Chapter 1:
For eons I drifted through a void. Memories dissolved behind me into the void. The longer I lingered the more dreams and thoughts slipped out of my being.
Now and then vast beings of hungry energy swam nearby. I was quiet as they passed.
I knew in a primal instinctual way not to draw the attention of these monsters. They were not the only creatures that dwelled in the void. Smaller but none the lesser creatures of sated energy passed my position. At times I stretched out and grasped the long trailing lines of the energy left in their passing, pulling it into my being. My scavenged energy did not help my own drain much but it did slow the hemorrhaging of my memories.
The smaller beings didn't feel as hungry as the titanic energy monsters. On impulse I slipped into one of their slipstreams and trailed behind. Funnily enough I had never considered moving through the void by myself. I had just sat there motionless for an eternity.
I think, at least I am pretty sure, I was human once. Many of the details of my life are blurry to my memory. I do not remember my name, or my birthplace, or the city that I lived in. But, I almost know with certainty that I was human once.
I faltered in my pursuit of the energy trail for just a second and that was enough to lose it. I floundered for a second reaching out trying to grasp onto something intangible. I felt a spark deep inside my being ignite with a sudden burn.
For a split second I saw many things, whirling by without stopping, nations, planets, galaxies, and universes. So many possibilities, what was I supposed to do? I knew I needed to act, and quickly. I extended my being, grazing one possibility. It careened off my form. I fumbled for it trying to grasp it. With an almost forgotten motion I managed to hook it towards me…
()
I was somewhere dark. Similar to the void, but where the void was a place of nothingness this was a place of substance. Oxygen and other gases drifted around and threw my form, spores and fragments of slowly growing things drifted through my body carried by the gases. Casting my awareness forward I slipped past molecules and slowly growing things.
I could feel my energy leaching away slowly but surely as I moved. I did not possess the strength to keep my form tethered to this world. I had left the void but soon without a physical anchor or form to bind my, soul, for lack of a better term, too I would return to that dreaded placed of nothingness. I also knew that I had not the strength to endure there for the blind eternity that I once had.
I slithered through the remaining molecules and drifted slowly in search of an anchor. Pulsing once I reached out with long tendrils, the stone and masonry that surrounded me might work but would still drain me; it would be slower but still noticeable. Worse I would not have the strength to find a better anchor if one stumbled by.
The stone would not do. Next my tendrils located a plant, some type of desert plant, retaining great water. I lingered in this possibility slightly longer but the plant's development was stagnant, in the waning years of its lifespan. I did not want a dying thing in the twilight years of its life. I wanted to be able to live, to endure for countless ages. I moved again, my shapeless form sliding easily through everything around me. My power, my energy, was a vast reservoir but even that simple task drained it considerably.
I would not be able to move in such a way again without an anchor. I reached again. This time I found a small animal, a rodent, a vermin, I examine its form. Could I use this as an anchor?
No, I decided, my form was too vast for its mind to contain, I was a being of pure energy and my form would immolate something as simple as a rodent if I tried to use it as an anchor.
I paused for a half second as another thought occurred to me, if I was only a human why were my energy reserves so vast?
I considered the question before deciding that I would leave it for a different time when I wasn't in danger of being dissipated before gaining an anchor.
I discarded the insects within range for the same reasons I discarded the small rodent. My mind lingered on a strange arachnid my mind identified as a scorpion for a second before moving on.
I stilled as I touched something I could use. I had found an intelligent mind and a larger organic form. I seeped into the form gathering information about the creature. Biped, highly developed brain, male, and over half of its lifespan was pass.
I probed it some more seeking additional information. Human, my mind slowly supplied. A surge of joy filled my form before I stifled it, this was a slight problem.
I knew, through instinct, that I could usurp this human's body from his own energy field pushing his soul out and into the void. The human's soul would not survive out in the void for as long as I did but instead would dissolve like sand tossed into a river.
Pausing, I considered this problem, before reluctantly searching again for something else capable of containing my energy.
I passed several humans and likewise disregarded them after affirming that it was impossible for both their soul and mine to share the same body.
Finally I found something different. It appeared to be a human with two souls, one was relatively pure but tinged with despair and the other was…rotten. It was riddled with decaying energy and tainted my senses. I flowed down the line of my tendrils towards it, expending precious energy in the process.
What is it? I probed it again, more thoroughly, with my energy. The pure but despairing soul was almost in some sort of limbo, only connected to the body through a thin tether. The rotted soul was firmly entrenched and permeated the body thoroughly.
Disgusting.
I was repulsed by the condition of the soul but I wondered whether I could use the creature's body. It appeared to be some type of serpent that had taken the human as a host; it was directly connected to the nervous system and to other parts of the human's body. I touched it with my energy before pulling back. I dared not take that repulsive little creature as a body. Its ickieness might infect me with something if it wasn't properly expelled out into the void.
But there was something more to this body. I constructed a slight energy tether to the creature as it directed the host body to move forward. I drifted along behind it as I poked it again with my energy.
There! The rotten creature contained about fifteen small…little serpents within it. I presumed these were embryos of some sort or at least the young of this creature. They were connected to the rotten serpent creature which appeared to be feeding, copying some of its rot into their tiny souls. It was slowly tingeing the tiny pure souls into the black color of the mother.
However, they might be of use. The little serpent souls seemed to be capable of stretching to a great length to accommodate vast swathes of knowledge. It seemed possible that I could slip in through the mother, merging with a little of the rot that the mother was copying and into one of her children. Through this I would deceive the little serpent soul into receiving me in my entirety.
This way I wouldn't need to condemn a sentient creature to the void. Nor would I be risking my sanity trying to forcefully expel the blackened soul of the mature serpent from its body.
I gathered my will and strength before slipping into the human host and then through the human host into the serpents soul. I felt for an instant the senses of the body. The smells in the air, the light streaming into the human's eyes, the noises permeating the surroundings, and lastly the gentle touch of a breeze on the bodies skin. For a second I paused, overcome by the ecstasy of sensation after an eternity of nothing. But that was enough for the serpent's control to be usurped for a split second. The host body stumbled and the serpent's thoughts of blood and control paused. In that instant I knew that for a second it had perceived my form, my vast reservoirs of energy and unfathomable mind.
I felt the host's vocal chords vibrate as it called out in confusion and panic, "Jaffa Kree!"
Then I passed through the serpent and into the least of its spawn. Its soul stretched as I settled and forged my anchor with its soul, tethering me to this realm and the small serpents form. The soul struggled for a second with a brief flash of panic before its memories, which were surprisingly vast, seamlessly slipped into mine.
The memories were of the serpent's predecessors, creatures that had started on a world at the bottom of the food chain before gradually taking stronger hosts before they left the planet through the use of an artifact and eventually arrived on Earth. There the serpents, which my new memories told me referred to themselves as the Goa'uld, had used what they had learned traveling and possessing to masquerade as the gods and goddesses of various religions. Around this time it appeared that the Goa'uld's previous host specie had began developing an immunity to possession so the serpents switched to human hosts and that was what they were using to this day.
My awareness had shrunk after I expanded the majority of my power, energy, anchoring myself to the small Goa'uld. I turned my awareness to my new body, I was know one of these Goa'uld. I was one of the newest to a race of mass murderers. I paused as the flow of blackened soul energy ceased. Slightly concerned that I had been detected somehow I stretched out my depleted energy sense and poked my fellow symbiotes. My fellow parasites were still receiving, which was somewhat concerning.
Evidently, whatever sense that the Goa'uld used to convey the soul rot decided that I was finished receiving the soul rot. I suppose the soul rot wasn't really an accurate term. The rot was clearly the Goa'uld genetic memories, a fact I could see know that the flow had ceased and the memories had stopped along with it.
This was troublesome. I didn't even see enough to know what was going on in the universe these days. All I know was what happened nearly a thousand and fifty years before, I knew from the Goa'uld memories that they had been driven off Earth but I had no way of knowing what else had occourred in the meantime. Had the Goa'uld reclaimed Earth? Did all the humans in the universe serve the Goa'uld? What languages had developed in the meantime? Did the Goa'uld still speak Goa'uld? Were they still called Goa'uld? I stopped there, morbidly amused. It was not wise to dwell on something that I could no longer change.
()
I stretched my awareness over to something else that had been nagging at me. This host seemed almost stilted. It was a genetic dead end, merely a drone. This body had no way to reproduce or have any young.
I would not abide my form to sublime! This was the body of a god! This… I wasn't a god. What was I thinking? I compressed the numerous Goa'uld memories and stashed them away in the back of my mind.
That was worrisome that those few memories that I possessed would cause me to act in such a manner. I will need to find some way to purge or perhaps curb those impulses. Lest I would be discovered before I can finish my plans of conquering the system and becoming the Supreme System Lord!
What.
What!
I suppressed the memories yet again; they had floated back up to the forefront of my mind.
Hoping to keep my almost one track mind off the idiotic thoughts of ruling the universe I turned my attention to my seemingly stilted form. My preliminary thoughts were correct in the thought that my serpent body was only that of a drone. I perused my memories quickly for information regarding this.
Hmm, it seemed that Ra, Apophis, Yu, and nearly all the System Lords were drones. Perhaps it would be in my best interest to stay as a drone? Was their a reason that those that ruled were but drones?
No, I should mold my form, my serpent, my Goa'uld, to its greatest potential. I settled firmly in my firm and grasped at the cells. Once My grasp was firm I delved into them, twisting them subtly until I had what I wanted.
My new form would no longer be a lowly drone but a queen, capable of spawning its own children that would retain all my memories. Through them I would be immortal.
I cackled evilly. Or at least I would have cackled but my Goa'uld body was currently incapable of this action.
Preparations done I closed my malicious red eyes and drifted in thought, slowly but surely my energy levels were climbing again. Soon they would reach my previous level.
