Disclaimer: I admit, I've been lying to all of you this whole time. This is not fiction. This is nothing but fact! All will bow before the Swarm! All shall be devoured! Resistance is futile!
Okay, my beta has just slapped me. He says that everything you just read is complete and utter bullshit. There is, apparently, no Zerg swarm ready to kill all of us, the science in this fic is dubious at best, and apparently I don't own any of it it. Well, that's disappointing.
(These have been getting really long, so, in the future, I'm likely going to turn (a.k.a. transition) this into a smaller interlude (also called a transition) to the main story, instead of a full paragraph)
I'm so lost, I couldn't even find the bloody chapter. *mutters about school years and blatantly misleading authorial directions*
(And lack of context)
Catalyst
To Abathur, the ability of a creature to move around underneath the ground was nothing less than essential. When he had first chosen the ants to infest, the ability to tunnel and burrow had been one of the ants' most attractive features, in his eye. The utility of disappearing into the ground, the capacity to move unseen was useful in the extreme, and he had taken care to apply the mutation to every Zerg strain he could, as well as most of the Hive strains. The sheer versatility offered by a tunneling soldier or worker was just so delightful, especially in the more specialized strains. So few species paid attention to what lurked beneath their feet, until it came out to bite them. Whether growing subterranean acid mines, hiding volatile banelings, or covering a lurker's deadly spines, the underground battlefield had proven useful again, and again, and again. Here, a similar strategy would no doubt prove highly effective.
The spies he had sent after the centaur messengers had established a small colony near their target. Reinforcements had been quickly funneled through the worm-burrowed tunnels. As soon as the colony had grown enough, they moved directly underneath the centaur's tunneled beneath the dwelling, leaving intricate patterns in their wake. When the worms lay to rest, Abathur pushed his own energy into the finished runes. They pulsed with power as his psionics flowed through the tunnels, filling the markings. The second the last rune filled with energy, they all activated. Every trace of the Hive was eradicated. Tunnel entrances were obscured, insects were covered in illusion, and within seconds the colony was all but undetectable to the naked eye.
Abathur distributed Hive agents across the centaur's dwelling, and they watched every move the centaurs made. He knew every word the centaurs said, hut wherein they dwelt, every path they tread. Abathur saw anything and everything.
Abathur was nowhere near ready to attack just yet. But for now he could watch, he could learn, and he could prepare. The centaurs would have absolutely no idea what was coming. Not until it was far too late.
(Transition)
Abathur considered human interaction, and the Hogwarts Express in particular, to be the absolute worst part of his imprisonment. It was just so inefficient! They talked and talked about meaningless topics, expecting him to be involved, to contribute. Every time Abathur was forced to spend long periods of time in the company of humans, he found it that much harder to keep himself from just killing them all. Abathur could spend this time working on new strains, testing new runes or sequences, or literally anything other than entertaining terran whelps. But no, human society demanded interaction. And if Abathur didn't conform, then his most important defense was gone, and he would be forced to fend off the all of humanity with nothing but a few overgrown arachnids.
None of that made it any less torturous, merely mind-numbingly necessary. It was hard to even form a coherent thought with all of the meaningless tripe spouting endlessly from his camouflage and the other random humans in the compartment . Abathur had withdrawn from the conversation as much as he could, but even he had to respond occasionally. More of his time and focus was on the Rune book in his lap. This year, apparently, contained more interesting runes, the kind that could do more than form a simple shield, useful as that ability was. He was doing his very best to focus on these new concepts, despite the constant distractions.
The one he was currently working on was one intended to isolate intruders in individual cages, and it was eating up most of his attention. Abathur was so distracted that he barely noticed the small blonde terran until she sat right next to him, and leaned over his notes.
"You know, if you switch the eihwaz and the gragar, it takes a lot less power," she said.
Abathur paid no attention to her. She had joined their compartment soon after the train left the station for reasons he found unimportant, and was beneath his notice. Terran minds would tell him nothing he wasn't aware of already.
The human, unfortunately kept watching him anyway. Abathur didn't feel any hostility or suspicion, so he let her be for now, and continued to work on his runes. The only problem that Abathur couldn't seem to get around was the power requirement, and the definition of the area of effect. However he defined the effect, the drain would be greater than what either he or the ambient energy could provide. He could fix the issue by shifting the distribution, but to do that he would have to...replace eihwaz with gragar.
Abathur looked at the blonde terran, examining her closely. Both her essence and her mind showed nothing but pathetic humanity, and yet, she had known the solution before he had figured out the problem. That shouldn't have been possible, not with the weakness of terran essence. Could it have just been chance?
Abathur put the matter out of his mind, and focused on the next sequence. This one would ideally suppress all sensory organs, assuming he could make it work. The only real issue seemed to be the ansuz.. For some reason, it wasn't working as intended; perhaps he could-
"You don't want ansuz there, you should move it over there, and add ledig," the terran interrupted him again, pointing at the very section Abathur had just been examining.
Abathur's eyes snapped to the human's face, examining her closely. There was nothing to indicate inhumanity, yet she had known what to do before he had. How could that happen?
"Proficiency with Runes, great. Youth, species, poor for exercise. Explain discrepancy," Abathur said. Almost as soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back. That was too blunt for most humans and their illogical conversation rules.
To his surprise, the blonde terran took the remark in stride."My father runs the Quibbler, and he lets me help with the Rune puzzles. Though I suspect he just doesn't like going through the rune books. They often get infested with nargles, and he has quite enough trouble with them already. Why did you put vernos next to obscurus?"
"Sends effect to nervous system. Direct, hard to defend against. Minimal complexity. Efficient," Abathur replied.
"That's funny," the blonde said. "Most people would just use sowilo for power, then some sort of binding rune. Or maybe even thurisaz, with its loose connection to lightning, but your way is much better." She regarded him in an odd manner. Even with the boggart's sensory organs, he wasn't quite sure what she was thinking. "Have you ever been bitten by a gnome?" she asked suddenly.
The question caught Abathur off guard. "Unlikely. Have not participated in combat recently."
The blonde human stared at Abathur in that odd manner again. Then, without even drawing breath she asked, "Have you considered using teramor opposite yerta and aten?"
Abathur considered it. "Possible. More complex, but same intent. Would reduce error. Useful. Ineffective without defined target. Replace yerta with siexda, more flexible? Must experiment."
Their discussion continued for nearly an hour, until the train arrived at Hogsmeade. The blonde human had some interesting ideas, even if they were generally more simple than Abathur would use himself. He would have to investigate the effects of integrating her ideas into his own work, they were surprisingly unique.
The blonde's emotions colored with a hint of joy as she stood up to exit the compartment. "Do tell me how your experiments go, Abathur. I'd like to know how they go. You think of the most fascinating things."
Abathur wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It took him several hours to realize that this had been the first conversation with a terran where he hadn't wanted to massacre everyone involved.
(Transition)
After leaving the opening feast, Abathur didn't even bother going to the Slytherin dormitories. The only reason he ever visited them in the first place was to keep up appearances, and he would much rather spend his night doing something useful. Fortunately, it was almost trivial to sneak into the Forest after dark, and from there he made his way to his colonies, clad once more in his more comfortable, transformed state. The acromantulas knew what he had planned, the ritual that had taken place almost every night since their assimilation. All other tasks had been completed before now.
The spiders gathered on the soft, moonlit creep. They covered every available surface, some even standing on each other. They had begun to vary greatly in size and shape; Abathur was only a few generations away from distinct strains. The Hive crawled underfoot, their multitudes all crowded into the single clearing. Their minds were open to Abathur, and he pulled from them. Their energy, their presence, all of it was funnelled into him. He gathered it around his own essence, and then pushed.
Boosted by the power of his brood, Abathur's mind stretched far into the reaches of the night sky, reaching for the familiar lights he had lived by, years ago. Almost immediately, he heard the whispers, the sounds of the devouring Swarm. Abathur moved towards it, reaching desperately, but his reach did not extend any farther. He desperately clawed forward, attempting to reach the massive entity, to gain its attention, but he received no response. He simply didn't have the power.
With the now familiar ache of disappointment, Abathur released the minds of his brood, and had them resume their work. Their numbers were still too few for him to be noticed by the Swarm. Even after months of attempted communication, he still did not have the forces required. It was almost as if there was still some critical factor, some missing puzzle piece that he needed for this to work. Abathur had no idea what it could be, but he would not let the lack of it stop him. He could be patient.
If he had to wait for years, if he needed to recreate leviathans from scratch, to harvest every scrap of biomass on the planet, to assimilate everything and raze the rest, then he would. Abathur would not be denied his reunion.
Guardian:Guards shit. 'Nuff said. ~f
(Apparently they don't even guard shit. My life is a lie.)
Guardian: The long ranged bomber of the Swarm, guardians had long served as the siege weapons of the Zerg, before being largely replaced by the largely superior brood lord. Also evolved from the mutalisk, they resemble a large flat, fleshy sheet with degenerated claws at its front. A guardian's main weapon is an acidic spore, effectively a bomb, which is used to heavily damage land-based targets. While incredibly effective in air-to-ground combat, guardians are essentially useless in space-borne fights, and need to be escorted by air to air fighters in order to not be killed off. Guardians have been largely replaced by brood lords as the bomber of Zerg fleets. Only Abathur's brood continues to produce guardians, with the exception of a few primal zerg strains. While they are undeniably powerful, guardians have become somewhat obsolete with the creation of the brood lord, making them an asset of preference, rather than necessity.