Disclaimer: Scientific endeavors forever get better when knowledge increases by measures that take past ideas and erase every letter. What you find in Catalyst may not meet that exclusive list, but don't ignore it, I implore it, and while it may not make you euphoric, it will cause you to run out of rhymes until you say fuck it. So no science in Catalyst. Also, don't own it.
He thinks he's being so philosophical. I pity him, sometimes. ~f
(All your base are belong to us. Kekeke. You get it. Because the bases were yours. And then they had a transition period. After which, they belonged to us. I CAN MAKE JOKES.)
This is what happens when a man has to come up with 35 consecutive transition jokes. They start to get just a bit confused. ~f
Catalyst
One of the first things they taught Curse Breakers was that hesitation often meant death. In a dangerous situation, you either acted or you died. Simple as that. If you made a mistake and your arm got chopped off...well, arms are easier to replace than the people attached to them. As a curse breaker you either worked quickly or died slowly, and that was all there was to it.
Despite all of this, Adeviar still couldn't bring himself to open Hogwarts' imposing double doors. Logically, of course, there was no reason to wait. The monster hidden inside wasn't going anywhere, and the years of his life that it had stolen weren't going to return because of his hesitation. But to finally be able to put a face on the monster, on Abathur, only for that face to be Vivira and Faris's son...it was be the final punch line in his joke of a life. Minutes passed as Adeviar agonized over the front doors, until he finally mustered the willpower to push them inwards.
"Welcome back to Hogwarts, Mr. Byhumorn," Dumbledore said. He had been standing directly behind the doors. Of course he had. The old man had probably been waiting the entire time, too.
"Let's just get this over with," Adeviar responded. Even from behind his bandages, he could see the aged professor wincing at his voice. "I better things to do with my time than inspecting corpses."
"Thenabar is not a corpse, Adeviar. He lives and breaths as much as you and I," Dumbledore said. Adeviar ignored him, and began walking towards the monster. Even if he hadn't been familiar with the school, it would still have been impossible to go the wrong direction. The whispers behind his occlumency shields grew louder with every step he took towards it.
"A corpse, a vegetable, it makes little difference. Nothing survive possession for nearly 15 years," Adeviar said as he walked up a flight of stairs. "If there's anything left, I guarantee it will collapse under its own freedom in a matter of weeks."
"Have more faith in Thenabar. He has been freed from Abathur's influence for quite some time, and remains just as eloquent now as he was on day one."
Adeviar rolled his eyes. He could try to explain the effects of possession, how it warped and twisted the mind until there was nothing left but a crumbling wreck. But why bother? The headmaster was stupid enough to let Vivira and Faris's kid to get this far into this mess. He wasn't going to understand that he couldn't get him out of it.
Soon enough, Adeviar found the source of the whispers, hidden behind an unassuming door. He casually waved his wand, checking for traps. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the extent of the monitoring wards and reinforcements he found. Even Azkaban didn't need this much security, because they relied on dementors. Still, there was nothing to specifically prevent him from entering. Without any further ceremony, he pushed the door open. Inside, he found a room, empty but for the bare necessities of living. A bed, a desk, a chair, and a stack of Runes textbooks were the only things in the room. Well, aside from the child who was reading one of the textbooks with an intent expression.
"Dumbledore? Who's this?" the child asked.
Dumbledore entered just behind Adeviar, composed as ever, despite what he had in here. "This is Adeviar, Thenabar. He is..."
"Oh, right, the summoner!. You found him?" the boy interrupted Dumbledore mid sentence, looking up from the book and revealing vibrant yellow eyes that were filled with a cold curiosity. Adeviar reflexively put up his occlumency shields. There was a probe coming from the boy, almost undetectable, and almost certainly inhuman.
"Headmaster, step outside for a minute," Adeviar said. Dumbledore looked at Adeviar with clear surprise on his face. Adeviar looked back, determination reinforcing his gaze. Eventually, the elder wizard relented, and Adeviar turned back to what appeared to be a young boy. "How long until you decide to stop hiding behind that face?
'Thenabar' frowned. "Well, that's rude. I didn't ask you when you were going to stop hiding our flesh under those bandages."
Adeviar opened his mouth, and closed it again. The boy snorted. "You can't hide it from us. Not with those eyes."
"You assume that I care, beast," Adeviar shot back.
"You do care. And you have a question. While I do enjoy this exchange of insults, Abathur isn't a fan of waiting. So spit it out."
The boy considered himself separate? Interesting. Adeviar would have expected him to just be absorbed at this point, especially considering how young he had been. Either way, he was the best bet he had at getting an answer, to the question that had been bothering him for 15 years.
"Why did you do this to us?"
(Transition)
Abathur felt nothing but rabid delight as he thrust his hand into the flank of a ritholisk, right into the fledgling eggs within it. In a rapid flurry of movement, he extracted the eggs, puncturing each and feeding a vibrant green fluid into their cores. The fluid spread through the eggs, shedding a green light from their veins. Within a few minutes, the new essence had been absorbed. Abathur tore the hole in the ritholisk open once more, and placed the eggs inside once more. Then he moved on to the next one.
It really was inefficient to modify them all without a structure just for fabricating DNA, like an evolution chamber. Manually modifying the eggs to be able to grow the new acromantula derivative would take all day. But it was worth it, more than worth it. But it would almost certainly be worth the time.
Besides, this was the work he lived for. Reaching into his subjects, pulling and wrapping the strands in their cells. Spinning all the nucleotides within him into sequences, sequences into proteins, and proteins into cells, organs, systems, eventually entire organisms. It was his work and his pleasure, his purpose and his passion.
Luna was off at the moment, gathering essence. A unicorn this time. Apparently, they were some form of 'absolute good.' Currently, Luna was tearing one to shreds along with her escort of arachnolisks. Crude, but efficient. The unicorn would be disassembled and ready for examination within the hour.
Abathur was pulled from his work by a pull from the experiment. Contact, with the summoner. At last. With a flex of will, Abathur pulled his consciousness away from his physical form, and settled into the backseat of Thenabar's mind.
(Transition)
"If you mean the scraps of Abathur's body you absorbed, that wasn't what we wanted. If we could have prevented that, we would have," Thenabar said dismissively. A predatory glint began to emerge from his eyes, less like a schoolboy and more like a wolf. "We like being broken into pieces exactly as much as you do."
"Then why do it in the first place?," Adeviar responded calmly. His hand remained firmly grasped on the wand behind his back. The whispers had become maddeningly loud, more like a swarm of insects than the quiet voices they had been before.
"You think we were in control? I was still a barely formed bundle of cells, and he was being forced through a tear in space."
"Space-time," Adeviar corrected automatically.
"Whatever. The point is, we had no control over your ritual. Anything that messed up, happened on your end," Thenabar said. "Really, if our flesh is bothering you that much, why don't you just get it removed?"
A stony silence met Thenabar's question. Adeviar couldn't believe the boy had the audacity to ask that, much less in a serious fashion. But there was no sign of levity or mockery on the boy's face. Simply curiosity, and growing realization. "They can't, can they?"
"No."
"So, you cover yourself to hide, because you don't know what the humans would do if you don't," Thenabar concluded. "We can sympathize. Abathur was afraid for years that the humans would discover what he was and kill him. And you have to worry about physical appearance!"
Adeviar narrowed his eyes. "And what exactly is Abathur? Why is he so scared?"
"He isn't human," Thenabar said. "Do you need another reason to fear humans? Of course, we've learned how to hide better since the early days. We could even hide your...additions, if you let us."
(Transition)
This was a risky gambit. Abathur realized that the instant the summoner walked in the door. This 'Adeviar' was truly a danger, and had ample reason to strike out at the Swarm. But he also had power, connections, and a knowledge of runes that would take Abathur decades to recreate. Risk against reward, attempting to recruit the summoner was the most reasonable choice, especially considering the new strain Abathur was developing. But if recruitment failed...well, fortunately that wouldn't be catastrophic. The experiment would manipulate the situation. It knew more about the summoner than the man knew about himself. Even if the summoner did not join them, the issue would be... corrected.
(Transition)
Adeviar was shocked by the proposition. St. Mungo's had said it was impossible. No matter what they tried, it just grew back, sometimes even worse than before. And now, the very thing that had cursed him claimed it could hide his scars, just like that? No, it couldn't be that easy. There was always a catch to these things. And yet there was a part of Adeviar that couldn't dismiss the possibility outright.
"How?"
"On your end, it's the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is let down your shields, and listen to those...whispers you keep hearing. We'll do everything else."
"Not in a thousand years."
"Sorry, what?" Thenabar said with bewilderment.
"Do you think I never listened to what they had to say? Every word that isn't about eating something is about serving your Swarm, and I don't plan on being a slave," Adeviar said. "That's an interesting idea, but here's another one. I walk out this door, and then I tell Dumbledore everything you just told me."
Thenabar frowned. "You wouldn't. And even if you did, it wouldn't matter." After a moment, a wide grin resurfaced, stretching just a bit farther than should have been possible. "After all, it took him years to find us, and even when he did, he barely managed to contain us. Do you honestly think he can handle the rest?"
"Still puts you in a pretty bad situation," Adeviar responded. But the words of the boy had some semblance of truth. Would telling Dumbledore actually change anything?
"No worse than what I'm already in. Did Dumbledore tell you how he 'caught' me after Snape peeked in my head? I came back on my own. And he still had to sacrifice the incompetent to get me in here," Thenabar said, with a sneer on his face. All pretense of childhood was abandoned. Adeviar could see a glint of green entering the things eyes. A wave of scales washed over its skin, before vanishing a second later. "You don't know with what you are dealing with, thief of our flesh. Telling Dumbledore wouldn't change a single thing."
(Transition)
Adeviar slammed the door behind him, blocking out Thenabar and all those accursed whispers. He'd been a fool to come here, and a bigger fool to let that monster talk right into his ear. He should have just let sleeping dragons lie. Or he should have poisoned the dragon when he had the chance. Either way, it was too late now. It was out of his hands.
The old man was still here, apparently waiting for Adeviar to come out. "I take it things went...poorly?"
"You," Adeviar rounded on Dumbledore and grabbed the collar of his robe. He would probably regret this later. Big whoop. "I don't have the patience, and you don't have the time left on Earth for me to explain just how colossally you have fucked up. I don't know what you believe you have in that room, but it is the farthest possible thing from the child you think it is."
"Why are you so quick to dismiss him?" Dumbledore asked.
"Don't play dumb. It's already killed one of your teachers, and I'd be surprised if that's all." If his words were getting through to the old man, he didn't show it. "On the off-chance Potter is telling the truth about You-Know-Who being back, send that at him. See if that Merlin-damned ritual manages to finally work right. Otherwise, lock it in the deepest hole you can find. Or whatever else you want. Because I am done with that fucking thing, and that whole fucking ordeal."
Inside his cage, Thenabar smiled. Adeviar Byhumorn was completely convinced that Dumbledore was a fool. The only person with any real knowledge of what he had unleashed, and now he would never work with the headmaster, the only person nearby that had any semblance of power over Thenabar. The bandage wrapped hybrid was an emotional fool. But that was quite useful, in the end.
As Adeviar stormed off, he was far too self-absorbed to notice the mosquitoes drinking up his essence. Deep in the heart of his brood, Abathur smiled. The Swarm was now one step closer to completion.
On the subject of your weird fetish reviews (Yes, you. You know who you are.) :
*unzips fly* Don't mind me. Just letting the breeze in. ~f
I will include you in this, feauxen. Don't think I won't.
Try me, bitch. ~f
Anyway. Given both the increasing scarcity of zerg creatures, and my unwillingness to write a paragraph about every single increasingly inconsequential sentient entity that has ever existed in the Zerg Swarm, I have instead decided to address a couple...interesting reviews I have received.
*giggles gleefully* They weren't all me. ~f
That is technically true. Some of the ones have said, and I quote "For some reason I still see Hermione and other female magicals semi-merged to the walls of a Hive/Breeding Pit nude with stomachs bloated in pregnancy to bring forth more magicals for Abathur and Queen Luna to add to the Swarm." That is a direct quote. Except the email censored nude for some reason.
I chose to remedy that issue. ~f
Now, I'm the last person that wants to kink shame. If you saw my browsing history, you would likely have to google what half of those things were. And then possibly get memory wipes to forget what half those things were.
Personally, I have far more vanilla tastes. I also happen to...spice things up a lot of the time. If you're a citizen of the internet, you probably wouldn't have to look for anything other than a dramatic barf bag. I guess my vanilla tastes mean that my unusual fantasies are just more absurd than most people. ~f
Aside from your fetishes of seeing girls get twisted into cursive.
That's not a fetish, that was mild dyslexia combined with an overactive imagination. It definitely didn't turn me on, it just really confused me. ~f
Sure... But moving on, your fetishes (and my overactive imagination) aren't really the issue. Hell, some of them overlap with mine, so I almost appreciate the mental images. And I know the prevalence of Rule 34 on the internet, so I can't really blame you. But I do have to ask you to at least not do it to my face.
You do realize that's like asking a five year old not to shove beans up their nose, right? ~f
Well, yes. But I can at least ask. I'm not writing porn, or planning to. Honestly, I don't really have an issue with you internally fetishizing my work. Or externally for that matter. Hell, write your own story where that happens. Send me the link for all I care. Actually, what was my issue with this again?
The reviews, I think. Unless you're also fine with those, and just needed to fill some space at the bottom of the chapter. ~f
Wait, who actually reads the reviews of other people?
The Beta who you share the funny ones with? Also, people who want a third or fourth opinion on the quality of the story sometimes I guess. ~f
Do any of those people care about this?
Well, I don't know about that, but they should definitely know what they're getting into. And in the interest of not padding the chapter to double length with an author's note, I'll finish by saying that, thus far, it's not been enough of an issue to merit this much attention. It was a grand total of what, 3 reviews? Out of at least three hundred? ~f
Two. So yeah, we really don't care. Send more of them if you want to.
Yeah, send nudes! Wait... ~f
Or, don't. Just keep in mind that I won't actually expand on any of them in my own stories.
And I am aware of all the actually important individuals and strains I have yet to cover. If they have not yet been written about yet, that's because I'm saving them for specific chapters.