I wish I owned DBZ, but I don't. I own DVD's and tapes, but it just isn't the same. I also don't own the right to Starcraft or any of the music pieces you see selected, just copies of merchandise, such a shame. The artists that created them are geniuses and we all must bow to them.
Chapter 6: Insubordination
The number of Zerg troops that had gotten past us really hit my pride big time. There was easily several hundred Overlords floating around in the air, and for each one they could hold eight troops or so, depending on size of course. On the ground, there were primarily Zerglings running around, fighting human troops and civilians now. We split up into teams again, dropping into the streets. Tora and I found the same pack of punks that were harassing Erasa and Sharpener earlier, and they were being attacked by Zerg now. The leader's leg was bleeding pretty bad, a Zergling had taken a piece right out of it. The other three had clubs in their hands, trying to hit the lings with them. The Zerglings were too fast for them, and kept dodging and growling at them. One club actually did hit, the surprise on the guy's face when it didn't do anything would have been a Kodak moment.
"I got these," I said. Tora nodded and rushed up to the other side of the street, where several Zerglings were attacking a restaurant. I snuck up on the Zerglings in front of me, flying slowly until I was right behind one. It finally turned around, no doubt feeling my energy output, and received a nasty punch to its face. The rest of the Zerglings turned on me just then, deciding to go for the bigger target.
"C'mon you bastards!" I growled, waving my hand. The pack of five now approached carefully, until just snarling in rage and rushing forward. I backhanded one, sending it to the ground. The next two received knife-edge chops with either hand. Number four got a kick that almost went through its body right before it fell down in pain, trying to get up. The fifth one tried to attack when I was fending off the fourth; I let it hit my stomach area since it came in at a bad angle. The claws fortunately didn't do much more than scrape the armor a bit. I grabbed the right front leg and started spinning it around in the air, spinning with it for more momentum. The Zergling snarled and whined, trying to get free. One of its claws managed to pierce through my glove and snag the back of my hand, but it was too late for it now. I swung it around some more before letting go, sending it into orbit and long gone. The other four had recovered by now, and were trying to approach again. I charged ki into my hands, more noticeably my fingers, and let loose small finger beams instead of blasts. Three of them got a leg or two blown off and were immobile. The other one hit a bit more on the mark and simply dropped on the spot, getting hit in whatever the thing called an eye. It died instantly since it must have hit the brain and shot out the back of the head. With the other three Zerglings immobile, I blasted them easily and wiped off the pieces of Zergling stomach that hit my face, spitting on the fallen creatures in disgust. The four punks were busy picking their jaws up off the ground.
"D-d-dude!" one gasped.
"D-d-dude, get the hell outta here while you can!" I practically screamed at them. That got them moving a little faster, leaving a trail of dust in their wake. I flew over to where Tora was, and what remained of a restaurant. The pizza joint that it was now had a new type of pepperoni to sell, though purple probably isn't a good color for them.
"Was that all?" he asked, glancing around.
"Somehow I doubt it," I said, flipping on my scouter. It found some more Zerg not two hundred yards away, who were attacking a fleeing crowd.
-
The battle inside Satan city went well, for a while. It didn't help to have civilians and army troops to worry about, but since it was mostly Zerglings, it wasn't a big deal since they were so weak. All in all there was about four hundred Zerglings and a few Hydralisks creeping around inside the city, but a combined effort from Gohan and myself managed to get them all out in the open, which led to their quick deaths. Zerglings could hide very well since they were the size of a dog and the Hydras were surprisingly good at camouflaging themselves. However when your body is that big, hiding options are limited. Fleeing and screaming humans usually don't help either. We all breathed a sigh of relief as the scouters picked up no more Zerg inside the city. Until of course, Mom had to beep us on the scouters.
"I don't really want to be the one to tell you guys, but it might be a good idea to eat another Senzu bean right about now!"
Vegeta didn't have the best reaction to this, "What now woman!" I glanced up to see a lot of Zerg flyers all of a sudden, none of them were Overlords.
"Oh nothing Vegeta, its just the fourteen thousand or so Zerg troops coming at you. The ones I warned you about fifteen minutes ago!" My hands went to my pocket right away, there was no way I had enough power to hold many of them off right now. This is overkill for one city.
"Why didn't you warn us sooner woman?"
"My scanners got taken out where the Zerg started advancing, a trample effect got them. And had you been paying attention, I DID WARN YOU EARLIER!" I heard Vegeta sigh of the scouter as I pulled another bean out and prepared to eat it.
"Fine woman, call that weakling king of yours and tell him this city is a lost cause! We will destroy as many of them as possible before escaping!" That made me stop; Vegeta never gave up a fight, never! Well come to think of it I had seen him stop before when it was fruitless, but we hadn't even taken a shot at the next wave and it seemed like he was throwing in the towel. I ate the bean anyway, deciding to figure this out later. The instant my power had been returned, a large yellow ball of fluid struck the ground in front of me, followed by many more. I looked up as I jumped backwards, seeing legions of guardian crabs in the air, firing their acid spores everywhere. A few unlucky humans around the area got hit and screamed as they dropped to the ground and slowly died. Rage filled me just looking at them, but more than usual.
"I don't know about you Tora, but I found my targets!" I shouted as I felt his ki jump back to level two.
"Boy, you and Tora report to me right now! Do not engage the Zerg until we have a plan!" I heard Vegeta bark over the scouter.
"There's a huge pack of crabs right above our position, I'm gonna take them out!" I replied.
I heard him growl a bit over the scouter speaker, "No brat, get back over here first! They will get theirs in due time, but if we don't use our heads in this we won't survive!"
I narrowed my eyes, "Hey, they're all right here Vegeta! They're already tearing up the ground and buildings and killing the people! I've got to stop them now!"
"Boy you have your orders!"
Tora put a hand on my shoulder, "C'mon kid, we better go before the prince decides to tear out your insides!" I didn't move, instead my rage and anger filled my mind. Pictures of random Zerg killing random people came flowing in, then my friends falling into darkness, namely Gohan, Videl, Mom and Vegeta, and then Fasha. Then I saw Frieza firing a large ki blast, and finally I saw my planet explode again, sealing the deal.
"You have a chance to change the outcome, don't waste it!" Kerrigan's last few thoughts rang in clear just as I remembered watching myself kill Fasha in that horrible nightmare of a dream.
"No, I can't let this happen again! I won't let it happen again, NOOOO!" I screamed and powered up on the spot, causing Tora to fall back a bit in surprise.
"Go if you want to, I'm not letting it happen again!" I shouted, blasting off into the air, silver aura trailing behind me.
"Boy, what the hell..." I shut the scouter off at this point, by some miracle I didn't crush it. I felt a bit stronger now for some reason, but I ignored it, I wanted to tear apart some Zerg right now. Yellow bombs of acid and bone filled the air, all raining down on the city. I dodged my way through them and came up to the first guardian crab. It was the first one I had seen up close, and I will admit the things were huge, hell just the crab like claw on the end were big enough to squeeze Broly, in his ultra form. It tried to fire at me, but missed horribly when I dodged aside. I fired a close range ki blast underneath it, puncturing right through and out the other side. The huge crab caught on fire and started to fall from the sky, plunging right into half of a building. I blasted twenty more to pieces around me, killing them off as well. When no more were in close range, I started firing at the ones still coming in, killing them off, then turning and catching the ones behind me as well. Instead of acid spores raining down on the city, pieces of guardian crabs did instead, doing about the same job, just not continuous. Another group approached from the east, and I started shooting them down as well. I noticed that they worked on flying closer to me rather than firing on the city right then and there, as they were well within firing range. Suddenly I spotted a kamikaze flyer pop out of the group and head right for me.
I smirked slightly, "Oh no you don't!" I said, blasting towards it. It dodged aside my first round, causing me to fire another one at it. It wasn't so lucky the second time, and blew up on the spot. Another Scrounge came out and flew towards me. Before I could blast it, something plowed into me from behind. I spun in pain to see it was a third Scrounge, it had snuck up on me. Its skin started to bubble and turn green. I double arm smashed it towards the ground quickly, it blew itself up not a second afterwards. I spun back again, seeing the one I was targeting was ten feet away and flying fast.
"Oh shit!" I gasped, trying to blast it. That didn't do any good at this range, and the damn thing slammed into me just like the first one had, easily breaking a rib or two where it hit. I coughed a bit, seeing blood come out of my mouth. The flyer was busy trying to chew on my armor; its mouth was wide enough to surround my whole midsection in width. I punched it down to the ground, catching my painful breath. I barely looked up in time to see something big slam into my stomach area. Once I recovered from that blow, a shower of green stuff struck my armor. The armor hissed and steamed, and half of it melted right off, exposing the skin beneath. Then I turned to see what must have been a hundred of the damn flyers heading right for me from different angles but otherwise ahead of me. I growled sharply, yanking the rest of the armor off and powering up before deciding to go higher.
"KAIOKEN!" The powerup didn't seem to bother my body in the least like I expected it to, but I didn't care at the time. My aura clicked into view and if anything the Zerg came at me quicker now. The aura though was showing flashes of blue, but I didn't have time to wonder why. I mentally shook it off as the sky color in the surrounding area, though it was rather dark out.
"Not this time you scum!" I shouted, charging ki into my hands and throwing them in front of me, fully outstretched. I threw just about everything into the charge, I wanted to end it now. My attack finished charging quickly, as I had plenty of time to practice this one during training.
"FINAL FLASH!" The big ki beam released once I said the words, and went hurling towards the Zerg advancement. The beam went right through all of them, and then into the massive Zerg cloud behind them. It tore through a path that must have been a half-mile to a mile in diameter, tearing up anything in its path before flying off into space and off of the Earth's curve. Once the light and smoke cleared, I saw what could only make me smile. There wasn't much of a Zerg cloud left now, only the very ends of it remained.
"Eat that, you freaks!" I whispered, huffing and puffing now. My ribs suddenly broke out in overdo pain and I started to get blurry vision. Guess the Kaioken did damage me a little after all. Something then smashed into my back and exploded, and I felt it sting the back of my neck. I turned to see what it was, clawing at my neck a bit only to pull back red blood on my gloves. Another something got me from behind again, and then another from the front. My arms and legs didn't respond, so more of the kamikazes kept flying in and killing themselves just to get to me. My ki stopped flowing as my body became more injured, and I fell from the sky. I don't know how far I fell, but I know it hurt like hell when I hit the ground on my back. I groaned and tried to sit up, failing to do so, I was pretty whacked. I tried reaching for my belt, only to discover that my whole left arm was immobile and drenched in blood, not in Zerg blood but my own. I heard a hissing sound nearby, and turned my head to see a huge hydralisk standing over me, almost a grin on its face. Nothing but severe pain hit me when I struggled to get up, so I hoped for a quick end as I couldn't sense anyone else around.
"At least I took some of you bastards with me, go to hell!" I said, giving it the one finger salute with my good arm. It spit its green needles onto my legs, but I couldn't feel the result. Then it raised its huge talon like it was going to take my head clean off. The hydra never started what it was going to do, a large ki blast struck it instead. I started to fade, I was too tired to stay awake, and just as I blacked out I felt two arms hoist me up.
"Serves you right you little brat!"
Interlude 6.1: The Overmind's chamber
In a dark chamber that dripped clear slime and had eerie light coming from it. A single large eye watched over its desolate scenery, waiting for his minions. Since most Zerg had virtually no energy to speak of, this being had to rely on evolution to communicate to his forces. Sure he had telepathic communication, but that only worked really well in one on one affairs. With his Zerg broods numbering millions, that just would not work. Before him were large pod like eggs that stuck out of the chamber he was in. These would reshape themselves into the figures he would be speaking too, mostly to his higher sub-ordinates. Sometimes he picked up stray communications outside the Zerg, and his pods could shape themselves into a small video screen and play the audio coming from it. Yes, he was quite glad he had these now, especially since most of his top commanders could not simply run over to him when beckoned, in fact they couldn't walk or run, because they barely had a body that could be mobile. The only thing his Cerebrates could do to move on their own was to have a drone carry its core to their destination and hope it wasn't ambushed. Cerebrates were like miniature versions of himself that he created to command his troops better. Each one of them followed his command without question, and then carried it out in their own special way. Sometimes Cerebrates could be defeated in battle, or to say their Brood could be defeated, Cerebrates could not be killed. Even if the shell they were in was destroyed, he could revive them with a thought, as with all Zerg.
Yes, Cerebrates were extremely loyal, in fact he never had one cross him. However there was one in slight question, actually two. But the one in particular, and ironically it was the one chosen to lead the attack on the Earth, home to the Saiyans. He still had yet to choose a name for this one, as most Cerebrates would receive a name upon birth. This one had been around for nearly fifteen years and still hadn't been called anything but Cerebrate. While this was rare for him to struggle with anything so simple, he felt this one's name would be revealed to him in time. Yes there was something quite special about this one, almost as if there was some sort of hidden spiritual presence that he couldn't detect. When it had first been created, he never found a true purpose outside of its basic training for a good while. Its first real mission was to protect a certain chrysalis the he had created. The shell contained a younger Kerrigan, freshly betrayed by her former comrades in battle against his enemy while she was still human. Technically just using the word human was incorrect, Terran was a much better term, especially for her. He admired her dedication to whatever cause she once foolishly fought for, and decided that once her body was killed, she would become one of his agents. When he eventually got a hold of her, he was amazed to find that she had hidden Psionic ability. She told him that she was the half-breed daughter of the demon King Dabura once he unlocked her buried memories, but he wasn't sure. Who the mother was he did not know, nor did she. His Cerebrate in question had protected her in time of isolation very well, in fact flawlessly. Not one of his enemies got through its defenses to even damage it. When the time was right and she was eventually reborn, the enemies started falling by the legions.
However, ever since she was reborn, the Cerebrate that she served under, sort of went through slight changes in its mind. It still served him without question, but she seemed to tell it what to do as well, even though it would be the one in charge of missions. It was very strange indeed that she could control any other Zerg, never mind a Cerebrate. Now granted the he was busy lately and really hadn't had much contact with his Cerebrate, not with so many other Cerebrates still in space and unable to come down until he was sure they would be safe to land. The latest victory over the Saiyans told him it was now safe. His Cerebrate had been very busy too, trying to keep up with the resistance it ran into and to adapt its strategy and resources. At first, it was typical Terran fashion to fight back against the superior race, after all, the inferior mind tends to believe itself better. But when the Saiyans and other fighters made their entrance, it was a bit stumped on how to handle them at first, and all of its bases outside the perimeter were destroyed quickly. The plan to use infested humans to mentally break them hadn't worked well; apparently they had been in wars like this before. It then entered a hyper sleep type of meditation for a solid day to think things out and come up with a new strategy. It was the first time it had ever been defeated, so its pride was a bit hurt now.
When the Cerebrate reawakened, it had a new plan and a new way to face the Saiyans. While it required a bit of sacrifice, he didn't mind, and had given permission to use whatever means necessary to slowly take over Earth. He was quite pleased on the method the Cerebrate had used, though it cost quite a bit of their perimeter troops at the time and a decent chunk of resources and energy to evolve them into stronger forms. Most of the other Cerebrates had strengthened their broods long ago; this one had still been working with the weaker basic Zerg for the time being because it had never needed to evolve them before. The plan worked well, and the Saiyans were defeated for the first time. Though all of them got away, it had dealt a serious blow to them, and given him valuable information. The Earth forces that they had encountered didn't last very long against Cerebrate's cunning, and the largest Terran city fell into ruins during the battle.
Kerrigan had busied herself while on Earth as well, her first tasks of study and assassination attempts didn't always work out the best, but he expected this from such a strong group of fighters. Lately she had opted out of front line battle, and he had agreed, it was much too dangerous for her to even try to face them at all. Stealthy missions suited her better, rather than massive slaughters. He could feel something strange about her energies right now, like something was amiss. But he didn't question it, she had her moments where it was unwise to disrupt her.
Zasz, the other Cerebrate he was slightly in question about, was still in space. When it got into range of sensing the great Psi power of the older Saiyan, Zasz wanted it badly, as if drawn too it. He knew this would happen once he came across the Saiyans, in fact he fully expected two of his Cerebrates to want to bond with one of the mystical Saiyans. He just found it odd that his best Cerebrate and his youngest unnamed one would be the two candidates for possibly merging with the great Saiyans and creating two very powerful agents to do his bidding. That idea both excited and plagued the Overmind, he wasn't sure if it could be done with any sort of stability or control. He shunned those thoughts aside for the moment though, he would know more once they captured one of them.
Before him, a few of the pod eggs rose and reformed themselves into a few different figures. Three of the figures remained roughly the same, except had slight hints of auras coming off of them. One was purple, his young Cerebrate, one blue, the leading Cerebrate Daggoth, and another orange, Zasz. The last pod formed into a woman like figure, which could only belong to Kerrigan.
"Welcome my children, to earth. As I told you before, this is where we finally gain the power to destroy our enemies, but like all challenges in the past, it will not be easy," he said.
"Great Overmind, put me in charge of capturing the mystical Saiyans! They will be in your grasp in no time!" Zasz hissed slightly. The young Cerebrate shifted slightly, but said nothing to it.
"Why Zasz, so you can claim all of their power for yourself? Good luck in capturing them! I highly doubt you will be successful!" Kerrigan snorted.
"Don't remind us of your failed attempts to capture them on your own! It sickens me greatly that such a fool is even a part of our great race! I should eradicate you myself!" Zasz grunted.
"If you even think to cross me, I'll…" she was quickly interrupted by their superior.
"Children, there is no need for quarrel over who is the best. All of you are equals here, and thus should treat each other with appropriate respect," he said.
"My apologies great Overmind. It is just agitating that her, humph, master, can't keep a better leash on her!" Zasz laughed a bit mockingly at the young Cerebrate, who stayed quiet.
"I act on my own accord Zasz, not to your schedule. And I will do what I feel is in my best interests!" she snapped. Zasz attempted to fire back at her with verbal assault, but the master soothed his minion instead.
"Let her be Zasz, Kerrigan is free to do what she chooses to do so long as it doesn't interfere with our plans. What is the status on the two Saiyans young Cerebrate? Have you been able to sense their hidden power come forth?" the Overmind asked. The Cerebrate took a minute to answer that, he always seemed a bit nervous about these group meetings, especially with his two brothers there. Daggoth was an excellent commander and quite helpful at times of advice, but quite often left him to figure out the problem on his own, which was correct. Zasz however always gave him pause of torment, even though he had only failed once. No doubt Zasz would never leave him alone for it, or perhaps it was old wounds that were formed.
"The two Saiyans are starting to feel the call, their pure rage is drawing on their deepest power now. I do not believe they can fully use this power as of yet, and in a few days I will be ready to assault their base city. Unless of course you wish me to take the rest of the lands around the former large city?"
"No, head straight for their base of operations! I want those two captured before they discover their deepest powers. If at all possible I would prefer to infest them first, to bend them to our will!" The Overmind spoke in such a double deep voice that it frightened the young Cerebrate sometimes.
"And beware young Cerebrate, the other fighters will not simply let them go. Destroying them may not be the answer either. Saiyans tend to harbor deep emotional bonds with their comrades, and Saiyan rage is hard to battle against, no matter how many numbers we have. The youngest Saiyan's sudden burst of power was very unexpected and it may interfere with our plans if he is able to harness the power I fear he may have. I suggest you meditate before harvesting your battle plan, you are excused now," the Overmind blinked once to signal that, and the pod deformed into an egg again.
"Are you sure its wise to entrust him to such a task sire? It is one of the more important tasks of our cause!" Daggoth asked.
"Humph, what typical Cerebrates you two are, rest assured he will succeed in the mission. You two just sit back and relax in the sun like usual!" Kerrigan said, grunting slightly.
"And you should learn to respect your greaters!" Zasz fired back. The Overmind rolled his one large eye and sighed, these two would go on forever with their spats if he never stopped them.
One time, about eight years ago, the spat didn't just end in council. Zasz tried to simply kill her to shut her up. This ended up quite interesting, as it pitted Zasz's brood against the younger Cerebrate's brood. Obviously he wouldn't just let him kill her, being so connected as he was, and fought him back. Despite the superior brood of Zasz, the younger Cerebrate had more forces and a sound battle plan against other Zerg. While Zasz was trying to kill off the young Cerebrate's great defenses, he left his own wide open. Kerrigan snuck in and killed Zasz quite craftily, as none of his brood even saw her come in, and he was usually the careful one when it comes to battles. The Overmind waited a few days before reviving Zasz, to give him something to think about when trying to kill such a cunning agent. This wasn't one of the times he was going to allow this to go out of control however.
"Silence, both of you!" They quickly shut up, not before last second remarks of course.
"Whore!"
"Asshole!"
"Now then, Zasz and Daggoth will descend with the rest of the broods and nest up on the Eastern continent where we are currently located. I suggest you all rest afterwards, as I know space travel can make everybody edgy, you are excused!" The pods then shaped back into eggs, leaving the Overmind by himself once again. But he was never alone, not when he commanded the eternal will of his Swarms, and with this in mind he closed his one eye and fell into deep sleep.
A/n: Zasz sounds like Sauce with a Z instead of an S when pronounced correctly, just an FYI if you never played Starcraft.