TM vs MiB - Prologue

While most of the inhabitants of Earth had no knowledge of extraterrestrial races, a few select groups around the globe had both knowledge and interactions with otherworldly life.  Of these organizations, the largest and most prominent based itself in New York City and took great lengths to maintain its clandestine activities from the public eye.  Known as the “Men in Black” (MiB) due its operatives' ubiquitous black dress suits, the agency tasked itself with monitoring and controlling extraterrestrial activity on Earth.

Since the MiB's establishment in 1961, the bureau has maintained Earth's neutrality as an apolitical zone, a haven for those needing asylum.  From the failed Boglodite invasion of 1969 to the plea of the Zarthans in 1978, the stone-faced personnel of this secret police force have held the line, protecting both Earth itself and the inhabitants' ignorance from the dangers around them.  One such danger arose in July 1997 when an Arquillian prince was assassinated for the powerful trinket he had been hiding.

The assassin took the form of an immense insect, a cockroach with proportionate strength and endurance.  His claws and talons could easily snap a man in half, but his body had the flexibility to be folded into a smaller form and concealed within a corpse, a grotesque “skin suit”.  His glands could produce a cocooning agent that glue objects together, as well as preserve food hidden in this way.

However, these natural abilities were only a sample of the creature's genetic potential.  Indeed, his race took many insectoid forms, some possessing wings or stingers, even a potent venom.  These different forms were locked inside a “caste gene”, activated upon incubation to determine the individual's caste in the overall society of its hive.  Wings typically depicted royalty, reproduction rights.  Venomous stingers represented the the soldier type, berserkers born only to defend and kill.  The assassin was chosen from the worker caste, high endurance and survivability in harsh environments, most expendable.

What if all of the creature's potential was unlocked in a single individual, a monster warrior?  Could one such being destroy the Men in Black, conquer Earth?  Could an army of such beasts topple a galactic empire?

No, a brutally strong monster would not stand against the powers and weaponry of the more advanced races.  Among the stars were several different species, some united under the flag of the Galactic Union (GU), protected by its Galaxy Police (GP).  Together, their pooled technology produced not only energy weapons like those wielded by the Men in Black, but also powered armor, thermoptic camouflage, and cybernetic augmentation.

And then, one must consider the abilities of the races themselves.  A few select species had the ability to summon forth ethereal energies, even to weaponize them.  Specifically, the royal family of the Jurai Empire were said to possess a power surpassing that of a god.  This power flowed through the bloodlines of Juraian nobility, giving them the ability to manifest constructs like barriers and bolts of power.  Even unarmed, a Juraian nobleman constituted a significant threat at close or long range.  Over millennia, the so-called “Jurai Power” was refined and mastered, given discipline through the sword arts of the royal family, harnessed via their organic technology.

What could stand against the GP and its weaponry, let alone Jurai and its might?

As with many natural phenomena, Jurai's power had an antithesis, a polar opposite.  The Universal Science Academy (SA), the GU's academic branch, classified this dark energy as “non-normal variety of occurrence”, or “NVO”.  Its properties and manifestations mirrored Jurai's might with an antipodal disposition, the two annihilating one another in most every incident and simulation.  In 1896, one such event caught the galaxy's attention, the rampage of a Super-A class criminal, codenamed “K.A.I.N.”  With all the GP's weaponry, they could not stop Kain as he destroyed planet after planet, murdering those in his path.  Only by using the power of the former emperor of Jurai was the nightmare ended, and Kain imprisoned.  Sadly, the emperor died to achieve this great feat.

Another particular criminal had a great power of her own.  A space pirate by trade, she had greedily heisted banks and convoys throughout her brief career starting in 1992.  However, due to a twist of fate, she had become embroiled in the 1995 coup d'etat on the Juraian throne-world.  During the end of the coup, she made a valkyrie-like assault on the planet, breaking through the planetary defense system with her single battleship.  Even without her vessel, the young woman had numerous natural abilities:  teleportation, flight, and energy constructs such as beam swords, defensive barriers, and even a temporary clone of herself.

Could all of these miraculous powers be married with the insectoid beast's brute strength and armor?  Would this be enough to take Jurai?

These questions burdened the thoughts of the Great Liaens as he stood over the operating theater below.  Shrouded in his black cloak, he stroked his long, lush beard slowly, considering both the nagging questions and the action before him.  His artificial eyes glinted in the dim light, their polished glass surface shining over the steel-gray mechanical iris within each, the pupil in the shape “+”.

In the operating theater below, a single insectoid creature laid strapped to the central table.  His brown carapace strained against the restraints as he snapped and snarled at the man far above.  Around the beast stood storage vessels, each containing a subject much like the captured creature, but twisted or mutilated in some way.  Some had humanoid tissue replacing the natural carapace.  Some had tattoo-like lines scrawled in circuitous patterns along their appendages and faces.  However, all were very dead.

A side door opened and allowed a young woman, no more than 17 years of age, to enter the chamber.  Dressed in a white laboratory coat, she made her way quickly to the creature, her long, blond hair flowing in a vixen's tail behind her and over her elfin ears.  Her feline gray eyes followed the monster's struggles, but without expression, distant, empty.  The sclera of her eyes pulsed with a vile emerald light as she set to her task, revealing a quintet of syringes from the pockets of her coat.  Despite the creature's roars and garbled threats, she found the soft flesh between his armored carapace and injected him with each vial of fluid in succession.  Stepping aside, she stood patiently, watching his reactions.

As Liaens intently watched the beast's resistance give way to sudden fits, a woman's voice whispered into his ear, “Such delicious torment…”

His eyes slid away from the insect's reactions to the woman standing at his side.  Her emerald gaze pierced back into his, vicious and venomous.  Framed by her fiery red locks, she leered back at him with a slight, twisted smile on her lips.  Notably, a patch of her hair was died orange and teased upward into a bed of spikes just above her left eye.  Her blouse was cut low from her neck, plunging seductively around her cleavage, while her dress was split up along each of her legs.  A green cloak fluttered about her shoulders as she laughed to herself.

How Liaens hated this woman, this witch Jezibel Kimitan.  If not for the use of her psychic talents, he would prefer her kind scorched from the multiverse's memory.  Thankfully, his race was immune to her wiles, at least those of the mental variety.

“You sicken me,” he hissed back at her.

“But,” her sultry voice retorted, “it's all for your victory over Jurai, yes?”

With a quick motion, he clutched the hand she had been snaking under his cloak.  Raising her wrist upward, he responded, “Don't forget your place, woman.  You are merely a means to an end.”

She scoffed as her smile widened.  “As are we all in the eyes of the gods, even you.”

Her words burned in his ears as he scowled, releasing her wrist.  His reticle-like eyes lingered on her for a moment before returning to the action below.  There, the beast's carapace shifted color to green while its talons have elongated and curved inward, more scythe-like.  However, his attention turned to the blond girl who administered the treatment.

“You are sure your control on her is absolute?” he worried.

Leaning on a guardrail above the theater, the Kimitan witch gazed down as well.  Her eyes burned a deep jade, as did those of the blond girl below.  As one, the two women smiled.

“Her will is more broken than it was two years ago,” Jezibel answered.  “Even if her beloved hunter appeared, my connection to her mind would remain unchanged.”

“And, my army?”

As both watched, the insect's mandibles reconfigured themselves to match the changes of his talons and carapace, gradually resembling more a mantis than a roach.  His eyes grew increasingly weary from the metamorphosis occurring within his body.

“This bug Illirg seems to be taking to the genetic treatment far better than the other subjects,” Jezibel stated.  “The girl's hypothesis about Ryoan energy would seem to be correct.”

“Can it be controlled?” Liaens demanded.

Insulted, the witch curled her lip and retorted, “Keep in mind who I am.  I can ensure his loyalty.”

“Then, have it prepared and sent to Earth as planned.  I want to see how it fares in combat.”

As he spun away to leave, Jezibel called back to him once more, “And, if he should fail?”

“Have the gynoid at the ready.  She, at least, has proven reliable.”

The malicious telepath took a sweeping bow, mocking her reluctant ally.  “Of course, King Liaens, the Great.”

His teeth ground behind his lips while he vanished from her sight.  As Jezibel stood there alone, her jade eyes turned back to the blond girl below, who gazed up at the unspoken command of her mistress.

“Good work, young Nerti Ro.”