Rise of a queen
Hive Cluster
Raymon and Jake didn't expect to find an active Zerg base inside the cave. Much more surprising was the fact that the Hatchery illuminated the entire area in a violet light. It looked exactly like in the game, the colors being at the spots where they were in the game. The day before they had still been orange. Jake preferred blue, while Raymond's favorite color was green.
"What are they doing?" Jake pointed at the Drones working on the wall and transporting rocks away into a corner, where they got melted into some kind of mass by one of the Drones spitting on the stuff.
"Hmm, I guess when I want to renovate my home then I'll just need to ask Laura for some Drone helpers." Ray joked, nervously looking at the working Drones. His gaze fell onto the Overlord, which just looked at the visitors and floated at the ceiling. "It's almost as if the creep is breathing." Raymon noted absent minded. "As if this whole situation wasn't creepy enough. No pun intended." Jake added quickly. "When the government finds out about this, we'll be in trouble."
Jake snorted at that statement. "Who are they going to send, X-COM? Zerglings can bite through armor of Space Marines. Mutas can keep up with Protoss Phoenix and Terran Wraith. No jet on earth should be a problem. And Nukes? The explosion might kill a few thousand, but radiation does shit on Zerg with their regeneration ability."
"On them yes, but what about us humans?" Raymond asked. "If one government is ever pushed far enough to use nuclear weapons, the humans will get into the crossfire. Be it the actual explosion or the radiation." He stated as a matter of fact calmly, not showing his hidden worry.
"If humans who don't fight will be sparred that is." Both friends looked over to the big pulsing cocoon. Aside from growing bigger, there was no sign of any progress in Laura's transformation. There also was no sign of her personality having changed, since the Zerg weren't attacking. But Drones were not exactly known as fighters anyway. There was much more to discuss but without seeing the results of Laura's transformation it wouldn't bring them anywhere anyways. The toughest part would be anyway to show humanity that the Zerg were only there to correct some flaws, by three totally biased opinions mind you. Hey, no one's neutral, except he's a selfish jerk.
Raymond and Jake went outside and placed themselves outside the entrance. Ray had the opportunity of drinking beer, while Jake was restricted from alcohol, 'cause he needed to drive. During his driving lessons he had enough almost accidents and he wouldn't take any risks. So he took the next best stuff from beer: coke.
"You know, we probably won't have to fear X-COM, but more likely Zerg-hater-Korean-players." Jake and Raymond laughed. The brown haired young man thought about this statement. "I've heard the US-government is checking the scores of CoD, Battlefield and whatnot players, because they're working on those robots going into a fight."
"Video game players? Are they nuts? Just imagine: a rocket noob user." the black haired young man remembered the times he played CoD.
"Can I have mine in stormtrooper skin?" Ray mimicked the stereotypical nerd.
"You know how they're going to pay them? Free WoW accounts."
"And junk food."
"Junk food."
"Cheers." Both raised their drinks and emptied their bottle and can.
Hours passed with them doing nothing more than talking about funny rumors, which were mostly about different militaries of certain countries. The failed rocket launch of North Korea was their latest laugh, when they started eating their lunch. Jake made a few self-made sandwiches back at his workplace. He was actually only allowed to eat one thing free for the entire work day, which technically includes 1 kilogram bread. But his boss broke that rule more than one time herself. Everyone broke that rule.
A few more hours past, every twenty minutes they checked on the cocoon from the inside. Ten minutes after they last checked both felt something tugging their shirts. Turning around with their heads, they found one of the Drones standing behind them and pointing towards the cave. Both humans looked at each other, thinking the same thing: Here it goes.
The two followed the Drone inside the cave. The cocoon was rumbling violently. Instinctively the two took a few steps back. It didn't take long until Laura freed herself from the cocoon releasing an invisible wave of psionic energy knocking her two friends out. Later they would say, their brains felt like they'd been turned into liquid, sucked up by a black hole and danced a tango with a Hydralisk.
Laura looked down at her new body. It looked exactly like the body of the queen of blades. She could feel her skeleton like wings on her back, the creep under her feet (with the high heel feature?) and most importantly she felt like she could flick over a mountain.
With her claw like finger she went over the scales on her body. They weren't exactly thick or anything, but felt harder than metal. It felt like she could now withstand an explosion. Speaking of explosions, how the hell could she activate her new psi abilities and moreover, what kind of abilities did were inside her? She couldn't wait to unleash a small apocalypse upon her enemies.
The familiar picture of the HUD appeared inside her mind. It showed her body, along with her DNA strains. There were a few strains which looked a lot different from the others, but in general were still Zerg. She asked for an explanation inside her mind and was almost shocked when the information appeared in her mind: these were primal Zerg strains! Were the hell did they come from?!
Only one way to find out.
Laura could feel the hive. She had all the memories of each Zerg that ever lived. In theory she only needed to implant the memories of a veteran Zergling into a larva before allowing her to transform and wham: you had Rambo.
Speaking of memories, the hive couldn't give her a straight answer. It couldn't give her an answer at all, which unnaturally pissed her off for some reason. Sensing her anger the hive gave her a quick answer: to put it simple, the memory was 'corrupted' like a safe file of a computer program, when you shut down during saving.
Aside from some blurry images of the space, including a few large objects and some noise, there was nothing she could make out.
Like a trauma. She thought. It looked like the Zerg REALLY got defeated somehow. She tipped on some kind of psi-weapon.
Satisfied with the explanation, Laura returned to reality. Her body functions and possible improvements could wake. She found her two friends knocked out on the ground, with psi energy around them (invisible for the human eye). Almost on auto pilot, she kneeled down and put her hands on her friends' foreheads. Before she could think on her own, a Terran Starcraft menu opened up inside her mind, showing her the two brains of her friends. Their cells were reorganizing themselves, following a certain patters.
A memory from a (now dead) infested Terran scientist showed her that she accidentally unlocked psi abilities inside her friends' minds. The two were becoming ghosts or spectres. All of them liked Tosh more than Nova.
Seeing as her friends were out cold for who know how long, Laura found herself with a problem. She couldn't bring them into hospital, without causing a panic, probably worldwide. Well, every single Starcraft fan would be alarmed. Thinking about a way to bring them to the hospital without anyone noticing her, like placing them on a nearby street, an information popped up in her head: a Queen would be able to help. A Queen was able to interact with the Hatchery and used some of it functions Laura had no idea they existed.
Basically Laura could do it too, but she was inexperienced. Genes included a lot of complex chemicals, not to mention DNA-strains were more sensitive than a newborn. One wrong move and she would kill her friends.
Right, originally she planned on having her friends bringing her some, okay a lot of meat to her from the shops, but that plan was ruined. Her Drones weren't exactly hunters. Using her Overlord to overview the area was way too risky, thanks to modern technology. Planes, balloons, satellites, for each of those things she could find reasons to take pictures.
In the end it meant she would have to go hunting herself, but there were multiple problems with that idea. First, she was a city girl. The only things she knew about nature, were some facts she learned in school that wouldn't help her at all. Here and there a few things from TV, but that was it. She couldn't read tracks or anything. This led her to the next problem.
She wasn't a skilled hunter or assassin. This wasn't Starcraft, where the neutral units just sat around at their designed places on the map, waiting to be eliminated by one of the two fractions. She would need to sneak up, eventually run after the animal she was chasing. Oh, speaking of them...
There weren't exactly many in the area. At least she never saw many. This wasn't America. Half of the animals she could hunt were almost extinct. Those she could hunt she never saw on any trip she made around the area. Stags should live here, but the only ones she knew would be missed, because they lived in a park, where you can feed them.
Her last problem was she was the freaking Queen of Blades. Even none Starcraft players would freak out just by seeing her.
The time she thought about her problems, her Drones made it comfortable for her friends, leaning them against the Hatchery. Looking over to them, Laura made a decision. If they wouldn't wake up by sundown, she would go hunting herself and try to catch something. In the meantime, she might as well make it comfortable at her new home.
XIII
The woods
Despite the high heel things (again why?), Laura had no problems in running or climbing around. It was the opposite, she was now way more skilled in everything and didn't feel any exhaustion at all. She knew she was powerful and all, but that was something else. She briefly wondered if she could even sleep with all the energy inside her body.
She was currently running deeper into the large forest, away from where humans normally could go. She needed to climb around a little bit here and there, but that was no problem. Now that she was fully born, she had reached her entire psi-potential. Aside from everything her Zerg could see, she herself could close her eyes and focus over a huge area. She found out her body was still developing and when it was at its fullest, she would be able to give mental orders to planets more than just a few light-years away. She was able locate a herd of stags in some small distance.
Oh and there was an interesting discovery about the Hive. Apparently they were (more than a little) scandalized that their Queen was going on such a simple task as hunting, which was a pretty low task. Organizing supplies and all.
Hello, Hive? I don't have any Zerglings and the Drones would only slow me down. Ever heard of the word efficiency? I know the swarm is all into going in, until the enemy is out of ammo, but right now WE are out of ammo. And Earth has not much to give!
The Hive considered to her to absorb the humans and use their resources.
You chose the wrong person for that kind of thing. We will absorb worlds, but NOT this one! Might as well be a good lesson for you. Seeing as how you did things, I can actually see as to how the swarm got defeated. Who was the last one leading the swarm?
The Overmind? What about Sarah Kerrigan? Does the name ring any bells?
...
Just how many years of the swarm's memory are missing? 3? Why? Oh yeah, no memory. Interesting. Looks like there's something strong out there. Whatever, at least the memories of the travel are still intact and using multiple wormholes was really smart. We'll go back to where you came from, when we have a lot and I mean A LOT of planets as a base to return. Remind me to check with the NASA, when we have our first Leviathan. They have a project going on, looking for other planets to live on.
Laura slowed down as she came near the location of the herd. They actually outside the forest, lying on a grass field, their ears twitching from every single noise. A predatory smile appeared on the queen's face.
This would be fun.
She jumped farther than humanly possible, out of the bushes and her wing cut off the head of her first victim. It couldn't even scream. The noise itself startled the other animals, but before they could even get up, three more were dead. The remaining 8 now knew they were in danger and tried, emphasizing on TRIED, to run away.
Laura jumped again and ripped of the leg of the stag. She didn't pay the cries of the animal any heed and focused on getting the rest killed. For three of them, she actually used her psi-abilities, killing the animals by simply damaging their brains.
Animal thoughts were...weird. They weren't sharp, more a little clouded and rather simple. Of course the only thought those animals had been to run away. The four left had put some distance, but Laura could see in the darkness as good as in broad daylight. Within seconds she closed the distance between the first two and her and killed them.
The two left, Laura wanted to try something else. She couldn't shoot lightning out of her fingers, not yet anyway, but she had a similar attack to those of the Hydralisk. She pointed out her fingers and her hair did the same on its own. The next moment she shot spines towards the fleeing animals and it connected. They were only injured, but the toxin would kill them within the minute.
Nah, Laura wouldn't chase after them. It was summer, meaning it was not dark for long. She picked up the first two corpses and quickly headed back to the cave. It took her twenty minutes at full sprint. And hell she really enjoyed running like this without the need of taking a break. This was so not queen like and the hive had the nerve to remind her of that. In response she mentally strangled the entire Hive, shutting them up. She wasn't a natural tyrant or anything, but she felt the need to make clear that she was the one giving the shots now.
When she got back, Laura threw the corpses on the ground and ran back towards the site of the massacre. You couldn't put it any other way, really. A few more runs and Laura was finished with her work. She checked up on her friends with her newfound abilities, but couldn't find out when exactly they would wake up.
The humans on earth weren't really far evolved into using psi abilities. Despite it seemingly going well, Laura decided not to take any chances. The Drones were finished with bringing the meat into the Hatchery, so Laura picked out two and ordered them to become and Extractor and a Spawning Pool.
About the Extractor, you could build it everywhere, but there were good and bad places to put this thing. Better would be of course a place with as many resources as possible, such as a Vespene Geyser or near a Volcano. Without the thing spitting lava of course.
Laura didn't have the luxury to actually choose a position, so a corner of the cave had to do the trick. Doing her math, she registered she had enough to replace those two Drones immediately (the Queen already calculated) but stopped in that particular train of thought. It was either two Drones or four Zerglings. The Lings would be able to help her hunt, but she could also wait for the Extractor to give her the resources, which would take a while.
Oh man! This is just the beginning and I already have to make difficult decisions? Cut me some slack here! No use complaining, I guess. Okay, what would you do in a game? No seriously, what would you do in a game against Terrans? Let's see here. They don't know where I am, they actually don't know that I exist at all, but they have better resources right now and can get ready for battle fast when they discover your base. However, even that will take some time and I can build Zerglings faster than they can send their troops. Okay, game thing doesn't work, I have to look at it in a more realistic way.
My friends can help me gather supplies as long as I stay undiscovered. A potential and for once real alien thread will bring those guys on high alert. I haven't really thought this through when I decided to step on this thing. I'm not really a politician and they especially won't belief me I'm there to help when I start to attack countries with asshole rulers.
The Hive assured her that she was the only fitting ruler. A Larva crawled up to her and Laura picked her up, stroking the little thing on the back. She watched over to where the Drones were working and decided it was way too slow. She needed to get the hang of her abilities anyway.
So for the next hours, she carefully checked as to where her Drones wanted to build tunnels and focused her mind on the specific wall. She then closed her eyes and tried to break a segment out with her pure willpower. After a while she focused on the small cracks inside and noted it went a lot easier.
With a scream, she broke out a bunch of rocks and they all landed on the ground. She made a mental note to keep the Drones at distance. Said Drones were now busy bringing the loose rocks away, while Laura worked on the next segment. She worked through the entire night and until morning.
She checked up every now and then on her friends, but their conditions didn't change. She couldn't help but check out some memories of her friends with her abilities, but their minds were a total mess right now. Luckily the Spawning Pool (she could already hear Jake screaming: "POOL PARTY!") was finished and the production of the Queen started immediately.
It only took an hour for the Queen to finish and she appeared out of an opening of the Hatchery. The queen kind of reminded Laura of Zar'Gara, but then again, they all looked the same to her, with maybe a slight color difference. This one had the same color as her, violet, so she would be directly under her command.
"My queen, I am here to serve you." The Queen dropped a curtsy to Laura. The new Queen of Blades raised an eyebrow, but else didn't show her surprise of the queen unit speaking. It actually made things easier.
"Good." she nodded. "Your name is Arcana."
"I am honored." Oh right, even Jake mentioned it one time. For Zerg getting a name was the greatest honor you could get. Ohwell, who cares? Calling her 'queen' would be just confusing.
"Right, I want you to take care of my friends here. No infestation, at least not yet. Only help them to recover."
"Why not infesting them now, when we will infest them later on anyway?" Arcana asked.
"Because it is always good to have friends inside your enemy's territory. They may not have any military rank, I have a plan for this already, but they can tell us how the general public thinks of us Zerg and give us insights of how the humans react to our attacks."
"As you wish." The Queen gently picked up the humans and brought them inside the Hatchery. Curiously Laura followed the Queen in the rather small building, compared to Lair and Hive. In the middle was a pool of acid and on the side walls were empty chambers.
Sensing the confusion of the Queen of Blades, Arcana started explaining. "In these chambers new Queens are born. They're also used for advanced experiments on every creature you like, with the Protoss as an exception. Our creators build the Protoss in a way, corruption is impossible, except-"
"The Hybrids." Laura finished. "Those things could be a problem. They might even be the reason for the memory gap.
...
What's the last important thing you remember that happened when you were still...wherever you were?"
The Queen shook her head, while putting Jake and Raymond into the chambers. "Wait a minute." Laura held up her hand. She went over to her friends and picked up everything out of their pockets and detached their watches.
"Hmm...the clothes..." she blushed slightly.
"They won't be affected, my queen. Only during an infestation."
"Good to hear. Proceed."
With her thin arms, Arcana seemed to interact with the Hatchery somehow. Both chambers closed simultaneously and filled themselves with some kind of liquid. Arcana turned around to her Queen. "This will speed up the mutation process both are currently going through. I can over watch this process and intervene if necessary. It also allows me to push the process to a certain direction. If you're not sure now my queen, don't worry. Changes can be made even after the mutation is finished. If I may ask, my queen: What is so important about those humans?"
Laura smiled. "They're my friends."
"Friends? I'm afraid I do not know this word." Arcana was really confused right now.
"It's...kinda hard to explain when you haven't experienced friendship yourself. I can give you an explanation, but you won't be able to grasp it until you have some friends yourself.
A friend is generally someone you can rely on, someone you trust. You have fun with them in your life, they help you out in difficult situations, you help them. I guess it is really hard to grasp for you, because basically you will never be alone with the hive mind.
I can give you one example. When the Hive offered me to become the new leader, my friends were concerned I wouldn't be myself anymore. But at the same time they trusted me that I would come out as myself and not as someone who's only interested in conquering and becoming stronger.
Besides where's the fun in that?" Laura laughed. "You know, when my friends and I played Starcraft together, we always played with all three races. We always imagined what would happen if actually three groups, each group being from one fraction would actually start working together? Covering each other's weaknesses?"
Arcana closed her eyes. "You're...different from the Overmind."
"Even before Amon corrupted him?"
"Even before." Arcana confirmed.
"Speaking of before, you can't answer me how Primal Zerg Genes came into my body?" Laura could easily get the answer out of the Queen's head, but she that wasn't her style.
"No, my queen. I only see what you already saw."
"Huh..." Laura put her hand under her chin. "Okay, when we're finished here, we need to conquer as many planets as possible. I don't like the idea of something waiting for us or possibly looking for us to finish us off. Best case scenario that something thinks we're dead and we have enough time to prepare.
However, we first need to focus on this planet here. Humans are idiots. I have to know, I still think like one. But this idiocy might be just the thing we need. Minus the sushi."
Arcana raised an eyebrow.
"I hate sushi, 'kay?"
