Lemme make one thing suuuuper clear for you all...I've never actually uhh, played Starcraft.
And you're...trying to write a fanfiction about it?
Hey, Alagaesian Anomaly...failed actually, huh. Oh well, this one should turn out better because it's not really going to be too canonical. The only canon things are the units and buildings which appear, the rest is going out the window. Along with the kitchen sink.
Gaaaah, one thing that sucks about reading so much Fanfiction is that once you run out...you're left quite empty. Naruto, RWBY, Fallout, Starcraft, Bioshock, Harry Potter, more fandoms, I've scoured through most of their lists, and there are so few stories that I haven't yet read which seem in any way remarkable. Oh well, I'll just have to tide myself over by writing more!
Speaking of writing more, you guys should go check out PsychoMonarch. Why? Well, I read through some of their stuff, edit it and do a few changes, so you might enjoy it! I'm eager to see whether any of you can tell which section is one that I've written (Yes, I wrote a section out for them, they've probably changed it so it might be unrecognizable, and no, it isn't released quite yet.). If you think you know which section it is, then take a guess =D
Chapter 1 - Awaken, Little One
'The little one is regaining consciousness.'
Whining slightly, Kayla tried to cover her ears at the voice she could hear, like a thousand needles in her ear canals. 'Awaken, Little One. The time for slumber has passed, your work must begin. You shall be the herald...of your new era.' And with those few words, Kayla felt a dozen images charge her brain, perspectives of forests, of weird trees growing amidst a bed of slime, and of- "What the fuck is that?!" She screamed, bolting upright and wincing as her head spun, thankful as the images receded near-instantly.
Her eyes were open, yet her surroundings were too dark to make anything out. What she could make out were vague outlines and indistinct movement. And, more disgustingly, she could feel that she was laying on something weird, slimy and fleshy. As she thought this, she heard something sigh. But, not audibly, it came from inside her own goddamn head. "W-what the hell is going on?" She asked hesitantly, wincing as the voice came to her again, stabbing her mind with pain as it 'spoke'.
'You, Little One, have been selected to be the Herald of the Swarm. You shall lead your colony in conquest of this world and all other worlds.' As 'it' spoke, she felt the flesh beneath her feet shifting repeatedly, trying to push her in a certain direction. "Alright, alright, I get it, you want me to move, I'm moving!" Kayla yelled, getting that painful, though not nearly as debilitating, speaking in her head. 'We must make haste. In our efforts to acquire you, the local forces were alerted to our presence on their world. This Hatchery is the last remaining on this world, and the last hope for the colony.' Kayla stopped as she listened, reaching out for support from a wall as she went over what had been said. "Wait, hang on a sec, Hatchery? Swarm? Are...please don't tell me..." 'You are the Herald and Queen of the Zerg Swarm, Little One.'
As much as she wouldn't later admit it, Kayla's eyes rolled up into her head as she fainted.
'This is remarkably...efficient.'
Feeling more than hearing the voice in her head again, Kayla smirked. After she briefly blacked out, she opened her eyes and hoped against hope that she was back in her bedroom, where she'd be able to roll over and hug her fox plushie, and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, the little Zerg Drone skittering down the wall towards her stopped that thought dead in its track, bringing to her attention two things. Firstly, the Hatchery was far brighter than before. And secondly...
"Aww!" She wrapped her arms around the tiny drone. It was so tiny. From what she remembered of the game, Zerg Drones were hulking brutes, able to compete with SCVs for how much material they could gather. This little drone was about the same size as a Protoss Probe, except a lot more insectoid, its legs flailing about beneath itself, trying to find purchase as she held it up and looked at it.
It wasn't exactly pretty, that was for sure, with several beady eyes distributed around its head to allow for a good view of the area, whilst underneath it, it had two claws clutching onto a large hunk of..."Uhh, hey voice-in-my-head?" 'Yes, Herald?' "Why's this drone carrying a rock? Don't we need like...minerals? Those blue crystal thingies?" She got the mental impression of a facepalm from the voice, frowning. 'Herald, whilst Mineral Fields are the most efficient manner for gathering, natural resources, such as the hematite which this drone is carrying, can also be used, though it is a far less efficient method overall.'
Nodding along, Kayla gave the drone a pat on the head then let it go, watching it skitter off swiftly, clutching its prize in both claws. "So, if I'm the Herald, does that mean I command the whole swarm?" 'That is correct. However, as you do not have the mentality to command dozens of Zerg just yet, to avoid overloading your consciousness with information, it was decided that I would be implanted within you to manage this, acting as a...'central processor', I believe the terminology would be.'
As she walked, she 'spoke' with the voice, which she decided to nickname Kefali, greek for 'head'. it wasn't very original, but it was easy to say and kind of accurate, since it was a voice in her head. When she finally got outside, she had learned that Kefali's existence began with her. His, because gendered pronouns were easier in her head, knowledge was of the Swarm, he knew everything the dozen drones knew, as well as general knowledge.
His prime directive was to assist Kayla in whatever way she deemed necessary. However, he did have a second directive, which was to try and keep her from any severe harm, bodily or psychologically. This directive was to be fulfilled by his advice, as he would be compelled to warn her of anything which would potentially harm her, such as the central pit of the Hatchery.
Thus, this leads us to his murmured statement, where Kayla had all but dragged out of him exactly how resources were processed, then set about establishing a supply line of hematite from the drones, organizing them to instead have 5 drones constantly digging up large chunks from the ground, then piling them up behind them. One drone would break those chunks down into smaller pieces in another pile. The other six would then carry those carryable chunks back into the Hatchery, but leave them at the door. As she experienced earlier, the Hatchery was able to manipulate its insides, being a living building. Once a piece of hematite was placed within the Hatchery's door, select pieces of the floor would undulate it towards the central pit, depositing the iron ore and breaking it down into usable material.
That was one weird thing translated from the game she could recall. Minerals were listed to her numerically, measuring an exacting amount and denoting that as a single 'mineral'. Using this, she could figure out that at the gathering rate first used, it would take maybe ten minutes to gather the resources for a single Zergling. That was annoying to learn, but considering it only cost 25 minerals, rather than the 50 for two, the cost had been halved from the game, making it a much fairer trade.
After changing up how hematite was gathered, the rate of gathering jumped from 2.5/minute all the way to 4/minute, a considerable efficiency increase for just using her drones in a better way, rather than having each one making the full trip all the way to the central chamber, dropping off their single load, then walking back, and mining on their own again. Mentally recalling how much a Drone would cost to produce, she grinned. Considering how much smaller the damn things were, their price reflected that.
Rather than taking a full 50 minerals, something which would take a good 12.5 minutes to do, they only cost 10 each, a much more manageable number. In fact..."Hey Kefali, how exactly do we-...I tell the Hatchery what I want?" She was still trying to get used to the fact that it was her who was in control of the swarm. Kefali didn't seem very happy when she tried to make it sound like they were equals. 'Herald, you must merely make it clear in your mind what you wish the Hatchery to produce. Of course, without a spawning pool we cannot produce Zerglings, nor turn our fledgling Hatchery into a lair.'
Sighing, Kayla took a look at one of the chunks of hematite as it was cut down. There wasn't exactly much she could do to speed this process up, nor did she really care to. It was just too surreal! Talking to a voice in her head, commanding a dozen Zerg Drones, walking around in a goddamn Hatchery?! Starcraft was a game, it wasn't something you were supposed to just...just wake up in!
She planted a hand on one of the Hatchery spikes, suppressing a shiver as the living building reacted to her presence and pulsated in some kind of excitement, as though happy she'd even touched it, ignoring the fact she'd been walking around...inside it. That was a weird thought, a living being and she was using and thinking of it as a goddamn building?
Suppressing another sigh, Kayla turned her attention outwards, away from the small tunnel the Drones had dug in the ground, towards the treeline, where lush greenery acted as a boundary around the clearing, trees shading the way as far as her eyes could see. "Kefali, could we use trees as fuel as well?" 'Unadvised. Biological matter is vastly inferior to Geological. Plant matter would be better suited to support creep growth.' At his words, Kayla looked between her feet to where the creep was ever-so-slowly expanding, a rate of maybe a millimetre every minute or so.
Creep was pretty necessary if she wanted to survive in this new world. Zerg buildings would only be constructible on them, but unlike the games, Kefali informed her that with too little creep spread out, too little nourishment would reach the Hatchery and it would die. Currently, as they only had a dozen small drones and herself to feed, the amount of creep currently surrounding the Hatchery was plenty of sustenance. But, if she wanted to have more Zerg creatures, or more of anything at all, she'd need the first structure placed down to be a Creep Tumor.
"Kefali, please tell me there's another way to produce one of these? Maybe the Hatchery can just magic one up from nothingness? Or, or we can just make a queen and have her do it!" 'Herald, I'm afraid projections point that out as impossible. The Hatchery is designed to produce larva only. To produce a queen, we would first need a Spawning Pool. At the current rate of expansion, we would have the necessary creep sustenance generation and land space to produce a spawning pool in approximately six weeks.' Palming her head, Kayla thought for a moment, then nearly leapt into the air as she yelled out in victory. "Overlords! They spread creep!"
She got the mental impression of a head-shake from Kefali. 'The Overlord only receives that ability once a lair has been created.' "Then we're making a lair!" 'We do not have Vespene, nor any other kind of natural gas available to act as a catalyst for the transformation of our sole Hatchery into a Lair. While I do not understand your hesiten-' Kayla cut him off. "BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT!" She yelled loudly, panting slightly. Her head was silent for a few moments before she broke it with quiet words. "Kefali...how long do you think we have before the other inhabitants of this planet attack us?"
Kefali didn't speak for a few moments. 'Herald, I believe that within seven days, an expeditionary force will arrive at our location to investigate, after first, in approximately four or five days time, searching the now-abandoned village you were retrieved from.' Kayla grit her teeth. Seven days. She had seven whole days at most. She couldn't make a lair without Vespene. The best she could hope for was to make a swarm of drones, though thanks to their small size, they would have a very hard time actually fighting without the most extreme of advantages in terms of numbers. Even ten to one she guessed that they would lose, owing to their weak attack strength.
She couldn't make a Spawning Pool, since she didn't have the creep space to sustain it, nor even build it temporarily. That meant even Zerglings were now locked away from her. She thus couldn't make a Queen, meaning Creep Tumors were out unless she wanted to subject herself to producing one in her own body through absolutely abysmal means, as Kefali had explained how they were made to her. That was something she didn't want to subject herself to, not unless it was her absolute last resort.
Spreading creep faster would allow her and her drones to travel faster. A single pair of drones were currently ranging out away from their base, doing a wide encirclement of her location to try and find any hint of Vespene gas. If they could find a Geyser of gas, even just methane or some other kind of gas, she'd still order one of them to take 50 refined minerals and morph into an Extractor. But, they'd already circled half the base, and not a single vent was found.
One week. Seven days. A dozen drones, against an indeterminate quantity and quality of probably-hostile forces. No Vespene. Those were the bad parts though. Just twelve drones, working in tandem, were able to produce 4 minerals a minute. 24 drones would be able to harvest 8 per minute. 48 for 16. And a single drone took only 10 minerals, but an unknown quantity of time to be hatched from a larva. As she pondered that, she observed the Hatchery, mentally willing a single drone to be born. One of the Larva visible scuttling around the outside of the hatchery suddenly changed direction, disappearing into a hole atop the Hatchery out of sight.
As she waited, Kayla observed her body more closely. She was definitely still...mostly human. Her torso looked quite normal, though far more toned than her old body, as did her biceps and legs. However, her hands were decidedly not normal. They were instead turning vaguely purple towards the fingers, whilst scale growth was running along the back of her hand and up her arm. Tapping a nail against them, she hummed. They were actually pretty well-positioned to act as armoured vambraces.
Rolling her arm this way and that to observe it, a fleshy port on the Hatchery smacked open, releasing a drone into the world. Mentally requisitioning communication with the drone from Kefali, Kayla bid the newborn to approach her, suppressing her girly urge to hop about and squeal at how weirdly cute the little critter was, still lightly covered in amniotic fluid of some kind as it quickly approached her in excitement, even tripping over its own leg at one point in its haste.
All in all, the drone took maybe a minute or two of gestation to be born. Putting herself down lower to the ground, she stuck her arm out and watched as the little drone clambered up onto it, raising the zerg so she could look at it. The drone was honestly, aside from the fluid quickly drying, almost identical to the other drones, even in size, meaning that as long as she had Larva available, she could command a dozen drones to be born, and they would gestate and be ready within minutes, though the Hatchery only held three at any one time.
With a rather careless idle thought, Kayla almost bid the Hatchery use practically all of the minerals it had to produce an overlord for scouting purposes but quickly smacked herself for her stupidity. An overlord had great sight range, granted, but she'd much rather use the ten times cheaper drones to do such a thing, willing the Hatchery to instead use the other two Larva and produce two more drones.
Rubbing the area around one of the drones top spines, she let go of the diminutive Zerg nestling on her arm, earning a trilling noise before it skittered off to go and help its brethren with mining. 'Talking' with individual Zerg was a pretty weird experience. Compared to her own thoughts, they operated on a much...simpler basis. That drone didn't send sentences, communicating instead by repeated single words. When she first addressed the little Drone, it repeatedly said 'Herald! Herald! Herald!' mentally as it approached her. Then, while she was holding it and thinking of other things, it repeatedly said 'Happy.'. Finally, to top it off, when she willed it to go work mining, it repeated the word 'Mine!' as it left. Weird, but cute.
Kefali was able to communicate in full sentences intelligently, if somewhat strangely, but then, he was evidently far more developed than a drone. Perhaps an Overlord would be able to hold a basic conversation, considering they were meant to 'speak' with dozens of Zerg to relay commands. A Queen would definitely have at least some kind of proper way to speak, even being able to think on her own and make rudimentary decisions. If an Overlord was the relay to all the Zerg 'receivers', then a Queen would be like the controller.
Of course, that then left Kayla above them all as the master circuit, and her analogy kind of fell apart then because she wasn't a computer expert but it got the point across. She watched as the Hatchery popped out two new drones, Kefali taking over for her and automatically assigning them to mining, while she smiled as the Hatchery spit out a single Larva just as the drones stood up. That was a good thing, the Larva took about the same time as a Drone to produce, meaning to actually create units wouldn't be too hard.
Or at least, she was hoping so. If Zerglings, when she started spawning those, took several hours or days, this whole thing could come crumbling down. Granted, it was already falling apart thanks to the complete lack of natural gas, but there wasn't any good way to get it. "Kefali, remember how you said trees aren't any good for resources?" 'I do, Herald.' Kayla wandered over to the nearest tree, putting her hand against it. "Well, that's for minerals. What about for natural gas?" He gave the mental impression of a long-suffering sigh.
'While trees give off small amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases, these are in too small amounts to be noteworthy.' Kayla tapped her chin. "What if, and hear me out, we tried to rig up some way to gather those amounts, then bonded it with hydrogen to produce a combustible fuel?" 'We do not have nearly the biological or industrial capabilities to do such a thing.'
Kicking a branch, Kayla resisted the urge to just slump down and whine. "Okay, what about if we...notice an outcropping of shale that we somehow missed?" 'That would be remarkably convenient, but the scouting drones circled the nearby perimeter twice before heading outwards, and saw nothing of the sort I'm afraid.' Stretching her arms upwards, Kayla started walking into the forest. "Well, can you handle telling the Hatchery to turn all the minerals and Larva into drones, then set them to work digging up more hematite?" 'It will be done, Herald. May I ask where you are going?'
"Well, I'm kinda useless here, so I'm gonna go scout out this way, since the drones are off on the other side. When we have 60 drones mining, 20 minerals a minute, start sending some of the extra drones out and scouting, we need to find natural gas of some kind. If we can't get any Zerglings out before-" A snarling noise snatched Kayla's attention, making her realize that on a completely foreign and hostile world, she really should be focused less on her conversation, and moron just where she was walking.
A green and black panther-sized creature was snarling at her from on top of a branch, it's body coiled and ready to pounce. Bringing her arms up, slowly but carefully, she took a slow step back, her eyes staying close to the panther-like creature. What she did not expect was for a second to slam into her side, it's jaws clamping onto her wrist. "Arh!" She yelped, trying instinctively to pull her hand backwards.
As its fangs tore her skin up, the 'panther' she'd been eyeing decided to join the fray, leaping directly towards her with its claws out, green misty breath leaving its jaws. By sheer luck rather than skill, Kayla found herself tugged out of the way by her arm as the panthers head thrashed about. Without warning, she suddenly found her arm released, which sent her flying backwards, her attempts to pull herself free accidentally sending her flying.
When she spotted the panther, she realized why it had released her. It was foaming from the mouth, its eyes dilated while it helplessly pawed and scratched about. The remaining panther noticed this reaction, apparently far more intelligent than a mere animal, and eyed Kayla carefully, sniffing the air and growling, eyes locked onto her arm. She looked down at her arm and saw purple, not red blood. Evidently whatever was going on with her body had done something to her blood, which from the looks of it, envenomated the predator which had been gnawing on her arm.
The still unafflicted panther took an aggressive step forwards but also to the side, slightly warding Kayla away from its companion. Acquiescing to what the creature wanted, since the last thing she wanted was to rile the beast up and have it decide killing her was worth the risk of being envenomated, Kayla backed away, keeping her injured arm up as a deterrent. The panther understood well enough that something involving her arm was extremely dangerous, so instead kept up its slow pace to its companion. An odd truce of sorts emerged then, with the afflicted panther unable to move, but Kayla not wanting to leave.
After a few minutes passed, the reason for that became evident, as a dozen drones crashed through the foliage behind the panther, their claws digging deeply into the creature, who roared its anger and thrashed about, but was silenced with a claw to the throat before it could do more than superficial scratching. Even small, those drones had a carapace strong enough to ward off the stray claws, the only injured one missing one of its eyes.
While it was a shame, since they were kinda cute, Kayla mentally ordered her drones to finish the wounded one off, who had drifted into unconsciousness and barely reacted as one drone stabbed through its throat. The reason why Kayla risked herself rather than leaving?
That first panther exhaled a gas of some kind.
"Okay, please work!"
With her shout, she shoved the corpse of the 'poison-panther', or 'Amanita' as she decided to name them, into the digestion pit of her sole Hatchery, her fingers crossing over each other as she prayed and hoped that the gas those panthers produced was usable. She carried this one back, too worried that they would pierce the gas-sacs which the panther had and waste the precious resource.
The other one, which had been pierced by several dozen claws as the drones attacked it, had deflated gas-sacs, so she let the drones carry that one back on the off-chance that it could still be harvested for gas, but, with a bit of luck...she kicked her foot through a fallen droplet of blood as she waited, careful to avoid hurting the Hatchery as she did so. "Come on, just do this one fucking thing for me. Come on. COME ON!" She resisted the urge to hurl her torn up shirt at the pool.
That was one thing she'd managed to, in the confusion, forget about entirely. She wasn't wearing her normal black button-up shirt and jeans. She was wearing a rough almost gambeson-like shirt and leggings, with leather boots, the only good part of the outfit. The shirt she'd had to tear the sleeve apart to wrap her arm up, since she wasn't sure just what else on her body was different. For all she knew, she was a haemophiliac, and her wound wouldn't clot easily. It was unlikely, sure, but she didn't want to risk it.
'Herald, the Amanita has been processed.' Kefali informed her helpfully, leading her to hesitantly check mentally as to what the Hatchery had available, then leapt up in surprise, not suppressing her excitement at all. "FUCK YEAH!" She cheered, dancing about and grabbing one of the drones who was hauling the other carcass, holding it at arms length and prancing about. "It worked!" While she only got repetitions of the word 'Happy!' from the drone, that was enough for her, jumping about and barely restraining herself from just leaping off the damn walls.
Then she stopped. "Hey Kefali, do you reckon we could try to capture some of those Amanita's and pen them in, then harvest the gas they breathe out?" He didn't give her a response for a few moments, clearly debating the pros and cons of such a thing. The pro was of course that they would have a renewable gas source. But the cons were that they would have to capture and contain several, perhaps more, clearly hostile fauna, then try to harvest their exhalations. They also had to feed them somehow, since while it was possible they could sustain themselves with creep, it was equally likely that it would poison them just like the venom in her blood did.
'It would be advised if continued exploration reveals no usable gas deposits.' Humming, Kayla mentally checked how much gas they actually had, and grinned. According to the Hatchery, that one un-ruptured corpse gave them the equivalent to ten units of gas. As the other corpse rolled across the edge and sloshed into the viscous fluid, she turned away, walking back out of the Spawning Pool. "Shit." She muttered. "It doesn't matter though, does it? We need a Spawning Pool to even produce a fucking lair, and we don't have the creep to support it."
Closing her eyes, Kayla thumped her head against a wall, thinking of any way she could get out of this rut. With a grin which was more of a grimace, she recalled that starting off never was this hard for the bloody Zerg in the game, fighting for a scrap of Vespene and digging in the dirt for minerals. "Kefali...tell me straight, if I don't do...'that', then what do you calculate our chances of surviving this encounter are?" The voice was silent for a few moments.
'From the observed combat efficiency of drones, as well as your own ability, compared to the specimens we encountered in the retrieval mission, I calculate a below 10% chance of survival for a single Zerg unit. The chance of the Hatchery surviving this battle is below 0.1%. Chance of Herald's survival out of captivity...-' Kefali went silent a few more moments. '-is also below 0.1%.' He finally said. Leaving her head against the Hatchery walk for a few moments, Kayla dug up her will to survive this, to win, at any cost, before her eyes opened with grim but fierce determination.
"Let's do it then."
Okay then.
To be honest, when I started this chapter, I really didn't think I'd make it so hard on poor Kayla. She has no Vespene, nor any natural gas sources. The only way she can get any form of gas is by hunting Amanita's, which is extremely dangerous. She only won against that one because the drones swarmed it, and the first was envenomated by her blood. Encountering more will be way more dangerous.
She has one week to prepare for an expeditionary force of unknown strength or composition. She has no creep from which to make a Spawning Pool, and Queens are locked behind that. She doesn't have the 100 gas needed to make a Lair which can support Overlord's capable of spreading creep. She CAN summon Overlord's, but they don't have the Excrete Creep passive ability. As such, with her body already partially Zergified in strange ways...Kefali had a grotesque suggestion. The Creep Tumors are grown inside the bodies of Zerg Queens. Kayla, by Zerg technicality, is a Zerg Queen. Since it's never explicitly stated how exactly the Queen's grow these, I'm leaving it as a feature that the Hatcheries are able to produce the dormant Tumor, to which a Queen would carry multiple and 'lay' them.
...This isn't going to be pleasant for our poor girl, but she has a will of steel to survive this, so she will. Even if it means doing something like...growing a Tumor within her own body then laying it. That's just it. As soon as the first one is planted, it can grow others of itself, that's a canon ability of the Creep Tumor. But she has to do some unpleasant things in order to kick off the first one. I want to re-iterate something though.
I have NEVER played Starcraft. All my info comes from the wiki and from other fanfictions I have read. So if I've missed something stupid, please tell me so Kayla doesn't have to go through this. I've set the Hatchery so the way they work is they deploy an area around themselves large enough to sustain both their own needs, and the needs of 60 or so drones. Then they ever so slowly spread extra creep, but since they are more focused on producing Larva, their expansion rate is abysmal. The further it gets, the slower it goes. This is why Creep Tumors are so necessary.
Of course, if Kayla manages to hunt down another 9 Amanita Panthers, and one managed to get it's gas-sacs ruptured, she'll be able to make a lair as soon as the pool is down, so she won't even need a Queen, but I think just having Kefali to actually talk to outside of one-word sentences isn't enough for her, she wants something more intelligent to speak with which isn't only inhabiting her head.
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