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 5: Capture
At first I thought I was still dreaming, until I felt something cold and slimy in the warm, moist sleeping nest I had been given. I was out of the Zerg bed very fast; ready to blast whatever was in there.
"Now that is entertainment!" Kerrigan said from the door, laughing slightly. From inside the bed, a small wormlike creature about two feet long crawled out, except it seemed to have eyes, a mouth, and easily ten legs.
"That is a Zerg larva, the smallest spawn of Zerg. It can morph into any other type of Zerg, depending on what you want I guess," Kerrigan explained.
"On what I want?" I asked.
"Yes, that is a special larva that can morph into an enhanced form of whatever you choose to change it into, it was specially bred by me for you. Consider it a gift," she smiled.
"You mean like a pet?" I asked, confusion written all over my face.
"You could call it that. It will be a loyal partner in battle, obey your every command, even protect you, should that need ever arise," she smirked slightly when she said that.
"My own Zerg pet, doesn't that sound great," I muttered in sarcasm.
"Depends on you I guess, not all of us are evil, only if we choose to be. Besides, when dealing with you know who, sometimes there isn't much of an option," she said in a softer tone.
"You mean big ugly?" I asked. She turned her head and looked the other way without an answer, a sign that said yes to me. The larva made its way over to me and stared with its big black orbs of eyes. If it hadn't been part of the Zerg race that I was hell bent on destroying, I might have thought this act to be slightly cute. Then it whimpered slightly, as if it wanted something.
"It wants to know what you want it to be. After all just a simple larva is useless!" Kerrigan noted. I thought it over, surprisingly I actually cared to do that.
"What's the strongest type of Zerg again, no pet of mine will be weak!" I said intently.
"Well that would be an Ultralisk, but I doubt you would want a big elephant-like creature watching over your bed every night now would you?" she asked. I quickly shook my head no.
"Like I said, this is an enhanced form of Zerg, so no matter what form it attains, it will be stronger than any other of that form. Stronger than many others if my calculations are correct. Occasionally we pool resources to spawn a stronger type of Zerg, but it takes more than we can afford to splice Zerg DNA like that. Thus we usually stick with the normal forms," she explained. Guess she used to be a scientist too, I noted.
"That I did, now what form did you want?"
"Stay out of my head," I barked slightly.
"Sorry, can't help it. Form?" she asked again.
"Well I certainly don't want anything big. Zergling it is I guess, that's about the size of a dog anyway isn't it?" I asked, barely recalling since I blasted most of those apart before taking in its appearance.
"About twice as big as a medium sized dog actually. So just picture a really big dog, or maybe a deer," Kerrigan said as the larva then moved around the room.
"A deer, I doubt many deer have fangs that could chew off a human's head. Nor do they have claws the size of butcher knives," I said, giving her a confused glance.
"We were talking about size, not appearance," she said with her index finger pointed up. Whatever. The larva seemed to find its spot in the room, and then turned white and expanded in size until it formed an egg that was as big as I was.
"Kinda quick huh?" I asked.
"Not in this case, since it's a special breed it will take most of the day to morph. We will be busy anyway, we need to set out in search of some mineral fields and Vespene geysers!" she explained, losing me quickly.
"The what and what?" I asked.
"Oh that's right, you probably don't know about those. In your dimension, we were forced to fuel our hive clusters with forms of life, trees, plants, and animals primarily. But in this sector, many of those things are rare on some planets we come across, and this is due to the Protoss hunting the Zerg down and bombarding the planets until nothing is left alive. However there are special mineral clusters that many races use for fuel and for trade. They are large blue crystals filled with energy, and it's easier to harvest those than to always make war on other civilizations," she explained.
"And the Vessel geysers or whatever you said?" I asked as the egg made a slight shift in color.
"That's Vespene, it produces a special concentrate of gas that provides a different sort of energy. Sort of like what oxygen does for your body, this gas does for the living Zerg hives. In order for us to spawn more minions, we must harvest more resources. We need to collect several thousand samples of each to have the energy and gas to produce another Super Hive," she paused, waiting for my next response.
"So what do you need me for to do that? Don't you have little slaves running around that do that sort of stuff?" I asked.
"Yes, we need you for cover. There is a large contingent of Terran troops heading this way, representing the Terran Dominion. Which is ruled by my old friend Mengsk, here let's tune to their communications," Kerrigan said, nodding towards some sort of round pod that had a square shape the size of a small TV. It seemed to form into a video like screen, except the colors seemed a bit off. On it was some old general-like figure that seemed grumpy about something, and then the audio came in as he spoke.
"All right Alpha squadron, spread out and scan for hostiles! Emperor Mengsk believes there is more Confederate troops around here, so its our job to flush em out! We've heard that the Zerg might have returned to Tarsonis, so should we encounter any Zerg here, we are to exterminate on sight!" The guy sounded like a big time hillbilly that lived so far from a city that he never heard of clean water.
"What's with the TV? I thought Zerg were all organic, no technology?" I asked right away.
"Its an adaptation really, this pod can pick up visual and sound waves inside of a transmission signal. It took many stages of evolution for me to come up with this, easily twenty generations," she explained, losing me quickly.
"And the redneck?" I asked next.
"That is General Duke, a formidable adversary to say the least. I told you about him before, and if he's in the area we could be in for some trouble," Kerrigan warned.
"I thought we had like a billion Zerg troops with us, what are you worried about?" I asked, crossing my arms slightly.
"And how many of those billion have you seen?" she asked.
"Well not that many I guess," I said, scratching my head a bit.
"Exactly, because we don't have that many with us, we don't carry the extra ground troops with us unless were invading and attacking on the drop like we did on Earth. And we cannot control that many minions anyway; two million total at the most per Cerebrate, and even that is stretching it as size of each individual Zerg also plays a factor. Even if only one Cerebrate had that many at his disposal, he would have extreme difficulty controlling them all. Only the flyers and worker drones really stick with us through space. Which means we have to spawn more just to solidify any position we hold. In short, those Terran troops are going to make it a bit difficult to gather resources," Kerrigan finished, sounding frustrated.
"Other than us, why did you approach Earth differently?" I asked, curious to know their tactics.
"That was the only reason young one, we were after you and the one named Gohan. My information told them to mass-produce troops before arrival, that's when we encountered your friend Broly for the first time. As you know, he escaped us at the time, and believe me our Cerebrates learned a lesson on how to deal with a Saiyan that day," Kerrigan explained, opening a few lost thoughts in the process. Suddenly my senses alerted me to another presence, but it wasn't in the room, it was just suddenly there with us.
"Ah, Cerebrate, you are to gather the resources as quickly as possible while fending off the Terrans. Verto will assist you in that endeavor!" Kerrigan said to the ceiling. I became aware of the Cerebrate very quickly; its un-nerving eye seemed to watch me from my own mind. It was like an annoying itch that I couldn't scratch inside my skull.
"Wait a sec, I thought we were already in some sort of Super Hive? What, do they break down all the time?"
"Yeah, you could say that. They're only good for one long trip, then they tend to die off and just fall apart eventually. Once they enter a new atmosphere or burn too much energy during travel, they break apart and cannot be relied upon. That's why we need to create another one for a space jump," she explained.
"Space jump?" I asked.
"You're just full of questions aren't you? I'll explain later, just complete your mission. And believe me these Terrans will not hesitate to fire on you, so stay on your toes!" I nodded with a grimace, I still didn't want to hurt anyone, but I would not hesitate either.
-
I exited the Super Hive once again, noticing that indeed the thing was beginning to die off. The walls resembled the skin of many old people, if you multiply the age by four. I was very happy to get out of the huge structure. I didn't mind the slightly closed quarters that much, but being around nothing but Zerg was starting to make me even more claustrophobic than the small egg thing did. Then again, hanging around with the enemy is unnerving enough, I thought as I got to see the sky once again. Kerrigan was right behind me, but stopped once she was outside, as if to send me off. I glanced at the ground, and noticed something very strange. My legs felt normal, but my two feet weren't. My boots had expanded a bit, and I could see some sort of bone and different skin tissue trying to poke through them.
"What's with my feet?" I asked sternly.
"Just some more of the Zerg tissues developing, helps harden your skin a bit and maintain stability," she explained, looking amused.
"I'd rather just tear them off," I grumbled.
"They would just regenerate now. Any infested part of you will now regenerate if damaged, thus the point of the healing chamber to heal any part that isn't partially infested. Your tail was just the start, your other limbs will follow slowly."
"Ugh, disgusting," I noted, seeing a few Zerg groundlings file out of the hive. There were several Zerglings, followed by a few Hydralisks and a few Drones. They quickly moved away and headed off in a similar direction to the base I had destroyed yesterday.
"Let me guess, I go with them?" I asked.
"You catch on quick. They will start up a small hive cluster near a mineral patch and hopefully a geyser as well. Once they get going they can provide you with extra minions to defend the base with," she said, pointing towards them.
"Why don't you send out a lot of these things? It would get the job done faster if you have multiple sources to harvest from, wouldn't it?" I asked.
"The Overmind prefers one Cerebrate work on harvesting while the others plan in meditation. It helps him control all his forces when they are clustered up like this. When we get to Char we will spread around the planet more. Now get going, and watch it out there! Duke's forces are not to be underestimated!" she warned.
"That you don't need to remind me of," I said, glancing at my very torn up bodysuit. Bodysuit wasn't a proper term now, only the leggings really remained, and they were cut up in many places, the waistline was starting to wear down as well.
"Come, we will need your help soon!" the Cerebrate's voice echoed in my head, giving me an odd feeling to get going.
"Okay, just don't mess with my body anymore. I can't fight well when you do that!" I shouted at it. It didn't answer, but I got the feeling that it got the message. After all, fighting in a blind rage of bloodlust wasn't going to get me anywhere. I took off into the air, catching up with the Zerg minions quickly.
-
I flew overhead while the Zerg seemed to scout out a spot for a base. It didn't take long before I spotted a small cluster of large blue crystals ahead, along with a large spot of holes with some sort of green gas spewing from it ever so slightly. Judging by the reaction of the drones, this was the area we were looking for. Of the three that came, two of the drones right away scampered to the mineral clusters. The other one stopped about a hundred feet away and started to morph into something. It first attached itself to the ground, and then turned into some sort of large bug that didn't have any skin. Whatever it was, it sickened me more than any other Zerg I had seen so far. Then it swelled in size quickly, as if it was transforming. It was quickly the size of a car, then a house, then an office building. The other two drones bit around the edges of one of the mineral crystals, apparently trying to bite them off. The quickly growing drone-bug started to shape itself into a medium sized building; a tower in the middle and a large pink ground space around it like a tree would be with its roots. Then from the pink ground flowed the purple creep I had become familiar with. It spread slowly across the ground for several hundred feet, smothering whatever plants might have been there. With all this going on, I hadn't bothered to notice what the other Zerg were doing. There were only a few of them, and they seemed to be patrolling around the quickly forming base, watching for anything out of the ordinary. Humph, as if they weren't out of the ordinary themselves. I scanned around myself while staying a float fifty feet or so up in the air. The land looked pretty battered and beaten, most of the plant life was scarce at best.
"Must have been that war Kerrigan mentioned," I whispered softly, not caring if anyone noticed at all. I thought I heard some rustling of bushes and trees in a small forest nearby, and turned to that direction. Not far away, maybe about a half mile, I saw a few figures coming my way, slowly. There was barely an energy signal to detect, but it came in clearly as low ki energy. I heard a small growl and saw one of the large Overlords in the air, and a few of the larva eggs on the ground. The drones were more in number and were carrying large pieces of mineral into the new hive. Well they have things in hand, I better go see what's up over there. I started to descend and move that way, when a one of the Zerglings followed me.
"Stay here!" I said, pointing to the base. It ignored me, moving quickly in my direction.
"I SAID STAY!" I raised my voice greatly, powering up just a bit. That seemed to do the trick, it quickly stopped and backed off. Apparently it knew not to mess with me too much as it was backing down like a dog that had just been scolded. I touched down and crept forward, making my way through the large bushes and trees that separated the figures I saw and the newly formed Zerg base. I noticed a path had been worn down in the forest and the figures low ki seemed to be following it. I stayed in the brush until they got closer, watching with unseen eyes. At first they were only shadows, but soon the sunlight illuminated their forms a bit better. They appeared to be humans, but were in some sort of metallic combat suit, much like astronauts are put into. They were armed as well, many had machine gun rifles as I had seen the day before. I hadn't really seen much of the combat suits because most were vaporized before I bothered to look anything over. A few of the others appeared to have a large set of tanks on their back with a tiny hose attached to a tiny gun, which probably served as some sort of flame thrower. Most seemed on alert for any movement, so I felt I had better step out slow first and not suddenly so not to start up a conflict, after all I wanted to talk first. I did so and instantly their guns went up, but did not fire. They approached carefully, watching me with that look that clearly stated that they would fire at any moment. They got within thirty feet or so before stopping and looking me over.
"Kid, are you okay?" one asked in a slightly country sounding accent.
"Looks like he's been through hell. Which group were ya with junior?"
"He's lucky the Zerg didn't nab him out here in the middle of nowhere!"
I frowned slightly, "I'm not with any group around here," I muttered.
"Hey Chuck! What is that thing behind him, is that a tail?" One asked. I had subconsciously been swishing my tail a bit and not keeping it wrapped up, but considering it was green there wasn't much I could do to hide it anyway.
"It's Sarge or sir Bill! You're on duty, and it looks like a tail. But I've never heard of a human with a tail, maybe he's a hybrid or something. You come out of a test tube kid?" the one named Sarge said.
I growled, "No, I'm a Saiyan, not a human. And Saiyans look like them but have tails okay?"
"Hey Sarge, check out those legs, if those ain't Zerg skin then I'm a flaming pig!" You may not be far off there hillbilly! I thought in disgust. Then I sensed a few presences behind me, but I didn't have to turn to see what they were.
"Sarge, Zerglings! Watch out kid, those things will get ya!" Bill said. I rolled my eyes slightly, putting my hand up to silently tell them to back down.
"This kid must be with em, must be infested or something. No one who isn't can tell them what to do!" Wow they just now figured that out.
"Look, I don't want any trouble here okay. Just turn back and go the other way! They're just gonna harvest a few minerals and get outta here," I said, giving off a slightly threatening glare. The Zerglings behind me growled a bit at first, but seemed to sit at attention the instant I raised my ki just a tad.
"So there's a Zerg base up there huh kid? Good we need the target practice! Now get yer hands up now!" When I didn't respond to the threat, a few of them fired on the two Zerglings at my sides, injuring them. They dropped to the ground and whimpered to me in pain slightly, helpless. I felt their pain, and it stung to my soul just as if Kid Buu had come back and destroyed the earth and its people.
"Hey, knock it off! I don't want to fight with you!" I shouted at the soldiers.
"Kid, I said get yer hands up! We won't hesitate to fire on you either!" he warned. I bent down to examine one of the fallen Zerglings. It's eyes resembled a puppy dog's if its hurt or extremely sad, a small tear came out of my eye as I heard it whimper ever so slightly.
"Kid, hands up now, last warning!"
I stood up and shot the soldiers a death glare, "Do what you want with me, but do not hurt them anymore!" Even though these were Zerg, I felt no creature should be hurt without provocation, in which they had not advanced at all.
"Hahaha, this kid must have been dropped on his head too much Sarge!" Maybe he's right, I'm actually concerned for the Zerg's welfare. Why?
"More than likely, kill the Zerglings!" Then the troops fired, I paused, watching the small bullet fire come forth and then go past me. They hit their mark and the Zerglings cried out in pain again, making me wince slightly. Then they went silent and cold, their death swiftly hit my senses and caused me to tremble in emotional pain. Then a flood of contradicting thoughts swept over me.
They're dead! Good I hate them anyway!
But they were innocent, they were only doing as they were told, and they didn't attack the humans at all!
So what, you hate the Zerg don't you? Well, don't you?
Yes, but still.
Still what? Why should you care if they die, they were worthless anyway!
No they weren't, they were living creatures!
If you hate them so, why do you care for them like you were one of their own?
I'm not one of them! I just don't like to see innocent things get hurt!
Then why cry over spilt blood? I thought they didn't matter to us anymore!
No living creature should be killed without a reason!
These humans seemed to have a reason!
No they didn't, they killed senselessly without a clear head! The poor things didn't attack them and therefore the humans didn't have a reason to kill them!
Does that mean you would help them if they were in need?
I would help any creature that was in need!
You didn't answer my question, would you help the Zerg if they were in need?
The soldiers seemed to not notice my mental tirade going on with my controlled self and the beast, and approached with their weapons pointed right at me.
"Come with us kid, we can find help for you!"
"No, stay away from me!" I whispered loudly, getting their attention.
"We have no time for this, knock him out!" the Sarge shouted. Suddenly a shock came over my body, burning my insides as well as outside. The marines were using some sort of high-level stun batons. Had I been powered up more, it would not have done anything, but since I wasn't, everything went black instead.
A/N: Let's get this party started, next time on DBV, Verto encounters General Duke. And what happens when more innocent creatures are killed before Verto's eyes, nothing good I can tell you that.