《omni-verse cleaning monster》 1-1 -uuggggg Waking up feeling like shit. I open my eye and then close them as fast as a could. -Nope still dreaming. Still feeling pain all over that not normal yet what I saw ain''t more normal either in fact the damn right opposite.
yo wake up
... what the hell I still have my eye closed.
Well if your still escaping reality allow me to present myself I am the Worlds Systems
I ignore the box in form of me like a politician ignore common sense.
alright kid glove off now
That sound bad -WAAAEGNOIGVOSHEODOSEDLSHB I open my eye again a scream Just as the pain becomes unbearable it ceases. -What the hell, the fuck And then I take a moment to look around and see something a mortal mind should not look at. The Omniverse in all its glories and its many many horrors.
Finally and don''t stare too much it might stare back at you
-Nietzsche really and where the fuck I am, Fuck I know it is the multiverse but how the heck I know that.
Well hello to you too and good fucking morning if I tell you that you have a job what comes to mind.
-A job???This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Suddenly I remember I have a job to do and I must start as soon as I cant. -What the hell? -Why I am in the omniverse, that my Job is that and why do I know all that but don''t remember anything as for why.
Well actually it all the same answer, one lazy bastard dumped his work on you gave you no choice but to do it and because of he the type of assholery he like he removed all your memory of him.
I take a deep inspiration and start thinking about everything. The task I was ordered to do pretty straightforward. My ¡§Boss¡§ is some kind Omniscient being that supposed to govern our little Conner of the Omniverse.The problem is that my earth is a high world what we imagine become a reality and we have a lot of imagination. So is easy job became troublesome and he is supposed to take care of all those new realities that keep popping up faster and faster.He did not want the trouble so he went to find someone to take of those, not managing them or anything close to that. He wants ME to go that new reality and destroy anything and everything and then move to the next. -Ok I am calmed now so now what
Well, now I have to explain how you are supposed to destroy a reality. In each of those realities there a linchpin a catalyst a center a hero in most of them.
- A hero?
Yup lets take an easy one, take the Harry Potter universe, the catalyst is the young Harry and when he dies, his world loses his protection after a while and easily destroyed. But for as long there someone that can help him alive or any state sentient live form willing harry will suffer the hero curse of always having a way to come back from the dead. So you must kill his ally friend and enemy (trust me, there are more of a pain than the rest) if you want the linchpin to become vulnerable and obtainable.
-So I will need a lot of killing power for this task.
Yup that where I help you. In case you have not look at yourself you are a floating ball of light.
-!!!!!!! ok why I am so ok whit this
Spoilsport, I guess he must dump the info on that too. I will help you obtain a new body for the job you have to choose though but try something whit lot of power and adaptability there a lot of different universes out there and some have op stuff that you need to kill.
-A body that can kill universe, that can adapt to every situation and can go fight some of the most op characters in fiction? Thinking about this a race form one of my favorite game. -The zerg overmind Chapter 2 Ever heard of small step
*The zerg overmind?
- Yup if i have to fight universe some will have sci-fi element like space fleet i can''t think of a race that can destroy my future enemy and adapt to every situation as well that the zerg. And if i become the overmind i will have complete control over the swarm.
*Good choice i was afraid you would take an overpowered character as a model like Alucard or something plainly annoying like those cosmic prankster like a Q.
Shiver -Nope, nope never a Q really.
*It has been asked before.
-Before?
*You ain''t the first partner I had or will be the last.
-.... how many.
*You don''t want to know.
-.... That i did not know it seems that the old bastard (name pending) have done this before me. I wonder how did they fail did they took the most power ability they could think and hoped it would work or did were sent to a universe that it law negated those power. -So how do we start this show.
*That my job since you want to be the overmind i will look the Starcraft universe to look for possibility.
-Quick question will i have to start in that universe to destroy or can i go to a new one immediately.
*Well you will have to take control of a feral brood first and it takes a year to change universe. If you don''t succeed and it a good idea to leave this one for later since the linchpin is Sarah Kerrigan after she become a xel''naga.
-... wow you sure don''t make it easy.
*Well i could send you to Warhammer 40k as an imperial guard if you complain too much.
-Dead threat received and understood on since we are that note who is the linchpin in 40k?
*All god-like being and those near unkillable existence that universe produce like there are cheap or something. There a lot of story in that universe and that make a lot linchpin.
-That a big shopping list and way too overpowered.
*Yeah it on the chopping block and you will have to deal with it but not now i ain''t that evil.
-Thank you i guess. Taking a moment for myself i feel somewhat afraid of going to the 40k universe. I mean there the literal god-emperor of mankind, the 4 chaos god that fuck with reality at least 100 time every day and i mean figuratively and literally. Plus there are the Primarch and every other Xenos empire i will have to deal with. Yeah happy not to have to go there for now. -So let start this rodeo.
*Just waiting for you to get ready now i will send you just a couple of months before Raynor save infested Kerrigan in Starcraft 2 wings of liberty.Since you want to be the overmind i look at when he had control over the swarm i have find something interesting. In every zerg unit, building and in the creep even they are a living microbe size creature that is psionic. They power are so tiny that they are often forgotten and dismiss. But there is quite the ingenious trick that the old overmind used, this trick that would have him be every zerg of his swarm making him immortal (expect when he did that i want to manifest on aiur for someone or something to be able to kill him since he did not want to be Amon slave any longer). You will be send into those microbes and you will link yourself to each one of them, as the number increase so will your mental faculty return and power grow.
-Wait mental faculty, microbe. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
*Yes have fun as the zerg version of an amoeba.
-NONONONONONONONONONONOONOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! A flash of light engulfs me I have the sensation of being catapulted across a vast distance. Then I feel like I hit a wall, I Knew this particular wall was named Blizzard-starcraft universe section Koprulu sector time 2504/09/02. Just because someone, somewhere was feeling like a dick to me make sure I knew that I will remember where I was going, feel like a ton of brick in the face. Then started my life as an amoeba,amoebalisk amoebaling? I will have to ask someone else for opinion on this. Let me honest with all of you since lacking mental faculty allow 4wall breaking. Being an amoeba ain''t boring since i am currently too stupid to realize what being bored is. It took a month for me to link those amoebas in a psi network that replaced my own brain neuron. Then I was as intelligent as a rock, a stupid rock by rock standard mind you. By the time I was me again Raynor was already collecting the artifact and Kerrigan was too distracted to notice little old me. My network spread amongst a feral brood on some backwater, barren planet that I didn''t know the name of.I gained enough psionic power to assume command of a hatchery, five drones, and an overlord. As my drone gather mineral that i needed to begin my own brood. A single feral zergling was prowling on the edge of my awareness to far for me to possess and damn to near for me to relax.If i lose this Hatchery i got back to my dumb as rock phase. Not that i am a genius right now i am still stupid but i can form thought at the level of young child. I know i do not control this zergling and he could be an enemy. Then the zergling left probably hunting something that runs there is more fun the play with. Crisis dodged and as a bonus, I was so distracted by that lone zerg I did not notice that my lovely drone did gather enough mineral to morph a spawning pool. I am happy I will have some zergling of my own soon, Yay happy dance no drone keep working stop dancing, still, they are cute when dancing Now you little one morph into a spawning pool and those little larvae into more drone to collect more mineral. Fun fact creep also collect mineral at a slower rate but under the creep, they have a root that digs into the earth looking for a trace amount of the stuff and collects it. Time skip 30 min Spawning pool complete Great let make some zergling and a queen maybe she will be sentient and that it will also boost my own intelligence. 5 Minute, it all it took to make a couple of zergling. How the hell the Terran and the Protoss are still alive if it takes short of a time to make a zergling i wonder how much it takes to make a leviathan a week maybe. I will abuse this, i will so abuse this. As i begin my delusion for my own swarm the queen was birthed and without my instruction began to care at the hatchery and laying creep tumor around spreading the creep on a larger scale. This add the side effect of multiplying my connection at a much higher rate increasing my intelligence and my ability to think. As my thought become clearer, my mind started making more decision faster like creating more drone and a lot more zergling if i wanted that brood i must make it. Oh i remember now the queen i wanted to see if she was sentient or not. -Queen do you hear me? The queen stopped petting the larva to they displeasure and lookup in general direction of the central node of my psi connection. (zerg queen) Yeeees. Alright, I get the feeling I should not ask something complicated. But let make kinda hard to I want to see her faculty to plan. -Can you manage this hatchery and make it a primary hive cluster? (zerg queen) At this time no, if I were to evolve to my next stage certainly but I would need an evolution chamber and a lair. -Can you make an evolution chamber and a lair? (zerg queen)Yeeees. -Do it. Alright not bad i can delegate now a little. Thinking about delegating i should make Broodmother and cerebrate when i can. The Best kind of ruler are those that rule without ruling. I have now a dozen zergling i send them exploring in different direction around my base. And strangely there little sign of life other that plant like brush every 100m or so. Where are the zergling i saw earlier? As I contemplate this one of zergling disappeared from my sight. -OK, we are not alone everyone back to the base now. I send my order via the psy emission and soon all my unit turn back by the time my troop was at my base I lost three more. I was agitated this was not good. I hope it not Dark Templar or something amongst those lines I have no real way to defend myself. chapter 3 It had to be rat am may or may not have an enemy on this rock.(I lost 4 zergling this is pretty much confirmed). So the question is, how much I am screwed and do I am able to protect myself. I mean if it is the Protoss they have the tech to burn planet little old me ain''t at the stage I can boast about the infinite swarm I have exactly eight zergling and one queen (that is surprisingly good at her job of taking care of my base) to defend myself. I need an expansion to gather more resource and multiplying my own network. But where should I send it I barely done any recon? What to do, What to do. I do have an Overlord that is flying lazily maybe he can scoot out for me. But since I have only one I can''t afford to lose it, yeah he kinda acts like a relay for my growing psionic power. I mean he been ordering my drone around since I got him and oversee my more excitable minion. I could make more but I am running short on resource. I realized a few moments ago that the convenient blue crystal field named Mineral was kinda smaller that I remember. I mean zerg don''t need it, to grow fast sure, but long term we can live with almost nothing. The creep will collect everything I need, at snail pace and recycle everything the zerg might produce as waste and make it available as resource to me. So bigger my creep field is the better. After pondering at this I chose to send my zergling again, but as a group, to explore the edge of my creep field. At the same time, I made one more overlord just in case. 3 Hour of scouting later. Nothing there fucking nothing, No enemy, no tracks and no resource deposit that I may use to create an expansion. The only noteworthy thing that happened was my queen keep spreading the creep and made use of my excess resources to build an extractor. At first, I was lost as for why build an extractor on just plain creep so I had to ask. -Queen why did you build that extractor just now. It did not have any vespene gas deposits there? Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. The Queen did her equivalent of a scare jump. (Zerg Queen) Hiiii -...... (Zerg Queen) pardon me, my lord, as for your question it is quite simple. While we do not have a geyser to draw the catalyst needed, an extractor have the ability to produce it at low level, but it needs a large field of creep to gather energy needed for it. -Energy? Can you elaborate? (zerg queen) yes, the creep collects any easy to use the energy it comes across to help our structure perform better. But as you see right now we can use this free to use energy to produce missing elements that are needed. Wow first the zerg are a sneaky bastard, leave them alone and forgotten on a resourceless planet with a nearby star and they will be back. And second, the queen speak a lot better that before. -Alright, I will leave you with it. The queen seams happy to praise. Alright, so there two things to look for now energy and my mystery enemies. Time skip a day Well, I lost a zergling to a cave in, apparently, there are tunnels here under the surface. They were also prone to collapse and that was all my missing zergling died. The tunnel is not that bad but the local not do much. It is filled to the brim of creepy rat-like creatures, the size of a dog, with no eyes that really like to scream like a banshee. Yup, my first quest will a rat extermination job, somewhere in the omniverse a mad god is laughing his ass out of my situation I just know it. So I started exactly like predecessor would have done in my situation, hunt them to the last. It did not go as smoothly as I hoped, there a lot of them and few of mines. But like always zerg adapt to the problem. Turn out creep dissolve corpse like a champ, the more I killed them, the more I could make zergling and the faster the killing got. Right now I had created my expansion next to the pit as I call it now. With it own queen governing it. At main primary hive, I had my evolution chamber created and made an upgrade at my forces. And since the battle raging right were underground I make sure that the burrow ability was made available to me. While the combat was going on I began to look at the essence of those banshees rat. I was a complete noob at this, genetics manipulation was not encoded into me I needed an Abathur like creature to weave it for me, but they do not grow on a tree. If I remember his introduction in Starcraft 2 heart of the swarm he did say he was a brood of one. Honestly, that was stupid I would make a lot of them and make them compete, so each try something different to achieve the same goal. And take the best results at the end. Still, I began to theorize that I could learn to do myself as my intelligence grow. I mean I am a zerg, it will come naturally. Oh, I do have some plan to add to my swarm Kaiju from pacific rim and Godzilla. The Gravemind of the flood form the Halo universe. The bioform of the Tyranid form 40k. And those only from sci-fi universe what about the magical creature like a dragon or absurd meta-human form DC or Marvel. I would probably also collect my own infested royalty from those universes. People like Tanya von Degurechaff form Y¨­jo Senki she would be a good military advisor. Or Shepard from Mass effect he could be my special op, preparing the way for my swarm. Maybe even seven of nine from Star Trek Voyager as a scientific advisor, because the swarm may evolve to adapt they are some tech that I would need to acquire like that replicator of Star Trek and for my own fun Jaeger for shit and giggle. Still, those rats were a bit of a mystery to me their little food on this planet to feed upon. There is some plant but they would never feed that large population of rat. I mean the pit, in turn, out to become a meat grinder. They keep coming to push us out of the tunnel. Alright, I am sick of them if it is a tunnel war they want they gonna get roach. Chapter 4 the maw Yeah Right now i am having an epic battle inside the planet crust. My force consisting of an unholy number of roach and zergling, that are digging deeper and deeper. Fighting first of all the remarkably annoying banshee rat, and now somehow a Skaven version of them. Imagine a five to seven feet tall naked mole rat, with no eye, that walk on their two hind legs, that still scream like banshee but they more word in it. And they have guns, more like shotgun and radioactive juice thrower. Speaking of radiation zerg are remarkably resistant to radiation but they are not immune to it. And it seems that this world has a big fucking radioactive core. I will have to adapt my forces if I want to stay here long term. Yay me But for good new, my creep field cover half of this word. I have multiple hives scatter around producing my troop and each has they own queen. And enough overlord to extend my control over them all. I found 3 things noteworthy since i began this mad push for territory. One none of the rat go to the surface. Two there a giant hole that go all the way to the core like some moronic god decided to drill it out. Three the location of an old Brood War hive cluster with a dead cerebrate. It will be useful essence to have at my disposition. As of right now, I am preparing to escalate the conflict with tier two unit, since I have developed my lair at my primary hive. Hydralisk, Infestor and since I feel like therapeutic bombing might improve my mood Baneling. I could make muta but there little to no reason to for now. I am waging a tunnel war currently, flying unit are useless. Time skip one week. You know the feeling when you realized you did something truly moronic and if you did something differently it would have made your so much easier. Yeah it happens to me right now, to explain this let me recap what happen since last week. My force finally made it to were those Blind Skaven lived after four day of brutal fighting. What did they discover that this planet was hollow like a miniature Dyson sphere and there was a full civilization living on the inside of the crust. And the kicker of this story that huge hole was connected to this place i could have sent an overlord to check and i just did not do it. I created a brain dead Broodmother for me to inhabit just so i could facepalm myself over it. So after beating myself over it under the watch of my first queen who had also evolved to Broodmother. I named her Slyria to congratulate her, but looking at her I saw an area to improve. Namely, she looked like a monster an effeminate one but still something you would not have trouble killing. Thinking back as my time as a regular sci-enthusiast, i remember that some of those alien that looked like human, more precisely beautiful woman. Whenever those show up in those stories the main character had always trouble inflicting pain or harm to them. Always trying to change the way they think and convince them to change side. With that development, I ordered the mass spawning of mutalisk, since i needed to correct my mistake, and those ratmen need to be exterminated. As my flock of muta flew into the hole i initiated a massive assault from the tunnel. And since i now covered the whole world, my ground force came from every direction. 12 hour time skip. Those rat did make a good resistance considering what they were facing. As i walk in my broodmother body, in which i will have to make modification since i still associate myself as a male. The ruin of their civilization around me i felt nothing, no remorse no pity. My thought were on how to improve the zerg, to make them more efficient in their role, on how to improve the swarm. As i walked i saw what the rat were eating, inside of the sphere was growing a type of mushroom, that was eating radiation. And with a giant radioactive crystal on top of them those mushroom were growing like crazy. I wonder should i incorporated this species into the swarm, no it takes radiation to make them grow. I would take time to locate high radiation spot to farm them. Should i bring the crystal with me, nah even leviathan would surfer radiation poisoning from the crystal.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. What to do. As i ponder i start looking in old memory i remember an animation movie from the 1986. -Oh, I wish i could do that. I expressed myself out loud.
*That could be arranged.
I jumped at least 10 feet up in the air screaming. - What where who how?
* Easy there it me the world system forgotten about me already?
- Where were you? It been month since i last spoke to you.
* Waiting back in the Omniverse i only interact with you there normally or when you call out to me to leave the world you are in.
- OK so why now.
* Oh simple i received an alert that you wanted to do something batshit insane and i had to help just to see the look on everyone face, when they will see this thing complete.
-We can make that!!!
*Of course you only need some pointer in genetic and some cheat i will use to speed up this project.
I released i wave of joy and happiness throughout my brood. Drone dancing, Zergling running in a circle, Baneling detonating, Hydralisk singing, Roach doing percussion, Mutalisk doing acrobacy, Queen running around trying to stop the chaos. As i am doing my thing on the other side of the sector, Raynor and his raider are preparing to go to make a fast one on Mensk. Raynor was walking inside of a corridor hoping to talk to Swan for the upcoming operation on Korhal. The light began to flicker and Raynor got a bad feeling. (Zeratul) James Raynor. I bring tidings of doom. (Raynor) Zeratul... (Zeratul) I have pierced the veil of the future and beheld only... oblivion. Zeratul slumps to his knees, and Raynor kneels next to him. (Zeratul) Yet there two sparks of hope remains. You will hold her life in your hands. And though justice demands that she die for her crimes... only she can save us. As for the second, it saw what the future hold. It will protect her when she will need to be. (Raynor) Wait for a second, you''re talking about...Kerrigan! It''s been four years, you show up outta nowhere and- (Zeratul) Time is short, you must understand! Raynor looks down in his hand to see the device Zeratul has given him - an ihan crystal. (Zeratul) The answers you seek lie within. Study it well. The fate of creation hangs in the balance. Zeratul vanishes into the darkness, leaving Raynor behind. (Raynor) Nice to see you too¡­ Raynor takes a look at the crystal, and took a deep breath (Raynor) I need a drink. Zeratul back on his ship still wounded, was moving to the control plotting a course to an unremarkable planet. He had to bet that this entity he sensed was open to discussion for the fate of this universe was in the balance. It took some time for Zeratul to reach the system that he believe is harboring the second spark. During which he tended to his wound. What he saw, when arriving in the system was something none of his 640 year of life could possibly prepare him. A Zerg infested planet, a living world cover in black and purple armored plate the size of a Terran battleship, each of those plate arranged like a scale on a reptile, each protecting the base of the next scale. On the center most of the planet three gigantuous mountain size teeth. On the opposite side of the planet titanic size tentacle that he often see on Jellyfish of various bright color generating a massive amount of spatial distortion, expanding space behind the beast. Moving the creature forward, toward a giant wormhole heading somewhere out of his immediate concern. Zeratul stood on his bridge, he had no word for what he saw. (Zeratul) What in Tassadar name was that!!!!! chapter 5. Some shitty deal must be made Making my Unicron rip off was not easy. The world systems could not simply give it to me, But it gave me the equivalent of her version of entry-level genetics mastery. The stuff I know would make Abathur seem like a novice in contrast. And the second thing it has done for me was a time bubble around the system, for me to learn genetic of this level and to proceed to the creation of a bioengineering,macro-engineering and gene weaving. It almost took 2 century of hard work, a hivemind dedicated to the project, Billion of drones to crave tunnel and morph into an organ. The resources that were needed was pillaged from the other planet, Leviathan, Behemoth, and fleets of overlord. Took to the sky gathering most of the needed resources. What was missing would have to be acquired on the way. The cerebrate essence was used to make the brain of this beast, Hyper evolved roach plate cover this world, kilometer thick at their thickness. Followed by 10 kilometers of porous flesh hosting hundreds of thousands of scourge nest and Mutalisk roast. Hidden between those monstrous scales are impaler tentacles similar to those on leviathans except the size of them, they were at least three times their size. For the teeth, crystalline organisms were used in the conception, causing near diamond resistance and the ability to regenerate any damage done to them. As for the throat, a long tunnel large enough for the ark ship of the Protoss moves freely with a ship of the same size moving in the other direction without any problem. On the side of this giant tunnel, million of impalor and spore cannons were standing vigil for anything that was not invited inside. When reaching the inside of the once Dyson sphere was giant biostructure, hive the size of the imperial palace of Korhal surrounded by a sea of moving larva, evolution chambers the size of a cathedral, large fields of radiation eating mushroom providing biomass. Midway to the large crystal illuminating was a palace, made of flesh and bone, the size of a mountain with large space left open surrounding the structure. Those space would be useful at a later date. On the side of the palace was a large dome-shaped living structure with many antennae in a spiral shape towering above. Spark of psionic power was easy to be seen even by non-psychic people. This structure was the archive a massive brain that stored knowledge. It was a mix of the old Overmind structure with Cerebrate and overseer essence mix into it. When I was learning genetics I soon find out that I really needed a computer to store information, data, and memory. So this became my second great work. The archives would take any information form everything connected to the hive mind and store it. For example, all my new queen had a perfect vocabulary and vast store of experience to draw from right after they were born. I also planned to store knowledge form infested. When we will get the chance to. On the other side of the palace was another structure towering with its presence. Massive as the archives and as much important, it was the essence bank. My plan for this place where to store powerful, interesting and damn right useful essence as I travel the omniverse. I know that sometime in the future I might have to fight underwater, on exploding volcanoes, planets that have acid sea, frozen ice ball or any of the planets that 40k consider a death world. Those essences will be essential for my continued survival. As for my last great work. Something I called the handmaiden and frankly I was having a bad time working on it. Creating beautiful woman and teaching them to be a seductress, was impossible without good material and teacher. So I had to find a place full of gold-digger and prostitute, and I knew the perfect place. The help I received was not without cost. Now I could not leave earlier than the end war was reaching its climax. And just to make it worse Kerrigan was the central linchpin and had to collect either by force or by guile. On positive new my psy network of microbe now had the body of the planet to live into. Whit each new microbe came into existence it forms a new connection akind for me as a neuron to a human. That means my intelligence is only limited to the mass of the swarm. I am hoping one day to greater than a Keymind of the flood. Intellectually capable of outthinking forerunner AI and using a Logic plague that infects and corrupt computer. As for my current objective was simply gather mass and new essence. Kerrigan was still the Queen of blade and Amon pulling string all over.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Speaking of him, his influence have no peer over me nor would a billion reaper from mass effect could not be indoctrinating me or my followers. The world System made it perfectly clear, I was already under the effect of a grand geas put by the Omni bastard himself. The effect was 1 subject of the geas will do his utmost to complete any task given by the casters. 2 No emotions shall affect the completion of the task. 3 Under no circumstances, anything ranked lower in omniverse that the caster could be used to manipulate further the subjects in any way. 4 A reward shall be given for each significant step the arbiter entity ¡±The world System¡¯ And this is why the system was trying to help. It was trick in by the Omni bastard too. But in order to give anything, progress must be made. It also made very clear that he forgot any clause that prevents me to rip his throat out, as long as I do my job. So I would have no pity, no remorse. I could only love and care if it was part of my swarm. My memory as a human was there, I still remember my value, my hope, and dreams. But I no longer care or could not care. I was the Overmind of the zerg and like by predecessor will destroy my creator, either by my hand or by borrowing someone else knife. through I do not want to die doing it. That was all for the recap I have the maw to feed and that puppy eat world. My destination was the cradle of humanity, Earth. It had resource, knowledge and since the expedition they had 4 years ago almost no feet. My knowledge of Starcraft lore helped a lot since I remember that the UED had lost a lot of their experienced military leadership during the expedition and most of the weaponry they had were designed to kill other humans. Most importantly they had a corrupted civilian government and they liked to make their politic complicated and never agreed on anything, Just like back home. Kerrigan made sure no UED ship ever came home and they possess no clue of the surprise the zerg had in store for them. I would also gather thing to decorate my palace, for the sake of appearance, some decoration better than that pulsing vein and more importantly my handmaiden, skimpy clothes were necessary I maintain that common man will think by either they stomach, their wallet, or by the dick. The one who doesn''t and more especially thinks with the brain are dangerous. It was my intention of shaping my palace as the imitation of the Palace of Slaanesh without the hardcore BDSM. A beautiful honey trap I would add to the exoticism as I travel the Omniverse and it was the residence of my incarnation, a minor one mind you. I was not stupid to make myself killable, it was more of a conduit for me to talk and interact easier. My incarnation was still lacking the human element to it so, for now, it still looked like a proper zerg. Using a broodmother as a base I took manipulate everything I could and make it more powerful, changed it sex I still identified as male, double the size of insect/centaur body making a lot more muscular, added cerebrate essence on top and encase it in crab exoskeleton whit armored plating. My torso and arm looked like a buff man. I shaved a lot of crowns most broodmother possess as my brain or any organ was on my back protected in armor. I had two crabs like claw to match my armor plating with space in them has for one day possessed bioplasma launcher, for now, it was just plain acid. At the base of my torso where my body multitude of tentacle lay dormant to give the look of a loincloth, those would one day be used for recreational fun. Since I am kinda building a harem palace might enjoy it and I am sure Slaanesh would approve of it too. .The Maw could move in FTL by generating wormhole to know the location. to move in real space I had to take liberty with physic. The Maw generate or more precisely extended space behind the planet and shrink space in front of the world to pull its mass. On my way to Earth, I stopped in a system along to way to eat mineral-rich asteroid and vespene cloud was collected. I was going to need a lot of force in order to destroy the UED. And growing leviathan was not cheap to make nor matha-ay looking Behemoth that I used as a troop carrier. I would need all of the strain of zerg I could create in a direct conflict. But playing fair is not my MO, and earth well they were not ready for the zerg. There was 2 thing I was going to exploit at this stage. One I can create a wormhole. Two they did not have any fucking clue changeling existed. The Breed was short lived but I found a way to make them more permanent. Taking inspiration from a fiction I once read, they would play brain bug entering the skull of the victim into a slow and painful process taking each of the memory and knowledge making them perfect actor and spy. The operation was to take control of political, economic leader and as well military. The plan was for them to cause chaos as much as possible maybe even a civil war or maybe in another scenario to disarm themselves. This tactic was often used by the tyranind in 40k with the Genestealer cult. As of right now, I did not have any specialists for this time of cover work so Slyria was in charge of it. She took a modified behemoth for stealth with the additional ability to go underwater. Since I was going to be my take on cloak and dagger business I choose a name for this specialized brood, the Illuminati and since I know they existed in a certain universe I feel like trolling them. As for her plan she was targeting resort all over the world looking for an in, inside a certain social circle. My reasoning people like having a vacation, rich people would take one a lot more often. For me, I would target any colonies on the fringe of the space. To cut earth supply, and locating research outpost and infesting civilian population. I would first send scoot in the system locate communication, and all ship capable of FTL. And do sabotage followed by Leviathan arriving dropping zerg force upon them. Infested were to be used to collect anything of value and to clean any trace of our presence. I know my luck would turn at some point, but I would make the best for as long as I could. The Maw was doing it best to stay away from sight, this kind of surprise would be best to leave for last. chapter 6 Earth politic never change My campaign on earth colonies was detected roughly after the third colonies went dark. For now, they believed that it was a nasty pirate fleet that deals in slaves and wanton destruction. I had to keep scout out in order to locate them, I only knew of it because a politician back on earth was boasting about this ¡§Brilliant tactical maneuvers¡§ that he himself was the sole solution for this problem and should be elected in the next election. The genius was broadcasting the location of the fleet twice a day, read the sarcasm. But the officers, she was a surprise Alexis Stukov wife. I never expected that he had a wife, nor she was in the military. Sasha Stukov she was in her late 40, blonde hair in a military cut, greens eyes that whenever she was caught by that politician camera crew, would show clearly the disgust she had for the man. But I wonder if she knew her husband fate in the koprulu sectors. Or should I bring her to him, infested or not. For her, I would make sure she had a proper, infestation, not the quick one that makes zombies-like infested. The other slow and with purpose one, who knows maybe I will get the pair as commander. And besides any in my swarm were indirectly influenced by the geas, Even those who swore to protect earth would find a reason to burn it soon afterward. Should I lead them to a mary chasse across star or plan an ambush where no one could possibly help them. Maybe a mix of the two. Back on earth with the Illuminati progress was slow and a lot of setbacks happened. First, my target aka worlds leaders was not surprisingly undefended. The security was no joke. Second, the possession process was painful and the victim had the habit to be vocal about it, the feedback I received from them, told me that the vocals cords received a large amount of damage and new infiltrators could not have conversations in the following days. Since all zerg are connected to the hive mind communication between agent was no problem, but it left a pattern in targeted locations. And people were starting to believe there was a virus out there. With the scare going on, tourism halted and the only people near the resort were local and the hired staff. The most interesting convert was a tv pastor preaching in Hawaii for the third time this year. He had many followers dedicated to his work, a bit of a cult really. Well, I gave him the order to invest in a soundproof room, and instill a vow of silence for one week as a commitment to the faith. That should get me a more official reason for the manner his devout followers acted. I was wondering if there were ghost agent here on earth, lore-wise they should not have any psychic here in the Directorate. But I made a plan to cover my track in case they had mind reader, for them, it was probably the apocalypse but for regular people it was nothing. Psychic emanation of the totally of trillion of zerg thinking about a different thing, if you were psy sensitive well now everyday was living hell. I took once again from Warhammer for inspiration, I gave them a simplified version of the warp. As madness inducing as the memory of the infested, carefully edited, was transmitted to them. This was the prototype of the weapon I plan to inflict on the Protoss or the Hybrid. A test drive was needed before large-scale deployment, the zerg would be rendered feral if I were to use on them as while they are used to having billion of thought in their own mind, it would bury its connection to the hive mind. As of right now, I was operating on the lowest possible setting to not interfere with the Illuminati plan, even then the whole sector was affected. I could just have put the Hyper Evolutionary Virus in the world ocean. But I saw it as training, there will be planets in my future conquest where a cheap trick like that would never work. Speaking of cheap trick the maw is growing up nicely. He had a giant sweet tooth and was constantly hungry but hey I am sure every parent must have heard that before. For now, I put those matter behind me and decided to increase the pace if I wanted the earth to fall. I would need to split my force giving Broodmother a Leviathan and sending them against a target. My plan in the long term for the UED as a whole is to target the supplies chain that keeps the whole thing alive. Just earth had something like twenty billion of people living on it, they imported massive amounts of food and resources. Like a hive world in 40k they were completely depending on their colony for their need. Realizing this piece of info I could tailor a food storage and cause a riot. It has been known that starving men and women were not the most logical of creatures. And if someone were to provide them food, is name could be Satan and there will still be people calling him a saint. My reasoning complete, I Would bait and capture Sasha. Once infested I would alter her memory if need be, giving her the memory of people blaming her for Alexis apparent failure, and tarnished the leadership of the UED. They had chosen to pick her as scapegoat resulting a series of unfortunate event. That would be the best I could come up, I had to infest her and pick at her memory to know. Her original memory would not be saved in the archive I would rather not have to explain why there where conflicting memory. ---------------------------------------------------one week later-------------------------------------------------- On board the flagship of pirate hunter UED fleet. Sasha wanted to kill that pig or Mister Pierre Ivan Gaven as he was named, she was supposed to guard, a bastard son of a ruling elite. Who wanted to get close to it father, had decided to go into politic The morbidly obese man had a gold digger as a mother, and she believed him to be her meal ticket for the rest of her life. he was pampered for his every wimp since early in is life and it showed every time something did do like he wanted. Right now he was screaming on the bridge. Demanding that the pirate show themselves and surrender to him right now. Ever Since Alexis and the expeditionary fleet stopped answering back to high command. Her career took a nosedive, guarding this human-shaped pig was the most exciting thing she had done in four years. Some genius back at command had told everyone that DuGale and her husband had decided to carve they own kingdoms in the backwater sector. Ruling over criminal and peasant as ruling king. Her service and medal she received in the past no longer matter to the Directorate. She was only now the wife of a traitor and was put on guard duty in some forgotten base in the middle of nowhere for four years. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. As for her position right now, the pig father wanted someone to get rid of inconvenient stuff in one go. so since she had still her grade was still the same she was put as second in command of this fleet. and as if right now the only military officers who had actual combat experience. (PIG) Why it is taking so long I want to go back home now!!!! (Sasha) Mister Gaven if you did not insist to broadcast our position and destination at least twice a day the pirate fleet would not know where we are. (PIG) Shut up, you stupid woman. (Sasha) Sir, I was answering your question. (PIG) Shut up Shut up Shut up!My father told me you were somewhat competent so I demand that you find those filthy pirate. Exasperated Sasha could only nod her head. (PIG) Learn your place woman. Now I will head back to my quarter and relax. The tub of lard left the bridge and moved in direction of the captain quarter that he took as his own. As he left one of the crewman sighs. (Crewman *1) Thank god he left. (Crewman *2) Has he ever heard of soap ? he stink (Sasha) cut the chatter. (Crewman) Yes, Mam. Most if not all of the crew manning the fleet was in some way related to the Expeditionary fleet, it reeked in a convenient way to dispose of them. Olds ships that should be scrapped, barely any functioning system m¨¦canique working around the clock to maintain the ship. And the most damning evidence was the only official send by the UED was broadcasting they position and taunting any pirates to come get him. The pig was inciting butcher to come into his barn, forgetting his place. Sasha was sure that the pig father wanted to dispose of him. And she and the crews were collateral damage and a quick way to end an old problem. she had entertained the idea of going rogue, take the fleet and go the koprulu sector like some bad romance novels. Her link to earth was gone since all four of her child had died in four years, all were accidents, they said and it looked like it was her turn. the DuGale family were dead too, she only remains alive because of some projects she had worked on with her husband. As much as she wanted revenge, she neither have the connection nor the power to do so. Her plan was to find out who ordered it and give him a proper Russian revenge. As her fleet exited the FTL, it was home to the last attacked colony, the sixth one had been lost. A private colony own by a farming corporation based in France. That colony was feeding around 10% of the capital world, that and with the other colony that was hit around 30 % of the food, importation had been stopped. if it reaches 40% human on earth would eat more than they could get. Already back on earth, the price of food has been rising, the population were starting to complain and demanded the return of the regular price It seems that someone knew where to hit a superior force. The supply chain, to have someone cutting the supply line was a commander nightmare, in that case, they were not pirates but rebel. The two generally different motivations and goals. But who knows, she no longer cares that much for the UED. As the fleet came closer to the dead colony strange reading were shown on the ship sensor. The planet was surrounded by a cloud of space dust, causing minor interference. By following protocol Sasha order a quick scan of the cloud for any radioactive materials that could endanger the ship safety. She had found none, scan told it was harmless, just a regular abnormality that was common in space. The fleet approached the cloud slowly and carefully the scan told it was harmless but there no need to take unnecessary risk. As the fleet enter orbit moving through the space dust. Sasha was gathering a ground team to investigate the colony. Three dropships with a dozen marine each. The troops were equipped with ballistic armor. while the directorate was wealthy, the need for the powered armored suit was reserved only to a branch of the military that its mandate was to protect from external threats (the expedition in the koprulu sector were the form that branch). Since they believed this to be a pirate problem, they had to make it without them. As Sasha made last minute check, the door opened and out of it came the politician. The man with an enraged look to his eye and came screaming. (PIG) What are doing woman! (Sasha) My job? (PIG) Your job? the pirates are not here, it is useless to even be here. (Sasha) Oh, so you know where there are at this moment, in that case, sir could you please tell us where could we find them? (PIG) You bitch, you dare talk back to me my father will know of this. The questionably sentient mass of fat believed and acted like he won this argument at the mere mention of his fathers. Sasha had to hold her laughter to not to mock this pitiful threat, she had grown up with five older brothers in Mother Russia. Had a husband that did black op project for who knows how long, and worse that were they meet. (Sasha) Is that¡¯s so commander, but my still question stand, do you have a lead to where are the pirates? (PIG) You!!! (Sasha) Yes me, I do plan on going back to earth you know sometime this month. (PIG) You whore, this place is dead they have no reason to come back here. but if you so desire go down there. I had it with this farce! I am taking my shuttle back to earth. As mister Gaven make way for his shuttle Sasha raised her voice. (Sasha) Your father had it recalled just before the start of the mission, you have to stay here till the end I believe. (PIG) WHAT!!!!!! (Sasha) And we received explicit order to not break the fleet formation under any circumstance, so no before you ask I will not lend you a ship. (PIG) but-but-but why??? (Sasha) who knows maybe you piss him off. He looked like his world had crumbled, pathetic. She returned to her task and chose to be part of the ground team, fresh air sounded great. Her examination of the remains of the colony was just like she feared, no survivors, no corpse, a lot of structural damage and anything that had a value missing. As she was taking a moment to look around for maybe clue or a lead, her communicator was ringing. She then proceeded to open the channel to only hear white noise, while trying to fix the device one of the marines let a loud yell. (Marine obvious) That not a moon. Indeed it was not. But an armored planet size jellyfish that disgorged an untold number of creatures. Chapter 7 An war in all its glory and all its horror Currently, I just moved the maw into a system that a planet which I already cleared, to check on my latest experiment. I had watched old episodes of star trek, the one with the sentient gas cloud. Well, I was wondering if I could fill the space with my psionic microbe, and if I was to create something this stupid as a sentient gas cloud, I wanted it to be useful. So whenever a ship enters inside of it mass it would psionic hold it down like a car stuck in a mud pit. It would slowly digest whatever it had caught. It sadly had some of thebiggest flaws, it would turn feral the moment I would stop looking at it, it could not move once deployed. And I could not use them to further increase my own power. It was sentient and somewhat intelligent, I needed to bribe them with food for them to act like I wanted them to. This one was a variant tailored to be a planet prison type. It had sent me a telepathic message telling me about his prey and wanted to see if it was worth something to me. Since it was the fleet that miss Stukov was in, it had value. The trade was easy since it would communicate it desire and what he thinks the value of his catch and I would tell him yes or no. And every time it was specially made food made specifically for them, even my Broodmother could produce it, as it will be their job to manage them after all. Since I was pleasantly satisfied, I gave him extra. I released my cute little minions to capture the ship in good condition. But first I needed to scramble their communication and FTL, don¡¯t want them to run and ruin my surprise plan I had. One of the overseers reported that the there was a ground team. As I looked with his eyes I saw Miss Stukov. Well, I send them a retrieval force to collect her. My first troop to hit the ground came down hard. It was a new variant breed of Scourge, the Rodling, designed larger and heavier for the sole purpose of being my space to ground munitions of a different project but they could be used individually. When I created them, I had in mind the opening scene in call of duty ghosts. The Odin station used kinetic bombardment. The idea behind this type of weapon was ridiculously simple, something heavy dropped from somewhere high will cause damage to whatever received on its head. It have been shown in the video game as a twenty-foot-long by one-foot wide tungsten rod, dropped from orbit hit like a fucking nuke. And hiding in a bunker will not help if hit by those, those rods came fast enough that they can penetrating in the earth very deep. My little Rodling were neither as heavy nor as fast. But I had numbers if I wanted something dead from space I could make them rain on his heads and since they were living, self-guided. I sent only three in controlled fall to hit the dropship. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Sasha pov Sasha saw something falling from orbit at absurd speed. And then the world seemed to have ended as a shock wave hit her and the marine. The sound was as if a thousand bomb had detonated near her. One of the marines struggling to stand up after being knocked back by the shock wave shouted. (Marine) We got incoming. Sasha rose up and looked at the sky, it was covered in aliens looking beasts. After taking a few seconds to center herself. She soon realized that the site of the orbital drop was the dropship location. (Sasha) Men defensive formation, find cover. Whatever those things are just hit the dropship we are not going home soon.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Sasha barely had time to interact with the marine over the course of their mission and she didn¡¯t know what kind of men they were. But she had read the art of war by Sun Tzu, ¡°When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.¡± It meant that most if not all soldiers in an army care for his life and when one of them is stuck in a desperate situation, they will have the flight or fight reflex. If they could not run away it only leaves the fight response. And desperate men are a lot more dangerous than a regular one so if they cannot see a way to live another day, well the only option was to kill whatever in this situation. The saying that the most dangerous animal is a cornered one is also true for human beings. Right now the ships were gone, the alien was dropping troop all around them and then proceeded to form an encirclement. The only option was to sell her life as hard as she could. Her equipment, one pistol, three magazines of bullets on her belt, a non standard issue grenade in a back pocket and a nasty combat knife. As for armor well looking at the situation she wished to had power armor. She was only wearing an officer set of ballistic armor, which cover almost all her body while leaving her movement unhinged while offering a reasonable protection against a bullet. She took notice of her surrounding and order her marine to enter a building. Inside of it, she found out it was a school judging by the desk scattered around. She went to the second floor of this place to gather the most of her marine. (Sasha) Barricade this staircase. (marines) Yes Mam The desperate marine did all their could do moving furniture to block access to the stairs and to create some cover. What followed was brutal as they came into range of their weapons both sides opened fire. Zergling came charging running like a really hungry hell hound, Hydralisk launching spines, Roach making themselves as large and threatening as possible, Overseer flying over the battle sending instructions to each Zerg. And a Queen variant prototype tailored to be a frontline commander during ground operations. Sasha and her marine took a bloody beating, bullets only causing some damage on Zergling, roach would ignore anything but that bullet from larger caliber and Hydralisk had a strong enough hide to make bullet bounce off. Sasha cover in sweat, with small cuts over her body from glancing shot. Her armor was useless and gave minimal protection to the Hydralisk spine, not mentioning roach acid nor the Zergling claw. She soon realized that whatever those things were, they wanted prisoners. That good and absolutely bad. The good part she gets to live longer, the bad she did not want to know what alien could do to them. Eat them like some bad sci-fi or those absurd stories where they wanted their resource and technology. ------------------- MC pov - Ah powaaa !!! Eh ?, it weird since how can a zerg get sick? When my immune system can eat anthrax-like yesterday leftover? Oh well, let look at the ground capture mission. Seem like Sasha is still standing, she looks like shit though. Oh, the queen is approaching bad move, look like she had pride not inherently bad but can cause stupids thing to happen. Let see what happen, OK she is standing in front of her force monologuing ¡­. Ok back to the drawing board, hell Sasha is looking at her with the WTF look. Oh, seem to have it enough. ------------------------- Sasha POV What the hell ?, is that alien monologuing in front of me even though I am still armed?. But she seems to be well important enough to monologue. Not even listening to that thing, if I was to die here it would be in my term. With that, I took my grenade in my left hand, charge up to the creature and punch it with my right hand. It gave me a very human expression of outrage with her mouth open wide and large, those were very pointy teeth she had. And then my left hand I punched straight into its throat, the jaw closed on my arm with teeth and fang piercing my skin and muscle. For a moment the pain was incredible, having her own arm eaten was not something she will recommend. But her stoic, stubborn, Russian pride make she refused to let out a scream nor any expression of pain betray her. Then the grenade detonated, the explosive charge, not a particularly powerful one but was still enough to shatter the queen skull and sending Sasha flying. Sasha was sent colliding with a wall, bone cracked on the impact. She was feeling pain all over her body, well almost all her body, she was pretty sure she was missing an arm even without looking at it. Ribs were broken, organ likes lungs were damaged or perforated. Her face on her left side was covert in burn and had pieces of the Queen skull stuck in her face, she rose up on her feet, took her knife in her last remaining hand and spoke. (Sasha) In mother Russia, this is a flesh wound. She spat blood and charged the zerg force. Her every step cause her pain and suffering but none of it matter. She had lost everything that matter in her life so might as well go knee-deep in enemy''s corpses. ---------------------- MC POV What the heck she made out of ? she gutted four Hydralisks and seven Zerglings with a knife before passing out of blood loss. And I call bullshit on that Mother Russia nonsense. I already feel the pain she is, from the HEV those bone shard introduced in her blood flow. I had to take over control of the virus to stabilize her, she had extensive injuries all over, it was a medical jigsaw puzzle, the type doctor would only take a look and declare the time of death. While I could resurrect her with infestation, it caused some defect in her mind, she could be an entirely different person waking up. With all her problem I needed to dedicate myself to salvage her. That cause another set of problem, the UED fleet had detonated missiles and some of thier ship warp drive clearing a path for the biggest of they ship to be able to flee. Well fuck it I had several leviathans with scores of behemoths ready to be sent to the directorate. Each force had a Broodmother who had to spend a large part of they life playing war game between each other, mind you zerg war game were 100% lethal. I had perfected the essence transfer of the old Overmind to save the memory and knowledge of commander unit. I had already located Alpha, Beta and Gamma site. The Alpha sites are what needs to be destroyed fast, like planet dedicated to the productions of military assets, orbital shipyard, mustering ground for thier fleet etc. The Beta sites were interesting targets well know lab with research station, food production center and resource collecting site. Gamma sites were civilians population center, larges concentrated human population ready to be exposed to the Hypert Evolution Virus. It would seem that the war had just begun in honest. I wonder how well my force is good in a space battle, well I will soon see how well my new ship size Zergs is doing in the first engagement. Chapter 8 Let the wolf run free Presently on Char Sarah Kerrigan the Queen of blade sensed an old acquaintance it was powerful, intelligent and dropped all pretense of hiding. The Overmind was alive, that was a serious threat, but it was far not even in the sector. Using her power she investigated the feeling where it was from, it was so far like he did not ever want to be found. On the side, the dark whisper was confused, it seems, it didn¡¯t like the fact he was alive, good, if oblivion was coming the least she could do was to make their life more miserable for it. She found it, in the Directorate space? Did they make a new one or it was something else ? she needed to know. Maybe sending one of her brood should go. Maybe pulling the directorate into the new war ? . But first, she needed Isha to store plan, the Overmind was not something she could deal without a plan. ----------------------------------------------------- On the Void Seeker Zeratul meditating on the prophecy, feel it on the edge of his perception, something he had been looking for. He have work to do with a little time to do it. the next answer will at the birth home of the Terran, Earth was far so it would take time to go there and coming back will be an issue, energy takes time to gather. ------------------------ On the Hyperion, on route to the mustering point for the invasion of char. Tosh was sitting in his corner, looking over the cantina. Felt the shift in the zerg, they were reacting to something and he was damn sure it was not the invasion force, they did not even gather at the mustering point. Maybe he should inform Raynor. ---------------------------------------------- In the imperial palace on Korhal, there are a woman talking to the emperor on the seat. (secretary) Sir, the prince took half the fleet. (Mengsk) I already know. (secretary) Ah sorry my emperor, do you also know that our psi sensor, the one we stole from the Protoss detected something big ? Mengsk was surprised but did not show it, he must maintain the illusion of control. (Mengsk) Tell me, what do you know? ---------------------------------------- On Shakuras The Protoss were anxious as the psionic sensor just pick up the presence that was once believed to be dead (Artanis) Are you sure that the information is right ? (Protoss) Yes, we believe that the Overmind live once again. (Selendis) Should we send the golden armada ? (Artanis) No! the reclamation of Aiur is more important, from this report the Overmind is far outside of the koprulu sector. If it comes to our striking range we will send the full might of the golden armada, but I will not leave what remains of our race defenseless. (Selendis)Yes, Hierarch. (Protoss) Yes, Hierarch. (Artanis) But we should send an observer to track its movement. ------------------------------------------- Inside of the void Amon was ecstatic for once, one of his most important pawns had returned, it would speed on his timetable drastically. Amon tries to connect with the Overmind but something unexpected happen. His minion did not respond to his call, he was completely ignoring him. His rage and confusion builds up inside of him and released a dark wave of energy. He called upon his servant to look into this matter. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. (Amon) NARUD!!!!! ----------------------------------------- Back in the sol system One little piggy, the one who had accompanied Sasha Stukov was fleeing back to earth, the ship pushes past her limit was barely holding together. He only wanted to be back in the safety of his own home, the mansion ¡®Le Manoir Du foin¡ä on the south coast of France. He had ordered the detonation of the warp drive of his escort ship to clear the way for him to flee. When the ship was losing power, he cut power to the life support across the ship except for the bridge, and when to crew tried to stop him, he had to shoot everyone with his hidden pistol. The ship was going to earth so he only had to call for transport home, that was his plan. Now alone on the bridge with only dead peoples for companionship, dark though eating at his every thought, seeing monsters in every shadow. Madness was slowly seeping into him. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª We return to our MC (Overmind) oh fuck me I am an idiot, I just realized that I had dropped my veil technique, that I had used to hide from other psionic entity, and that UED ship went inform people. I had realized that I tend to hyper-focus on things forgetting other stuff, maybe I should have delegated more, I do have Broodmother. Well no use crying over spilled milk. On a side note, I can feel someone, who is locked inside of the void, having a tantrum. The ¡± dark one¡± is not happy. He did reveal himself to me by trying to take over. Now I know him, his energy signature, I can now locate his influence. But when he did touch my mind I could feel his hatred, his power. When Zurvan the ancient zerg on Zerus told Kerrigan that Amon could rip the world apart. Well, he had told the truth. It was really the first time since I became the Overmind that I had truly felt fear for my life.i needed to improve to the levels of a god. In Starcraft lore both the zerg and the Protoss managed to kill Xel Naga. If they were a ten of what Amon is I call bullshit. So what do I remember about his servant? First is Narud at the head of the m?bius foundation. Second is the hybrid a mix of zerg and Protoss DNA, powerful servant and being breed by Narud. The third is the Tal''darim as of right now Alarak is still the first Ascendant, he is not in control of that faction of the Protoss and many still believe that Amon had chosen them to ascend. Fourth is the feral zerg scatter all over the galaxy. That is something I can deal with if I hurry. And fifth the Protoss Templar after the invasion of Aiur, that will cause problems to me, the golden fleet is no joke. With all that thinking I remember the Arkship the spear of Adun, it had two other sisters ships that would make greats prizes, even if they were destroyed by the zerg invading, the wreckage would be valuable. Well I have to kill a god, first step pissing him off by killing all his pawn, but before that, I have a war to win. If the ship crew had someone competent there would be a warning send to all directorate force soon. I turn towards my Broodmothers, over time I had created ten Broodmothers and their brood to serve as my main attack force. While ten was not a big number, my brood was overfilled to the commands limit in troops. Each brood was named as a number, I was not particularly creative that day but coming with ten names is not easy, just ask any parent who had one child to named. They had every two or three leviathans escorted with dozens of behemoths, they would probably split their brood if the need happen. As a way to multiply my fighting force, the Broodmothers would have apprentices that would follow each of them. The Broodmothers would teach what they know, which is not much right now, and when the time is right, would give aspiring Broodmothers a behemoth filled with troop so they can establish a new brood and repeat the process. But for now, I had them holding this process for a while. Now I am letting them run free. I had given the order and location to go, they will manage or if they don''t, die. The strong will prosper, the weak shall fall. I had made plans for me, there were some locations I could benefit from. and since I am upgrading the maw I had a lot of space to fill. The first target is a massive shipyard that currently refitting one of the defense fleets. The second target is a private company world. Where the owner of this world was a major weapon manufacturer who providing 40% of the new munitions of the military. The third target was one of the largest population centers in the UED which close to the trade route. By infesting this world I plan to cut off earth of this trade route and denying the directorate the chance to conscripts soldiers in this large civilians world. Four was the advance research lab center of the UED, well the public one. A frozen world dedicated to research, it had various scientific interest located there. And more importantly the installation necessary for the production of powerful biological weapons, virus and such so I plan to take their research and add it to my swarm if it shows promises. And lastly as my fifth objective in the opening salvo of this war. The largest naval element of the directorate was on route to the fringes of the directorate, to remind everyone that lives there, who was the boss. I plan the to remind the Directorate there are bigger fish than them out in the galaxy. The remaining brood would be sent on their own to wage war at the mid-level colony of the directorate and the border colony, I am sure some want to be king will take this opportunity The directorate then would abuse his colonies, now that the war will rage on, the military will take supply from its colony. Those border colony already had to send more food to earth ever since my large scale sabotage. If they keep demanding stuff and not defending them (a couple of Zergling ever so moment) they will try to secede and deal with it themselves. The revolting colony would be left mostly alone by my swarm.And by that i mean no large scale deployment, I still plan to harass them from time to time. I was hoping so idiotic bureaucrats order them to be quelled by the military, I was preparing the maw since I would go against the five objectives myself. And for the rest of the campaign, I would only have an observer role since this was both a test for them and a lesson for me. During the capture of Sasha, I was in complete in charge of the zerg outside the maw, I just gave the order to get the ships and left them alone. Like I would A click in a strategy game, it doesn¡¯t work like that real life, the Mutalisk took their time and one ship had left. I need to delegate, there are are plenty command breeds for this reason. Taking your force and dumping them on top of your enemy only work if you send them a ridiculous amount of them. Even if the zerg love this strategy it because we have unlimited numbers. We can sacrifice ten thousand for every one of them we take and still win. But someone with actual combat scene would have make damn sure the ship was crippled before taking attention away from the battle. And I am distracted by shiny stuff, this will become a problem in the future. My role should only be on the macro scale like a head of state just point the direction and let someone else figures it out. Chapter 9 the great bait Currently over the newest official directorate colony Whofestea. The newest flagship of the United Earth Directorates the Cataclysm class ship was a massive construct. The designer of the colossal ship went overboard in his construction making it almost impossible to invest in a second ship. Admiral Jonathan Wolf is in command of this mighty ship was a decorated war veteran who had won multiple awards and one of the few who did not go with the expedition to reclaim the wayward colony of the koprulu sector. He was actually the second choice as leader of the expedition. But was left in favor of DuGalle. When the communication with the expedition was lost, he did his best to tarnish the reputation of DuGalle and Stukov. But he never had anything with the murders of their family''s. Politic is a cutthroat business, but he still had his a sense of honor. And right now his honor was put to the limit, as his current order was to bully colony to give earth more resources. Someone had been cutting the trade route to earth, in particular of food. The price of a regular meal on earth had tripled in a few months. And worsening tensions between the privileged and the more common people due to that. Right now the ruling elite demanded (read ordered) the poor admiral to accept donations (read pillage) in the outer colony. A place where the common peasants would not be cared, In hope, it would appease the masses on earth. With the numbers of people on earth, a general riot was the last thing that the elite wanted. The admiral was a bit pessimistic lot and tended to imagine the worst scenario. And he did imaging earth with a giant riot into the great city of the capital world. 20 billion people could do a lot of damage, and depending on what type of riot they could be an astronomical amount of dead. As of now, this colony had food necessary to the continued existence of the directorate as he knew it, and he did not want to go back to the time before the UED. Too many wars, too many comrades lost, either by the enemy or themselves. (Admiral Jonathan Wolf) Prepare the dropship I want this done before they know anything happened. (Crewman) sir yes sir The plan since was to deploy enough marine in power armor to make it completely obvious to do everything they want and leave with the food. He was once called a hero now it seems his destiny was to fall. The flagship entered the lower atmosphere as well some of his troop carriers. The rest of the escort ship would stay in high orbit to give them protection from a would-be hero. The attack would be before the world dawn. It was raining an excellent time for a surprise assault, and the night shift was about to end. The sentry would be tried, and the morning shift would still be trying to stay indoors. The admiral would stay in the flagship and let a young officer take charge of the assault. Since it was a rather large settlement, the admiral wanted the capture as quick and effortless as possible. He had sent the vast majority of his marine corp. He had received a complaint that they were getting restless traveling the star. So work will do them good and double as training. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª 30 min after operation begin The first boot hit the ground. They had landed just outside the local detection grind and moved to the colony staying out of view. Their objective was a sabotage mission, hack the local command center, so the peacekeeper''s force would not be targeted by the automated defense, often used to keep pirates out. The second objective there was to locate and secure the local food storage as a training exercise, it was a weird one but then soldiers had to learn not to ask too many questions. They infiltrated the city and keep to cover. They had managed to reach the command center. Seem like the security was busted, look like a moron tried to lock himself inside of the building. If the local security did most of the hard work for them, they will not complain too much. They entered the command center and proceeded to approach the central hub of it. They soon noticed that there was claw mark on the floor and near the door. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. (Marine) Must be another breed of those giant dogs that I heard, so watch out since they can chew on steel. A mutated animal was not rare out in the colony. The generations apart from each other made new race among domestic animals. In some case, those animals looked nothing like the original breed they came from. They proceeded as quickly and silently as possible. A wild mutant animal had a recorded history of killing people even with power armor on. When they arrived in the central chamber, the only sign of life was a cup of warm coffee. They were confused, thing was going to well. One of the saboteurs went and grabbed the cup of coffee. (Marine) Still warm, but untouched for a while. As he was done saying he wanted to say, he took a sip of the coffee. (Marine officer) Do your job and hack the damn thing. There probably better coffee in the officer mess. The marine took another mouthful of the coffee and proceed to hack the local defense grid. The hack went perfect no alarm went off. The group signal it and left as quickly and silently to the second objective. (Coffee marine) Sir? (Marine officer) What is it marine? (Coffee marine) Lifeform sensors picking a lot of reading inside of those buildings. (Marine officer) It is a colony, boy, there have livestocks so it probably a cow or the local equivalent. And with that, the chatter ceased. As they approach the storage they saw the back of a young boy in front of what look of a woman corpse. They stopped, from what they saw the woman had been mauled by some beast. (Other marines) Sir, we can''t leave the kid alone whatever done that to his mom can¡¯t be far. (Marine officer) The mission first, but grab the kid. (Other marines) Sir! The marine approached the kid slowly looking at passageway a beast would use, as he reached the child who was still showing his back to him. (Other marines) Kid? Come here. No response, he must be in a state of shock, the marine began reaching to skate the boy As the man was about to reaches out to the kid to grab him. As the hand of the soldiers touch the boy, the sound of something falling drew his attention. There was nothing where the sound came from so he turning back to the child. Something jumped at his jugular. The woman who was presumed dead had risen up, her jaw split into two with nasty looking fang attached to them, claw had quickly grown from her hand. Her apparent wound closed and on her back near her rear, there was a tail. The infested woman had used one of the less infested children as bait. if the marine had looked at its face he would have been clear it was no longer human. But from the back, it was nothing but a child. The creature used it as a lure for them. The marines open fire as quickly as they could, but the monster jumps back with an unearthly grace and when hiding. As this happens the infested child had taken the gun and ran. (Marine) What the hell was that! Shouted one of the marines. (Marine officer) Fuck! MEDIC! The squad medic rushed to the victim. But he was too late, the haft of the marine neck was gone. The officer tries to radio his commanding officer but his radio was dead. He quickly figured it out that it was jammed. (Marine officer) We return to the landing site, whatever was that it needs to die (Marine) What about Johnson sir? (Marine officer) Pull the stretcher and we bring him back. The medic did his task. As they were running to the primary landing site of the operation they saw a lot of marine flooding the streets. Some of them giving weird look as they saw the corpse of their comrade. As they reach their commanding officer the man was surprised as he did not hear anything about a dead marine. The marine officer quickly told them of the event. The commander tried to contact the admiral but he was jammed too. The commander ordered the marine to take a shuttle and inform the admiral of the situation while he sends a runner to inform the troop to look out for the monster. As the shuttle took the air they began to hear gunfire coming from across the colony. The officer just hopes it was not the creature friend if it had any. Around mid-flight one of marine saw the weirdest animal of his life. Floating high above the city was what he could only describe as a giant floating bag of flesh with a dozen antennas spread around it sparks of electricity could be seen. It had purple glowing flesh, it was the size of a truck. He just assumed that it was a local animal. As the ship landed on the flagship security came and demanded why they had come. The officer told his tale again, the security chief gave them the crazy look. But he radioed his boss, who contacted the admiral. After 30 minutes of asking permission to the right people and waiting for confirmation. The marines were sent to the bridge. Where they meet the admiral and told him again the tale. With the only exception was the marine who drank the coffee in the colony, he did not look well. Suddenly the marine fell to the ground convulsing. The medic jumped on him to see what was happening to his friend. Only to be met with the armored fist swung at full strength, a pop could be heard as the neck broke incapable of holding the blow to the head. Immediately the security on the bridge was holding it at gunpoint. The sound of flesh re-shaping itself could be heard as the marine began to laugh like a madman. (Infested marine) hahahahahah. (Admiral) What are yo--- explain yourself. (Infested marine) WhY OF course, Why Did I kill That MaN. The infested marine was speaking with two voice one was the body original owner the other was the new master, the Overmind. (Infested marine) MayBE You could ask YoUR Men On ThE GrouND, WhO I DiD PrEsenT Myself to ThEm. As the creature laugh with a click of his remaining finger radio chatter began flooding the bridge. Marine begging for support, the voices of marines screaming as they were subjected to painful death. Men crying openly on the wave and the voice of the commanding officer yelling at his men to run for the hill. (Infested marine) I come from the deepest corner of space to answer humanity the oldest questions. The voice now belongs entirely to the Overmind. With a clap from his now deformed hand, the radio change again but this time it was a song. --------------Listen to war what it is good for by Edwin Starr------------------- (Infested marine) War, it the only thing you¡¯re good for. The Admiral just look at that monstrosity and then say calmly. (Admiral) Open fire. The infested marine was torn apart by the concentrated fire. The dying marine was still laughing as the last bullet hit him, forcing the admiral to come close to the infested. (Admiral) I happened to know war, and you have no idea with what you are messing with you Monster. Pulling his personal hand cannon and aiming at the head of the infested. With a smile, the infested human told the human. (Infested marine) No, I know everything about my enemy, do you? His response was let say rather explosive as the bit of head from the infested painted the room. chapter 10 troll it had to be troll ---------------------change of pov to MC----------------- Well, this little distraction has done its jobs. The crew of the bridge did not seem to remark that none of the transmission had any encoded frequency embedded into them. Now my force would hit full force, this time I had a dedicated Broodmothers supervises the battle. To be able to open wormhole at will make for some of the most bastard tactical moves I could think about. The city had been flooded with infested for a week before the admiral showed up. And ordering an infested to make a cup of joe was just for laughs. But when that marine drank it well the cup was made by an infested I let you figure it out what kind of water he had used. Now for the scene I made on the bridge it could be resumed to shit and giggles, and add a little touch of dread into their life. As for the radio shenanigans. I had to thank the newest and the evilest creation of the Zerg swarm, the moderator. This little bastard was my answer to information warfare. A couple of months ago I came across one particular breed of floating living bag of methane. They had the unusual ability to talk to each other via radio wave. The local considered them as a pest, messing with the music radio and such. The moderator similar to the one that tends to the forum on the internet. They would check any radio wave communication and relay it to the command breed. Now to keep this useful ability and to make it useful to me I had done extensive modifications to the breed. Form the size of a cat to the size of a pickup truck, extension of the radio wave manipulation organs. A new Brain to process more information at once. Sadly the moderator as not inherently psionic and could not be made high in my command chain since they were below overlord.but they were had a lot of social intelligence. If you are wondering was it is, it is simply the ability to communicate well. They were natural jamming devices.but it seems that the social intelligence I left them would cause problem, they are a chatterbox. But on the other side, ever since they figured that stupid human were using radio wave to communicate. They developed troll personality, to be a more precise internet troll. They would stay silent listening to the communication, learn the tone of voice, speech patterns, accent and then start communicating to other people radio. Telling them a comment, insult and being a total asshole. Just to watch people tearing at each other. On a battlefield ever since they became the troll of zerg kind was being even more of a dick. The commander back on the planet just heard that he just gave the most rallying speeches to the defending section of his army to charge inside the enemy stronghold, while to the section that should have attacked was given one of the most desperate calls for help ordering them to come back to him. All sounded exactly like him. Chaos and mayhem followed everywhere they went. And seeing the results of their action I was sure they were living of it. But back to action now I had a fleet to destroy. The first move done by my swarm was to open a wormhole right above the escort fleet. Sending all kind of flyers to fill the space next to them. Scourge would be sent as kamikaze straight into their ship. Mutalisk targeted the anti-air and the fighter escort. Broodlord and Guardian keep throwing their attack at them. Leviathan and behemoth send the tentacles into the various ship. And the Moderator, they we¡¯re having a blast making all distress call, be put on hold and making them listen to elevator music. They could also interfere with inner ship communication, the only safe way to communicate was a landline if it was wireless it was free game for them.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. And all of this happened while I was chatting with the poor admiral, who was about to be ram into by a leviathan. 40k tactics for the win and I plan to push it toward the surface, some scourge will hit atmospheric stabilizator soon. If he survives that, well there a monster apocalypse going down there. It could use more actors. 10 Minute later. Yup, it is going down, the Leviathan had been heavy wounded doing so I might need to re-enforce the head of my living ship for ramming purposes. ------------------Admiral pov-------------------- (Admiral) Open a channel! Where are my escort ?!! The machine lets a silence going for a while and responded in a monotone voice. (Moderator) I''m sorry, Dave. I''m afraid I can''t do that. The Admiral was horrified, whatever was out there had cut him off of his ability to coordinate his fleet, and the space around his ship was filled to the brims with hostile. Laser beams communication needs a clear line to work. (Admiral) Keep trying to contact anyone and send an automated distress call on all channels. This was all he could do in this situation, he only had one more order to give. (Admiral) Open the intercom. One of the crewmen did so and gave a salute to the admiral after realizing what will happen. (Admiral) Gentlemen, it has been an honor serving with you, evacuate the ship and if any of you survive your order is to tell what happened here. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-Back to our MC ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Oh well, the ship heading towards the hill near the colony. Today space engineering of the Starcraft universe could allow a ship to make a rough landing (read as a crash) in multiple scenarios, survivors were to be expected. The expected lifespan of any survivors in an infested planet, well let us said that infested don¡¯t really need to eat much to live, but they like chewing on stuff it makes them stronger. Basically, it was exactly like a zombies'' movie for them, a few hundred versus around 4 500 000 (note this is half the population of New York) infested and they will not have the ammunition to outgun what was here. And that not counting my new infested marine who would offer cover fire. Nor any of the variant mutations in the infested population, after all, change were the spice of life. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªChanges to the Marine Commander ¡ª¡ª- The man looked at the sky and saw the flagship coming down. He was tired, his marine corps have been butchered only leaving him a hundred man and woman under his command. It was impossible to coordinates any force here since any order he had given were intercepted and modified to cause the worst possible scenario to happen. The only survivors had all cut off their radio since no one believed what was said there, or on some channels, it was the theme for from jaw. On a planet like this you will become paranoid fast and be listening to that music was asking for an accident to happen. The officer looked at his men, they were weary, most of them had seen friends die in some horrible way, or the many who just turned into them. Only ones alive were the ones who had kept the visor closed during the fight against them. Blood spatter and other fluids the infested were covered in was highly infectious. They keep moving since holding any position was a death sentence. And seeing the various shuttle and dropship leaving the ship had given them hope that one of them would come pick them up and leave this hellhole. Behind them was a literal horror show following them. All of them speaking with two voices, one of them called out for help, begging, crying, asking someone to kill them. And the other voice was at the same time both sinister and cheerful calling out for them to join, making comments on the lovely weather or promoting the benefits of being infested like the health plan that covers immortality with dental care. Generally pure madness. The commander was tired and hoped that whatever happened in space was going well enough for them to be able to flee. But seeing the ship coming down was not good for the morale. The infested began to roar as the ship was coming down and the voice of the Overmind could be heard as millions of infested spoke as one. (Overmind) Abandon all hopes, you lost your last ship so surrender to the swarm and your fate will be merciful. As the voice came down one shuttle flew past the marine only to be hit by a scourge crushing all their hope left. Some of the marines dropped they weapons to the ground, other just keep running away. The commander just dropped to his knees knowing full well there was no way to hide the horde nor fight it, they did not bring enough bullet. As the infested caught up to him, the last thoughts of as the unpinned grenade blew up, was one to have as many kills as he could. -----------------------------MC pov------------------------------------- It took an hour to catch all the stragglers and survivors left in the colony, and a day to locate the distress beacon and reprogram it to blame an extremist faction of UED. Who knows, someone stupid might fall for it but I won¡¯t count on it. During the time I transferred the infested to the maw I had acquired a lot of them. They are mostly civilians before joining my swarm but with the hive mind, they all knew how to use weapons and machines of the directorate. I only need to supply them with the good. To make a fully complete infested marine it needed more mass that was available in a regular human so it needed for them to ingest food/creep or in a special case, a powerful psionic just pouring psi energy to make the difference. Physic law gets weird when a lot of psionic energy is gathered at one place. This was a new field of research for me and had only my own experiences to guide myself, maybe I should visit the Protoss or Ulnar the xel''naga temple hidden in the Alterian Rift It is great that the tech just lying there, I would need a Protoss to unlock haft of it, a few volunteers could be acquired Chapter 11 Windows shopping -----------MC POV-------------- (Overmind) Well, I had my fun. I was currently on route to next stop. The world of Grohothea, it was the military industrial production center which is provided around 40% of the Directorate weapon, armor, and vehicle. I wanted to steal everything there. The industry on that world would be transfer into the Maw were I would modify it for my need. I had plenty of infested civilian, while a good old infested was terrifying to a regular human, they are not bulletproofed so with enough application of violence they would die. So I planned to equip my infested with newly produced power armor, weapons, and munitions. The factory in this world was perfect for this purpose. While all Zerg had a low opinion on technology since they would evolve if they needed to be. I know fang and claw will not cut it, In certain universes, I plan to go exist creature, monster, demon, and god that the swarm alone with traditional methods will never be able to eliminate. So I wanted my infested as an irregular army fully armed and stocked with anything I could come across. Currently, my plan was for Sasha to be in command, my medical intervention had saved her and finally connected her to the swarm. Her memory really did not need to be edited, we negotiated in her mind space when I mentioned the health care given to the infested, she really seems to have a moral dilemma. I do honestly not know as to why that seemed to be more effective in negotiation than all of my previous argument, it just health care. I mean it is easy for me, to make sure that any infested body is as healthy as possible. Anything that could make a zerg sick would have to be made by something like Nurgle when he is making an effort, a minor one but he is the God Of Plague in 40K that alone make it far worse than any of is competitors. And honestly, some part of me (the one living in Defiler and Infestor) can''t wait to compare note with him. Lore-wise he seems like a helpful dude if only his help was not so infectious. This time no cunning plan or taking the easy way. This world is rather well fortified, plenty of defense station in orbit, a private defense fleet, fortified positions, with a population of billions and most of them working in an Arms factory of some kind or in private army employed by the owner of this world. My side, the Maw. Seem unfair, to them. The wormhole opened letting the Maw get out of warp space (the travel method). We were located around 54.6 million kilometers (33.9 million miles it is the distance to Mars from Earth) on the astronomical scale in the neighborhood. As I left the wormhole my escort fleet soon followed. The Leviathan and Behemoth took their place around the living world, Mutalisk and other smaller flyer scatter filling the space around it. Even at this distance, the local computer must have given the alert that a planet just existed the largest recorded wormhole in their history. If not, then, well destroying the directorate will be a joke. As the Maw was getting closer to the intended world the mere presence of the world was already causing damage, with it gravity as of now not damped by psi energy. Storms were already started and waves around the world ocean were getting bigger and bigger. Wild animals were scared and behave erratically so in a violent way. Other by hiding or simply fleeing. But what was more interesting was the magma under the world crust, just as the water in the ocean created a bigger wave so to the boiling lava, for now, it was only an increase in tectonic activity. But if it were to continue, volcano and earthquake will be a problem they have to worry about. My swarm flew forward the defending fleet, faster breed going ahead of the massive wave of zerg unit. Scourge as always was the first to meet the enemy, acting as living missile they targeted everything, their sacrifice allows my overseer to figure out where the weakness in the defensive net, to exploit and expand allowing more and more zerg to get in range. Mutalisk followed soon behind. While one of my fastest flyers, compared to the propulsion given by an engine there it is slow but if we speak of maneuverability nothing can beat them, able to do turn and change its direction that would rip apart any man-made fighter. And soon after the assortment of specialist breed began doing their job as support. The UED never really fought the zerg and no one from the expedition came back to inform them. Against the Zerg swarm is the most dangerous thing about them is simply number. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. The directorate uses the doctrine that big and powerful gun solves everything. Most of their defense is giant rail gun, great at keeping capital ship away but against a billion of flying zerg they don¡¯t do shit. Sure my Behemoth and Leviathan were in danger from them. But at the range they were, we could dodge. The Maw did take some hits but most of them just got deflected. As the last defending space station got destroyed. The Maw got into close orbit with the world. The fleet simply ran away despite the efforts of my Broodmothers. The space surrounding the rather quick battle was filled with debris and corpse and many of them being pulled in by the Maw gravity. The world below, well they were having a biblical level apocalypse from the new storms, volcanoes erupting everywhere, tsunami waves the size of skyscrapers and powerful earthquake. But where was the capital and production center, the region was stable. Mostly because of my power was stabilizing the place. But I came here for the factory and the vast store of equipment that I needed to fit my irregular into a proper army. I did not want to damage the production line too much. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-Corporate Ceo(?) pov¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª As the planet size monster hovered over the world, covering the sky over the capital. By some miracle, the planet did not rip itself into piece yet. But a report from a city on other continent was desperate. No invasion force came to destroy them but the weather was doing the job for them. The abomination in the sky had begun to open it titanic mouth, the size of it large enough to swallow his city whole with a good portion of the countryside. Then in the back of his mind, he heard something impossible to hear, the planet roared in space, but no sound came out of it but he still heard it. He had heard of those psionic power who could talk into one mind. But they were incredibly rare and could be only found in the koprulu sector. As the psionic roaring continued the monster began to regurgitate an incredible amount of flesh pod towards his city. What was once a heavy defended airspace was flooded by millions of drop pod. Anti-air tower roared and began to throw everything at them. Some genius in the military compound had ordered to send every nuclear weapon towards the inside the mouth of the living planet. The sky brightened with hundreds of nuclear explosions, none of them anywhere near the planet. All of them were intercepted before they even left the atmosphere. A vast amount of dead creature fell towards the ground caught by the premature explosion, like a rain of flesh spreading blood and inward all over. As the battle continued, tube-like creature hit defensive positions by falling into them from orbit. Every time one hit the ground, he could feel it from the way small impact vibrations happen. Bat-like creatures flew in the sky attacking anyone on the roof or trying to fly away. Sometimes one could be seen swooping low to the ground grabbing a poor fellow and eating him on some roof. Flying crab and something similar but eyes everywhere were floating above his city. They were looking for something as the destruction continued. Creatures looking like a dragonfly with incredible long tongue were grabbing people from high in the sky and letting them fall towards the ground, and each time a sound similar to a laugh could be heard every time it happened. Around of his city, drop pod keeps falling in revealing new and monstrous creature. A purple substance began spreading toward his city. Whenever the substance touches a corpse it began to dissolve at an insane pace. On the edge of the city near the wall. A six-legged creature with a feminine torso could be seen surrounded by small beast looking like scorpions. The feminine alien seems to order the scorpion looking one around. He had to look at one who attached itself to the wall, and it formed a cocoon around itself. This scene could be soon looked happened in every direction surrounding the city. As this scene was happening millions of land alien began to rush into the city, killing everyone in the way. Inside of the city shelter people who were exposed the alien blood began to convulse in mass. People were terrified to see their loved one dying when they believed to be safe. But as the apparent sickness calm down, the infected began to mutate at an incredible pace and began to violently attack anyone, butchering the civilian hiding inside the shelter. The last surviving members of the security forces were attacked from everywhere, alien flyer in the sky harassing them all the time, beast from outside the city pouring in untold numbers and from the back where the civilians had been hiding, monstrous parodies of human running towards them. The battle was lost before he knew it, they had no chance from the start. As time passed the thing the aliens that were working on the wall began to take shape as a membrane began to form covering the city, and from his seismic sensors the same was happening below ground. The cocoon around his city was done, though wireless cameras outside the city he saw titanic living ships coming from orbit releasing tentacles to grab the cocooned city and pulling it towards space. As the last of his camera ceased to function, the CEO of the richest and powerful weapons manufacturers began to hear claw against metal just outside of his emergency bunker. The man took a moment to contemplate his life. Then he took a pistol from under his desk.he put the gun towards his head and pulled the trigger ending his life before what he had seen could be done to him. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-MC POV¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Well, that done. The city peacefully being towed into the maw. To his disappointment, the Maw wanted for a while to take a bite from a planet and it kinda pissing him that he have to spoon-feed him. (Overmind) Alright, alright I will let you take a bite after the city is safe inside of you. The maw while having a brain made of cerebrate essence was had a simple mind. He was overjoyed to take a bite of a world but waited patiently for the Overmind price to be safe inside of him. While waiting, he looked through the full eyes of overseer to find be the best place to bite into. As the city was placed inside the maw in a section open for it. the maw propelled itself towards the world taking a bite into an ocean coast, accidentally drinking million of liter of water. This accident had the side effect of creating a huge pool, full of microbial organisms. The result of this incident was me wanting to beat myself with a stick since I discovered that my own microbe was able to live inside of the pool. A quick application of zergs biological warfare cleanse the pool of any non-Zerg living organisms. I began to mutate new organ inside of the maw turning the water into a rich and nutritious solution maximizing the living conditions for my own use. The second thing, he was made aware of in this incident was the design flaw I have made creating the maw. Soon cocoon began to spread everywhere each the size of Americans states. The process was slow but it will make impossible for something to flood the inside of the maw. And finally a dedicated digestive track for the maw. With great acid lake. Maybe I may have overdone myself the acidity, it was so great that roach would be dissolved in mere moments. After all of this, I had the infested horde move into the city cleaning it of debris and inspecting the facilities, it had taken some considerable damage. But with the numbers of engineer I had infested, I knew what to do to fix everything. The bad news was that the CEO off himself with brain damage, I could not extract any information from it. I received a report from my broodmothers that their campaign was progressing but their tactics were horrible. While I remember what Abathur told Kerrigan in heart of the swarm that broodmothers were made to serve the leader of the swarm but never threatened it. that means it will always easy for the leader of the swarm to deal with it subordinate. Their strategy was always the same, send stuff till the thing you want dead, is dead.It worked because they had a lot of stuff to throw with. While I had learned that I needed to delegate more, I might need more outside help if I am to ever have a good commander. Speaking of delegating the broodmothers had no problem managing their brood since their psionic control over them had been perfected by the flesh work of Abathur during their creation. As all of this happen, somewhere inside the maw a chrysalis stir. Chapter 12 Her first day as a zerg commander. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-Sasha pov¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- Sasha woke up with a low buzzing sound in the back of her head, like a party in the room next to your but nothing concrete. Her body feels heavy and her movement was restricted. She feels the warmth covering her body. Maybe she is in a hospital in intensive care now, the last battle she was in was not a pretty one. She pretty sure she had lost an arm blowing that monologuing alien, that would surely leave scars. As she tried to move she opened her eyes. She almost realized that this was not a human hospital since she was inside of something living. Panic soon follow. While she was not a woman that get feared easily, waking up in this situation, she could not help it. As her panicked movement increased the chrysalis started to tear itself apart. After her struggle, Sasha lay on the ground naked and alone in an alien facility. That buzzing sound became louder but she ignores it for the moment. Looking around she sees her clothes on a regular table with her weapon next to them. On the corners of her vision, there is a full body mirror sitting innocently alone in a corner of the room. She rushes towards her belongings using both hands to put her pants on. Wait, both ? hand ? She stops what she was doing. She takes a look towards her hand. Her right one still looking like a human one, only that her skin have a shade of gray to it. but her left hand look more monster than human, it looked similar with 5 fingers with an opposable Thumb but a lot larger than her right hand, it was covered in purples plates that looked like lizards scale. There was a hole in the middle of her hand that would open or close at her will. She took a moment to look at herself, she knew the purpose of the mirror. She took an unsure step toward the mirror then a second, as she approached the mirror she had closed her eyes, doubt, and fear plagued her mind. But facing her fear was something she had done all her life. Slowly opening her eyelids, she stood half naked in front the mirror. Her body looked a lot younger, late twenty, same with her face, she now has the same face she had earlier in life. Her hair had changed, they were a lot longer than the military cut she had for most of her life, they easily reach below her ass and had a hint of silver into them. On top of her head, two delicate horn stood. They had a crystalline appearance. They had a pale color at the base but further to the top they would become more purple, at the tip it glowed. Her eyes that used to have a beautiful emerald color now had two glowing purple colored orbs in their place. Her skin had the same grayish color as her hand, it had no default in it, no birthmark nor scar that had no mark on it. Soft looking breast that she could swear had grown in size. Her left arms were the only ugly thing she had but it looked mean for battle, it looked intimidating with the scale plate forming an armored look As she keeps starting to herself, she heard a voice. (Overmind) Ah, you are awake. The voice was heard inside her head. (Sasha) where are you? Who are you? what are you? And what have done to me? Fear was making her agitated, she knew it. While asking those questions she quickly searched the room if there was someone or something looking at her. She found nothing so she put her clothes in haste. The voice had a laugh like a parent caught a young child doing something adorable (and embarrassing). (Overmind) To answer all of your questions, I am the overmind of the Zerg swarm, where I am simply a collection of all zerg mind. And what I have done to you, I infested you.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Sasha still panicking but tried to not show it, she had a bad feeling about what infested mean. (Sasha) What was I infected with? (Overmind) Why, with Zerg hyper-evolution-virus of course, you ceased to be human the moment that¡¯s broodmothers skull shard entered your skin A Memory suddenly assaults her, it was the scene of her last stand. But something was wrong, it was not her point of view but something in the air view. (Overmind) An overseer. Sasha jumped in fear. (Sasha) You read my mind? (Overmind) Yes, and before you ask to leave, know that you¡¯re connected to a hive mind, without me here to give you the time to adjust you will be flooded by billion of mind wanting to know you. Sasha was cut short of what she wanted to say. A billion was more that could handle. (Sasha) Just let me say the question of my sanity. (Overmind) Ba sanity is overrated and honestly, you don''t have to be shy, I already saw all your memory and embarrassing moment of your life. I must say that your husband has an interesting fetish, in sex life. Sasha''s face went for being pale gray to pure red from embarrassment. She could not hold it back and yell like an embarrassed school girl. (Sasha) Never tell anyone that !!! After a moment the Overmind image in her head looked like a kid who had been caught with the cookie jar. (Overmind) Hehe, it is funny that you mention that at this moment. Sasha just knew her day will get worse and made the sign in the air to continue. (Overmind) Hivemind, way too late to hide it, but if it can''t help there only two sentient being that understands intimacy. Sasha was feeling like she wanted to cry. (Overmind) When your done regretting being alive for a moment? , let continue since we interrupted the flashback long enough. Sasha felt that her emotions are turned off for a moment allowing her to recover from her previous emotional self. (Overmind) Before you ask, no I won''t play with your emotions for fun just when I feel someone needed to recenter himself. Sasha feels the aversion that the Overmind had to play with the emotions of his children. Then it hit her that the Overmind also considers her to be one of his children. As if confirming she felt the love the Overmind had for her like Alexis had when he looked at her baby when nobody could see him. Proud, affectionate, warm. Like a father, like a mother. (Overmind) So the flashback? It will answer the question you''re asking yourself. Sasha nod while still trying to process the image of having a father figure. In that battle, she realized that the zerg did not aim to kill her during the fight nor use their claw to rip her apart. There was the scene where she said the one-liner, to her embarrassment. And what followed when she fell, when her body started to mutate, to the zerg grabbing her and putting her into a cocoon, to the work the Overmind had done to her body, to the moment she woke up. (Sasha) What do you want from me overmind? (Overmind) Ha, this good acceptance of us is a good step forward. What I want is you to lead one of my armies. (Sasha) An army? Why me, there are better commanders out there. (Overmind) I am just preparing to counter somebody plans and I need an actual competent commander. (Sasha) Wait the monologuing broodmothers was your creation. Sasha could feel a wave of embarrassment and shame coming from her link. (Overmind) Don¡¯t mention that. Sasha burst of laughing. She had realized that her emotions were hard to control ever since she had woken. Seemly knowing her concern the overmind spoke again. (Overmind) hormonal balancing for a sentient human was a first for me, so say hello to puberty again. That would explain why now she was literally crying. (Overmind) Now I need to remind you of the negotiations we did, with your subconscious mind. Sasha had her mind flooded with knowledge, the Zerg objective, Amon, Kerrigan, the Protoss. And a piece of possible future, her husband that was still alive, the end war, Narud. (Sasha) Alexis is alive and that fucker is doing what to him ?! (Overmind) Yeah, the entity named Narud had been poking him with plenty toy. Damn shame he was completely cured too, he could have come back to you if that thing had not been here. Now he lives as an infested waiting for the chance for revenge. As short silence, choosing her mind and the possible fate of billion of human life. (Sasha) I accept. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªOvermind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª Well, that went great. Convincing her subconscious first was a good idea, complicated but save trouble. Her view of the directorate was not the greatest after what they did to her, and the infestation always takes some humanity away. She agreed to become one of my commanders but I have a list of people to hunt down, loose end, like her family murder. I may have gone overboard redesigning her. She having a second puberty. New organs and rejuvenation process like this had caused the experienced military officer, who was a woman who stood her ground in front of my zerg with nothing but a knife, now act like a scared schoolgirl. If I was honest I didn''t even need to read her mind, her face told everything. But well it is temporary so she will get better soon, the hormone will flush out of her system after a while. I wish I could wait for her to adjust but I have to send her to the new army to take command. And because we are reaching the place that shall become her proving ground. I love all the zerg like my children, but I am a zerg too, the weak shall die the strong shall prosper was something that came often to my mind. I may have chosen the wrong target or too much prepared for this war. The Dominion had experience fighting the endless horde of the swarm. The Protoss could match hundreds alone. When am done with the directorate I hope to find a beloved enemy that will force my Zerg to become ever more powerful and dangerous later. The targeted facility I choose to send Sasha and the infested irregular was the research facility on the ice world of Gepleon to conquer and assimilate anything useful, also the tech there was nice, some looting has never harmed the Viking so why not me. The infested irregular came in two form at this moment.the variant that was full blow mutations over its body as a pure shock troop, literally bullet sponge that exploded on command. Those variants came from fast acting HEV only useful if someone wanted disposable troop fast. Before my work on the virus, anything infested with this version would die after a couple of weeks of over mutation. Now like the rest of the Zerg is an immortal creature that forever be one of mine. The second infested troop was infested Terran in power Armour. Using the hive mind anything infested could learn the skill of an another infested in a matter of minutes. Combat training of elite marine was transferred into infested that received a low mutation variant. Put inside of the power Armour that received a second dose of the virus transforming into a combat form. Increase muscle mass, 360 fields of vision with new eye added. Regenerative ability added. And some extra limb for melee combat. Other forms of power Armour was in production or needed major modification, I could not in good conscience let my children play with fire, acid is much more useful since you can reuse the melted enemy as pre-digested food. The frozen ice ball that the research center at had an orbital defense force but with the maw going there it''s just decoration. Chapter 13 Invasion of Gepleon --------------------------Overmind POV------------------- Sasha was getting ready for her role in the upcoming battle. She had taken rather well her role as one of my commanders. Now if she could only stop doing weird sound every time she sees her new toy, it will be perfect. While the production of power armor was going as fast a possible, the revision of other models that marine needed times and not mentioning that any vehicles support would take a lot of time to prepare. The maw and it escorts fleet were currently cleaning any orbital element of the UED and any civilian ship trying to make a run for it. Sasha would take transport to the ground with her marine. The heavy infested human would take the expressway to the surface by drop pod.. Since it was a frozen world had integrated an appropriate mutation into my force. Unlike a certain Zerg, I keep useful mutation on hand in case I need to go to a hostile world. Those mutations were kept inside evolution chamber and are available to any Broodmother to use if they feel the need be. The world have life supporting but barely, some fish that lived below the ice and that it. The ground defense force was pretty good for a research base, but then my Zerg have been known for some time and they are pretty much hoping a bioweapon would kill me and my zerg. As I wait for the news from the ground think will dedicate a bit of my time toward the Moderator, they have been complaining that only people with a radio could hear them, not counting the insane chatter they have in the hivemind, listening to that made me feel wrong. Basically, they wanted to drive more people insane, in as many ways possible. They still needed to be able to interface with technologies, internet or the local equivalent would be their preferred hunting ground once they get in. -------------------Sasha POV----------------- On the way to the ground. Sasha was being transported by overlord like the rest her marine. And honestly regretting convincing herself to do it every second. The Overmind did have captured UED transport but they were scrapped for him to reverse them. A shitty excuse was the thing that came to her mind. The Overmind had ordered the infested to clean rumble and get machinery operational. Which they did by melting everything with acid that looked like rumble. Many of the facility had suffered damage and needed repair, good thing that whatever that city was before had a lot of spare parts, but to make the city operational they needed grease monkey and egg head. The production line for basic power Armour was operational so her army would have a steady supply for her marine corp. Speaking of her marine, she had a couple of them do some combat drill to check their ability, She was impressed but only one downside, they only know how to fight and that it. In another case, someone could argue that they were the perfect soldier. But Sasha keeps feeling they were missing something if you surprised them or put in a no-combat position and a problem happen, they would respond with violence. She would need to recruit for officer position to herd and manage the infested. Good thing that she had an army. Her order was capture as many humans as possible. Kill those that fight back but scientific and engineer need to be captured. Civilian personnel like children and spouse were to be captured as leverage, her plan for them to accept to be infested like her and keep their sentience or have their family turn into a mindless monster and eat them. Brutal but she doesn''t think many would take the second choice if any do well, she was always someone who keeps her promise. Now for the minor problem, since she has been infested she raided the city local booze store for personal need. Well, she figured that zerg liver is stupidly strong. For research purpose, she had drunk quite the quantity of assorted alcoholic beverage, the result only medical alcohol which had a 70% concentration of alcohol in it gave her a mild buzz and tasted like crap. Since her new position as infested general need her to command quite the quantity of troop, the Overmind had boosted her latent psi ability. Her new headdress that glowed in the dark. Was a psi amplifier, it increased not the power she had but her range. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! She was receiving information from the heavily infested, troughs the name was a bit long and zombies would better describe them. They were launched from orbit all over the facility. And gave Sasha quite the information, the position of the defending troop, general mapping, civilian living quarter and what her main objective was the lab. Honestly, after her infestation, she was wondering if biological weapons would do to the zerg, the Overmind had responded that even if they were to produce a virus that works on the zerg, we would adapt quickly and become immune to it. But he strongly suggested to always send an advance force to look for this type of surprises. Coming down with her were a bunch of flyings assholes that were there to cut communication and spread her demand for surrender. As she was waiting to touch the ground, the technique the Overmind had taught her was becoming damn useful. The third eye, as cheesy the name was for a commander it was a god sent. It was like hovering over the battlefield and any information was recorded on it. The map was shown with the eye of her units in real time and any place with a live view was not disposable was grey out. The positions of hostiles element were indicated as well as any of the noncombatant. Her units were shown in real time and individual order could be given. The zombies were doing the most of the recon by throwing themselves at automated defense, locating and destroying anything that would pose a threat. The marine waves would land at a secure site, both inside of the complex and outside of it. Some of her transports were shot down trying to land inside of the base. But it pretty told Sasha where to send her units. After landing outside the base Sasha took her marine through the vehicle door. The research center was not designed like a fortress but it had good security. The external defense was built to hold off pirates raid but it can¡¯t go facing an invasion force. Inside of the garage she came across scared mechanic who pretty much called her a devil, her response was a punch to the gut and had a marine drag his sorry ass towards the holding area. The holding area used to be the local starport, large enough to hold a lot of captives and her marine could keep an eye on them from high spots as they get transferred to the maw. They were two major holdouts inside, the security center where most of the armed forces were holding, and the secured lad build to withstand whatever dangerous stuff was inside to not get out. She was going towards the security center first since it was much easier to deal that lockdown lab. Hearing gunfire coming from ahead, she slowed down her march, using her ability to see what was happening ahead and she could clearly see some of the zombies charging into barricades, a mental order had all of them retreated. The security guard cheered at the sight. Until her voice raised, spreading into their radio. (Sasha) Surrender, you are surrounded and outgunned. As she was speaking her marine took position readying their weapons. The security forces were surprised at the sight of the infested marine. One of the securities, an officer or the equivalent rose his head above the barricades to shout insults towards her. The marines shot him into pieces right away with pinpoint accuracy, this time Sasha ordered a rodling to hit the ground at maximum velocity to an outpost several kilometers away. The vibration could be felt and the debris flying up in the air could be also seen outside. Now Sasha repeated her threat. (Sasha) if you don¡¯t surrender next one hit the living quarter. That had some effect since most of the guard had family living there. One by one they came out hand in the air. Sasha had her marine search them to make sure they didn¡¯t hold a hidden weapon. She and a couple marine entered the office looking for a security pass. Using them would make the capture of the people hiding in their closet easier. There a sound coming from behind her, a heartbeat, she could hear it with her enchanted sense. But she purposely makes no sign that she was aware of it. giving a discrete order to her marine to give space while not watch her back. Like a predator she wanted to play with her prey, the heartbeat was becoming louder, she was preparing herself to pounce on her prey. She could hear the sound of making soft step circling behind her, and then she reacted spinning herself, her arms swiping at the unknown. Whoever was there received the blow launching it into the wall, Sasha took a moment to look at her opponent, it looks male but had no hair nor body hair, its skin was pale white, the man face had no distinctive features aside from that white skin. Her swipe was a lot stronger than her frame would suggest, while not a pure combat form, she was far from defenseless. In addition, of her training, the mutation given by the Overmind made her five-time physically stronger than a regular human. With those combined, no normal based human could survive a hand-to-hand combat situation. The white man rose up, she was pretty sure her blow should have broken something but it showed no trace of discomfort on his face, just a blank expression. It rose on its feet and resumed the attack. Sasha had pulled her pistols in her right hand and waited for the blank guy to jump into her range. Once again her left arm hit the blank guy full force, sending it through a window. The blank guy hit a landing pad, this time Sasha shoot it twice in the knee. The blank man still tried to get up and attack, Sasha lost interest in it, it acted like a machine. She had fought children that were more interesting than that. As she approached the blank still keep trying to get into range by crawling. Two more shot into the shoulder immobilized the pale man. With her left hand, she grabbed the face of the blank, lifting easily up above the ground and she just crushes it. blood and brain matter escaped her grip as the blank fall to the ground. Sasha just smiles at her deed. Breaking a man with her hand had given her a sense of satisfaction. Reconnecting with her force she found that the blank had a lot of friends that were pouring out of the lab engaging everything and everyone. Civilians that were caught by them were ripped in pieces. Her infested fought them everywhere they meet but zombies were overwhelmed by sheer numbers and marine had taken choke point to keep them off the prisoner. But they just keep coming like a never-ending tide, she ordered overlord to grab the prisoner and transfer them to the maw and bring back more marine for the assault on the lab. Six hours of battle Sasha had developed a particular hatred for those bastards. They had forced her to call reinforcement twice and multiple supply drop, at one point she had ordered a rodling to drop on the lab where they came from. But the overmind counter commands her saying he wanted to study how so many biological units come from. During the battle as side objective, she secured many of the lab and those pieces of equipment which were transferred to the maw almost immediately. After all this time the outside of the facility had a severe case of infestation. All civilian personnel was evacuated and put in holding cell. Chapter 14 The prophesy ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªOvermind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª I had ordered Sasha to take the facility, the battle was time-consuming since she could not use most of the offensive breed without risking to damage delicate pieces of technology. In space the battle was short-lived. No defense dedicated to anti-ship will ever stop the zerg and anti-swarm was not a concept that the UED was proficient in. The major thing that happened that literally made me take charge was the discovery of the void seeker. Zeratul is here on the maw. What is that prophesy obsessed protoss doing here in the directorate space? , more importantly on the Maw, ain''t no xel''naga temple here. Looking for possible points of entry that Zeratul could have used to get inside and then just looked for missing zerg since right now it the only way to locate an invisible intruder. One of the Zergling just had it heads chopped off, and found you, he was inside one of my experimental evolution labs. Basically holding pen for stuff have made for fun that could not be used in a normal way for various reasons. Like my version of the zerg wrecking ball, my tentative to create an original kaiju. It was spawned from a what-if scenario, an Ultralisk with a centipede body the size of a skyscraper. It was more an unstoppable land train with six Kaiser blades at the front. The damn thing was so energy consuming that it needed to eat constantly but once it starts moving nothing would stop is feeding frenzy. It was armored everywhere with multiple backup organ systems in just in case. I had a dozen of them locked in cocoons, even when sleeping, they were still feeded so I did not want them to wake up on the maw there since meat everywhere and I am sure those gluttons would try to eat it. Zeratul was pretty much is doing the protoss version of ? oh my god please don''t wake up ? constantly. For his defense, he was alone inside of a place filled with billions of zerg plus there was a dozen monster that makes Ultralisk look like as threatening as a Zergling. Looked like he did not want to be here longer than needed. For now, I will only observe what he is doing, who knows, maybe I could gain something interesting from his intrusion. He was moving from lab to lab until he reached the human city producing weapon, munitions and Armour. I bet that was a surprise for him seeing human tech inside of the zerg world ship. But he seems to be determined to reach the deep end, the place he is heading now that I referred to as the pool of soul (mine), if psionic energy could be made physical it would probably look like that. A great pool of liquid filled to the limits by my microbe glowing from the different energy that I had begun studying. Jorium mineral deposits were scattered all over the pool, increasing its already considerable power. A bridge like structure than was allowing a humanoid to move safely toward the center. Zeratul was getting nervous since he had not seen a single zerg ever since I spotted him. If did not order the internal defense to let him pass, the whole place would be crawling with detectors and combat units. Still poor bastard, the maw is fucking big place so he will walk for a long time until he reaches his likely objective. Should I help him ?, I always like him in the game. Nah he, not a guess so he can walk. 4 hour later I still keep my eye on both Sasha and Zeratul. Both are little boring, to be honest. Sasha is facing a cloned army that just keeps multiplying and Zeratul had catch on the fact I had ordered him to be left alone, he had dropped his invisibility and started to jog towards the pool, at his speed, it will take a week if not month of moving into the increasing complex labyrinthine tunnel networks. This will take forever, so I will send an overlord to pick him off and his void seeker too will be transported. ¡ª¡ª¡ªZeratul POV¡ª¡ª-_ I had arrived on the zerg worldship for a couple of days, the thing I had seen here were terrifying, he had never heard of so many zerg in one place, nor those giant breeds of zerg which he was able to sense their hunger, they were so hungry that his sense was affected. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The infested Terrans city was the biggest surprise on his trip and he was pretty sure he had not meant to see half the points yet, did this Overmind wanted his own version of Kerrigan or did he wanted to use technology? he couldn''t imagine the zerg using the nuke that the Terran was so fond of. As this trip processed the number of zerg he encounters dropped instead of rising, this had caused some major fear into the protoss. While he was not a coward when it came to battle, fighting millions versus one is a different story so it had no shame in it if he would flee before it. But nothing came to him, it was then he figured the sparks must have given the order to ignore him. He waited for a while to see if the sparks would come to meet him but it seemed that he has to do the legwork himself. 4 hour of a jog at Templar pace, it been a long while since he had run so much in a day. And somehow the tunnel he was in keep multiplying. While taking a break to rest an overlord had come from a tunnel and landed next to the protoss, he becomes a bit cautious, but still asked. (Zeratul) are you here to take me to your master? The overlord just opened it ventral sacs so looked like he only has two choices, by the leg or accepting the invitation. Finally, he chooses to jump over the overlord and sit there, to the overlord displeasure, but it seems that whoever that had sent him this overlord had also chosen to make the overlord comply. He was given a lift with a view, but what he saw from over the overlord was a nightmarish sea of larva ready to morphs at the command of a queen and other command breeds. Cocoon full of pre-made combat zerg form, leviathans in titanic docking pool where thousands of drone would clean their surface and check for any faulty. A great palace was in front of him, luxury was transferred inside of it, beautiful garden with master crafted statues of different zerg breeds. He did feel a small amount of shame that his meeting would not be there. But the overlord continued moving towards his destination, through a series of passageways made of crystalline matter. When he saw the glowing lake his mind completely stopped, completely fixated on the sheer energy he felt. For a psionic race being near the pool was like looking at the sun, he once believed that the hybrids were powerful but if compared to this, they were more like burning city to the power of this star. The overlord was visibly uncomfortable being here, he too felt the power in this place. It landed near the bridge like structure, clearly not going any farther, I jumped on the ground, the energy surrounding me were disorienting. But I steel myself and marched towards the bridge. As he walked the memory came surfacing, visions of his past were shown to the world to see as mist gathered replaying the event of his life, the good, the bad, the things better forgotten and the things he will never forget. Watching his ghost kill his beloved matriarch over and over, him killing the cerebrate and so many more. At the end of the bridge right in the center of this pool of psionic energy, a ghost waited for him, it was not one from his memory, but someone he had never seen before, an archon, a purple one, this psionic entity was hovering just over the edge of the platform. A deep voice reverberated all around him dispelling my past. (Overmind) dark prelate, what a Nerazim is doing so far from Shakuras? I was surprised, took a step back to steeling myself then responded. (Zeratul) I came for the spark that shows me to here, and from what I guess so far it could be you, and for why I find you, I came to give you a warning from the future. (Overmind) Amon, yes¡­. Know of him and his plan. I was taken by surprise again but if he knows of Amon, could he be one of his servants? , then the future would be the greater danger. (Overmind) I am no pawn of him! And besides there worse pass him. (Zeratul) Worse !?! (Overmind) Oh yes, but first let me show you a vision of the future, one where am not there, it will answer all your questions and let you Intervene in a more appropriate way than simply running after the clue Ouros left behind. (Zeratul) Ouros? As I said the name vision of events dating back to the creation of the protoss to the void war was shown, hidden actors, being revealed like ¡°Duran¡± or ¡°Narud¡± as he is called now, the birth of the original overmind, the xel''naga fighting over the sky of Zerus, the dead of Amon physical form, where he resides in the void, his prisoner Ouros or as I know him as Tassadar, the clue he had left behind. The recent event like his meeting with Raynor, in this speech he never mentioned the second spark. The event at char and the follow up where Mengsk had hounded Kerrigan and his friends Raynor. The assault on the research facility, the news broadcast of the death of Raynor, Kerrigan vow of revenge, his meeting on the Leviathan, Zerus where a newly infested Kerrigan was born. Then the future event like Amon rebirth, the khala corruption, his death at the hand of a possessed Artanis. Then the vision stopped, he found himself covered in sweat, shaking like a leaf to the wind. Unsure and scared he gathered what was left of his will and asked with a trembling voice. (Zeratul) Is there more? The being in front of him looked like he was wondering something. (Overmind) Yes, there is a future beyond that but it is not your fate to know, but to live it, if you make the appropriate measure. Still remembering his fate in the vision he had time to make a difference, he needed to make sure Kerrigan go to Zerus and gather a force to stop Amon rebirth. He had made friends over the years so some of them might be willing to help him. Then the Overmind spoke again this time he felt that it is more important than Amon. (Overmind) Amon may be a threat to all living being but there worse out there and soon this universe will end no matter what we choose to do. This crushed hope from the old protoss heart, knowing that death will come no matters what you do was soul crushing. (Overmind) but life always finds a way. He had said this in a knowing way, a huge smirk plastered on the face of the purple archon. This time new vision came to him of other universes, the good, the bad and the ugly all came to him, and he knew that the being in front of him, the Overmind had a plan to leave this universe and go to this other new universe. Then a pulse of energy could be felt, in this place of raw power, his sense was many time sharper so that normal, something had happened. The Overmind looks at a distant place seeing the event had it happened, he must have seen my curious look because he told me. (Overmind) kerrigan has become uninfected if you want to help you better hurry to her side. As prepare myself for the long walk to my ship, saw a warp portal open before me and on the other side of the portal, void seeker laid there on a launching platform. The Overmind behind me spoke anew. (Overmind) before you leave, a gift and a warning. I stopped and turn myself to look upon him, the Overmind was holding two zerg larvas. (Overmind) take those child''s with you, it will allow me to speak to you if needed, and for the warning even if you convince the golden armada to destroy the rebirth site, Amon will come again so it is inevitable, fate work that way but what you can do is to save as many as you can to assist the recapture of Aiur and have dark Templar ready to cut the cord of as many you can, Amon will not be able to control them as effectively when he just take possession. Who knows, maybe your actions will be for the betterment of your kind for once. I was shocked, did he read my mind or did he see a new future. I took the two larvae who placed themselves on my shoulder and jumped through the portals. This meeting was nothing like I believed, it looked like I am a pawn in some game, a sacrificial pawn too if my fate was as shown, for now, the spark was right and should send Kerrigan to Zerus. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-Overmind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª- I hope had given the proper motivation to convince him to do as I said. But for the other news the queen of blade is no more, her swarm has split into different factions. The loyalist who would still follow her will even after her transformation. The succession faction who wanted one of them to become the new ruler. The independent who would stay neutral and continue to evolve themselves. And a faction who wanted to join my swarm not wanting to be rulerless. From them a large fleet of multiple broods was on there way here to pledge themselves to my swarm. I can''t wait to meet them. Chapter 15 Follow up on Sasha ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªOvermind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª- Now that my little intruder he''s gone, back to the matter at hand. The world below was covered in creep infestation. I had let it run rampant. The research facility was still producing those clone, my infested had begun to use them to blockade passageway, herding them to exposed zones where they were shot en mass. I quietly ordered all the infested marine on the maw to prepare. I should probably wait for them to reach the point where they have no biomatter to make more bit, who knows, I ain¡¯t waiting for a week here to see if they had more. And looking at the essence from the clones, they had some concerning quirk that I needed to look into, my zombies, like Sasha had begun calling them, would get sick when they eat them. They had artificial flesh, not like a terminator but more like everything was made as an imitation made by someone or something. This had caused some serious alarm to ring, hell I could have found something I was not supposed to know. To add to the weirdest that flesh is incompatible with zerg infestation, like oil and water, what more is their biomass was not usable or digestible by anything I had. The cell of the clone was weirder, they were uniform, brain cell, muscle cell, bone, everything was identical. Like someone made a giant size 3d printer and made life-size mannequins. I could not even guess how they were able to live. The marine seemed to be able to kill them like any human, they just a bit more persistent. But now I want to know what in that lab since ammo was being spent at quite a rate higher than I was making them, I had marine equipped with melee weapons. Normal people would wonder why use melee weapons in a future setting, well simply it works, if your enemy doesn''t have anything that can hurt you, nothing will stop you. Club and axe while crudely made, my marine was physically superior to a normal human in every way. I added some adrenal mutation to make them for more aggressiveness and increased speed. I might work on them further after that but I might need someone who knows how to make proper melee weapon first. But for now, I inform that actions are needed and casualty is acceptable. She doesn¡¯t like the fact I am rushing her but I told her that on this battlefield the only thing that is not expendable is her. I guess she is still trying to be a good commander from a human point of view, but from the zerg point of view to lose a thousand to kill one is acceptable. -------1 hour later on the surface---- My infested with melee modification were fighting like a bloody berserker. Those with a club would do home run with the clone like pro baseball player, sending the clones crashing into a wall, and the ones with an ax would hack them into pieces, dismembering them from their limb or decapitating them. Some of the hit was so strong that the shoddy work on the weapon came biting back at my troop, then they use their fist, claw, and tentacle to continue their rampage. When Sasha saw the progress they were making she had her marine march with their bayonet out, stabbing or gunning them. She was actually the first one to reach the lab. ----------------Sasha pov------------- Inside of the cloning lab, what I saw was in one word, disturbing. Ever since I became a zerg I have seen some weird stuff from the maw, a living world, eaten what zerg consider food, had a disembodied voice as a boss. But what I saw here was just wrong, a human that looks like the that many clones I had killed was connected to a giant''s sphere of white flesh with tube and such, at the bottom of the sphere white bubbles were forming, from above an energy beam was used to feed the sphere. When looking at the bubble forming below I could see them shaping themselves as a new clone in matters of minutes. I command marine to go under the sphere and just kill any of the new clones as they were forming, those with melee weapon directly under and those with gun covering then. Then I just saw a ladder to that allow someone to go near the humans who stuck in the sphere with numerous life support machines connected to him. Seeing that I go down with it As I approach closer to the man, more details about his origin became clear, he had a scar from bullet and knife, diverse tattoos adorned his skin and when I check the detail, I recognized one of them. It a tattoo that a spec op team used to wear, knowing who is he, I decided to interact and maybe I could learn something from this situation. (Sasha) what is your name soldier? The man below me raised his head with a tortured look in his eyes With a whisper the man the said (?) Pleaseee...killl meeeee Then he returned to look at the ground, after a few seconds I decided to put my left hand on his head and quickly broke his neck. I never meet him, but for someone who was a soldier, that fate seems horrible, to become a scientist curiosity, forced to take a lot of pain, stay alive and die slowly like that, he should be released from that hell, I hope he will have a better fate in next life. A few seconds later I am ripple formed on the surface of the sphere. The human experiments body was expelled from the sphere and multiple ripples appear on it. As the ripple increased in number, the corpse of the dead clone nearby began to evaporate in mist. As I am connecting to other to see what going on, it show that the dead clone everywhere in the facility had also begun this process, white clouds were forming near the concentration of corpse, and the wall of dead clone as well falling everywhere, some of them end up burying a couple of marine. Soon after that, I saw an infested moving towards me, a low level infested so he almost looked like a man, purple glowing eye betray his identity, from the way he looks I guessed who.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. (Sasha) Overmind? The man looked at me with a fatherly look. (Overmind) yes, Sasha, it is me, for now, I wanted to stretch my leg a little, a figure of speech of course After saying this he began to look at the numerous consoles, reading reports or shifting through the torned papers. I was wondering what he was looking for so I asked. (Sasha) what are you looking for, my Overmind? His eyes lit up and look at me, his response came in a flat tone. (Overmind) I am looking to know what the hell is that. He points the sphere that still being feed energy from the laser. (Overmind) that thing breaks more law of reality than a superhero comic book here. I was surprised, that thing was certainly weird but I mean I already had my fair dose of insanity introduced in my life, so I choose to ignore this issue and return to the maw. ¡ª¡ª¡ª-Overmind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª What the hell is this? I was probing it with my psi power ever since the zerg came in contact. The results are nothing, it does not exist yet it in front of my(flesh puppets) eyes, it was there looking happy to being fed energy.
(world system) Salutations!
The damn screen just showed up in front of my eyes, where it have been all of this time?
(world system) I need to congratulate you on this important discovery!
(Overmind) what?
(world system) you found a piece from a dead universe, only by looking in a place where no story happens can you find them.
(Overmind) what?
(world system) basically every time a universe dies it leaves behind a corpse of some sort. They are objects or being of incredible power, but they cannot exist inside of the omniverse so they fall into other universes. As a rule, they cannot interfere with any linchpins so they exist outside the perception range of any hero or villain from his hosting universe.
(Overmind) so I found this one, from what universe this came from?
(world system) secret :p can''t tell you if I do the universe could resurrect itself, and you don¡¯t want to see what happens to the host universe when it does.
Ok, this is interesting, I might give cause looking into other places that are mentioned in the source material. (Overmind) so what I can do with this?
(world system) you can trade it with me and I give you a perk.
(Overmind) a perk?
(world system) yup, something related to the object in question, this one I could give you fast cloning of low infested.
(Overmind) do I need resources to make those clone?
(world system) nope that the beauty of a perk since they say fuck off to the law of reality as long as you give it energy and you could have infinite infested, but this perk will only work for trash level units if you take this as game perspective.
Ok, let roll with it. their more questions to ask anyway.
(world system) I will take this from you, now.
My (flesh puppets) hand moved by itself and energy began to pour out from it. the energy keeps coming out and surrounds the sphere, then it compresses itself until it becomes the size of a marble. My body began to walk towards the marble, picking it up.
(world system) have fun, those things taste unique
(Overmind) taste? As my view still obstructed by the screen, my arm moved and put the thing in my (flesh puppets) mouth. The marble had a taste like everything it had in the universe, good, bad, evil, delicious, tasteless disgusting, everything all at once, to be honest, it was quite addictive and would not mind eating the second one, if I get the chance to. But it seems my flesh puppet could not handle eating one, he exploded releasing an energy wave that was spreading across space. As the energy wave passes through any of my zerg, my microbe absorbed the energy making my zerg glow for a bit, the maw was radiating so much light in the sky that someone could have mistaken it for a star. Knowledge was made available to me, in a more intuitive way. Now I knew how to replicate the sphere but for all thing good and evil, I could not even begin to explain it, it would be like explaining why water is wet, it just like that. ---------------------3rt pov------------------------- On the other side of the galaxy, after learning Kerrigan undone the infestation, Mengsk ordered her elimination by any means necessary right away. The former raider fleet took a beating going from one hiding place to the next, and every time they believed to be safe Mengsk fleet would show up and open fire immediately, the number of narrow escapes were increasing. Doctors narud just had stolen the artifacts from the raider and began to make preparations to the resurrection of is master. The group were heading to the umoja space to meet up with Valerian after contacted On the Hyperion, in the sleeping quarters Sarah Kerrigan was having nightmares and raynor was just looking after her. Her psionic ability while weaker that what she was as the queen of blade, she was still without a doubt the strongest human psi user and her nightmare were caused by her power showing her possible future and the past. In zerg space a massive fleet had formed and left towards directorate (UED) space to the confusion of observers. To mengk displeasure, he had hoped that without kerrigan the swarm would turn feral and disperse. The older brood and organism that once served the previous overmind were the one who wanted to embark in the long journey to find him. The more recent creation and younger brood were the one staying behind not really caring for the overmind, he was not actively trying to make them obey and many of them were fiercely loyal to the queen of blade. The protoss were doubly more concerned since they had figured as for why that zerg fleets were heading further away from the koprulu sector, the overmind while not actively calling to them, his presence was felt by the other two psionic faction. The Daelaam were sending more Observer to the region of space they believed the overmind was located, while increasing there operation to cleanse pocket of feral zerg which multiplying at alarming rate, easily attributed to the fact many broodmother were leaving this region. Then Artanis ordered to increase the production of the golden fleet, ordering the phase Smith under his command to make new starship construction yard. The Tal¡¯darim who were following Amon as their god, had a fanatic named Ma¡¯lash as a leader who receiving an order from his god, also had a fleet of the most devoted to the xel''naga temple on Atrias, now after he gets the Amon new order. As the highlord he will lead this mighty fleet ensuring the rebirth of is god. ---------------------in the palace of semi-Mengsk pov ------------------------ On Korhal, seeing the zerg fleet going in the direction of the UED, Mengsk was perplexed, two of his enemy to the domination the human race were going after each other soon, and that signal his psi sensor has detected may cause a problem to him, since this could be a second queen who would appear soon if he believes so. He had called in one of his ghost, a young woman named Nova around 19-year-old. She had a psi index of 10, which was extremely rare, the same level of power Kerrigan has before her infestation. But like all ghost, who under his dominion had a series of implant forcing her to be loyal to him. He considers Ghost as a tool, dangerous one. It was the only reason why he did not kill them all during the purge of the ghost program, they were too useful. Looking at the woman before him he addresses her with barely concealed disdain. (Mengsk) I have a task for you Agent X41822N. You are going to old earth to investigate where the zerg are doing there, then locate and bring me the origin of the psionic signal we are receiving all the way from there. With that done, not even looking if she had understood, he left the room. Sending this powerful ghost after the zerg while Kerrigan was still out there was extremely uncomfortable but he would need an eye to keep him informed the UED and zerg, and any other tool would fail this mission. The Dominion fleets were completely engaged in multiple cleansing operations and due to the limitation to the mission, any other agent would fail. And if there a situation like the zerg turning Nova into a new queen well she had the implant in her head, making it impossible for her to disobey him and if she manages this, pain is a powerful motivator. And if those measures fail he had a resocialise (read brainwashed) crewman who was ready to detonate a rather powerful bomb, one able to crack planet, on standby. If there was a second queen of blade or nova betray him then it would go off. ------------------Nova ------------- Soon after an aide came with file and a mission brief then gave it to Nova. She was given a ship, an old battlecruiser refitted for long distance recon, most of its Armour had been stripped, same with most of the weapon, only the warp drive was noteworthy since it came off a UED wreck. It seems her mission would need to do locale procurement if she wanted to ever come back, her crew seem to have a squad of fresh ghosts as her back up so it would facilitate to eliminating pirates bases along the way. The ship named Morpheus had a crew of 1200, so it was barely the required number need to man the ship. There was no marine corp on board, no vehicle bay and only dozen of old dropship to help in transport. Nova wonder if she was sent to die? But there were an easier way that hauling her ass in the middle of nowhere to do this. The good new if there was any, was the ship had a lot of place for improvement. In the back of her head, she had the nagging feeling that would be the only good news she will hear in a long time. Her second in command was a scientific named Reigel, he was from the m?bius foundation he was under the order of doctors narud to aid this expedition, his role would be to locate the source of the psionic signal and to figure it out what it is. Compared to the poor equipment the dominion had given Nova, he came with top of the line equipment and staff, there were currently refitting the Morpheus with a new lab section, a factory, mineral processor and a vesphene refinery. She may not have all the new toy of the dominion but with those facilities, her ship would be able to build and improve it into a mighty ship. Chapter 16 prelude to 茅den ---------------Overmind POV------------------- The Ares shipyard was the biggest naval shipyard in the directorate and nearby the paradise world of Eden, where 4 billion humans lived on this world. There was a naval element that was currently doing refitting at the start of this war, although they had almost completed their refit, I had chosen to wait a little more to see how they would adapt to my tactic. From the report I received from my Broodmother, some of them had met with significant resistance from the recalled border fleet. On a side note, many of the border colony were in open rebellion, the simple fact of them not receiving any help when harassed by zergling while they also get oppressed and distant government. That had pushed many independent elements to rebel against the UED, cutting more and more much-needed supply since there is too many overpopulated core world. The colony which had rebelled were more often ignored by my force, save the occasional zergling attack just to remind them that we were there. My infiltrators on earth had grown a full-blown cult, the cult of eternal unity, it had a great advantage back on earth since the food crisis only got worse with the war. Many of the civilians were left to starve, the cult would come into poor neighbors and give ? mushrooms and meat ? meal. Yeah, I am not letting you take three guesses for what is this meal truly is, it zergs meat with creep, the heavily downgraded version into consumables foods, although the HEV was there, it was the type that would stay hidden. With that, modifications were made inside of their host making them healthier and curing many of the sicknesses, but only to replace it all with something far worse. Now back to the current situation, the UED had started to add as many high fire rate gun they could fit on their ship and defensive station as possible. From long range recon, done by overseer at the edge of the system, I notice some space station on the shipyard had begun to make bunker and fortification on top of their hull with marines in power armor in it. I found this cute like they could possibly win a space battle with a rifle, at best mutalisk coming close would be at risk from their bullet and that it. Since both the shipyard and the paradise world were in the same system so the plan was to appear at the edge of the system, leaving them some time to make last minute preparation so I would adapt my strategies to match my enemy, if they focus their defense on one of the targets like the shipyard I would just attack the planet. I don''t even really plan to make a big invasion of this world, just controlling the space above it would allow me to win easily. It was a large population world and possessed little to no shelter for a biological attack. And more importantly this was the meeting point for the zerg fleet coming from the koprulu sector, the predicted path they would come from would be on the opposite side of the system. Any directorate fleet in the system would be caught in a pincer movement if they chose to stay and defend any position. I had to time my arrival to be just earlier that the other fleet. But it still takes two weeks for the zerg fleets to catch up. They were in communication with me but had yet to fully integrate into my swarm so we had a minute difference like my microbe and the protection from Amon influence. They were still at risk and needed to be protected as soon as possible. During the time I had to keep working on some project, one of them was the Ouroboros. Like its mythical counterpart it had a special way of attacking, it would gorge itself with scourge and rodling and then bite its tail. After reaching this position it would start to spin at insane speed and then using the rotational force to expulse the content of its stomach with the strength of a high power railgun, it was my intended anti-ship solution with some nasty space to ground bombardment ability. By using the advance knowledge granted by the system, a tiny bit from her perspective, to congratulate me obtaining my first perk. That the ouroboros was able to be able to move at those paces. After being launched by the ouroboros the scourge and rodling, who were still pretty alive, would make adjust their trajectory making sure they would hit. As for appearances it was similar to worms with two orifices, each at the end of the body, it was lightly armored since its main focus was speed but it still has many tentacles around its body and had eyes on the side of it. The next project that I work on, though I am not sure if they were outrageous enough since they are already the evilest bastard in existence, the moderator. They quite literally beg me as an entire race to give them a voice. Since I could not take that pitiful look I gave them what they wanted, so now they are wearing the mythical legion look, a flying amalgamation of faces and all of them able to speak or sing. They loved this particular ability to sing, from the choir of the angel to death metal. That and the ability to interact with radio wave had been expanded so a single one was able to jam an entire small country, And they are never alone since they like traveling in groups, to troll each other. As more human get infested the moderator get more and more point of reference for the activity but one thing they still love above all, trolling. They had managed to have a symbiotic relationship with the many space cloud breed dispersed in the region, they would draw in a ship by sending a distress call and the cloud would hide them. When they got a victim, the moderator would unleash all of their talents at their target, driving them insane or mad, making them waste resource they could use to be able to flee. In the lab of the last world, they had many research, one of them was the mind interface program, basically, use your mind to control tech. I had taken a particular interest in this research and made improvement from the biological side, but the progress had stopped because of the limitation of the organic brain not being able to process as fast a computer, so while technically a success, it was a failure in the practical sense. A suggestion from the scientific in charge told me that computer program could be made to help progress this research, but all said and done, there was the ghost in the shell universe who had perfected this tech so a quick visit would allow me to collect it. I had the human from the last world turned into fully integrated infested units to the demand of Sasha. They were quite resistant at first but seeing one of the guards get eaten by his own five-year-old child, had made them less so. Now they were infested, my influence on them grew and soon become supporters of mine and Sasha. They had reconverted the city into new lab and factory, though some of them had approached me wanting to make a red light district, I gave them my blessing to do so and given them interesting (toy). Strangely most of the clientele were women''s, Sasha also did try to go incognito but purple glowing horns are hard to hide. The new production line made available, the heavier version of power armor. The firebat and marauders would be in production once the residing was done. As for the remaining guard, they were put through hellish spartan training by Sasha. The training went up a notch when one of them made a comment on her visit to the red light district. Now it was the zerg version of it where you will die and get resurrected over and over, don¡¯t ask me, blame the old broodmothers who have given the ideal. For my part, resurrecting infested people was doable, especially if I had a head up, surprise death may cause me to make mistakes in the rebirth process so it was strongly advised to ask permission before engaging in any life-threatening activity, but as a failsafe the archives had their memory copied. To be fair life-threatening activity for infested even low level one, are along vital organ removals like the heart or the brain. But there was some extreme case I had to stop, a loving couple who was taking a little too far( there a guard who was into the dolcett cookbook and a researcher who was beyond maso) it was their personal preference but I could not deal with the mess they made. Zerg regeneration for the win. As for preparation for the upcoming conflict I had space clouds deployed beforehand, even if they have their quirk as area denial weapon in space, they are quite useful. The world of Eden had a quite large population but ever since the start of the colony, they made considerable effort to persevere the natural beauty of the world which had earned this namesake. The city was built towards the sky and not over wide section of land, the city was surrounded by magnificent forests and lake, to make sure no pollution taint this world, there was almost no industry in the world proper and all of their food were grown on mega vertical farms in the middle of the ocean. It had many high-end resorts on the equator with the beautiful beach of white sand. The system had ongoing terraforming process on other world but nothing of note as this one. The Shipyard was located above a mineral rich world, even after years of exploitation on the world it contained is still one of the largest deposits of resources in the directorate. The time had come, the zerg fleets had by estimate entered the nearby system and will be able to do the next jump soon. I ordered my fleets and broods to launch the invasion on the system. The special egg sac that contains the sentient space cloud exploded on command allowing them to spread themselves over the vast distance of unoccupied space. I had sent them a week ahead by the old and sure method of throwing them and letting them drift into position and with their own psionic power to stop themselves when they reach position. With this method the radar of the directorate would believe that they were space object, with no conventional life sign to detect I believe even dominion would get caught unprepared, the protoss not so much since they would easily detect the psi energy coming out of them. The directorate fleets had received a lot of reinforcement during the small-time I waited. Many of the border fleets that had given trouble to my broods were there, it seems they wanted a showdown, I guess, they wanted to either protect the yard or to eliminate the highest concentration of alien in their space.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The first wave of zerg into the system was the Ouroboros with the swarm of scourge and rodling. The directorate fleets had chosen a close and thigh formation to better defend themselves from the multitude of the flyer the swarm use. They use many converted civilian ships into gunboat filled with anti-air and missile pod on top of their hull. The directorate opens fire first using their long-range missile and powerful main gun, while not particularly accurate at this distance, the projectile will keep travel the distance in space. The missile was easily intercepted by scourge and projectile were dodged. For the ouroboros, their intended target was able to twist their body to dodge the shot, after this delightful greeting the ouroboros swallow a dozen of scourge each and start their attacking preparation. The zerg riposte was a mixed result at this distance, while the scourge expelled from the ship-sized zerg were able to travel to the intended distance, their aim was mostly lacking, only a few of the thousand managed to hit the enemy ship. We were only managed to hit something since it was because the enemy could not move due to their formation. It would seem that both fleets have to get closer to each other before being able to fight properly. From the first exchange, I could guess they were worried about our flyer and taken a step to cover themselves but they did too much. Once the Ouroboros enter optimal firing range their formation will cause more harm than protect them. It seems the commanding admiral have noticed this too because some of the cruisers on the side had begun to drift outward giving them more space to maneuver. As the first wave had begun to move forward, the second wave of the zergs brood had arrived, behemoth and leviathan releasing a score of flyer. Scourge in number far greater than the first wave began to move to join their brethren. The UED began to fire wildly in the general direction of the massive swarm. Ammunition flying in space are far less affected by gravity or atmospheric condition making possible for bullet to travel incredible distance until hitting something. Targeting computer would calculate the diverse gravity well of the system and give firing solution to each ship, while unable to give proper accuracy at those distance, like the musket volley of old, have plenty of gun shooting I am the general direction you are bound to hit something eventually. A quote from Mass effect 2 come to mind when seeing this. *Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you''re ruining someone''s day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!* So while in space a marine could shoot in the general direction of an enemy fleet and maybe hit something, it doesn''t mean that it whatever you hit will take damage, bullet mean for a human target don''t do shit against armored ship hull. This keeps on going for a time till the first fleet had reached a certain distance with them after that moment nukes were launched. Scourge intercepted them but the nuke exploded just before contact was made, with each succeeding detonation killing score of the flying zerg. As detonation increased in number a path was formed allowing for the following nuke to come ever closer to the Ouroboros. The Admiralty wanted them dead, so I decided to make their life more miserable and ordered the Ouroboros to scatter in the back of the scourge cloud taking with them the rodling. I kinda wanted to see if they would make the mistake of sending fighter into a massive cloud of scourge. Then they did not choose to send their fighter to die inside of a massive cloud of suicide bomber and stopped firing their nuke. If I would be to guess, they thought they would need them later. But they keep firing into the scourge trying to tin the cloud. As it happens I ordered the ouroboros to launch a new attack on my enemy, this time with the rodling as a projectile. Their targets are large stationary defense platform at the back of the fleet and also the site where most of the nukes have been launched from. I did not believe it would hit their target but more of a way to enticed the directorate to believe I was afraid of the nuke forcing them to defend them better. This was not my objective so while they reinforce the platform I plan to quietly take out some of their more competent leadership with a precision strike, I had reviewed much memory of the many soldiers and officer, looking for strong and talented people that their army could rally themselves to if their command structure would fall. This plan is quite tricky to put in practice but worth a shoot, I believed, I would target the officer that could routing army to rally themselves, so to slowly only leaving incompetent and unfit officer in charge. And no ship in the directorate had heavily reinforced bridge, getting hit by rodling launched by an ouroboros would be a death sentence to anyone on the bridge. In the core design of almost all their ships, they had a window on the bridge and any transparent material are structurally weaker than any other material. I got around that problem by taking a liberal use of advanced psionic, while in reality, you stare at a plain wall (mostly a living one) your mind would receive visual information on what is on the other side of the wall. As the selected strike was done and many ships on the opposing side become a wreck the scourge cloud entered close proximity with the fleet. Just as one may expect from living missile entering the close distance, many ships began to shot wildly to defend themselves. Ship at the edge of the formation began to be destroyed one by one, by the scourge, while those at the center of formation had become target practice for the Ouroboros, who now unable to maneuver and those in the middle of the formation had little disposition to isolate themselves with the flyer around them. The fighter launched from the ships they were attached to begin engaging the scourge or trying to make way for the Ouroboros. Each time the ouroboros attacked they still moved forward, toward the fleet and had become the target of many, fighter managed to kill a few of them during those moments. That continued until they reach the fleet, now the ¡°worm¡± like zerg had many scourges attached to them using the tentacle to hold themselves to them. The ouroboros began to spin as they crash into enemy ships, detonating powerful blast tearing many adjacent ships into bits. The totality of the first wave was suicide bomber and disposable, the ouroboros did have the double function in this regard, at first I did not intend them to be so, but I learned when an accident happens, that high concentration of scourge detonating at the same time is terrifying. Any of the rodling that were still alive were ordered to return to the maw since without ouroboros launching them, they were useless in a space battle. Even as many of their ships had been destroyed by the suicide wave, the defending fleet still held a considerable number. And most of their defense platforms were, despite the effort of the scourge, still operational. I was starting to wonder what was taking so much time for the koprulu sector fleets to jump in the system, they had become strangely silent ever since they had reached the neighboring system. But I am currently engaged in battle and made my plans that would succeed even if I have don''t have any reinforcement. Still concerning from my conversation with the broodmother, they wanted to prove themselves to me many times to prove their usefulness to me, this why I made plans for them to meet in this system so they could engage the directorate and reassure themselves that I knew their worth. Such cutes children even if their were not one of mine yet. While I was pondering this the battle was raging out there and the broodmother who accompanied me took over when they sensed my thoughts drift away. Seeing them do my work I took a moment to look into Eden defense. Disappointing was the word to use, it seems that the directorate had pulled as many resources out as possible so only leaving what used to be the local defense force. I went and send Sasha to take care of it with some behemoth filled with normal zerg troop and infested, I might not need the special behemoth that was converted into an orbital bombardment ship, which filled to the brim with a liquid and also mixed with the zergs virus, use that from orbit and you can infest a continent in a week. The redesign of the firebat and marauder and unexpectedly medic had been made and some infested have made the conversion into it. Using many types of research of the last world, the infested scientist have made terrifying modification during the two weeks. The remodel of the firebat were the rustbat. Like their name say instead of fire they use a hyper bacteria , the stuff eats the metal, plastic, flesh and even rock. While they are called rust in their name, the bacteria do not pull out oxygen atom out of matter, but something far nastier since the bacteria will eat anything and multiply at an exponential rate. It had its quirk too for example if used on metal it would rust at an alarming rate and eat its way through it. Rustbat had to carry a counteractive solution on them to limit the unintentional damage. As for the Marauder, it was the corroder, instead of regular grenade they would fire highly pressurized and small (cocoon) that would explode on impact spreading its content on his enemy. The acid was the same as the one in the baneling and the munition looks like a mini version of them too. When not in combat, the corroder would play with them to pass the time. As for the new version of the medic was almost the same and it did feel like I needed to change their name, the only modification done to them was added by me after the ideal was presented to me, I gave them wing strong enough to lift them in the air allowing them mobility that were reserved only for the reaper troop of the dominion. Speaking of reaper, I do plan to make some of them but I would need the original to see what need improvement. For the melee variant of the infested marine was renamed as berzerker after the test run with the clone. I still lacked proper knowledge to make them truly formidable, conventional weapons would break easily and were limited to sturdy clubs as a weapon. I had engineers who did had the hobby to make replica try to make something for them to use. As for the vehicle bay of the infested irregular, I would need more time to repair, the engineer and technician told me that there was structural damage to the production line and need to be repaired in order to produce anything. While speaking of vehicles, Sasha managed to get herself a personal transport ship. An old dropship use by the researcher to go in orbit. Their invasion of Eden was without any complication, zerg land-based breed were dropped in regions considered wild and proceed to encircle settlement, mutalisk that came down with them would ensure no one is able to flee. Sasha would go to each settlement to gather "volunteer" to become new infested zerg, I will leave the persuasion to her. I was kind of happy having new children to care for so no loss on my side. The ground operation would go with no complication and any city that put a fight would be subject to orbital bombardment. And drone would make zerg structure if needed. Returning to the battle surrounding the shipyard, not much had happened though I did recently learn to speed my perception of time up, not greatly, it only three to four time the speed human do. The Leviathan with their escort entered firing range for their bio-plasma and began firing into the defense fleets. Mutalisk and fighter had begun to chase each other, fighter of the directorate were faster allowing to do hit-and-run on their target but the mutalisk had the hivemind allowing them to know their enemy position at all time making easy to ambush fighter coming in their direction. The directorate capital ship used their many anti-air guns to protect themselves and their comrade on other ship. 6 hour later The battle had been brutal, the directorate not wanting to give an inch of space to the invader but was forced in the end after suffering massive casualty to reposition themselves further away of the station, now being invaded by thousand of zerg breed, it seems those bunker would be useful in the end. The worse thing they could do at this point would be to detonate all remaining nuke and kill the grounds unit, I had changeling drop to in order to locate the nuke, securing them would give a tactical option in this battle and the later war. The directorate doesn''t seem to know my use of infested yet since each time I had sent out Sasha, the area she operated in was pretty much covered by the moderator in the place, they would probably believe the zerg was a race of alien who only used biological units and did not use tech. As the battle progress the zerg fleets from the koprulu sector had arrived in the system by warping in above the world of Eden. As I went and send them greeting in form of telepathic communication, something I did not expect replied to me. A hybrid The creature had projected his form to me, standing above a pile of Broodmothers corpse draining the life of nearby zerg to feed itself. With a voice filled with arrogance and pride, the hybrid declared himself to me. (Aojoss) I am Aojoss, servant of Amon. By order of His servant, Narud, the Overmind is to become my pet, surrender now and I may be merciful! Hearing the hybrid declaration, seeing what he had done to the broodmother, while they are not one of my children, they were still zerg and I loved them. As I felt the mind of the zerg in those brood there was nothing but blind servitude to Amon and his servant. It caused an emotion I was not familiar with, ... something I had forgotten about my day as human. Rage, Anger, Wrath, Hatred. It started to swell and become all-consuming, all of the zerg connected to me began to feel those emotions and in turn were driven into a frenzy attacking everything, anything. Those engaged with the directorate were lucky to have a target to focus this aggressivity, but those insides of the maw had only each other. Those on the grounds that were used to hold the city charged madly at those city butchering anyone inside. My own reasoning becoming consumed by my rage, I began to gather my energy, I did not know what to do as it builds up, that f*cker hybrid contacted me again. (Aojoss) Surrender now and become my slaves or the rest of your pathetic race will become the source of my ascendance as a servant to Amon. Hearing that, something broke in my Psyche. Energy began to form and to increasingly becoming something else, it spread amongst my broods and the energy becoming dangerous as my container were not sufficient. On Eden creep spread everywhere at an exponential rate, hatcheries were laying more than usual, larva creating new breed and building as time progressed. In space, the space cloud multiplied their mass becoming one large cloud that would soon cover the system. It did not matter what, my number needs to grow in number to expand and to stabilize this power. All of this extra mass that was created by burning of those new energies. As my zerg grew in number that never been seen before, my attention was entirely focused on that being, and then massive psionic storm raged in the space he occupied, killing his leviathan and sending them crashing into the world below. As the last of his space born asset were torn apart, my focus, power, and consciousness gather into one form. My avatar of rage. chapter 17 paradise lost ------------------Sasha POV------------- What the fuck happened. I was coercing someone one moment, the next, an apocalypse just start from outta nowhere. I mean I was doing my thing and after securing a group for transport I suddenly get angry for no reason, and I mean the piss off type. While I managed to control myself, same with the other infested sentient, all of my more simple-minded troop went berserk. With many of them butchering any of the uninfested prisoners we had, it was a nightmare to look at. The Overmind was not responding to my hail nor any of the broodmother who had made contact with me previously. The worst of this situation was somehow the planet was being transformed with me on it. The creep had spread everywhere in an instant and zerg structure had begun appearing too, the ocean once was claimed beautiful, now disappeared, only leaving behind a thick sludge. What was perhaps as terrifying and the most beautiful thing of this situation, was the storm in space right above me, terrifying because I could see it from my naked eye from the surface of the planet and beautiful because it covered a good portion of the sky with magnificent light. As I look at the light show, same with my troop who did not go on a rampage, we could see pieces of burning flesh fall to the ground from the sky. Pieces of meat the size of a house came crashing down all around us with an untold quantity of blood pour down with it. We took refuge underground from the ¡®¡¯debris¡¯¡¯ and by the time there was nothing fall down on us, blood had already risen up to my knee, as we came out of the underground facility we took refuge in, there was something falling from the sky. A hybrid, the Overmind had made sure I knew what the hell were those and given me standing order if I were to encounter one, to flee if I was not in an advantageous position or if I was to discover a sleeping one to inform him at the earliest. With the situation going on in the hivemind I chose to stay away from it, maybe if I could gather my troop once thing calms down I would try to capture it. As I made my plan, one of my subordinates pokes me on the shoulder. (Sasha) What? He did not say anything he only pointed the sky. As I look where he was pointing, I saw something nobody would expect to see in the sky. (Sasha) What the fu*k! -------------Aojoss POV--------------- - earlier as he arrives in the system- I am Aojoss, I was given the mission by Narud, first servant of the great Amon to bring a defiant tool back under his control, the Zerg Overmind. I am ecstatic to be of use for Amon, the eternal one, the true God of this universe. The Overmind from what I know of is a tool created by Amon himself, how dare that beast rebel against him. The zerg are nothing but a tool for the hybrid to use as we see fit, and food if we desire. Narud had arranged that I received some of the tal''darim to escort me to my destination, a carrier, and some escort. The one in charge of this little fleet was a protoss named Alarak, he had been sent by his highlord to prove his faith in the eyes of one of the servants of Amon and if his devotion to being found lacking, eliminated. I found this surprising since every interaction I had with him had portrayed him to be a perfect slave and his praising of my power and position were appreciated. And every time I feel like it the mood, I would boast one of my ability to him and he would praise it endlessly, such a gratifying slave. I had traveled far to collect the Overmind in some insignificant corner of the galaxy and had the pleasure to encounter some of Kerrigan brood so of course, I took the appropriate step in removing any of the sentient creatures in charge of those, no tool should be able to think for themselves and better to only obey. It took a couple of hours to clean the filth left behind by Kerrigan, during my interrogation I had learned that they were to meet the Overmind in the next system, this must be a sign given to me by Amon to reward my dedication. Alarak had given me a suggestion that makes sense by taking command of the zerg brood as my slaves and go to the overmind showing my superiority, if the tool did not immediately cower before my power I would have to do it the hard way. He shows another suggestion that he would assault the enemy if there would be reinforcement coming in while I assumed the control of the swarm. It was a great plan in my eye since I would be easy to prove my worth to Amon as one of his greatest servants if I could accomplish this. So when I went in the system, I saw the zerg fleets engaging to some irrelevant humans. If only I have seen that zerg sized planet, I would have been careful and think the of another approach again, which won¡¯t lead to my downfall, but at last, my pride has blinded me. So when the Overmind had to audacity to speak to me. I of course foolishly projected my glorious being to all to see that it would surely see my greatest and become an obedient pet. Then I could sense confusion coming from it so I projected my power offering them to become the slave of the most glorious god Amon through me and if they still resist, I just had to force them by just absorb their pathetic and insignificant life to better serve Amon, that the plan at first For a moment after I spoke, there was silence all around as if time had stopped, then a wave of pure hatred wash over me, energy coming out of nowhere which was shredding the broods I am controlling, the Leviathan I was in, was push on the surface of the planet by an unseen force, as the fall happen the leviathan was torn into piece, only leaving me alone as I made landfall. As I stood up from the grounds, I unleashed a psionic blast and roared in defiance. (Aojoss) Who dare!?!This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. As the dust and other debris was pushed away I saw something in the sky. (Aojoss) By Amon what is that! -----------3rd pov--------- The space surrounding the planet had been covered in large space cloud which stretching across the system, covering every planet, moon, and asteroids. The directorate fleets who were still here were unable to move their ship in order to flee, and any tentative made would only result in damage to the truster. All of the planets in the system and moon had begun the infestation process and in the asteroid belt, mutalisk nests were constructed. But this is not was made Aojoss and Sasha to be surprised. It was, in fact, the gigantic singular eye amongst the space clouds looking down to the hybrid. Formed with many different types of energy make the eye seemed to radiate the light of a star, and it had a look of pure hatred looking at the hybrid. In the Iris of the eye, one could see a human-shaped body, so tiny when compared to the eye surrounding him but it was the true incarnation it had yet completely form itself. If one looked at what was around the eye, he could see all of the essence gathered by the swarm taking shape of animal and creature of all shape and size, starting from the tiniest insect to the gargantuan space faring monster, also body of men and women took shape amongst the myriad of shape, each having the appearance of the many original being before their infestation. As this happens, the foolish pet of Amon began to sprout bullshit about it was his destiny to serve Amon for eternity and it should be an honor of the Overmind to be his instrument for his ascension. Then a booming voice was heard across space reaching all the way to the koprulu and beyond, then image invaded the mind of every sentient being of the galaxy. (Overmind) your race is nothing more than an insignificant speck of shit, created by an asshole who suffering from a god complex that has been stuck in that shithole of dimension for an eternity. Aojoss was then struck by a beam of light lifting him and spreading his every limp, he tries to struggle but somehow he still can¡¯t move a single muscle. (Overmind) and since Narud promised you immortality as a reward for your service, I shall grant it to you instead. The body of the hybrid began to morph, reshaping itself under the will of the Overmind to becoming something else, Aojoss begin to panic and struggle more using every trick he knows with psionic power, halfway there he notices the psionic power of him were gone, so are his claw, fang, carapace and tentacle, only leaving behind a soft looking creature with a vague resemblance of the former hybrid. (Overmind) congratulation Aojoss for you being a hybrid trash pet in the service of Amon. You are now an immortal creature incapable of dead, every cell in your body will be able to regenerate you endlessly. The Overmind had told this with so much sarcasm it was painful to hear it. He then proceeds with a voice with a lot more hatred in it. (Overmind) As for punishment for pissing me off, you will only know pain until the end of time. The Area surrounding of the hybrid was in speed up time bubble with a dozen of zergling in it. they proceeded to devour the immortal, then again and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Then he was introduced to a new terrifying way to feel pain, corroding his mental, and also prevent him from going crazy while still aware of everything to feel this eternal terror. All of this was broadcasted in the mind of every mind in the galaxy. The view changed and was now looking directly into the overmind eye, burning his image into the mind of untold numbers. It spoke with a regal tone (Overmind) I, the Overmind of the zerg and the commander of ships large enough to block out the light of a star, hereby make my vow. In the future, anyone that dares to lay a finger on my children shall face the wrath of my entire swarm. Take out one of us, and millions more will rise and strike you down. Destroy one ship, and fleets will rise up against you. So, enemies of the swarm, I suggest you think twice about standing up against me, for the price is beyond your imagination. Let this abomination be a warning. The hybrid was ripped into the tiniest piece, to only be reform into a screaming heap of flesh. (Overmind) But to my loyal allies, to those that side with me, I will consider you my families. I will protect you with everything I have and I will hunt down anyone that hurts you. (Overmind) Join me and live forever or fight me and die. Your choice. For your own sake, choose wisely. As with that, the connection to everyone mind ceased. 10 min later ---------------Overmind POV---------------- (Overmind) FU*K! (insert foul language that would make a sailor blush) Ever since I ceased the broadcast, I had not stopped repeating this mantra over and over. The hybrid had managed to make me mad, insanely so. I had managed to stay relatively sane by taking care of the zerg, by loving them and seeing them as a cute child. Each of them had their own trait and personality that make them so charming to me. But that shitstain (insert the sound of a hundred baneling detonating on Aojoss and him screaming) had turned the broods into mindless being with their will being bound to Amon will. That managed to make me lose my sanity. My power had changed ever since. I was pulling a lot of power out of the void so much that I had to use it somehow, and at that time, spreading my awareness as far as I could be the best ideal I could think other than convert energy to matter since that technique was already capped from the start. But I fuck up again, connecting my mind to every sentient being did allow me to burn the excess energy but now I am pretty sure the dominion and the golden armada are preparing to go to war against me. I must have traumatized every child in the galaxy ¡­ meh, they not mine, not my problem. The power that came from the void was mixing with my power in a strange way. At first, when I regained my sanity, I was afraid it was Amon doing some underhanded trick to assume control, but it had no taint of his presence coming from it. And I am pretty sure the geas would protect me if he did. But no, it was more gentle than Amon but as powerful as him, maybe Ouros? But for now, I have a bag of screaming flesh to mind rape, where the fuck did he come out from and is Narud around there ?. Oh well, that is disappointing, Alarak had to hull this ass from the Koprulu sector ¡­. Wait Alarak? My attention immediately began to search for a ship anywhere near here. The Defense fleets in this system are all dead on board from their brain melting. Oops, I should be careful with releasing that much energy. A lone Terran ship coming from the dominion space with a powerful psionic presence on board will check later. Maybe this wa--- no, way too far, that Kerrigan psionic signature and she is leaving the Hyperion for Char. Ah there you are, still in the next system and he is preparing to leave? Oh, this won''t do. -------------Alarak POV------------ Good riddance, oh did I enjoyed seeing the fate of that miserable creature. In all honesty, I wanted nothing more than to kill this creature for the entire trip in this backwater sector, but it has been an enlightening experience, just not the one Ma¡¯lash wanted me to have. Nuroka had approached me recently, he had told me his intention to challenge Ma¡¯lash in Rakshir and wanted my support, but I had been sent away along Ji''nara by Mal¡¯lash before the challenge was issued. He had told me some concerning thing about Amon, at the time I only thought of him as a fool, but the hybrid had raised many questions. That creature was not a Tal¡¯darim who had ascended like the ancient promise of Amon, it was nothing more than a lie, the Terran station I had picked him up was his birthplace, and was only a couple month old. Amon had pissed on our tradition and belief from the beginning of our society. As of right now, I was planning the best way to kill Amon, I had to kill that fool Ma¡¯lash since he had to know this after all. After this, I will take control of the death fleet and kill that traitorous god. I order to return to Tal¡¯darim space but as my follower did their task alarm started to scream. A wormhole opens up in the intended direction, releasing a psionic charged gas similar to terrazine, soon after tentacles came out grabbing my ship and my escort suddenly, pulling them into the wormhole. I opened fire with the carrier guns and drone and managed to destabilize the wormhole, forcing it to close, cutting the tentacle holding my ship. I stood on the bridge alerted, it must be the Overmind coming to clean loose end, I see a zealot next the main console who look confused. (Alarak) Report! (Zealot) Sir! We just lost the fleet. Before I could respond, news wormhole opened all around my ship. Tentacles sprouted from every one of them to get a hold on my ship. (Alarak) I will not die before I had my vengeance, prepare emergency warp! But the ship never had the chance to leave, the tentacles entering the hull would split into smaller one grabbing Tal¡¯darim one by one and pulling them into the wormhole. After a mere minute there no one left on the ship. ----------Overmind POV------------- I just gathered all the protoss of the tal¡¯darim fleet and solved them into pods, it was high time for me to look at the protoss essence. There were vanguards in that lot but I had pulled them out from their chassis. In their pod, I removed their armor like Alarak full body armor, it would be in the way of what I wanted to do. The hybrid had given me some base on what to do to reproduce one but if one were to look at the minute detail, it was clear that their engineering had a flaw or maybe it was intentional, who knows. Their design was power before anything else and leave regeneration deal with the damage, that would mean they have a limited lifespan, there only so much high-level regeneration a body can handle before errors started showing up like tumor and such. The living punching bag I created was built from the ground up to allow this process to extreme decree but it to will one day stop regenerating if I don''t correct those errors. Oh so much work to do happy dance, I have a true hybrid to create and solve in Narud throat. I am getting so many ideas on how to do this. And let hope working would change my mood, if not Alarak reforged body will be one of a monster. Chapter 18 the day after doomsday even just after the speech ----------Mengsk-------- Well, with that event, military spending will not be a problem for a long time. But the Overmind is back! And more importantly, one of the hybrids that are supposedly still in development at Mobius foundation was there. And Narud, hearing that name during the speech and is an obvious connection to the hybrid, he needs to die, and also all evidence of my implication to be destroyed. In other news, the general riots that had happened were finally dying down, excessive police brutality had to be used. And for the problem of Kerrigan, the assault was a partial success since my force managed to capture the Hyperion and its crew, during the overmind speech. But she had fled again. For now, they will be kept in prison, and the Hyperion to be scrapped. But I need to use this event to rally all the Terran faction to my banner using the fear of the Overmind had implanted in everyone. The Umoja and the Kel Morian will be soon under my dominion. As I contemplate on the future of my dominion, a secretary enters rapidly. I take a look at her and see a look of panic in her eyes, so I make a sign to her, and she starts speaking with a shaking voice. (secretary) My emperor, the psionic signals that we assumed to be the Overmind, it''s multiplying! ----------Artanis----------- Standing alone, Artanis was feeling many doubts after the psionic transmission. the reclamation of aiur, should he keep planning for it? or he should dedicate himself to eliminate the new overmind? the zerg were the protoss enemy and whatever he chose, in the end, will draw the attention of the Overmind. that and the golden fleet would need a tremendous amount of energy to travel and fight the overmind far more than was possible currently, i after pondering on it, he chose to go along with his original plan to reclaim aiur. If successful it would revitalize his people. but on the back of his head, the image of the hybrid was suppressed along with the mention of the xel''naga or narud. Amon was not yet ready to take over so it would take time and preparation with hybrids to help facilitate the takeover, but misdirecting those connected to the khala was something that Amon was able to do. ----------Nova-------------- the Overmind, he had left a strong impression on Nova, same with the other ghost on board. they keep thinking about it, while their crewmen felt fear and terror, she and the ghost were feeling different emotions towards the psionic entity, awe. as the ship was coming closer to the estimated location of the source of the strong psionic signal, she and the other ghost were getting restless, dream was nightmarish at first but as the more they were seeing them the more distorted their view of them, began coming to see them as beautiful and sleeping was becoming addicting. the various ghosts on board was a reclusive bunch so them hiding for long periods of time were normal and accepted as their normal behavior, but now the ghost had begun to see non-ghost as a nuisance who gets in the way of their dreams. They used their power to speak to each other of their dream and of other matter. Nova and the ghost had begun to look into the mind of each and every member of the crew, from the captain to the resocialized crewmen in charge of cleaning the toilet, and then ¡®¡¯accident¡¯¡¯ began to appear. some of the most zealous and ardent defenders of the emperor began to be on the receiving end of those ¡®accident¡¯. The long-range communication that was hard to maintain so nova ordered their overhaul to maintain a proper chain of command. damn shame the work would be never finished. as for the big bomb, they found on the lower deck so it took a little convincing to have the egg head to disable it. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! when they reached the edge of the system they believed to be hosting the psionic signal, a whisper could be heard in the head of non-psi people, so are the dream. Nova did order everyone to stay calm and keep working as normal. the implant in her head and the one in ghosts who under her command had been deactivated and removed after some persuasion on Reigel, the scientific form Mobius but he was more than qualified. Soon the crew was divided into three group, the one who listens to the whisper and wish to see and hear more, the one who had been driven insane and were nothing more than animal, and the dead loyalist. Nova stood over the last loyal dog of Mengsk, the man had tried to repair communication to call for help, but he had been torn apart by a psi-blast from Nova. and then use her power to call out for the Overmind, wanting to join his family. a wormhole opens in front of the ship to welcoming them into the family. ----------Kerrigan-------- kerrigan had managed to flee the Umojan facility but Raynor and his raider had been caught and the Dominion had been broadcasting their capture and the news of their execution. after a brief interaction with a zerg queen, she chose to go back to char gather the zerg and kill Mengsk the overmind speech had made some suppressed memory resurface, how she used to look up to the original overmind as a father figure, sure she killed the new overmind that created by the merging of the Cerebrate because she would never want to be the tool of someone else but all of this was a second concern, her objective was and will be thill the dead of Mengsk. so what if the Overmind was going to kill everyone ? the only one she cared for was dead, the dominion could just be burned to the ground, hell she might help and then use the Overmind to further her goal. she was en route to char, if she managed to take command of zerg force in the lab, so something of greater scale should be possible, only time would tell. ---------Narud POV--------------- oh, this was an interesting experience, I would need to make preparations for this problem. so which pawn I will have to use to deal with this nuisance? the preparation of Amon rebirth was not to be compromised in any way, the gate would be soon open allowing the master to take possession of the various hybrid and the protoss templar. the dominion or the tal''darim were obvious choice but would lack the power to eliminate the Overmind, dark templar would be perfect for this task but he has little pull in their group and did not have the time to create an identity of power in their group, in a long-lived race, it was always a pain to do this. or the hybrid, I could send them to prove themselves, I might need to teach one of them how to command an army. yes, let do this, it will be an excellent prelude to the war, but I have so few ready for combat, it would take a while till the next batch are ready. I would give him time to ready several feral broods of zerg for them to command, maybe demand Ma¡¯lash to send the death fleet to assist them or the shadow corp. --------Zeratul---------- zeratul was in shock, a hybrid had attacked the overmind soon after his departure. ever since he left the directorate space in the direction of Kerrigan he had time to study his new companions. they possessed a strong connection to the zerg hive mind and they allow the old protoss to look into it as well. this unexpected source of information did allow Zeratul a much bigger picture of the current event and to connect him to something called the archive, where many memories were deposited. and many possibles future created by the overmind calculation, those greatly interested the Zeratul. possible action than may be done by the follower of Amon for example, the domination of the emperor of the Terran dominion, something that considering what Duran was, was possible. but the projection of the Overmind had a false preconception on the hybrid power that after the encounter of the hybrid were greatly changed. zeratul or more precisely the overmind believed orbital bombardment would be the only solution for most commanders or possessed an incredible individual able to kill one. those tops tier warriors were not something easily to found and in the koprulu sector possessed only a handful. and the other thing that Zeratul have found in those archives was the complete memory of the hybrid and information that the protoss templar need to hear ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-Overmind Pov¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª work, work, work and try not to think too much about what happened, don''t worry be happy. this was becoming a habit, working hard to not think about unpleasant stuff. I started to transform the various infested moon into Maw breed ever since I had been stuck inside of the gas cloud, I needed to be mobile again since there was a xel''naga to be given a Rasputin dead and he was not coming anywhere close for me to grab. those moons would be used as forwards mobiles bases. I ordered my broodmothers to make their apprentice by starting new broods, I need more troop enough to cover the sky of every world like a certain reaper used to say. I had used my power which was still hard to manage to drill the various astronomical body. recently finding a new way to burn away that power was something I had to do constantly. it was too much for me since if I did not, it would pile up and would need to do another broadcast to not burn myself with the energy. but as my number of broods and fleet increased I needed a new cast to command and coordinated broodmothers on a larger scale, hence I started making large modification on the broodmother. the modification I had to made on the queen breed, I needed one step above to command and coordinate multiple brood and fleet at the same time. I dub them as ¡°hive empress¡±, they had a lot of the cerebrate essence weaved into them making a bit more massive and gave them the look of having a large egg sac on their lower body. Although I modified something on all template of their form, nothing changed much for the lowest rank, however as a queen increase it rank from regular queen to large queen, to huge queen, to broodmother and finally empress, I made their torso more feminine and human-like, becoming more beautiful and charismatic. their breed was to be my commander but they would fit many other roles like diplomat, ambassador, merchant, and recruiter, them having a beautiful appearance would facilitate those roles, and as they rise in rank the need to get involved in direct combat would decrease but interaction with other force increase, that and I was a pervert who wanted to see more pleasing thing to look at after all. At least I''m honest about it. I even gave them attached to lower human body that would be connected in front of their centaur/zerg lower body. giving them the appearance of a woman sitting on top of a zerg. I also modified the warp base attack, now instead of nightmares that would drive someone insane, I made an adjustment to making them the exact opposite, drawing them to me, whispering thing in the back of their head. it would make them see what they ever wanted, they only needed to join me to have them. that and being touch by my mind would also get influenced by the geas as a side effect that I was going to exploit like a competitive gamer. human psionic were the easiest to influence because of their sensitivity, they would receive the full effect of this technique from far away. for my hybridization research, the tal''darim were put to good use. protoss DNA was incompatible with zerg one but I was not Abathur who only saw one way to do this, I was thinking outside of the box, but the method I was using was a slow process and would take time to accomplish. the name given by the xel''naga had given me a clue on how to proceed, purity of form and essence. I didn''t even bother to make grand modifications on them, just reinforce and improve what was there and whenever I could find space to place a little bit of me in it, I did slowly achieving a symbiosis with the host. The side effect of this process was increased muscle mass, height, power, and reflex. it also allows me to connect their mind to the hive mind through my microbe interacting in their brain and nerve cord, but the host could control its connection to the hive mind like an on-off switch. however, my presence was not something they could allow to not entered their mind since the microbe allows me a backdoor access. On the other side of thing, the host protoss could pull psionic power from me giving them near unlimited supply of energy. it was an ongoing process that I would only see result much later. Chapter 19 Home sweet home. Overmind It took a lot of time for me to be mobile again. To compress my avatar into something more maneuverable and hopefully to give me back my bodiless advantage. I couldn''t do it, I needed an avatar for my energy level to be manageable. But I managed to make it human size, I only needed to expand my pool into a goddamn ocean! And sink the bastard into it. He looked like a human male, a tat bigger than what is considered normal size when he was formed he had the skull mask of Vasto Lorde Ichigo from the bleach series. It might be my subconscious at work here since the first time I saw that transformation it made a deep impression on me. Right now he is rocking with the demon lord sitting on the throne look. A throne was formed from the content of the pool solidifying into a crystal-like substance, that path I once created to go in the middle of the pool now leaded to the throne. And ever since I moved my new body there, I passed before some of the infested and some weird thing happens to them. The infested women when looking at my avatar were acting strangely¡­ OKs I am not a dense protagonist and clearly, they were horny as fuck and the look the men''s gave me had made me so afraid of going out of my throne rooms. Hell, I am the hivemind, I know what they want to do to me and It scares me. If they want to that to themselves they may, but I am a man who likes boob. On a side note, what the woman did think with me in it was not better. And if you wish to know what being a hive mind is like, it like open a random page on 4chan, read the content and know that you will have to interact with the minds who wrote it, on an everyday basis. Damn you humans, I had to learn stuff I never wanted to know. When I asked the world system about the situation of the infested, it laughs his ass off saying the geas which I was abusing, when touching the mind of other, was the cause of this and it will not fix it since one, it can¡¯t and two, it is too funny seeing me run away screaming like a schoolgirl when a pervert think about me. The moral of this story: everything that you abuse will come back to bite you in the ass, for further reference looks at Lelouch from Code Geass. Now there were some interesting thing that happens and thankfully able to change my mind, for example, that Terran ship with a psi signal, it was Nova! And the effect of the warp based attack (need to find a proper name leave a comment) did wonder to her and her crew, they wanted for the bottom of their heart to join my family, and of course, I did so. There was 3 type of people on board as far I was concerned: the mad, the crewman that started to worship me, and the ghost The mad one will be turned into zombies, the crewman made into sentient infested. As for Nova and her ghosts, special care would be needed for them, a lot of love and attention was required for them to keep their psionic power and improve on it. Maybe I should send a fruit basket to Mengsk as thank for them. But for now, that over, need to finish off the directorate. They had begun to panic after the speech and used various weapons of mass destruction against me. Nuke, bioweapon, nerve gas, asteroid drop and some planet cracker on infested worlds. My personal favorite was some marine squad that turned an atmospheric converter on an old terraforming station into their own private armageddon, messing with terraforming tech is dangerous, the storm they created was so strong that it sent zergling flying on the other side of the continent. It was high time to eliminate this pest. Ever since I ordered my broodmother to created other brood with their apprentice, I managed to create a massive fleet and I ordered to gather them all to me. It took an about a week to gather inside of the Eden system. The maw was surrounded with the fleets and broods, the new infested moon also finished their transformation into maw breed which fuelled by my psionic energy. The hive empress took command of them and I did assign various brood and fleet to them as an escort. When we were ready I made the signal to move forward using the body of my avatar for dramatic purposeThis content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I was done playing nice, the core world of the directorate was my intended target, the sol system more precisely. The place was the center of power inside of the directorate, it was fortified with defensive stations, shipyards, giant rail guns, more nuke that a North Korean dictator wildest wet dream and minefields. And all of that was in space, on the ground of the various planets, was many fortified cities with a massive stockpile of ammunition, personnel, and weapon. On my side have lot and lot of zerg, and since I am a cheap bastard when it comes to giving myself an unfair advantage, the remaining ship from the battle of Eden have been stolen and I put a lot of infested goodie on board. I would send them to earth and other highly defended places, inside they were full of specialist strain, infestor, and moderator, their goal like a good recruiter, was to spread the zerg healthcare and social advantage to the maximum number of people they could reach, with our new daycare policy, in which cover any possible work hour, for any children that they may have. And it was without saying free education to up to university level study. and speaking of unfair advantage, the infested on earth along with the brain bug previously there, I ordered them to start a mass revolt, terrorist action, riot and general chaos. As for my broodmother Slyria, I ordered her to make a new brood under the ocean and on some island like spore canon. The riot took a week to get it started, but once it¡¯s started, it keeps going and becoming uncontrollable. it is damn scary to see how many people are willing to start a bloody coup, around 80% of the rioters were normal non infested people. all of this was before I step in the system. Roughly two weeks after Eden. My fleets and many broods entered the solar system from the edge, while wormhole travel is useful it does have its limitation since it becomes a natural choke point when moving a lot of units. So for safety, I made one far from any gravity well allowing to move all my unit without any opposition. My intended path to earth would pass next to Pluto, Saturn and through the asteroid belt. I would destroy any human operation I encounter, but there was little defense pass the belt. Too much space to defend for any fortification to be worth it. The real fun would start at mars, as the first colonized planet by humanity, it was heavily defended, manned and stocked with all kind of defense. Attacking mars was entirely optional being a planet that orbits a star, I could time my attack when the world is on the other side of earth orbit, but where the fun in that. I happen to like conquering, to test myself and my children, to see what my enemy can come up with to eliminate me. Hell if I ever go in a fiction that has not yet left the homeworld I won''t need to use my force as siege hammer, I would recruit locally and stir shit for giggles. Even if I go small scale, I still do plan to cheat, if you are not cheating, you''re not trying to win. There will be exceptions to that general plan, universes like DC or Marvel have their power scale all over the place. In those universes, I plan to blow up their sun at the first occasion to eliminate most of the competition. Now back to the directorate. It took awhile for my force to transfer in the system, a couple of hours considering the absurd number of zerg unit I was moving, I still say I was in time. I did not stay there doing anything,I did send mutalisk everywhere you can think of. As an advance scout and to eliminate any strangler. Space station everywhere were panicking, mostly trying to get civilian on transport to earth. human when put in a desperate situation have the fight or flee reflex, in this situation they plan to flee since they could, and people then flee to where they are familiar and feel safe to them, earth was the cradle of humanity, home, this was most of the refugee coming from every world I attacked gather. Overpopulated in the middle of the mother of all riot, with fanatic cultist and monster coming out of the wave. But it the seat of power of the directorate, after detecting the first sign of the zerg recently they recalled all of there asset back to earth, they would make their stand here or more likely give the ruling elite time to flee, which I was personally opposed to the ideal. I made my fleets move in the direction of mars and earth. as we moved forward keeping an eye out for a possible attack coming from nowhere, we pass next to Pluto. ------------a grieving father POV----- Deep inside of Pluto I still remember the event were an alien creature touch everyone''s minds. I was driving with my wife and son, the fucker decided it was the best time to make everyone blackout. When I regained consciousness we had crashed, my wife dead with a metal pipe in her skull, as for my sweet boy. when I found him he was a broken mess of broken bone and ripped skin, he had been ejected from the cars, he died in my hand. I wanted revenge on those damn alien, but I received an injury in the crash and couldn¡¯t even properly stand. No army would want a dead weight, so I went to the place I knew I could do the most damage to them and I waited. My patience was rewarded when the alien bastard decided to invade solar system. So a few years back I worked on a scientific project here, the project had ended for technical difficulty but most of the heavy equipment was left behind. The object that I will use to kill those bastards lay deep underground on this frozen world, a prototype reactor that possessed an absurd output. It had been left to rot there since it was too dangerous to use, I plan to overload the thing then the explosion will send all of those bastard to hell. I was overlooking the control station that controlled the reactor. I took the picture of my family out of my pocket, look one last time at them. Then I push the control to maximum, all of them. The safety was deactivated long beforehand. The temperature rose, the alarm was screaming and I waited for the end. -------------3 POV------------ Pluto exploded just as the zerg fleet pass next to it, sending hurling piece of the world through the force of the Overmind. But it was not the worse thing that happens in this cataclysmic event, Charon the moon of Pluto came crashing into one of the living moons. Charon who was normally moving at the modest speed of 0.23 km/s or 756 km/h (469.7566213314 mph) had a little boost of speed from the exploding world. The collision of Charon and the living moon was quite spectacular, the living moon was heading straight into it, and was unable to steer itself in another direction. Blood and armored plates had been ripped from the living world, the crust cracked and cave in like an egg. Billion of zerg life had died in this incident. While for the human defender it was a great victory, but for the zerg overmind it only made one thing, piss him off. Chapter 20 Insanity is a gift that keeps on giving ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª3 pov--------- You know the feeling when you go to the bleach and make a sand castle only for a 4-year-old find it funny to destroy it when you step back for a sec. That is exactly what the overmind feel. Making a living moon is still a work even if he cheated. Seeing his work getting destroyed is frustrating, and since the Overmind is not above petty revenge. He had to find a way to make the life of the directorate miserable before finally kill them. If you are wondering why he was not in murderous rage right like with the hybrid, it is simple since for a zerg, physical form is not necessary, with the hivemind reincarnation is easily done. With the hybrid, he had cleaned the zerg into a blank state, destroying the soul and mind of the zergs, no reincarnation possible, that what made the Overmind into a rage. Returning to the situation with the Directorate, the great victory they achieved was, in hindsight, only seen as a provocation by the Overmind. As the overmind wondering if he should just send a planet back at them, a moderator humbly asked if he and his kind could be in charge of the revenge. The moderator had a simple suggestion, one that the Overmind could do without any difficulty, and the only risk was to his sanity for a brief moment. But the sheer amount of trolling that could be done convinced the Overmind to go along with the plan. And so the overmind connected himself to every human mind in the system, while the moderator did with every radio wave they could. And the voice of Ryan Reynolds could be heard inside of everyone. (I watched Deadpool 2 ) (Moderator) Hello everyone, here is the first ever broadcast of radio free zerg. The overmind graciously appointed me to be your personal voice of insanity for the remainder of your life, which is not that long muahahaha. The cheering human all stopped doing whatever they were doing. Fear could be seen in their eyes and the realization the alien once again connected himself to their mind. (Moderator) Since I can¡¯t be broadcasting personalized bit of insanity to each of you, most of the listener shall be listening to appropriate music to wait for their doom, I shall be back. The voice now changed to tedious, monotone, boring, and repetitive, elevator music. Not the most aggressive, nor the most efficient way to drive someone insane, but it was playing inside of their mind, totally unable to not listen to it. ----------overmind pov-------------- Damn, he is evil. I had the displeasure of listening to the music for two minutes before I could not take it anymore, it felt like my sanity was evaporating. The moderator had research deeply into internet lore to find their role model, Deadpool. And now following their roles models they began to give a bit of insanity to the poor bastards that were their victims, with my help now they were inside of their mind speaking nonstop, singing, or explaining the stupidity of trying to resist the zerg with the voice of Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones(the voice of Darth Vader) or Neil deGrasse Tyson(the guy from the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey). Those who were free of having a personal moderator to troll them were put on hold, as literally put on hold like on a telephone, till their death or a moderator freed himself from prior engagements. With that done my forces began to move forward to the asteroid belts. Mutalisk and overseer would be sent inside of the belt to look for traps. and they did find a lot of surprises, nuke mines attached to asteroids. while it may have caused me significant lost if I would charge through, the bulk of my force simply flew over, doing the same thing the German did to the French in world war 2, ignore it completely. space allows you to move in any directions.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. It cost me an hour for my force to pass over their greatest defense, ¡®Maginot line¡¯, did they even read their history? After that, it was smooth sailing to mars, with the occasional mass acceleration rounds shot from their canon, too far to aim anything smaller than one of my worldship the size of a moon, or the maw. On this side of the belts possessed a lot more stationary defense and space station. I infested or destroyed those along the way, most of them were research facility or old habitats used in early space colonial expedition. The poor scoundrel who were livings on those stations were almost glad to see us, for one the voices stopped and the music changed to something more powerful and entertaining than what they were listening to for hours now. But there was a lot of station who had self-destructed or had literally a ring of dead corpses floating around them. Meh, free biomass. The battle of mars would soon begin, it will be fun. Between my fleets and the planet was an absurd number of ships, sadly for the defender, it was mostly repurposed civilian ship since they lost a good chunk of their military in the Eden system. For the fun of it I changed the music they were listening to the theme song of the movie Jaw by Steven Spielberg, and after a minute, I unleashed hell on them. Multiple wormholes open around them allowing the nuke mine to be moved right into their line. I was inspired by unlimited blade work of Gilgamesh in type/moon universe. For one magnificent firework. It would be a shame to leave those explosive there, someone could have been hurt. Sure some of the smarter captains tried to flee or to shoot the wormhole as they open. But in the end, it did not matter. The fleets they scourge up was destroyed in mere moment giving me free reign in space. The defense station did remain, but well, with no fleet support, they were only targets. Honestly, I am disappointed. I kind of wanted some grand battle with a high stake, and what I got was a ragtag fleet, a knock-off of the Maginot line, and one exploding planet which was surprising honestly. Oh well, since I committed to this insanity better go all the way. Mars is still holding together so let start there, and earth, well for what I get to see from here the rioter will do the job from me, might as well let them listen to heavy metal and recruit some. But first, let burn mars to the ground The space stations were quickly taken over, destroyed, or infested. letting me complete control over the planet surrounding space. I placed my fleets for orbital bombardment and the beginning of the invasion of mars. My force had gained a lot of experience in doing mass invasions of worlds, but mars were one of the oldest colony of the directorate and the best preparation for an invasion. They fired their ground to space weapon almost immediately, killing some behemoth and Ouroboros. As I watched this invasion progress Sasha came forward asking for her troop a chance to go take the planet and to prove their usefulness to me. Her insecurity was so cute! Well, time for the directorate to see the infested fleet. I did keep some of the best ship and those you needed the least repair from the battle at Eden. The rest were going in other spaceport and colony spreading the word of god ¡­ wait that a lie, they were infesting everything and spreading like a plague. The infested fleet jump in right next to the planet. the poor defender must have been confused since they did not immediately shoot them down. This moment of confusion was thoroughly exploited by Sasha. placing the fleets over the capital. She had a moderator as a communication officer who was bullshitting through his teeth on who they were and why they were here. the moderator had convinced whoever he was speaking to allow them to reinforce the world with their troop. And they did allow it, Sasha had some of her best troop loaded in dropships. the defender was like the trojan inviting their enemy inside of their wall. As the last dropship landed inside of the fortification, the troop still inside of infested ships, mostly berserker, in orbit, were let say ¡®excited¡¯. They would normally be in the first wave but Sasha wanted to send her elite marine to secure a landing zone. so the dropships were loaded with marine, rustbat, corroder and a handful of medics. One of the berzerkers was so excited, he did something that would forever change the way berzerker would be deployed, he screamed and ran to the opening of the hangar bay and jumped. This simple act had a terrible effect of all the berzerker to follow, which in the hive mind meant every, single, one, of, them. The later generation would look to the berzerker and reflect on his word, I wanted to stab them so I jumped. So when I saw that, I laugh my ass out since one of the moderators judged it appropriate to change the music the defender listen to Its Raining Men by The Weather Girls. The worst part of this was the berzerker was completely capable to survive planetfall. They would draw some of my energy to slow their fall when they were close to the ground, and those who were less fortunate were still resilient enough for them to survive waiting for a medic to come to piece them together. When I looked at Sasha she had her hand on her face shaking her head. Well at least her shock troop were on the ground, her elites were still in the dropships waiting for instruction and the poor human had no clue on what the hell was going on. The only thing that proceeds differently than what was planned, was the screaming berzerker falling from the sky. After recovering her concentration, Sasha ordered the transport containing her elite to proceed as planned and ignore the berserker insanity. Her plan originally was to make her troop take over the command structure and force them to surrender. Simply so she could recruit more troop, now she needs to do it fast before the berserker kills everybody or some idiot wise up and shoot at her ship. If possible she wanted to capture some of the shipwrights to begin the production of new ships. In Eden, while they had the shipyard everyone there had either ran away or had his brain melted. chapter 21 American greeting ----------------------3POV-------------------- In the capital of Mars. 2 militiaman are standing next to each other, they are behind a window looking outside, one of them is an old man while the other is a fresh recruit. They were standing guard on one of the last floors of a skyscraper. They were in effect to raise the alarm if something would climb all the way here, in order to protect the sniper and some anti-air. It would be most likely a waste of manpower and effort, zerg had no visible officer to snipe and the numbers of flyers they deployed was beyond their weapons abilities to exterminate fast enough to be anything other than a nuisance to them. So the older guard was drinking alcohol from a flask, he had no illusions that he could survive the one-sided massacre that was coming, on the side note the voice in his head was funny once he stopped caring. The younger of the two was a teenager pressed into service, barely old enough to shave. one looks at him and anyone could tell he was terrified. he was walking back and forth from the stairs to look outside of the windows. He was often speaking aloud telling the voice to shut up, in any other situation that behavior would land him in a psych ward, now nobody lifted an eyebrow. As the two waited, the ground to space gun fired, missiles were fired, and command could hear shouted aloud. Relaying any order was a nightmare, wireless radio was compromised since the beginning of the invasion. Only couriers carrying written orders was effective, especially since any order that was not carried but instead committed to memory was distorted from the voice that keeps saying things that were similar to the message over and over until whatever they were unreliable. The kid who jumped next to the window to look at the sky hoping to see the aliens die. He was greeted by the sight of a Behemoth falling from the sky. Zerg larger organisms tend to be an asshole when they died if they were in orbit over anything life barring they would throw themselves as a last fuck you. Considering the mass of their flesh, it caused no small amount of damage, and whatever that was still alive inside of the dead titans had a large supply of biomass to create a hive cluster or an army (zerg rush). The kid cheered at the sight but the older knew the number of the ships in space, they could kill thousands of them and they wouldn¡¯t make a difference. But soon after in low orbit, a fleet came, a human fleet, and they were warships. The fleet took the position just over the city providing cover to the city. The ships in the fleet released dropship sending reinforcements to the defending human. ---- About 5 minutes later.--- The old militia could hear a change in the voices, they were excited, like a kid before Christmas. Then they started singing an old song, listening to the lyrics the old man knew that shit had already hit the fan. He spoke in a whisper fearful of confirming what was coming. (Old man) it¡¯s, raining, men? The younger marine turns to look at the old marine, he had a questioning look in his eyes. He was about to ask the older to explain. But the old man rushes to the window and look up to see his prediction coming true. Humanoid shaped things were falling from the sky, screaming like an overjoyed maniac. The young marine that was standing behind the old man asked. (Young marine) What are those, reinforcement? They keep looking at them until one of the falling humanoids hit one the antennas, on top of a nearby skyscraper, losing his controlled fall. The berzerker came spiraling out of control until he hit the reinforced glass in front of the two marines. Which made the kid scream in surprise. The old man keeps his calm and looked at the being outside of the building. The berzerker face was plastered on the window, with one of his eyes fixated the human on the other side of the glass. He wanted to fight, and they were a target. So following his ¡° intellect¡± he pushed himself back to get a proper swing at them. Outside of a 60-floor window, with no hold other the suction his face provided. So he fell, again. This time the screaming berserker solved his axe inside of the building as he was falling leaving spark. He was using a trick learned from probing the Tal¡¯darim memory. Using psi energy and infusing it their weapon like ancient protoss were doing before they invented psi-blade. It makes their weapon stupidly durable, perfect for the hand for the Berserker. As the Berserker was making his way down the 2 marines who had the pleasure of being the first living human to encounter an infested berserker, they were speechless. After a moment the music that was trolling them changed again, since this no need for subtle trolling, the moderator feel the mood was not right for was coming. They began to broadcast ¡®ready to die¡¯ by Andrew wk and other music fitting the violent battle that was coming, the rest of the berserkers were falling from the sky screaming, the infested fleet had their gun open fire on the position of their ground to space weapons. The moderator began to chant songs of war, urging defenders to rise up and fight. For the sake of a good fight. ¡ª¡ª-In the command center¡ª¡ª¡ª The commanding officer of the planet was Pierre Ivan Gaven senior, one of the ruling elite of the directorate, he was also in charge of the defense of the sol system. He was also the father of Pierre Ivan Gaven junior, his bastard son from a gold digger. The man was currently overseeing the defense of Mars, he was not a military genius or anything competent, but he was good in politics so his position was bought. The post was great in time of peace, but now, well he was as useful as a porno mag to a blind teenager. The man had tried to make defense line and keep the alien as far away as he could. Using his military experience (from video games set on very easy with cheat), the enemy should have come in a direct line and would be decimated by his trap and his fleet would destroy what was left of it. The alien could not have shown even less of proper attitude in regards to his plan, completely ignored or repurposed against his fleet he managed of scraped together ( begged, threatened and bribed). The ¡°reinforcement¡± he just received were traitors, opening fire on the last of his defense, and worse his supporters were fleeing in all directions. They were also reports of insane soldiers running around with ax or club, butchering all in their way. The dropships that landed near his position were full of traitors and were assaulting his command center And those abominable voice mocking him, spewing vile lies on him, telling his ¡°strategy¡± flaw like they were on a talk show on the tv, or telling his escape plan (a top of the line luxury shuttle paid from the military budget) was burning. He had one last card in his hand, it would save his life but that it since none of his subordinates could come with him, not that he cared for they life but without them his dreams of ruling the directorate was gone. He had eliminated his rival, removed any potential threats to his future rule. For example, he once heard a rumor from one of his lackey about one the admiral becoming a king in the middle of nowhere with his expeditionary fleet, he ordered his subordinates to kill everyone who could be loyal to them. He began to hear gunfire near his location, he signed as his dreams were gone out of reach but he will rebuild. He activates a prototype technology, a teleporter beacon. A massive device built underground, under his bastard son mansion, began to power up and then linking to the beacon PIG senior activated. Pulling the obese man through a small hole in warp space. The man was gone as the men left behind just look at where he was leaving nothing behind. Just then the door exploded as infested marine entered, what was left of the command staff quickly surrendered after a brief altercation. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. They were injected with the HEV, it was faster to look at the memory than other interrogation possible or imaginable. Let just say once the overmind wants to look at your memory there not many being that could hold him back. ¡ª¡ª¡ª-The maw throne room¡ª¡ª Overmind pov I was currently shifting through the memory of the newly infested, not wanting to see mars explode in my face, again, so looking at the command crew memory was the logical solution, if a plan like that existed they would know. But what I found was not what I expected, honestly they were boot licking asshole that relied on others to do their job. Through there a piece of information that was deeply connected to Sasha, the battle was going well and those guys firmly believed that their Maginot line would stop me or my children''s. Fucking rip off, I hope the faction of the Koprulu sector would give a proper fight, if not I am invading Shakuras and Korhal with my avatar beating the shit out of them with the dildo bat of saints row. Narud would get the Slaanesh version of it since I really want him to suffer. I forwarded the information to Sasha, to my grand surprise she did not order the invasion of the Piggies refuge. No, she went to gather the so-called ¡°toy¡± first, two vial of mutagen, a very sharp knife and something the research and development team had built. She also ordered to have a room ready for her use and have a quantity of salt and alcohol delivered there. Then she gave the order to her force to ¡°clean ¡° what was left and to have a behemoth filled with liquid HEV to spread it all over Mars cities. She let her second in command to take charge of the battle since it was only a cleanup operation now. Sure they were still fighting on the ground, but we had all the intel need to locate and destroy them. She then took her personal guard to a transport to the south of France, a mansion called Le Manoir de Paille ( the mansion of straw). The rest of earth population was for the lack of proper term ¡®insane¡¯, a couple of cities were already burning, or the population was pillaging like it was the national sports. Honestly, I lost the desire to invade old Earth. Half the fun of invading was to wreck shit up, but I made the pledge of going independence day(the movie) on all monument, it is my right as the invader. Even evil alien has standard they have to respect. I would not want anyone to say I am not following the established trope. Well, I will also send retrieval team to collect at the loot. There are museums to be pillaged and 5 centuries of video games, anime, manga, comics book and tv series to gather and research must be made. Also since I am here I need to look at important places around the world, the white house, pentagon, palace, military base, power plant, old secret bases that were made public, etc. That way once I will go to another universe that features Earth I will know the location and plan of each place, for sabotage or to eliminate key personnel. As for old intel agency like the CIA or MI6, well they were complicated, old files that they keep looked more like a barcode, harder to look at than normal document, still worth to look into but I don''t expect to find something that will change everything. ¡ª¡ª¡ªSasha Russian revenge ¡ª-------- Sasha was terrifying, that was all her troop agreed when they got inside of the transport. To be clear in the hive-minded people that were the infested, knowing what other were thinking was easy if one was interested in knowing that. But was considered disrespectful in the eyes of the infested, zerg born did not really care on that subject and it was quicker to find out what someone was thinking that doing some pointless conversation. Sasha was so focused on what she was planning to do, she was broadcasting her thought in her surrounding subconsciously. Let say the infested were in hurry to get as far away as possible, the thing they got to have glimpses of was enough to get some of them to seek a psychological help. They landed north of their target location, a large mansion surrounded by a wall. The infested troop were moving in the same way the special force would, surrounding the mansion and gathering information on the inhabitants of the place. Their plan was literally blown when Sasha armed with the prototype portable nuke launcher (inspired of the fat boy of fallout), nuked the main gate, turning the gate into molten slags, and pretty much killing all the guard stationed there. One of Sasha bodyguard just looked at her with an expression that could only be resumed as What The F*ck. Sasha felt the look of the bodyguard and just responded without even looking. (Sasha) In America, this is a greeting. The moderator hearings Sasha joke felt the need to add a bit more of their humor. So moderator in range of the group let out a loud cry of an eagle or shouting ¡°America¡±. Seemingly pleased by her joke she let the prototype weapon fall to the ground. The infested troops that were still trying their best to do their mission, even when someone nuke the place, quickly entered the compound. They had target to capture alive, everything else was left to the judgment of the marine. Eventually, they founded their target, the junior was hiding under the bed and the senior was trying to get on a shuttle to flee. They quickly grad them then toss into a bag. The maids of the place looked mis¨¦rable, beaten and most likely raped. The marines were holding them at gunpoint waiting for someone to make a decision, ever since joining the swarm they were less caring of the fate of the non infested, but what was left of their humanity was hit by the dead look of their eyes. Sasha took a quick look at them and took her decision. She orders them to be made into sentient infested, she would need help with her little project and she was sure those maids would be motivated to work on this project. --------------------------2 weeks, later back on the Maw------------------------ Overmind Pov Oh well, look like Sasha took to leatherworking with a weird fetish for Swine leather. The two Pigs that made them self into Sasha shit list were regretting deeply. The mutagen Sasha took was a failed test product, with the number self-centered asshole that exists across the Omniverse I had made a plan in order to bribe them with immortality, the mutagen Sasha used was one of the worst possible immortality one could get or the best depending who you ask. The two pigs were able to regenerate slowly from the most horrible trauma. In a normal case, this is good if you wish to live for all of times, but all of times in their case was reduced to being harvesting material for Sasha hobby of leatherworking. As for my conquest, well it was almost done, there is still pocket of resistance that is surprisingly still evading extermination, by gathering what was left of their ships and moving one place to the next in random patterns. The UED had gathered a lot of resource over the year and the core system was fat on those. Gold, precious gemstone, art and vast mineral depot, all someone needed to bribe or hire mercenary across many cultures. I also gather many of the essence natives of Earth, there are species I always wanted to mess with, for example, Shark I so want to see some captain react to seeing space shark eating his ship. And for the population of the Directorate that I managed to capture, they were infested of course. All was good in life, though generally, this line of thinking tends to make Murphy (or fate) unhappy, so that had to end in the most unexpected way possible. A zerg fleet had arrived in the Sol system and they were not mine, but they belonged to the Queen bitch of this universe. Kerrigan The Primal Queen Of Blade. And I was completely blindsided by her appearance, I did not see that coming nor sensed her presence. The System had the pleasure of informing me why, Plot armor she have. ¡­¡­ Fuck you Yoda. Chapter 22 The awaited meeting ---------------------Kerrigan POV----------------- On the edge of the sol system. Kerrigan who surrounded by her inner circle was looking in awe at the gathering of zerg in front of her. She had led the swarm before, but not in those numbers so it was humbling to see the difference between her and the Overmind. And the breeds she never saw or heard were floating peacefully around the various planet. But what made her and her advisor speechless was the planet size zerg ships orbiting next to mars. Abathur was rambling about he needed samples, and whatever those things were it was biologically impossible to exist, whoever created those breeds was better than good. Dehaka was salivating at the essence he could collect. Zagara was impressed saying she needed more ? vision ? to be able to understand what was before her. Izsha was smiling saying that the overmind power was impressive to have gathered so many under his control. ¡®And not one of them had any clue on how to force the Overmind to obey me. His power was radiating from one of the worldships, so much power that my own was dwarfed by it. Hell, I was afraid that my zerg instinct would recognize it as my leader.¡¯ ¡®Zeratul during his stay had told me of his visit to the Overmind and I did not believe a haft of it at the time. He had described many things, of possible futures and prophecy, to the many structures inside the worldship he had visited, or the literal monsters that were sleeping inside large cocoons, and the thing I was most interested in the pool of power, if it was like the one on Zerus, my power would rise much much more.¡¯ Using what Zeratul told her, she had an idea on how to proceed, but there are many things outside of her control and could crush her plan, the first amongst them was the Overmind. Any normal assault would result in immediate failure since her fleet was severely outnumbered and outclassed by a huge margin, it was rare for any Zerg to be the one in this situation. The only way to be able to be victorious would be going after the leadership, the Overmind. With him gone Kerrigan could assume command, worse case scenario the Second brood war would begin. Thought before being the queen of blades, she was a ghost trained in assassination which in this case was the best way of reaching her objective. But In case her plan doesn''t work she will have to fight with all she has just to survive. The first step was to open dialogue and enter the worldship, let hope that it doesn''t know her reputation for betrayal, yet. ¡®I will make this overmind kneel to me, and then I will unleash all of the swarm on Mensk precious dominion. Nothing will stop my revenge.¡¯ ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ªOvermind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª- I should have seen this coming. Since I pretty much had the largest amount of zerg unit in recorded history, and Kerrigan would want to keep her place as the leader, that or with the broodmother that left the sector she doesn''t have the number to invade Korhal. My avatar body had both hands on his face, I had a bad premonition and considering the original Overmind was pre-coq, a bad feeling was something I needed to take note. So I had the main target from my official job right in front of me, I had enough firepower to blow up planet, an army so numerous that it could block the light from a stars, and yet something in the back of my head telling me I should not use those, that I needed to fight personally. Fighting personally, I haven¡¯t done that since high school. Hell, considering other universe power level so fighting Kerrigan would be a good way to measure myself for stronger opponents, like the many gods like entities from a multitude of universes. Plus with the amount of energy, I can release on wimp is ridiculous so I should be able to fight. I do possess the combat memory of millions of infested, that should count for something. Right? first let open dialogue, after all, she is zerg so I could try the civilized way for once, and I know she will not scream in terror. I let my awareness spread covering Kerrigan fleet, sensing the mind of each of the individual, but I find that the mind of their leadership was closed to my mind reading, quite weird since no zerg is able to deny me from doing that, I expected that from Kerrigan but Zagara and Abathur?. They are born as zerg, so all of them should be under my command, normally a zerg don''t care if another zerg take a look at their memory, knowledge is to be shared in order to improve the swarm and hoarding it is not an instinct a zerg would allow to evolve. For Kerrigan, I understand she was infested and she holds her individuality and memory dearly. I decide to work around this and I peep into the mind of a zergling with a broken tusk. It would probably refuse to betray his brood but his memory was something he was used to sharing so he did not mind. ... Wow Kerrigan have a nice ass, the little zergling had been following Kerrigan for a while now but with the lower position of its head, her ass was the thing that covers most of his memory of her. No wonder Raynor keeps looking at it. He also was there for some of the meetings where he was listening. I had a clue on why she was here, almost all of the zerg force in the Koprulu sector was either under assault, had already sworn loyalty to Kerrigan or vanished without a trace. The results were simple, she needed reinforcement badly, and I possessed the number for her to win the war. Which involving me in her revenge plan was the fastest way to reach it. Also, she was afraid of becoming a slave to my will. By the look of it, she rather dies than becoming a tool for someone else again. From the collected memory it seemed that Mensgk had not told Raynor fate yet, so I should secure some of my plan and other sensitive information just in case, she was after all a spy before her infestation. Well on the side note she is a primal so she must went to Zerus, that mean¡­. Yay!!!!!!!!! Happy dance for swarm host, I so want to play with them. Abathur really lack imagination when it comes to making a nightmarish monster, instead of one large Locust why not make a thousand small that eat everything. Good luck stopping those with a bullet, only a firebat could stop those, and then evolving fire resistance was possible. Looking into the common phobia is always such a rich ground for inspiration. Or better rip off the Tyranid and have them make ripper swarm. They have quite the reputation to make the rank and file of the Imperium, the guardsman, shit their pants. But first I need to deal with Kerrigan, so as the gracious host that I am. I invite them in. The Maw open it massive mouth letting a psionic roar, intimidation tactics are important in a negotiation you know. And I send the zerg signals equivalent of ¡°get your ass here, I ain''t leaving my chair¡±. With that out of the way I need to prepare myself, I feel like a school girl before her first date. Should I go full demonic king or present myself on a more beautiful form? In the pleasure palace, I created for the sake of receiving guests or in my throne room where I am currently? More importantly, what should I do! Well, I can just talk to her but afterward, there are things I still want to be here as I need to collect Xel''naga essence. Who knows what will happen when she will die. ¡­ Fuck it, let go with the demon lord look and let¡¯s do this inside of the pleasure palace, it been a while since I went there. ... Wait I haven¡¯t had the opportunity to go there before, I literally build a place to gather a harem and I did nothing with it, the shame. I open a small wormhole just big enough to allow myself to travel, and I exit inside of the palace. I see the old minor incarnation that I created early in this universe, basically a male version of a broodmothers. I remove it by way of liberal use of psionic power, and by that I mean lifting and throwing it by the window. I had no use for it anymore, just sit where it used to and¡­. Waiting for my guest to arrive, while I wait I have some drone dragging that punching bag who was Aojoss to me. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. if I need to unleash my power, let have a convenient target nearby. I have cut any psi connection it may have before so no possible leak of information to Amon. 2 hours later The leviathan of Kerrigan was slowly moving towards the inside of the Maw. Kerrigan had yet to make any communication towards me, I was wondering if they were stalling for time. While waiting I took a peek to the memory of the two little spy that I gave Zeratul. Looking for what he may have said to her, but no luck since it seems that he left them on board his ship during the event of Zerus. God damn plot armor. I haven¡¯t found anything that I could not be deduced myself. ------3 POV------ While the Overmind was killing time, the leviathan of Kerrigan had entered the Maw and was navigating towards the palace. The flagship of Kerrigan swarm was small when you compared to the maw. But even with its modest size, it holds a full brood filled with everything Kerrigan could possibly need. The leviathan flew quietly inside the large chasm that was the throats of the maw. As it entered the inside of the beast, Kerrigan began to see the cavernous deep of incredible size, on the other side of the large dome, gigantic organic door open letting them move further inside. This game of following the leader was played for a while until it arrived in front of the palace. Made of bone and flesh at the base it would be one of largest structure made by the zerg if the maw was counted out. A stone small path had been recently added made from one stone of each world the Overmind had conquered. At the moment it was not impressive but in time it would tell the story of the overmind wars. Seeing this structure inside if the zerg planet had an effect on Kerrigan. While Zeratul had told her of the structure, seeing it was something else. The leviathan hovered in front of the palace and released a drop pod. From it Kerrigan emerged, walking towards the palace at a normal pace, the way she was walking was projecting confidence and deadliest. Kerrigan reached the palace, she keeps walking and follows the obvious path towards the throne. A grand hall decorated with beautiful art with a red carpet look-alike that went from the entrance to deep inside. As she walked she took a moment to look at the sculpture and painting adorning the hall. As she walked she recognized some famous pieces like the Mona Lisa. Kerrigan finally enters the throne room, her gaze immediately was cast upon the being sitting on the throne. Subtitle signs of confusion made a brief appearance on her face. For each description of the Overmind, someone made, none matched the appearance of what was before her. Her memory of it was the old Overmind with a gigantic immobile eye. Zeratul description was a purple archon and finally the tentacles monster that announced its presence to every mind in the galaxy. Now it was something similar to the old religious text, a Demon. (Vasto Lorde Ichigo) The mask that covered the totality of the head had an expression carved into it, making it look like it can look deep into your soul with burning hatred. After a brief moment that has been an eternity for the two, the Overmind spoke in a tone filled with authority. At the same time releasing a large amount of psionic energy to create a pressure on Kerrigan. (Overmind) Kerrigan, the queen of blades, why have you come before me? Kerrigan snorted like she had heard a joke only she could understand, before responding with the same commanding tone. (Kerrigan) For the swarm of course. (Overmind) Oh, in that case, I repeat the question since I Am The Swarm. Why are you here? (Overmind) Is it the revenge you swore to accomplish? Kerrigan took a step back but clenched her fist so tight that her claw pierced the skin of her palm. (Overmind) Don''t look so surprised, Zeratul must have told you of some of my ability. That and your hatred for Mensgk is rather well known. Kerrigan took a moment of silence before speaking. (Kerrigan) ¡­ Yes, I want him dead so badly. Every breath he takes is an insult to me, every time his rotten black heart make a beat is like having a knife stabbed me in mine, Every word uttered by him add fuel to the burning hatred I have of him. All my precious thing were taken by him. No more, he will die and everything that put themselves between my vengeance and him will be destroyed. After Kerrigan speech to Overmind tool a moment to think about her words. Before answering in a calm and peaceful tone. (Overmind) Well, you are in luck, I plan to make way to the Koprulu sector soon. My vanguard is already on the way to the old capital world of Tarsonis looking for some old thing that the Confederacy had stashed away. Kerrigan was confused, what could possibly be on Tarsonis that could interest a Zerg. But finding that out could wait, she needed him to submit and there were still thing she needed an answer for, some subtle question could answer some of them. (Kerrigan) Tarsonis? Have you forgotten something last time you were there? The Overmind began to look at Kerrigan like she said something rather stupid. Much to the annoyance of Kerrigan. (Overmind) The old Overmind, our father for lack of better term, was a slave to Amon. Its will was bound to Amon at the moment of its conception. (Overmind) His dream for the moment he was made aware was its freedom so he created a plan within the limit Amon had set while doing everything to put an obstacle in Amon plan. You and I were some of those plans and obstacle. (Overmind) In short, it is the first time we met, I have nothing to do with the old overmind, unless you count our mutual hatred for a certain Xel Naga, if that answer your true question. Kerrigan Immediately took a second to inspect her mental shield looking for a potential breach and found nothing out of the ordinary. The Overmind began to laugh at her antics and when he finally calms down he spoke with an almost teasing tone one reserved for a younger family member. (Overmind) No, I did not look in your mind, I did the second best thing I read your body language. You will be surprised by the weird thing one learn by looking at the memory of the infested. Kerrigan now aware and took a moment to take full control of her body the way only way a ghost could possibly do. Every action and word would need to consider beforehand. The atmosphere around Overmind suddenly changed to an impressive royal presence. One of commanding authority, no trace of the jovial tone he had before. Only important business would be discussed from this moment. (Overmind) Now, Kerrigan, you have seen my power and my swarm o will you join me or will you something stupid? (Kerrigan) There is room for only one ruler in the swarm and it shall be me. One will be consumed by the other and become greater than either, this is the way of the Zerg. And just like that, hell broke loose, Kerrigan leviathan released the totality of its content, even creature that was considered noncombatants meaning Abathur, Izsha(who just been disconnected from the Leviathan) and Zagara. Dehaka and its pack went hunting for essence, Abathur sneaked away, Izsha and Zagara took command of Kerrigan brood taking defense position. Spine crawler and other defensive oriented breeds rushed towards the giant entrance, the Leviathan took position over the new hive Zagara created. ----Back to the duel--- Kerrigan had rushed the Overmind immediately in the hope of eliminating her opponents in a quick and brutal fashion. The Overmind surprised, took a moment to react to the aggressive tactics employed by Kerrigan. Mere millimeter before Kerrigan claw could reach the throats of her opponent, a blinding light emerged from the body of the Overmind, generating a powerful pulse sending the queen flying backward. Kerrigan quickly took control of her fall and with a move that would put an Olympic athlete to shame reached the ground with both feet. She was about to resume her attack but stopped immediately when she saw the overmind pointing his right-hand palm in her direction. Following her battle experience and instinct, she quickly leaped to her right. Her decision was wise since mere seconds later a stream of volatile psionic energy passed right next to her. Her left bone wing caught in the blast, vaporized instantaneously. Kerrigan already aware of the power difference between the two and knew that a single hit would kill her, but she knew there was a way to win so she only needs to have patience. The Overmind not stopping at a single blast so he raised his left hand and released another blast aimed at her. Kerrigan following her instincts jumped above the blast dogging the attack then closing the distance between the two again. This time Kerrigan did manage to reach the Overmind, using her right-hand claw she made a large wound on his chest. Starting from the left shoulder to just above his right leg a large gaping wound appeared. Just as Kerrigan allowed herself to make a small victory smile the wound immediately closed itself. Going for a second strike her face met the closed fists of the Overmind, punching her and making her fly into a wall on the other side of the rooms. As Kerrigan recovered from the brutal punch she saw once again the open palm of the Overmind in her direction, she immediately dodged by rolling to the side. This deadly dance of Kerrigan dodging and near-miss keep on going for a while until she managed to land a second hit, then a third. But each time any wound made by Kerrigan was temporary at best as any damage done was regenerated instantly. Even Kerrigan with her innate regeneration only makes her earlier wound healed. The fight quickly becoming a draw by having each participant lacking the skill or the power to permanently injure the other. As the fight progressed the Overmind seeing Kerrigan dancing around his simple attack decided to make a strategy from a type of video game he was never good with, the bullet hell genre. Hoping this was a good strategy, he made tiny balls of energy all around him and made them rotate with him at the center. After that he did the totality of the what remembered from those game beam, randomly generated attack, omnidirectional attack, basically redecorated the entire throne room in energy attack. Kerrigan was surprised seeing this, she remembered the game in the bar of the Hyperion The Lost Viking, a game she actually holds the best score after crushing the old score of Jim. Now after 10 minutes Kerrigan had learned the various pattern in those attack, she even let some of them touch the tip of her wing to learn how much damage those attack could do. She began to shoot psi attack in the form of lightning at the Overmind every minute or so for 15 minutes with each strike infuriating her opponent. The Overmind becoming more and more enraged by this fight made of the flying ball of energy so he stops them for a second. Kerrigan who was about to launch another blast also stopped to see the floating ball all around the room. They were kinda beautiful in a deadly way. But after the second passed all of those floating balls of energy flew in the direction of Kerrigan at high speed, and since they were coming from every direction she would be definitively hit by many whatever direction she tries to dodge. Kerrigan took a quick look all around her and then chose the direction with the least amount of attack coming for her, and she jumped letting so of the blast hit her. As she jumped she made sure none of those balls hit her head since everything else would regenerate with time but having her own brain roasted was something zerg regeneration couldn''t fix, yet. She managed to leave the death trap relatively in one piece if you don''t count the missing arm but that would fix itself. She could still move and she was not dead for a zerg that means ready to fight. But she was not out of her pain yet, all of the attack she dodged was had not self-destructed when they hit each other but formed a large ball. The ball which was floating where she stood not long ago, started to move in her direction at high speed. Seeing this Kerrigan began to look for cover. With her luck she found some beautiful statue of various zerg breed. She used her own power to lift those statues and throw them at the death ball following her. The ball vanished just as the last statue lay on the ground shattered. Not realizing those statues were made by the Overmind after some great pain and time, to say he value them greatly was not making it justice. The Overmind decided to change tactic, so instead of throwing energy attack, he chose to psionically push all the air in the room generating incredible powerful wind. With nothing left to lose in the room, the Overmind went full AOE on her. Kerrigan stabbed the ground with her bone wing trying to hold her position, but the Overmind who was definitely frustrated decided to increase the power up a to another level. Now cyclones strength wind was pushing everything away from the throne room, Kerrigan managed to hold for a while until she could not hold anymore and was sent flying out of the palace. Now outside of the palace, Kerrigan body was seen rolling until she reached the hive cluster Zagara had created. When she managed to rise on her feet, Kerrigan was surrounded by her troop putting themselves between her and the entrance of the palace. the overmind quietly walked out of the palace and stood before the entrance and let an inhuman roar as if daring anything to defy him. Kerrigan not willing to admit that she had lost her bet, ordered her force to charge. The opening act of her attack was the leviathan shootings a ball of bioplasma straight at the figure. The being at the entrance merely waves it hand to change the direction of the ball of plasma back at the hive cluster, straight into the hatcheries which cutting the flow of reinforcements to Kerrigan force, Barely hitting Kerrigan at the same time. the second movement was the charge of every zerg that was not currently defending the entrance, who was currently under heavy assault from everywhere. The overmind psionic emission show he was getting annoyed and frustrated. He bent forward orienting his horn in the general direction of the rushing zerg wave. Something in the back of Kerrigan''s head told to run as fast as she could. Energy began to gather between the horn of the overmind forming a ball. Just as the first zergling reached clawing distance, the energy was released in a wide and large wave of the same energy the Overmind was throwing around. the charging zerg were obliterated in a single moment, but the energy wave did not stop there, it going and going, it engulfed the hive cluster and it did not stop. Kerrigan running for her life using her power to propel herself faster, but the wave caught up to her as it finally ceased. Mere moments later the overmind walked to the charred body of Kerrigan. Moving closer to the body checking for a sign of life, he found none but still aimed his palm to the head of Kerrigan really hoped that she would not make a miraculous comeback. But as he about to launch his attack, multiple roars that shook the bone and flesh of the worldship. The overmind stopped moving for a second to let his mind roaming to figure what was that. What he found was cause for worry. The members of Kerrigan broods had infiltrated various sector and was raising a hell. ¡®Originally I did not add too much defense in this sector since it was created to receive guess. I had no intention of this place becoming a war zone, so I was quite surprised seeing my force being blocked when I called them. Kerrigan brood managed to hold million of zerg rushing by holding the main entrance long enough for some of the more specialized breed to dig themselves into the bloody river the Maw called it vein. This allowed them to infiltrate the place I wanted to be guarded and secret.¡¯ The Overmind decided to add parasite and other evil creature inside of the blood flow as a defense once this mess was cleaned. Abathur had infiltrated his lab and released all of his experiments including his prototype bio-titans. Zagara had found the zerg that was cocooned and had rebuilt herself a massive brood with them. Izsha made herself quite comfortable inside the sea of larvae making for herself a small force. Dekara, well the primal pack leader found the essence bank and went into an evolution frenzy, though he only found a backup bank, it still contained a lot of different essences and a lot of powerful one too. The overmind avatar was angry at the situation and honestly worried, his experiments were put on the shelves for good reason, that was not counting a primal having the feast of it live. whatever would come out from the bank will be beyond dangerous. A rogue Brood would be easier to deal with once he will have time to deal with the rest. He soon jumped horizontally allowing him to move faster. Leaving behind the body of Kerrigan forgotten along with the Overmind earlier worry. Too bad that he missed seeing the finger moving a little. Chapter 23 Victory ¡ª¡ªOvermind POV¡ª¡ª¡ª Well shit happened, I severely underestimated Kerrigan and overestimated my defense. Now let clean this mess before something kill the Maw. First step deal with the thing that can be done immediately. For Zagara, while using my own egg against me may be clever for most other opponents, I can take control over them since they are filled with my cell. And done, now she is all alone inside of a very hostile hives cluster. I ordered her captured and then injected with my cell, it will take a while but by the end of the day, she will swear loyalty to me. As for Izsha, she wanted to hide in my sea of larva, well I¡¯ll just rip one from Moses book and make a miracle. I arrive quickly at the sea and find where she is hiding. Oh in the middle? let rise one up Moses then. The millions of larva that consisted the sea received an order to make way. They began to crawl their way out of the nutritional liquid they sent their time in, not wanting to waste time following my order they climbed on top of each other, emptying the sea in moments. Leaving a very exposed and a freaking out advisor in the middle of the empty sea. The look on her face had an effect on my sadist side. When she tried to flee, I launched myself on her. closing the distance in mere moments and the Grabbed her by the back of her head and slamming it to the ground. Seeing even Zerg can have a concussion, I knocked her out with blunt trauma for good measure". After that, I injected her some of my own cell in her since I had plans for her and her breed. Like Zagara, she will eventually become one of mine. Now for the more complicated one I hope that Abathur did not get into one of my ? special ? labs. They are full of especially insane creatures, things that are so dangerous that I am honestly afraid to use them. And yes Most of them is a nuclear option if I ever need to retreat from a universe. But for now I must handle the proto kaiju, they are quite easy to find, just follow the bloody trail left behind by the carnage they created. When I finally find them my swarm were already fighting them. It was beautiful, a dozen of kaiju in a circle formation were surrounded from every direction, tens of thousand zerg life form would recklessly charge at the titan. Most of them would die from a single hit made by the titan, but they managed to make a pound of flesh as the limb of the Titans got close. Ultralisk would sink their kaiser blade into the flesh of the titan. Hydralisk would launch their spine aiming at any wound on the body of the Kaiju. Roach''s were sacrificed by the hundred, by literary jumping into the jaw of the monster, those who managed to survive would claw they way out of the body of the titan. Zergling swarmed the leg and climbing on the back of the Kaiju. Flying breed had an easier time since they kept out of reach and just keep launching everything they had. Whoever were controlling them made sure to instruct them to aim at the eyes of the bio-titans, blinding them. The Titans head covered in wounds, blood was flowing out of them like rivers, but they still fought and they were still starving. This is the way zerg fought superior opponents, we would drown our enemies with our blood. The Titans would have died from exhaustion if I didn¡¯t come here. My involvement meant those titans were demoted to target practice. Twelve blasts later only left the Titans in pieces, they could always be remade some later anyway. So where is the next crisis... There are some failed experiments running around but they are not worlds ending. They can be left to my troop to deal with, for now, the potential action by Abathur is more dangerous than anything else. Dehaka and his pack could be dealt with my troop, with the essence he is absorbing he will be dangerous but in the end, he was still just a primal, there a limit on how fast he could evolve. And if that doesn''t work, I don¡¯t mind spacing them, we are on a spaceship after all. I check my lab one by one to check their status. Some of them are empty, other are intact and properly sealed. Abathur had roaches to do the heavy lifting and himself was sneaky enough to enter most places without alerting my guard. My lab containing Alarak and his Tal''darim were empty. I managed to follow their escape, they grabbed everything that had value and stole a technique from me, the wormhole. They even rescued the hybrid made by narud, but I don¡¯t think they did that out of the kindness of their heart, well let hope that my little anti-stress ball like that little vacation because I will make sure he caught up to everything he may have missed. Although other labs show the presence of Abathur passing he left the cocoons and experiments alone. He did, however, look into the zerg equivalents of note, Brain dedicated to keeping my various lab running. And by that I mean he has eaten them, the bastard. When I finally locate him, he is in front of one of the most devastating bioweapons I created. Something that I should have destroyed every last trace of. Created during one of my moments of insanity, I made that thing. In the Warhammer Universe, the Imperium often use a weapon to do Exterminatus, the life-eater virus. I wanted to improve on that, and I succeeded. One drop of the world eater virus would destroy all life, even zerg. But that was not the end of it. You see once it lacks food it would mutate to feed on other things, rock, metal. The planet I tested that on at first it was a rocky lifeless world. Now it is a gas giant that devour anything close enough. I had one sample vacuum sealed and Abathur was right in front of it. The guards I had in the rooms were dead so was the roaches of Abathur. I had toyed with the idea of creating dedicated guard breeds but I other projects had to take priority and the prototype I had made were lacking potential. The ones in this room were just Hydralisk hidden on the walls. They were imitating an old favorite of mine the xenomorph from Alien, just hiding by not giving a sigh of life and a bit of camouflage. it would have effective until Abathur decided to evolve one of its roaches into a Brutalisk. Seeing that I had no guard left, I had to intervene a hasty and quiet wormhole later and now I stand just behind him. His Brutalisk was guarding the door and was too far to cause me problems. Honestly, I was on my way to beat the shit out of Abathur, but he suddenly sends a psi-link to talk to me. (Abathur) Organism designated Overmind wish to communicate. Did he figure I was behind him, let¡¯s humor him and see what he want? If he tries anything funny with the bioweapon I will nuke him. I let my psionic presence known while keeping my avatar hidden. (Overmind) What do you want? Abathur entire body tensed he was nervous, afraid and agitated, not the type of emotions you want with an individual is next to a doomsday weapon. (Abathur) Overmind swarm superior''s, superior essence. Organism Abathur wish to integrate Overmind swarm and be remade superior. ¡­ What the hell did he eat? Oh yeah the brain, he must absorb my cell too. Having Abathur would help since he is good with essence, and I can teach some trick to him too. Why not, either my cell is working really well on him, he really wants to join my force or is faking in order to stay alive. Let make sure I order him to open his minds and to hide nothing. I process his entire life with the help of extra brain power from the archives. Good news, he really wants to join for an increase in his ability. Bad news, he never had competition, no urge to improve himself for a long time. Well that easy to fix, he will soon have to be creative if he wishes to keep his position. But first, he needs to get the fuck out of this rooms. Next time I pass next to a star I will drop that into it. And work for an antivirus just in case. I ordered Abathur to go in the evolution cathedral, my version of an evolved evolution chamber. He will be subjected to evolution by my hand when I have time. Next stop Dehaka. Primal Zerg, I was conflicted about them, they have a quality that I admired but their independence and constantly evolving bodies made them significant hard to infest, while still keeping their original quality. I wonder if I could make a deal with them, turn Zerus in a worldship and bring them with me to collect essence from other worlds. I was not a Primal but if the benefit outweighs my status, there should have some volunteers willing to follow me. Dehaka had a taste from the stock I collected, he could be interested in my offer, if not, well there are others primal. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. For now, let try negotiate, I send moderators over the bank he currently hiding in. A hundred moderators gather over the structure. They all began from all their mouths to speak in a single voice, a choir. (Moderator choirs) Dehaka, the Overmind is giving you one chance to surrender, Summit and the essences of the universe will you to hunts, refuse and be exterminated. (Moderator choirs) Ether way Zerus will be transformed either for the best or for the worst. After the choirs spoke the essence bank began to tremble and one of the exterior walls of the living structure slit open. Dehaka came out from the wounded wall, I was guessing that was Dehaka since he still had a vague resemblance with the image I remembered. If there a victor today it would be without a doubt him. His body was massive and multiple mutations were apparent just by looking at him. he looked like his master skin from Hero of the Storm, but with some differences. The most obvious was him severed arms had regrown. He stood in the opening in the wall, his pack also had evolved. While he and his pack could, in all honestly fight and break through the encirclement with acceptable lost, the nature of the primal making then impossible to truly judge their strength. Dehaka stood there for a while, I guess he was thinking on the offer. When he finally made his decisions he did not shout or sent a messenger, he used the ability of the moderator to send and receive Radio wave, to the moderator choir. They acquired a rather useful ability there if I would take a guess the totality of his pack must also have this ability too, giving them the ability to coordinate his pack on large scale. He only needed them to learn how to talk with this ability, and while the moderators were abusing this ability they needed the hive mind to learn to use it. The fact that Dehaka could form a sentence with it was scary and a clear sign of the potential primal possessed. (Dehaka) I Will Follow Essence. A rather simple sentence but it would transmit the meaning easily. He couldn''t care less for everything else, as long he could collect essence he would be happy. This is closest a zerg could be to a mercenary. Whit his previous employer Kerrigan being dead, he had no allegiance but to himself. I could work with that, but I am not foolish enough to believe him on his word alone. I will send a brood to Zerus and turn it into a worldship, but not like the maw. During my preparation for the future, I realized that some world were just too precious to be infested, and the natural evolution those world produced were work of art A world like the one of Monster Hunter or Catachan from Warhammer 40k or any death world from that universe. Useful for a being that use those essences to improve his troops. Simply I would form a cocoon around the planet and then tow it with me, and while I said simply, keeping the world ecology intact while moving it across star is beyond complicated. Now back to Dehaka, he and his pack will receive a parasite, to track and monitor them. They are not from the hive mind and to manipulate them with my geas requires that our mind touch each other. The parasite was psi-sensitive but not fully connected to the hive mind, this would allow them to enter a place that would be dangerous to possess one. He agreed to my condition but he wanted to be allowed to hunt on the world I visited(invaded) and that he could use the various essence bank in my possession. Now that it was over, I oversee the clean up of the failed experiments and make the adjustments to Kerrigan inner circle. It was a good thing since I was getting tired. Zagara now has her upper torso look like the torso of her desert queen look from Hero of the storm, and she was evolved from broodmothers to hive empress, her role was after all command and management. Abathur was remade and he is no longer a brood of one, he has plenty of little brother one in each brood. The various strains like the Raptors and Swarmling were chosen by brood basis and only the base creature, in this case, the zergling were kept as a template. This would allow a greater variety within the swarm, one brood could posses Swarmling and used a vast number to win it a battle and another would could use Raptor for devastating hit and run tactic. New brood would start with the base unit and chose their variant themselves. This policy would also allow me to create news variants for a specific purpose. Isara also had a cosmetic change, giving her a human appearance and the usage of her hand. I let her set shop inside of the archives, she would manage the various memory and her children would act as advisors in various position. Once it is done I was planning to take a nap since I haven¡¯t slept in years and today even made me use a lot of energy. But a pop-up screen shows up in front of me. It was covered in the corrupted text but there were two words that were readable.
(System) PLOT ARMOR
In my moment of confusion, I simply repeated what written aloud. (Overmind) Plot armor? ¡­ ... ¡­ In the psionic connection that was passing as my brain, two cell connected to each other. (Overmind) Fuck! I opened a wormhole to Kerrigan last known location, the battlefield in front of the palace. Once I arrived where her body was supposed to be, she was of course gone. Now I opened my mind to try and locate her, she somehow managed to dodge all patrols and units I possessed and made her way somewhere out of sight. I wondered why do I acted that way, hell I started acting like a typical bad guy. And the system strangely silent, normally it would be either trolling me or informing of important stuff. I must focus on Kerrigan, she is hiding inside the maw, that I am sure of it. Following normal trope, I would use my force that gathered mainly on the other edge and would close the encirclement until I find her. It was a good plan except I did not trust it, that was what normally someone would do in a story, it would either lead the hero to a way to escape or a way to fight back. By going against my intuition who seemed to keen to lead me away from Kerrigan fate, I began to review how could Kerrigan reverse the situation with my stuff. The world eater virus would certainly do damage, but kill me? No, the arsenal of nuke neither a big firework, sure but against the swarm? Nah, the planet cracker from the Dominion, certainly not. Draining the pool of psi energy? Unlikely, defense too strong. ¡­ Why did I just dismiss that? A wave of fatigue hit me, and my thought process became erratic, how could that happen? My mind is a network of cell psionically connected that was spread across all zerg organisms. It was simply impossible for me to be tired, bored yes but not tired. I raise my avatar hand to open a wormhole to the pool, I had an idea of what happening. The energy began to form and swirl but failed to pierce space. I tried again and this time it even failed to form. I was panicking, but I knew where I had to go, so I ran my way there, and considering the maw is a planet going from one end to the other without being able to teleport was a pain. I ran and leaped my way there, it would take time to get there, too much time. Why am I running? I have troops near the pool, they could buy me time even if they are not able to deal with her. Again, a strange feeling washed over me followed by an ideal. To forget my other troops and deal with this myself, I was strong enough to defeat her the first time so why should I need help? After this though, I stopped right where I was. Something was not right, I was manipulated somehow. The geas that was implanted in my soul should protect me from being manipulated. And yet I was making decisions that I knew would bite me in the ass. I needed to talk with the system as fast as I could. But for now, I ordered everything that was idle to rush Kerrigan position. Soon rumbling could be heard across the Maw, millions of zerg lifeform began to move across thousands of tunnels and path leading to my pool. I knew that the layout of the Maw was made in order to repel an invading force so a lot of choke points and tunnel that becomes smaller the farther you go in. But there was a proper path that could be opened in case of a crisis. And I opened it. The first zerg to reach the pool were zergling, they barely registered going inside before a bolt of energy turned them to ashes. Chapter 24 Round two ---Overmind pov--- My troops were getting decimated, and by Kerrigan, I would guess. The main entrance to my pool turns into a meat grinder. They were no side entrance to the pool, only the main entrance which was currently occupied. For myself I resumed my run, hopefully, the sacrifice of my units would distract her enough for me to kill her. And this time I will nuke her, shreds her body into small piece and toss everything into a star along the world eater. My lesson was learned, in the case of a protagonisme there no such thing as overkill and in case of doubt, that means there still room for more. As I keep going towards my destination, those thoughts and feelings were growing stronger. Now I even had thought of suicide, of going to Amon begging him to be his pet and other increasing idiotic plan. Whoever was sending those didn¡¯t know me it would seem, since I hated being manipulated. And honestly, with the shit I was receiving, If I was not so tired I would probably go on a murder spree to spite the sender. I arrived next to the entrance, I took a peak the inside of the pool only for a lightning bolt to fly in my direction. After this incident, I follow the old piece of wisdom that every soldier hear at least once, stick to cover and let the tank clear the way. A dozen of Ultralisk began to charge, the entrance barely large enough to let them pass. The first one was hit by the energy blast straight in his face, second, later he was dead and the blast digs its way through him. the body of the first Ultralisk was shoved on the side and the second Ultralisk push forwards. This scene repeated itself and by the time the 10 passed there was enough room for me to sneak myself into the room. The plan was simple, infiltrate the room, jump in the pool, swim next to Kerrigan while gathering energy, launch another distraction and while she had her attention elsewhere, nuke her. And everything went wrong the moment I broke cover, all of Kerrigan attention was directed to me. Her first move was to seal the entrance by throwing an energy sphere in the entrance roasting any reinforcement from entering. Then she proceeded to clean the remaining zerg in the rooms, leaving me all alone. Now that I had all my attention focused solely on her, I could see who or what was blasting my troops, it was, of course, Kerrigan but right now she looked like she stuck between her primal queen form and her Xel''naga form. All the damage I had done were regenerated. Her body was floating above my throne with purple light surrounding it, her bone wings were spread and the purple energy was covering them like feathers on wings, I could see a hint of golden light near her but an unknown force were suppressing every time it began to grow. Basically, I was being absorbed by her in my own seat of power, ain''t that supposed to happen after one get married? As for her expression that she had on her face, it would be a mix of arousal, anger, pain, and fear. I now know why my draining power and this feeling of fatigue came from. The liquid Kerrigan was absorbing was a high concentration of my microbe, who was literally me. For a human equivalent, she was drinking my brain, fatigue and loss of focus were among the least concerning symptoms that I could suffer.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. But returning to the angry woman that was glaring with literally burning eyes. I was about to start diplomacy but she was not in a particularly talkative mood. By that I mean she started to shoot a barrage of lightning blasts in my general direction. Remembering the sage advice of Piccolo from Dragon Ball abridged and Dodge, or at least tried. Yeah, let say she did not leave much rooms for it and she actually aimed the second volley, of a dozen bolts only one missed. What followed was the beating of my life, and contrary to my attempt at killing her with my limited experience, she was a pro, she knew how to fight and not just copying attack from videos game. She did everything one should do when fighting a regenerator like me, rip my limp, gorge out my organs, cracks my skull open and fried everything inside. Oh and in case I seem not to care much, it is because I was not stupid enough to allow the feelings of pain to be transmitted to my general consciousness. And while she was trying to kill my avatar I was reconnecting to my microbe in the pool. Well, at least I knew to abandon ship when it was sinking. And besides no amount of punch could kill me, well except the Saitama from One Punch Man that could definitely put that to the test but I was not in a hurry to find out. We are beside of the pool right now and let just say that there are a lot of nasty things I can do in this rooms with all that power. The first step to victory is a cheap shot. There was something I completely forgot about last fight telekinesis. My mind has become clear ever since that fight and now I carefully monitoring that memory, it was far more practical and less willing to give my opponents a fair chance. So with the ability to move matter with my mind, I ripped her heart out, tore the bone wings from her body, twisted her arms and leg at least a dozen times and for good measure her wings were reattached pointy end first into her torso. I could see the expression on her face, surprise, fear, pain but she kept her need to live. She still had her revenge to accomplish. I had to respect her determination but that won¡¯t stop me from cutting her head off. Just as I was about to do the deed, the floor made of a nearly indestructible crystal that I made, broke. Kerrigan without the support of solid ground fell into the pools and sink deep into it. To summarize what my mind did after this impossible event, the words ¡®What the fuck¡¯ covered it perfectly. That crystalline substance was near indestructible since I tested that claim. Wait, I am getting distracted again, she just falls in a pool of extremely powerful psionic microbial organism that was shit full of energy, she is a Zerg and has the ability to evolve in extreme circumstance. Yep, I am heading to a giant mutated boss fight. Let call reinforcement, that pesky energy ball is in the way so let see what I can do to that. But as my focus shifted to the entrance, the remainder of my avatar slid into the pool and sank.The entrance was finally cleared with the cheat known as a wormhole, they are so damn useful. This was the moment I expected a giant monster to surface with the obvious weak spot that would need hit three times but nothing. Let just say I was getting nervous and no I could not let a zergling jump in to find her, he will explode the same way Kerrigan murdered Mengsk in the cinematic at the end of Heart of the Swarm. Jumping in is a death sentence if you can''t disperse the overabundance of energy. So I waited until I felt something pulling my consciousness. At first, I was thinking that one of my commanders was trying to get my attention, but sadly it was not the case. The pull I was feeling was coming from deep under the water of the pool. And by the time I realized what that meant it was too late. The pull was dragging my disembodied consciousness. It kept increasing it strength more and more until I could no longer resist. My mind, the body of my avatar and a still rather human-ish Kerrigan merged. ---------------In a higher reality------ A small woman/girl is working at a desk. (Fate) Finally! Now that pesky bug is gone, re-establishing the plan will be easier. I need to get Raynor crew out of prison and find them a ship. The woman/girl stretches out her back before returning to her work. (Fate) Now if I could find the source of all those virus in the system, maybe I could get promotion and replace that overpower lazy idiot. After saying this she began to laugh in an ojou-sama way. -----------somewhere else in the higher realm-------- A giant of a man was sleeping on his desk. He had unkempt hair and beard, his clothes were old and dirty but comfortable. A pop-up screen next to him with a ding. The man growled and did not move, the screen kept ringing until the man finally raised his head. He finally asked the system in his own lazy way. (Overgod) What? (System) Fate just reported that she fixed a new bug in my system and asked you to sign the appropriate form in a triple example. (Overgod) Oh, the zerg boy is dead? shame he had a chance to finally clear that fucking region. Oh well, let find another. (System) If I may sir I am still receiving his signal. The man visibly surprised by this statement. (Overgod) So little Fate did not kill him? Just how did she claim fixed if he is still alive? (System) It complicated. (Overgod) And like that I no longer care, if he manages to kill his target inform me and in the meantime find another candidate ¡­. Screw that finds a dozen. (System) Sir, you are seriously abusing your admin right. The man just flip the pop-up screen the middle finger (Overgod) Like I care. He then resumes his millennium old nap. As he lay his face on his desk there a popup screen is display silently, on it obscenity that would make sailor blush were written on it. ----------------------Inside of the Starcraft universe--------- Deep inside of the Maw, around one week later. An egg-shaped cocoon was floating on top of the Overmind pool. The shape of a woman with wings could be seen moving. Chapter 25 The queen of blade Victory ¡ª¡ª¡ª3POV¡ª¡ª- Kerrigan body after absorbing the avatar underwent a massive transformation. Her body was suffering from significant damage so needed some time to be mended. With the available biomass that was surrounding the cocoon and the powerful essence taken from the avatar, her evolution was going to be far more powerful than her previous one. as time passed, her body recovered and her evolution took place, she had now the appearance of her master skin in Hero of the storm. In the surrounding space, the Zerg swarm was on the receiving end of a large-scale assault from a rogue brood led by Hybrids. Narud had kept his eyes on the recent events and he notices one of the big Psionic signals of the two have been gone, so knowing Kerrigan personality he was sure that there was a conflict with each other. And whoever had won may be very injured and needed time to recover, it would be a perfect time to launch an assault, aiming to eliminate the next leader of the swarm whoever may it be. Since the swarm is in commotion, but by the time he arrives, he didn''t expect them to recover so quickly since he doesn''t know about the hive empress. However, he did not expect how coordinated the defense fleets around the Maw acted after sensing the presence of an intruder. He was believing that without an overall leader, the majority of the swarm would a reverted to a more feral state. And this was not counting the living planet was frustrated of having a battle inside of it. The hybrid mastermind in charge of the attack was clueless of how to eliminate the world ship, having being trained specifically to eliminate zerg force he had managed to best most of the defensive fleet at an acceptable cost to his force. But for the planet, he had no idea on how to proceed. A swing of those giant tentacles was enough to crush leviathan with each strike and his smaller forces were swarmed by an endless amount of scourge. And as if the Overmind wanted to make the life of anyone wanting to mess with his flagship more miserable, from the titanic mouth of the monster, raw psionic energy came out like the breath of a dragon, frying the totality of the Hybrid vanguard. Having observed at distance, Narud believed that the fastest way to eliminate the ruler of the swarm was to enter the Maw and eliminate it from the inside. Which was far more complicated than originally planned. Haft of the hybrid which wanted to enter the same way Kerrigan entered in order to launch a killing blow to the command structure of the zerg swarm were instantly killed by the breath, and the second half who managed to make it out alives were impaled by spine crawler (long spine variant) and on the receiving end of a barrage from spore crawler. To make it worse for the attacker, a lot of reinforcements were warping in the system, far more than the intel gathered by Narud suggested. Even with the superior strategy of the hybrid mastermind, he could not outplay the meat grinder that was the Swarm. Realizing his defeat, he wanted to evacuate the remaining hybrid to a safety and use the rest of the feral brood in a suicidal attack against the Maw, but the hives empresses had none of that. Using their power granted by the Overmind, they disturbed the warp (the way of traveling not the Warp of 40k) making it impossible for them to leave at the cost of having the swarm reinforcements warp in farther. The first queen of the Overmind Slyria, now a hive empress took command of the swarm. After being stuck on earth for a long time directing the stealth brood, she was craving for action and the blood of the enemies of the Swarm. ( By the way, I had an interlude planed for her, but I discovered I hated writing interlude) While the Overmind did not plan for his possible death. the hive Empress and Broodmothers had already established an inner hierarchy which Slyria sat at the top due the being the favorites of the Overmind. Seeing as his efforts trying to save the chosen of Amon, the hybrid, were in vain so the mastermind ordered an all-out assault on the world ship, hoping to possibly establish a base on the surface of the planet and dig his way down to his objective, maybe with Amon willing he could find a side entrance. ¡ª¡ª-MC POV¡ª¡ª inside of Kerrigan mind. The former Overmind was chained to a wall. He currently possessed the appearance of a regular human male, his clothing nonexistent, wound covering the totality of his body and his bone were clearly visible through his skin.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Looking at him one might believe he suffered heavy torture and starvation and this was true. For The Overmind, when he was sucked inside of Kerrigan mind, he received unimaginable suffering in order the break his will and mind but managed to survive only to chained and cut from the source of his power. But he did not die, whatever trap him here have enough of him after a while and left him to rot here. After regaining his consciousness, the first thing he did was to call out for the system hoping for help or answer, but nothing happened. after some time of screaming, he abandoned the hope of someone helping him out. But he started to look for a way to settling himself free. His power was out of reach, he could still feel them but unable to use them, his arms and legs were tied and could not move them. when he started observing his surrounding and remembering what happened in the pool room he guessed where he was, in Kerrigan mind. There was a giant screen on the wall in front of him, it was turned off. A vast library was on his right, on the shelf there were books and many of them had small locks on them. Reading the title from some of them they ranged from childhood dreams to espionage. On his left was the strangest thing in the room, a little girl with red hair, she looked in the same state as the Overmind, beaten and starved, but the major difference between them is she was sleeping in a comfortable bed and had an IV connected to her. and finally on the top of the room, near the roof, there was an orb emitting light across the room, upon seeing the orb, information deep inside of his mind was pulled to the surface of his thought, the main linchpin of this universe. It was just floating there just out of his reach, his Geass was now imposing an order on the man soul, his soul, forcing him to act and accomplish his mission. Turning him into a madman with the single purpose of destroying that orb. But the binding holding him prevented from doing so. It did not stop his body to struggle. This went for a day, the overmind spiritual body struggling against his binding until he stopped suddenly. A suggestion Coming from his more rational side of his mind. The original personality wanted to steer the geas in another direction sice direct action would not work. ¡®If those chains are indestructible then no matter how much you struggle, they won¡¯t break, but they are tied to the mind and will of Kerrigan, so that can break if you did it the right way¡¯. With this suggestion, the geas compelled the spirit body of the Overmind to act again, this time he only bites his lip making it bleed. The blood began to fall to the ground, as it lay on the floor it began to boil, turning in smoke. But as the last bits of boiling blood evaporated a single stain remained on the ground. This process keeps going for what would be hours, days, month, year, decade or centuries the Overmind would never know as time flow inside of a mindscape is quite suggestive. But every time a drop of his blood fall to the ground, the taint grew in size. ¡ª¡ª-Kerrigan pov¡ª¡ª- I was inside of a cocoon, again. I could no longer feel the presence of the Overmind so I must have killed him during the beating I have given him I could feel the swarm, my swarm, outside of the cocoon. They were fighting feral zerg led by hybrid. As I looked at the hybrid, new information is sent from the memory archives. I learn of what hybrid are, who and what Narud is, his location and the overmind plan to deal with him. He wanted to capture him and extract all of the xel''naga knowledge in the most painful way he could find, he also knew after Narud death he would return to the void were his body and his master Amon existed. ¡®Amon¡¯ the amount of anger and revulsion I felt as a new set of memory came to me could only be compared to my hatred towards Mensgk. I also now knew of the fate the protoss will fall to, of Amon resurrection on an insignificant world with my lost power, and the many plans the Overmind made to counter the one made by Amon. I agreed with most of them and modified those that I did not agree to. They were a little overboard, killing and infesting the totality of the koprulu sector to find and eliminate all of narud hidden facilities. There was also the plan to abduct all the protoss he could find, turning them into his version of hybrid, the memory of Alarak breaking out of his prison was quite the sight, his enhanced body was so strong that he ripped a Hydralisk in half with only his hand. While the power of those new hybrids were tyrannical, they would never hold loyalty to me. So she quickly put an end to those plans. No need to create more enemy. And whatever the Overmind had as a failsafe, she could not find it by looking at the repository of knowledge that was the archives. Soon will the time where I could walk again, but for now I will make plans and prepare, I will take my revenge on Mensgk first, Amon would certainly be my next target. --------Narud----------- This is becoming frustrating, just how big did he want his swarm to be? And that planet, the overmind certainly wanted his flagship to rival Xel¡¯naga temple ship with this size. And my hybrids were getting butchered. Each of them lost were years of work gone. As for the feral zerg accompanying them, those were acceptable lost since I made sure to have an endless supply of them. Some forgotten world were used for breeding new brood for my hybrid to use. And besides Amon will soon walk in this reality. The tal¡¯darim fleet I sent will ensure of that. Speaking of Tal¡¯darim, Alarak and his followers just resurfaced with impressive power. He quickly gathered supporters and challenged the new first ascendants after Nuroka demise in Rak''Shir. His victory was so swift and brutal that the supporters of that ascendant almost all of them survived the Rak''Shir. And many of the survivors had sworn themselves to Alarak after seeing the power he wielded. Such a powerful individual he had become in such a short time, I should probably order him in a mission that meant to butcher his force and then capture him before he becomes a trouble. He would be an interesting specimen to vivisect and maybe led me to create more powerful hybrids. Thinking of hybrid I may need to ramp up production, a trip to Skygeirr station will be needed. I have done everything to prepare the Mobius corp to serve Amon in my various facilities. ¡ª¡ªProtoss POV¡ª¡ª Report coming from the long-range psi sensor were alarming. The psionic signature of the Overmind just went silent in the corner of the galaxy that the Terran call the united earth Directorate. Observers were reporting a possible new brood war ongoing near the last known location of Kerrigan and the Overmind. The last brood war was brutal, it engulfed all the factions of the koprulu sector. And many of his friends perished in that conflict. Dark time was coming, the number of reported Zergs life forms were terrifying, there was at least three confirmed zergs for every Protoss and Terran warriors and civilians in the sector and those were the one who the observers were able to find. With a brood war on the horizon drastic measures needed to be done. Artanis stopped meditating and finally took his decision. He entered a war room filled with Templar. Most of them were reading reports send by the observers. They were not afraid of dying, but they were not stupid either. The swarm endless numbers would grind their army into dust in any long battle Using an authoritative tone he said. (Artanis ) Gather the Golden fleet, the reclamation of Aiur begins now! Chapter 26 The beginning of the queen regret ¡ª¡ª3 POV¡ª¡ª It took a week for Kerrigan to emerge from her chrysalis. During that time Slyria had cleared the hybrid offensive brutally and began to plan the counter-offensive. The hybrids did manage to get a foothold on the surface of the Maw, but being so outnumbered they didn¡¯t last long. The moment they began to settle themselves on the surface, thousands of ? door ? open releasing scores of zerg unit and soon followed by thousands of rodling falling from the sky. For a hybrid, the power to defend against bombardment was instinctual, simply rotate a large sphere of low levels of psi energy around themselves and any object coming from outside of this sphere would deviate from its intended targets intended target. The hybrid body could easily tank explosions as long they neither get direct hit or stupidly strong. The zerg way of dealing with this was the traditional zerg mass attack, simply have more of stuff trying to kill them that the defenders aren¡¯t able to deal with. To make it simple, rodling were raining on the hybrid and were making flight correction once they learned about the flight deviation sphere. After the first dozen direct hit on hybrid, they got scared and jumped into the nearest hole, only to find an uncomfortable number of baneling who just wanted attention, just like cats. Kerrigan emerged from her cocoon a day after the last hybrid melted. She assumed control over the swarm after a show of power between her and Slyria. She soon found out the zerg did not call her ? my Queen ? anymore but the impostor. Feeling threatened by this change, she tried to speak with her old inner circle. She was let say surprised when she saw them. Each of them had a new appearance and loyalty. The creature that was supposed to be Zagara was a beautiful woman on top of a giant slug, she even had jewelry and makeup. Dekara had grown larger and was far more evolved. Izsha was transformed into a far more beautiful woman that she was before her original infestation, looking at her lower half the slug/ centipede hybrid she once possessed was replaced by something snake-like and her upper half was a human body (with functioning arms) to describe her has a zerg equivalent to the naga of mythology would be accurate. Izsha feeling Kerrigan confusion on their new appearance chose to inform Kerrigan that the Overmind decided to modify their appearance and ability to better fit their role. For example, she was the template used to create a new breed, to act as advisor and ambassador. To facilitate this role she and all her metaphorically children had all the appearance pleasing to the eye of their target. As for the attitude her former minions, the Overmind had taken steps in issuing the loyalty of the swarm and as long they could feel his presence in the hive mind she would never be the true ruler, but since she was responsible for his silence they would accompany her till they receive different orders. Kerrigan tried to argue the Overmind was dead only to be informed that all zerg organisms could still feel the Overmind, just out of reach, but they all knew as long as there was still a zerg living, the Overmind would never truly die. Much later, Kerrigan returned to the Overmind throne rooms. There she spent time thinking about her situation, and she decided to make the most out of it. She needed the swarm for her revenge, and while they were reluctant to follow her order to the letter, they would move in the same direction, drawing them in the direction of the Koprulu sector would be easy. ¡ª¡ª-MC POV¡ª¡ª- After what felt like centuries, the taint was spreading. The chains that were binding me were still as strong as the days I was confined here, The floor and wall not as much. My soul was pulling on the chains, in particular, one of the chains that were binding my right arms. As I pulled the wall where the chain was connected but also was covered in the taint, the wall was weakened from the taint, crumbled. The chains now loose dissipated in a mote of energy. The place where the chain and the connected now stood a hole, barely bigger than a child''s hand. From it, I felt my mind reconnecting to the hive mind and with it, information and energy came along. The connection was of poor quality but existed, it would be similar to someone used to the highest possible internet speed all of its life and then changed to the worse one they could find, taking ages to use the most basic internet search. As for the energy I received it was the equivalent of a single worth of zergling, a far cry to the absurd amount I was used to. So I did the sensible thing with invest it all in enlarging the hole. After a couple of minutes of a relentless attack, it looked like there was no new damage to the hole. After a look I spoke aloud to mostly myself ? this will take a while ?. Looking away from the hole I looked at the little girl and the bookshelf. Using my little amount of energy I grabbed one of the books with telekinesis. It was a diary retelling the life history of Kerrigan, a depressing read to be honest. She had a happy childhood until her power manifested, after that, it was a just like the universe was proving how shitty she can get for years. Oh, there were some good things but like a certain author who wrote a certain books series, every good thing ended up dying or betraying her, until Raynor. Speaking of that cowboy there was a portrait of him drawn in the middle page like a certain magazine, I honestly hoped to never look at that page again. I used my telekinesis to replace it where I took it, its feel right somehow. Now let look at the kid, while I did order the death of plenty of children when invading a world, I never took pleasure in doing so, and what I was about to do would not either.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I bit my lip to draw blood again, but instead of letting it hit the ground I floated that single drop of blood on the kid. The results were rather volatile. That drop upon making contact with the skin of the kid opened the door for the full presence of the entire hive mind trying to connect with me. It hurt a lot. Imagine having the worse hangover with few thousand death metal group having unlimited pyrotechnics budget trying to outdo each other, right next to you. Being the Overmind, I was kinda used to having a lot of background noise in my mind. Hell one of the unofficial duty of the many command breeds is to flitter most of it. I really don¡¯t need to know the taste of an infested dog licking his ball so this kind of information don''t pass his overlord who keeping him connected to the swarm. And what I received was from every single one Zerg, from humble larva to the mighty Maw sending full sensory information, what they were thinking and their memories. It was like a human getting hit with a national library and having all information carved in his mind. Speaking off books there a lot of new ones here. But there was a thing I didn¡¯t notice, a single faint scratch on the lynchpin. ¡ª¡ª¡ª3 POV¡ª¡ª- Kerrigan who was exploring her new flagship, the living world the Maw. Had discovering the various experiments and the infested city on her way. She was honestly surprised seeing so many ? sane ? infested and various focus. Scientists, Engineer, and many barely infested civilians. After some question, she had learned that the leader of the infested took a large number of infested people and went to the planet named Tarsonis, the old Confederate capital planet. They took with them the totality of the Directorate remaining warship and other large transport capable of doing the journey. While most who stay behind would help the transition of remaining human being infested in Directorate. She left soon after looking into the archives as of why she didn¡¯t know about this. But she stopped midway and began screaming while putting both hands on her skull. The Overmind had just removed one of his shackles, so Kerrigan was experimenting the worse pain conceivable. A piece of her soul had broken. Soon after a torrent of information began to pass through her mind, some were important strategic information like fleet placement, number, status of broods, to the insignificant like a debate on creep flavoring and how bad it tasted and how to improve the taste, only to be interrupted by Abathur informing them that they were not supposed to ¡°eat¡± the creep, just standing on it would transfer the necessary nutrient for the most optimal efficiency. But she stopped trying to make sense of the flood of information few seconds after it started, she could not process the huge amount of information passing in her head. All of this occurred in a matter of nanoseconds from Kerrigan perspectives. It continued until she passed out. Later during that day Abathur had sent one of his breeds to take a look at Kerrigan, she was curled up in fetal position unconscious. ¡ª-In the maw control center¡ª Slyria stood up as she had received instructions from her overmind. The first series of instructions were heavily corrupted and incomprehensible. She did not understand what was expected of her, and she had to ask the Overmind to clarify. Normally she wouldn¡¯t even dare thinking asking the Overmind to repeat itself much less demand for more information, but what she received an order was like someone ordered you to do hundreds of things at the same time. After careful deliberations, Looking for the appropriate word she politely asked the Overmind to repeat that. She felt the Overmind facepalming himself and then received quite simple one-word order. Attack This simple order was given to every single zerg organisms inside of the hive mind. Which caused no end of trouble with the less sapient unit since they assumed their target was the thing right in front of them. This spectacular example of miscommunication was rectified by a hastily and confusing information package on the Koprulu sector. The command breeds quickly figured out that they had to attack the Koprulu sector and began to rein in the lesser breeds from their frenzied states. ¡ª¡ªSasha infested fleets¡ª¡ª On the command deck of the flagship of the fleet. Sasha was grinning as she just received the attack order send from the Overmind. She had left the Overmind fleets before Kerrigan arrived and had been ordered to secure Tarsonis as primarily base for the infested. She had, of course, some personal objectives, namely finding her husband, yelling at him for hours because he forgot to call, tell him that their children were dead and rekindle their relationship on figuring how to properly torture a Xel''Naga. And of course, she had to secure her position inside of the swarm. By winning battles and securing resources. Before leaving, she had reviewed all the information the Zerg had on the different factions in the sector. Doing so she had learned the existence of Deadman port, a heaven of mercenaries and pirates. The thing with mercenaries is that they fight for money or to save their own life. For the right amount of wealth, they would gather whatever she needed. And after consulting with Reigel there was numerous species in the Koprulu sector she would need to gather, partly to show her usefulness of the infested to the Overmind and secondary form ties with the mercenaries. She also needed to spread propaganda, the Moderator would take care of that. They would spread the ideas that if they willing join the swarm they would have to never fear them ever again and still held their sanity, also looking for a discontent of the Dominion people, if that still not work then mentions of the health care package would take care of that. Sasha was not alone with personal objectives to accomplish, Nova had finally finished her metamorphosis. Sasha had never meet Nova before her transformation, but she could see something was wrong with her. Nova was let say borderline fanatical towards the Overmind, and the same could be said to the other ghosts that had accompanied her. Nova plans were to spread the glory of her new god to the rest of the psionic populations, at gunpoint if necessary. But for the moment she put all of those concern away since, ... well, they were arriving. ¡ª¡ª¡ªDominion salvage Crew POV¡ª¡ª- Tarsonis, the old Confederate capital world, a giant city that once covered the totality of the planet. Right now the remains of feral zerg broods litter it¡¯s street, infesting every hole and forgotten places. There was only one reason as for why the dominion, criminals, and rebel would ever want to get close to this death traps. Loot The confederate had accumulated an obscene amount of riches over the centuries of its existence and when the zerg attacked, they left it all behind as they tried to flee. Tale of scavenger coming to this world and came back with luxurious items or information on an old family resources cache made them filthy rich. Now the Dominion had issues order saying that everything in this world belonged to them and anyone caught bringing stuff out of this world would be sent to prison. Not that matters much anymore since all the safe ? zones ? had been picked clean for a while, the only remaining zones that had valuable were the areas where the feral Zerg decided to live. And this was my job, The Shades Vultures was a Dominions force specialized in salvaging everything not bolted. The group was composed of the lowest of society, homeless, drug addict, petty theft and the unwanted that were conscripted in the army in order to clean the inner worlds of their presence. They were not equipped with anything fancy and most of their equipment was the old stuff that other group had no more use for. But the vultures were never expected to win a war of any kind. They were sent to Dangerous location and old warzone to bring back anything valuable to Mensgk. Their general target was not hives clusters with a leader or organized group like the Raider but feral animals acting out of instinct and disorganized mobs, that could be eliminated in their hole and then moving to the next. Today I and the rest of the crew would hit one of the city centers. A couple of months ago they had found an old adjutant near this location and the brass panicked for some reason. Well considering that Raynor Raiders had launched a train robbery like some old cowboy movies, they might had a reason to be panicked. Probably that Unn special that aired 2 weeks later. Oh well, not my concern anyway, what is the chance of discovering a second shitstorm so close to the last? ¡ª-Dominion Ship in orbit¡ª¡ª One of radar operator was bored at his post, and all honesty looking at the same screen for hours every day would bore anyone. There was a sensor net all around Tarsonis making almost impossible to get in or off the world without receiving an alert. There was off course plenty old confederate monitoring station around the system, it did used to be their capital world. And one of those stations just sent an alert, a zerg signal was detected on the edge of the system. Seeing a zerg signals in a system with a feral brood is pretty common, what was surprising was its location. Most of the space-faring Zerg were hanging around either destroyed station or asteroid. And those locations could be tracked. Finding one that was far from any remotely known location was rare but not unheard off, generally, it meant that a group of Viking or wraith would be dispatched. While it may seem like a waste of resources, anyone who had ever fought the swarm knows how dangerous they could get if left unchecked, this is why that they use ? training exercise ? to try to control the local population until they are ready to clear a gathering spot. A couple of overseers floating at the edge of the system would make a good first experience for the newbie. So they launched Viking wings, a lot of rookies with few veterans. In any other situation it would be a waste of resources and fuel but with the Zerg then better safe than sorry. A simple inner system jumps from a battleship, and they flew on an interception course. The rookie would go in firing range and launch a volley of missiles if he missed the vet would cover him and eliminate the target, and then he gets to play the drills'' sergeant from hell with the rookie. What they got was the infested fleets warping on top of them right after they killed the overseers. Chapter 27 The Terran campaign ¡ª¡ª- Sasha fleets had just arrived in the koprulu sector, she would have hoped to be a quiet entrance but that hope died really quickly. A squadron of Viking decided to stand right in front of a ship just as it came out of its jump. While inertia was not that much of a problem on normal jumps, there still no brakes on a spaceship. So the Vikings were introduced to the fate of insects flying just above the highway, the infested ships didn¡¯t even try to dodge them. The shade vultures fleet after seeing the emerging fleet scrambled to combat statuses. Using a long-range telescope to look at the new fleets, they saw clear signs of infestations and the UED flag plastered everywhere on them. As for the lone battlecruiser that had transported the Viking squadron, he activated emergency warp and ran. While most of the Vultures were not genius, they were not complete idiots. Seeing a heavy infested fleet accompanied by Zerg organisms. They knew that they were not equipped for facing this large threat. They did the safest option to them and repositioned their fleet immediately, leaving a sizeable force on the ground that was about to push into the city center without orbital cover. The Dominion fleet once on the other side of the world immediately contacted their superior through FTL communications. Sasha knowing it was too late to use the elements of surprise. Split her fleet, one in orbit of the old capital. And the other would clear the system of possible threats. Since discretions were out of the window at this point, she sent a massive wave of overseers to act as scouts, to the planet and other systems to gather information. She found two things worth mentioning, the ferals were controlled by some hybrids and there was a sizeable Dominion force in the system. She ordered the Overseers to locate the position of hybrids, who were the most likely being capable of defeating her force. She then proceeded to place her fleets above the world capital, since it was the most likely place on the worlds where she could find old Confederate facilities that were not looted. Since the major weakness of the zerg was their reliance on a command structure. the only way to clear them out was to obliterate their leadership and command breed, then the warrior strain would go feral without a new leader. In the system only two Hybrid had been detected, one in space and the other in the capital city on Tarsonis, both needed to die. With what was not used to form the orbital cover they set course for the various nests floating in spaces, to literally butcher them and use their biomass for the campaign. Seeing that her enemy was Zergs, Sasha was very well informed of the general ability of her parent race. And of course the danger those Mutalisk nest represented to her fleet. While individual Mutalisk could not destroy a capital ship in reality, Zerg never attacks alone. As the old saying ''''death by a thousand cut'''' ship plating could only take so much damage before breaking. The Overmind preferred using Scourge to eliminate capital ship and use Mutalisk to destroy anti-air and fighter. Due to the mess, her entrance made she had to eliminate those nest as quickly as possible and luckily for her, the Directorate donated a rather large amount of nuke. On her flagship bridge, Sasha had a smile that screamed crazy/insane, she was not the only one having this smile, almost all of the bridge crew knew the plan. It was simplicity itself keep nuking their shit until they stop moving. While nuke acts differently in space than on the ground, no shock wave and no atmosphere to dampen the radiation and also had the nasty effect of creating impressive EMP blast. They still create a sphere of pure destruction, as a bonus, a large amount of gamma and X-ray radiation released would cook anything close to the explosion, and that all Sasha wanted. There were three large nests in the system, but only one needed to be exterminated as quickly as possible. It had a hybrid nemesis living in it, a powerful flyer with psionic strong enough to rip apart a battlecruiser in a moment. Since with the distance between her and the prey, they would take some time to reach it. She decided since discretion was out, she would have fun. Her psionic power was limited since they were gifted by the Overmind, but for what she was about to do they were more than enough. She reached inside her, the power of the overmind cell coursing in her body boosting her power, and then focused everything into her telepathy. Her mind was projected far-reaching the mutalisk nest suspected to harbor the Hybrid nemesis. She then began one of the oldest tradition of people going to kill each other, thrash-talk and insulting them. She had heard from the Overmind that some of the hybrids were smart, well after seeing Aojoss she doubting it. If this one was as smart as Aojoss maybe he will leave the relative safety of the nest if provoked enough. Even if that didn¡¯t work then her men would have a laugh boosting morale a bit. (Sasha) inserts epic insult that leave adult crying. Then after what could be only considered as an embarrassing silence, there was a finally a response. (Hybrid) Pathetic. Sasha was not prepared for that response and she had a dumb look on her face. On the bridge there a couple of snickers at the expense of Sasha. with some barely holding themselves to not laugh, which inside of a hive mind while polite, it is completely useless. In reality, insulting an opponent only work if the other care. Commanders that are competent will see this as is opponent baiting him into something and be on guard. While Sasha was still looking dumbfounded, the infested in charge of the radars had is console screaming warning at him. The 3 nests released the totality of their content. Mutalisk in number just short of the hundred thousand were now flying in the system. They were all heading towards Tarsonis and more precisely the infested invasion fleet that was in orbit above the capital city. (infested) Mam! they are going for our transport ships. Exclaimed one of the tech guys. While Sasha did not take all her warships when she split her fleet above Tarsonis and only leaving a decent escort to protect the various transports, a hundred thousand mutalisk would cause irreparable damage to the fleet. And the hybrid would definitely cause more harm. Taking a second to think about, then she took her decision. (Sasha) Keep the course! we¡¯re going after the hybrid. If she managed to blow that asshole to ashes, the mutalisk that are not in the direct influence of the other hybrid would go feral. Pathetic my ass. (Sasha) And someone contacts Nova. Inform her she gonna have guests. ¡ª¡ª-The infested fleet orbiting Tarsonis earlier ¡ª¡ª- The fleet that was orbiting the planet was commanded by Nova and ordered to the few Ouroboros to launch Rodling at the hybrids bases location. The giant''s snake/eel-like creatures began to arm themselves with the Rodling. And then to rotate faster and faster, the moment that they reached their maximum rotation, they released their payload. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The Rodling were reaching absurd speed and hit the ground with enough kinetic energy that the word nuke came to the mind of the Dominion soldiers. The hybrid living on the planet had one hell of a wake-up call when the Rodling hit the ground. The Overmind hatred towards hybrid was imprinted in the hivemind of the swarm, this occurred when Aojoss had pissed off the Overmind in the Eden system a while ago. This was not intentional and the Overmind didn¡¯t even realize it had occurred. In all honesty, the image/emotions that were projected at the time had mixed with their own memory, And now Nova really really didn¡¯t like hybrids or Narud. So much that if she was in a position of making their life harder she would jump on it. And now there some little hybrid trying to hide just below her. The hybrid immediately shifted the standings order of his force from ¡°pretend to be feral¡± to ¡°full war¡± preparations. Hidden hives cluster activated, spawning army and new biostructure to help defend them. Those poor Dominion troops were looking scared after those hives started sprouting everywhere. Tarsonis went from mildly infested to having creep everywhere. And yet within the fleet in orbit, the infested warriors of the overmind swarm were rejoicing. There will be a great fight that would require all of their might to win. The voice of Nova was then broadcasted (Nova) Listen, boys and girls. There a hybrid below us, butcher it. Bloodthirsty cheers were shouted. tens of Thousands of Berserker, infested marines and other various subtype and finally hordes of infested Zombie were to be deployed in the upcoming conflict. They were part of the first wave of the invasion, they needed to secure a landing zone. Due to the small amount of armored vehicle present in the infested force, almost all infested were infantry and could be deployed from low orbit by jumping. Specialist and vehicle would be transported by shuttle after the battle had begun on the ground and a safe landing zone could be identified. While life was incredibly cheap for the infested force, their armors and equipment were not, an effort was to be made to protect them. Having incredibly hard to kill body and having a pseudo-god who can reincarnate you if something manages to kill you, make their life as cheap as dirt. But said pseudo-god cannot create the equipment that they use, so the quantity is limited. This situation was quite unique since all other factions have the opposite situation where they own more weapons and armor than body to use them. A moment later the hangar''s door on the ships orbiting Tarsonis opened. And the berserkers were the first to jump followed by the rest. Infested marines followed but were far more reluctant, since they still possessed a shred of common sense and self-preservation. The infested zombies were launched by pod similar to the one used by regular zerg since being put in cocoon and pack together was rather unpleasant and extremely uncomfortable, only the mindless zombies were getting on the ground this way. The dominion and the Zerg belonging to Amon were not stupid and seeing that in the sky were thousands of objects falling down from enemy ships they opened fire with all of the Anti-air and Anti-orbital they had. The hybrid even ordered the various flier to take the sky. Of course, the Ouroboros and the Battlecruiser responded in kind, firing orbital strike against the defense. As for the infested infantry, it was a matter of luck. No matter how robust their body was, the moment they got hit by ammunition meant for spaceships or were in the way of an orbital strike, well they weren¡¯t that robust. For the insane berserkers it was the fourth of July, they in fact that they believed to have the best ¡°seats ¡° falling from orbit. Screaming and laughing all the way down the infested infantry made it to the ground. While the crazy berserker tried to land as quickly as possible. The marines stabilized around the edge of the giant skyscrapers falling in as close as a formation as possible. The hybrid in charge of Tarsonis immediately sent forces to eliminate the infested Mostly zergling and some Hydralisk. The first skirmish was two berserkers against eighth Zergling in the middle of a devastated highway. The fight had been brutal and quick. Both parties ran in close range and butchered each other in a melee. One of the berserkers died ripped in ribbons while the other lost an arm, but was victorious. The zergling claws and fang tore their armor like it was nothing. The surviving berserker sent a warning to its siblings of what happened and not rely on their armor. While the armor was strong enough to protect against most human weapons, it was not as effective against Zerg claw. After that, he picked his weapons and went hunting, after all, he never had so much fun in his life. Fighting had released a substance similar to dopamine into his body and released at increased in the moment of his victory. This was the conditioning made by the Overmind, and now he craved for battle and more importantly, victory. Many similar skirmishes soon follow resulting in an increasing number of loss for Berserker. Their armor were simply not strong enough for in this situation. After all even the most basic of zerg warriors strain can cut through tank plating with some effort. The infested marine squads had it better. With their increased constitution they could easily perform to the level of special forces. With their communication with each other going at the speed of thought, they could react almost instantly. With the earlier warning, most infested squads began to gather and as a singular unit. Killing everything in their path. The infested finally found a good landing site, just outside of the planet capital, a bit more far than they wanted but the anti-air in the city was too dangerous to risk it. The moment the landing site was deemed secure the second wave went down. Heavy weapons and specialist teams were accompanying them. Just as Nova was reading herself to go down and hunt the hybrid. the telepathic message from Sasha fleet had arrived. Nova feeling a headache coming up soon, put down her gear and went to the radar technician station. Peeking above the tech shoulder and seeing his screen, she said what everyone was thinking. (Nova) Fuck! On the screen, three giant red lines were headed straight for her position. Panic was starting to spread within in hive mind, but not fear since death was temporary at best. What scared them was a failure, would you bother with someone who was weighing you down? Nova was thinking hard, reviewing every option and idea that came out from the hive mind. She could go loud ordering her ship to crash into the hybrid below or what people could consider the smart way, having someone else fight for you. Knowing her chance of everything working perfectly was astronomically low, she put on her best-used car saleswoman she could muster. And called the Dominion fleet. She spoke with a seductive voice, triggering social cues for whoever was listening would have his undivided attention. (Nova) Would you be interested in becoming immortal? Chapter 28 The Terran campaign p2 -----------Myles Shades----------- Myles Shades was, let say interested in what he just heard from the comm. He just ended a ? call ? from the emperor Mensgk, who ordered that all action must be taken to eliminate the threat to his Dominion. Which translates as destroy them even if you have to die to do it. And now his screen was displaying a pretty woman with blue crystal horn offering immortality. Hell, with her look saying that a succubus was offering a trade for his soul would be easier to describe . Myles took a quick look to his officers on the bridge to judging their reactions. Most of them looked distrustful but curious towards the woman. Looking at his screens he saw those clouds of mutalisk going for her, even a idiot would know she was looking for helps. (Myles) Open a channel and record the conversation. A screen open up displaying the woman. (Myles) Well beautiful, I am sorry to inform you that we are not interested in joining any religious organizations. Said Myles with a amused voice. He knew that the beautiful infested on the screen was up too. Since if he was in the same situation as her, he would lie, cheat and beg without any shame. On the screen Nova had her smile break a little. Deciding to play with her for awhile and maybe let her believe that he may be interested. (Myles) But I am man who respect other religions, even the crazy one. Let¡¯s hear on how your gonna save our souls and bring us in your afterlife. Nova had dropped her fake smile and looking at him like he was retarded. She then spoke to him like you would to a small child. (Nova) Soul? Afterlife? There was a silence where Nova was looking straight at him, looking for something. She then spoke. (Nova) Are you retarded? What I meant by immortality was as in you''re gonna live longer than a star. She had spoken like one said a fact, a unbreakable truth. Looking at him for a moment, she huffed and close the channel. That statement left him confused. Moment later something he realised something, it was so obvious during the call that he didn''t realise it until now. He had spoken with a infested terran that was fully sentient. ¡ª¡ª-in space¡ª¡ª- (Nova) Well, the easy way went down the drain. Nova took a look to the ship captain and nodded. He adjusted his hat and opened a open channels . (Infested Captain) Gentlemen, I would say it been a honour serving with you, but since I heard hell is a little too warm for my taste so I will be back to kick your lazy arse in shape as soon as I am allowed. Nova quietly left the bridge and went to pick up her gear. On her way she saw all non critical personnel doing the same. The escorting warships were emptying themselves of everything and everyone. Cargo that could not be placed in transport were cut loose before opening the cargo bay doors and letting the decompression scatter it. As for the infested on board, if you were not needed you had to jump ship and aim at the planet, if you miss, at least you will a great view for a long time. Transport ships were making preparations for hostile landing. Taking a strategy for the Flood from the Halo series where they landed(crashed) ships into populations center in order to spread. They were planning the crash of several ships into the middle of enemy bases, with army of infested Zombies that were still on board. Infested Zombies were made to handle the kind of incoming trauma that was about to hit them. As for the rest of the infested marines they would jump as soon as possible carrying as much munitions and supplies they could carry. If one thing had not changed since old, is that if a soldier know is going into an FUBAR situation, then that their are gonna bring as much stuff they can carry with them.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Ships could always be replaced, Troops could always be reborn, Equipment could be manufactured, nothing else matter than victory. Those words were basically the infested entire military doctrine. Although even if they win, the cost will make someone cry since ship and equipment take time and resources to build. ¡ª¡ª¡ª-Sasha fleet¡ª¡ª- Sasha Fleet was moving to intercept the hybrid mutalisk attack wave. (Sasha) Ready the nuke! Sasha was yelling through the hive mind. To say she was getting nervous was a understatement and one of the downside of the hive mind was the lack of ability to hide it. (Tech Infested) Madam we are too far. They are still outside of effective range! Sasha stop and just looked at the tech, she had the ¡®Are you serious¡¯ look. The tech was a civilian that''s was trained for the job after her infestation, so no practical experience and with stuff crammed in her head. (Sasha) This is space warfare kid, Range dont matter that much. Sasha relaxed a little, amused and a little nostalgic of the past. The tech looked confused and you could feel through the hive mind what she mean. One of the older looking infested sitting next to him was annoyed and just spoke. (Old man infested) Kid, in space if you know where a target is going and at what speed, they are alway in range. (Tech Infested) What? She responded with still clear confusion. Sasha just entered a coordinate in the computer while they were talking, she then ruthlessly smiled. (Sasha) Set timer on the Nuke to 7.25 minute and fire using this flight path, on my mark. The young infested was getting more confused since those coordinate were way of course. Somewhere between the planet and the mutalisk swarm. What¡¯s more those nuke were not made for those kind of distance, they had at best 5 min of fuel before burning out. Sasha was looking intensely at the screen displaying the current positions of the hybrid before shout up. (Sasha) Fire! Missile launchers fired their payloads, they immediately took more speed following their flight path. The various launchers immediately activated their reload mechanism. The young infested looked at her screen following the missiles flights, at exactly 5 minutes all of them just disappeared from her screen. The old infested beside her started to display a maniacal smile. Feeling of anticipation was coming from him. Almost every old infested on the bridge had that smirk on their face, the more curious young infested had tried to peek in their mind to see what was so funny. But they were told ? just watch ?. While the bridge crews was waiting for something to happen, the launchers finally reloaded their payloads and were ready to fire again. Now observing her screen the young infested saw the mutalisk swarm began to spread itself as wide as possible. Then the screen began to display dozen of warnings. The area of space in front of the mutalisk swarm light up. Hundreds of nuclear warhead detonated at same time. The multiple explosions made a cone shaped fireworks with the mutalisk swarm in interior of the cone. The hybrid had the pleasure of being within the cone a feel the heat of a hundreds sun in his face, his biological defence strained to the limits as radiation flooded his body. The mutalisk while doing better than most organisms in this situation, still burned from the inside out. On the ship, cheers were heard from everyone. But on the bridge Sasha was frowning at her screen. The hybrid was still moving and most of the mutalisk swarm survived her surprise. Oh she could feel the building rage the hybrid had. The Mutalisk swarm quickly formed a large protecting sphere formation around the hybrid. Suddenly, she had a rather cuntish ideal. Her frown was gone and replaced by a shit eating smile. Pooling her power once more, she spoke once again through telepathy. (Sasha) Who pathetic now? Oh the reaction the hybrid had was explosive, he was now broadcasting all kinds of threat and insults. As the exchange of maturity and respect was going on, two things happen. The first Sasha fleets entered maximum distance for most of her weapons, she could now actually leave the computer calculating the flights path without her brute forcing it using overseers brain. And secondly was the Hybrid was absorbing the energy from the Mutalisk swarm surrounding it. -----------------On the Maw----------- Within the planet size ship a certain infested terran was regretting her latest decision. Kerrigan was sitting on a throne dealing with ¡®¡¯digestion¡¯¡¯ issue. The Overmind power was too much for her to control, the psionic energy would randomly flare and cause damage to her body. This caused her to experience level of pain that few could imagine constantly and taxing her regeneration ability to the limit. But if it was only physical pain then Kerrigan could endure, but no, the issue she had the most problem dealing with was memory. Not her but with the billions of infested within the Hive mind. Every single moment she relaxed her guard she would live the life of one of the infested, from there earliest memory to the moment they were infested. She would feel every emotion they ever had. The good one, the sad one, the painful one, etc. She deal with the memory easily with ghost training, but no fortress around her mind could ever stop the flood of emotions that was coming with those memory. Especially with someone inside her literally lowering her defence. As of this moment Kerrigan still was thinking she had killed the Overmind, or maybe it was self-delusion. As for the rest of the Zerg force they were approaching to the koprulu sector, heading toward Char in order the set a forward base. Originally Tarsonis was supposed to be it but after the trouble they had they re-chose their destination. Infested reinforcements would be dispatched after securing the worlds. Multiple smaller forces were also dispatched, locating inhabited worlds and trying to figure it out with Terran trade network. Basically going into a system seeking life and if there is then leaving a couple Overseers to monitor traffic. Right now simple observation from afar is better that deep recon and infiltration, especially since the Terran of the koprulu sector have technology capable of detecting zerg biosignature. This point was among the to-do list of the Overmind project, having infiltrator that were detectable was a big faux pas in espionage. So the Overmind had invested lot of time and energy into making his changeling and brain bug undetectable. Since the Overmind was currently indisposed this task was inherited by Abathur who not interested in it at all, since he had Titan to work with and any situation could be solved with overkill. Speaking of Titan the last few week within the Maw was ¡­ dangerous. A lot more than normally inside of a living planet infested to the brim with zerg warrior breed could be. Thank for the generous testing and experimentation from Abathur breed which shall be called henceforth as Shaper . Because of that, the number of accident went from near zero to a planet killer monsters running around every week or so. Fun time. The Hive Empress Slyria had a lot of practice containing and eliminating those threat , she also for some reason took liking in Zagara and taking her as an apprentice/second in command. The primal zergs were having a fun time with all those experiment running around. ------------Inside of Kerrigan abused mind-------------- ------------MC POV------------ (Overmind) Almost free!!!! It''s been a long time ,from my point of view, that I have been stuck here. And well¡­.. I end up redecorated the entire space. The tain had spread everywhere and the bookshelf had grew into a full library filled with nonsense. The best part in my minor bout of insanity is that I found out I could force Kerrigan to see memory if I would read them to her subconscious form. Let me tell you that I hand picked the worse one I could find. Some of the infested had Shitty life from the moment they were born till they were infested, there nothing wrong happening after infestation, because I say so. Those are real tear jerker that should have a movie made with the story. And with the chain getting loose I was getting more control over My Own Power, so like the vindictive bastard that I am. I made it completely toxic for Kerrigan body. Oh and the blasted orb was getting a lot of scratch which something I have no clue what it responsible for. As for the best news, I have limited access to the hive mind, they still take forever to react to my order but I am once stuck in a time dilatation prison located inside of the soulscape of a Psycho.