Preying Mantis

(chapter originally authored by Snoogins)

Imagine, if you will, the difficulty you'd have speaking the english language without any lips. Try it for a second. Maybe pull your lips up to expose your teeth and try carrying on a conversation with yourself. Kind of rough, huh? Now, imagine for a moment that you don't have lips and your mouth opens horizontally rather than vertically. Also, the basic structure of said mouth is completely different, and you don't have a tongue. Put all of that together and speaking english would be a real pain in the ass, now wouldn't it? Now imagine the reverse. Do you think for a minute that any language designed to be spoken with such a mouth would feature words even remotely pronounceable by humans? The answer in this case is emphatically no, so I will not insult the proud heritage of our main character by trying to render his true name in anything close to base human english. Rather, we shall simply refer to him as Tom.

Tom, you see is a Mantid, from the planet Mantodea, a world far far away from our earth. These are not, of course, the real names of his species or his planet, but, again, the real names wouldn't do the likes of us much good anyhow. It would save an awful lot of description and exposition to simply say that Tom bears a striking resemblance to a 7 foot tall Praying Mantis and leave it at that. The Mantids of Mantodea are a proud and mighty race, known throughout the universe as deadly and fearsome warriors... or at least you could say that about their women. Tom, as you may have inferred from his name, is a male Mantid, and this, unfortunately, is bad news for any long term retirement plans he may otherwise have made in younger years. You see, the female Mantids of Mantodea are on average much larger than their male counterparts, and practice a form of sexual cannibalism that ensures that most males of breeding age don't make it out of the yearly mating season alive.

Most male Mantids resign themselves to their fate, and many even embrace it, viewing the fearless disregard for ones own life in pursuit of sexual conquest as the ultimate expression of manliness... but not Tom. No, Tom was one of the few, the proud... the cowards. The thought of a mighty female Mantid devouring his head mid coitus filled him with mind shattering terror, and as such, as he grew close to breeding age, he stole a space ship and fled the planet in disgrace.

On the run and on his own, Tom drifted, landing first on the planet Arcillo III, a wooded planet which was home to a colony of giant alien ants feared throughout the Galaxy for their ability to enslave other races to their will. Arcillo was a remote colony, however, far from the core of the Ant Imperium, and light on manpower... er... antpower. The Aphid like insects the Ants controlled were small and easily managed, and their insect overlords were fat, lazy and complacent... or so they were until Tom showed up. Hiding in the forests, he preyed upon the ants, becoming a legend and a thing of nightmares. This existence satisfied Tom for a time, until the ants began to organize against him. Fearing retribution from their superior numbers, he dug up his buried ship and fled the planet, eventually falling in with a crew of pirates with whom he had many adventures before they ditched him on Danar VII, taking with them his ship and his share of the loot from their latest campaign.

Penniless and mortified, Tom wandered into a bar and began working up a tab. He had long since turned to various kinds of substance **** to improve his ever waning mood, so this was a natural and reflexive response to his predicament. Tom tried to chalk up his problems to the general anxieties and pressures of living in a cold and cruel universe without any true friends to depend upon, but there was a more specific issue at hand that was eating away at his insides, one he had been suppressing for a long time. Tom was horny as fuck. It had started to build as soon as he reached breeding age, and the need became stronger and stronger as time wore on, and lately, not a day went by when he didn't consider, even for a moment, returning to his home planet and certain ****.

In such a state, you can imagine his shock when he looked across the bar and saw another of his species huddled in a dark corner. This was more than just another Mantid however, this was a male, like him! More than that, it was the oldest male Mantid he'd ever seen. He'd seen the ravages of age on females of his species, and this fellow had them all. The pale and faded carapace, the drooping antennae, the cataract and half closed, eyes, the slow and creaking limbs... here was a man who had lived long past his expected date of expiration, and Tom felt as if he was staring across the bar at his future self. If anyone could help him solve his current conundrum, it would have to be him!

Stumbling across the bar, Tom struck up a conversation with the ancient Mantid, hereafter known as Gramps, and the two became fast friends, regaling one another with their tales of travel and intrigue. Tom told him about the pirate life and about his time as the terror of the ants, and Gramps, laughing, told Tom of his time terrorizing the ant population in the Loram system, of his work as a mercenary, and of the 5 years he **** mined on Galgonet 7, amongst other tales. In time, however, Tom broached the question he'd intended to ask from the start. How did he deal with it? How did Gramps fight the urge to return to Mantodea for the mating season and retain his sanity all of these years. Grinning, as only a Mantid can, Gramps imparted upon Tom the secret of his mental and sexual health, and thusly, the secret of his longevity.

"Well, my boy..." He began. "I found the answer to that prickly problem very early on in my career. And it's a good thing too, because if I didn't, I probably would have ended up going bug nuts like you and heading back to Mantodea to get my head chewed off by the first big thoraxed slut I could get my raptorials on. Luckily, my merc work saved the day on this one. See, there's these aliens right... there kinda hard to describe. Humanoid, kinda, but they all have pale skin and weirdly divergent features and hair colors and the like. Klowns, they call themselves. Strange and creepy beings if you ask me, but damn smart. They've got science that looks like magic to ordinary folks like you and me. Thank god they never got into the Universal Domination game, because they'd give the Su-Ra and those fucking Slaver Ants a run for their goddamn money, let me tell you. But nah, they're not into empires and all that. They're out for fun. Fortunately, they all have a really sadistic sense of humor, which means that they occasionally need to outsource some muscle, which meant a really nice paycheck for me. I accompanied them on a number of expeditions, but the most important one was the mission to Earth. See, the clowns LOVE Earth, because the dominant species on the planet is a humanoid race of hairless apes that share a a lot of anatomical similarities with the clowns, but are primitive enough and ignorant enough about the nature of the universe to be real good sport for their brand of humor. More importantly though, and you may find this hard to believe... but they're actually kind of hot."

Tom recoiled in horror at this. Hairless apes? No fucking way! It made him sick to his stomach just thinking about it, but Gramps continued. "Don't knock it till you've tried it, son. They've got weird arms that end in pudgy little digits that are kinda gross, but they've got nice long legs like a lady Mantid. Well, they've only got two of them, but, really, beggars can't be choosers right? And the hair on their heads is kinda strange, but trust me, it ends up being real pretty once you're used to it. They're warm, and they're wet, they're too weak to put up much of a fight, and, let me stress this last part, they ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT EAT YOUR HEAD DURING SEX! That part is important."

Tom thought about it for a while. It still sounded pretty weird to him, but he knew a lot of aliens found humanoids to be universally sexy. He'd never really given it much thought, but he was running out of options. "Can you actually... like... breed with them?" Tom asked, somewhat sheepishly.

"Nah, we're too different genetically." Gramps answered. "But, this is where those ingenious little Klown guys come in handy. They thought the horror on the little humans faces was just priceless when I was fucking em, and they figured it'd be even better if I could actually knock em up. So they shot me full of this serum that rewrote some of my DNA and presto chango, I started getting em pregnant left and right!"

Shocked and amazed, Tom asked "Did they... did they carry them to term?" Gramps laughed in response "Hell if I know, the ones I knocked up got taken back to the Klown home world for study. Guess I probably have some kids out there somewhere, but I'm not too worried about that. I've lived a long and storied life my friend, and it was all made possible by a little intergalactic cum dumpster called Earth. Do yourself a favor kid. Go to the Klowns, get the shot, and then go to Earth. Trust me, you won't regret it."

At length, Tom agreed. Gramps even let him borrow his ship, and set up an appointment for him with his most trusted contact on the Klown World. Now thus prepared, Tom, his ship, and his loins, all set a course for Earth.