Chapter 75: Blades of Obsidian

Within the dark mausoleum, a few floors down from the main entrance, inside of the Pyramidal Guard Division's private quarters, there were two commanders standing in front of each other. One was the notorious leader of Emperor Gollog's Pyramidal Guard Division, widely known by both Golden Star citizens and nonaligned gilanians as Commander Guik. The other was the infamous leader of the zerg swarm that had infested Kiln's prison system for twenty of its years, codenamed as the bug-man beast-master, otherwise known as Kay.

It was because of her that Kay had suffered the knockout blow, which led to his eventual capture. The knockout blow had left him unconscious and in the perfect state to be delivered to Guik's dark mausoleum. And now, Kay was face-to-face with her again. "... Well this is just my luck." Kay said as he gulped his nervousness.

"You were snooping in my bedroom. Why?" Guik asked, pointing a shadowy disk towards Kay.

Kay shrugged, but he didn't divert his eyes from Guik. "Would you believe me if I told you that I wanted to find some incriminating evidence on Gollog?"

"No." Guik plainly said.

Kay sighed. "Figured you wouldn't. Mind moving out of the way? This facility is going to explode."

Guik hissed lightly. "I can't let you leave this place. I was told to keep you here, and keep you here I will."

Kay raised a surprised eyebrow at Guik. "What? But if your dark mausoleum self-destructs, you'll die with me too!"

Guik sighed and nodded. "That is precisely what will happen." With her other hand, Guik extended five fingers upwards, with her palm facing Kay's direction. "Honestly, I'd say you have five minutes before this facility explodes, with you perishing along with it."

"Oh..." Kay said, both dumbfounded and amazed by Guik's bravery. He could sense the willpower behind Guik's blank face, and he could tell that such driven dedication was as adamant as neosteel. However, no matter how strong Guik's will was, Kay would rather refrain from staying within the dark mausoleum longer than he needed to. "Well then, I'll just have to kill you in four."

In a quick sprint, Kay launched himself forward and brought himself into melee distance with Guik. Two clawed hands and two sharp wings flashed toward the commander of the Pyramidal Guard in an instant. Such an attack should have spelled doom for her, but she deftly dodged all four attacks from each limb, and used one of her black disks to parry Kay's blurring strike. Guik rolled out of the way once her counter was over and stood upright, prepared for another attack that might harm her.

Kay quickly turned to prevent the stealthy commander from getting behind himself. He felt as though that receiving a back-stab attack from Guik's mysterious black disks would be dangerous for his health. Kay then felt a pain coming from his right arm. He slowly looked at his right arm to find that his wrist was nearly cleaved through, which dangled loosely from a thin strip of flesh that still kept his hand attached to his body. He didn't even feel his flesh being severed from the counterattack! He grabbed at his hand and forced it back onto his partially stumped forearm tightly. He winced as he felt his hand return from its numbed state. "Ooh! Kay, that wounded me a little!"

Guik took the opportunity to launch an attack of her own, flinging her black disks toward Kay in a flurry of ranged attacks. Each disk seemed to move with a will of their own, which also seemed to be piloted under Guik's control. Kay adapted by using his wings to quickly shift his weight. The black disks narrowly missed his body, but they came quite close to ripping through his flesh or severing his limbs from his body. Kay constantly dodged, rolled, and jumped away from each attack that Guik threw at him, and he kept his dangling hand tightly compressed against his severed arm the entire time. Guik huffed with impatience. "Attack me, you overgrown insect!"

"You asked for it!" Kay quickly launched a psionic attack at Guik by forming energy from his intact hand and blasting it towards her. Guik used her black disks to shield herself from the attack, and Kay's attack appeared to be completely negated by her defense. She didn't budge from her spot as Kay's energy blasts struck her blocking disks. After a few more blasts of energy, Kay stopped and inspected the assassin commander. He tilted his head at her once he noticed that Guik was completely fine. "... Hmm. So those disk things can absorb my attacks, huh?"

"They can also bounce your own attacks back at yourself." Guik said as she directed her disks toward Kay. Kay was immediately beset by a powerful explosion of power, which pushed him back into Guik's bedroom. To Kay, it felt as though he was struck by six of his own energy blasts in a simultaneous explosion, which somehow backfired back at himself. However, Kay shrugged off the damage as he quickly focused on his body and mended his immediate wounds. A few seconds later, Guik strolled into her bedroom and stared down Kay with silent, but angered fury. Kay knew that it was angry fury because he could sense her emotions, despite her face/mask's letters seeming to be permanently stuck to being read as 'angered' in that moment.

Kay realized that any direct damage, be it a melee or ranged attack, would be rendered completely useless against her black disks. In response to her defenses, he summoned his telekinetic manipulation and lifted Guik off of the ground, restraining her and preventing her from attacking Kay any further. Once Guik was stunned, Kay then used his telekinetic power again to lift Guik's bed, making its pillows float around in a slow, and erratic manner. "Bounce this, bitch!" With a quick gesture, Kay motioned for Guik's bed to collide with the only person that had ever slept on it.

The bed obeyed, and careened straight onto Guik. The impact of the soft furniture made her exhale sharply, which also forced her back into the main hub room that her computer was kept in. Kay followed the path of pillows that were left behind from his last attack, coming back into the main room of Guik's private quarters. He found Guik pinned under her own bed. She growled and hissed in frustration, but also grunted and groaned as she tried to lift her own bed off of herself. "Gr~! You bastard!"

"Don't blame me, blame the copper-coated commander for telling you to keep me here. But now that we're here, do yourself a favor and stay still." Kay warned Guik. He walked to the commander and kneeled down next to her.

Guik slowly looked up at Kay. "... Stay still?"

Kay nodded solemnly at Guik. "Yes. I'm going to infest you now." Kay said, reaching a hand towards Guik's face. "If you're infested, then it would mean I'd have one less commander to deal with. You'll feel a slight pinch."

"NO!" Before Kay could pierce through Guik's skintight suit, an electrical shock zapped Kay. It had enough of a jolt to make Kay jump backwards.

"YOW!" Kay shook his hand rapidly since his fingers felt like they were covered in fire. After a thorough shaking, Kay growled and pointed at Guik. "Kay, I am getting pissed off with-... Uh." After a paused inspection, Kay noticed that his fingers were actually on fire. After patting the fire out on his fingers, he continued pointing at Guik. "I'm getting pissed off with all this jumping around, and with all your idiotic and duplicitous cunning!"

Guik quickly scrambled underneath her own upturned bed. "You should have stayed put in your bio-stasis tank. None of this would be happening if you remained in your containment chamber."

Kay huffed as he stared at Guik's ruined bed. "Tough titties. Gollog should have given me what I wanted in the first place. Doing so would have prevented this whole travesty from befalling your entire planet. You would have been left alone, while I can finally have my freedom." With another gesture, Kay used his telekinesis to push Guik's bed out of his way. Kay expected to find a cowering Guik hiding underneath her bed, but he discovered that there was no commander under the furniture. "... Hmm."

[Your obligation is not part of Gollog's duty. Or mine.] Guik whispered through her private quarters' intercom system. [My emperor would rather see this entire world destroyed, instead of letting your monsters rule it. Even if you removed the foundations of his empire, Emperor Gollog will continue to live long after your reign. The zerg are an infestation, but Gollog, and his chosen immortals, will live forever.]

Kay felt Guik's intention through the floor of the facility. How was that even possible? Could she swim through the facility's floor? Like a zerg ground unit burrowing through the earthen soil? Before Kay could entertain such thoughts, he felt Guik's violent intentions, and he knew that he had to react fast before something bad happened. He began dodging Guik's razor sharp black disks, which sawed through the very ground he stood on. Kay twisted and turned several times in order to prevent his own feet and legs from being severed from right under him. It was a dance of death, except Kay was desperately trying to avoid being killed. "Damn! How'd you get under the floor?!"

[As I have told you before, a lady never tells her secrets.] The bodiless Guik mocked while her black disks continued to faze through the ground and attack Kay's feet. It was more than likely that Guik used her portable MEM device to teleport herself to a lower level, and used that advantage to strike at Kay from right below himself. As Kay danced on the ground, Kay was beginning to regret coming into Guik's private quarters and raiding her bedroom. But even so, Kay knew that he was also wasting too much time with his detour, and he had to end this confrontation quick.

'Broo! If you have any spare zerg forces that you can divert to my location, I need some lurkers it now!' Kay commanded to Broo.

'I can do even better than that. Watch your feet!' Broo answered. Kay didn't know what Broo had meant by that, but he soon figured it out when the floor under his feet began to rumble.

Oh. Broo had suddenly done that. But of COURSE she would do that. With Kay being so close to the secretly protected entrance that led out of and into the Pyramidal Guard Division's facility, how would Broo NOT do what she just did?

Kay could sense concern coming from Guik, of which were undoubtedly a reaction to the tremors that shook her facility's foundation. [O-o-oh gods, what's up with my facility?! It's not supposed to explode for another two and a half minutes!]

Kay smiled calmly. "It's not this facility that is exploding." Kay said, drawing out his words slowly, like he was carefully explaining to Guik the consequences of her actions. "It is the prisoners rioting."

Before Guik could ask what Kay had meant by that, she was given an answer in the shape of a giant worm that erupted through the floor that she was in. The nydus worm had also erupted through the floor that Kay stood on, its overhanging digging teeth pushing the ceiling upwards as it was emerging in Guik's private quarters. The fell beast protruded its spines from its neck after roaring out a deafening call that announced to the remaining inhabitants of Guik's facility of its presence. Once the nydus worm was finally anchored, it began puking lurkers onto the newly formed layer of creep it generated around itself. Guik herself was rather horrified by this suddenly unexpected and most recent turn of events. [... An under beast?!]

Once Kay's five lurkers have burrowed themselves into the ground, tearing through the black tile-work of the private quarters, Guik was suddenly beset by subterranean spines that threatened to skewer her. She seemed to evade them easily, but she was becoming more livid from her most recent distractions and uninvited threats. There was no way she could remain in her current position, since Kay's psionic method of detection prevented Guik from attacking him from a stealthy position, and the lurkers made it impossible for her to strike at her target from a place that was below or above Kay's position.

As two drones exited the nydus worm's mouth and formed two embryonic cocoons next to it, Kay knew that Broo was trying to fortify and defend the zerg's shortest route to the exit. After the drones emerged from the nydus worm's throat, a horde of zerglings began their wild retreat towards freedom. There were some zerglings that had riders riding on them, all of which used to be residents of the dark mausoleum's immortal maze. Even Broo joined in with their rampant fleeing, since she too emerged from the constantly vomiting nydus worm. "Kay! We need to leave now!"

Kay nodded quickly and yelled "I fucking know!" before running with the swarm in a hurried sprint.

But before Kay could round a corner, both of his legs had been severed. He tripped on air and planted his face onto the hard floor with a loud thud, even when the klaxon continued to blare at an ear-rending volume. It must have been Guik attempting to deal a hindering injury to slow down Kay's escape. Broo looked down at Kay. "... Kay, this isn't the time to lay down!"

"Curmt moorv. Lurgs ur gun." Kay mumbled into the floor.

Fortunately for Kay, Broo understood him. She quickly went to Kay and picked him up and off of the ground. "Then you must adapt, and ride! Zergling! Here!"

Once a zergling was quickly summoned, Kay's torso was placed firmly on the zergling's back. Its wings slightly pinched his open leg wounds, even if his legs were quickly healing from their recent amputations. "Guh?! Wait a minute! I don't know how to ride on a zergling!"

"Just hold on tight! It knows the route! Go!" Broo commanded.

The zergling that Kay was on bolted forward, while Kay did his best to hold onto the zergling's attack claws with a tight grip. The zergling's wings tried to flutter outward and increase its maximum speed, but Kay's body prevented the zergling from achieving its full sprint. However, several toxic nests lined the path of the fleeing zerglings and their respective riders. Kay slowly stiffened his posture as he rode on his zergling, which enabled the zergling to gain a little speed to its running gait. For a lack of a better word, Kay was rather amazed of the speed he was experiencing. How come he didn't think to ride on a zergling's back sooner?! Even if his legs prevented his mounted zergling to run faster than it normally would, it was still a significant improvement to Kay's normal means of bipedal travel. The wind rushed past his mock/hair during his escape, and it felt great. That, and Kay could tell that Guik was having a harder time trying to stall his escape attempt, since his mount was proving to be quite fast, and she couldn't keep up with it or its rider.

A line had formed at the hidden hatch that the protoss templar had revealed to Kay. When he quickly neared the entrance, his eyes widened when he saw a red-bandaged giant at the entrance of the hatch. He saw that it was currently lifting escapees straight through the exit that led outside of the dark mausoleum. It seemed to growl in an urgent manner to the previously contained maze inhabitants. "Hurrrry! Quickly now! This place will explode soon! Even we don't want to be herre!"

Kay looked at the... tall and red creature.

Once the creature was done tossing the maze's residents through the hatch, it then gazed upon Kay and paused.

After a few seconds, it pointed at him. "We don't know what you arre."

Kay sighed. He would have liked to talk to such an... unusual creature, but time was limited for everyone. "My name is Kay. Can you uh... Give me a hand, please?"

The red-bandaged creature nodded. "Hmm. The Brroo crreaturre said that its masterr's name was Kay. We will help you." The creature said as it gently picked up Kay and hoisted him upwards.

Kay slightly flailed, but he was caught by a strong set of arms. Oddly enough, the muscular set of arms that had caught Kay happened to belong to Xidion.

Xidion instantly dropped Kay onto the hot sand when he realized who he had caught. Kay exhaled sharply when he collided with the ground. "Hrmf! ... Nice seeing you again, Xid." Kay said with dripping sarcasm.

The protoss templar leered at Kay. "It is TEMPLAR. XIDION. And I cannot find myself summoning the will to say the same thing for you." Xidion said with restrained malice, but it was chalk-full of contempt that was directed towards Kay.

Kay rolled his eyes. "Well if you don't mind, I need to be carried away from here before this whole place explodes. It's gonna happen any minute now!" Kay shouted urgently.

As the last few prisoners were thrown into the light, the red-bandaged giant followed after the escaped maze inhabitants. Broo had followed after the red giant after it had mingled with the escapees. Meanwhile, Xidion crossed his arms and shook his head. "I refuse to carry your infectious form."

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but my legs are gone!" Kay said, pointing at his stumps.

Xidion looked down at Kay, paused, and then shook his head at him. "Then you are mistaken. You do indeed have legs."

Kay blinked a few times before he looked at his lower torso. Before Kay even knew it, his legs had been restored fully, looking like how they normally were before their amputation. Kay began to experimentally get up to test his legs. After taking a few steps and hopping a few times, Kay sighed. "... Dammit. Now I feel silly." Kay said, shaking his head.

'Attention, idiots.' Said a very familiar voice that Kay hadn't heard in a long while. 'You need to leave. Now. Use the omega worms. NOW.'

Kay blinked incredulously. "... Was that Kragnon just now? Wait. Did he also say 'omega worms?'"

Xidion rolled his eyes. "It was him, yes. And he did say omega worms, yes." Xidion stepped forward and gestured at the escaped maze inhabitants, which were slowly being swarmed by small, biting insects. "People of the immortal maze! Enjoy your freedom later! The dark mausoleum is going to explode at any second! Enter immediately through the omega worm, or this area will explode in seconds! You may be outside, but you are still in danger!"

With Xidion's message sent, the former maze inhabitants quickly, though somewhat hesitantly, entered through the mouth of the omega worm, which looked like a spinier and tougher version of a nydus worm. It quickly gulped down the fleeing refugees at a pace that would put a normal nydus worm to shame.

At the very moment that the red-bandaged giant, Xidion, and Kay had delved into the throat of the omega worm, the entrance into the dark mausoleum began to create electricity at its entrance. The entrance of the gate was painted with a camouflaged design, which blended itself with the surrounding environment. It was nothing more but a circular indentation into the ground, which was placed next to a pond that had a severe briny fly infestation. It happened to be the perfect place for a hidden entrance to be hiding at, since nobody, not even the zerg swarm, would suspect that a pond of weak insets could conceal the entrance into the Pyramidal Guard Division's most secretive facility on Kiln's Prison System.

Seconds later, the entrance exploded with a cacophonous and thundering expansion of heat and matter. The entire structure that was contained within the entrance exploded upwards in a violent maelstrom of infrastructural debris, molten metal slag, and rushing fire. The explosion was bigger than that of a charged particle bomb, since the detonation had enough power to throw the innards of the Pyramidal Guard Division's dark mausoleum facility miles high. In fact, the ruined facility rose so quickly through the air that the atmosphere immediately began to ionize the innards of the underground building, the friction of the air itself ripping apart and burning away the facility's insides.

The omega worm that was close to the self-destructing shadow assassin facility was turned into a bloody smear. A metal plate had severed it from the rest of the nydus network as the bottom section of the immortal maze's spike forest shot out and upwards. The technology that miniaturized the hidden facility had instantly malfunctioned at the exact moment its countdown to its self-destruct sequence had concluded, resulting in a devastating explosion that reached past the small desert clouds.

The remains of the dark mausoleum would continue to rain onto the ground for several days, since the explosive force had launched the Pyramidal Guard Division's dark mausoleum with enough force that its debris flew past the stratosphere. Some smaller pieces of debris managed to fly into the mesosphere of Kiln before beginning their descent back to the ground.

Despite the rather violent and overkill self-destruct that erupted the shadow assassin's secret facility, Kay didn't know if Commander Guik had survived the explosion.

A/N: Holy crap guys! A Swarm Unleashed made it on the top twenty highest reviewed stories in Fanfiction .net's Starcraft crossovers! :U