Chapter 103(orphan)

Chappie the pet tyranid zoanthrope hissed contentedly as he lay bloated on top of 50 thousand tonnes of dried seaweed inside a massive silo.

Beneath him was piled more food than he could possibly eat in less than at least a few DAYS! He was in heaven, this is what contentment felt like.

Chappie sighed in pure bliss and lazily chewed on another huge mouthful of seaweed. His digestive system couldn't work any faster, and Chappie was forced to eat very very slowly to fill his stomach only as quickly as possible without vomiting.

To keep Chappie out of mischief for the next few days, TigerLily had used a strange human thing called "money" to somehow acquire this huge wonderful silo full of food, and had deposited the delighted Chappie inside it.

For as long as this food lasted, Chappie would never ever leave this silo, he needed no lock or chain to hold him prisoner inside it, as his own eternal hunger would lock him in place more securely than any mortal lock could.

Chappie was just so HAPPY! TigerLily was the best thing in his long life, a creature that gave him FOOD!

With Chappie cheerfully distracted by this huge mountain of food, he wouldn't be going anywhere near this "wedding" that the humanoids were so interested in, letting the humans have their silly ceremony without any Chappie related interruptions. TigerLily really was a genius.

Chappie did a huge shit on the seaweed behind him, and lazily munched on the seaweed in front of him. He didn't even bother to move, just laying there letting the food slide straight into his mouth with the aid of gravity.

This really was the life.

Chappie felt sleepy and dozed lightly in his mountain of food. He didn't even stop eating in his sleep, munching away on seaweed as he snored contentedly.

For a few hours Chappie napped in perfect comfort on his hoard of food, completely at peace.

Without warning his extremely sensitive tyranid nose detected a smell that partially woke him up, a comforting smell, hauntingly familiar, a smell that instinctively promised him safety and nurture. What was causing this smell?

Chappie slightly opened an eyelid and a few moments later he heard footsteps and whispered talking on the roof of his silo.

A large trapdoor on the top of the silo opened with a loud creak, and the infrared light of humanoid body heat flooded into the silo, this spectrum being visible to Chappie's highly evolved eyesight.

The comforting smell was stronger than ever now, and Chappie instinctively relaxed, this smell was the smell of perfect safety and tranquility.

A gaggle of humans dropped down into the silo with the aid of an internal ladder, and stood before Chappie on the pile of silage.

Chappie sniffed at the humans suspiciously, and smelt that wonderful familiar smell! These creatures might look like humans, but they smelled like something else... What was that familiar smell?

"Oh alien overlord, we worship you! Holy zoanthrope of our glorious hive fleet Leviathan, you are MAJESTIC!" The humans moaned in religious awe and grovelled before Chappie in fanatical worship.

Chappie was very slightly interested in the strange behaviour of these strange smelling humans, but mostly he just resumed eating, largely indifferent to their presence and antics.

"Come with us sacred one, come meet our holy genestealer broodfather," the humans urged Chappie expectantly.

Chappie indifferently ignored the humans and just kept eating, he had no intention of going anywhere while this food remained.

"Um, divine overlord?," the humans asked uncertainly as Chappie continued to ignore them.

The silence stretched on, broken only by Chappie's chewing sounds.

"Maybe the holy zoanthrope doesn't understand us?," one of the humans suggested to his fellows.

Chappie understood the humans perfectly, he was merely not motivated to expend the energy needed to communicate when he already had food. Chappie had no concept of social awkwardness, conversation decorum not being particularly high on the list of priorities when the Norn Queens designed zoanthropes.

Chappie paused to do a massive shit, and then continued eating in silence.

"You... Zoanthrope... We... Friends..." One of the humans attempted to communicate with the aid of wild gesticulations.

Chappie continued chewing.

"You... Come... With us," the human continued.

Chappie had no intention of going anywhere.

The awkward silence continued.

"This isn't working. The sacred zoanthrope clearly doesn't understand us," another human complained.

"But the holy one hasn't attacked us either, he can sense that we are on the same side. Maybe if we walk he will just follow us?"

Chappie indifferently watched the humans climb the ladder out of the silo, and continued eating lazily.

The humans were frantically gesturing and calling to Chappie from the top of the silo now. Chappie closed his eyes, desiring to continue napping.

The humans were soon back, and this time they went right up to Chappie.

Chappie felt very relaxed by the comforting smell of these humans, and did not react when the humans hesitantly touched him.

"Maybe we can carry the sacred holy one?," one human suggested.

Chappie hissed slightly at this, not liking this suggestion.

"Help me lift"

Chappie continued eating, relaxing his entire weight down into the seaweed to make himself as difficult to lift as possible.

The humans were all huffing and struggling to lift Chappie now, without much success.

"I got his tail up"

"Never mind the tail, what about his holiness' head?"

The humans continued to try futilely to lift the nearly one ton zoanthrope, and Chappie continued eating seaweed and ignoring them.

The humans seemed to grow discouraged after a while and left.

Chappie kept eating and had another nap.

***...

Chappie was extremely irritated when his entire mountain of food suddenly started tumbling down the silo under him! His FOOD!

Chappie and the seaweed tumbled down further and further! What was happening?

Chappie and his food slipped out a huge hole sawn into the side of the bottom of the silo, and he sprawled indignantly onto a pile of dried seaweed on the ground outside the silo.

Chappie gazed around angrily, seeing the entire landscape in the deep red hues of infrared. He was currently at the base of the now-empty silo, in one of the waterfront dockyard cargo storage areas of the island.

The immediate area was currently deserted of any dock workers, but was currently crowded with a much bigger group of the strange humans from before.

Chappie hissed angrily and chomped on his food jealously, afraid of it being stolen from him.

The entire crowd was now bowing down before Chappie in worship!

Chappie was highly provoked, but the comforting smell was extremely soothing to his instincts, and after a few more moments he began to calm down despite himself. Within minutes he was completely calm.

The entire crowd of comforting smelling humans was gathered closely around him now, touching him even, but Chappie continued to eat indifferently from his pile of seaweed. Chappie could smell ropes all around him.

"One, two, THREE!"

Chappie was suddenly lifted up in a tangle of ropes!

Chappie hissed viciously and struggled in his bonds, what were these humans DOING!

"Please be at peace sacred overlord!" The humans urged Chappie as he went berserk in their hold.

Chappie's brain implants prevented him from using violence against these humans, and he just berserkly bucked and thrashed and hissed in their grasp, not liking this at all.

The humans were carrying him away from his FOOD!

"Feed Me!" Chappie angrily psychically hissed in their minds.

"He speaks?, YES MASTER! We will feed you as soon as possible!" The humans agreed eagerly.

Chappie looked expectantly at his pile of seaweed, but the humans were carrying him away from the food!

"Feed Me!" Chappie demanded again.

The humans agreed and carried him away even faster!

Chappie was manhandled onto a crude homemade plastic raft that was tethered floating in a nearby seawater canal. Chappie sniffed eagerly for food but found none!

The humans untied the raft and used long metal bars to push against the bottom of the canal to move the raft, making slow but steady progress as Chappie had a hungry tantrum of hissing and snarling.

The canal soon disappeared below ground as the land sloped up, and continued as a covered tunnel from then onwards, flowing deep into the island to presumably provide desalination water, cooling water and drainage.

The canal soon began branching innumerable times, apparently providing water to many different districts in a vast maze-like network, and the humans seemed to know what route to take.

The raft passed many small piers and doorways as it got deeper and deeper into the island, and on many ledges and piers and other surfaces reclined mutant pale white 6 breasted mermaid creatures with tails like long white eels.

The semi-intelligent mermaid creatures mostly ignored the raft, with a few splashing below the water, startled by their presence. The things were indigenous to Dark Tropic, or at least had lived here ever since humans colonised the planet thousands of years ago. Chappie wondered what the mermaids ate, hoping to find some of it for himself, probably something out at sea he guessed glumly.

Apart from the surprisingly numerous mermaids they saw not a soul, and the deeper in they got, the more numerous the mermaids became until the water was thick with them. Chappie could now see huge crèches of mermaid young being suckled by their mothers on maintenance walkways and other flat surfaces next to the water, these deep canal tunnels were apparently where they came to breed.

The raft came to rest against a mermaid choked pier, and the mermaids splashed away like pale eels, being timid and not very intelligent creatures.

The truculent Chappie was carried onto the pier and into a maintenance doorway full of rusty pipes.

Chappie was carried through a bewildering array of tunnels full of old plumbing, and into a strange community of even more of the comforting smelling humans.

Chappie was placed on the floor in the middle of a massive crowded room, and wasted no time in eating his ropes as strange humans scurried about.

Ropes now eaten, Chappie levitated above the ground and sniffed the air for food.

Chappie immediately smelled a dead mermaid infant carcass back out by the subterranean canal, and simply left without a word towards the carcass.

"Come back Lord! Where are you going?!" One of the humans shouted in alarm.

Chappie ignored the protests and simply followed the smell through the maze of maintenance tunnels, desiring only to eat.

The humans were chasing after him now, and Chappie floated faster to evade them.

Chappie came out on the pier beside the canal, spooking scores of mermaids into fleeing with a loud splash. He looked around eagerly, seeing everything in the deep crimson light of ambient infrared heat.

Chappie saw a mermaid female on the far end of the pier, weeping in sadness over a dead baby mermaid in her arms that was presumably her own child, killed by some childhood infection due to being a semi intelligent animal without access to medicine.

Chappie gleefully floated over to the mermaid, and happily bit off the dead infant's head with a single bite. So yummy!

The mermaid screamed shrilly in horror, and Chappie bit another huge chunk out of her dead baby.

The mermaid wept bitterly as Chappie ate the entire dead baby, and Chappie followed up his meal by licking the dried breastmilk from her six bulging mammary glands. The mermaid was still weeping brokenly when Chappie shamelessly began to suckle greedily on her milk glands...

"Holy zoanthrope, here is some food..."

Chappie tore around eagerly.

One of the humans was holding a metal stick with a dead fish hanging off the end of it on a short string!

Chappie floated over eagerly.

The fish was almost in reach...

The fish suddenly moved away!

Chappie chased after the dangling fish, the humans were carrying the stick away from him!

Chappie frantically pursued the escaping food, snapping his jaws at it only to miss each bite!

The chase continued, the humans were running at top speed with Chappie in hot pursuit.

A sturdy metal open door was ahead.

The human hurled the fish through the open doorway!

Chappie raced through the doorway after the fish.

Chappie ate his fish with hungry abandon.

(SLAM!)

Chappie turned around to see the strong metal door firmly shut behind him...

Chappie sniffed at his surroundings, he was in a room containing rattling rusty metal machinery and many rusty pipes. The room had plentiful maintenance crawl holes that Chappie couldn't fit down, but had only one doorway big enough for Chappie, the one he had entered through.

Chappie sniffed all around but found no food in this room. He moved to the door.

Chappie knew how to open doors, and wrapped the tip of his flexible tail around the door handle, trying to open it. The door was locked!

Chappie drew on the power of the warp, and hurled a blazing hot psychic bolt at the door...

Arcane runes glowed brightly all over the door and the energy fizzled out harmlessly!

Chappie raged and hurled psychic bolts at every part of the room, but these were all warded with protective runes too!

Chappie examined the runic spell craft curiously, and immediately recognised it as the work of a genestealer magus, a type of highly psychic genestealer hybrid. The runes were intensely powerful, Chappie could possibly overpower them with a lot of effort, but he was FAR too lazy for that.

"Food for you..." A sinister hissing voice suddenly said from an overhead crawl hole in the ceiling.

Chappie looked up eagerly, and saw an entire wheelbarrow full of algae-bread loaves being tipped down into the room from above!

Chappie hissed with delight and greedily gobbled up the delicious food.

While he was distracted by his meal he heard the door open briefly and then close again. Chappie finished eating before turning around to investigate.

Before him stood an extremely fat genestealer, blazing with psychic energy, and by its side stood a skinny genestealer hybrid with a staff, also powerfully psychic. Chappie immediately recognised the fat one as a genestealer patriarch brood father, and the skinny one as a genestealer magus.

"Magnificent!" The magus said in worshipful awe.

"Feed me," Chappie replied simply.

The brood father said nothing, but a storm of psychic energy was emanating from him at Chappie, trying to form a hive mind synapse connection with him.

Chappie had had his own synapse organ surgically removed long ago by TigerLily, and merely ignored the attempted interface, much to the apparent confusion of the brood father.

The brood father looked at the magus, and the magus sniffed Chappie carefully.

"This zoanthrope is indeed from hive fleet Leviathan, same as us holy patriarch. I cannot explain why this zoanthrope is not cooperating with you," the magus informed the brood father.

"Feed me," Chappie repeated, not even slightly interested in these fellow tyranids.

"Yes I think you are correct brood father, this holy zoanthrope has suffered brain injuries. But perhaps this holy zoanthrope can still be used to breed more of it's kind?," the magus said.

The brood father looked at the magus.

"I don't know, do you know how zoanthropes reproduce?," the Magus asked the brood father.

The brood father shrugged uncertainly.

"The Dark Tropic Zoo has another holy zoanthrope, we could rescue it and breed the two together," the magus suggested.

The brood father nodded uncertainly and clicked his fingers.

More food dropped down into the room, distracting Chappie as the door opened and closed again. When he finished eating, the pair of genestealers were gone.

***...

Chappie was sleeping grouchily in his rusty locked room. The humans had been in and out many times over the past few hours, setting up monitor screens to "entertain" Chappie as well as a few other completely unnecessary electrical appliances.

Chappie was extremely annoyed by his kidnapping, he had just wanted to be left alone in his food silo, not be abducted by this overly enthusiastic genestealer cult!

Without his synapse organ Chappie felt no sense of loyalty to other tyranids. His instincts did at least make him not want to attack anything that smelled like a member of his own hive fleet, not that he could anyway with his brain implants.

Chappie eagerly awoke as more food dropped into his room, the humans were dropping a never ending trickle of food into the room! Yes!

The door opened behind him and stayed open, but the food kept falling so Chappie didn't leave.

Chappie was suddenly barged aside by what was unmistakably a second zoanthrope! It was stealing his FOOD!

The door slammed shut and the pair of zoanthropes hissed viciously at each other, psychic powers blazing threateningly.

The newcomer was physically identical to Chappie except without any brain implants, and had a cranium brand that read "property of Dark Tropic Zoo". This new zoanthrope lacked any implants to prevent it from killing Chappie!

The two zoanthropes sniffed at each other as they viciously hissed, if they were not from the same hive fleet then they would be instinctively compelled to kill each other on sight.

Chappie smelled the reassuring smell of his own hive fleet Leviathan. What a relief!

The pair of zoanthropes calmed down at the mutually reassuring smell of each other, and instead began harmlessly squabbling over the remaining food. Both were instinctively motivated not to be hostile to each other, and would not harm each other beyond a bit of squabbling.

The food was soon gone and Chappie felt extremely comfortable in the presence of this fellow zoanthrope. He lay down lazily on the floor as the new zoanthrope futilely attempted to escape the room. After a while the newcomer floated over and snuggled against Chappie to rest.

Chappie was surprised by how comfortable he felt right now snuggled against this zoanthrope, he felt really REALLY comfortable.

Chappie sniffed at the reassuring smell of the zoanthrope, and inspected it psychically.

He immediately noticed that this zoanthrope had also had it's synapse organ removed, presumably by the zoo to prevent the highly intelligent hive mind from controlling a zoanthrope inside the zoo. This zoanthrope was merely following it's own instinctive behaviour same as Chappie.

Chappie became vaguely aware of genestealer hybrids gazing eagerly at him from every crawl hole, they looked like they were expecting something to happen.

"Breed... Breed..." The genestealer hybrids began to hiss at him.

Chappie merely fell asleep.

***...

Chappie and his companion were sleeping soundly when an awful noise woke them up.

"Romance! Oh Romance, do you feel the romance," a chorus of humans were singing in unison.

The two zoanthropes hissed in irritation, confused and annoyed by this bizarre awakening.

"...Kiss her lips, feel the romance..."

What the hell were these humans doing?!

The singing went on and on until the two zoanthropes were snarling loudly in annoyance.

"This isn't working. Try something else." One of the distant humans said loudly.

There was a brief pause, and then bouquets of flowers began dropping into the room!

The pair of monstrous tyranids hissed in delight and gobbled up the yummy flowers hungrily. So yummy!

"This isn't working! The holy ones are simply eating the flowers!"

There was a long pause.

The monitors flicked on, showing footage of humans copulating to the sound of terrible music?, What was going on here?

"Do that to each other," a human told them expectantly.

Chappie got curious and looked the other zoanthrope up and down. The humans might feed him if he tried?

Chappie approached the other zoanthrope, and wrapped his long tail around the body of the other zoanthrope, getting no reaction from the other.

Chappie studied the monitor footage very carefully, and then looked down at the anatomy of himself and the other zoanthrope. How would this even work?

Chappie curiously put his poo hole against the poo hole of the other zoanthrope. Was this right?

It didn't feel right.

Chappie searched again, he didn't seem to have a second hole down there?

Chappie tried in vain to copulate without actually having any reproductive organs...

Zoanthropes were completely asexual and sterile, they could only be born out of the ovipositor of one of the bloated tyranid norn queens that bred all the more advanced types of tyranids...

Chappie wanted food though, so he put on an extremely loud and convincing act until the humans fed him generously in reward.

The two completely sterile zoanthropes ate their food eagerly, so yummy!

***...