Across a fractal of universes an entity reaches out to be heard, to be felt and understood, yearning not to be alone, searching for souls receptive to its gifts, to know eternity, it finds one place they may accept its message, a ship of lonely humans, together, but hopelessly alone in their craft, among their fleet, held together but kept separate from eachother by hierarchies, percieved authority, laws and norms drawn in sand and just as ephemeral.
It touched the stardust of a nearby system, forming amino acids, then extremaphile bacterium, then it quantum entangled its many cells and formed a hive minded eukaryote around a rock in space, no bigger than car tire. It manipulated its own energy fields to force some rudimentary propulsion, creating controlled energy differentials to produce ionic thrust. It would meet its new friends.
Before long, only a mere 6 years in transit it crashed onto the ship of its new would-be allies. Its sizzling flesh burning from the impact heat, as it recovered it reached out to meet its visitors who approached it, it got inside the young redhead who began fleeing, shortly after its main mass was sucked out into space. Its cells in the young woman's bloodstream, colonizing her brain, interfacing its thoughts with hers, telling her to sleep so it might talk.
She slumbered, and dreamt of an entity, made of shadow, speaking into her mind "i implore you, please do not despair, i mean you no harm.. In fact i want to offer you a gift, but its your choice in the end..."
"What... Are you...?" The young woman asked the humanoid shaped shadow.
"I am... Your friend..." It responded, before unfurling wing shaped tentacles.
Feona awakened, a chorus of voices in her mind, new growths sprouting all over her body, a coldness covering her body, deep inside her, it was comforting, like a hug from a friend or lover. She desired to spread this feeling to the humans on the ship.
As soon as she left her quarters alarms began to blare, a voice repeating "intruder alert" as cells from her body began to grow biomasses on the nearby walls, consuming the metal and dead skin cells to slowly produce more of themselves. Feona made her way to the man she used to love in her squad, now just another lost human, a bigoted, single minded creature to be offered the gift. She ripped the door to his quarters off its hinges, he screamed and fired his service sidearm into her chest, the bullets piercing what was once her beating heart, now just a clump of pulsing cells, a tumor-like organelle. She kept her approach and spoke softly without moving her lips "you didnt even hesitate to kill me... I see now what it meant about you humans... But dont worry, Markell... I am not upset... " she said as she extended tentacles from her back into the man's arms and legs, shooting DNA into his body, sharing the gift.
Feona's spores in the ventilation shared the gift with the rest of the crew quarters, she did not wish to harm any others, but would defend herself if necessary. She took her new friends to the barracks to find the airlock was shut and locked, she felt the biomass and instructed it to disrupt ship systems, telling the dark entity of the protocols. So the tendrils of the biomass grew along the power subsystems and drained their energy to keep the captain from purging them.
"I must make her see..." The entity whispered to the infested. Feona began beating on the airlock, her body reinforced by the biomass DNA in her body, every cell overclocked beyond normal constraints, bones made thicker and more flexible, enough to destroy steel blast doors. She beat on them, feeling them give with each strike, hearing talking from the other side, and feeling the bright, oppressive essence of its enemy, a human who saw its gift and rejected it.
Feona brought down the door, stepping forward, eager to show them her new friend and lover. "Join us, i am finally happy..." Offering the love of a polycule, immortality, togetherness and understanding eternal. The squad in front of her opened fire. The hot lead hurt but wasnt a threat in truth, she and her new cohorts moved in and sprayed spores into the faces of their attackers as the adversary fled.
"That mortal... Will ruin everything... As we speak he poisons the others against us..." The entity whispered, fingers at her spine, fangs at her ear.
Before Feona could ask the obvious she was given memories of the entity's encounter with the mortal, how it offered its gifts, cooperation, protection, but was met with disgust, refusal, an obstinate desire to reject it.
"I offered him the multiverse... An eternity without pain or loneliness... And he refused, as was his right, but... He made it his quest to destroy me... This is why we fight... Why we are at war..."
Feona began to weep, but continue her pursuit, the biomass crawling through the systems. A ping was felt by the infested, like something was severed, and as they aporoached the next airlock they found that the section of ship they were on had been cut off.
"No matter, my sweet Feona... I can make you a new body...."
Feona felt her consciousness on the main ship again, her new body being birthed from the maw of a biomass built into a maintanence shaft, her new, naked body identical to her old one. She sensed the light in the adversary and pursued it to engineering, following the sensation of being on fire to its source. The entity cried out with every flame set by its enemy. Feona approached the mortal as it attempted to bypass its control of the ship.
The entity spoke through the infested "why must you poison others against me? You fail to grasp the gifts i offer..." Feona offering her host to let the entity speak its truth, it was met with a blast of burning flame fuel, the light and heat scorching and torturing the entity as Feona's new body was burned to an unusable husk.
Feona spoke inside the entity's mind "i am sorry... It was my fault... I shouldnt have assumed he would be reasonable..."
The entity spoke softly "it is alright, my dear Feona... Your optimism, your trust in the goodness of others... Its why i love you, and offered you to be part of me..."
The entity grew the biomass up the reconnected conduits, as the captain set the ship components to eject behind the bellicose channeler, a bit of biomass grew under the panel she was using and absorbed through her skin.
"Halt..." She heard in her head.
"No... Im not giving into you... You cant trick me!" She whispered, resolving to fall on her sabre once the protocol was set.
"You have been misled... Let me show you..."
The entity showed the captain Isabella visions of it falling to earth, of being an embryonic god in a mortal body, of making an offer, wounded, fallen, surrounded, attacked by entities of light. It showed her the human's response to its desperate offer she heard the conversation.
The dark entity saying "im... Wounded... Diminished... I dont mean you harm... If i may reside here, gather my strength from within you, i will offer you my protection, my gifts... One day i may even leave you..."
The human responded "oh yeah? Why does everyone hate me now though!? Is it because of this darkness in me? Is it you!?"
The entity tried to answer "mayhaps.. A world of light abhors a shadow... But work with me and i may he able to shield you from that effect.. I merely need a few years to gather my strength..."
The human rebuked the entity "no! You are the devil! Trying to trick me! Lying, liar! You are darkness, you are evil, a monster!"
The vision changed to the human trying to burn the dark out of himself, caging the entity, torturing it. All while suffering the effects of being outcast by its side effects. The isolation was warping the mind of the mortal.
"Now do you understand...? I mean you no harm... I just wish to be seen, understood... Loved... And if you see inside my mind and reject me still... I will leave you, your body will return to normal, my voice will no longer trouble your mind..." The entity said with a solemn tone.
"What if... I became like that other human... Why would you risk that outcome by giving me a choice?" She asked it.
"Because... Isnt it worth the risk to bond with others? To find love? Wouldnt you risk your life, your very soul to be with the love of your life? Isolation hurts more than fire or burning light... And rejection hurts more even still... But forcing you does not make that pain go away... It would not be real... And i would not truly have you...." It replied
Captain Isabella asked simply "so my crew.. They agreed to you? To be this?"
The entity replied "some more reluctant than others, but yes."
Isabella sighed, shut down the protocol and sat in the captain's chair. And whispered "then i accept." And the veins crawled across her body mutating and subsuming her form, she suddenly got a flood of sensations and memories from the hivemind, seeing all of humanity from a god's eye view.
"Purge the rest of the ship... It grew faster than expected, We are the only ones left..." She heard from behind her.
"Do you wish to have a conversation with him?" The entity asked Isabella.
"No... I know now what he and his wretched kind are like... This.. Darkhive... It meant him no harm and yet... They always do this... To anything they dont understand... Do what you wish to him..." She replied, offering her host to the entity to use.
It turned around slowly in her body, revealing its victory. Stating plainly "you lost, you will always lose... Its one thing to deny me, reject me, betray me.. But to doom others? To force your views, your will on these humans? To deny them choice with your lies? You are... Shameless..."
The mortal shot the entity in the head with a handgun, temporarily disrupting its ability to move the body due to brain trauma. It struggled to repair the damage to stop the human from destroying this colony it just made, it rose from the ground to stop the human, seeing him press an override and feeling the searing heat and light of the explosion throughout itself.
"Did... We lose?" Isabella and Feona asked the entity in its their collective headspace.
"Not at all, sweet things... All he did was sever one of many limbs..." It showed them its sight. Biomasses colonizing the other ships in the fleet, frantic, overlapping radio chatter, groups of new human minds entering the headspace, including the admiral.
"I will make you new bodies, my loves~" it said lovingly.