I started writing this before uploading the last one, so rip if anyone has a way around this...it's happening. I'm not going into too much explicit detail though, my stomach wouldn't be able to handle it.

Well, I lie, it would, I'd just feel bad writing it.

Chapter 2

Grimacing, Kayla knelt down, her slightly-distended stomach evidence of what the past day she'd spent carrying.

After Kefali spent at least an hour reassuring Kayla that it was completely safe, Kayla had finally taken the plunge and...she shivered even remembering. The Creep Tumor that the Hatchery produced was dormant, barely able to move and about fist-sized, in need of nurturing. Of course, normally a Zerg Queen would handle that, carrying several dozen Tumors within herself, ready to spread creep across the world.

Kayla didn't have one of those around to conveniently fix her problems, she had to make do with what she had. The Hatchery produced juvenile Tumors, but it was not equipped to nurture them. Drones were obviously out of the question, and as such, the only remaining way to bring them to a stage where they could self-replicate was to...nurture them with her own body.

Kefali had informed her that her body was Zerg enough that she would be able to sustain a single Creep Tumor, though that wasn't all that helpful to her. But, in the name of surviving this fucked up world, she'd taken it within herself, the less words spoken about it the better. At first, she could barely feel it, a faint weight settled within her body. But, as time went on and her body began to supply the Tumor with nutrients, creep or whatever the hell a Creep Tumor needed to grow, it began getting heavier and heavier.

About an hour ago it reached the point where she couldn't even scout any more, her stomach expanding a little and weighing her down too much for jogging or extended periods of walking to be feasible. As such, and with repeated recommendations from Kefali, she finally settled for roaming the camp slowly, watching the drones running around with heaps of hematite.

The scouting drones, whose numbers had now increased to six drones, had scoured the forest out to about 500 meters, and not a single hint of crystal or Vespene could be found. They did find a small cluster of shale, so potentially they could extract gas from there, but that would require 50 minerals, something Kayla would much rather go into more stockpiling for the moment.

While at first, seven days sounded like so little time to prepare, she had to remember that her drones were able to excavate an average of 0.33* minerals per drone per minute. So a single drone would pay for itself after 30 minutes of work. Every minute after that was pure mineral profit. Granted, when the drones had to go deeper to find more hematite, or god-forbid they run out of hematite entirely in this mine, it would slow down drastically, but for right now, the most cost-efficient thing to do would be to expand her drone count, send more out to scout, and have even more mining minerals.

Even if she had to stand atop a tide of drones to win this battle, she would do so gladly. But, what she wouldn't do gladly was go through the horrible process of...'birthing' a Creep Tumor ever again, that was something that the Queens would do, she would never even consider it, not unless she was quite literally the last remaining Zerg. And even then, she'd be just as hesitant.

It wasn't even that painful, the Creep Tumor having stockpiled nutrients which, when laid, it would use to hastily expand itself, then start producing Creep, using the existing matter to fuel its production, since that was all the Creep Tumor was made for. It was just the idea of basically becoming pregnant with such a grotesque...thing! Suppressing another shiver, Kayla kept pushing, her leggings long-since abandoned in fear that when the Tumor decided it was ready, she would ruin her only set of clothing.

With a squelching sound like a boot stepping into mud, the Tumor slapped onto the ground, though Kayla didn't pay it any attention, far too busy trying not to be sick at thinking about it any longer. No, she was content to lock those memories up, throw away the key, then find it again and melt it down with a promethium-fueled Heavy Flamer, then disperse the slag across the Universe.

Kefali helpfully informed her that the Tumor had established itself in the pre-existing creep, and it was now producing a second Tumor within itself, whilst at the same time spreading creep. When it was able to place the cloned Tumor, it would be able to spread creep with its full focus, leading to an estimated expansion rate of half a meter per minute, far faster than the Hatchery.

In spite of the experience she just went through, Kayla grinned. With an expansion rate of 0.5m/minute, it would take less than an hour for the creep around it to expand outwards far enough to support a single Spawning Pool. Of course, it would take it half an hour to produce a second Tumor and spit it out, and she might want it to produce a second on its other side so they could ring the entire base with Tumors, but that was a problem for Kayla in half an hour. The Kayla at present just wanted to leave those Tumors behind. Unfortunately, she couldn't just go out scouting, since her body was still weak from supporting the Tumor for the full day, but she could still watch the drones as they scouted.

Closing her eyes, Kayla followed the network of Zerg outwards, her 'mind's eye' showing her what the drone she'd just observed was seeing, which happened to be more trees, big surprise. Being able to see what the Zerg saw was incredibly useful, but as Kefali explained, her mind was not ready to see the dozens of perspectives the different drones had. She experienced a brief moment of it when she woke up, before Kefali was able to pull those views into himself and protect her mind from overloading.

As such, right now she could handle two perspectives. It hurt her head to do it, but if she tried, she could use her own eyes, and use the eyes of a drone at the same time. Of course, it was way more comfortable to close her eyes and just have one view-point to deal with, which was what she was now doing. The drone knew the Herald was watching, but valued its task over all else, continuing to scout even as it chirped 'Happy! Herald! Happy!' across the connection between her and the Zerg.

When she used their view-point, she also could hear their connection to the swarm, which was why she heard the Zerg communicating. When asked, Kefali told her that all of the drones spoke to him in such a way, relaying information. They had nothing useful to say, of course, all repeating things like 'Mine!', 'Tree!', and other useless words. They understood complicated orders, but their method of speaking back to him was incredibly simple, one word answers. Sometimes they chained words like the way the Zerg communicated its happiness, a way to tell her that the Zerg was happy because of the Herald's presence, then re-iterating it repeatedly.

They had simple minds, but it was still sweet to know that just her presence made the Zerg happy.

"KRKRKRKRK!"

Dodging a claw-swipe, Kayla raised her arm, the scaly growth on her forearm strong enough to deflect the second claw slashing at her. Carefully, Kayla took several steps backwards from the insectoid creature in front of her, warding off its attacks with her forearms and focusing her entire mind on defending herself, whilst several drones scampered around in the treeline to get behind the beast in the same strategy they used against the Amanita panther.

She wasn't a fighter, she didn't know how to actually fight, but, after a few dozen practice rounds with a drone, she felt pretty confident in her ability to deflect an attack with her arms. It mostly consisted of just getting her forearms in the right position to deflect attacks, whilst she avoided lunges and charges with her superior agility. She had a few more scratches from the fight, but all in all she hadn't suffered nearly as bad an injury as the Amanita inflicted on her.

Said injury had healed quickly, which was an immense relief. Even growing a Tumor within herself, she still retained enough of a healing factor for all the torn puncture wounds to be turned into faint white scars within a few hours. What's more, all evidence that she had been carrying that Creep Tumor had already healed, in less than an hour. On top of that, she'd also experienced hunger for the first time, though quickly dealt with that by eating a portion of creep.

It tasted extremely bland, there was absolutely no flavour. The creep consisted of basically a bunch of necessary nutrients held together by a gelatinous slime, meaning as long as there was creep, there was food. It was honestly like eating completely unflavoured Jello, which was a pretty depressing thought. Silently, even as she dodged another stab which would have impaled her chest, Kayla vowed to herself that she would find sugar of some kind, if only to make the creep taste of something sweet.

Idly amused, she wondered whether or not once she got an Evolution Chamber, she'd be able to convince the Evolution Master to-"Fuck!" In her moment of distraction thinking about Abathur, the creature she was fighting slipped a claw under her arm, ripping it back before she could evade it and tearing the underside of her arm up, where no scale protected.

With a growl, she told Kefali to order all the drones currently nearby to swarm the creature, not caring if one of two died in her anger. Her arm was now dribbling purple blood, her advanced clotting factor working overtime to close up the large jagged rent in her skin. Smacking her arm upwards to deflect the next claw, Kayla stepped in, her instincts guiding her hand as she grabbed one of the smaller mandibles around the mouth of the creature then pulling harshly, ripping the sharp but small tool off, before spinning it around and jamming it harshly between the four eyes the creature possessed, earning an unholy shriek of agony before it fell limp, its tiny brain penetrated by its own claw. "Bastard."

Shaking the blood off her arm, she grimaced. First, it was the tooth holes of an Amanita, and now the underside of her arm was going to get even more scarring from the jagged edge of the..."Vromeros." She finally settled for, kicking the corpse once for good measure. It only meant foul, but since her first encounter was such an annoying affair, she felt it worth the blasted name.

Turning her mind back to what distracted her, Kayla frowned to herself. Even after they build the Evolution Chamber, she had no idea what was going to happen. Abathur was supposed to be the Evolution Master, but she doubted the weird insectoid-like Zerg would appear. Shrugging, Kayla began wandering back to base, with Kefali informing her a few minutes ago that the Creep Tumor had successfully created a copy of itself and planted it, the two Tumors now working hard to produce two more copies each before focusing on creep. Those copies would them produce two more and place them at their open side, slowly encircling the base and expanding their creep production at an exponential rate.

On top of that progress, the drone numbers were exploding. When she had first had the Tumor implanted, they had 23 drones mining, and 6 scouts. Throughout the day, all those minerals went into producing yet more drones, who themselves produced more minerals for drones, leading to a population boom. The number of drones rocketed up to several hundred, with two dozen now roaming the forest while the rest dug in the tunnels beneath the Hatchery for hematite.

Kefali warned her after the two-hundredth drone that she should be wary of producing too many, as they would need minerals for other creatures. As such, once they hit three hundred drones mining, and the aforementioned two dozen scouts, Kayla switched the Hatchery from drone production to stockpiling minerals. Currently, the mineral count was sitting at almost two thousand, with the gathering rate diving from 0.33* per minute all the way down to only 0.05 minerals per minute per drone, thanks to the swiftly increasing distance needed to transport minerals from deeper and deeper underground, as well as the traffic jam of drones pushing to and fro trying to take minerals up to the surface.

As time went on, that number would get lower and lower still, meaning she would have to rely on building more Hatcheries closer to the mineral source for processing, then using creep to transport that matter to where it was needed. The creep acted like a pipe-line, connecting all structures into the network. When processed, minerals moved extremely swiftly through the creep, making regular transportation extremely in-efficient, as no Zerg unit could travel faster than the creep could.

But first, they would have to be processed within a Hatchery, and there was no space or creep underground yet, nor did Kayla want to use her minerals for the building. Kayla looked over her shoulder to where the drones were carrying the Vromeros corpse, smiling as they skittered to and fro trying to keep the large insect balanced. She didn't observe the critter using any kind of gaseous ability, but it was worth checking, just to see.

In the time between then and her last fight, the scouting drones had come across another pair of Amanita panthers, quickly surrounding them while they were napping in the trees. The drones could be surprisingly quiet when needed, owing to their strange smaller size, so they clambered up the trees without waking the beasts and assassinated them.

Getting another twenty gas resource from the corpses was really helpful, but what Kayla really wanted was to find their nest. Getting ahold of several dozen corpses would solve most of her problems for a long time, allowing for the production of a Lair, which would then allow her to make a Hydralisk Den, spires, Overseers, and various other things, all of which would be incredibly useful.

But first, she ordered a Drone to go to the region of creep directly ahead from the new Creep Tumors. Though she could see the Drone was already scuttling to that location through her connection to it, Kayla went there herself to watch the transformation, leaving the drones behind her to walk back with their prize as she jogged across the forest, enjoying the sheer freedom she felt as she ran.

It didn't last long, as she was apparently too valuable to risk in such a way, meaning Kefali was very reluctant to even let her scout, and she wasn't allowed further than a kilometre from the Hatchery for any reason. A bit stifling to be constrained like that, but she understood why he was so worried about her. If she was alone, and her blood wasn't venomous, those Amanita's would have killed her easily. And the Vromeros was exceptionally dangerous as well, even if in her rage she managed to kill it alone.

Breaking the treeline, Kayla smiled at the ordered chaos of drones skittering out of the tunnel leading underground, but turned away to observe the Creep Tumors, just in time to see them spit out copies of themselves. "Gross." She deadpanned, watching with morbid fascination as the two freshly-produced Tumors expanded to a matching size as their progenitors and began pulsing and throbbing.

Now not focused on producing more Tumors, the creep growth around the two central Tumors increased drastically. 'Herald, at current rate of growth, a Spawning Pool will be sustainable within five minutes.' Nodding to herself, Kayla bid the drone waiting in the area over to her, allowing it to clamber up onto her lap, curling up with a cheerful trilling noise as she pet it.

Granted, they weren't cute in the typical sense, but they were still kinda...weird. Kayla knew that in her old life, she would have been sent running to the hills if a drone had come up to her and wanted to sit on her lap. Yet here she was, legs crossed and drone on lap, completely fine with the entire situation. "Kefali, I don't suppose you know why I'm not like...freaking out over this as much as I should be? Fairly sure normal humans would be running away by now."

'Herald, please do not do yourself the disservice of proclaiming that you are a 'normal human'. Your body and mind are slowly adapting to your situation. As you do not wish it, you shall not suddenly start changing to look like a Zergling of some kind, but subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, you long for the strength to survive on this planet. As such, the Zerg matter within your body has responded to your will, shaping you to become stronger than you were before.' Spinning her arm around, Kayla couldn't help but agree with his observation.

In less than a full day, the scale which previously was just on top of her forearm had grown down to her wrist and up to her elbow, looping around more than halfway around her entire arm in interlocking plates, allowing her full freedom of movement but high protectivity, kind of like how scale-mail or chain-mail armour worked. On her abdomen, each of her visible abs had several scales covering them, and there were signs of scale growth higher on her torso as well. Her legs still looked completely human, but presumably, the musculature was being modified to make her faster and stronger under the skin, which would be necessary to support the extra weight her scales would place upon them.

Opening her arms from around the Drone she was holding, she mentally willed it to take up the space that the creep had expanded within, then watched as it morphed into a puddle of...well, Zerg sludge, about the size of a Spawning Pool. "Eugh." Kayla held her nose, the rather putrid smell given off by the disintegrating Drone invading her nostrils and making her gag.

Observing the sludge carefully, Kayla noted how it bubbled and oozed upwards, bloating itself up in a large ring-like shape, leaving a large empty space in the middle for the primordial ooze which was contained inside the middle of a Spawning Pool. As it grew, Kayla could feel the excitement of the drones which could see the Spawning Pool. With that structure, the Swarm would finally be able to defend itself.

What's more, she could also tell that somehow, the Larva within the Hatchery were learning how to become Zerglings, the Hatchery itself realized the potential of a Lair, and Queens were producible. Strangely enough, Queens required the Hatchery itself to produce, sort of like a Larva, but presumably modified. With a shrug, Kayla pulled eight drones away from mining, set them into pairs and positioned them each at an equidistant point around the Hatchery.

With a single command, all those drones melted into small puddles, absorbing minerals from the creep itself and bubbling up to form four pairs of one Spine and one Spore Crawler. Granted, the Spore Crawlers might not be as useful thanks to the fact that they favoured firing on air targets, but in a pinch they could shoot at ground targets, they just preferred not to, since it hurt for them to twist downwards so much.

They would also be useful for detecting camouflaged enemies, since they had very powerful sensory abilities, necessary to spot and accurately fire on air targets a distance away. Spine Crawlers would be the main defenders, owing to their whip-like tentacle, but they couldn't detect hidden units, meaning that having a Spore Crawler beside each would make it impossible to sneak inside of her base. At least, that was the idea. It was possible that the Spore Crawlers might not be able to detect hidden units, or that whatever was coming for her would just roll straight over, but she'd be damned if she didn't even try to survive.

Turning her attention to the Hatchery, Kayla willed all three Larva to become Zerglings, watching them skitter to the nearest hole and disappear within the Hatchery. She knew that she needed a second Hatchery to produce more Larva, otherwise she'd be limited to only a certain amount of units per hour. That, however, depended on how long the Zerglings took to emerge. The Crawlers formed in a few minutes, and- "Oh, awesome." One of the Zerglings was already awake, she could feel it in her mind. "Thanks, Kefali." She murmured.

When the drones were born, Kefali would take over for her and immediately assign them where he calculated they would do the most good, either mining, cutting or transporting ore. Several times Kayla requisitioned a drone to go aid with scouting, and that was how they went about things. But, perhaps knowing that she wanted this, Kefali didn't immediately take over the link between Kayla and the Zergling, instead leaving it connected with her mind.

She watched as the claws overhanging from its back tore through the membrane holding it back, emerging with a visceral spray of amniotic fluid which the hatchery quickly re-absorbed to use elsewhere, not a drop wasted. Well, aside from the fluid still coating the Zergling as it fled the Hatchery, coming to a skidding stop in front of Kayla. With slightly wary hands, she reached out and touched the Zerglings back-claws.

They were pretty big. Seeing them in a screen or in her mind was definitely not a good comparison for the size of a Zergling. Its head was at about groin height, and the claws reached up to over her shoulders. Of course, that was if it was in its normal stance. When it raised its head to look up at her, it was closer to abdomen or even chest height if it really tried.

Sitting down with her legs crossed, she willed the Zergling closer, making it easier for the pair to see each other. Whilst the Zergling relished in her presence, chittering away across their mental link, Kayla examined its weaponry with a keen eye. The claws were as long as her forearm, and it had mandible-like claws extruding from its jaws as well, perfect for goring an opponent. There were also small defensive spikes coating its head to dissuade trying to actually grapple with it, at least without some kind of armour between you and the spikes.

Avoiding those carefully, Kayla laid her hand atop the Zergling, smiling to herself when it slumped down beside her like a particularly-friendly dog. Of course, to all members of the swarm, she took the role of pack leader, just as domesticated dogs saw their owners as their parents, who was basically pack-leader to a dog. Or at least, that was what she remembered reading one time. The point was, the Zerg seemed pretty loyal.

Speaking of Zerg, without even needing to look at it, she willed the hatchery to begin production of a Queen, alongside telling Kefali to begin repeat-production of Zerglings. They needed more creep dispersed, so having a Queen going around and aiding the existing Tumors in spreading even more Creep Tumors would make the expansion of the base go exponentially faster. She didn't know how long the Queen would take, but hopefully not too long.

They had about six days left at absolute most. She found that while she got hungry, she didn't need to sleep anywhere nearly as often, staying awake all through the night without fatigue. When she asked about it, Kefali informed her that while Zerg need nourishment and rest, they require far less than a terran would. Whereas a human needs 8 hours of sleep every 24 hours on average, a Zerg could go a week on 6 hours of rest and be perfectly fine.

If pressed, they could do absolutely no rest, but they would slowly become more erratic and feral as their mental faculties degraded, until they lost their connection to the swarm and became completely feral and uncontrolled, needing to be put down. they could sometimes be saved by a Queen performing a transfusion, but it was a hit-or-miss thing.

Scratching around the spikes atop the Zergling's head, Kayla looked over her rudimentary base. The Spine and Spore crawlers were vigilantly watching the surrounding area, the Spore crawlers, in particular, keeping track of any nearby animals which came closer. So far, there hadn't been any creature brave enough to approach, so presumably the extreme amount of drones had warded off any animals from taking the plunge.

Yawning lightly as she released her hold on the Zergling and stretched out, she grinned as she looked around. While she was distracted, Kefali had the other two Zerglings take up positions behind her in a guarding position. It was honestly quite...sweet that he was so worried for her. Of course, she was basically the only hope for the swarm surviving. If she died, the swarm would fail. When she asked, all he had to say on that front was that somehow he knew that Queens, Overseers, and other Zerg wouldn't be able to lead the swarm to victory. Their only hope lay with Kayla, which was why she had been taken from the village.

That was something she had meant to bring up with him, but held off. She knew she wasn't from this world. How? Quite simple, really. There were two moons. Earth most certainly did not have two moons the last time she checked. And Kefali mentioned a village. She lived in the middle of a bustling city, not a small village out in the sticks, the Zerg would have never been able to get to her.

Racking her brains for what might have happened, she drew a blank. She had a few theories, like maybe she died, or perhaps she got struck by lightning. She briefly considered that she was comatose or something, but decided that this reality was far too...real to be such a thing. The slice in her arm was real, the agony she felt was indisputable. But, none of those theories could be proven one way or the other, so she just decided to push it in the back of her mind in a chest beside her Creep Tumor memories and ignore it for the time being.

Kayla brushed her fingers across the scales on her arm, humming a tune to herself as she plucked at them. Her body was changing surprisingly quickly. A single day and she went from being visibly completely human to having scales covering the top half of her forearm, scales on her abs, and her legs felt like tightly-corded muscle, powerful. Standing up, she jumped from side to side, then crouched down for a strong jump upwards. "Woah!"

Windmilling her arms, Kayla desperately tried to keep herself level, landing hard on her legs before falling over backwards from the impact. That one jump gave her at least a few meters of altitude, and considering how she wasn't exactly a standing-jump enthusiast, she could attribute that to either gravity being weaker, though a picked-up and dropped stone put a quick end to that theory, or the more likely option that her body was being improved in ways she might not expect.

A new presence emerged within her mind as she sat there, a smooth and regal voice speaking to her. 'Greetings Herald.' Kayla blinked. That was definitely not Kefali speaking, meaning the Queen had just finished, in...about twice the time it took to produce a Zergling. "Uhh, hi?" She said to the Queen. Even if Kefali had told her that she was above all others who were Zerg, she still felt a bit worried at how...commanding the Queen's presence was, evidently what she used to control and command the Zerg under her command.

'It is this one's pleasure to greet thee, Herald of the Swarm.' The Queen's regal voice had a strangely eloquent pattern of speaking, very formal, and completely unlike her appearance, which Kayla found herself graced with as the Queen left the Hatchery, her numerous legs carrying her swiftly through the entrance to step out into the darkened clearing.

She looked just like a normal queen, six legs with an extremely large body, then two arm-like claws held in front of her, whilst a pair of much larger limbs extended from her arachnid-like back to hang at her sides. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Queen. Uhh, I'd come up with a name for you, but I'm kind of...hmm, actually, do you like the sound of...Hatsune?"

Sure, it was just as unoriginal as naming a poisonous panther after a mushroom or naming a bug as foul, seeing as Hatsune meant 'first-born' in Japanese, but it was really applicable, easy to say, and fit the Queen to a tee. 'This one would be honoured by such a bestowment my Herald. I have been told by the Herald-Speaker that we are in need of more Creep Tumors, so by your leave, Herald?" Kayla waved the Queen off to do her duties. "Please, go, don't let me keep you. besides, not like we cannot just communicate through our bond, now can we?" For a moment, the Queen's jaw tilted into a vague impression of a smile, but she quickly inclined her head deeply towards Kayla before heading away towards the other side of the base to lay some tumors in the area where no creep was being spread.

With the introduction of a Queen to the mix, the available land to which Kayla had for building would be vastly increased at an incredible rate. With that, she'd be able to place a Roach Warren, an evolution chamber, or perhaps simply another...Hatchery. "Hatsune!" She quickly yelled, momentarily forgetting about her connection. The Queen turned around, and Kayla pointed towards the Hatchery. "Before you start laying Creep Tumors, could you use your Spawn Larva ability to produce more Larva, please?" The Queen looked at the Hatchery, then turned back and inclined her head again. 'It will be done, Herald.'

With that dealt with, Kayla leaned back, hearing another three Zerglings emerge from the Hatchery. "Hey Kefali, we should probably swap the drones that are currently scouting out with Zerglings, since they can protect themselves better." He was silent for a moment. 'Perhaps we could keep one drone with each Zergling, as that way if a Vespene deposit is located, the drone would be able to morph into an extractor immediately, whilst...'Hatsune' would be able to begin laying Creep Tumors to connect the gas to our Creep network..' Smiling, Kayla agreed, organizing several Zerglings to head out and meet with the drones, while the other drones came back to base to do mining or clear out some of the treelines for building space. Kefali was adamant, however, that Kayla be accompanied by at least two Zerglings at all times for defence.

To be honest, after the fights she'd already gotten into, Kayla didn't argue.

"Blasted infernals, look at this mess."

Nudging a fallen chunk of wood off to the side, Scout-Sergeant Keller grimaced at the bloated, rotting corpse beneath his spear. The poor bastard had been dead at least a week, their skin bulging with gases as their internal organs decomposed. A gaping wound was visible in their rib-cage, some kind of mace-sized weapon was stabbed with enough force to snap his ribs and push them apart, eviscerating his innards.

He and his scouts had been dispatched only two days past, when the village he was now within hadn't sent their monthly messenger to the Lord's Manor. By the fact that his men had yelled reports of similar findings in other buildings, he knew it was not just a few dead, the whole village had been wiped out. What was worse though was that according to the census undertaken recently, there were thirty-seven inhabitants of this village. His men only found thirty-six corpses, all dead where they stood. There were faded tracks leading away, several dozen..."Have you ever seen anything like this, Sergeant?"

He shook his head, kneeling down. "Never." The tracks were like nothing he'd ever seen, like...like the attackers were insectoids. They stabbed into the ground with thin legs, dilling in at least an inch with their sharpness. Evidently getting hit by one of these limbs would go straight through leather and perhaps even be strong enough to break chainmail. "We must follow these tracks in caution. Felton!" He belted out a yell, bringing his fastest runner to the fore. "Make haste back to the city, give this seal and tell the Lord-Castellan that Karlshall has been attacked and wiped out, with potentially one survivor. Scout-Sergeant Keller has deemed it necessary to track these creatures, ascertain if there was a survivor, and gather intelligence on what we will be fighting. Go!"

With that order, the scout began travelling away back through the village towards the city. The men around him all had grave faces. They knew that to be part of a tracking team in these dangerous forests was to dance with danger, but they also knew that they needed to get intelligence on their foe. The Lord-Castellan would need it if he were to lead his forces against this enemy. The knowledge that perhaps there was a survivor to save also spurred their spirits onwards.

Seeing his squad of a dozen soldiers in such a state, Keller bellowed out. "Men! Today we have found this village eradicated to the last man, and near the last woman. A single survivor taken by these invaders. And if I have to walk through hell itself to save them, I shall do so gladly. The villagers of Karlshall were brave, they knew that to settle land here at the wishes of the Lord-Castellan was to live with danger under their cots. To be so brutally attacked can only invite retaliation. But-" He looked across his men. "-we must ensure this retaliation is strong, swift, and without mercy. We are the eyes and ears of the Castellan, and every word we speak might mean another brave man comes home alive after felling these perfidious beasts. Now, who's with me?!"

The bellowing yells of the scouts did not go unnoticed, however. A single Zergling was slinking across the treeline, the accompanying drone riding atop its back. Kefali was informed, who in turn informed Kayla that the expeditionary force of scouts had been sighted. When she looked through the eyes of the Zergling and saw her foe, her only words were...

"That's it?"

Hehehe.

All that work, and her foe turns out to be far weaker than anticipated. Of course, this is only the first force. The forces of the Lord-Castellan are far more serious, but those scouts really aren't much of a threat. Leather armour and spears versus Zerglings, creatures able to battle against Marines wearing CDC-armour? That's not going to end up very well.

Kayla was expecting at least Marine-level enemies, perhaps even worse, which was why she was so panicked and in a rush to protect herself. Learning that, actually, she'd be fighting a medieval-level foe on this planet? A bit underwhelming, after all her planning.

Please review for cookies! They are a bit digital, but they still taste fine!