Disclaimer: This fanfic takes place in an alternate universe and adopts the basic features of the StarCraft setting to tell a brand new story.

Somewhere on Chau Sara, fourth quarter of 2499 A.D.

I awoke to a sensation of warmth and wetness. I raised my trembling limbs to push away the cotton surrounding me. It gave way, crumbling before me like dust on the wind.

A voice like thunder, deeper than the sea, loyal and fulfilling, boomed in my mind. "Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind; the eternal will of the Swarm, and that you have been created to serve me," it said.

The egg shell split open like an overripe fruit and exposed my new, lidless sets of eyes for the first time. I heard a voice, not in my delicate cochlear hairs, but echoing through my mind. It was deep as the sea, warm and comforting. Not knowing the source, I looked up in confusion... and saw an eye. A great lidless eye hung from the ceiling, suspended by thick pink muscles. Its golden iris was crowned by a black ellipse that glanced around and blinked at me.

I lifted my trembling legs to pull myself forward and slithered along my rubbery tentacles. I bowed his head in supplication, not really knowing why. "Thank you, Overmind, for birthing me," I replied.

"Behold that I shall set you amongst the greatest of my Cerebrates, that you might benefit from their wisdom and experience. For you support them as they carry forth my will to the innumerable broods."

The chamber around me was vast, dotted with violet crystals that cast a comforting glow. The walls were brown chitin and breathed with a life of their own. All around me I could see numerous green sacs, small wriggling creatures and the occasional bleached skull. I had a strange feeling then, like I sat not in the same place where my eyes were attached. The sacs and wrigglers felt like… I could feel their sensations, like they were part of me.

"I have found a race that may yet become the greatest of my warriors. These Terrans are generations away from developing formidable sorcery, but until then are they hardly capable of defending themselves against my ravenous children. Go forth, my child, and take your place amongst the Swarm."

Knowledge flooded my mind unbidden. I knew that voice, its nature, its purpose, my purpose. My senses expanded beyond the chamber, into other chambers, into the outside. I saw the shattered remains of a great beast of glass and light. I saw structures of glass and metal, metal cages on rubber wheels, blood-stained bodies sprawled across black rivers firm as stone, and trails of smoke rising high into the sky from countless fires. I saw numerous chittering beasts of flesh and chitin marching through the ruins, from the smallest crawling things with needle teeth to great beasts with gnashing scythes. The skies were aflame with the cries of flapping things and great crustaceans bloated with buoyant gases.

Another voice entered my mind, jolting me from my wonder.

"I thought you would never come, little brother! I am Jormungand. Twas my Brood that sired you and yours, inheriting my colors. As your senior, responsibility falls on myself to instruct you in the ways of our kind. Shall we begin?"

I did not feel confusion, nor did I not question my circumstances. I was eager to serve our father with all my strength. Where my father's voice was deep and broad, Jormungand's was light and airy as it echoed across my thoughts.

"Excellent," he replied, though I did not remember answering. "Here is your first lesson, remember it well. You are never alone: you are legion, for your Brood is many. Feel what they feel, see what they see. "

My senses receded to the immediate outskirts of my chambers. I raised a half-dozen spidery limbs and tapped the flesh surrounding me. It was soft and yielding to my touch. I turned my triangular head back and forth, my ring of eyes scanning the chamber and the tendrils at my mouth tasting the myriad scents in the air. I rose and crawled forward on a mass of tentacles, observing my surroundings with interest. This body was cradled deep within a vast structure shaped like a flower… my Hatchery. I quickly became aware of other structures, gigantic organs connected by a thick mat that grew across the ground.

I sensed other chambers, a network of them crossed beneath the ground. The ribbed walls resembled crustaceans and sloped toward the center of my chamber. Dozens of chitinous creatures scuttled through the tunnels connected to it throughout the hive cluster. All of the creatures chattered excitedly, no matter where they were. Bloated sacs hung from the walls and ceiling, or sat serenely on the floors, writhing internally.

Before I could realize what was happening, I felt a sensation of lightness. The fleshy walls around me began contracting. Lubricating mucus bubbled from orifices in the walls, floors and ceilings. I felt himself being pushed along at a leisurely pace. I shrugged and smiled as the nydus tunnels responded to my will without conscious thought. I saw a light ahead and my passage through the tunnel slowed. With a plop, I was deposited into the outside world. I rose on my strengthening limbs and beheld my colony.

Beside the flower, a clutch of arachnids with distended heads tended to a mass of glowing, pulsating, tumorous growths… my Swarm Queens. Above the flower, I saw a clutch of arachnids gliding through the air on webbing between their legs… my Brood Queens. Just further on, high above the organ fields, a few of the great crustaceans floated serenely… my Overlords. Like the sacs and larvae around me, I could feel these things. These were my kindred. I knew what they were, yet their function eluded me.

"The Hatchery is the heart of any hive cluster," Jormungand explained. "It acts not only as a resource return point and processing center, but it produces the Larvae from which all other Zerg are spawned. This system of creation is both an advantage and a drawback as all production is necessarily centralized. Great care must be taken to guard the Hatchery, and it is advisable to quickly create new hatcheries for increased larvae production."

I too must have began life as a larvae, even if I did not remember it. I gazed upon my new brood and beamed.

"We Cerebrates maintain a constant psionic link with our servants, but we must use secondary agents to directly relay our commands to the myriad breeds of the swarm. For the defense and productivity of the immediate Hive, we turn to Queens. They oversee Drone activity and keep a vigilant watch over maturing Zerg through instinctive telepathy."

When I called out I found these little sisters quite intelligent, yet they were completely loyal to me. Once I gave them a directive they would continue to fulfill it indefinitely, absent my conscious input, until I gave them another. Steadily the larvae spawned within my Hatchery would leave the warm confines and exit into the open air. At my command, relayed by the Queens, they would draw upon their latent genetic instructions and enter cocoons; from these would hatch the Drones, resource gatherers.

I directed my few Queens to oversee the mining of nearby mineral deposits. Controlling my Brood came instinctively. I telepathically broadcasted my commands to my Queens, which relayed them to larvae, which would metamorphose into Drones, which would start gathering resources. I gathered a fair amount, I thought. It was then that my brother saw fit to teach me more.

"Each larva contains within it the genetic makeup of every other Zerg breed," he explained. "A young hive will only have the transcription factors for the most basic of Zerg breeds, such as the Drone, but as it grows and develops new structures, the larvae can expand their library of strains and adaptations." He directed my attention to my Drones. "Drones are engineered with the larvae's ability to break down their own genetic coding and transform themselves into rudimentary Zerg structures. They are single-minded about their tasks, diligently working even through raging combat."

Again I directed my Queens, this time to produce simple structures like spawning pools and hydralisk dens. The drones implanted themselves into the ground and formed gigantic glistening cysts, not unlike the smaller cocoons formed by larvae. The movements of the embryos within their amniotic fluid were hypnotic and soothing, even though I did not see them with my own three pairs of eyes.

"Contained within the primordial ooze of the Spawning Pool is the basic transcription sequence of the most prolific of the warrior breeds, the ravenous Zergling. Once grown, the Spawning Pool provides this information to any Larvae produced by the same cluster, allowing them to metamorph into Zerglings. Because the genetic code of the Zergling is so simple to replicate, a single Larva can spawn two separate Zerglings."

The Hydralisk Den and other structures worked along the same principle. For a moment I wondered why it was called a Spawning Pool when it did not produce larvae, or a Hydralisk Den when hydralisks did not sleep inside. Jormungand felt my puzzlement and answered accordingly.

"In earlier iterations of our evolution the larvae did not contain the genomes of all breeds and their birthing was not centralized at the hatchery. Indeed, each structure contained the genome of its associated breed and alone birthed the larvae which spawned that breed."

Satisfied by the answer, I commanded my Queens to grow clutches of zerglings and hydralisks. Meanwhile, my mandibles clacked in confusion when when one of the Drones failed to metamorphose. Jormungand chuckled. After a moment I too felt the urge to laugh. So I did.

"A transforming Drone needs the Creep to provide nourishment and mass to support its new form," he explained. "Our structures are effectively giant organs, making a colony a living creature. To provide the required nourishment and infrastructure, we produce a living carpet of bio-matter."

So my hive cluster was an extension of myself, then? I glanced around my hive cluster and noticed the purple, glistening mass that covered the ground. It fed into my existing existing structures, into my Drones and Larvae. Even within the Hatchery I could feel the touch of it beneath me, warm and nourishing.

"Creep, produced by both Hatcheries and the aptly named Creep Colonies, will spread rather quickly across any fertile ground. The Hatchery is the only structure that can be built without the benefit of existing Creep since it has been genetically designed to automatically produce enough to fuel its own growth. The Creep itself is extremely durable and capable of near-instantaneous regeneration, only retreating from infested ground when a Hatchery or Colony is destroyed."

All Zerg are dependent upon the creep for nourishment, I learned. When we arrived in the Koprulu sector over a decade ago, we began our invasion by seeding the Terran worlds with spores. The first series of spores germinated within the topsoil and grew into creep. Once sufficiently nourished, the second series of spores would mature into sessile fruiting bodies and mobile fruits which would sustain and extend that creep. Once the creep had grown sufficiently, the third series of spores—egg capsules—would develop into larvae, feederlings, broodlings, and other foundational organisms. After the vanguard had reached critical mass, we would descend from orbit to plant hive clusters and spawn higher strains.

Several sunrises passed as Jormungand explained to me the basics of our kind, how to forage, how to breed. Another voice entered my mind, high and piercing, jarring me from my examination.

"Greetings, I am Garm. I too am a Cerebrate of the Overmind," he said.

All at once images sailed past my sight. I saw bountiful farms, glittering beaches, breathtaking plains, steaming jungles, lush pastures, bustling harbors, towering cities, rippling oceans, marble courthouses, whispering forests... all of them were aflame in a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom as my brethren roamed the lands. My brother spoke clipped and to the point.

"The Swarms have crushed the meagre terran resistance and laid waste to this world. Now our brethren weed out their remaining forces," explained Garm. "I have located a small band of terrans who could threaten your hive cluster. You must not allow them to leave here alive," he added.

Immediately I was aware of the general location of these terrans, perhaps less than a dozen klicks away. I did not know who they were or where they came from. All I knew was that they were my enemies and must be destroyed.

"As the cleverest among us, Garm leads our Primary Assault Force," explained my tutor. "Terrans are gifted with technology and proved troublesome for our Vanguard, but they lack unity and turn upon one another in lean times. Our brother's underlings excel at hit and run raids, relying chiefly upon surprise to throw enemy forces into total chaos. We direct the Primary Support Force, called upon to follow his preemptive strikes and pacify all other resistance to the Swarm."

So that was my purpose then, the purpose of all descended from my elder brother? Yet I was stymied! How was I to destroy these terrans, feeble as they must have been? I had yet to be instructed in the ways of warcraft.

"Do you not see, little brother?" asked Jormungand. "They are your eyes, your skin, your limbs... and if need be, your fists. Yet be careful! Treat each underling with great care, for each loss shall reverberate in the very core of your being. For you are the Brood: as it grows, so shall you."

Unconsciously the clutches of zerglings and hydralisks I had spawned began chittering and cavorting madly, reflecting my own thoughts. I turned my attention back to my hive cluster, eager to learn more about my capabilities. My brother would happily oblige.

"The Queen usually stays near the central hive since her lightly armored body leaves her vulnerable to attack," he explained. "Overlords keep the warriors of the swarm ordered and coordinated during battle, and with their enhanced senses they often serve as advanced scouts. As your forces grow in number, you must hatch more Overlords to control them."

I had already learned how to direct my Drones through my Queens. I had already grown many clutches of Zerglings and Hydralisks; the Overlords were awaiting my orders. Sending them after our foes would not be so different from what I had already done. At once I commanded my Overlords to lead an assault against the nearby Terrans. The ruins around us provided little obstacle to my ravenous kin and they jumped and slithered across streets and ramps toward their targets. Even as I did so, I commanded my Queens to produce more warriors. When a clutch reached a preset quota, it would be sent out to reinforce the front lines.

When the first Zerglings exploded in showers in gore, I quailed and whimpered. An explanation came to me unbidden. This new sensation was pain, the response that warned us against injury. My minions did not pause or hesitate, they kept running at our foes. The Terran marines fired metal slugs which tore through my minions' chitin, but our claws and spines were easily a match for their artificial metal armor.

Within a day, my first enemies were overwhelmed through sheer force of numbers and their metal structures were torn down into so much burning rumble. Their defenders would not last much longer and provided little challenge. I thought this a pity, but I did not question my good fortune.

"Well done, youngling! As you have aptly demonstrated, primary support relies on strength of numbers and brute force to overcome any foe and excels at ground-based combat and direct unit-to-unit warfare. Our hive clusters produce new Zerg even in the midst of a pitched battle, confounding our foes with a seemingly endless supply of warriors."

I was overjoyed to hear this, but my joy quickly turned to terror. Dark shadows swooped from the sky to assault my hive cluster, revealing themselves as metal birds that spewed death. Light itself danced around their forms, obscuring their visage from lesser senses. My minions were occupied with the Terran base, so I was defenseless. One of my queens shrieked in terror and tried to flee, only to explode in a shower of gore. I felt her pain and squealed myself. Where was my brother?

To my surprise and relief, a clutch of orange flying creatures swooped down from the skies. They spewed spinning blades that sliced through the metal birds like soft meat, that bounced off one to hit two birds at once! Within moments the metal birds were surrounded and destroyed. My fear evaporated and my queens squealed with glee.

"As you have just witnessed, Cerebrate, neglecting your defenses may prove fatal. I anticipated this and acted accordingly," said Garm.

I did not understand. Why would my brother refrain from warning me? Did he set me up to fail? Was I unworthy? I shuddered and groaned.

"Cease your bleating, child. You were never in any real danger, for I never expected nor desired you to succeed on your first skirmish."

"That was not necessary, Garm," said Jormungand, echoing my own thoughts. "Fear is an inefficient tool of management. Our loyalty to the Overmind is its own reward."

"You coddle the little ones too much, Jormungand. The four pains that rule the universe—agony, anguish, misery, and despair—are no less teachers than we. Death is inconsequential, flesh a mere vessel, for every martyr ensures our future and returns again in times yet to be."

At that moment I felt a new sensation, as though a phantom stood before me and caressed my mandibles. I purred at the feeling and knew instantly that Garm touched my mind.

"Fret not, my brother," he said. "This is a learning experience: we learn from failure and necessity, not success and adequacy. Never forget that simple truth, for the Swarms would not improve otherwise."

Garm was cruel, but he was kind too. He did not warn me of pain until after the fact, yet he prepared a rescue from that same pain. I wondered how anything could embody two opposites at the same time.

I continued to grow my brood under Jormungand's instruction and I learned much in the short time since my birth and during the days that followed. There were dozens of different breeds and strains within the extended Swarm, most of which I would need not employ. Different broods specialized in specific and possibly unique strains, as befit their primary directive. Regardless of their diversity, all strains could be divided into three basic classes that determined the parameters for their abilities, actions and intelligence. These were minion, specialist and command. Overlords, queens and infestors were command strains, while drones, zerglings and hydralisks were minion strains. I did not yet command any specialist strains. Minion and specialist strains obeyed orders from command strains, while command strains answered directly to myself. The command strains, as my direct subordinates, were the most intelligent of the Zerg strains next to the cerebrates. I needed only give them a directive and they would fulfill it without further instruction.

I recalled that Jormungand told me to take care of my underlings, that I was them and they were me. When I fought the Terrans I had felt their pain, their fear, their thirst for meat. When they died I quailed, their deaths quite literally reverberated through me. What was the nature, the origin, of this connection?

"Your curiosity knows no bounds, does it? Ah, to be young again." My brother sighed and supplied the answers. "We Cerebrates are made in the image of the Overmind: each of us a soul with many bodies, a nation unto ourselves. Our father saw fit to grant us personal vessels, neotenous larvae with vastly enlarged neural tissue. In this manner we find it easy to maintain self-awareness and direct our Brood. By we have ever refined ourselves, and the more vicious of your brothers lead their broods into battle."

My mind burned with questions. Why the Overmind created us, our purpose for being here, what I should expect in the future… My brother felt my thoughts and soothed my curiosity.

"An exceedingly powerful race lives near the galaxy's fringe, on a distant and isolated planet called Aiur," explained Jormungand. "We know them only as the Protoss, the First Born."

First Born? Born of who?

"You seek too far ahead, Jormungand. You have not explained how things came to be," came the voice of Garm.

"Must you always question our methods?"

"Indeed I must. Is that not why I was born? Without knowing your flaws, how am I to serve alongside you most efficiently?"

Jormungand paused for a moment. "Speak… truth."

So Garm began his tale.

"Long before the legacy of the Zerg, even before the creation of the Overmind, there existed the Xel'naga: beings possessing powers so immeasurable, they were able to create entire races—such as our own. The Protoss too were created by the Xel'naga. They were the first creation, gifted with a purity of form. And we were the second creation, blessed with a purity of essence. Indeed, our two species are but opposite facets of a greater whole."

At this Jormungand interjected, "Did I not bid you speak truth and only truth?"

"I do! Tis all true," whined Garm.

"Literally, perhaps. Yet the Protoss sullied their purity of form with individual egos, warring against their gods and provoking the Xel'naga into fleeing into the void of space. They do not now possess that purity, if ever they did. Nor did the Xel'naga create races: they steered the evolution of that which already existed. On the ashen wastelands of Zerus, they uplifted an insignificant burrowing parasite into the doom of worlds. So humble was the beginning of ones such as we."

Garm scoffed and continued. "As you wish, I shall bore our little brother with the details. Our makers gazed upon our glory and declared us the perfect lifeform. We exceeded their expectations, we consumed them, and ultimately we surpassed them."

"Such memories!" cried Jormungand, his voice burning with desire and nostalgia. "We consumed Zerus and the whales from beyond the stars! When the Overmind turned its gaze upon the world ships in orbit, twas we sent against that awful might. The first of the brotherhood that now spans the stars! Under Tiamat's wisdom we led our billions upon billions against those mighty hulls. Beaten and battered, we never shied away! He found their weaknesses and we tore through their sorceries like meat and sinew. We partook the fruit of wisdom, knowledge and eternal life. We feasted upon the souls of gods and became as they."

I could scarcely imagine it even with the memories streaming before me. Great windowless vessels of basalt hanging in the skies, glowing with the bluish light of arcane runes. Billions of my brethren carried by leg and wing, streaming forth as a great horde only to burn under the light of a thousand suns! What a cruel universe, I proclaimed, that I could never partake of these events myself. I wondered what glory was denied me then and wept.

"Twas only the beginning," said Garm, assuaging my sorrow. "For millennia we refined their knowledge and sought to complete the Grand Experiment they had abandoned. We will assimilate the Protoss, cleanse their impurity, and evolve beyond our makers' wildest dreams. We will remake the universe in our image."

"Now tis not you who seek too far? You speak of things yet to come," said Jormungand. "How are we to defeat the Protoss? They are a highly psionic race, able to bend and warp the very fabric of reality to their whims." His tone became sombre. "Millennia ago we were destined to meet them in apocalyptic conflict, yes, yet we cannot combat them on our terms. For eons we fruitlessly sought a way to counter their awesome might… the Overmind itself stood upon the precipice of despair!"

We who were akin to gods stood nary a chance, for these Protoss were indeed that terrible? Our father, who was god to a god, truly feared them that much? I shuddered and groaned. My brood chittered in terror, from the largest overlord to the smallest zergling.

"Fear not! When we thought all was lost, our deep space probes made a startling discovery! A race that occupied a series of nondescript worlds, right under the shadow of the Protoss. 'Tis Providence, my brother!"

My terror froze instantly and my brood with it. Terrans, humanity, whatever they called themselves was irrelevant. I wondered about the importance of these feeble creatures. I bade my brothers remove the scales from my eyes.

"They are short-lived, frail, hardly capable of defending themselves against us... but mere generations away from developing into a formidable psionic power that far exceeds our own. They are the final determinant in our victory over the Protoss. "

I listened intently as the history of my kind was made known to me. Not only the tales of my brothers, but the memories that were passed down through the hives from parent to child.

My elder brothers were born on Zerus, a volatile, irradiated ash world somewhere near the galactic core. For thousands of years my people, the Zerg Swarm, traveled the stars. We consumed countless worlds: species after species, ecosystem after ecosystem, biosphere after biosphere.

All of this mayhem and destruction served a single purpose: we prepared for war the likes of which the galaxy had never seen before, and likely never would again. On the galactic fringe there lived a race called the Protoss, the "first born," who could warp reality itself to their will. We stood no chance against them, so we searched tirelessly for something, anything, which could turn the tide of the coming war in our favor.

I recalled the memories of my ancestors, almost as though I had lived through it. I saw endless fields of ash and storms of fire, blisteringly hot and dry. Tiny worms crawled in the dirt, burrowed into larger creatures, and molded their hosts into clawed, armored beasts. Many minds became as one; a single overriding will imposed order on the chaos of organic evolution. The Overmind was born.

Floating, bloated lobsters descended from the sky, calling out for deliverance. Tusked, spidery creatures tended to masses of eggs, eyestalks waving frantically. Great whales sailed through the void on wide, flat fins, following a song that they barely understood. Grey fields of fungus, algae and lichen grew across the ashen wastes, drawing nutrients from the soil and giving sustenance to my kind.

Gigantic structures of metal and crystal hung in the sky like rocks did not. Billions of my kindred bashed themselves against the hulls, dying in droves so that their sacrifice would bring victory. Information flooded their senses as the alien minds were consumed and dissected. They learned of the Protoss and their power to warp reality at whim. They felt fear and longing.

The Zerg left our home world behind, a desolate waste that would never again sustain life. For countless millennia they traveled the stars and consumed every species in their path. They sent probes into the depths of space to find yet more to consume. They found nothing that could counter their destined enemy, and they wept in despair. Now, something had changed. Hope was born.

Now we descended upon the worlds of the Koprulu sector, where dwelt a species our deep space probes had determined possessed the qualities we desired. This species called itself "humanity" or "Terran," and they would honored with the greatest of all the gifts the Zerg could bestow: they would be infested by our toxins, their genomes would be assimilated, and their descendants would live forever among the stars.

I shuddered with ecstasy as I imagined myself spreading the blessed word of the Overmind to these, poor, wretched pagans. Even in the mere sixty of their years it took for my egg to travel here, which was nothing to the eternal Zerg, generations of humans had lived and died. Their lives were short, pathetic, and full of disease, starvation and infighting. Their existence was an endless black parade of pain, misery and suffering. To be human was to be doomed to an agonizingly lengthy and tormenting demise.

I wondered what they would think once they had the blessed word running through their veins. Would they thank me for delivering them from evil? Would they cower in awe before the might of their new gods? Would kneel and pledge their allegiance and devotion? Few of the species we had consumed were so intelligent, so each one was a unique experience. Each of them had a unique viewpoint, shaped by millions of years of evolution and psychology. The Zerg were unified by the drives and instincts ingrained into our genetic acids since our birth on Zerus, almost unable to conceive of anything outside of those, so these new perspectives were invaluable to us.

"Our enemies arrive! The protoss are coming!" cried Garm.

Indeed?! I had lost all track of time. We had encountered their scouts quite recently. They were truly formidable and won every ground battle. Yet our numbers were endless and theirs were not. As we feared, this was no obstacle to them. Even now I could see their golden armada circling Chau Sara and settling into a regular formation. The terrans proved no obstacle, for their ships were destroyed in moments. Foolishly, I saw that they had attacked first.

The protoss were aware of us and must have been for some time. They must have discovered our deep space probes and extracted the rudimentary knowledge those contained. Time was no longer on our side. I turned my head to the stars and beheld the end of this world.

"Stay your hand, my children," commanded the Overmind. "To defeat our enemy, we must know their capabilities."

Great pillars of light shot down from the heavens, and flayed Chau Sara to the bone. I heard my countless brethren scream in agony as the flesh was seared from their bones. Their voices went silent as quickly as they cried out. Chau Sara was destroyed in a matter of moments, reduced to a burning hulk of carbon, silicon and traces of other elements.

I was among them, so I knew only darkness.

A/N: Zerg broods have multiple names. Their autonym is their name for themselves, such as Daggoth, Nargil, Zasz, Araq and Auza; these are typically styled after Sumerian or Hungarian names. Their xenonym is the name applied to them by terrans, such as Tiamat, Fenris, Garm, Jormungand and Incubus; these are typically taken from monsters in terran mythology. In the story I will be translating their names as the latter because those are readily recognizable and convey cultural impression.