Dmanit man! Why did you bring a hydralisk here!?
"It sort of followed me in when I wasn't looking."
HOW!?
"It was a very hectic time for me and it gotten caught up in the mess, trust me a lot worse have gotten caught up in the portal."
Like what?
"Oh you know, giant killer mechs, a bunch of monsters including the hydralisk, and a live nuke."
What the heck were you caught up in?
"A VERY hectic war of multidimensional perorations. Don't worry though, their dimensional coordinates are really far from here so you won't get caught up in it."
Thank goodness, well let's just get this going then.
Chapter 30: On the Hunt
Within the superstructure of the Hyperion a group of marines, marauders, and medics are escorting three hybrids through the metal halls. For Cronos and his brother, Janusar, though these corridors are uncomfortably small for their large size, clearly these halls were designed for human use as Ares and the soldiers have no trouble walking through them. He had to endure his horns hitting the outlying grooves, pipes, and doorways throughout their entire venture through the ship which he believes has been going on for at least ten minutes or so. This had irritated him to no end, at least Janusar isn't as big despite him still towering over the marines, but the zerg-like hybrid's own size nearly takes up the entire width of the hallway causing the soldiers to escort them from behind and in front of them.
Despite this irritant it doesn't sway him from keeping Ares close, despite the terran commander's apparent trust in them, even he doesn't feel the same for the troopers that surround them. From the thoughts he heard they were throwing insults such as "freak", "monster", and "creepy" on the regular whether they aren't aware of his mind reading or just don't care at all. This caused him to be quite defensive of the boy since he could also feel how uncomfortable he is around them as well.
After another minute of traveling they come upon a doorway with the dimensions just big enough to fit themselves in.
"There you go, home sweet home." The leading marine, Tychus, notifies them. "Hope you like it." He added with a voice laced with a condescending tone as a marine walks up and enters the code to the room. With a loud series of clanking sounds and a long screech the locks disengage and it slowly opens revealing a dark room beyond.
Janusar enters first while ducking slightly to avoid the roof, takes a quick look around, and signals him and Ares to come in with a nod of the head. Cronos lets his terran counterpart walk in first before him, and like the rest of the doorways his horns get caught on the edges, but with some quick adjustments he was able to fit through and meet up with the others. The door slams behind him leaving the brothers in the darken room. From what he can see through the darkness, which is dimly lit by a single flickering light bar in the roof, he sees numerous empty crates and metal scraps scattered in piles across the room. With some rearranging the room can comfortably accommodate the three hybrids with some extra room.
"Good riddance, I couldn't stand another moment around those terrans." Janusar exclaims with a mental sigh.
"They were irritating at best, but at least we have a sanctuary to train in." Cronos comments in response.
"Indeed, but we still have one problem left." Cronos tilts his head in question. "Training can only bring us so far, at some point we will need to face our enemy, especially with what is going on now. Didn't you say you say back at Agria that you felt revitalized when you consumed the zerg while in the wilderness?"
"Yes, and I believe I know what you're trying to say."
"Perhaps consuming more powerful strains of the zerg could grant us greater strength and possibly abilities like it did for you. All we need to do is engage the enemy when these terrans do."
"It could also present excellent opportunities to scout out our enemies and could earn us better favors with these terrans in the future."
"Hmhm, boarding this ship was the best course of action in hindsight." A hint of satisfaction was heard in his voice.
"And yet another problem arises: how will we know when an opportunity presents itself?" Janusar starts to think about this little setback.
After a few minutes of thinking he, along with Cronos, look over towards the crates seeing Ares resting on top of a couple of them. They approach him quickly getting his attention.
"Ares, do you still have that connection with the terran female?" The protoss equivalent asks.
"Isabel? Yes, it's faint though." Ares answers.
"Then I want you to contact her and tell her to watch outside for us." This causes the young boy to widen his eyes and look away in a nervous posture.
"I know you don't like the notion of asking her to be our servant, but she's our best source of information outside this room." Cronos uses his more human-like hand to lift up his chin while speaking as gentle of a tone as his bestial voice could make.
"O-okay, I'll try." They feel their brother begin to reach out the best he could and are patient knowing that this is his first time trying to communicate telepathically with another being that is not them over a large distance.
Sounds of people walking and talking fill the air as Isabel sits in a corner of a bunch of creates in a huddled position, staring aimlessly at the roof, her parents also laying against the same pile, but she chose to be alone for the time being due to the trauma still hanging around her. Her mind is still trying to sort out everything that has happened over the past twenty-four hours, but this process was hindered due to the numerous thoughts of the other colonists her mind is picking up on ranging from worries about where they're going to go next to them comforting each other from their fear. Despite her best efforts to block them out a good number of these thoughts still slipped by to enter her mind to her discomfort.
She does share their fears though, where are they going to go? The Dominion abandoned them and the Zerg are invading the entire sector, there might be no safe place for them to run to anymore. She just feels so small, all of this is going on and she's completely helpless to stop it, and for the second time the swarm terrorized her and nearly took away her father. She doesn't know what to really do right now, her mind is a mess and there's not much she could do aside from staring at the roof while fidgeting with the four spheres in her hands.
"Isabel?" A familiar voice stood itself out from the rest in her mind.
"Ares?" She responds.
"Are you alright?".
"Yeah, just shaken up. What about you?"
"We're in a safe spot here, though there's not much we can do but train."
"That must be fun."
"Well I'm actually here to ask you something."
"What is it?"
"My brothers are asking you to look out for us and tell us what is going on." Her eyes narrowed at these words in annoyance as her grip on her forehead tightens.
"Seriously? They expect a nineteen-year old girl with next to no people skills to just stroll around the ship that doesn't even belong to her." Her voice became more aggressive as she continues. "Let alone actually talk to people, yeah, great idea!" She took a deep breath once she realizes how loose she's gotten. "Look, I've got nothing against you, but right now I'm not in a good place. I hope they're listening in because I want to tell them that I'm not in the mood to be anyone's errand girl right now, so please ask someone else and just leave me alone for a while." She buries her head deeper into her legs as she starts to feel her head hurt again.
"O-ok, hope you get well." She was left alone again as she feels the slight ping of their connection ending.
She turns her head around and continues to look towards the roof with a newfound irritation as she pinches her forehead to try to mitigate the aching she's feeling. Her and the hybrid have barely interacted with each other and she could sense a certain dislike of her from Janusar. The only time that the hybrid, with the exception of Ares, were ever willing to interact with her is to use her like a tool, they don't even bother to actually get to know her. This was something that annoyed her a lot, the first time that she could interact with someone like her and that someone has two protective brothers that barely care about her.
Her mental complaints were cut off when she started to hear the loud screeching of metal scraping against metal ahead of her causing her to divert her eyes towards its source. She could see two individuals trying to pull at a rather large crate away from a nearby pile with a great degree of difficulty. Wanting to focus on something else the girl decided to move closer to listen in on whatever they are doing.
"Come on Kachinsky, we gotta get these parts to Swann, it's important." The woman spoke in a heavy country accent.
"I know Annabelle, but the damn thing is heavy and stuck, it's going to take a forklift to get this thing out." The man named Kachinsky responds in frustration.
"Well he needs it now. Com'on, just one more pull." The two engineers flank the visible sides of the crate in preparation to make another pull. "Alright, on three. One. Two. Three!" With all their strength they pull at the container. At first it didn't look like they'll get it out, but seconds later it was dragged out of its confines.
This however causes the crates above it to fall towards the two workers. The man was able to get far enough away in time, but the woman is too slow to move as she trips over a piece of equipment on the ground.
Isabel's body quickly moved on its own as she jolts forward and raises her arms towards the scene. Her mind grabs hold of a large crate that was the size of the woman, keeping it feet away from crushing her, but her mind and body quickly became heavily strained from holding it up. She held it up just long enough for the woman to crawl away from the object, and once she knew that she was clear of danger the blonde lets go with a large gasp letting it slam to the ground with a heavy thud. Her body also collapses towards the ground as it falls victim to gravity having only her knees and arms supporting her.
A pair of footsteps rapidly sounded off from behind her as she continues to gather her composure together and she was quickly met with May and Isaac at her sides.
"We heard a crash, are you alright?" May asks as they both help her slowly get back up while she's clenching her throbbing head with one hand.
"I…I…" She couldn't speak as another feeling went through her mind: fear. All her life her abilities had threatened to separate her from her family, she'd seen it firsthand right before they left Tarsonis, and now she used it in front of complete strangers. She looks up slightly to see the two engineers walking towards them with the woman taking the lead, this promotes a response from her father by walking in front to confront them.
"Hey there, you look like her father, name's Anabelle Thatcher. This here is Milo Kachinsky."
"Hey there." Their voices were friendly in tone, but this did nothing to ease her father's caution.
"Pleasure to meet you." Isabel can tell that he's holding back his aggression, something that the woman also took noticed of.
"We saw what she did, and she saved my life, I'm just here to say thank you." He still doesn't budge. "Look, I've heard the stories of psychic kids being taken away to become ghosts, we've worked with some in the past. But we're not like that. Everyone on this ship is a volunteer, we all want to fight Mengsk and his rule, we're not gonna' take her." The still unsure father looks back to her.
"Is she telling the truth?" The blonde quickly checked through Thatcher's mind and to her relief the woman is telling the truth and gives him an assured nods which had him loosen up his body and turn back to the two crewmembers before moving aside to let them converse.
"So then love, what's your name?" Her gentle and tactful voice gave the girl enough courage to respond back.
"I-Isabel, ma'am."
"Well aren't you a polite little thing?" A chuckle escaped her mouth before continuing. "I like to say thank you for savin' me back there, I would've had a really bad day if you hadn't."
"Yeah, we would've lost our resident chatterbox." Her companion chimes in.
"Oh shut it Kachinsky." She playfully retorts before her gaze falls on May. "Say, do you happen to be an engineer?"
"Uh, yes, how did you know?"
"That's an engineer's outfit if I hadn't seen one before. What did you work with?"
"Well I was a mechanic for a couple of decades in both military and civilian service."
"That's good to know, what about you?" She then looks towards Isaac.
"I'm a former militia rifleman since the beginning of the Guild Wars."
"Even better, we're always lookin' for new volunteers to join us in the fight against Mengsk."
"We appreciate the offer, but I don't think we're ready to join anything anytime soon." Isaac responds for the family.
"Alright then, but the position is always open for ya'. You can find us in the armory past a corridor down from here." She points over to a set of doors at the far corner of the hanger.
"See ya' guys." The other engineer say's his farewell as they went their way to continue their own work.
"Well, they seem nice enough." Isabel comments. "Should we help them?"
"Let's just leave them to their business, we still need to wait until Ariel can find a new planet for us." The family start making their own way back upon the father's lead before she looked back to the other pair. Is he sure they shouldn't help?
Nymphil looks over the now ruined world of Agria from the view of her leviathan's nerve center, her dull green carapace slightly reflecting the light from the nearby star. Though she is satisfied with her completion of her queen's will, the broodmother isn't personally content due to the lack of challenge that this little world presented. The colony was small and weak which never forced her to try out the various combat tactics that she came up with in her mind, things only got challenging for her when a human ship arrived, and even then it was only for a short while. Perhaps this is because she's the youngest of the broodmother's, being created only a year ago and as a result her brood is small compared to the rest of her sisters with her leviathan nearly being half the size of the normal ones. Though it does pose more aggression than the usual it cannot carry as many zerg on board. The queen thought this task to be the most fitting for a brood of her miniscule size.
However, she did discover something interesting during her invasion, something that she would like her queen to know.
"My queen, this is Nymphil, do you hear me?" She calls out, waiting a few seconds before she's gotten a response.
"Yes Nymphil, what is it?" The calm yet commanding voice of the Queen of Blades responds, something that she is still slightly in awe of.
"I have come across something that that could be of some use to you."
"Is it an artifact piece?"
"No, but an organism with unique essence, one of my minions engaged it and that's when I sensed it. It took the form of a male terran child and possessed great psionic potential for its young age."
"Go on." Her superior sounds pleased by this notion.
"He was guarded by two other creatures that look nothing like him. But I was able to place my creation, a tracking mite, onto the ship they escaped on through my flyers and listened in. Apparently, they contain the essence of both the protoss and the zerg with terran essence added to the one named Ares."
"Hybrids? I though that is impossible." Nymphil could hear a hint of genuine surprise in her voice.
"That was my belief as well, yet the terrans were able to make them. They made their escape from their confines to make a life of their own, now they are on a terran ship called the Hyperion." She heard her queen chuckle briefly before continuing.
"Fate can be such a humorous thing, it seems that they are in the hands of Jim. I am however interested in your find. Follow that ship and capture Ares when he is vulnerable, forget about the other two."
"But it's just one ship, even my leviathan can assault it alone."
"Perhaps, but Jim's resourceful, he can easily slip past your fingers if you're careless and you could lose your only chance of catching Ares. Strike when the time is right, I trust that you alone can complete this as you are small enough to evade their gaze, and the rest of your sisters are busy with conquering the sector."
"I shall not fail you my queen." The presence of her ruler fades out to leave her to her task.
She begins to reach out to her mite and soon her vision morphs into its own, bringing her from the fleshy interior of the leviathan to the cold and hard confines of the Hyperion. She sees herself now on he metal floor in a small cramped passageway, and from it she could feel the cold breeze of air rushing past the tiny creature's carapace. There's no terrans in sight giving her the all clear to move out and so has the mite scuttle on six legs creating audible but minute tacking sounds against the metal surface. First order of business is to find some food so the mite can last for the long term, though finding this would be difficult as she doesn't know the layout of the vessel.
"Man, I'm starving, time to get some brunch." She hears a human exclaim from a nearby grate. Judging from the terminology it means food and so after letting the person pass, she has the longer front legs lift the grating and crawl outside to the passageway.
She continues to follow the crewmember from the roof making sure to hide if she ever has the feeling that the man suspects himself of being followed, and after a little while her patience was vindicated when they come upon a door labeled 'Mess Hall 4'. She quickly follows him in, avoiding the closing door before quickly crawling all the way up to the ceiling to avoid detection. She watches from above as the numerous crewmembers walk around carrying trays of what appears to be sustenance for their bodies. She traces one with an empty tray back towards the source of the food and observes it receiving it from another terran behind a rectangular opening in the wall. Her skittering legs quickly bring her to the other side of the room with everyone below being none the wiser.
The mite enters another grate and navigates through the metal tubing towards the food facilities below through another grating. Below sits a pile of yellow spheres that are just bigger than the mite itself, a perfect morsel to steal. Slowly she opens the plating and gently sets it aside and after checking that the area is clear she begins producing a viscus liquid between its mandibles until it reaches a critical mass of semi-transparent liquid. She takes aim and in one swift movement spits the glob into the string with enough force to rapidly send it flying down towards the food below. With barely a sound it sticks to its target and she begins to reel it up with its front legs like a spider despite the rather dense weight of the object. Within seconds she was able to acquire the morsel while barely avoiding the detection of a wondering crewman. She closes the grate and begins to navigate through the metal labyrinth once again with the resource in her claws.
After traversing for what seems like a mile of metal tubing Nymphil's agent comes across a dark and secluded room with no visible sources of light to be seen leaving it completely dark. The food was set down to have the front legs to lift the cover up and set it aside. After assuring that no one is around, the food was sent down first by a thread of silk, then the mite jumps down suffering minimal injuring thanks to its armor. The site is perfect, small, dark, and only accessible by the mite alone.
Quickly she had the creature bite into the morsel, and as its mandibles sink in to the tender hide, its surface begins to mutate and morph into a sickly brown zerg biomass and soon orange pustules of various sizes form at the top of the writhing mass. Small talons sprout all around the mass and dig into the ground, then as the new organism begins to settle the familiar substance of creep spreads from under it like a small swarm until it covered the entire floor in a living sludge.
To say she was satisfied by her creation was an understatement, in fact she is overjoyed by the success of the tiny creature. Her sisters, Abathur, and even the queen never saw the use of such an organism, saying that they don't need to spy when they can just swarm their opponents and that the changeling can do the job far better. But she kept the organism all the same, seeing it as her own personal achievement, and now what are they to say? This was the opportunity she needed to show the usefulness of the tracking mite, something she put so much thought into, and it works just like she intended! With this in mind she has it hibernate in the creep to await further orders before disconnecting from it and returning to her own sight.
"Time to leave this world my brood, we have new prey to track down." The view of the ruined world was quickly obscured by a wall of flesh and soon she feels the creature give off the telltale rumbling of it beginning to move from the planet upon the broodmther's command.
The hunt has begun.
Finally! I've been wanting to introduce Nymphil for a while now, especially with the role she'll play in the future.
Now let's get the ball rolling with the reactions first:
Guest: Aw yes it was indeed an intense chapter and we'll get to meet other familiar faces along the way, but nobody's dying today, yet. 😈
Now for the trivia of the day:
All kinds of everyday objects have been used to conceal spy gear. One inventive example is a pipe with a tiny radio concealed inside it. No speakers required—sound waves traveled through the jaw bone straight to the ear canal. (Mowat, factinate . com)
"Mmmm, sounds like my kind of profession."
With all of that out of the way thank you for reading and I hope that you have a great day or night...
"Wherever you may be, nice seeing ya again peeps!" ^^