Man, these past couple of weeks have been busy for me. Since the start of the Coronavirus panic my shifts have reached to a 6-8 hour range, now leaving me with less time at home and to work on my projects.

"Well somebody has to bag all those groceries."

I know, but it can suck. At least I have a job, others aren't so lucky unfortunately.

"But they have people like us to lean on and to distract them from their predicament."

Right, you guys can depend on us creators on every platform to provide you with the entertainment you desire in this crazy year. This virus isn't going to stop us, neither should it stop you. Keep washing your hands, keep fighting on, and most of all, keep good care of one another. The only way this virus will be stopped is to give our medical staff enough time to find a cure for this mess so don't get other people sick and if you have the slightest suspicion that you're sick then report it immediately. It's better to overreact than underreact.

"Yeah, keep those hands clean."

Alright, now to the chapter!

Chapter 23: Current Events

Bellowing screeches fill the red air as a young girl with blonde hair and red eyes that is no older than 14 runs through ruined buildings that have been ravaged by conflict. Her eyes are red from tears and her clothes are a tattered and bloodied red dress that has been ripped apart by the unseen enemy, however there are no visible injuries on her.

She runs through a small canyon of debris when a shadowed figure suddenly leaps out from above, its eyes glowing a menacing orange as they zero in on the girl before narrowly missing her. The four-legged creature readies itself for another strike. She narrowly dodges the quadruped predator and continues to run for her life. Two more join in the hunt as they both leap down, but the girl barely dodges them both as she tumbles pass them and continues to flee. Three more appear before they give off yet another blood curdling screech.

She holds in her cries as she makes it closer towards a nearby sky scarper. Her body quickly squeezes through the debris blocking the main entrance leaving the shadows outside to try to enter in vain. She hits the dirty ground harshly, bruising her arm and shoulder. Despite this she gets up as the phantom pokes its head in and startling her into crawling back into the farthest corner of the dark room. She puts her legs up to her chest as tears start to form in her eyes once again.

"Mama, papa." The girl said, her tears finally start to stream down her face. She never knew that everything could go so wrong, the everything could be taken away from her so fast.

She peeks up to watch the snarling spectral monster struggle to get in, but what she saw instead made her blood freeze: a woman with long blonde hair laying on the ground in her own blood. Her face facing towards the left and out of the girl's view. She wants to look away, but her eyes refuse to move as what was left of her composure begins to break apart at the horrific sight. Then the screeching of the specter fills the room before it swiftly fills her sight in darkness as some sort of grim savior before everything went silent in an instant.

Isabel wakes up in a cold sweat, her red iris eyes wide open in terror and breath rapid. She grabs her chest to slow her racing heart, and for what felt like a minute of panic, her body begins to calm down. She looks out the window and sees a sliver of dim blue light piercing through the crack of the curtains and hears a faint sound of sprinkling rain outside. She then looks at her clock to see that it's 1A.M., only three hours since she went to bed.

"Damnit, not again." Isabel mutters to herself. "Why now?" These sorts of nightmares begun to fade away at around a year ago, the same time as her flashbacks, but she doesn't understand why she had one now, and one so vividly.

She wonders as to why they are even returning in the first place, could it be because of Ares?

"No, no, it must be a coincidence. He can't be connected to this." Her frown gets heavier as she continues to think. "Please be just a crazy coincidence." She doesn't want to believe that Ares is the cause of this, she can't think of him causing any harm. But then again, they just met so who knows.

But unable to sleep now and not wanting to think of anything else she roles over to a small dresser next to her and takes out four metal spheres with the diameter of an eye from the top drawer. These spheres were some of the few things that she was able to bring with her amongst the chaos and now stand as a reminder of her more pleasant life before it all ended. Back then she was given these by May as her first gift from her, since then she had been using them to wither entertain herself or to practice her abilities. But now she uses them as stress relief.

She takes a deep breath and begins focusing her mind into the orbs and without any difficulty has begun to manipulate them by lifting them into the air in a clam blue aura until they came upon eye level. She makes them spin into a clockwise rotation, having them gather up speed until they were made into a grey circular blur. The energy begins to faintly light up the room as she begins to use both her hands to guide the shape, manipulating it's diameter by stretching out her arms in and out, and like a silk weaver her arms delicately move around the quadruplet spheres in any way she could think of. She finally feels a sense of peace as she continues to move them.

'U-uh, hello?' A voice sounds off causing her to instantly clasp her hands and the spheres together in surprise. 'Oh, sorry for disturbing you Isabel.' She quickly identifies the voice to be Ares' and that it's psionic in origin.

'It's alright, what are you doing up so late?'

'I never really required a lot of sleep, sometimes I sleep for a couple hours and I'm refreshed. Why are you awake?'

'Couldn't sleep, that's all. So then, what do you want?'

'Just to talk, that's all.'

'Okay then, what's on your mind?'

'What happened here?' He pauses for a couple of seconds before adding on. 'Specifically, for the past four years.'

'Your brothers put you up to this didn't they?'

'We did.' A raspy voice fills her head which again startles her. 'I am Janusar, the oldest among us.' She's rather unnerved by the sound of the snake-like voice but she bears with it.

'And I'm Cronos, we have met before.' A more clear but booming and animalistic voice joins in.

'Oh, we did.' She paused for a second as her memory recollects the events in her mind. 'Where are you?'

'Just outside your house now, waiting out what's left of the storm.'

'Well then, I guess I can tell you what I know, but I'm not the best source for current events.'

'Jest get on with it!' Janusar snapped.

'Alright, alright I'll start. While I was stuck in my room thanks to some worrisome parents four years ago, there was this government called the Confederacy, it ruled entire planets with an Iron fist and my father particularly didn't like them. They take psychics like me away to something called a ghost program hence the paranoia from my parents. Despite this though it fell in a matter of months to the zerg with their attack on our home world and capital of the Confederacy, Tarsonis, being the nail on the coffin. Billions were slaughtered, but we were among the survivors, though we all didn't make it.' Her voice sounds remorseful near the end.

'That sounds horrible!' Ares chimes in, quickly getting the point.

'It's was, it was something that came out of complete nowhere so we could only react. Anyways we were able to escape thanks to the help from the Sons of Korhal and hid on Ursa, one of Korhal's' moons, for a little bit. But after seeing that the newly established Dominion was no better than the Confederacy, dad had us all take the next shuttle out of there, and a few planets later we ended up here in Agria. For four years nothing happened, the Zerg stayed on a planet called Char, according to the news, and the Dominion continued to expand. Since then things were quiet and rather peaceful, I'm finally allowed outside my room and go outside until dark for once.'

'Is that all?' A rather disappointed Janusar tops off.

'I told you, I'm not the best source of information.' She begins to levitate the orbs again. 'You'll have better luck with my dad and May tomorrow, they've seen a lot more than me.'

'Then we are done here.' Though she doesn't see it the two hybrids did indeed pull out to their own devices.

"Good riddance." She says with a sigh.

'I'm sorry about him.'

'It's alright. He seems like the overbearing type though.'

'He is.' His voice seems to turn a little maliceful in response.

'Can relate. But why are you still around though?'

'I want to talk, like what friends do you know.'

'Really?' She seems to smile at this request, is he serious about this? 'Well what do you want to talk about then?'

'The Protoss, do you know anything about them?' Isabel raised a confused eyebrow at this question before responding.

'No, never even met one in person, why?'

'Just curious, that's all.' The girl then starts to piece things together.

'It's because of what happened at the station, isn't it?' The boy remains silent to the question, causing a rather awkward moment between the two psychics. Not wanting this Isabel decided to change the subject. 'How about we talk about our isolation, surly you also had a lot of things to do in your alone time.'

'Actually, I never did.'

'Not even the time to practice your abilities?'

'No, there was this large clunky collar they made that inhibited my powers. I could only create a tiny orb at best.'

'Sounds uncomfortable.'

'It was. I only had a small room to call home and can only come out when they needed to test on me.' She cringes at the thought of living in such conditions, at least for her she had toys and a comfortable room to live in along with being able to interact with her parents on a semi-regular basis. 'But it wasn't all bad, there was one person that interacted with me, her name is Sira.' The image of a woman with short brown hair, she was wearing a lab coat and giving off a rather familiar warm smile, much like that seen from her mother. 'She would always speak to me softly and tell me about the world outside. I may have not been able to read her mind, but I just felt that she truly cared for me.'

'She seems really nice.'

'She truly was, I wanted to bring her with us, but my brothers didn't want to. We left her behind in the middle of a protoss attack and now, I don't know what happened to her.' A tear runs down her eye but not because of what he described, but the sense of loss he's feeling, a sense that she knows all too well.

'Oh my god, I'm so sorry.'

'It's okay, really. I just hope that she's okay.' Once again things go quiet between them. She has a little more trouble as to what subject to find this time, this is the first time that she's handling a heavy subject with a person that she just met and so she doesn't know what to say.

Suddenly, an idea came to mind.

'Do you want to play tomorrow?'

'Huh?' He seems confused by this request.

'I just don't think it's right for someone like you to just live a life of work and no fun, that's just cruel. I have a lot of stuff in my room I've made to entertain myself over the years.' She looks over to some sort of contraption in the far corner of the room nearest to the door covered in a large blanket. Originally, she was going to complete it a week ago, but she severely underestimated the amount resources she needed.

'I can't, my brothers would want me to train tomorrow like we have before.' She squints her eyes in annoyance before looking at her closet.

'I also use them to hone my own abilities, like training equipment for a weightlifter. There's a turbine I made powered purely by psionic energy, I often use it to measure how long I can hold by focus under certain strains. So far, I can hold 346 rotations per minute for five minutes so far.' She smiles in a sense of pride for her work.

'It does sound more fun than just throwing rocks, I guess I can try and convince them.'

'Thank you.' She starts yawning as her eyes start to grow heavy. 'Well, looks like it's back to the bed with me.'

'I'm starting to get tired as well.'

'Goodnight then Ares.'

'Goodnight Isabel.'

She finally feels the disconnect of their minds and is left alone in her room once again with the light pitter pattering of the rain. She takes a deep sigh, floats the orbs on top of the dresser, and coups herself back into the bedsheets. Her mouth moves to give off a small but pleasant smile as the warmth of the blankets starts coming into her body.

"Mabey things are going to get better. Even if a little weirder." She whispered before eventually letting her mind sink back into its own landscape.

Within the bridge of the Bucephalus Valerian Mengsk looks out of the large viewport, still processing the information given to him by Dr. Daniels regarding the hybrid project, especially with their key subject "Ares". After being given all the information that the survivors had left of their research, he had taken note of the two protoss/zerg hybrids and their abilities based off their simulations they conducted while active.

The third one, Ares, looked more like a typical terran male despite his genetic makeup. He looked so much weaker than the other two and yet they dedicated so much more resources to him despite their famine during their isolation. Though he understands that it was their main goal to create him the prince couldn't help but think that it would better if they stuck with the hybrid they had created before as they would prove to be more powerful than their smaller counterpart.

But perhaps there's an advantage to this, with some more modifications to the base design, he could create an across-the-board better substitute to the currently existing ghost program and design them as spec-ops units capable of handling the more hazardous tasks that even some of the best ghost operatives would have trouble in. This would improve his standings with both the public and with some of the bureaucrats while improving the military, it could become a rather fortunate find for the young man.

But without all the raw data about this hybrid, who Daniels said was taken by a protoss assassin before the attack, all he has are some of the initial data about him which isn't enough to do anything with. The best way to forward this project would be to find Ares himself so he could conduct some tests on him and record all the data he has on him on both a physical and genetic scale. This with the help of Dr. Narud and the surviving scientists will make this a reality.

But then there's a question that went through his mind: does the doctor know about any of this? Surely, he would know if such a project exists.

He walks over to the central table and types on it for a few seconds before a screen pops up in front of him revealing the familiar face of Dr. Narud, and from the looks of it he is rather busy with something, causing the scientist to take a few seconds to notice him.

"Oh, prince Valerian, I didn't expect you to call today." Narud responds, startled by his call.

"Sorry to disturb you doctor, but I have something to ask of you." Valerian spoke.

"What do you want to know my prince?"

"Do you know anything about the hybrid project with a subject named Ares?" Narud raises an eyebrow to this.

"Not of any that I heard of, unless you are referring to the nicknames given to some of the hybrids from my employees."

"Not that Narud, I mean that of a hybrid consisting of all three races."

"Well, I've never heard of it then, I don't remember any such projects ever being conducted with my knowledge." The scientist's brow compresses in visible uncertainty.

"It doesn't seem that surprising then, it was some sort of Confederate hybrid project that was conducted right on the edge of the Koprulu Sector in total secrecy. I discovered it just a little while ago from a random distress signal given out by the survivors."

"Interesting, do you have any data I can look over?"

"Only the preliminary data they could salvage. It isn't much but I'm sure you can make use of it." He types on the console briefly before the man on the other side looked down at his own a few seconds later showing that he had received it.

"Alright, I'll make sure to get as much out of it as possible."

"I hope you do; it could lead to some major breakthroughs for our men on the field." Narud nods before the screen flickers out leaving to prince to know wonder, how will things play out from this point on?

30 minutes later

Within his office Narud finally finishes the report that Valerian, his brow scrunched up in annoyance as he leans back onto the chair.

"Hmph, so they actually did it. Resourceful little vermin." Narud spoke, though he sounds rather unimpressed despite his words.

Years ago he orchestrated the creation of hybrid across the sector through a series of secret labs scatter throughout the worlds with the aid of the Dominion, but Actures wasn't the only fool who thinks they can control the hybrid. The Confederacy tried a similar project but with far fewer labs, one of them happened to be that station.

He was aware that they were creating this "Ares", but he never cared for it, he just wanted to them to create the resulting hybrid for him to use later. But the events at the time had him to go back undercover as Samir Duran and abandoning the project all together. He had honestly forgotten about them, thinking them dead and an inconsequential loss to the overall plan.

But he's also disgusted by this, them thinking they could add their own genes into a perfect blend of beings? This irritates him to no end with how the terrans think they are great enough to make such a great creature? He scoffs at this blasphemy, but in due time it will be wiped off from the face of the galaxy, he'll just have to tolerate the knowledge of its existence until the time comes.

A loud knock is suddenly heard outside.

"Dr. Narud, can I come in? It's urgent." A meek male voice sounds off.

"Yes, come in." He scowls before putting the act back up. "What is it?"

"The probes on Char are detecting abnormal movement on the planet's surface, I think they're moving." He places his tablet on his desk, causing a large screen to pop up.

One it is a live video feed of the planet of Char, and it's showing a massive number of zerg leaving the planet ranging from mutalisks, overlords, and to the much more recent strands of corrupters and the mighty leviathan.

"What should we do sir?" He asks in worry.

"Warn Valerian and send him the coordinates of the artifacts we found so far, ASAP!" He yells in a worried tone.

"Yes sir." After the scientist is gone with his tablet Narud loosens up his face and gives off a menacing smile.

"Finally, things are about to be set in motion."

Wow, that was a doozy, so before I continue on to the rest, I have an announcement: I'll be placing this story into a temporary hiatus until around June 30th or before since I'll be working on a webcomic to submit onto this year's Webtoons competition. With all the long shifts I have I'm going to need all the time I can get.

"It won't be the one we spoke of before, funny how things change on a dime right?"

Yeah, but don't worry my readers, I'm not ending things here, it will continue as normal as soon as I'm done with the comic. I'm honestly too invested with this story to stop now and to be honest I see it as my little star child, much like Sira is with Ares. Buuut if I'm extremely lucky I might squeeze a chapter out in the meantime.

Now onto the trivia-of-the-day and comment responses:

"A cat can't climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat's paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down." (Lehnardt, 2020)

I thought something about cats would bring a little sunshine to your day.

Mr. treestar: I appreciate your enthusiasm about my story as to ask these questions, but unfortunately I can't answer most of them say one since that will spoil the story. But I understand your curiosity, I was like you once with another story I've read. The one answer is that I will continue with the story until the very end like I said above ending at around a little past the end of LotV. Just for now a hiatus will be up.

Guest: Hm, I never knew that the two hybrids would get mixed up, I thought I was covering that base. Mabey it's because I have it all already in my head and the visualization made what I was typing feel natural to me but not the reader. I'll get on that in future chapters. Thanks for the critique. (^ ^)

With all that done, we hope that you have all a safe and fine day or night wherever you are.

"We'll see you all on June 30th!"