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Genetic Mastery
Day 56, Year 1
The little larvae were already almost full grown when Kiara found them again. It was almost sub-real seeing three near carbon copies of the original lobster-like creature scuttling around, scavenging for food. A quick look around confirmed that they had already gobbled up the dead flesh in the area; all that was left was a bloodstain on the ground. However, there were only three of them. One was missing. That could either aid Kiara, or screw her over.
The minute the purple hair Overmind stepped into their presence, the three scavengers stopped foraging for food and turned to see their former prey. "Miss me?" She asked, smirking as Kiara readied her claws. Arthogious, you better not be screwing me over-!
Without any further hesitation, the beasts spat their spit at Kiara, aiming for the main body this time. There was no escaping from this! But while the liquid was flying towards her, the Overmind felt nip her shoulder and something slip into her mind, akin to a second layer of mental consciousness as her vision suddenly doubled in acuteness. She could see the individual droplets of spit flying towards her, the spread of it, even the small parasites that were within the projectile! And Kiara could already see there was no way to dodge the spit attack from the parasitic creatures.
Then something hardened over her skin. It was almost like being a full bodysuit, but it felt different in the way it was as if her carapace and outer membranes suddenly turned to stone. The spit crashed against her without any miss, but instead of infecting her body, the parasites within wailed as there was not a single opening into their new host's body. A shield of sorts had formed itself around her body!
But a few moments later, the layer shattered and pieces of her carapace fell away from Kiara, notably the ones that were affected by the spit. Under the missing parts, fresh carapace and membrane had already regrown itself over the Overmind's body, leaving not a single trace of damage. Kiara blinked in surprised once before snarling in satisfication and leaping forwards, slashing wildly with her claws.
Taken entirely by surprise, the beasts had no chance against the Zerg woman and were torn apart by the sharp claws. They screech as their one-time prey ripped their bodies apart with abnormal human strength, rending organs and flesh apart as chunks of their armor went flying everywhere. The spit glands were pierced thoroughly by the claws, the parasites produced within failing to find a flaw in Kiara's perfect weapon as they perished through lack of nourishment when their homes were destroyed.
Once all the beasts had been bested, Arthogious' mind slipped out of Kiara and the Overmind let out a gasp as she felt her vision restore back to normal. "That was…confusing," The purple hair woman commented as she bent over in pain, her mind a porcupine of pins and needles as she massaged it. "Youch…what exactly did you do there?"
"Parasitic injection," The genetic master explained as he slithered out of the undergrowth and over to the corpses, rubbing his hands gleefully as he began the DNA extraction process. "Zerg parasite injected into Queen of Blades. Gives symbiotic relationship with Arthogious. Body hosts parasite, parasite directly influences DNA."
"So essentially, you're just remote screwing with my genetic material?" She deadpanned and Arthogious sighed, lifting up one of the dead bodies. "Nothing special?"
"Simplistic and ignorant statement, but accurate. Queen of Blades genetic material rewired temporarily based on command. Can be used both defensively and offensively." With a sickening crunch, Arthogious ripped off the head of a lifeless beast and placed it in his mouth, chewing on it as his body absorbed the DNA. "Fractured information. Not enough."
"Oh, you have to be joking."
"Observation recognized. Fractured DNA transferred parasite to parasite, bare minimum for survival. Currently have majority of sequences, not enough for true reproduction ability. Thus, population is limited in ability to reproduce. Possible future experiments."
"That's interesting and all, but what of the gene? How are we to piece it together?"
"Fourth parasite detected nearby. Propose hunt."
"Fine, we'll go after it. I still have to settle a grudge after all."
O O O
It wasn't the hunt for the fourth parasite beast that was hard. In fact, Kiara and Arthogious found the elusive creature quite easily, not far from the clearing where it was born. And the fight certainly wasn't too difficult for the Overmind to handle.
Rather, there wasn't a fight at all as the beast was dead upon discovery. In fact, it was being consumed by Zerg units. And they were Zestra's.
"Well, damn." Kiara sighed as she and her companion watched from the undergrowth as Queens from Zestra's brood absorb the beast parasite's genetic information. "Looks like we've got a fight on our hands. There's no way around it."
"Agreed. Objective updated. Kill Zestra's Queens, obtain genetic information to complete sequence."
"Sounds simple enough. I'll be but a moment." With that, Kiara stepped out in the clearing.
There were four Queens in all, and they were too busy harvesting the corpse to pay attention to the purple hair Overmind stepping out into the open. Kiara smirked as she realized she had the surprise factor and moved to act on it, not wanting to let the first blow go wasted. She dashed across and jumped, twisting and spinning her body in midair as she flew through the four gathered Queens, claws out as her body spun and slashed from the motion.
All four Zerg units cried out in surprise as gash marks appeared on their faces, the blood spurting out and obscuring their vision. Kiara again took advantage of this surprise as she landed on the opposite side and kicked off again, repeating the attack but this time at mid-chest level. The Queens howled as they felt their upper abdomens erupt in pain, as well as their arms as the lanky bones were smashed by the Overmind's forceful claws.
When landing, Kiara rolled as she immediately knew that the Queens could no longer be ignorant. Sure enough, where the woman landed was immediately sprinkled with spines as Zestra's units finally found their attacker. They hissed as they recognized Kiara, the Overmind who had slayed so many of their sister Queens and the four attacked with a spine barrage, the rage and pain evident in their minds.
Dodging the spines, the purple hair woman slipped in between projectiles as she moved towards to the first Queen. Before the Zerg creature could even realize it, Kiara was in her enemy's face as she jumped and grabbed the back of the Queen, bringing her knee up and smashing its face in. A rather loud snap resulted as the Queen's spine was horribly bent beyond repair, the creature dead with a bloody face as Kiara used the head to vault over the corpse.
The three remaining Queens remained unfazed by the killing and seemed to instead increase their fire rate. The Overmind's eyebrows came together as she sidestepped and ducked under the spines, noting the significantly upped difficulty. It seemed that it wasn't only her pack that had made genetic improvement. This may make future fights difficult, she realized as the spine barrage became far too thick for her to advance safely.
But then again, Kiara thought as she felt a prick on her shoulder, Zestra wasn't the only advanced Zerg monster around. Her vision doubled and her motions suddenly got smoother as Arthogious fiddled around with her genes, creating a temporary metabolism boost while he activated yet another sequence. Kiara immediately recognized the numbing feeling and, instead of standing still, leapt forwards into the barrage. The spines nailed her straight on, with little room for error on the part of the firing Queens.
Yet, the Overmind emerged from the clout with nary a scratch! She roared as she dove forwards, claws out as Kiara went into a slashing frenzy in the middle of the living three, multiple deep wounds and gashes appearing on bodies as her limbs became a blur. The Queens reeled back, finally panicking as they realized this was not somebody easily trifled with.
Kiara then felt something build up in her carapace armor pieces, the abnormal items immediately shooting out after only a few moments of buildup. Screeching was heard as Zestra's units were struck hard by something, and the Overmind realized as she looked that there were multiple spine projectiles stuck into them. It would seem as though her body had suddenly ejected spines from her carapace areas! Arthogious must be behind this.
However, worrying about the exact details of what just happened wasn't something Kiara was into. The Queens were stunned and in pain, time to strike while the iron was hot! The Overmind took in a deep breath as she crouched and leapt up, claws glinting in the sun as she slammed back down on the ground. Psionic power erupted from her as the resulting shockwave knocked down the Queens on their backs, leaving them helpless as Kiara shook her wrist from the ground pound.
A few slit throats later, Kiara was the only living being left in the clearing. She felt exhilarated from the bloodshed, not even flinching as Arthogious withdrew from her body and entered the blood soaked grounds. "Effective genetic modification," He announced with a rather satisfied and pleased look on his face. "Spine attack successfully. Used Hydralisk gene."
"I'll admit, that was quite handy," Kiara commented, crouching and holding her hand above a corpse. "Now, let's extract this gene and be done with-"
"Gene missing!" Arthogious exclaimed suddenly, rasping wildly as he grabbed a body and tore it apart. His arms were soon coated with blood as he dug through flesh and organs in an attempt to find the valuable genetic sequence, but to no avail. "Sequence sent off! New target location!"
"…this is a joke, right? Whatever, let's go find this location!"
O O O
Day 57, Year 1
When news came of a friendly transport Overlord being sighted heading for the main Hatchery, Alexis was the first to race there. She knew exactly who was in that Overlord just by their psionic signature, and she was eager to be the first to greet them back home. Or well, as close as a home can get on this feral planet.
"Big sis! You're back!" Alexis exclaimed as the purple hair Overmind and genetic master dropped out of the transport Overlord, landing rather messily on the creep. They were both covered in a slime of sorts found in the transport part of Overlords, but it dried quickly and the blonde was able to hug Kiara without getting wet. "Did you get the gene?"
"Unfortunately, no." The eldest Overmind sighed, patting Alexis' head with a hand as she looked around. She need to talk to a strategist. "Where's Scott?"
"Right here." The male Overmind appeared from the undergrowth near the Hatchery, flexing and rotating his wrist experimentally as he looked at his older sister. "Sorry, I was…practicing and just got the word that you were back. What happened to the mission?"
"Scott, we have a problem," Kiara flat-out said, nodding to Arthogious. "Look at our minds and see what we saw."
"Alright." Taking in a deep breath, the male Overmind carefully pried open his sister's mind and peeked inside, trying to catch a glimpse of her consciousness. It was very easy to do so now, with his new and awakened psionic powers allowing him a control he had never thought of wielding before.
Kiara gave a visible jolt as she felt him probe, unused to this sudden icy feeling. However, she resisted the urge to throw up mental barriers and allowed her blood kin to examine what she saw with Arthogious. A few moments later, Scott backed out and the two siblings visibly relaxed as they were out of each other's mind. "Well…that is indeed a big problem." The brown hair man grimaced. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, we even broke a few wandering Drones to examine their sequencing. It's in there."
"Joy." Scott's tone was heavily sarcastic as he rolled his eyes, turning and muttering to himself. "Okay, so there's a small hill. Could use that as an observation station if need be…"
"Big Sis? Bro? What's going on?" Alexis asked, confused as to the suddenly serious tone her brother took on. "Are we in danger?"
"Not really. What is in danger is possibly our pride. Zestra has set up a research Hatchery, and based on what we saw, they were trying to create another Arthogious."
A/N: Just a little heads up, I've created a community to store all of the Rebirth's stories! If you want a quick reference to all the stories in the series, follow the Rebirth Series Community!