Disclamer: This is a non-profit fan based fictional composition. Heroes of Might and Magic and all its related properties belong to Ubisoft. StarCraft and all its related properties belong to Blizzard Entertainment.
Darkness. Reality consisted of nothing but an eternal black void.
'Who am I?' A voice echoed through the emptiness.
As if to answer the question. "Agent Osimon Ryans..." Another voice, which sounded a little static, appeared.
Light poured from the darkness, taking the image of a man in a lab coat, holding a check board in his hands. "...Vital signs are in their norms, eye reaction is on point..." The man listed off. "The operation is a success." He finally announced, turning around and walking away.
Osimon, as he was addressed, reached his hand forward to stop the man, only to feel it press against what appeared to be glass. He put more focus on the scene before him and managed to see dark blue eyes staring back at him as a reflection in the glass.
'Where am I? Why am I here?' Osimon questioned again.
The image was once again sucked into the darkness, and in its place came various images of unspeakable horrors. 'Zerg!' Osimon recognized the bug like creatures that he saw swarming around him. The scene changed, sending him to the bridge of what he recalled was a Battlecruiser. Shadowy figures with no faces stood around a star map, speaking in muffled words. The only ones Osimon managed to make out were "infestation", "Confederate facility", "extremely important", "terminate" and "subtly".
Suddenly he was thrown within burning rubble. A couple of zerglings ran past him, but didn't manage to detect him. Looking down at his hands he saw that he held a canister rifle.
'I am a ghost?' Osimon thought, when a disturbing sound made him look up.
His eyes met those of an Overseer, whose massive bulk floated right above him. Before he could react the wall behind which he was hiding was smashed through, the impact throwing him forward. Turning around he was met by two hydralisks. Osimon tried grabbing the rifle he had, but it was knocked far out of his reach.
The very next moment the hydralisks lunged at him and darkness engulfed his vision once more.
'I...died...the infestation was far larger than anticipated...my squad...overwhelmed...' His thoughts echoed through the void.
'Not yet child.' A soothing voice reached out to him, causing Osimon to frantically look around for its source. 'You are still needed, to prevent the burning shadow.' The voice continued.
'Who is this?!' Osimon shouted in his thoughts, before he caught glimpse of a giant green eye, mounted on a huge fleshy mass.
'I am the Overmind. And you...belong to the Zerg.' The voice emanating from the eye said.
Before he even had time to react, Osimon screamed in pain as the Overmind vanished and an immense influx of memories began pouring like a waterfall into his conscience. Chaos, destruction, monstrous creatures passed right through Osimon's very being. Amongst the various memories he noticed a woman recurring constantly. She was the rebel Sarah Kerrigan. Eventually becoming twisted by the Zerg, taking control of them.
The fall of the Confederacy, Zerg brutality at the hands of Kerrigan, the end of the Protoss Executor and his race's retaliation, Terrans invading Char. But the worst out of the immense influx of information he received was the revelation of the Hybrids. No matter how terrible the Zerg were, they could not compare to the Hybrid.
A weighing sensation of dread washed over Osimon as the knowledge of them burned itself into his mind, but was soon replaced by utter fear when the whole torrent of memories slowly faded into darkness, replaced only by a fiery red gaze. Osimon had no idea how long that lasted. He had come to terms that all of it was happening inside his head, so it could have only been seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
Then out of the blue, he once again heard the voice of the Overmind.
'Should the Queen fall...the King must take her place!' Until suddenly a blinding flash of blue energy seemingly exploded right in front of him.
This time, Osimon's eyes shot open. After taking a few seconds to recover from the shock, he noticed that he was submerged into a greenish liquid. Instinctively he lunged his hands forward, tearing through a soft fleshy fleshy membrane.
Deep within a tunnel far beneath the surface of Char a single zerg cocoon pulsed. It's membrane was torn from the inside, liquid pouring out, along with Osimon, who fell forward to his knees, coughing out liquid that had entered his lungs.
After several coughs he brought his hand up to his mouth, only to see it had taken a greenish shade, his nails grown into long claws. The ghost armor he was wearing had turned to carapace. He could also feel two extensions on his back. When he turned his head to the side he was met with a pair of wing shaped claws. With a hint of fear he once again looked down into a small puddle of the cocoon's liquid, to see a greenish face, below short spiked carapace like hair, with burning orange eyes stare back at him.
"No..." He uttered, his voice letting out an echo, before loudly gasping. "Ah!"
Osimon brought his hand to his forehead as his mind was once again bombarded with information. This time however it was different. He felt a connection. Doing his best to focus, he realized that he had entered a direct telepathic link with all Zerg that were in the system, but he soon found out through their thought that that number was not very high, due to the Xel'Naga artefact the Terrans used to annihilate them.
The few thousand surviving zerg were either at the very edge of the system, or even deeper within the planet. The biggest surprise to Osimon however, was the feeling of distress coming from every single one. Kerrigan was probably dead, since he could not sense her through the connection at all, as well as the fact that he was "awoken" to replace her. Without her, all the Zerg that he shared his mid with felt uneasy from the fact that they knew not what to do.
Some lashed out and began attacking their own, others beckoned for overlords and leviathans to gobble them up in order to flee the planet, and third were being gunned down by terran forces that had come across them. The one common thing amongst them however, was the fact that the vast majority of them looked through their minds at Osimon, the signals appearing to him as if they were pleas for help, looking for guidance and salvation.
"I...command them now?" He spoke to himself. "I should have these monsters die, but...without them, or me, the abominations they were used to create will ravage the cosmos..." The former ghost's rant sent him into a lucid state, without him even realizing what words came out of his mouth. "The hope of the universe lies with the Zerg...and their King..."
'Then he must fall!' A menacing voice shouted in Osimon's head, breaking him out of his lucid state.
Just as he got to his feet and tried to assess what its source was, the answer revealed itself to him, as the hulking form of a dark purple Hybrid Reaver smashed through the wall of the tunnel, a dozen meters away from Osimon. Through the hole it made stepped out another Reaver and a glowing Hybrid Destroyer floated behind it.
A mere tense moment passed, before the Destroyer shouted. "Slay him for the Master!" After which it threw its arms forward, two torrents of lightning shooting out from its hands, going right between the Reavers and towards Osimon. Thankfully he managed to shake away the shock in time and jumped to the side, the lightning incinerating the cocoon he had laid dormant in, and blowing another hole in the wall of the tunnel.
Immediately after the strike failed, the Reavers charged at Osimon, the Destroyer following suit. The jump the infested terran had taken sent him much further that he had intended. That is when he managed to process the knowledge of his enhanced physique. But before he had a moment more to contemplate on it his attention was taken by the charging monsters. The most primal of instincts took him over, prompting him to turn around and run.
Thankfully for him, the tunnel was both wide and long enough to give him the chance to put his stronger legs to the test, but he had only a several meter advantage against the Hybrids. Ducking to evade another energy shot, Osimon put his brain into overdrive on how to deal with the situation. Accessing the memories he had received about, and most probably from Kerrigan herself he found out he was able to channel Void energy, but he did not know how to properly access it yet. He needed to buy himself a little more time in order to learn.
It was then when he decided to do something he was not very keen on doing. Focusing his mind he entered the link he had with the Zerg around him and mentally shouted. 'TO MY SIDE!'
Faint relief came to him as he received an answer, despite it coming from a single source.
'Alright, let's see if this works.' Osimon thought, before thrusting his right arm up as he ran.
His lips curved up when a steady beam of energy shot from his palm, hitting the ceiling and causing it to collapse behind him. The blockade he had created would most definitely slow them enough for him to set up his counter attack. Bringing his hand down, he stopped the beam. Before him opened up a tall wall, which led up to another tunnel level.
Jumping up he made it to over half of the wall's height, before doing a wall jump in order to get into the upper tunnel. Just as he did that a loud crash, mixed in with a roar, was heard, signalizing to him that a Reaver had smashed through the rubble Osimon had left behind.
After taking several steps into the new tunnel, something dug out of the nearby wall. A pleased smile colored the infested terran's face, when he saw it was the baneling he had managed to reach through the hive mind. Osimon focused his mind once again, both his eyes and those of the baneling glowing in vibrant orange, after which the living bomb curled up into a ball and rolled down the tunnel at the hole through which Osimon had arrived. Osimon himself ran after the baneling, but at a slightly slower pace.
The Reaver that had first come through the fallen rocks quickly surveyed the area, noticing the hole in the ceiling momentarily. It began climbing up the stone wall, opening its maw wide in order to release another threatening roar. However, its eyes widened in fearful surprise when it saw the baneling fall down the hole. Before the Reaver had time to react, the baneling fell right into its opened mouth and exploded at the back of the dark abomination's throat, causing the massive creature's head to slowly liquefy from the acid.
Incapable of functioning, the headless body lost its grip on the wall and fell down just as the second Reaver was walking up to the clearing. Suddenly Osimon dropped from the ceiling and onto the falling dead husk. Using it as support he jumped forward from it, doing a frontal flip, slamming his heel at the top of the second Reaver's head.
The monster's thick skull managed to prevent any fracture to the brain, but the force of the impact was powerful enough to stun it and make it fall forward as Osimon once again jumped up, using his clawed wings to latch onto what remained of the ceiling. It was then when his gaze came in contact with that of the Hybrid Destroyer.
Instantly the Hybrid scowled and with a loud grunt shot another energy blast at Osimon. The infested terran's wings tensed as they pushed him away from the ceiling and shot him down. He narrowly evaded the blast, reaching the ground and sliding beneath the floating Destroyer with blinding speed.
Before the Hybrid could even react, Osimon jumped up and landed on its head, the claws on his wings and hands sinking deep into the creature's skull. It cried out in pain, while the former ghost let out a shout as energy surged through his limbs right into the creature's head with the intent of frying everything that was inside.
The plan seemed to have worked as Osimon felt the Hybrid going limp. What did not expect however was for its body to turn purple, before its chest suddenly tore open into a rift of immeasurable power. Acting similarly to a black hole, the rift began sucking in rocks and dirt from the surrounding area. Due to his close proximity Osimon got sucked half way in as well. He stabbed his wings into the still levitating body of the Destroyer as his hands grabbed onto the sides of the rift, using all four limbs to pull himself out.
He had slight progress in his battle against the suction force, but it was all for naught when he saw the second Reaver stand up and turn around in his direction. With a final roar filled with rage, the beast shot forth one of the tendrils on its back, hitting Osimon square in the face and pushing him into the rift.
"NOOOO!" Osimon screamed as he fell down and the distancing rift closed itself.
Osimon found himself falling through a violent vortex of energy. Crackles of purple lightning occasionally struck him, pushing him around and searing his carapace, resulting in a few open wounds.
He was frantically looking for a means of escape within both his surrounding and the knowledge he had locked up in his mind. After a dozen intense heartbeats a supposedly valuable piece of information made it through his thoughts - Void energy was capable of disrupting and "cutting through" other types of energy in fashion similar to how a high-frequency blade worked on solid matter.
Gathering all of his strength he brought his arms forward and focused as best as he could in his current conditions, concentrating a vast amount of Void energy, which he then unleashed in a powerful torrent of lightning, which hit the wall of the vortex.
Moments turned into seconds, and seconds eventually became a minute. The energy output he was performing was taking a great toll on Osimon's body, but he noticed that the torrent was pushing through and had opened up a wound within the structure of the vortex. By the time exhaustion truly took hold of him he had managed to make the wound wide enough for him to pass.
He could barely make out something green on the other side of the hole, but he had no idea how to go through it. But he did not have to wait long for an answer. Out of nowhere a more sizable bolt of purple lightning hit him and pushed him out through the vortex's wound.
When out the sensation of falling did not end once Osimon made it on the other side. He was facing the wound he had created during his exit, and saw it force itself shut shortly after he left.
Sighing in relief he turned around in mid-air...only to realize the green thing he had seen was a densely forested area which was very far away from him...but he was approaching it at breakneck speed.
A new search for a way to survive ensued. Thanks to the lack of energy bolts striking his body definitely helped Osimon find something to utilize much faster. He could alter the form of output of the psionic energy he controlled and utilize it as telekinesis.
Immediately he focused on his entire body and using his telekinetic grasp tried to prevent it from leaving the air. His control was far from perfect, so managed to greatly slow his descent he at best. But he could not fully stop, resulting in him crashing through the trees down to the forest's floor, but without taking fatal damage.
Groaning, Osimon slowly got back to his feet, using a nearby tree for support. The surface of the tree felt wet and hairy. Looking at it he saw it was covered by moss. A quick survey of the surrounding area suggested to him that he was in some kind of swamp. At first he assumed that it could be a jungle, but despite being pretty high, the humidity in the air felt too low for it to be such a habitat, so his next best guess was that he was in a marsh of sorts.
With the curiosity about his whereabouts vaguely satisfied, Osimon examined himself. Apparently being infested also came with accelerated regenerative capabilities, since all of the wounds he had suffered within the vortex had closed up, and the carapace that used to be above them was growing back anew.
The lack of blood on the ground, or more precisely - the lack of signs of infestation in the plants around him, led Osimon to believe that his deeper wounds had closed during his fall, and that so far a more direct form of the Zerg virus had not come in contact with the area he was currently at. Feeling at ease he slammed his fist against the tree, creating a deep crack over its trunk, in a fit of rage.
"Fuck!" Osimon cursed, before speaking to himself. "This is it...I can't feel any connection with any of the Zerg anymore. I'm most definitely outside of the Koprulu sector, or maybe even the Milky Way...Without a leader the Zerg can't be used against the Hybrid." Covering his face with his hands he plopped down on the ground, his next words coming out as if he was trying not to cry. "Everything is lost and I'm stuck god knows where!...What can I possibly do n-"
His monologue of self pity ended when his telepathic senses felt something. Turning to his left he looked in the direction of a telepathic signal that was being emitted. It felt like a...threat. A warning to keep away.
"Intelligent life with psionic abilities? Maybe there is something I can do after all." He said to himself as he got back up and made his way towards the source of the signal.
Author's Note: Thank you for giving this story some of your time. The first chapter pretty much has nothing on the HOMM side, but that is to introduce you, the readers, to the...hero of our story(YEAAAAAAH! XD...I feel bad for writing that. v-v), and how he ends up in the situation we will follow him along on. I promise you, starting chapter two a healthy dose of HOMM will be presented to give light on the setting.
Once again, thank you for giving this a read, I would love you hear your feedback on it and most important of all, I hope you enjoyed it! :)