Disclaimer: Two more chapters after this? Possibly and probably, but we'll see how that goes. Also, don't own it.
What this means is that there will definitely be two chapters after this one. Whether there will be more than that or not is uncertain. By my estimation, however, it's highly unlikely that the story will conclude after a mere two more chapters. We're close to the end, but not quite that close.
Three chapters, minimum. Probably. ~f
Catalyst
"Abathur," Luna said in a quiet, direct tone. "What are you doing?"
One of Abathur's eyes glanced in her direction, the rest of his body not moving at all. "Luna. Unanticipated. Purpose of visit?"
"I asked you a question, Abathur. What in Merlin's name are you doing here?" Luna pressed on, projecting confidence as best she could. She just barely managed to look at Abathur. Just him.
"Harvesting biomass. Require substantial material, most efficient source," Abathur responded calmly, without emotion. "Presence still unexplained. Similar answer required"
"I was looking for the humans I recruited! Where are they? Where the hell are they Abathur?" Luna was yelling now.
"Hmm. Various locations. Providing paths for drones. Allowing additional harvesting. Useful strain, versatile," Abathur said in a neutral tone.
"I want to talk to them!"
"Not recommended. More use elsewhere. No important conversation."
"Why aren't you letting me talk to them?"
Abathur finally looked at her, projecting what Luna could only describe as disdain through the hivemind. He examined her for a few seconds, before turning away dismissively. Luna could sense him pulling on a few strands of distant thought. Then, quite suddenly, a cracking sound rang out from behind her. Luna whirled around to see someone standing there, covered in carapace, standing on two legs with two arms.
Weeks of tension slid out of Luna. Finally, she could talk to someone, she could figure out everything that was going on, she could prove that all her worries are all unfounded. She had to make an effort to avoid looking at the piles.
"Hello!" she said with forced cheeriness. There was no response. The man? women? person's eyes stared dead ahead, not reacting at all to her. She waved her hand in front of their face. They didn't even blink.
"Abathur, what's wrong with them?" The bodies were looming larger in the edges of her vision.
"No flaws. Personality unnecessary. Removed. More efficient," Abathur said in matter-of-fact tone, as though utterly wiping away someone's personality was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
"Did you...did you do that to all the people I recruited?"
Abathur considered the question for a moment. "Likely. Some conversions, ongoing. Not examined recently."
"Can't you fix them?"
"Unnecessary. Current state, fully functional. No significant problems," Abathur said. Luna turned to look at him, only to see that his attention was elsewhere, his eyes focused on the slowly dissolving bodies. She couldn't avoid looking at them now, they dominated her view. It was impossible for her to tear her eyes away.
"Abathur, please tell me what's going on right now," Luna pleaded. "The people I recruited are acting like zombies, you're standing in front of a bunch of dead bodies, and you don't see anything wrong with that?! What's wrong with you?"
"Subject of emotional fluctuations, result of your incomplete conversion. Centaur attack interrupted. Stability, connection to hivemind stunted. Can correct later. Terran eradication of greater importance," Abathur said.
Luna's next words stuck in her throat. What had happened to Abathur? She tried to reconcile the apathetic figure before her with her memories of the friend that had promised her the stars. But then...Abathur had always been a bit stiff, hadn't he? As Luna examined her memories of past conversations with him, many of which were still crystal clear as a result of her conversion, she realized with growing horror that the only human life he'd ever shown concern for...was hers. Memories flashed through her mind's eye, Abathur actively staying away from other students, moving himself away from the humans as soon as he could, wiping out the Death Eaters as soon as he could get away with it, and now the bodies, so many of them piled up. He didn't care about humans. Or maybe he did, but only as raw essence and biomass, things to use and discard. But Luna hadn't noticed, hadn't realized that he fought humanity for any reason other than self defense.
Slowly, delicately, Luna reached out for Abathur's presence in the hivemind. He didn't pay her any mind, distracted as he was by...whatever he was doing with all of the dissolving corpses. Tentatively, she tried to puzzle out the creature who had comforted her in her time of need, who had given her what she needed to become stronger. What she found surprised her. Abathur didn't feel a simple disdain for humanity like she'd though, he felt something more like fear, a complex form of paranoia wrapped so tightly in hatred that it was almost unrecognizable. He didn't value people as individuals at all, it was exactly the opposite, almost as though he wanted to-
Suddenly, alarm flooded through the hivemind. An old trigger had been pulled, sending a flashing image of scarlet smoke and deadly blasts through Luna's mind so suddenly that it shocked her thoughts back into her own head. She looked at Abathur with her physical eyes, confused.
Abathur's face was pointed skyward. Luna followed his gaze. She caught glimpses of smoke and a flying metal cylinder before she was blinded by an intense light. In the back of her mind she could feel Abathur working, pulling together the alien minds of the wards. They concentrated themselves right above her. She could feel something striking them, something screaming and forceful and hot. Then the wards shattered and everything went black.
(Transition)
a few days earlier...
"...and before we begin, welcome back to the table General Andrews. Might I offer my congratulations for your success on the front?"
General Andrews raised his unbandaged arm in acknowledgement before settling it back down on the papers scattered in front of him, trying to keep his other arm as still as possible. He looked across the table, eyes passing over all the newly emptied seats. Say what you like about the wizards; when they set their minds to something they got it done. According to the rumors, it had taken less than three days to get rid of all the zerg infiltrators. And without the wizards, no one would have known about said infiltrators at all...Andrews shivered at the thought.
The head of the meeting, one General Pasgo, turned to his side. "General Solomon, what's the report from the magical side of things?"
"Frankly, they're running out of options," General Solomon said grimly. "I'm sure you all know of their instant death curse. The zerg have apparently found a defense against that, something about dead skin armor or...something. The instant death curse was, up until now, one of their last reliably effective weapons."
"They're fast learners. Too damn fast," Andrews added, "Anytime we brought out heavy firepower, they just brought something tougher-" he slid several of the pictures forward. Unfortunately, he also made the mistake of glancing at one of them, and then he was lost in memory. A massive four legged form, shrugging off the tank round like it was nothing, firey blades swinging down, tearing through the tank and through the men inside and then coming out the other side as though they hadn't cut through anything at all. Fire bursting out to roast the rest of the nearby-Andrews shook his head, clearing it of the horrors of war. "Ahem. They just brought out something tougher in response to everything we threw at them, usually something that could shrug off whatever we threw at them like you or I would throw off a light breeze." Andrews took a deep breath, collecting himself. "I'm not certain how long it will be until we've run out of weapons to throw at them. They're backing us into a corner." He pushed more photographs forward. The gathered generals surveyed them with grim faces.
"Victory can't be impossible, Andrews. We canbeat them, you proved that yourself."
And just like that, he was back...there.
Separated. Alone. Even the squirming ground might try to kill him at any second. Glowing red eyes and scuttling claws piercing the dust, searching for him, seeking him out. Relief as his flanks advanced in a pincer move, crushing the isolated zerg, shredding them. Relief as the unbearable stress gave way to relief that his Hail Mary had paid off. He knew for a fact that he couldn't be bait again. Even if he could bring himself to try, the damned bugs wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
Andrews slapped the table, as much to snap himself out of the memory as to emphasize his point. "I won because they acted like idiots, once, and when I pulled my little trick they didn't have those-" he scanned through his papers again, "-ultralisks, they call them. Those things are stronger than tanks."
There was a lengthy pause. "Well then," General Pasgo spoke up. "What do you propose?"
"Quite honestly, I have no idea," Andrews responded, slumping back into his chair dejectedly, only to wince as the move jostled his arm.
"We do have one more option," Solomon stated grimly. The table went silent.
Andrews sat still, looking around the table, waiting for someone to say something, to raise an objection. No one did, and that was telling all on its own. Looking around, he saw the exact same expression on everyone's face that was no doubt reflected on his own. Eyes downcast, resigned. Mouths half-open as they all tried to think of another option. Slumped shoulders that knew no such option existed.
Finally, General Solomon broke the silence.
"They can't have any way to defend against it," he justified, "They're still creatures of flesh and blood, they can't withstand nuclear fire. And they've already...cleared the area, so to speak, of any friendlies who might get caught in the blast. Civilian or military."
"I'll support this," Andrews said, almost involuntarily. "We can't continue like we have been, trying to find the boot to properly stomp them out. Something has to be done...and this is all that can be done."
"I have to agree," someone said. And suddenly, the floodgates opened. Everyone at the table, from Americans to Russians to East Indians to the lone Israeli representative permitted a seat at the table.
Andrews was surprised that it took so little to convince them. But even as that thought occurred to him, his mind fogged slightly and it occurred to him yet again that they really didn't have a choice. What were they supposed to do, continue as they had been until humanity was extinct, replaced by those damn bugs? That wouldn't do. No, that wouldn't do at all, Andrews thought to himself three days later as he watched the keys turn, the alarms flash.
All over the world, similar keys were turned while similar alarms blared. No more than five minutes later, nearly one hundred and ten of mankind's most deadly weapons sailed through the air with but a single, deadly purpose. A fully fledged nuclear holocaust, rocketing off to end the war.
(Transition)
It took minutes for the smoke to clear, minutes for Abathur to realize what had just happened. The the stupid humans had actually done it. He had calculated the odds, laid out his plans in the knowledge that these primitive humans seemed to fear their own weapons, and now everything was broken, destroyed, ruined. His forces were history, most of the hive clusters across this continent had been obliterated, everything was gone. Without the wards, he would have been gone too.
"Wha-what was that?" Luna asked, shakily and quietly, rising from the ground. Her cells must have been having difficulty with the radiation. Another problem to fix, another miscalculation, another error.
"Nuclear weapons. Human devices. Unexpected. Unacceptable!" Abathur exhaled, and the Swarm moved, breaking the illusion of stillness. He moved to his eggs, his precious cocoons, still intact due to the durability of their contents. Yes, yes, perhaps the situation was salvageable after all. There were less of his children than he would have liked, but it was enough. It was enough to rampage and crush them all, enough to kill them, enough.
Abathur released his grip on their metabolic processes, letting them grow and swell to full size. One by one, the barbed, slightly shimmering cocoons hatched open, the large frames of one of his masterpieces unfolding over the rubble of their kin. He didn't bother giving them any direction or strategy. They were beyond any need for such subtle things. Should he send them after the traitor first? Adeviar had to be plotting something, he would know nuclear missiles wouldn't get everything. Yes, he would be first, along with all the other psionic irritances. Thenabar and Abathur's other project would remove the last few irritants.
"But...they were all here a second ago? Everything was just here! What happened? What just happened?" Luna seemed to be going into shock. Some runaway nervous signal no doubt. Abathur would neuter her endocrine system later. When all the humans were gone and Daggoth arrived, he could finally attend to all those little details, finally get back to what he was supposed to be doing. The satisfaction of wiping out his most hated enemy paled in comparison to the hassle of actually doing it. Still, it was a task worth completing.
"Abathur, please, tell me! What's going on!" Abathur slithered past Luna, ignoring her as best he could. Clearly that neutering needed to happen sooner rather than later. For now, however, he had more important matters to attend to. Abathur approached one of the digestive pools, its supply of biomass relatively protected from the blasts. He put his claws together, feeding essence into the pool to form a larva. He placed it delicately in the pile, ensuring it was secured snugly in the dead flesh. The larva grew into a cocoon which rapidly consumed the flesh.
Behind him, Luna scrambled towards the structure. Abathur imagined she was saying something, but he was too busy to bother paying attention. Spore cannons were delicate structures, they had to be to fire accurately over interplanetary distances. The cocoon burst, the stout base shifting to accommodate the shifts of the upper mouth. Abathur began spinning the payload, making sure the basilisk essence was packed delicately, with several redundancies. Luna's relatively light strikes across his carapace were becoming an increasingly severe distraction, and unfortunately most of the psionics in the city had been evaporated, so there weren't any he could spare to divert her. Daggoth was arriving soon, but he had acquired enough biomass in the system that he should be able to grow the delivery as soon as it arrived.
Abathur hadn't originally intended to use that strain, but his creations wouldn't be enough now. Daggoth should be able to grow the delivery. This, this would tip the scales, with this and all of his other forces, he would finally be able to remove the terran blight from the galaxy.
Now he just had to endure Luna's hysteria until he got a chance to finally correct it. He had already dulled his nerves, so the strikes wouldn't distract him too much. The headaches the humans were causing him was much worse.
(Transition)
By human standards, the cloak was a ratty, filthy thing, fit for destruction and exuding misery. By zerg standards, it was a wasteless scrap of biomass, fragile, flimsy, and without any real use. But for some reason, the old dementor's cloak hung very comfortably around Thenabar's shoulders, swishing with a delightful flourish as he walked through the halls. True, there wasn't anything around to notice his fashion choice, at least nothing notable, but Thenabar comforted himself with the thought that his realive solitude would only last for a few more hours at most. Perhaps it was the boggart essence in him, but he couldn't help but yearn for an audience.
What was the point of a shock if there was no one around to be shocked?
Thenabar interrupted his musings just long enough to push open the door to the master bedroom, currently occupied by a massive cocoon, an oblong thing stretching from floor to ceiling. Come to think of it, this was probably the single most concentrated source of magical knowledge on the planet. And soon, it would be complete, fully grown and ready to receive orders. Thenabar, the lowly morpholisk, would give orders to one of the future centerpieces of the Swarm. He would need to savor that while it lasted. Such things were so rare that they simply didn't happen.
Should he wake it now or later? If he woke it earlier, it would have time to learn. On the other hand, he wouldn't want to interrupt its development. Overmind knew that Luna alone was hard enough to handle as she was, and the Evolution Master's masterpiece would be much, much worse if it somehow gained her attitude. No, best to leave it be, no matter how much eager Thenabar was for a taste of the fear this thing would provide. Oh how he would miss that sweet liquor once all was said and done, and there was nothing left to feed from. Oh, well, no doubt he could find a substitute.
Thenabar pulled the cloak closer higher on his body, surrounding himself with the coarse fabric. It didn't matter in the end what he ate, he supposed. For now, he would have to content himself with anticipation for what would likely be the most delectable meal he would ever consume. All he had to do was wait.
(Transition)
For a moment, the bright flare of the nuclear explosions were too great for the camera recording the footage to process, and the screen was pure white. Even after that, it took nearly a minute for the explosion to dissipate and the smoke to clear. Once it did, however, Albus saw exactly the devastation he had expected and dreaded. Levelled buildings and ashen landscapes most of which would remain uninhabitable for weeks, at the very least. He took some small comfort in the fact that there wouldn't have been any people left, not after the zerg had got to them. No innocents had died, not in these initial blasts at least. Now he would have to do his best to contain the fallout.
Most importantly, Dumbledore could see no zerg. There was no scurrying abominations, no waves of vicious beasts crawling out from cover, eager to draw blood. All was still.
"Perhaps there's no need to perform the ritual after all, Adeviar?" he asked the man behind him. The bandaged curse breaker was kneeling on the ground, chalk scratching restlessly away as he added to the already sizeable ritual circle he'd inscribed on the floor of their private room in the ICW headquarters.
"Ritual was...only option then. Only option now. Have no regrets. Nothing will be unfinished. Nothing," Adeviar muttered, half to himself and half in reply to Albus's words. "Bombs...not enough. Zerg...used to it by now."
"What was that?" Dumbledore asked sharply.
"Humans...nuked them before. They adapted. Found solutions," Adeviar said, still focusing on the runes.
"Adeviar, Abathur arrived here less than two decades ago, and this is the first major nuclear strike since then. How could they have been struck with nuclear weapons by humans before now?"
"Fighting humans. Long wars. Terrans were...strong. Weak. Both. Had to learn how to fight. How to kill. Learned well."
Dumbledore moved towards Adeviar, placing his hand on the chalk wielding claw, holding it in place "What exactly are you saying?"
Adeviar glared at Dumbledore, forcefully pulling his claw away from Dumbledore's grip with unmatched strength. "Swarm, fighting...us. Longer than we fought them. They have tricks. Can still...hear whispers. They plan. Look." The tortured man managed to pull his chalk away from the floor long enough to point it towards the screen.
Dumbledore didn't look away. "Adeviar, I can't quite imagine the strain you must be going through. I've seen only the barest glimpse into their mind, and it overwhelmed me. Both the zerg and the fight inside your mind are beyond my comprehension. But I can't help but question whether even such creatures as them can survive such devastation."
"Not crazy. Don't underestimate...zerg. They're...more than you know," Adeviar growled out. "Won't explain, you won't believe me, won't matter."
"Adeviar, the difference between wars lost and won is often the amount of information each side has. If you know something, anything that may help us win, you should share it," Dumbledore implored.
"Want to know? Want to...see? Look. They're out," Adeviar extended a single claw towards the screen, showing more of the smoke billowing around the ruins.
At first, Dumbledore saw nothing but more billowing smoke. But as the smoke settled down and the minutes passed, something rose up, uncurling like some gigantic, unholy crab with the body of a centipede, covered in more spikes than he cared to count. Two massive, almost tusk-like spikes took the place of what would have been the crab's claws, had this been an actual crustacean. From the buildings next to it, Dumbledore could tell it was dozens of stories tall, and equally as wide. It's body stretched up and out like a horizontal manta ray with enormous blades instead of wings. It was a beast, a monster designed meticulously and deliberately to kill. It's sheer existence was utterly terrifying.
Then the second one breached the smog. And the third, and the fourth and the fifth and another dozen after that. They walked deliberately away from the ruins toward the nearby human troops, their massive plated tails covered in yet more immense spines swaying behind them.
"Brutalisk. Flesh cleaver, massive ones," Adeviar said unprompted, without even looking at the screen. "Coming for us. Need to finish."
When Albus didn't move, Adeviar stood up and forced a piece of chalk into his hand before dragging him to another corner. Without another word, the two began drawing symbols into the ground, steadily working to complete the ritual circle.
(Transition)
Brutalisk: It's big. It's brutal. It's...well, I don't actually know where the -lisk suffix comes from. Probably some random zerg though it sounded cool. They call pretty much everything some sort of -lisk, so it can't be some specific trait that makes a unit...lisk-y. ~f
(That naming convention is something of a calculated lisk.)
I am facepalming so hard right now. You know the .jpg of the guy facepalming so hard his palm goes through his face? That's me right now. ~f
Brutalisk: Rare, titanic, and lethal are the words best used to describe the brutalisk. The most sizable and durable combat strain of the Swarm, the vaguely mantis-like brutalisk towers over the battlefield. Its massive claws, acid spittle, and enormous bulk let it shake off damage up to and including the raw force of a nuclear blast while scything through both airborne and land based forces, often single-handedly determining the tide of battle. Despite it's incredible power, however, the brutalisk is almost never seen among the ranks of the Zerg. It's biggest strength, it's size and raw power, is unfortunately a double-edged sword. The sheer amount of resources combined with the technical difficulty of growing a creature of such massive size make them a costly and unreliable investment for most zerg commanders. Only a few of the cerebrates and broodmothers have ever grown brutalisks at all, and only the Evolution Master has been able to consistently grow them under combat conditions. But even the Evolution Master himself has never grown brutalisks in large numbers, having always lacked the resources.
For evidence of the brutalisk's ability to turn the tide of battle, look no further than the Evolution Master. Abathur was not designed as a strategist, but his limited tactical ability combined with the devastating force of a brutalisk or three more than compensates for any shortcomings. Even in the hands of a novice, the brutalisk is the absolute pinnacle of Zerg lethality, an unstoppable force and immovable object all in one. No single creature can face it and live.