Evolution Personified

by HobTheRobot

The continuing adventures of Alex Mercer throughout the multiverse. 40% Nightmare Fuel, 30% Biomass, 20% Mad Scientist, 10% Living Weapon, and 100% Evolution. After the first few chapters it's just a bunch of story ideas and shorts, good ones I hope.

1. Chapter 1

Before anything else, I would just like to say that I own nothing in this story, even the stuff I think I made up probably belongs to someone else. I am definitely not awesome enough to own the little song Alex sings later, anyone who doesn't know where it's from should be ashamed of themselves, the song is from Trigun. There is one other thing from Trigun in here, see if you can spot it. (If you can't see it you should probably have your eyes checked.)

Notes: 1. Alex is not unstoppable, if he seems to be, it is only because he is thinking and planning out his moves in advance.

2. If Alex numbers a unit just before, or right after, killing it that means he consumed it. He obviously consumes other units besides the ones he numbers, but I wanted it to be clear without having to point it out too much when he was consuming certain units.

3. If anyone is having an off day and can't figure it out: LWMD is, Living Weapon of Mass Destruction.

4. Alex is insane, that's all there is to it, and it would be ridiculous to expect him to be otherwise. Think about what he is. Now think about how he came to be, and what the first three weeks of his life were like. Now add to his other issues the fact that this version of Alex has been hanging around for five-hundred years with very little to do for the vast majority of that time. There will be points in this story that make it clear just how up the wall, round the bend, off his rocker, bat shit crazy Alex is, do not complain about it just because you don't think he would have lost his mind somewhere along the road. ( In relation to the fact that Alex is completely out of his mind, if the text appears like This, it means that, unless stated otherwise, everyone in the area is hearing him in their head.)

Evolution Personified

The Universe, it's not the sort of place you want to get lost in, roughly one-hundred billion galaxies (At last count), each made up of at least two-hundred billion stars, each star orbited by anywhere from no planets at all up to a dozen or more, then there are the asteroids, meteors, moons, black holes, nebulae, and other assorted celestial bodies to worry about. All in all the Universe is the last place you want to be lost in, but of course it can't always be avoided. So here we find Alex Mercer, the Blacklight Virus, Evolution Personified, staring up at an unfamiliar sky on a planet 60,000 light-years from earth, he was without a doubt lost and only had one thought on the subject at that moment.

"Well, this is annoying."

On an unimportant planet on the fringe of the Koprulu Sector an artificial warp rift had just spat out a very irate abomination of science before closing, effectively trapping the walking murder machine light-years from home, such as it was, with no idea where he was or how to get back, not that he had a reason to go back, humans aren't known for having particularly long lives, the one human who had truly accepted him had died centuries ago.

"Alright, guess there's nothing else to do but walk, well that and wonder why I bother talking out loud, certifiably insane or not, talking to yourself is never a good sign." Alex sighed, a habit he had picked up more from boredom then anything else. He began walking down the empty and poorly maintained road he had landed near, which way was irrelevant since he had no idea which way was north, or even if that would be important on this planet.

Five minutes prior to the arrival of the single most frightening product of human folly in the history of the species, a Terran Outpost at the end of one lonely and poorly maintained stretch of road, detected a spike in energy, it was quickly identified as a warp rift, the only problems with this were of course that it was far to small, and more distressingly, it was only a few feet off the surface of the planet.

"Are you absolutely certain that it was a warp rift?" The base commander was not liking what his science officer was telling him.

"Yes sir, while it was far to small, and to close to the surface, there is no doubt that the anomaly was a warp rift. Should we send a team to investigate?" The woman who had at first been glad she was assigned somewhere unlikely to see any full scale battles was decidedly less pleased to be present when something new like this was happening.

"No." If there was a chance this was a trick by some rebel group, or some new tactic of the swarm, the commander didn't want to lower the bases already sub-standard defenses. "Call in all patrols, send the data on the anomaly to all other planet side outposts and tell them to keep their eyes open. Contact HQ and let them know we may have a problem, and request reinforcements."

Miles from the frantically active base, Alex Mercer was getting very tired of the desert landscape, it offered little distraction from his current problem and he hadn't seen one living thing big enough to even consider eating. "I officially hate this planet. At least Earth had things to do besides stare at rocks and holes in the ground." Alex sighed again" I almost miss Black Watch . . . Well, maybe I spoke to soon, although that I'm speaking at all is still unsettling."

The source of the LWMD's changed mood was the group of twelve very unusual creatures heading his way at a fairly decent speed, nearly Olympic sprinter speeds, all the more impressive since these creatures were maintaining that speed with no apparent trouble. The creatures were fairly small, relative to a hunter anyway, about the size of a large dog, they appeared to be a cross between an insect and a lizard, an exoskeleton like shell and scales covering their bodies. The "bug-lizards" appeared bipedal, running on two muscular back legs, while a slightly smaller set of limbs was held close to their stomach, both front and rear appendages ended in sharp claws. The creatures had no lips, or anything similar, covering their rows of razor-like teeth, and just above their "sadistic smiles" were a set of orange eyes that seemed to glow faintly.

Alex couldn't say it surprised him in the least when the creatures attacked him the moment they noticed him. From their feet and tails, to the second set of "arms" on their backs which ended in scythe-like claws, and even the seemingly vestigial wings, it was clear what these things were, Alex knew a living weapon when he saw it, after all "Takes one to Know one".

The first creature to reach Alex leapt at him, hissing and opening its mouth clearly meaning too take a bite out of him. "Well who am I to deny it a last request?" Alex immediately shoved his fist, and most of his left arm, down the monsters throat, and morphed several small blades, about the size of butcher knives, along the limb, tearing the things insides to shreds. As soon as it was fatally wounded Alex extended tendrils into its body and consumed it, before his viral nature could begin what he had come to think of as an "automatic upgrade sequence", he encapsulated the biomass and genetic codes of the creature in a sort of "pearl" within his body, so that he could deal with the remaining threats before taking a look at what precisely he had just eaten.

The remaining eleven creatures hesitated for only the briefest moment after seeing one of their number ripped apart, before they changed tactics and resumed their attack. They began to try and flank him, doing everything they could to avoid attacking him head on.

"Gotta give them some credit, even after thirty years Black Watches' goons never seemed to figure out that a frontal attack was suicide, these things caught on after one failure. Guess I should consume at least half of them, get more samples of their genetics to work with." Alex smirked, something he hadn't done much since Dana had died.

One of the creatures jumped at him from behind while another charged in low aiming to cripple his legs. Alex jumped into the air spinning as he did so, his right foot connected with the one on the ground sending it tumbling across the cracked dirt, while his left fist smashed into the airborne creatures face sending it sprawling. A third alien charged at him as he landed, it obviously thought to tackle him while he was off balance, pity balance was one of his specialties. The charging creature found itself lifted into the air, a second after it realized its position it noticed the ground approaching at an alarming speed. "Two" Alex mentally checked off the second creature as his tendrils ripped it to pieces and stored it with the first.

The one that had jumped at him before rushed forward at the same time as two others leapt towards him from opposite directions. Alex brought his left fist down on the charging creatures head as hard as he could, crushing it with little resistance, as he morphed his right hand into a smaller version of his standard blade. "Three"

Before the third alien had even began to vanish into his form, Alex turned to his left bringing his right hand up into the stomach of one of the two jumping creatures. Following through with the rotation he had started, Alex used the creature impaled on his right arm to bludgeon the other jumper to the ground before stomping on its head. "Four and Five"

Much to Alex's surprise, one of the creatures he had taken his eyes off of had apparently burrowed underground to attack him from below. While this was an unexpected development, by no stretch did it change the tide of battle. Alex caught the creature by the tusks protruding from its face and twisted, separating the things head from its body. "Six"

The remaining creatures backed off and began circling, looking for an opening probably. "Well, I've got the genetic samples I need, no reason to keep them around now."

The zerglings were more then a little confused, as confused as members of hive mind like theirs can be anyway, when the thing that looked like a human shoved both of its' arms into the ground up to its' elbows. The last thoughts the Zerg back at the hive cluster received from the scout group were thoughts of shock and pain, though there was no indication of the cause except that they were struck from below right after the human shaped thing had punched the ground.

"Well that was somewhat entertaining." Alex barely noticed he was talking out loud again as he finished retracting the ground spikes into himself. "Now, let's see what we got from that little dance." Alex opened the shell he was holding the new biomass and genetic codes in and began to internally examine the newest additions to his collection of genetic sequences.

"Okay, maybe this planet isn't so bad after all. Their armor's almost as tough as mine, but proportionally only half the weight, lets see what we can do with that." Alex began shifting his biomass as he spliced the genetic codes around looking for the best combinations. The end result was an overall upgrade to his armor, not only was it more aerodynamic, it was also only half as heavy as it had been before, restricted his movement less then it had before, and from what he could see, it was more intimidating and stable in appearance then the original form. The durability hadn't suffered for the improved weight and form either, in fact the armor was now slightly more durable because of the more flexible form it had.

"Now let's see what we can do with those claws." Again shifting his biomass, Alex spliced the codes related to the creatures claws and teeth with the codes for his own claws, blade, and the blades on the whip fist. When he was finished there was no visible change in any of the weapons, but he could feel the decrease in weight, the increase in balance, and he could tell that they were even sharper then before.

"Alright, I'll leave the other things for later. Let's see what you were." If he had a face at the time, his smile would have been enough to scare an Ultralisk. All the basic information on the various types of Zerg, what the Zerg themselves are, his current location, the location of every hive cluster on the planet, all known locations of humans on the planet, and so much more was now at his disposal. "Alright I take it back, I love this planet."

It took him about eight minutes to figure out how to direct the psionic energy of the Zerg within himself, since the Zerg used it almost exclusively for communication, the zerglings had had no idea how to do anything active with it. But having figured it out himself, Alex had now directed the rather small amount of power to shielding his mind from other Zerg as well as the Terran Ghosts and any Protoss that may have otherwise detected him.

"Now, let's pay a visit to the hive." Alex almost shifted back to normal just so he could smile, but since he was alone it would have been a pointless act and a waste of time, so he made a mental note to find someone to smile at later.

Alex reached the hive cluster in very little time, half the time it would have taken him before since his armor form was lighter now then it had been. He chose to watch the Zerg for awhile rather then just run in slashing at anything that moved. The hive had gone into full scale production as a result of him having killed their scout group down the road, he watched the information he had gained from the zerglings proven true as four cocoons were brought out of the Hatchery, moments later the egg-like things split open revealing eight newborn zerglings. Not far from these new soldiers he saw seven Hydralisks waiting for orders from the three Overlords hovering over the old mine where the hive cluster was located.

In less then one hour, Alex saw twenty eight zerglings born, watched four of them evolve into banelings in only minutes, he saw new drones created as well and watched them collect mineral resources from the ground and gas from the building-like creature he knew was an Extractor. He also saw the Queen patrolling near the various points around the base that would be used by conventional ground forces to attack the hive cluster, he would have to deal with the lesser units before he could go after the Queen. If he didn't move soon the hive would advance to far, there would be to many Zerg units present for him to fight without risking more then he could gain in the process, this concern was proven unnecessary moments later.

Twenty-four zerglings, followed by seven Hydralisks, with four banelings in the rear, left the base and headed down the road toward the location they lost the last scout group at, their orders were to find the creature responsible and destroy it. Alex followed the detachment of Zerg troops for a little while, when he was sure the base wouldn't be able to send reinforcements in time to help them he made his move. A well aimed boulder, about the same size and weight as the average tank, landed on one of the banelings, the impact and explosion that resulted from the creatures death stunned the remaining banelings and attracted the attention of the other Zerg present.

As the Hydralisks quickly began to search for their attacker, one of the serpent-like creatures found itself lifted into the air and carried backwards when an extremely fast moving object crashed into its' stomach, shattering its' shell and hurling it into a nearby ditch.

"One" Alex began another mental checklist of his targets. The Hydralisks were to large too be completely consumed the way he could consume the zerglings, so as he had done with hunters centuries ago he absorbed the most important parts and left the rest of the body where it fell. Again encapsulating the new biomass and genetics, Alex turned and looked up at the two Hydralisks that were preparing to fire on him. "Well then, let us dance."

When the two Zerg fired, Alex already intended to take a few hits, it was a risk but he had to injure these two at the same time so they would be less effective when the other four were in sight. Stepping back with his right leg to avoid one of the Hydralisks attacks, he formed the whip fist on his right arm and the shield on his left, placing the latter between his body and the other set of spines.

"Okay, going to have to avoid those in the future." The spines had pierced almost halfway through the shield, and while that wasn't a major problem, the fact that they were coated in an extremely acidic substance was making it hard to concentrate. Alex opened gaps in the shield so the spines would fall out and ditched the biomass that was still coated with the acid, before dismissing the shield completely and launching the whip fist toward the Hydralisk on the right, just before it could finish closing the "flaps" on the sides of it's head.

The Hydralisk shrieked and hissed when the organic blades the human shaped thing had launched at it pierced the more vulnerable flesh where its' spines were formed and fired from. The alien then swung the elongated limb the blades were attached to to its' left slamming the Hydralisk into its' "sibling", both were stunned from the force of the impact.

Alex shifted his arm back to normal just as one of the three remaining banelings came rolling down the small hill towards him, he saw another to his left and didn't even need to look to know the third was coming from his right. He quickly lifted three of the fallen Hydralisk spines that had pierced his shield and threw them at the baneling in the center of the small formation, before the spines had even reached their target, Alex jumped almost straight up about thirty feet into the air and landed almost fifty feet from the very surprised banelings, who had just rolled headfirst into one another, their collision went unnoticed because of the explosion that had occurred moments earlier.

While the two remaining banelings were stunned, Alex noted that the zerglings had managed to surround him, while the Hydralisks were quickly forming the Zerg version of a firing squad. The zerglings charged all at once, some jumping, some staying on the ground others opting for a combination of both actions, against anyone else this would have been a good tactic and would have probably brought the victim down, the reason it didn't work here was that all twenty-four zerglings were within thirty feet of the Blacklight Virus.

Over the years Alex had gotten over a few limits and flaws with his abilities, one such flaw was the build-up before a devastator. Before the Zerg even realized something was wrong, half the zerglings had been ripped apart by the Tendril Barrage that Alex had unleashed on the unfortunate creatures. One of the limits he had removed was the fact that the Tendril Barrage did not allow him to consume organic things caught in the area of effect, in moments the zerglings were gone, only smears of blood to show that they had been there at all.

Before the Hydralisks could process what they had seen, Alex launched himself at them, shifting his biomass into claws before he had covered even half the distance. "Two" Alex resumed his countdown as his claws pierced the underside of one of the monsters heads, his tendrils finding their way to its' brain and tearing it apart. "Three" One of the Hydras had slashed at him with its' own claws, but the attack was expected, dodged, and the Zerg found its' arms severed just before the man shaped creature slashed its' stomach open. "Four" As the third Hydralisk fell another had fired a volley of spines, it had missed, and before it could register what had happened, Alex dropped down from his jump and nearly split the creature in two with his blade. "Five" Alex spun to his right with the blade at an angle, decapitating one of the remaining three Hydralisks, he then reversed the direction of his spin. "Six" The sixth Hydralisk died in the same manner as the fifth.

"And then there was one." Alex again would have been smiling if he had a mouth to do so with. The only remaining Hydralisk looked less then comfortable being alone with the thing that had just devastated a good sized squad of Zerg troops. But of course, Zerg aren't capable of true fear, and their self preservation instincts are near non-existent, so it was no surprise that the Hydralisk charged forward with only a moments hesitation.

"Seven." Alex shifted his arm back to normal as the last Hydralisk fell to the ground behind him. Without pausing for even a moment, he picked up one of the arms that he had cut from the third Hydralisk and jumped to his right. As soon as the still dazed banelings came into view, Alex threw the largest claw from the Hydralisks arm like a boomerang, the spinning blade severed the banelings heads from the rest of their bodies before they could register what had happened.

Rather then risk the organic bombs detonating for one reason or another, Alex used the whip fist to pull the severed portions of the banelings to him instead of walking over to get them. "Now lets see what we can do with this."

The obvious first move was to further upgrade his blade, claws, and whip fist, once that was done Alex used the Hydralisks more durable armor to further upgrade his own, though the weight decrease and durability increase was much less noticeable this time. Without at least one more sample of a banelings' genetics he couldn't complete the new weapon he had come up with, so that would have to wait.

"Alright, now this is to good too pass up." Alex was now debating whether or not he should add a mouth to his armor form just so he could smile at times like this. Shifting biomass and splicing the Hydralisk genetics around, Alex created a new weapon, the barb launcher. The change to his arms wasn't nearly as noticeable as with the other weapon forms, it just looked like his forearms had gotten a bit bulkier, like he had started to shift to muscle mass and stopped halfway, but if you looked closer, which would not be a very smart thing to do, you would see five spines about the size of pencils, maybe a little thicker, sticking out of the armored plates.

Shifting his arms back to normal, Alex began sorting through the brief memories of the Zerg he had consumed, but more importantly, he directed the new psionic energy he had gained to strengthen his mental shield.

"Now, how to deal with the hive?" Alex was already heading back to the Zerg base, but he knew he would need at least a basic plan before trying to take the hive down. "The Overlords first, that way the rest will be disorganized, after that I should make sure there aren't any banelings around, they could be a problem. Once the base is in disarray I should probably take out the Queen so she can't get the rest organized again, once that's done I can mop up any lesser troops and then deal with the "buildings."

The hive cluster was on full alert, the other hives on the planet had been informed of the intruder. There were now forty zerglings ready to move, accompanying them were twenty Hydralisks and ten Roaches, as well as ten Mutalisks circling above the strike force that had been formed. Taking aim and shifting hammer fists, Alex sprinted forward and hurled himself at the nearest Overlord.

The insectoid monstrosity didn't even have time to react. As its' shell cracked and shattered, the tendrils of the viral abomination tore the giant bugs' brain to shreds and absorbed it. The effect was obvious, every Zerg unit present faltered, they recovered in short order but they were obviously less organized with one of their Overlords dead.

Alex jumped from the falling Overlord and used the whip fist to pull himself to the next flying shrimp. Without the benefit of the momentum from the hammer throw, it took a few seconds to cut his way through the creatures shell with his blades, but in less then a minute two of the Overlords were dead, the third tried to distance itself from the monster that had just brought down its' companions, but its' attempt was in vain.

Alex again leapt from the falling corpse, this time he didn't bother pulling himself to the next target, instead he just launched a Critical Pain devastator. The focused barrage of tendrils slammed against the Overlords' head and tore through the carapace and ripped apart the targets brain. Like the Tendril Barrage, the Critical Pain devastator now allowed Alex to consume organic targets struck by the attack.

It was one thing to know what would happen, it was quite another thing to see it firsthand. Alex watched with no small hint of fascination as the Zerg base turned on itself in response to the loss of the Overlords. Alex didn't pause long, this riot wouldn't last forever, just until the Zerg's minds managed to reorganize, once the creatures were thinking straight again they would be a threat even without the Overlords influence.

While a free-for-all death-match went on around him, Alex rushed straight for the Queen, it was clear she was trying to reestablish a chain of command. Alex leaped into the air and shifted a shield on both arms, just in time to block the volley of spines fired at him by the Queen, coated in the same sort of acid as Hydralisk spines or not, it didn't matter, Alex had already created a substance that negated the effects of that particular annoyance.

Shifting his shields to claws, Alex began slashing at the Queen as soon as he was in range. The two danced back and forth, claws tearing gashes in the bodies of the two opponents. The difference between the two was that Alex healed almost instantly. Now certain he had wounded the Queen sufficiently, Alex leapt forward and buried his claws in her chest, as the Queen screamed in rage and pain six tendrils, each as big around as Alex's' arms, arced from his back and pierced the Queens armor, seeking out her more important organs, heart and brain being the main targets.

With the Queen dead and her biomass and genetics stored with what he had obtained from the Overlords, Alex redirected his efforts to finishing off the remaining Zerg units, just in time too, since those that were left were beginning to recover from the shock of losing the Overlords so abruptly. Alex rushed to the nearest Roach and cleaved it in two with his blade, a second Roach and one of the Hydralisks were ripped apart by a ground spike attack while Alex was consuming the first Roach.

One of the Roaches recovered and got a shot at the viral monster, Alex was not amused when his left hand was reduced to a semi-liquid state. Severing the damaged portion of the limb and reforming his left arm as a hammer fist, Alex closed the distance between himself and the offending Roach, before the Zerg could prepare to attack again its' head and a good portion of its' body was reduced to paste. "Roach smoothies do not taste very good, have to remember that."

Before Alex had finished "drinking" the Roach he had crushed, two zerglings jumped on his back and began clawing and biting at him. Four tendrils erupted from his back and tore the zerglings apart, consuming them to heal what damage he had taken so far. Aware that the Mutalisks had most likely recovered as well and would be attacking him soon, Alex decided to test his new weapon and began shifting biomass to his arms.

One of the Mutalisks had indeed recovered and was about to attack the invader, before it could launch even one glaive wurm however, it found itself blinded by a volley of spines almost exactly like those used by Hydralisks. Alex was already airborne, headed straight for the wounded Mutalisk, before reaching his target he fired another volley of ten spines from the raised armor plate on his right arm, followed by a second volley from the matching plate on his left arm.

Landing on the Mutalisks' face, Alex plunged his tendrils through its' already wounded eyes and straight to its' brain. A second Mutalisk saw this and tried to strike the enemy while it was distracted, this was only partly successful. Alex caught the surface memory of the impending attack from the Mutalisk he had just consumed, and was able to deflect the living projectile just before it hit him, immediately after this he jumped into the air and latched onto the attacker with the whip fist.

As the second Mutalisk fell, the seven still living Hydralisks began firing on what they were collectively beginning to think of as some kind of advanced rouge changeling. Alex saw the storm of spines headed his way and dashed to the side, in mid air, shifting back to his new barb launchers and returning fire. Two of the Hydralisks were down before Alex landed. Just as he had expected, one of the remaining two Roaches tried to attack him with its' claws, this proved futile, Alex dashed around the creature and lifted it into the air.

Using the captured Roach as a shield, Alex charged at the remaining Hydralisks. When he was ten feet from his goal, Alex slammed his tendrils into the underside of his struggling prisoner, consuming the Roach and shifting to his blades, Alex tore through the unprepared Zerg troops.

Alex was somewhat concerned when he saw one of the former zerglings, now a baneling, only six feet from him. Seeing a chance to acquire the missing genetics he needed, and test a risky theory in the process, Alex shift biomass into the shield and added some of the qualities of the blade to it. The baneling had just reached its' target and had triggered the detonation of its' volatile chemicals, but to the living bombs' confusion, the target did not attempt to escape, instead the creature brought a strange round limb down over its' head in the same manner it had previously used the giant blade form its' arms could take.

The now round, blade edged, shield cut through the banelings shell and separated its' head from the rest of its body. Alex consumed the severed head and braced himself, a split second later the banelings' body detonated. Alex was thrown a short distance by the blast, and had to ditch almost a whole humans' worth of biomass because of the acidic nature of the chemicals that now coated the warped and disfigured shield. Despite the loss of so much biomass, Alex had to call the experiment a success, the original shield wouldn't have survived the blast, much less lasted long enough for him to ditch the biomass covered with acid, and on top of that, he had what he needed to complete his new toy.

Before he could take the time to play with the new genetics he had acquired though, he needed to deal with the remaining Zerg. It didn't take long to take out the remaining ground forces, and only slightly longer to bring down, and consume, the Mutalisks.

Alex casually strolled into the heart of the defenseless Hatchery. The building sized creature was clearly distressed by the foreign entities presence. "When you have an infestation, it's best to deal with it at the source." Alex launched twelve large absorption tendrils into the walls and heart of the Zerg structure.

Alex stood in the center of the dying Zerg hive cluster and began looking through what he had gained from the battle, as well as what he had gained from consuming the Zerg buildings.

Shifting biomass and splicing the baneling genetics, Alex created a new weapon form, the new limb looked exactly like what it was, a grenade launcher. After testing the acidic ranged weapon, Alex began working with the Roach strain of Zerg DNA. Further improvements to his armor and claws resulted from the combination of the Roach and Queen genetics, he also gained the ability to burrow underground and move around that way. Another benefit of the Queens' DNA was an upgrade to his barb launcher, increased range and damage. Using the Roach genetics, Alex made what amounted to a variant of a flame thrower, the difference being that it fired a stream of acid.

When he had finished playing with the ground units genes, it was time to go for the air. Figuring out how the Overlords flew was the hard part, but once that was done, upgrading his glide ability was simple, he could stay airborne much longer, he didn't need to expend even the smallest amount of biomass to use the ability, and his speed wouldn't decrease at all while in motion. Really he was now just short of true flight, and while that would be okay for the time being, Alex saw no reason not to use the Mutalisks genetics to their fullest. Shifting biomass to his back, Alex rearranged his "bone structure" and grew a pair of large wings. Spreading his new limbs, Alex shot into the sky. The wings were incredibly strong and would easily allow a human to fly, but Alex weighed far more then a human, this was rendered meaningless however because the wings were working with the "anti-gravity" ability he had gained from the Overlords.

While still flying above the destroyed Zerg base, Alex began creating another weapon by combining the Mutalisks genetics with the grenade launcher he already had, the result was a rocket launcher. He still had the grenade launcher, after all there were times you needed rockets, and times you needed grenades. After an aerial test of the rocket launcher, Alex flew back to the ground and shifted his new wings and weapon away.

"Now, what about the buildings?" Alex began sifting through the genetic codes and memories of the Zerg structures. It didn't take long to use the new information to further upgrade all of his capabilities. Increased speed, durability, psionic energy level and regeneration speed, he even gained two new potential ranged abilities after looking through the gene sequences of the drone, the Impaler Tentacle from the Spine Crawler and the Seeker Spores from the Spore Crawler. Following the gene sequences he had taken from the buildings, Alex had a starting point for several new powers and weapons, but decided it would be best to get direct samples from living units rather then try to apply pure theory to create new abilities.

"Guess I should try this before I go looking for some new dance partners, wouldn't be good to try it in a combat zone and have it backfire." Alex left a good amount of psionic power in his mental barrier, but took almost half of his total reserve and began to focus it forward in a similar manner to how he directed the Critical Pain devastator, this made sense, considering that the plan was basically a psionic devastator.

Releasing the energy was the easy part, not jumping up and down like a giddy school-girl was what he had trouble with. The result of the experiment was definitely worthy of the title of Devastator. A ten foot wide, five foot deep, fifty-five foot long trench now stretched from where Alex stood to the cliff wall that bordered the old mine, there was some evidence of a slight glassing effect in the trench itself.

With new weapons and abilities, Alex was more then happy to launch himself into the air and head off toward the nearest Zerg base that had what he needed, and thought nothing of leaving the shocked five man Ghost squad to stare at the remains of the Zerg hive cluster.

Hours after the destruction of one of the smaller hive clusters on the planet, the largest of the Zerg outposts was pushing itself to maximum combat potential in order to find and deal with this new threat to the swarm. There were five Ultralisks on patrol around the base followed by five Hydralisks per Ultralisk, there were more then three hundred zerglings and just as many banelings in the hive as well, some on patrol, others burrowed at tactical locations. Twenty Roaches were positioned at each of the five ground access locations around the hive itself, each group of Roaches was accompanied by five Infestors.

Five Overlords hovered near the center of the hive cluster, while five Overseers patrolled around the edges of the base, the Overlords were guarded by ten Mutalisks each, while the Overseers each had an escort of five Mutalisks and five Broodlords. Ten un-evolved Corruptors were also awaiting orders near the Overlords.

There were five Spine Crawlers and five Spore Crawlers at each of the five entrances as well as ten more of each waiting near the center of the base, ready to move to reinforce any location that came under attack.

Alex looked down at the Zerg far below him, he was unpleasantly reminded of what Manhattan had looked like from the top of the Empire State building during the worst point during the infection. Flying straight up for a moment before reversing direction and diving down at the unsuspecting Zerg, Alex shifted his wings away and prepared a Ground Spike Graveyard and a Psionic Wave for launch, the first would be triggered when he landed, the second he was going to aim at the Overlords.

On his way to the largest Zerg cluster on the planet, Alex had adapted a new vision modification based on both his Thermal Vision and his now useless Infected Vision, using the information he had on the Zerg themselves and the mechanics of the two vision based powers, he was able to create Bio Vision. The new power allowed Alex to focus on any biological signature he had come in contact with, the result was that he could pick out individual Zerg units even from a great distance, in the future it could be used to locate other lifeforms as well. It was this new power that allowed Alex to aim for the Crawlers at the center of the base, as well as allowing him to avoid landing near any banelings, burrowed or otherwise.

Alex struck the ground like a meteor, crushing one of the Spine Crawlers by the shear force of the impact. Before any of the Zerg had even realized what was happening, Alex released the Ground Spike Graveyard devastator, the remaining Crawlers, of both types, were ripped to pieces by the organic spires that tore up through the ground beneath them, the creep didn't hinder the spikes in the least. Many of the zerglings, those burrowed and those on the surface, were also destroyed by the first strike, and even several banelings died when one of the spikes ripped a hole through one of the grotesque creatures, detonating it close to many of its fellow Zerg.

Just as the Zerg ground forces were turning to combat the threat, Alex again sprouted wings and took to the skies. While the Zerg were still processing the knowledge that their enemy could in fact fly, Alex released his new psionic devastator on the cluster of Overlords and their Mutalisk protectors. The result of this second attack was just as damaging for the Zerg as the first had been, the loss of three Overlords at the same time, while the remaining two were severely injured, combined with the deaths of twenty-seven Mutalisks and the "static" that the psionic attack had caused, put the entire base into what could only be described as panic.

Alex took full advantage of the situation and flew straight to the closest Overseer, weaving easily around the disorganized defenders, the LWMD slammed into the eye covered mass of flesh, tearing into the enormous creatures body. Alex forced his tendrils into the Overseers' main body and consumed almost half of the monstrous beings' vital organs, taking flight again as the giant corpse fell to the ground, crushing several smaller Zerg units as it landed.

Another Overseer fell before the remaining Zerg managed to get their collective thoughts straight and mount a defense. Alex responded to their defense with a volley of spines followed by a dozen rockets aimed at his aerial opponents, moments later the ground forces found themselves dodging a rain of acidic grenades. One of the Ultralisks was struck on the shoulder by one of the deadly projectiles, while this was no surprise given the creatures' size it was not a serious threat to the behemoths survival, but it did provide an opening for Alex to latch onto the wounded giant. It doesn't always help you to be the biggest guy around, the Ultralisk discovered this firsthand as it thrashed about in an attempt to dislodge the creature that was methodically tearing a large hole in its' back.

Alex took to the air once again as his latest victim fell to the ground, its' brain having be removed only moments earlier, and a few of its' other organs as well. Distracted for a moment, Alex was not surprised to be swatted out of the air for his lapse in attention towards his surroundings. Scrambling along the ground to avoid the rain of deadly living projectiles, Alex tore through several zerglings, a couple of Hydralisks, and nearly a dozen Roaches, before he managed to take cover behind the Lair at the center of the hive cluster.

Consuming some of the creep, which was really just gelatinous biomass spread over the ground, in order to heal his wounds, Alex began sprinting up the side of the creature that served as the central building of the hive. Reaching a reasonable height, Alex shot into the air once more, his next targets were the Corruptors.

The Zerg did not hesitate to fire on one of their own in an attempt to kill their enemy, ironically this is what allowed Alex to consume all of the Corruptors with little difficulty and in a very short amount of time. The remaining Ultralisks met a similar end, wounded by their own and finished off by the monster that seemed to be bent on their complete annihilation.

With the Ultralisks dead Alex shifted his focus to the Infestors, unlike their larger brethren they died quickly without taking almost any friendly-fire. With all of the Zerg ground units he had been after dead Alex quickly consumed three of each different type of Crawler before rocketing into the sky to finish the rest of his shopping.

The remaining Overseers were much more heavily defended then they had been before, the survivors from his initial attack had doubled their efforts to defend the remaining command units of the base, it was clear they knew he was targeting the Overseers, though it was debatable whether or not they understood why, and besides the units that had survived his first strike more then twenty-four new Mutalisks had just been spawned.

Alex managed to lead almost half the Mutalisks away from the Broodlords and Overseers, and once he was sure he knew what he was doing, he formed a psionic shield around himself. While the Mutalisks pounded away at the shield, Alex completed the process of adapting the impaler tentacles to his own tendrils. Once he was ready, Alex dropped the shield and showed the Zerg air force his newest ability.

Eight Impaler Tendrils lanced out from his back and began ripping through the Mutalisks, slashing, stabbing, and cutting the flying worm-like creatures to pieces. To do this Alex had to put his wings away, but he was more then capable of simply hovering in one place now that he had more practice flying, so he had no trouble staying in the air while his improved tendrils tore his enemies apart at the direction of his improved control.

Alex ripped his way past the remaining defenders and began consuming the remaining Overseers and the Broodlords. When the Overseers had fallen the hive again fell into a state of panic, Alex just began shredding the surviving air units with Impaler Tendrils. When the skies were clear, Alex repeated the process on the ground, after taking out the banelings from the air with a couple volleys of spines.

After killing off the Spine and Spore Crawlers at the ground entrances to the base, Alex decided it would be best to take down the Lair first, see as it was already attempting to create more troops to defend the hive. Before the viral entity could enter the organic structure however, he was attacked by a very angry Queen, she was not the least bit happy about what he had done, and while she knew she was no match for the monster that had torn apart her children and siblings she refused to stand by and let the creature continue its' assault on the Swarm.

Alex was angry, more at himself then the Queen, he should have remembered she was there. The Queen wasn't really a threat to him, but the point was that he had failed to eliminate all enemy units in the area and had let his guard down. If the Queen had been a Ghost, he would probably be a blob of jelly right now, nukes were still not something he was eager to test his durability against. Before the Queen could launch a second attack, Alex ripped her to pieces and consumed what remained, in the future he would have to be more careful. Scanning the area for any possible threats, using both Thermal Vision and Bio Vision in combination with his psionic power, Alex confirmed that there was nothing nearby that could be a potential danger and walked into the Lair.

When the last of the Zerg structures had died Alex began tunneling down into the ground, once he was sixty feet below the surface, he formed a solid shell of reinforced biomass and directed 3/4 of his psionic power into a shield around himself. Now it was time to do some serious work with the genetics of the Zerg.

"How did you lose something that took out not one, but two Zerg hives?" The General that had been sent to investigate reports of some kind of alien attacking, and "eating", the Zerg on this fringe outpost, was not amused when the Ghosts he had sent to follow the supposed creature, reported that, after destroying a second, much larger and more heavily defended, Zerg hive, the creature had burrowed into the ground and disappeared.

"We looked everywhere Sir. There wasn't even a trace of its' thoughts, we couldn't sense anything from it even before it went underground." The Sargent of the squad was just as displeased as the General that they had lost the creature. "Sir, it seemed as though the alien was actively shielding itself from detection, we only caught up with it in time to see it attack the second hive cluster because we guessed that it was heading there. The Zerg didn't seem to know anything about it either, they went crazy when it dropped into the base from the sky, and they froze when it grew wings and started flying, they don't know any more about this thing then we do."

"So, we have a Changeling on steroids running around on this dirtball?" The Lieutenant in charge of the main defenses of the fortress sounded far less concerned about the situation then the rest of the officers present for the meeting.

"Sir, this is far worse then a Changeling, we saw this thing rip an Ultralisk apart with its' bare hands, we saw those same hands change into miniature imitations of that same Ultralisks blades. This thing took out an entire swarm of Mutalisks in a matter of seconds! It even used some kind of psionic attack to kill three Overlords at the same time. We have to find that thing and capture it, though to be honest I don't think that's possible, just killing it would be the better option."

"Did anyone think that maybe we should try talking to this being?" The head doctor assigned to the base had always been more diplomatic then was generally accepted by her fellow officers. Everyone in the room looked at her as though she had just admitted to being a Changeling.

"You want to try talking to a thing that eats Zerg hives for breakfast? Are you insane?" The tactical officer was the loudest of those who asked variations of this question.

"The fact that it has only attacked the Zerg is exactly why I think we should try to communicate with it, if it is as intelligent as its' actions suggest, then there is no reason to think that it would be unwilling to negotiate with us." More then anything else, the doctor wanted to know how this being did what it did, she had studied Changelings, but what she had heard described sounded far more advanced.

"The Zerg are pretty damned smart too, Doc, does that mean we should invite them to a pool party?" Again the Lieutenant made it clear he was not taking this very seriously.

"Enough. With all due respect Doctor, this thing sounds like an even worse menace then the Zerg and Jim Raynor combined, what if there's more of them? Given all the messed up shit that goes on in this sector I wouldn't be surprised if there was a whole colony of the freaks somewhere, we need to deal with this thing now and find out the best way to kill it in case more start showing up." The base commander, who had originally called for back up, was not the only one sharing this belief. In the end the decision was made, almost unanimously, that half the troops in the base should be mobilized and sent to search for this creature at its last known location. On top of the troops from the main base, those stationed at every other planet side location were also briefed on the situation and ordered to begin sweeping the caves and other such potential hiding spots.

The units that were assigned to keep an eye on some of the more active Zerg hives, were ordered to keep a lookout for the alien and report it immediately if the creature showed up. Those who had the ability to do so were ordered to nuke the mystery being on sight. "If there's anything left when we get through with this thing, you can try talking to that, okay Doc?"

Alex almost started laughing when he saw half of the men and vehicles in the base leaving, he didn't even have to read their minds to know where they were headed. The base was still well defended, but since they had no way of detecting him Alex was not concerned in the least, okay that's not true, he was cautious but really not worried about having to much trouble.

A marine, uncharacteristically, out of armor and just a little outside the bases walls, was grumbling to himself about being left out of the search for the so-called "Alien Invader", he didn't hear Alex walking up behind him, nor did he hear the Impaler Tendrils extending from Alex's' back.

"HHMMFF!" That was the only noise that escaped the marines' mouth before it was completely covered by the tendril that had rapped around his head. The ex-criminal didn't even have time to realize what had happened before the other seven tendrils ripped him to pieces.

The man that had just been torn limb from limb, looked himself over. "A default personality? I would have thought they could be a little more creative. Well, I guess it doesn't really matter. Now lets see what we can learn today."

Five hours after Alex had entered the base, he had managed to examine half the vehicles and most of the weapons still stored in the Armory and parked around the Command Center. The Barracks were interesting, he'd definitely have to find a use for some of that later. As it turned out, the marine he had consumed wasn't allowed in the Engineering Bay or the Ghost Academy, and he was closely watched in the Starport, they were mostly just worried he'd break something because the ex-convict marines weren't the most subtle or gentle individuals.

"Don't want to start eating people, that would definitely be noticed. Let's see if it works with just a complete DNA strand." Alex "tripped" as he walked by an Engineer, the two nearly fell and Alex made sure the young woman received only a small cut on her forearm, she didn't notice the thread like tendril extend from the "marines'" hand and siphon some of her blood as he pulled her to her feet. As the Engineer walked away, mumbling about klutzy meat heads, Alex scanned her memories and personality, it wouldn't do him much good to look like her if he couldn't think and act like her.

Finding an out of the way corner that wasn't in view of any cameras, Alex shifted his form to match that of the Engineer, it worked. "Good to know I don't have to just eat people right and left anymore, besides, it could be fun to have two of the same person walking around." Alex shifted back to the Marine and went to find the Engineer he would be impersonating, it would just complicate things if people started seeing her in two places at once, or worse, she could run into herself.

Alex found her coming out of a restroom, a quick check revealed no cameras watching that spot and a scan told him no one was in the immediate area. "Perfect."

"Excuse me, could I have a word with you?"

The Engineer turned around quickly, she hadn't heard anyone else in the hallway, and besides that, the voice she had heard sounded far to similar to her own. She near had a heart attack when she found herself standing only five feet from her. As the other hers' eyes glowed orange, she remembered everything she had heard and read about Changelings, her only thoughts before losing consciousness were, "What did I do to deserve this?"

Alex, as the Engineer, walked out of the young woman's room, hoping she would stay unconscious as long as he had intended. "Better hurry this along, even if she's out for hours I doubt I can keep people from noticing she's acting a little weird for too long."

It took Alex another three hours to study everything he could in the Engineering Bay, and another two hours to stealthily study the Ghost Academy. He was halfway done examining the Starport when an alarm went off. Apparently the woman he was imitating had woken up, and apparently everyone on the base had forgotten that a Changeling had to kill a person in order to become them. Alex did the only thing he could at the moment that didn't involve mass slaughter, he shifted into himself. Alex modified his clothing from memory to be what any ordinary worker on the base would be wearing and started projecting a "normal" thought pattern, while hiding his true thoughts under the false ones.

Alex reported for the mandatory scans being carried out by the Ghosts just like everyone else did, he also began passively altering memories so that no one would realize that they had never seen him before. When he was scanned he made sure the only thoughts the Ghost heard were those that would be expected in the given situation, and for good measure he added the thoughts that the female Ghost on the other side of the room looked really good in a skin tight body suit.

While the Ghosts were scanning people, Alex began doing the same, he had been copying the memories of everyone he encountered since he entered the base, but with almost everyone still present in one area it made things much easier, in a matter of minutes he knew everything that all of the people within sixty feet of him knew, he could sense people further away then that, but trying to scan them at that distance resulted in a garbled mess of thoughts that he had trouble understanding. "Still need more practice with that I guess."

The base was on high alert for the rest of the day and half the forces that had been deployed were called back, in case the Zerg attacked. Alex found out that the girl he had imitated was still being held under the suspicion that she may be a Changeling and had somehow hidden it from the Ghosts. Alex decided that since it was his fault he should do something about it.

When he had the chance, Alex shifted back into the girl and took off running toward a Supply depot carrying an armload of D-8 charges. Throwing the charges right and left as he headed for the Supply depot, so he was followed by a series of explosions and the shocked cries of those who saw what was happening.

The Supply depot Alex had chosen went down quick, before the building had even finished collapsing a storm of C-14 ammunition began tearing into Alex from three different locations, this was more annoying then threatening, but Alex had to treat it as a danger in order to keep up the act that he was a Changeling. Shifting into a protoplasmic state was actually amusing from Alex's' perspective, after all, if he wanted to he could show the Terran his "True" form.

Imitating a Changeling in appearance and behavior, Alex grew a crude bone blade in place of one arm and charged toward the Marines. While this was happening, Alex reformed outside the base in Armor Form and prepared to "Consume" the "Changeling" he had been "Following". "Time to see if all those acting classes someone else took paid off."

Alex leaped over the wall and crashed to the ground, leaving a decent sized crater where he had landed. The entrance got the attention of all those present, including the "Changeling". Before anyone could react to his arrival, Alex launched his Impaler Tendrils at the Biomass Puppet. What appeared to be a Changeling swung its' blade at the tendrils, but was far to slow too intercept the attack, all eight tendrils plunged into the "Changelings" protoplasmic body and began reabsorbing it into the main Blacklight mass, in seconds it was gone.

Alex looked around, at first this confused the humans, from what they could see this creature had no eyes, just as that thought crossed their minds though, Alex shifted three pairs of glowing red, eyes with slit pupils, on the smooth surface of his armored face, two where a human would have them, two more above those and two more just below the normal set.

Before an order could be given, or before someone did something stupid, Alex sent out a psionic pulse which gave those who could feel such things the impression that he was searching for something, everyone else just felt a little bit dizzy. Before anyone could figure out what the pulse had meant, Alex morphed his wings back into place and shot straight up into the air, stopping for a split second once he reached two-hundred feet, before taking off to the east at about four-hundred thirty-six miles per hour.

Alex had decided that he should probably leave the planet and find another place to get the information he had missed back at the base, the problem was how to do that, he knew how Zerg managed it, but the exact same method would be a little difficult for him to manage. After two hours of thinking and experimenting Alex thought he had a good way to get into space, it was going to be very fun to test the theory, and very unpleasant if it failed.

Having burrowed four-hundred fifty feet into the ground, Alex began setting up the delayed psionic fields he would use to gain the speed required to get into orbit where he could safely create a Warp Rift and leave the system. Once the psionic fields were set up, one every one-hundred feet with an extra one at the very top of the shaft, Alex began charging a full power Psionic Boost, as well as being ready for a full strength jump straight up the shaft he had dug. While preparing his jump, Alex created a "tunnel" of psionic power straight up one-thousand feet from his current position.

Alex shifted to his new Hardened Armor form and altered the shape as needed to make it more aerodynamic, and created a oval shaped Psionic Shield around himself. When he was ready, Alex jumped, released the Psionic Boost, and began drawing the psionic power from the "tunnel" he made behind him. Given how he had set things up, Alex knew he would be moving at about sixteen-thousand miles per hour once he exited the hole he was using as a "Psionic Accelerator Cannon", but even if he could maintain that speed it still wouldn't let him escape the gravity of the planet, to reach the speed he needed, Alex was going too use the "tunnel" as a slingshot, once he reached one-thousand feet he would be launched further into the air at twice the speed he was already moving. That was the plan anyway.

"Well, that almost worked, need to add a few more stages to the initial liftoff." Alex thought. He was now in a decaying orbit over the planet, in about ten minutes, maybe less, he would lose stability and plummet back to the surface. While he estimated that he had a 78.46% chance of survival, Alex didn't want to tempt fate anymore then he already was.

It took three minutes to put knowledge into practice, he had now opened a ten foot wide Warp Rift, propelling himself through the hole in the fabric of the universe, Alex left the planet behind to look for a new source of information.

"Collision Detected! Collision Detected!" The automated alert system continued to scream about the collision, that almost no one on the ship had felt, for another six minutes before the Captain got it to shut up. "Okay, does anyone have any idea what we hit?"

"No sir, there wasn't anything for us to hit. I think the ship's bugging up again." The navigation officer was very annoyed having his skills at his job questioned by a computer, there wasn't anything for them to hit, therefore it was not his fault.

"Alright, continue on course. Someone fix the damned computers, I don't want this to be a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" situation." Pirate or not, no captain likes having their ship functioning poorly, especially when their in an area known for attacks from the Zerg.

Alex crawled along the hull of the ship his Warp Rift had spit him out practically right in front of. It wasn't a very big ship, only about one-hundred or so crew members, it had no marks identifying it as one faction or another, and it seemed somewhat poorly maintained. One thing that did bother Alex, was the presence of almost four-hundred humans on the ship that only had room for one-hundred crew members, the thing that really got his attention was where he felt the minds of most of those people and the state it seemed they were in. "So, pirates selling people as test subjects for some Dominion science team? Well, I guess I've got my next destination, means of transport, and something "fun" to do until we get there."

"I'm telling you I saw something!" Being the most spineless person on the ship, the individual saying this was not taken seriously.

"Quit jumping at shadows and help me get this wiring finished, I don't want the computer telling us we're in an asteroid belt, when we're obviously not, anymore then the captain does." The crew was not evenly split, but there weren't that many more men on the ship then women, and most of the women were far more useful then the men, and much less easily spooked.

"I'm serious, there's something over there. What if it's a Ghost? They've got that cloaking thing right, what if one's over there?" The man was whispering now, he really didn't like the idea of a Ghost on the ship, or worse, one of those Changelings he'd heard about in a bar.

"Why would a Ghost be here you dumb-ass? What? They don't have better things to do then harass some pirates? I'm pretty sure the military has bigger shit to worry about then us. Besides did you forget who we're working for? If there is a Ghost on the ship, it's probably to make sure we stick to the deal." Almost everything the woman had said had been shouted, and the fact that she punctuated her last word by slamming the panel she was working at shut, made it clear she didn't care if there was a Ghost around.

"Why do we have to work with these people? Give my squad a ship and we could get twice as many subjects in half the time, but no, it has to be pirates and I had to be sent to keep an eye on them. If the eggheads are worried we're being cheated they shouldn't be using pirates as a delivery service." The Ghost assigned to watch the pirates was so caught up in her own thoughts she didn't notice the small 'thump' noise behind her.

"Well, if you want my opinion, I think that this whole operation needs to be shut down." Alex smirked when the Ghosts' thoughts became erratic, she had clearly forgot that she was holding what amounted to a small cannon masquerading as a sniper rifle.

Before the Ghost could panic and give away his presence, Alex severed her spinal cord and consumed her, catching her rifle before it could clatter to the floor. Alex had never liked having red hair, he had no problem with it on other people, but it just didn't fit on him, so he quickly shifted back to normal. "Time to make those horror movies some of 'them' were so fond of count."

Alex put the more 'frightening' aspects of the movies 'they' had watched to good use, in just three days he had more then half the crew convinced the ship was haunted, the other half believed there was at least one Ghost and one Changeling on board having some kind of covert war between each other. No one went anywhere alone and definitely not unarmed. They were three days from their destination and had not sent any communications to inform anyone of the situation aboard the ship, not that they could since Alex had ripped the transmission system to pieces not long after consuming the Ghost.

"We are not docking this ship until I know what's going on! Is that clear?" The captain was a wreck, he hadn't slept, had trouble eating as a result of the rather . . . disturbing images that plagued the entire crew when ever they tried to eat, constantly feeling like someone was watching them wasn't helping the crew either. Whenever someone did fall asleep, they woke up not long afterwards screaming about monsters and being eaten alive.

"Sir, what are we supposed to do? We can't trust anything we hear or see, hell I smell rotting meat right now, but there sure as hell isn't any in the room!" Similar thoughts were voiced by others in the room, though most of them were concerned that those weren't even their own thoughts.

"Sir please, we should just abandon the ship, the shuttles can..." The man who was speaking was cut off when the door to the meeting room burst open, and a tendril with a bone-like spear on the end punched straight through him. Barbs made of the same substance as the spear itself grew from the base of the spike facing in the opposite direction, burying themselves in the victims chest, when there was no chance of losing the target the tendril pulled him off his feet, out the door and around the corner. Moments after the remaining crew had began to wonder if what they had seen was another hallucination, a sickening crunching sound was heard, along with a splashing noise that some immediately recognized as the sound of blood, a lot of it, hitting metal.

"One."

Everyone on the ship, with the exception of those in the cargo hold, heard a deep, growling, voice, put a number to the first pirate to die that day. The voice wasn't through yet though.

"One down, but it didn't make me feel any better. I guess I'll just have to try again, 'If at first you don't succeed' and all that." That was all it took, the crew broke down into a terrified frenzy, running every which way, trying to be faster then their crew mates. When running from a predator, you don't have to outrun the predator, you just have to outrun the guy next to you.

Two of the pirates headed for the escape shuttles, they fought each other the whole way, hearing heavy footfalls behind them. Just as they reached the door to the small hanger, the woman elbowed the man in the face and opened the door, before the injured pirate could curse or attempt to retaliate, the woman screamed as three of the same tendril from before tore her to pieces, smaller tendrils branching from the larger ones to rip the remains apart even more.

"Two." Again everyone of the pirates heard the count.

The man with a broken nose turned and fled back the way he had come. Suddenly he heard a heavy crash on the floor just a few feet behind him, thinking he was about to be stabbed in the back, the man threw himself to the left and turned around, quickly emptying his gun into empty air.

"Nice try, but you missed." The voice came from right behind him, the last thing the man saw when he turned around was three pairs of glowing red eyes.

"Three."

For the next ten hours things continued in a similar pattern, pirates would try to escape the ship, or hide somewhere, then those still alive would hear "Four, that wasn't a very good hiding spot, I hope the rest of you are better at this then he was."

"Five. Hm? She actually put up a fight, maybe if you were all more like her this would be more fun."

"Ten. Really, who tries to flush themselves out through the toilet."

"Sixteen. Did you all know that one of you tasted like beef jerky dipped in blueberry juice?"

"Twenty-three. Okay, I'll be honest, that was absolutely pathetic, I've seen eggplants put up a better fight then that."

"Twenty-six. Alright, I can admit that that was a very good try, would have worked too if I had actually been in the room, okay that's not entirely true, I would have been outside for a bit, but that's where I started out anyway, but still a good try, I hope the rest of you can learn from her example, the plan and all that, not the whole being eaten like an olive thing."

"Thirty. Okay seriously, could the rest of you promise to die with a little dignity, I mean really, a big bad space pirate soiling himself? Really, I can't eat this. Anyone want to take bets on how long he'll last outside? I'm thinking ... Nevermind, he already imploded."

"Thirty-seven. That. Was. Absolutely. Unforgivably. Retarded. How could he have thought that that was going to work? I mean really, a pocket knife, two paper clips, and a hand grenade? Who did he think he was? MacGuyver?"

Understandably, the remaining crew of the ship were not the least bit comfortable with the situation, nearly half of them were dead, or at least they were fairly certain they were dead, it was hard to tell if the voice was serious or not. Even if the voice was lying about half of them, the other half had been witnessed by one crew member or another. They were all very, very, very scared, and it didn't help when the voice started singing.

"Total slaughter. Total slaughter. I wont leave a single man alive. La de da de die. Genocide. La de da de duh. An ocean of blood. Lets begin, the killing time"

Alex was glad he didn't need to breath, otherwise he would have suffocated from laughing so much, the pirates thoughts about the song were just to funny, he was glad one of those wannabe gangsters back in 2032 had been a fan of old anime.

"Fifty. About halfway to the finish, I hope you're planning on trying something a little more entertaining then running around like tuna with their heads cut off. You know, it just occurred to me that we haven't been properly introduced. I am Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser the third. Don't worry about forgetting that, everybody does, well that and I'm still going to kill you all in some of the most horribly unpleasant ways I can come up with."

"Wow! Fifty-three, Fifty-four, and Fifty-five all at once! That little failure right there deserves a Lemming Award."

"Okay, that's Sixty, but I can't really take credit for it. I guess that will teach him to open doors two of you are hiding behind wont it? While we're on the subject of shooting people just because they opened a door, I feel I should let you know that you really don't have any conventional weapons on this ship that are actually a threat to me."

"Sixty-eight. Alright, time out. Did anyone else notice that I haven't even been trying the last four times? Do you people even want to survive this? It really does seem like you're all just going through the motions. Don't tell me you've given up already. Look, I'll tell you what I'm going to do, before I kill you I'll let you take a guess at what I really am, anyone who can get it right I'll let them go, does that sound fair?"

"Okay, now that's just rude, half of you don't even respond, just because you're dead doesn't give you license to be jerks, and the rest of you think I'm lying. Tell you what, I'm going to give you a hint, I am not a vegetable or mineral. That narrows it down considerably wouldn't you agree? By the way Sixty-nine that was completely incorrect, I'd almost feel bad for you, if you hadn't always been such a moron anyway."

"No, I am not . . . Okay so I am crazy, but at least I'm not the one hearing voices in my head, seriously you're all nuts, if I were stuck on a spaceship with no way to call for help with a homicidal maniac trying to kill me, I wouldn't be the least bit concerned about whether or not hiding in the engine room was a good idea, I'd be much more concerned about the open vent I was sitting under in the engine room. On a related note Seventy, I am not the spawn of Satan and an octopus."

After nine hours and forty-eight minutes, there were only five very traumatized pirates left on the ship. The captain had managed to get the six of them together and to the bridge without incident, the voice had been silent for a while, but none of the five humans on the bridge thought the thing that had been terrorizing them was gone.

"Did any of you get a good look at this thing? If we know what it is, we should be able to figure out a way to stop it. It has to be vulnerable to something, did it avoid any area of the ship? Was it careful around any pipes or vents? Something!" The captain had definitely seen better days.

The pirates in the room couldn't think of anything, they had been far to busy freaking out to notice what the monster chasing them did and didn't like. One hand went up.

"Captain, I have a question, I think it's pretty important to."

"What is it? In case you didn't notice we're the only ones left on the ship!" He was not amused by the crewman's 'classroom' behavior.

"Well that's just it Captain. Didn't you notice that the last count was one-hundred thirty-two?" "Didn't you notice that the last count was one-hundred thirty-two?" The voice came from the mans' mouth and inside their heads at the same time. The crewman's eyes glowed red as his body fell apart and reformed at the same time, the end result was a creature with no mouth, six red eyes, and what seemed to be a combination of a bugs exoskeleton and a lizards scales instead of skin.

The screaming stopped almost as soon as it started. Alex stood with his arms crossed, as his tendrils ripped apart and consumed four of the five humans on the bridge, the captain he just held in the air with one tendril and stared at him.

"What did you think the numbering was for? Did it seem like I had trouble keeping track of you all? I thought that when you got a few of the survivors together I wouldn't be able to sneak in so easy, but not one of you realized that there was one to many people in the group. Really quite disappointing Captain."

"What are you?" It was gurgled more then spoken, but Alex heard it just fine. Placing seven of his Impaler Tendrils, the ones that were not occupied holding the captain in the air, in front of the mans chest, Alex used a blood sample he had discreetly acquired moments earlier, to shift into another shape.

"When you get to hell, or wherever people like you end up, ask them, if they don't tell you, remember to thank them for it." The last thing the captain saw before the tendrils tore him to pieces was his own face smirking at him.

"I think I've been avoiding people a little to long. I knew I was a bit out of it, but really, that was just weird." Alex, because there was nothing else to do on his way to the cargo hold, was going over what he had been doing for the last few days. He had reasoned that he was insane a long time ago, but now he just seemed deranged.

Once Alex reached the cargo hold and released the prisoners he was reminded that humans need food and water regularly, there wasn't much on the ship, and that had been before that one pirate had tried to launch him out an airlock. So, after explaining the situation to the passengers aboard his stolen ship, and telling them that they would still have to go without much food for a little longer, Alex started thinking about how best to deal with the research facility they were headed to.

"Excuse me? You said your name was Mercer right?" The man, who had been elected representative of the former prisoners, was uncertain how to approach the man who had apparently stowed away on the ship and killed off the pirates on his own, just so he could get into the facility they were currently headed to.

"Hm? Yes, that's right. Can I help you with something?" Alex had already decided to just go back to the same tactics he had used in Manhattan, so the interruption of his thoughts wasn't a problem.

"Well, first off, what do you intend to do with all of us?"

"Nothing. When we get to the facility just stay on the ship for a few minutes, when you don't hear anymore gunfire, or explosions, you can take the ship, the shuttles, or any vehicles in the hanger that still function, and leave. To be honest, it doesn't matter to me what you do, I just don't like people being experimented on, bad past experiences."

"So we're free to go?"

"As free as a human can be, yes. What you do with your lives is up to you, I just want to learn what I can from the facility, my last attempt at espionage had to be cut short, so I'm hoping I can make up for that where we're going."

"Alright. Is there anyway we could get more food or water? What we're eating now isn't much better then what we were given before you took over the ship."

"Well, I can think of a few solutions to that problem, but you wouldn't like any of them. We can't stop anywhere else, the facility is the closest outpost, once I'm done clearing out the first floor you could look for the kitchen or something. There would be more food in storage, but apparently, pirates think the best way to deal with stowaways is to try to shove them out airlocks without even making sure they're in the room yet."

"What about those solutions? Desperate people will do a lot to survive." The poor man was grasping at straws.

"The least unpleasant of the solutions I can come up with, is to just launch half of you into space. Fewer people, less need to ration supplies. That that is the least reprehensible of your options should give you an idea of what the other choices are."

"We can't do that! How could the other options be worse?"

"In general, the human race frowns on cannibalism. Tell you what, I'll push the ship full speed, it'll damage the ship, but we'll get there faster. After we get there though you'll have to find a different ship if you want to leave, this ones' engines will not be in any shape for interplanetary travel again without some serious work."

The comment about cannibalism had definitely done the trick, and saying he would speed up their travel had got the people on the ship to bother him less. Three days after the pirates had been dealt with, the ship arrived, hours ahead of schedule, this bothered the staff of the research base for two reasons, the first was that they had dealt with this man before and knew that he wouldn't arrive early if he could help it because he was being paid for his time as much as for the "cargo". The other reason they were concerned was that the ships weapons were armed.

Humming The Ride of the Valkyries, Alex opened fire on the interior of the hanger with all of the ships weapons, though there really weren't many, it was a modified freighter after all, not a battle ship.

When there wasn't any more he could do from inside the ship, Alex blew an emergency hatch and jumped out into the hanger, he wasn't worried about the people on the ship, they had the pirates' weapons, and it was unlikely anyone would bother trying to get on the ship when he was slaughtering his way into the base itself.

When what had sounded like a small scale war seemed to have ceased, the former prisoners cautiously exited the ship. What they saw was, among other things, terrifying. Bodies were laying around the hanger in various states, none of them good, one of the marines looked like he had been cleaved in half by a large blade, another was face down in a hole that seemed to have been melted into the floor by something acidic. All around the room there was conflicting evidence of how Alex had fought the soldiers who got in his way, dents in the floor, and people, from some heavy impact, signs of explosives and gunfire, there were even groups of spines, each one eight inches long, that appeared to be made of bone.

The room itself was in horrible shape, it looked as though it had been hit by multiple earthquakes, there were panels ripped off the floor, wires had been cut, pipes were leaking fuel and water, among other things, onto the floor. The most confusing thing was the fact that some of the marines armor suits were empty, there was blood on, and in, them, but there was no other sign of the men who had been wearing the armor.

"Bit of advice, get tougher doors." Alex shouted, calmly, as he smashed his way through another blast door that had been closed in an attempt to slow him down.

As Alex stepped into the hallway beyond the now warped and broken door, he was unsurprised to see twenty marines, ten kneeling in front of the other ten who were standing, lined up about fifty feet from him. Hardened Armor shifted into place just as the marines opened fire, the metal spikes that could tear through a couple inches of neo-steel ricocheted harmlessly of what amounted, proportionally, to warship hull plating. Alex walked toward the marines as they continued to fire, reloading and edging backwards down the hall. The Hardened Armor was far more durable then his normal armor, but it was also far heavier, his top running speed was reduced from a few hundred miles per hour to only twenty, but the protection the armor provided was an even trade off for the speed.

The marines were now backed up against another blast door, and Alex was only twenty or so feet from them. "Better luck in your next lives guys." Alex launched all eight Impaler Tendrils at the trapped soldiers, he ended it quick, they may have been criminals before they were 'recruited' but that was no reason to make them suffer, besides he was in a hurry.

"Please, I'll do whatever you want, tell you anything, just don't kill me!" This was the fifth time Alex had heard the same pathetic whining from one of the researchers, they didn't seem to understand that he didn't want, or need, them alive. The man gurgled loudly as Alex shoved his hand straight through his heart.

And that's that. For now anyway.

Okay, I was going to explain a few things, but I forgot what they were. If you have any questions, please just think a bit and I'm sure you can figure out why Alex did this or said that, or how he managed to create the new weapons and such. If I came to those conclusions then I'm sure the rest of you can to. Just a note about the wings Alex grew, they are not the same as Mutalisk wings, when I wrote that I was thinking of Draco's wings from the movie Dragonheart. The "Bio-mass Puppet" ability is a less refined form of something else Alex will be capable of later, right now all he does is remove all the infectious aspects of the virus from some bio-mass, and then control it with his psionic power, hence the Bio-mass Puppet title, later he will be able to control multiple puppets at once. When the ability has been refined a bit, Alex will basically be a walking hive cluster.

The 'them' Alex was referring to are the people he has consumed, odds are some of them were fans of horror movies. 'Frightening' in a relative sense, do you think Alex would be afraid of Jason? Freddy? Yeah, the guy that's pretty much 40% nightmare fuel doesn't have any reason to be afraid of horror movie villains or monsters.

I sadly am not up to date with the Starcraft universe and do not know how half of the things in it function, some of the things in here should make that quite obvious. The Warp Rift that dropped Alex in the sector in the first place can be explained in a lot of different ways, but no matter what, Alex was not brought there intentionally by any force native to that particular universe, unless it was random chance or something.

I wrote half of this trying to force the point that Alex is capable of a lot more then charging forward killing everything that moves, his powers were great for stealth and infiltration before, with the Zerg genetics added in he would just get better.