Hey Y'all,

This is my latest story. I've written 5 chpaters so far so I wont be updating super frequently yet. I like to have a good buffer of chpaters written on my end before I start updating so that if writer's block or life hits, I can still update without worrying about running out of chapters for y'all. That being said. I would like to release the first few over the next few weeks to see how it is received!

I hope you enjoy. Leave me a review if you do!

Preface

300 B.C.

"Are all the body mutators on board?" The captain shouted to his subordinate, as enraged villagers ran towards the space craft.

"Yes sir," he shouted back, making sure the loading door was secured.

"All body mutators. This is your captain speaking," the leader of the battalion said over the space craft's announcement system. "Please return to your natural form and lock yourself into your pods. Phalangeal suckers need to be attached to the back of your seat for takeoff. We will be leaving Earth in 25 seconds."

At the captain's announcement, banging and yelling could be heard from inside of the ship. The humans on the other side were red with anger at the body mutators for fleeing. There would be no justice it seemed for the humans they had killed and the chaos they had inflicted on the village. However, the captain and his people weren't going to stay and find out what kind of justice the humans had in mind. They were going to do what they did best. Run.

Chapter 1

Present Day

Great Olympia national park, Swanakee region, North West USA, Earth.

The dirt kicked up on the dusty forest floor at Great Olympia National Park. Trees bent and splintered from the force bearing down on them. Forest animals skittered and ran from the sudden monstrous noise of an engine roaring through the quiet landscape. A spacecraft landing on the soft forest debris was an unexpected sight in the national park. A sight not one seen in a few thousand years. Not that any humans from this time period would remember though. It wasn't a graceful landing. It was a crash, if the destruction of the forest around the ship was anything to go by. A large black and grey metal structure slid across the forest floor for a few hundred meters, grinding and tearing up the bracken as it went. The engine roared in protest as the breaks desperately screeched, trying to bring the ship to a halt. But it was to no avail. The space craft had come in to too fast and there wasn't enough friction on the smooth exterior to stop it as it drifted along the ground.

A boulder grew closer to the spaceship as it tumbled across the forest floor. The craft was still traveling too fast, it would be a tremendous crash when the two collided, which was what happened just a few moments later. The shrill squeal of metal on rock rang out through the forest at the point of collision. The metal crunched and folded under the force of the impact and a stream of black smoke began to rise from the hull. Before long there was a billowing thick mess erupting from the belly of the craft, curling and rising from a gaping, jagged hole, obscuring the view of the mangled mess of metal from anyone who tried to draw closer.

A silence settled over the forest as the deadly, choking smoke slithered and writhed through the air. There was no fire to be seen but obviously something was burning on the inside given the smoke that filled the air. The craft continued on smoking through the day and well into the night when the moon was overhead. It wasn't until the dust had settled and the moon began to dip below the horizon the following day that there was movement among the metal and rock. A tuft of hair, a hand, and pale naked skin could be seen slowly rising from the peeling hull of the ship. The body was a sickly grey color, too skinny to be considered healthy by Earth's standards. It was dusty and burned in places too, with a mop of black greasy hair on top of its head. But the most shocking slight of all was the tail that poked out above its buttock, as the figure rose. It was long and sinewy with a tuft of black hair at the end to match the hair on the creature's head. The creature walked around the shattered structure gingerly, looking for something, it seemed. Lifting heavy objects and throwing them as if they weighed nothing, onto the forest floor below. Each landing with a harsh, rattling crash, kicking up dirt and frightening animals that dared to approached the unusual sight.

"Jasper?" The creature called out. Its voice was raspy and dry from the smoke. But it was also deep and gruff, caring it through the quiet forest air. A sense of annoyance and panic seeping through into its tone as it called out to its companion again and again.

The creature continued to move around the large space ship. It could be seen only through the exposed side and top of the metal shell. Black wispy smoke covered most of the view, but if you looked closely, you could see the interior of the craft. Tables and chairs were turned upside down and were scattered along the ship's floor. As well as cargo boxes and packets of dried food. Cables that ran through the ceiling and walls were exposed to their air. They sparked and cracked every few minutes causing the creature to jump and look over at them in worry. The last thing it needed was for the hull to catch afire.

"Jasper!" The creature shouted out in joy, discovering the companion he was searching for. "Brother?" It said loudly, lifting and throwing a heavy metal box off his counterpart.

The second creature was laying down on the metal floor, unconscious and still. It too was a sickly pale grey and had black hair on top of its head, shorter than the other creatures though. It was skinny and naked, just like his friend, and a tail could be seen poking out from under its prone form at an odd, painful looking angle. The creature bent down and shook his friend's shoulder, calling out his name desperately, over and over again. The shaking grew in severity the longer there was no response. The creature suddenly stood and ran out of sight for a moment before returning with a heavy looking white briefcase. Unlocking the tabs, it opened the case and pulled out a complicated set of wires and pads. It applied the pads to the unconscious body's chest and head and then picked up a small black remote. The creature pressed a button on the remote and a strong electrical current ran through the wires and pads and then onto the body. It jolted the body into an unhealthy backwards arch. Bones could be heard crunching as they slid against each other unnaturally. As suddenly as it started, the electricity stopped and the body returned to its original, relaxed form. The creature read something on the briefcase before pressing the remote again. Over and over the creature pressed the button, watched his friend's body arch backwards, only to then look down at the brief case and see what it said. The time in between each jolt grew shorter as the creature grew more worried and shuffled closer and closer to his friend's body. Until suddenly, a gasp rang out from the unconscious body. It coughed a rasping, hoarse cough twice and then turned its head to the side. The creatures body heaved and a slimy black ooze erupted from its mouth. There was no rest for the creature as it heaved the disguising fluid three more times. The ooze spattered across the floor and trickled down its chin as it tried to regain control over its revolting stomach. After four more heaves, the ooze slowed and the creature was able to breath deeply again. Drawing in heavy but labored breaths.

"Are you okay, brother?" The creature asked its sick companion. "Jasper?"

The creature on the floor gave a pitiful nod and wiped its chin clean on the back of its hand. His companion came over and started to help the second creature up from the floor, careful not to get near the foul-smelling black ooze. His tail dragged across the floor and laid limp against his legs as he rose. The muscles in his legs were bulging and could be seen flexing as they shook from exhaustion under the weight of his rising body. The first creature steadied his friend with strong arms and hands under his pits. Lifting him and holding him until he was standing without worry of falling over.

"I'm okay, Edward," the creature told his friend, hoarsely. "Where are our clothes?" He rasped out, looking down at his skinny body and pale exposed skin, not ashamed but certainly feeling vulnerable.

"Torn and burned on impact. A fireball ran through the ship and burned anything it could."

"And then?" He said.

"And then it burned itself out over the last few hours," Edward replied.

Jasper nodded at his companion. He reached out to the side of the ship and steadied himself as he began to make his way to a cupboard across the way. His ears were still ringing from the impact and he could feel his eyes trying their best to focus on his surroundings. Jasper limped his way across the ship, slowly and with intermittent grunts passing hip lips. They grew louder and deeper as he made his way across the threshold. His body was still stiff and tired from the crash, having been thrown around the interior before he could get to his seat and secure himself. Each step was painful for the creature to make, but Jasper trudged on until he reached his intended destination.

The door to the cupboard doors that lines the interior of the hull were cracked and warped. It took the creature some fierce determination and strength to open one of the larger ones, which he eventually was able to do. Inside was a maroon robe with gold trim and black pockets. The creature pulled the robe over his head and lifted its tail out through the small rear hole before letting it fall limp again against his robe covered legs. He picked up the second robe inside the cupboard, steadied himself against the wall and then approached his companion, holding out the maroon robe. Edward dressed just as Jasper had, covering his unsightly form and poked his tail out the back. It slithered and glided along the inside of the robe until it found its exit. It stood proudly from his back and curled up and around itself through the air, unlike his friend's which flopped sadly to the ground.

The pair began gathering the supplies that had survived the crash and fire, which wasn't much, but they knew the spacecraft needed to be searched for essentials before they could leave. It was slow going for the two creatures. Their bodies were aching and throbbing from the ordeal they had not long before experienced. They were able to find some packets of dried food and a liquid of some kind in small boxes. The cupboards that remained closed during the crash landing were fire proof, so they managed to salvage two shoulder sacks, a first aid kit, a map device, and two communicators. It wasn't much, but it was enough for them to survive in the forest for the next few days.

When the creatures had gathered all they could carry in their shoulder sacks and robe pockets, they gingerly made their way down the jagged hull, being careful not to snag their pale skin on the sharp sides of the ship. Two thuds rang out through the forest as they landed on the forest floor next to each other. They were tall, it seemed, taller than the average man, but their features resembled that of a human, mostly. They had two eyes on their face, and although each were a different color, they were approximately the same size and shape as a human's and proportional to the size of their round heads. They had a long nose each too with nostrils at the base, although they sat somewhat flat against their face. It was their mouths and teeth however that were the most different to a human's. Their lips were wider and thicker than normal, and were colored a deep maroon. They covered a row of long, wide pointed teeth that ran along the inside of their mouths, which although were white, did not resemble human teeth in any way. Their features were proportional to their heads, faces, and rest of their bodies though. And so long as they kept their wide mouths shut, they weren't a terrifying sight to look upon. They had an usual overall look, especially with their long tails poking out the back of their robes, but they weren't ugly now that most of their pale, grey skin was covered.

Together the pair began to walk slowly away from the destroyed space craft. Both with a limp and both with forlorn expressions on their unusual faces. Jasper, the taller of the two, pulled out a device from his robe pocket and turned it on. The pair looked down at the screen and tried their best to read the map as it started to slowly load. They'd landed far off course when they crashed, unsurprisingly, and the device needed to recalibrate their position. But it would take some time. So, in the meantime, the pair decided to start walking through the forest and find out what they could about the planet they had landed on.

When they had been given their mission months ago, they knew they were headed to Earth. A small, watery planet in the Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies. The second largest galaxy in what humans called the milky way. They had planned on landing on the outskirts of a heavily populated area so that they could mutate their forms and blend in with the surrounding mass of bodies quickly and easily. But now it looked as though they would have to rethink their plan. With each step they took, the map loaded, and eventually they were able to make out where they were. They had landed in the middle of a forest, which they had already gathered by observing their surroundings. A place called Great Olympia Park, the map said, in the Swanakee region. It was covered in dense foliage as far as the eye could see, which was a troublesome problem for the pair. They would have to walk a long time to reach the edge of it. Let alone a populated area. With heavy hearts, the creatures began walking, looking down at the map and altering their course as necessary. They would be walking for a long while.