Prologue

*crack!*

I emerged from my...uh...cocoon-egg. And boy, was that a fucked up sentence. Let me backtrack just a bit.

I was making breakfast, pancakes since it was my little bro's birthday. I had just flipped out three of the golden-brown floppy circles onto my sister's plate.

A few moments and I was flipping my own set. One flip into the air…

And the hot, steaming flab of not really cooked dough slams onto my face. I'm screaming from the searing heat and I wildly yank at the pancake and…

Here I am, flopping uselessly on some dirt, freshly hatched out of a cocoon-egg sac. I was aware of my form, strangely enough; a nightmarish combination of a caterpillar and a centipede. Realistically, I should be freaking out but...that emotional response is just absent. Huh, so are the emotions of rage, sorrow...I don't seem to have anything in me at all.

How horrifyingly...droll.

Ok, maybe it's just my form merely being sentient and not having sapience? I don-...!

I...ok, something is happening!

[Hunger]

I'm...hungry. Yeah, hungry as hell. Really, really hungry right now! I look around, my tiny, mutant-caterpillar-centipede form reacting to my mental commands perfectly. I'm in a burrow; lots of dirt and some roots are visible. I squirm over and nibble at a root…

[Insufficient][Hunger]

Ok, roots aren't gonna do it. Let's go scrounge up something better. I squirm and wriggle towards the...entrance or exit, not sure which it is. I'm following the scent of...freshness and wet. I come to the opening and see...grass taller than I am, trees in the far distance taller than skyscrapers and...fog.

I'm in a fog-filled forest, most likely filled with animals and insects of all sorts. Grass is really tall, so I'm either really tiny or the grass is overgrown…

[HUNGER]

I winced internally and crawled further, nibbling on the grass to test its usefulness as food.

[INSUFFICIENT][ HUNGER]

Ok, so plant life ain't gonna feed me for some reason...there's a niggling feeling in my head. It's drawing my attention to my right… I follow the sensation and see a beetle of some kind. It's like the lovechild of a rhino beetle and a ladybug. It's a bit smaller than I am, though I'm still not sure on my size in comparison to a person.

It looks delicious, though.

I worm my way over and it seems to ignore me...good. I rear up and my mandibles open wide. With a scree-ing sound, I rip into the beetle and feed.

[Hunger][Feed][Essence]

Essence? I nibble into the corpse and felt a welling of...something within it being devoured by me. There's a surge of...oh my.

I'm either a Tyranid or a Zerg.

I...I see possibilities! I'm a larvae of some kind and with the essence from this beetle, I can be so much more! I scramble through this trove of knowledge and sift through the immediately available.

Ok, first up is...ow, ow oooooww!

I feel my body curl in on itself and a cocoon just like my previous one form over me.

[Essence][Evolve]

Nooo, I wanted to choose! Damn you!

I hid beneath a bush, watching the crows as they pecked at the carcass. I had been following the cat-thing for days as the toxins from my bite worked its magic upon the beast. And it finally collapsed, just six feet from me!

[Essence]

My dual-eye pairs narrowed as I sensed the very essence of the beast slowly fade from the carcass. Essence had a limited window to remain in the body after death and it faded so much faster if the creature was sick or poisoned.

*caw-caw*

I had to be careful, as the murder of crows numbered seven strong while I was alone and much smaller than even one of them. They had the numbers, movement and agility on their side, while I had a venomous bite, enough proportionate strength to tear one of them in half and a thick carapace sturdy enough to take more than a few pecks...but not as many as the seven could dish out.

Oh, one on one and confined to the ground, I would win by virtue of my evolutionary advantages. Another crow joins in on the feast.

But quantity has a daunting quality all its own.

There's a snuffling sound and a wild boar comes crashing through the brush with a pack of wolves at its heels. I watch warily as they trample the carcass (and a few crows). The chase leads out of sight, though a few wolves stop and begin feasting on the carcass and crows.

I slumped into the dirt. I was so not getting the essence of the cat-thing. Or the wings of those crows. Another wolf joins in and I resign myself to burrowing into the dirt for some sleep, needing to conserve my energy for later…

There was a howling and the wolves took off, leaving the cat-thing and half-eaten crows to decay...oh lucky day!

I stared at the sky as I carefully made my way to the feast. All I needed was a few moments to pick through the chaff and dig into the delicious essence…

[Essence]

Another foot traveled and still no intrusions sighted… My mandibles dug into the cat-thing first, seeking out the nearly faded essence. I had come just in time to take in the parts I wanted the most:

It's body structure and musculature. I was strong for a bug, but any decent-size predator would rip me to shreds. A sufficient store of mammalian essence would let me change from my insectoid body to a more useful, quadrupedal form capable of moving at the speeds I wanted.

[Essence][Evolve]

I hurried over to the crows, keeping the evolutions at bay. I needed to hurry! I ripped through three birds before I had enough collected; I wanted their wings so bad. Once I was sure I had all I needed, I dug deep into the dirt, burrowing nearly three feet before letting instinct take over.

[Evolve]

Yes, time to evolve.

[Essence]

I crouched in a bush, once again as I became more used to my new form. I had almost completely left my insectoid origins for a mammalian body, though I still retained several parts leftover.

I stood a foot and a half at the shoulder, six legs capable of moving me through the forest and up in the trees with great agility. I had a mostly feline body with an pseudo-carapace exoskeleton that left me looking like a cheap copy of a xenomorph, lacking the dorsal spines, prehensile spiked-tail and terrifying facial structure. I had patches of dark fur covering my ankles and shoulders, as well as my neck. A tuft of fur protruded from my head to form a pseudo-mane of sorts.

My head was more feline than insect, having an outer jaw set of mandibles around my inner feline jaw and sharp fangs on both sets. The rest of me was a nightmarish combination of cat-insect, lacking any tail and, to my utter delight and frustration, a set of vestigial limbs hidden beneath my fur on my back.

I could almost flex the limbs, feeling like I could unfold them and reveal wings. Every attempt had failed so far, leaving me to believe I had insufficient essence to force the change. So I hunted as best I could, feeding less on the more easily found beetles and more on the rodent and cat-thing population of this forest.

Ah, this forest. It stretched on for miles and my climb to the top of the tallest tree I could find revealed a great valley with sheer cliffs as far as my four eyes could see. The thick fog covering the treetops prevented my specialized vision to see beyond.

My eyes were capable of seeing five color spectrums, from my limited memories of humanity. Oh, I could see the traditional green-blue-red that humans could perceive. I also saw two additional spectrums that I can't really describe. I could see where other animals had stepped upon the ground or moved through the trees. I could see the places where they slept and even where a body once laid dead.

I could also see faint heat trails, which made tracking other animals much easier. Though it sometimes led me into trouble, like three days ago.

I had tracked another cat-thing, one with dark blue-black fur and this amazing leaping ability. Unlike others I had spotted in my hunts, this particular feline could leap from the ground to tree limbs nearly ten feet above.

I wanted that.

[Essence][Evolve]

So I tracked the cat for several hours before coming to a den of some kind. I had stalked closer, tracking the heat trails to the entrance...only to find that the trail ended a foot from the opening.

There was a deep growl and a fucking lion-lizard beast emerged from the darkness of the den. It was mostly lizard-shaped with a furred mane and ankles. Everything else? All reptilian.

I scrambled away as fast as I could with the lion-lizard roaring after me. I unwittingly imitated the scene from the Starcraft 2 mission and hid in a tangle of roots. The lion-lizard had began tearing into the roots when I remembered I could fucking burrow to safety.

So I dug like my life depended on it, moving through the dirt and clay until I hit rock. I stayed there for two days, not moving until I was sure the beast had left.

Now, a day later I was tracking the exact same leaping cat. It was smart...for a cat. It was leading me in a winding path back to the same lion-lizard den. This was probably a tactic it had done in the past…

Luckily I was smarter than some stupid cat.

I had poisoned the fucking lion-lizard with a sneaky bite of my venomous fangs by digging a tunnel into the den. I waited until it slept and sank my fangs into its hind leg, crawling back through the tunnel as it roared in pain.

Now I was following the stupid cat back to the den of the delirious lion-lizard.

There, the cat was stalking up to the entrance. I watched from a tree branch as it got ready to leap...and was immediately snatched out of the air by the lion-lizard's maw. Its yowls of pain and the lion-lizard's rumbling were brief. I stayed where I was, relying on my slightly enhanced hearing and antennae-whiskers to keep track of the beast.

[Essence]

The vibrations slowly stopped and I could smell my venom working. I leaped down into the tall grass, slowly moving to the den. Inside, I could hear the lion-lizard wheezing. My venom was strong; it attacked the muscles, inducing paralysis in the extremities first and worked its way in. The more movement, the faster it worked.

It also seems to be more effective on large animals, surprisingly enough. Likely how hard the heart works compared to a smaller animal.

Finally, the wheezing breaths cease and the faint scent of death began permeating from the den. I raced inside and saw the lion-lizard was laying on the den floor, motionless with the dead cat corpse still hanging from its mouth.

Excellent.

I dug into the cat first, taking the more advanced muscles and ingrained-reflex for the amazing leaps. There was a squelching and a brief flare of pain followed by a change of balance. I now knew I could make great vertical leaps and sprint quickly, though I had a feeling that I lost something...probably maneuverability or endurance.

Next, the big guy. I tore into his throat, slashing and biting my way to his heart. I wasn't strong enough to tear into his brain for some of the delicious essence hidden there. From what I could tell, essence was found in three places, depending on gender.

More often than not, the essence could be found in the head and chest cavity, hiding in the core of the brain and within the heart. The third area changed from time to time. For males, I tended to find extra essence somewhere around the stomach. For females, it was either the stomach or the womb, for obvious reasons.

The lion-lizard was male so I dug in, feeding on the essence of his heart and stomach. I'd likely evolve after taking in these two areas. I had just finished eating the essence hidden within its stomach when I felt the change overtaking me.

[Evolve]