Disclaimer: A trend I've noticed occasionally among fanfiction authors is to assign their characters a theme song. I personally don't understand that trend. Sure, the song may contain heavy symbolism related to the fic, or have similar themes and messages, but the vast majority, when you get down to it, are basically user's guides to human reproduction. This seems wildly inappropriate, since while I have seen quite a few fics that contain the beginning steps of this process, I haven't seen any that describe people in the more interesting parts of pregnancy. I should know, I've looked very hard. The closest I've gotten is gross exaggerations of the capacity of human uteruses (uteri?). I should know, I've looked very hard. Either way, none of this is a problem for my fic, because Blizzard has kindly provided me with a theme song for Abathur made long before I even conceived of this fic. It is a track called Heart of the Swarm, in the soundtrack for Heart of the Swarm, with a glorious beat that sounds like the heart of the Swarm. It is very good. I should also stress especially heavily in this chapter that none of this is based on actual science. The below is plausible sounding nonsense, nothing more. Also, don't own it.
Also, I start school tomorrow, meaning updates might come less frequently.
(Fuck you Gabe these are my jokes you can't have them.)
Who's Gabe? ~f
(A dirty thief. And that's all you need to know.)
(Gabe is actually a decent guy who was just making a joke, but we all know how bad Strandshaper is with jokes.) ~f
Catalyst
Most of the time, Abathur considered explosions to be a bad thing. When experimenting on banelings, however, he was more than willing to make an exception to this rule. Of course, working with the living acid bombs ended with explosions more often than not, regardless of what he wanted. This was especially true at the moment, as he was attempting to add the primer fluid for dragon fire into them.
The first experiment had gone poorly. Abathur had taken a baneling, suspended it in the stasis ward, then jabbed a hole in it while filling the sac with the dragon's fluids. Unfortunately, it had turned out that the two reacted to each other, rather violently at that. This in and of itself might not have been a problem, if it hadn't turned out that the acid prevented the dragon fluid from igniting.
Abathur's next attempt had him adding oxygen-containing struts to the core proteins of the banelings acid. This let the dragon fluid combust easily, but the acid clumped too easily, making it more like putty than a liquid. Any baneling that he forced to produce the mixture seized up and died, without even exploding. Clearly, that idea was doomed to failure. Rather than continue along that path, Abathur decided to add a third substance, one with multiple purposes. First, it would inhibit the reaction between the acid and the dragon fire until the baneling added its own igniter fluid to its payload. Second, it would provide fuel for the fire once the explosion had actually taken place. In smaller scale experiments, the mixture proved quite successful. Of course, the full scale implementation had issues. They always did. Fortunately the problem was relatively minor in this case; the inhibitor had a small failure rate, and small scale reactions took place across the gland. This only had the effect of causing the baneling to shimmer orange, so Abathur determined that correcting the flaw was unnecessary. With the mixture at least workable, it was almost simple to add the same quality to the roach's acid. Abathur wasn't sure that it would be a permanent addition, but he could always purge the trait later.
His next project was adding the psionic resistance to the armor of the various strains. Between the troll, acromantula, dragon, and basilisk essence, it was easy to see exactly how the psionics were dampened. Modifying each strain he currently had access to to replicate that was more tedious than difficult. He tested it as well as he could with his own spell casting abilities, but it would likely need combat to provide adequate stressors. That was fine. If there was anything the Swarm could find, it was conflict. Abathur doubted he'd need to wait very long.
(Transition)
Thenabar never ceased to be surprised at how much credulence humans had regarding physical ailments. Give them any vague deadline or any stupid symptom, and they simply accepted it as fact, no questions asked. Can't cast spells? Physical ailment. Can't perform well in class? Physical ailment. At this point, the only conclusion Thenabar could draw was that humans were so frail and suffered from such a wide assortment of diseases that they just had to accept whatever the person in front of them said, if only because they didn't know enough to refute it. It would've almost been comical if it weren't so pathetic.
Of course, he still had to play the part. He kept his skin intentionally pale, made veins visible in his eyes, added a slight preference for his left leg, and a few other minor details that cemented his reputation as a sickly student who had just returned from the hospital. For the most part, it seemed to have worked extremely well. The teachers fawned over him or ignored him altogether. Even the new potions teacher, while equally incompetent, paid no attention to his predecessor's killer. The Slytherins had already solidified their hierarchy and collectively saw him as a non-entity, a role Thenabar was perfectly happy to fill. The other students ignored him all together. Even the Evolution Master's former camouflage hadn't attempted to approach him.
It was disturbing how easy it had been to pick up human mannerisms. Thenabar had even caught himself whistling as he walked. Well, it wasn't the worst habit he could have acquired. Occasionally, he decided to indulge in the hobby while going from class to class. It was in one of these whistling sessions while on his way to his dorm after classes had concluded that he stumbled across a distinctly distressed looking Luna.
"You look to be in a rather poor state of mind," Thenabar said.
"Thenabar!" Luna's somewhat desperate gaze latched onto the metamorph. "You can read minds right?"
Thenabar scanned their surroundings for any sentient minds. Finding none, he hazarded a confused response."...To some degree, yes. Can you not?" Luna shook her head. "That's odd. The terran psionics were almost universally adept at it. Genetic shift perhaps?"
"Does that really matter right now?" Luna said in clear frustration.
"Well, it's interesting. And you haven't exactly explained whatever matter you find more urgent," Thenabar said, an eyebrow raised.
"Oh, right. It's Potter," Luna scowled. "Ever since I joined his club, he's been trying to get something from me, and I can't figure out what."
Thenabar shrugged. "It could be any number of things. He could be making a cult of personality, could be seeking to consolidate power, could be interested in reproduction. Depends. How has he been soliciting you?"
"Every time he sees me, he greets me. Without fail, every time! Every time! Even Granger's doing it. He acknowledges me in the club, he gives me tips. And he's never so much as asked for a spare sheet of paper! He wants something, and I can't figure it out!" Luna ended her list with an exasperated cry.
"Have you considered asking him?" Thenabar suggested, stroking his chin. After a moment, he stopped and looked down at his hand in surprise. Luna just stared at him incredulously.
"Of course not. He won't just admit what he wants," she said. "That's what I asked you for."
Thenabar blinked. "Well, if the straightforward route is out of the question, that only leaves wild speculation." Thenabar sighed. What utterly...human behavior he had to resort to. "If Granger's in on it, then he most likely isn't seeking to reproduce. From his perspective, he has no social clout to gain from befriending you, unless he's absolutely desperate, which...is not impossible. But there are two more likely possibilities. Either he wishes to recruit you for your martial ability, or..." Thenabar stopped mid sentence.
"Or what?"
"How active have you been in this club of his?"
Now it was Luna's turn to blink. "I haven't done that much. I've done a lot better than the others, but they aren't one of us. Why?"
Thenabar hesitated. "This is just a theory. I can't honestly wrap my head around it myself. The kind of behavior you're observing is common. That is, among human comrades."
"That's ridiculous," Luna immediately refuted.
"I wouldn't dismiss it that easily. You have been in a relatively small group for some time. You've done well enough to attract attention. A sense of comradery from Potter and Granger is not out of the question."
"I'm not sure where you're going with this."
"I'm guessing, just guessing, mind you, that they may consider you to be a comrade.
Luna's head shook frantically"They're humans. They won't be nice to me just because we spent a few hours together," Luna said. "That's ridiculous!"
"They think you're human. It's unfortunately possible," Thenabar grimaced. "Of course, it could be something else. Remain on your guard."
"Will do! Thanks for the help Aba-Thenabar," Luna blushed.
"It's fine," Thenabar dismissed, one side of his mouth turned upwards. "This was his face long before he gave it to me. Now, don't we both have classes to pretend to pay attention to?"
"I guess we do," Luna pouted. "Thanks for the advice. It's been a while since I've been able to talk to you or Abathur."
"We're both busy, you know that. But still, feel free to visit him when you can. I'm sure he has things he wants to talk to you about."
"Sounds good," Luna said. "So..I'll see you later then?"
"More than likely," Thenabar said. "Goodbye." The two undercover zerg departed, each heading towards their classes. Neither of them paid attention to the decorations on the wall.
(Transition)
"...And then he said 'This was his face long before he gave it to me'" Phineas Black asked from his frame on the office wall. Albus listened gravely to the recitation of his students' conversation. He was honestly surprised at how effective recruiting the portraits of Hogwarts as a monitor was. Dumbledore wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't done something like this years ago.
"Just what kind of half-breeds have you invited into my school Albus? The werewolf was bad enough, but now you have little face changing vermin rounding around the halls! This is an outrage!" Ah yes, that was it. It was quite hard to work around their tendency to add their own, unsolicited commentary.
"Worry not, Phineas. I'm sure the problem will resolve itself sooner or later," Albus placated the long dead headmaster.
"Hmph. It better," Phineas folded his arms, and turned away, before exiting his frame and leaving Albus to his own devices.
The portraits were only human in the end, something that Thenabar almost certainly wasn't. Even more troublingly, there was more than one, within Hogwarts itself even. And even worse, if the was possible, whatever Thenabar was, whatever Abathur was, it could spread. Dumbledore knew the Lovegood girl. She had been human at birth, even if she wasn't now. This could lead to potential destruction at the scale of lycanthropy or vampirism.
But by far the worst part of it was that Dumbledore couldn't do a Merlin-damned thing about it.
Between Voldemort, the Order, Umbridge, and the constant political games from the Ministry, Dumbledore was pulled too thin. His movements in the school were scrutinized far too closely for him to act against Thenabar, not without notice. Severus's death had shown that he was far too dangerous to trust to someone else, and that might very well apply to Lovegood as well. One of these obstacles, Dumbledore might be able to overcome, but not all of them put together. He was paralyzed.
Oh, he wasn't entirely out of options. He could ask his teachers to keep an eye on the two of them, and whoever they stuck around. Thenabar was a returning student recovering from an illness, and Flitwick had noted Lovegood's disconnect with the rest of his ravens years ago. They wouldn't think much of it. The portraits could help out as well. At the very least, Dumbledore could keep abreast of the situation. Unfortunately, that almost certainly wouldn't be enough.
The headmaster cradled his head in his hands, feeling the beginnings of a headache start to take root. Once, just once, he would like to have a problem with an easy solution.
Thenabar: Basically the words "Then a bar" crammed together.
Thenabar: Infiltration is not one of the Swarm's strengths. It rarely has the need to learn about its enemies in any great detail. Even the changeling, the shapeshifting infiltration unit, is barely sophisticated enough to pass itself off as a member of another species for more than a few hours. However, while stranded on Earth, Abathur was forced to create a specialized strain to replace him while he hid and developed his own brood, a single individual that has come to be known as Thenabar, if only because that was what it was called on a regular basis. Originally an experimental strain based on boggart essence, Thenabar is one of the most flexible members of the Zerg Swarm, capable of transforming in an almost infinite number of ways. Combined with his ability to sense the emotions and thoughts of those around him, Thenabar is an expert actor and manipulator of sentient life. Due to necessity, he possesses an unprecedented amount of freedom for zerg, especially considering he is the only sentient entity without significant psionic power. While Thenabar is currently the only member of his strain and is unavailable for further experimentation, the Swarm may yet produce more when the need arises.