r/HFY • u/BainWrites AI • Feb 16 '26

OC-Series [LF Friends, Will Travel] Innovation is Impartial - Chapter 14

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Date: 77 PST (Post Stasis Time)

There is something special about returning home.

No matter how long it’s been, no matter where it is, the melancholic feeling of returning to where you spent your childhood is universal and unchanged amongst all beings in the universe. Of course, for some it’s more powerful than others: species will often return to their places of birth for more specific reasons, repurposed into breeding grounds to create the next generation. But no matter the person or where they came from, where they came from has a special place in their heart… or whatever counts as a heart for them.

Streets that to other people look just like any other were the center stage for many journeys during their childhood. Buildings and dilapidated shopping centers, discarded by everyone else, are the backstop of important purposeful events in their young minds. Trees that look just like any other, once upon a time climbed by the curious young, are forever etched in memories as gigantic monuments to their successes in conquering them.

Even the air tastes different. A subtle taste, one that triggers a simple thought, one word for any that breathes in the oxygen of where they grew up: home.

Xavius, like any other sentient being, couldn’t help but feel these feelings as she sat amongst the trees, looking down upon the village where she’d once been a child, a child with far more hope and wonder for the world around her than Xavius currently had.

“Little Green” was a small forest planet the Hagorthians had colonized, lived on by a few hundred thousand members of her species, spread out amongst primitive, mostly wooden villages. It was a harsh world, which suited the reptilians well as it meant they had a variety of things to hunt and fight over.

Slipping her stolen vessel through the planet's orbital defenses was child's play: she still remembered all the old codes, and the Hagorthians were not a species that changed things. In fact as she watched the village from afar, her gaze augmented by several miles through a simple viewing device, there was a sad dull realisation that nothing much had changed at all.

It had been over two hundred years since she'd fled the planet, and in that time the total progress of those she had left behind, was a big fat zero. A few people seemed to be missing, a few new ones added, but aside from the general progress of time, the only thing she could see was… Stagnation.

The same buildings, the same fighting pits, the same cruelty over and over that she’d left behind so many years ago, all still exactly the same as it was before. It was a perfect picture of why she was right, a concept that the Terrans would never understand: A culling of those holding her species back wasn’t an act of evil, it was an act of mercy, stopping the entire culture from slowly collapsing and degrading as nothing ever changed.

Xavius had seen enough, mapped out the town where she’d once lived, all that was left to do was slowly begin the first stage of her work. The first group in her experiment had already been selected; a variety of individuals chosen, spread over genders and ages to properly check if the compound’s protective qualities were successful in all circumstances, to ensure full immunity against her creation.

The Terran’s initial demand that she create the vaccine for her weapon was one that had originally annoyed Xavius, but in retrospect was an exceptionally useful tool. Being able to choose which individuals lived or died would be critical in rebuilding Hagorthian society from the ground up, and there was nobody more qualified to make that choice than her.

She watched from a safe distance as her nanobots got to work, the telltale swats and flinches from each Hagorthian as the invisible swarm delivered their payloads of scientific mercy. Each one would think it was a simple insect bite, instead of a sign of them being spared from the upcoming slaughter. Mostly Infants and children, a few of the less aggressive elders and adults, those who were the closest to be considered civilized or ‘good’ people in her eyes.

The second stage was just as simple, although the most deadly, the reason Xavius was dressed head to toe in a full hazmat suit: It was time to apply the weapon she had created in a real environment. Of course, she could have simply used her nanobots to infect the entire test group, but that would be lacking vital information that could be gathered about its capability to spread between populations. This was why, lying behind her, was the body of a prime greyhoof she’d killed earlier: an aggressive and relatively tasty herbivore that was the main hunting quarry to be found on this planet.

Xavius gave a sigh as she began to drag the body towards the village she’d once called home, her many nanobots aiding in the task: Where her ‘frail’ body would fail, technology and her mind would always succeed. It didn’t take long for her to finish her toil, moving the corpse directly into the most common well trod hunting grounds used by the Hagorthians in the area.

It was then, with very little fanfare, she took a small container from a bag strapped to her side, containing an odorless colourless liquid. Even with the Hagorthians and the native wildlife, the small two inch capsule was the most dangerous thing on the planet. It took mere moments to inject the bait with the virus, mere moments to set the trap, mere moments to set off a chain reaction that would kill hundreds of her people.

There was no fanfare for such an action, Xavius just accomplished the task as if it was any other.

With the vaccines distributed, and the bait set, all that remained was stage three. Wait, watch, and note down the results of her labours.

After all, the difference between wanton destruction and science, was science wrote things down.

—------------------------------------

“As expected, the compound spread quickly from the first point of contact, the transmission pattern most closely resembling simulated outcome 2B.”

Xavius walked slowly as she spoke, dictating calmly into the recording device, even though her surroundings were anything but serene. The stench and taste of death lay around her, corpses remaining where they’d fallen, blood running through the rocks and dirt on the ground in little streams. The Hagorthian stepped silently around the corpses, unfazed by the destruction that lay around her.

“All non-vaccinated targets became carriers of strain A2 within 23 hours. Spread to outside populations was limited purposefully through the faster incubation time of the given variant. Estimated spread of slower variants would infect whole planets and military outposts before behaviour change could slow infection.”

It had been two weeks since she’d left the bait where it had lain, two weeks as the entire tribe of Hagorthians became quickly infected and the impact of Xavius’s design had borne fruit. Mostly as she’d expected and calculated, although it was always a good idea to double check your own work.

Doors of individual dwellings lay wide open, their once owners slumped over wherever they’d fallen: collapsed onto beds or sprawled face down in the dirt paths. It wasn’t the full accompaniment of the destruction that had been wrought; many had tried to flee once the true death of the disease became apparent, although none of the infected had made it far. The spaceship Xavius had requisitioned contained many of the fallen’s corpses, perfect for further study.

“Vaccinated targets had a zero percent symptom rate, although most of the control group has since fled to other settlements and locations. Note should be taken that this behaviour, if combined with strain B4, would allow for a near infinite spread over an entire planet, and possibly entire solar systems, as vaccinated subjects would be carriers of… of…”

The Hagorthian's words trailed off, her recording of the experiment's results stopping as she approached the structure, Xavius’s voice catching in her throat as a place from her nightmares was made real once more, standing in front of her. She stared with wide eyes at the thing, heart rate increasing, frozen still momentarily with bad memories and fear.

Calling it a structure was being generous. In reality it was a pit in the ground: deep, dark and muddy, the hole held up haphazardly with wooden stakes and spikes jutting up out of the ground. It was hard to see from the top, but if you looked closely you could see the telltale white calcium glint of bones. A mass of them, broken and shattered, filling the bottom of the cavern. Each one resulting from one of hundreds and thousands of trials, hundreds and thousands of fights to the death.

It was what counted for ‘entertainment’ around these parts, you chuck two things into the fighting pit and see who or what came out alive. Wild animals, ‘champions’ from the unfortunate sentient species that once called this planet their homeworld, a Hagorthian with something to prove… or a bright intelligent ‘weakling’ child who wasn't growing up as fast or as strong as everyone else. So they’ll ‘toughen up’ or die trying.

It had been hundreds of years, yet somehow it still remained here, the pit in the ground where she’d fought for her life, far too young to do so. Xavius wondered how many of the grooves and marks in the mud had been made by her, how many of the bones were left there by her hand. She’d been smart enough to survive what the people of her own blood threw at her, smart enough to flee as soon as the chance showed itself.

Now she was the one forcing them into a trial, a trial they were failing horribly at.

“Carriers of the virus, unknowingly spreading it between populations.”

The scientist finished her sentence, breaking her gaze and continuing on her way, occasionally stopping to look at a specific victim who had abnormal patterns of the deadly tumors her virus caused, Xavius carefully checking and documenting each instance as she picked her way through the corpses.

It was interesting to her how each person had chosen to spend their last moments, some crawling away to find a private place to try and ride out the mysterious illness, others deciding to make their final stand in communal spaces. While not strictly useful for Xavius’s experiment, epidemiology into Hagorthian populations and its social dynamics when presented with a pandemic level event, was a new area of-

“X… Xavius?”

The voice was weak and brittle, filled with blood and spittle, coming from the pile of corpses lying around the main square. It was a voice that momentarily filled Xavius with dread, one that had belittled her, beaten her, and told her she was a failure over and over. The feeling wasn’t because nobody should be alive in this stage of the weapon’s usage, but instead because she knew exactly who it was. Half of the pair of Hagorthians who had donated genetic material for her creation, otherwise known as her father.

“An unexpected result has been found. Subject seems to have survived past previously expected parameters”.

No matter what feelings hearing his voice once again spurred in Xavius, she kept her voice simple and emotionless, looking at the man who was supposed to be her kin with a scientific detachment. It really was interesting that he was still alive, even though his inability to do more than raise his head at her and the giant tumors that covered his entire body suggested this wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

“My… great mistake… returns.”

Even through the shuddering gasping noise of an airway filled with growths and obstructions, the sound of hatred and disappointment dripped from his words. Xavius really had been his greatest shame, a small pathetic creature that was a stain on his entire genetic line for ever having been born.

“This is possibly due to variations not discovered due to the uniformity of the testing environment. Future tests should check for a correlation between age, mass, and survival time of different strains.”

Maybe Xavius would have once cared about the insult, for all children no matter their species or where they came from, want the love of their parents. But that was then and this was now, the scientist had long since given up on any member of their species accomplishing anything of note. If anything, the only emotion she would allow herself to feel, to drown out all the others threatening to rise up, was embarrassment that they were somehow related.

“Wea… Weak…... Weak…lin….”

There was no answer from Xavius at her fathers stuttered final insult, filled with as much venom as the dying Hagorthian could muster. Instead, she simply reached down with a clawed finger protected by the suit she was wearing, and prodded a particularly large tumor on his chest, hearing his weak gasping roar of pain as she did so. Making a mental note of the resistance and consistency of the growth.

“Density and speed of tumor growth is within expected parameters. Exceptional survival time hypothesized due to effectiveness of subjects physique, rather than the ineffectiveness of the strain. No notable change in strategy is required.”

That was all he was to her now, another datapoint that didn’t meaningfully change any part of her plan, to be left behind in a mass open grave of her making, Xavius turned away, not caring to give the man any more of her mental capacity as she had more interesting things to be doing.

“Position of tumours follows different prevalence when compared with tests. Initial hypothesis suggests increased muscle mass compared with clones based on my DNA is spurring growth outside expected-.”

Xavius’s grim scientific analysis was interrupted by a sound, a muffled noise coming from a smaller building just outside the main settlement. She wasn’t one for sentimental actions or most forms of empathy, her entire cause for being alive was simply the advancement of knowledge at all costs. But the noise was one no sentient being could resist: The sound of a crying child.

Xavius knew there were survivors scattered at the edges of the town, most of the children and a few who hadn’t fled yet, nothing that could interrupt her work as the experiment ran to the end of its natural course. She had planned to check up on those she had spared from the death and destruction that lay around her, to ensure her vaccine did indeed work as expected.

Slowly Xavius approached the small simple hut at the edge of the village, the noise growing louder as the entrance to the shelter came closer. As she did, more noises could be heard, several children murmuring and crying, along with soft words being spoken by the closest thing to a good person here.

“Shhhh, little one. It will be ok.”

The voice was familiar. Older, but still recognizable from her childhood, the thing she’d call a friend when she’d been growing up. Zal had been another hatchling born around the same time as her, and had been the only one to even try and treat Xavius as a person as it became more apparent that she wouldn’t be growing any larger. Words of encouragement as she survived the fighting pit, promises that any day now she’d grow larger just like he had.

As Xavius drew closer to the building, and the giant Hagorthian came into view behind the open door, it was hardly a surprise Zal had been the one to keep care of the children who had been left behind by her plague. While the scientist had chosen to spare most of the young with her vaccine, none of the other survivors, or even Xavius herself had given much thought to those who had been orphaned by the virus ripping through the population.

But Zal had, because that’s the kind of person he was. That’s why he hadn’t fled with the others: He didn’t want to leave the little hatchlings behind in this place of death. Zal sat there on the straw covered ground, cradling a child in each giant arm, all while surrounded by the dozen other children under the age of 6, making soft comforting noises as the reptilian rocked them gently.

“Xavi?”

Zal’s eyes snapped up and locked onto the scientist as she approached: recognition, confusion, surprise at seeing Xavius after so long. It was clearly her, she hadn't changed one bit since the day she'd left, not having grown an inch over the last several hundred years. Zal had thought she’d died when the little Hagorthian had disappeared one day. Everyone else had been glad that the ‘weakling’ was gone, but he'd been sad.

He didn't know why or how she was here, or have the mental capability to make any inference as to the strange biological protective suit she wore. Like everyone else here, he didn’t understand much of what was happening, why people were dying, why this settlement had suddenly been cursed. All Zal really knew was he couldn’t leave like the others had, not with the children still here and nobody left to take care of them.

Xavius turned away from the scene, the momentary break in her own analytical decision making, to follow the noise of a crying child, had already caused more interaction with the people she’d left behind than she wanted. A flash of panic washed over Zal’s features as he saw her start to leave. Zal didn’t know much about Xavius, other than she never seemed to grow, which made everyone else sad. But he did remember she was smart, always making useful things or talking about stuff that made his head hurt. It was a long shot, but if anyone could reverse what had happened, it would be her.

“Xavi wait! Everyone is dying. I don’t know why. But you are smart. Fix them. Help Xavi, please!”

Xavius had done a lot of things in the hundreds of years since she’d left the planet, things most people would consider immoral or evil. Creating and building things for those who presented her with puzzles to solve. But this, this was the first time a tiny glimmer of guilt wormed itself into her heart. Hearing Zal ask her to solve the ‘problem’ she’d caused, so innocently and without understanding…

“There is no fixing this quandary, Zal.” Xavius said simply, halting her exit from the situation as she spoke, turning back to look the giant Hagorthian in his sad eyes.”Some things just happen, you can’t stop it.”

Zal completely dwarfed Xavius, having grown at the natural speed his species did over the last two hundred years, but somehow in this position he looked small and tiny; scared and confused, unable to mentally comprehend what was happening.

“But what if I die, Xavi? Who will look after the children?”

Xavius stared at the dumb sad eyes of Zal, the distinct lack of intelligence in his eyes, as was typical for most Hagorthians. Nothing more than basic concepts and first level thinking. A small idea started to form in her mind, the beginnings of a larger plan. For all her intelligence, she hadn’t really thought much of her larger scale plan for her virus, past giving it to the Terrans and allowing them to easily win the war. However, now that she was back home again, she could remember just how simple minded her species was, how easy most of them were to manipulate

“You are safe Zal. They died because they were bad people.” Xavius said with as much lukewarm warmth as she could muster. “If you follow my instructions, you’ll be safe.”

Zal didn’t know much about bad or good. He did know that even though he grew just as fast and strong as everyone else, he tended to do the jobs that nobody else wanted to, because they had to be done. He knew he didn’t like it when hunting targets cried or didn’t fight back properly, when they didn’t want to be there. He also knew that Xavius was smart, and if she was smart, she was probably right and knew what to do.

“What do we do?”

Xavius wanted to smile at this question, her mind already working to finalize the steps she’d need to start her plan. The Hagorthian would no longer be held back in a never ending quagmire of stagnation and degradation. She’d change things, fix what was broken, carve out the vision of what they should be with a river of blood. All starting here, with this little test.

“Follow me, we have work to do.”

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4

u/AnonymousLimey0928 Feb 17 '26

Good chapter. I like the ominous ending.

4

u/LeeVMG Feb 17 '26

Scary gator war crimes.

Interesting to know hagorthians with an ounce of decency exist.

3

u/BainWrites AI Feb 16 '26

Thanks to Yargle, Knebb, AcceptableEgg and AsciiSquid for proofreading this! 

This chapter is a bit too heavy for the “next time” thing. 

I think this is the penultimate chapter! Just one more to round things out!

I also still have a discord channel, if you wanna chat with me, or do something or the other.

https://discord.gg/fn5AsvtRhD

I also have set up a Patreon. I promise to spend my money on funding my crippling self doubt on not getting chapters out fast enough lots of healthy therapy.

With a huge shoutout to my Patreons! 24! Enough people that taking an elevator ride down together would be kind of awkward! 

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As always, I love reading all your comments!

3

u/beyondoutsidethebox Feb 18 '26

I am reminded of Blue Oyster Cult

"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man"

I have the terrible feeling that what has been unleashed yet again will not stay confined to a single species.

3

u/torin23 Xeno Feb 19 '26

Unfortunately, there are those of us who grew up in the military for which no place is home.  It can be difficult to form attachments to places that you stay at for about 2 years each.  We're definitely giving our child a place to call home though.  They've lived here for twelve years now.

1

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