Disclaimer: Oh, the inestimable lack of science. How I mourn thee. Also, don't own it.
Years 1 and 2 were relatively bereft of story. Most of the scenes were oneshots, mostly fun to write, and I hope fun to read, but only for so long, and eventually, they got worse. It was a mirror of canon with the occasional bit of chess. The plot ran low of points and the scenes ran low of ideas. Now, comes this year. This is the year where there's the plot moves. This is where things get fun.
(Says it's going to get fun, starts with a played out transition joke)
Catalyst
Abathur had long suspected that terrans were idiots. They fought amongst themselves, never seeking to improve, to move forward, always obsessed with their personal goals. Perhaps the last one was understandable, Abathur was equally guilty of it, but the rest were weaknesses that none of them sought to correct. This was especially evident in conversation, where each participant tried to steer the conversation into a different topic, making a simple exchange of information into a verbal tug of war.
The rest of the earlier train ride had been monotonous, talking with the camouflage. Small talk was as dull as ever, most of it revolving around this or that over the summer. Abathur wasn't really able to participate in this. After all, it would not be good for his cover to say he had spent the vast majority of the summer in a cocoon modifying and improving both his body and a giant semi-sentient colony of ants, while driving the latter to conquer vast tracts of the island.
Fortunately, it was easy to stay out of the conversation, especially when it shifted to some human called Sirius Black. Apparently the best these terrans could do for damage was less than a single baneling, and that was impressive. And when said impressive terran escaped from prison, it was the only topic of discussion after it was mentioned. For 2 hours. Abathur made occasional comments for appearances sake, but it was dull.
The compartment had settled into silence after the sweets cart had come through, broken only by the gnashing of teeth, and the occasional snore of the adult human with slightly odd essence. Abathur had picked up a couple of loose hairs from him earlier, but had otherwise ignored him, and he seemed perfectly happy to return the favor. Largely because he was unconscious. Abathur was largely left to his own devices.
He took the time to make minor modifications. The terrans had changed over the years, and Abathur was no longer on the same route of growth as them. Aesthetics had to be changed, small chemical changes were required, proper hair growth was mandatory. While he was changing, he might as well increase his insulation. The small coach was quickly becoming quite cold.
Suddenly, the train came to an abrupt halt, jerking forward before falling back to a complete stop. The terrans grew alarmed, yelling out their confusion and speculation. The train rocked once more, as if something large was going onto it. Frost spread across the window as the temperature dropped yet more.
A large being appeared in front of the compartment door, clothed in a black hood. It twisted a long, bony hand, and the door moved aside. Abathur prepared for combat, starting claw growth and pumping venom to his palm. The terrans made similar actions, although those mostly consisted of flinching back. For a moment, the world seemed frozen.
Then the creature struck. Not with claws or teeth or toxins, but into his mind. It pulled visions from Abathur's head, pulled him into them, made it real.
"-watched as Kerrigan's mutalisks shot at the primal zerg, forcing their way through to the quillgor. Abathur spared a moment to glance through an overlords eyes at the corpses left behind; the primals did have some interesting sequences. A single glance turned into a long stare, which turned into rage. Even with the glaive wurm burning through much of the primals corpses, Abathur could see his own work, replicated and corrupted by the thieving, unacceptable-"
"-missiles pounded against the leviathans flesh. Abathur had designed the armor, the structure. The terran bullets were well adapted to it, to penetrate through the layers of carapace. Abathur knew exactly how long until those missiles stopped hitting armor, and started hitting him."
"-spiders chasing, mandibles snapping. However many Abathur killed, more kept coming. Eventually, they would catch him, and that would be the end. Dying on a terran's behalf. How irritating."
The scenes ran through Abathur's mind again and again, to the point where anything outside his own head was nothing more than a dark smear. An endless loop of misery, until a bright silver light shone through his thoughts. Then the images faded, his eyes began receiving input again. He saw the previously sleeping terran holding the cloaked figure at bay as a shield of solid silver energy blocked it off from the carriages occupants. The shield pushed forward, and the creature eventually left the train coach.
The human relaxed, and turned to face the students. He started to hand out small, plastic wrapped rectangles. "Chocolate," he explained. "It helps after a Dementor attack."
Abathur took the package and devoured it. Chocolate. Sugar, fats, lecithin, theobromine, caffeine. Simple, easy to replicate. Abathur would be prepared next time.
"More," he demanded. The human wordlessly handed another over. Abathur made sure to scrape the terran's hand a bit, gathering loose skin. No sense in wasting an opportunity for essence gathering.
After he had devoured the second bar of chocolate, along with the new essence. It was more interesting than he had originally thought, he would have to pay serious attention to it later. But there were more important things to know now.
"Hostile organism. Identify. Explain presence," Abathur demanded.
The human looked taken aback for a second. Abathur wondered if he'd gone too far, but the terran just took it in stride, and moved to speak. "That was a Dementor, a guard of the Prison Azkaban. They feed on misery, and people with really bad experiences can have bad reactions to them. That's probably what happened to you. And Mr. Potter here."
Abathur looked over and saw that Harry was also looking pale, and shivering in his seat. Not particularly important. Not nearly as important as that creature. It had attacked him. Abathur didn't know what it did with its prey, although now that he had the name, he could research it himself. Were it not for the intervention of the human, it would have succeeded in whatever it was attempting to do. This was absolutely unacceptable. Improvement was necessary. He knew of the chocolate now; that would help in this specific instance. But there were other creatures that could have killed him. The acromantulas, likely the basilisk if he had faced it head on, and now this.
Dehaka was a primal zerg, an unacceptable being. Abathur would turn them all to ash if he could. But here, he had a point. He had said Abathur was an evolution master, disinterested in evolution. For all that the primal was unfit for existence, he had a point. Abathur no longer had a swarm to command, no longer had an army to surround himself with. He would have to increase his own modifications, make this human shell worthy of combat.
The dementor-induced flashbacks at least served as a good reminder of why he was hiding, why he was learning. The terrans would kill him, had killed him. Should they discover anything about him, should they know of his nature, they would definitely attempt to do it again. Abathur sat back with his enemies - masquerading as his companions - surrounding him, and considered the castle where he would live among them. It was by far one of the worst situations he had ever been in. An excellent time to improve, to evolve. Of course, he would need to make sure that the humans never got close to killing him, by any means necessary.
(Transition)
Abathur spent most of his time remaining on the train and during the beginning feast. analyzing the terrans essence. Or what he had thought was a terran. Aside from the markers Abathur had come to associate with psionic potential, there was almost a completely different set of DNA set within the strands. If he had to guess, Abathur would say it was implanted by a virus, Overmind knows there were plenty of those messing with the human genome. One virus somehow made over 500 redundant copies of itself in his own genome, one of the first things Abathur had removed from himself.
Regardless, the second strand was fairly similar to the original terran form. Extra fur and mildly different bone and cartilage placement, but otherwise identical. What was more interesting was the mechanism but which it was expressed.
Oh, most of the time, it would barely have any effect. Pathetic though the human body was, it had ways of neutralising foreign DNA, especially with how long it appeared to have been contained. It wouldn't have nullified it completely, not with strands of this complexity, but the effects would be minimal. Mere bits and pieces would slip through the cracks. The infected would perhaps have extra body hair, superior sense of smell and taste, colorblindness, maybe even additional muscle growth. Really, nothing that a baseline human couldn't have.
What was really interested about the device was the timing mechanism, and the transformative section. Attached to the secondary DNA was a timing device, basic, but effective. It was honestly quite similar to the sleep cycle, although Abathur couldn't figure out the specifics without a full organism. A lot of the primary triggers seemed to depend on exposure to specific frequencies of light. As far as Abathur could tell, it was set to trigger the other addon, a transformative sequence, a temporary override of the defenses, and a number of catalysts to transform the host into the secondary DNA set. A look at it showed why the timing was so sparse. This kind of transformation any more often would likely kill the host, preventing any spread of the infection.
Overall, the structure, and the mechanisms were interesting. But the individual components were so stupidly weaved that it could only have been the product of an idiot or natural selection. Abathur could learn from it, but much would need to be replaced. It was a good first step though, especially since it had the advantage of being subtle. The terrans would never know about the danger in their midst.
(Transition)
The infestation of the surrounding colonies had been going extremely well. A single agent of the Hive, once inside the opposing colony, could easily infest the queen, and through them, the Mind and the Queens changed the queen's subjects into their own. Any forces others sent against the Hive was killed with superior numbers, or weakened by traps before getting any far. It was a very efficient tactic, with minimal risk, and great reward. And the Hive had never encountered a colony that could fight it. Until now.
There was another colony, or more accurately a string of them, set on the western edge of the Hives territory. All of them were composed of the same species, so closely related as to leave no possibility of coincidence. They may not have cooperated, but they co-existed, and that alone represented a solid wall of foes to get through.
Infiltrators had been sent into their colonies, usually only managing to bite and infect a single queen before getting killed by her defenders. This is where the Hive's normal strategy broke down. For every queen that was infested, there seemed to be hundreds more within each colony. The infested queen was killed before so much as another worker was infested. All attempts were stopped before they really began.
Infestation by subterfuge wasn't working, and with the size of the colony involved, there was no option of avoidance. So a new strategy was required, something more direct.
The Hive gathered their forces outside the allied colonies. It was the single largest force they had ever assembled, composed of soldiers, spiders, and even the occasional ant Queen was spread among the wall of carapace. This was to be a quick war, no option of defeat or surrender, a war of annihilation and annexation.
The transition from preparation to attack was sudden. Groups of smaller, faster ants rushed forward in arrowhead formations, overwhelming lone hunting or foraging parties with savage efficiency, eventually clearing a path to the colony entrances for the main force. The main army split up, blockading each colony entrance with an even mixture of varying forces.
Once a force was in position, it brought force a group of mutated, twisted creatures that could vaguely be called ants. Their abdomens had swelled along with their thorax, forming a narrowing cone that led to the ants head. The head itself was a tube, topped with a flap of skin, held in place by three bladed mandibles, terminating in a point. Their rears pulsed and quivered with a slight green glow. They towered over the average worker, not quite as big as the massive soldiers, but equally impressive.
Preceded by a small escort of smaller workers, the new ant strain pushed into the colony entrance. They were met with immediate resistance. A group of enemy ants met them inside immediately, locking jaws with the advancing worker escort, embroiling the forces in a stalemate. The warped ant in the back however, found this stalemate unacceptable. Its abdomen contracted as it turned to face the defenders. When it had them in its sights, it opened its jaw. A solid stream of green acid shot out. Where it hit the defenders, the spray cut into their flesh, crippling or killing them outright, allowing the smaller workers to advance further into the colony. The acid filled ant followed them, carefully avoiding the puddles of acid eating into the floor. Similar scenes repeated themselves across the length of the Hive's invasion.
Eventually, the initial narrow passageways gave way to a massive cavern, covered with ants opposed to the Hive's advance. With such a small opening, the Hive could not bring its forces to bear against the defenders, allowing them to stall the Hive at the caverns entrance. Hive workers rushed forward, only to be torn apart by a mob of defenders. Eventually, the acid spitter made its way to the front. It once again pulsed its abdomen, sending the deadly acid forward towards its jaw. This time, however, the jaw remained closed, causing the acid to build up. When it released it, the acid sprayed across the cavern, splattering every ant within it. Spread over such a large area, the acids effect was far reduced, but it was still enough to give the workers, as well as the larger soldiers reinforcing them, an edge to push into the cavern, and eliminate the stalemate.
The Hive marched on through the tunnels. Any organized resistance was met with acid and mandibles, until the invaders reached the queens. They were huddled together in a chamber, blocked off from the rest of the colony by a wall of mud and dirt. Again, the spitter's abdomen clenched, this time spraying a steady, if somewhat weaker stream of acid in a grid along the barrier. Workers rushed in and pulled out the partially dissolved barrier, then rushed at the exposed queens. They were bitten through, burned by acid, beheaded, all slaughtered. This species had already proven annoyingly resistant to infection, the Hive took no chances with a resurgence. More hunting parties spread out among the tunnels, finding every hiding hole where a queen could stow away. Across hundreds of other colonies, this scene was mirrored, with enemy queens reduced to the Hive's prey, as their colonies lay in ruin.
The colonies of their foe were far from gone. Not even close to it. But, eventually, inevitably, they would vanish. The Hive would not accept any threats in its domain.
Baneling: One of the more dangerous creatures in the Zergs arsenal, the baneling is little more than a living acid bomb, a vehicle of destruction. Morphed from zerglings, banelings are slightly slower than their predecessors, but make up for this by rolling their bodies as a form of movement. When killed, or close enough to an enemy structure, banelings detonate, spraying acid around them to annihilate anything with the misfortune to be nearby. Since banelings are relatively cheap and quick to morph, it is common to see a full flood of banelings rolling at opposing units, although their suicidal nature can make this difficult to do regularly. Banelings are especially effective against massed, lighter units, but are still damaging to heavier, armored units. Banelings can also explode while burrowed, making them effective landmines. Generally, banelings have difficulty dealing with more long range, mobile units, such as siege tanks or colossi. Still, banelings are one of the more dangerous weapons of the swarm; letting them get too close means death.