Heroes Never Die
Prologue: Queen Takes Knight
By: Dark-Elk
"Loran, how far away from the traitor are we?" said the creature formerly known as Sarah Kerrigan.
"My Brood found evidence of him on the planet below us, my Queen. I'm not sure how dated the evidence is, but it is the best information we've found so far. Why are you expending so much effort to find this Duran?" said Loran, the controlling Cerebrate of Grendel Brood.
Kerrigan sighed. Explaining matters such as vengeance and honor was useless to a Cerebrate. She often wondered why the Overmind had ever bothered with the troublesome creatures, and had lately settled that on her belief of the Overmind's senility. Loran was better than some of the other Cerebrates, but he still managed to find ways to annoy her.
"Loran, Duran may be a potential military threat. We haven't heard anything about him in a few years now, and I'd rather like to know what he found to be more important than serving me. Besides, he deserted me before the final battle in which we broke the spine of the UED. He had better have a damned good reason, or I believe I will kill him."
"My Queen, part of my Brood is reporting the remains of a settlement on the nearest side of the moon. It appears to have been destroyed recently. . .but I cannot make out what type of weaponry was used. It doesn't look like anything we've ever encountered. We aren't picking up any signs of life remaining down there. I cannot even determine whether this was controlled by Terrans or Protoss. This is all rather confusing." said Loran excitedly. He was a Cerebrate who reveled in his sentience and his higher status above the myriad other members of the Swarm.
"Very well, Loran. Your work is done here. Go back to the border world of Shalaar and begin probing their defenses. I believe they have a Vespene cache that could prove useful to us."
The entirety of the Grendel Brood surged into motion towards the outskirts of the system to group up for the jump through the rift. Kerrigan ignored them, knowing she had a bigger problem on her hands. She could clearly sense a being down on the surface in one of the few forests that hadn't been completely razed, and it seemed indicative of Duran. But why hadn't the scouts of Grendel Brood found him? Perhaps Duran was shielding himself somehow. If that was the case, Kerrigan felt compelled to find out how. . . the technique could prove useful to her.
"Begin the approach to the planet. Come in slow though. We don't want any surprises."
No sooner had Kerrigan finished her orders than the entire landing force shuddered to a halt and began writhing in pain. Duran had unleashed a psychic assault on the sentient minds of the Swarm, and the backlash was reverberating throughout it. Kerrigan could feel the strength of the attack, and she stepped forward slightly with great effort, as if she were walking against a windstorm. Finally, she could bear it no longer and was forced to sink to her knees.
The assault on the minds of the Swarm continued for hours, and the majority of the Swarm was forced to stop whatever they were doing to share in the communal well of pain. In most cases this didn't affect anything, save on the world of Rigel where Urrain Brood had been under attack by a Protoss taskforce. The Protoss quickly took advantage of the seemingly pacifistic Zerg and managed to raze nearly the entire base before the assault finally weakened and Urrain Brood could force them back.
Kerrigan spent her time trying to set up some sort of mental walls to guard her from the effects of the attack. Her efforts were in vain though, because every time she thought she had the right thought pattern the attack would shift and then intensify, wiping out her futile efforts. Once the assault weakened though, she quickly found the correct solution, and passed it on to her Cerebrates. The Swarm lurched back onto their ordained paths, and Kerrigan's attack force began moving towards the moon again.
Kerrigan continued to expand her sphere of awareness out further until finally her mind touched that of Duran. He seemed completely different than he had before. Before, he had been a good military mind, but quite submissive to Kerrigan. Now though, his every thought seemed to radiate power, and he seemed far more venerable than before.
Kerrigan increased the pace of her attack force; she wanted to complete the landing before Duran could cripple it in some way, such as sending Overlords careening into the surface or other such treachery. Kerrigan had no idea of what he was capable of; she was now sure of only one thing: Duran was most definitely hostile.
Her Overlord neared the ground, and she leapt deftly out of one of the openings followed by her honor guard, a small cadre of elite Hydralisks. She landed on the ground in a kneeling position, and all around her she could hear the beautiful sounds her Swarm was uttering as it landed upon alien soil. Kerrigan knew that within the week the planet would be entirely covered in the biomass sarcastically called "Creep" by the Terrans. Kerrigan snorted in disgust. The Terrans were nothing more than vermin that would be crushed within the claws of the Swarm. . .in due time. In the meantime, she wanted to insure the internal security of her army.
She ordered the Zerglings to fan out and begin searching the area. She looked through the eyes of a few of the scouts as they charged through the brush of the forests surrounding the clearing that the attack force had landed in. Suddenly, as she looked through the eyes of a Zergling, the view suddenly cut off. Mildly curious, she shifted views to another and met with the same results. Kerrigan was more than a little nervous now, and began ordering her force into battle positions. As the force shifted around behind her, she noticed that her arrogance had lead her to bring a far smaller force than she should have. No matter, she thought. The Swarm can absorb losses such as these. With that, she stretched the claw-wings that rose from her shoulders, and dashed towards the forest with the entire force surging into motion behind her.
She barely managed more than a few dozen steps before shrieks of pain pierced her mind. She paused and scanned around her to determine the area under attack, and leapt back in surprise as a bolt of energy flew mere inches away from her face. She turned and snarled in the direction of the blast and focused quickly. A psionic storm materialized in the area, and the vegetation was torn to shreds around it. Nothing could be seen, but Kerrigan heard a soft hiss of pain. An Overlord shuddered into motion overhead, lending its empathic sight abilities, and Kerrigan was able to make out the crouched figure of Samir Duran.
His uniform was badly torn, his face was bleeding from a number of shallow scratches, and his right arm was hanging lifelessly at his side. Kerrigan grinned ferally, and the force behind her spread out into a semi-circle where the held position and shifted listlessly, waiting impatiently for the order to attack.
"Duran, are you hurt? I'm so sorry! I really should take better notice of where I attack, shouldn't I? Then again, my accuracy seems to have netted me a traitor!" Kerrigan said mockingly.
Duran only laughed slightly under his breath in response and looked up at Kerrigan. His eyes were different somehow. . .they seemed ancient and powerful. She could see the brief grimace of pain that flashed across his face, and could tell he was stoically shoving his pain away.
"So Duran, what have you been up to lately? I've been rather busy as you may know. You know, defeating the UED, the Dominion, and the Protoss single handedly without one's advisor tends to fill up a schedule. But once that was done, I couldn't very well forget you, now could I? I came to bring you back into the fold, but after your attack upon our arrival I think you made your position abundantly clear. I suppose I shall have to dispose of you. A pity, really. . .we worked so well together too."
"Kerrigan, you are a naïve fool if you believe even for a second that the current state of the galaxy is solely your doing. My masters have rather enjoyed the turmoil you have caused. . . it will make the emergence so much easier. But I digress, really. . .what makes you think that you could kill me?" Duran asked, and his brow raised quizzically. "Really, after all our time together, you never truly understood my true power."
With that, Duran stood with startling swiftness and began yelling at the top of his lungs. Waves of black energy began pulsing off of his body, and the Zerg nearest to him were disintegrated on contact. He raised one hand, and a massive cone of energy sprayed out towards Kerrigan. She cloaked quickly and rolled to the side, and darted towards him. The energy waves were the most powerful thing Kerrigan had ever felt, but she pushed against them until she neared Duran, and lashed out with her claws. She raked him across his chest, but it didn't seem to do anything immediately. Then blue light began pouring out of his chest and flowing across his body, disintegrating any skin it touched. A booming laugh sounded somewhere in Kerrigan's mind, and then Duran spoke again, his voice sounding infinitely old and powerful.
"Kerrigan, what you have done here today has merely sealed your fate and that of the galaxy. It is with my death that the plan moves forward, and with my blessings that my children shall destroy you. Farewell, my Pawn of Blades. . ."
Duran's body flashed brilliantly, and Kerrigan was forced to throw an arm up in front of her eyes to block the light. A massive explosion flung her from her feet, and a roaring sound raced through the small clearing she had created. It stopped almost immediately, and Kerrigan slowly opened her eyes, her face contorted with pain. There was a massive crater where Duran had stood, and the only remaining trace of him was a small shard of black crystal.
Kerrigan walked over to it and picked it up. The crystal felt oily to the touch, and as she raised it to get a closer look the stone seemed like it was seething, as though something were being only barely contained within. She sneered at the stone, and clenched her fist, crushing the crystal. She gasped as she felt the crystal tear into the flesh of her hands, a sensation of fire flooding into her hand, but her Zerg regeneration healed the wounds easily.
She turned and looked around. All she could see was the charred forms of her attack force and the burnt vegetation. As she climbed aboard the Overlord that had been shadowing her, she glanced suspiciously behind her. A vague sense of unease seemed to permeate her thoughts.
She didn't think she had seen the end of Duran's treachery.
Prologue: Queen Takes Knight
By: Dark-Elk
"Loran, how far away from the traitor are we?" said the creature formerly known as Sarah Kerrigan.
"My Brood found evidence of him on the planet below us, my Queen. I'm not sure how dated the evidence is, but it is the best information we've found so far. Why are you expending so much effort to find this Duran?" said Loran, the controlling Cerebrate of Grendel Brood.
Kerrigan sighed. Explaining matters such as vengeance and honor was useless to a Cerebrate. She often wondered why the Overmind had ever bothered with the troublesome creatures, and had lately settled that on her belief of the Overmind's senility. Loran was better than some of the other Cerebrates, but he still managed to find ways to annoy her.
"Loran, Duran may be a potential military threat. We haven't heard anything about him in a few years now, and I'd rather like to know what he found to be more important than serving me. Besides, he deserted me before the final battle in which we broke the spine of the UED. He had better have a damned good reason, or I believe I will kill him."
"My Queen, part of my Brood is reporting the remains of a settlement on the nearest side of the moon. It appears to have been destroyed recently. . .but I cannot make out what type of weaponry was used. It doesn't look like anything we've ever encountered. We aren't picking up any signs of life remaining down there. I cannot even determine whether this was controlled by Terrans or Protoss. This is all rather confusing." said Loran excitedly. He was a Cerebrate who reveled in his sentience and his higher status above the myriad other members of the Swarm.
"Very well, Loran. Your work is done here. Go back to the border world of Shalaar and begin probing their defenses. I believe they have a Vespene cache that could prove useful to us."
The entirety of the Grendel Brood surged into motion towards the outskirts of the system to group up for the jump through the rift. Kerrigan ignored them, knowing she had a bigger problem on her hands. She could clearly sense a being down on the surface in one of the few forests that hadn't been completely razed, and it seemed indicative of Duran. But why hadn't the scouts of Grendel Brood found him? Perhaps Duran was shielding himself somehow. If that was the case, Kerrigan felt compelled to find out how. . . the technique could prove useful to her.
"Begin the approach to the planet. Come in slow though. We don't want any surprises."
No sooner had Kerrigan finished her orders than the entire landing force shuddered to a halt and began writhing in pain. Duran had unleashed a psychic assault on the sentient minds of the Swarm, and the backlash was reverberating throughout it. Kerrigan could feel the strength of the attack, and she stepped forward slightly with great effort, as if she were walking against a windstorm. Finally, she could bear it no longer and was forced to sink to her knees.
The assault on the minds of the Swarm continued for hours, and the majority of the Swarm was forced to stop whatever they were doing to share in the communal well of pain. In most cases this didn't affect anything, save on the world of Rigel where Urrain Brood had been under attack by a Protoss taskforce. The Protoss quickly took advantage of the seemingly pacifistic Zerg and managed to raze nearly the entire base before the assault finally weakened and Urrain Brood could force them back.
Kerrigan spent her time trying to set up some sort of mental walls to guard her from the effects of the attack. Her efforts were in vain though, because every time she thought she had the right thought pattern the attack would shift and then intensify, wiping out her futile efforts. Once the assault weakened though, she quickly found the correct solution, and passed it on to her Cerebrates. The Swarm lurched back onto their ordained paths, and Kerrigan's attack force began moving towards the moon again.
Kerrigan continued to expand her sphere of awareness out further until finally her mind touched that of Duran. He seemed completely different than he had before. Before, he had been a good military mind, but quite submissive to Kerrigan. Now though, his every thought seemed to radiate power, and he seemed far more venerable than before.
Kerrigan increased the pace of her attack force; she wanted to complete the landing before Duran could cripple it in some way, such as sending Overlords careening into the surface or other such treachery. Kerrigan had no idea of what he was capable of; she was now sure of only one thing: Duran was most definitely hostile.
Her Overlord neared the ground, and she leapt deftly out of one of the openings followed by her honor guard, a small cadre of elite Hydralisks. She landed on the ground in a kneeling position, and all around her she could hear the beautiful sounds her Swarm was uttering as it landed upon alien soil. Kerrigan knew that within the week the planet would be entirely covered in the biomass sarcastically called "Creep" by the Terrans. Kerrigan snorted in disgust. The Terrans were nothing more than vermin that would be crushed within the claws of the Swarm. . .in due time. In the meantime, she wanted to insure the internal security of her army.
She ordered the Zerglings to fan out and begin searching the area. She looked through the eyes of a few of the scouts as they charged through the brush of the forests surrounding the clearing that the attack force had landed in. Suddenly, as she looked through the eyes of a Zergling, the view suddenly cut off. Mildly curious, she shifted views to another and met with the same results. Kerrigan was more than a little nervous now, and began ordering her force into battle positions. As the force shifted around behind her, she noticed that her arrogance had lead her to bring a far smaller force than she should have. No matter, she thought. The Swarm can absorb losses such as these. With that, she stretched the claw-wings that rose from her shoulders, and dashed towards the forest with the entire force surging into motion behind her.
She barely managed more than a few dozen steps before shrieks of pain pierced her mind. She paused and scanned around her to determine the area under attack, and leapt back in surprise as a bolt of energy flew mere inches away from her face. She turned and snarled in the direction of the blast and focused quickly. A psionic storm materialized in the area, and the vegetation was torn to shreds around it. Nothing could be seen, but Kerrigan heard a soft hiss of pain. An Overlord shuddered into motion overhead, lending its empathic sight abilities, and Kerrigan was able to make out the crouched figure of Samir Duran.
His uniform was badly torn, his face was bleeding from a number of shallow scratches, and his right arm was hanging lifelessly at his side. Kerrigan grinned ferally, and the force behind her spread out into a semi-circle where the held position and shifted listlessly, waiting impatiently for the order to attack.
"Duran, are you hurt? I'm so sorry! I really should take better notice of where I attack, shouldn't I? Then again, my accuracy seems to have netted me a traitor!" Kerrigan said mockingly.
Duran only laughed slightly under his breath in response and looked up at Kerrigan. His eyes were different somehow. . .they seemed ancient and powerful. She could see the brief grimace of pain that flashed across his face, and could tell he was stoically shoving his pain away.
"So Duran, what have you been up to lately? I've been rather busy as you may know. You know, defeating the UED, the Dominion, and the Protoss single handedly without one's advisor tends to fill up a schedule. But once that was done, I couldn't very well forget you, now could I? I came to bring you back into the fold, but after your attack upon our arrival I think you made your position abundantly clear. I suppose I shall have to dispose of you. A pity, really. . .we worked so well together too."
"Kerrigan, you are a naïve fool if you believe even for a second that the current state of the galaxy is solely your doing. My masters have rather enjoyed the turmoil you have caused. . . it will make the emergence so much easier. But I digress, really. . .what makes you think that you could kill me?" Duran asked, and his brow raised quizzically. "Really, after all our time together, you never truly understood my true power."
With that, Duran stood with startling swiftness and began yelling at the top of his lungs. Waves of black energy began pulsing off of his body, and the Zerg nearest to him were disintegrated on contact. He raised one hand, and a massive cone of energy sprayed out towards Kerrigan. She cloaked quickly and rolled to the side, and darted towards him. The energy waves were the most powerful thing Kerrigan had ever felt, but she pushed against them until she neared Duran, and lashed out with her claws. She raked him across his chest, but it didn't seem to do anything immediately. Then blue light began pouring out of his chest and flowing across his body, disintegrating any skin it touched. A booming laugh sounded somewhere in Kerrigan's mind, and then Duran spoke again, his voice sounding infinitely old and powerful.
"Kerrigan, what you have done here today has merely sealed your fate and that of the galaxy. It is with my death that the plan moves forward, and with my blessings that my children shall destroy you. Farewell, my Pawn of Blades. . ."
Duran's body flashed brilliantly, and Kerrigan was forced to throw an arm up in front of her eyes to block the light. A massive explosion flung her from her feet, and a roaring sound raced through the small clearing she had created. It stopped almost immediately, and Kerrigan slowly opened her eyes, her face contorted with pain. There was a massive crater where Duran had stood, and the only remaining trace of him was a small shard of black crystal.
Kerrigan walked over to it and picked it up. The crystal felt oily to the touch, and as she raised it to get a closer look the stone seemed like it was seething, as though something were being only barely contained within. She sneered at the stone, and clenched her fist, crushing the crystal. She gasped as she felt the crystal tear into the flesh of her hands, a sensation of fire flooding into her hand, but her Zerg regeneration healed the wounds easily.
She turned and looked around. All she could see was the charred forms of her attack force and the burnt vegetation. As she climbed aboard the Overlord that had been shadowing her, she glanced suspiciously behind her. A vague sense of unease seemed to permeate her thoughts.
She didn't think she had seen the end of Duran's treachery.