Chapter X: Bad Start
They finally arrived to the Zerg's main base, but he felt wrong. He felt this would be too dangerous but Gloria had gone over the plan many times. Go into the base, talk to the leader, and convince them to join. But Leon felt there would be more to this. He had heard many stories of the Zerg. He knew of the danger with them. But he would try his best to help his friends win over the Zerg.
"You must be very careful when entering," Drake said. "The Zerg are very dangerous so enter with caution."
"Us? What about you?" Jessica asked.
"I have other manners to attend to with my master. I will be staying with him for a while to discuss some…affairs," Drake explained.
He took wing and headed west to where his master resided in. "I have a feeling he's plotting against us," Caitlin said.
"Why?" Johnny asked.
"I don't know," Caitlin replied.
"Let's get going," Gloria said.
"I and the other Guardians shall stay outside. We'll attract attention if we go with you. We'll stay out here and guard to be sure no one else comes," explained LavFlame.
"Ok. Just be careful out here," Gloria said.
They went inside the large cave. They walked until they reached the heart of the cave inside the cliff. They hid behind a huge rock and when they looked to see the Zerg, they couldn't believe what they saw. There were many creatures and weird structures. They saw a creature with muscles on it arms that ended with a blade as an alternative to claws. It had two mandibles by the side of its mouth and it had a snake-like body. It had a large crest that curved up and it had sharp teeth.
They saw another creature that had four legs and also had muscular arms ending with a blade. It had spikes on its legs and its mouth was also like two separate jaws. Another creature was in the air. It had purple wings, its body was in the shape of a C and at the end it had two curved teeth, as if it were its jaws. It had red eyes and orange skin. "My Lord! I never knew they were this freaky," Caitlin said in a soft voice.
"What did you expect them to look like?" Orlando asked.
"Guys we have a job to do," Gloria reminded them. "We have no time to chit chat."
"It's not going to be that easy G," Duke said. "We're looking at hydralisks, mutalisks, lurkers, zerglings, ultralisks, and other Zerg units. We're looking at a hard battle."
"So…what are we going to do?" Orlando asked.
"We'll go with the plan," Gloria said.
Gloria walked out and stood in front of one of the Zerg. But once she stepped onto the purple membrane that surrounded the entire base, a pink snake-like creature came out from the hole of a weird structure that had pulsing purple tentacles around it and sunk the front of its body to the ground. Then a spike came from the ground in front of Gloria. More of the same structures did the same. Spikes were popping out from the ground around Gloria. One of them hit their target. Gloria shrieked in pain when a spike came from the ground and sliced her arm. Her scream and the spikes attracted the attention of the other Zerg. James got up quickly and headed towards her. But suddenly Gloria was surrounded with dark energy and teleported off the purple membrane. Jessica placed Gloria on regular ground. They all saw Zerg coming towards them. "Stop! I wish to speak with your leader," she announced.
But the Zerg hissed and growled in reply and prepared to attack. The spider-like Zerg dug underground near Gloria and the others and spikes came out from the ground. More than a dozen spikes came from the ground, nearly slashing Gloria and the others. "Let's get out of here!" Leon yelled.
Everyone quickly ran out as the Zerg started chasing them. But eventually, the Zerg gave up the chase. They hiss, growled, and roared in triumph. Gloria, Duke, James, Leon, Jessica, Caitlin, Johnny, Ashley, Orlando, and the Vahki continued running for their lives even when they knew that the Zerg had stopped. They didn't quit until they reached the outside. Once out, they rested near a small lake. "What…in God's…name happened back there?" Ashley gasped.
"When Gloria…stepped foot into their base…she…she triggered the…the sunken colonies. They protect the hive…and only attack when it detects ground enemies. Zerg can't speak our language except…their leaders so we must be able…to speak their language or have their form. We cannot go back unless we figure out a way to avoid the Zerg units and talk to the leaders. But it's not going to be easy. The Zerg units will do anything and I mean anything to protect their masters," Duke explained, finally getting his breathing normal.
"Sheesh, you remind me of Melissa. You explain every detail," Jessica said, "and sometimes take forever to get to the point."
Duke smiled by the compliment. "Anything else we need to know?" Johnny asked.
"Yes. A lot more," Duke started out. "Unless you want me to do what Melissa did when you guys had your first enemies then I'll explain what I can."
"I don't think we'll need you to lecture us on the Zerg's history, but we will need to know the units," Gloria explained.
"Maybe he should tell us about their history," Zerahk said.
"But why?" Caitlin asked.
"We could learn a lot more of the Zerg," Rorahk said.
"True, but we'll be wasting time," James said.
"And what kind of information would we get from history? I mean it's—boring!" Ashley complained.
"We may have not been with you before but you tend to learn more from the history of a monster. We could learn the Zerg's weakness and their units and what we can do to avoid killing ourselves," LavFlame said.
"Hey, we can do this with the next monster. Only God knows if Melissa is heading this way now!" Duke yelled.
"He's right," Orlando said. "We need to get going."
"But not without some knowledge of the Zerg," Xalahk said.
"We need to at least know units and structures of the Zerg," Seerahk said.
"Then units and structures it is," Duke said.
He instructed them to sit while he began to tell them what they needed to know. "First let's do the structures," Duke started out. "The biggest structure and the heart of the hive is well…the Hive. The larvae around it become eggs when the Zerg ruler, who inhabits the Hive, orders more to be born. The hive also gives the Zerg special abilities like dig and healing. The Hive itself can heal itself but it takes much time. The Hive can absorb much punishment but once it's destroyed the horde will eventually die unless the Zerg are able to mutate to another with the price of minerals and gas. If we destroy it, we'll kill the rulers. Another structure that we need to target is the Spawning Pool, which enables the Hive to create Zerglings. Zerglings are the weakest unit of the Zerg, besides the workers of the hive called the Drones. They are the little things with the separate arms on their backs and have four legs. But the Hive has numerous Zerglings in the horde. With the spawning pool destroyed, it destroys the Hive's ability to create more Zerglings and get reinforcements. The Zerglings are the second fastest hatchers in the horde. The Drones are the fastest, with are the ones with the pincers and the triangle-like body. Drones mutate into the structures that sustain the hive. But as you know it takes much time, depending on the structure. Third structure would be the Hydralisk Den. This allows the hive to create Hydralisks, the snake-like things with the blades instead of claws. But Hydralisks can also become Lurkers, the Zerg that dig underground and use spikes to attack. The Lurkers are basically useless on the surface but very deadly underground. By destroying the Hydralisk den, we destroy the Hive's ability to create them. But expect many Hydralisks to come after us. They're the second most common unit.
"Another unit is the Overlord. But they don't do much. All they do is transport units to other places and maintain control of the horde. They are born through the Hive so they don't need a special structure like the Zergling or Hydralisk. The next structure is the Spire, which can turn into the Greater Spire. This enables the Hive to create Mutalisks, the flying things with the funky C-shaped body and the purple wings. Mutalisks can also transform into two different units: the Guardian and the Devourer. Guardians attack ground units and are slow but strong. They are kind of U-shaped and have like eight legs with large pincer claws. Devourers attack air units and are fast. They also have the funky C-shaped body but do not have wings or anything, and I have no clue how they stay in the sky. Another is the Scourge. These things are small units that kill only air units by killing themselves given that the enemy isn't too big.
"Then there's the Ultralisk Cavern, which gives the Hive the ability to create Ultralisks, the most powerful ground unit of them all. They are huge monsters with blades curved toward each other and four hoofed-like legs. There's also the Queen's Nest which help create Queens, the flying things that have six legs and membrane between them and also a spider-like face. They don't attack but they send tiny units that they create to attack. They do damage like infest specific buildings and things like that. The last and final unit and structure is the Defilers Mound and the unit called the Defiler, which have a long body and jagged teeth in the long jaws. These don't attack but they do things that give the horde an advantage. There are two more structures called the Sunken Colonies, which attack ground unit, and Spore Colonies, which attack flying units. The real plan will be to destroy structures like the Spawning Pool and Spire. We need to prevent the Hive from creating reinforcements by killing any eggs and a few of us needs to keep the horde at bay while the rest of us destroy the structures. The first structures we need to destroy are the Sunken Colonies and Spore Colonies for they guard the hive. Then afterwards we'll destroy the other structures and kill the horde. We need to make sure we don't harm the rulers who are Razolax and his 'daughter' Kerrigan. She too will be fighting to protect the Hive. Make sure she is not harmed. She is the only humanoid so she'll be easy to find. She has to be captured but not harmed whatsoever. Razolax is just a giant talking eyeball attached to the Hive. Once we've got him and her, we have to convince them to join us and we should be able to get them in our army. Any questions?"
"My head hurts," Caitlin added.
"Well, that should really help us," Gloria said. "So let's go back in."
Everyone walked back to the cave, now more ready than ever to get the Zerg.
