evolved animal like yourself would know nothing of how to make a lover feel good without drugging them up and overloading them with pheromones.”

“Oh? Does That One desire a contest for Us to prove our superiority over That One?”

Asharia’s sinister smile became a wicked grin as she and the avatar slowly walked towards each other, the avatar’s form growing taller and bustier to match and even outmatch the body of Asharia.

“We will show That One that We are better than It. That One cannot outperform Us. We have the complete knowledge of a hundred billion sapient species inside Us. That One only has Its own knowledge. We will outclass It.”

“Bold words, but they are empty and hollow. You can’t beat something that has existed since before you were merely a single-celled lifeform on a desolate rock at the edge of the universe.”

“It thinks so?”

“I do indeed.”

As the two femme fatales stared each other down, Arkhan watched with a mix of joy and ever-growing concern. The joy was from the fact that it looked like his decades of virginity, which had been a shame since before he was reborn in this world, would soon come to an end. The concern was, as you might imagine, the knowledge that he might end up dying while these two superbeings tried to one up each other, using his fragile human body as an arena to duke it out.

As the Dragon and the Bug continued to try and intimidate each other, Arkhan watched and managed to get out a single question that went entirely unheard.

“Don’t I get any say in this at all?”