Lull 4.05

I suddenly landed in the street and stumbled. Turns out I can teleport, which is something I wished I'd known about earlier. It'd have made a lot of things a lot easier. Or maybe this was something new, in which case it would have been nice to know it was on the table.

It took me a second at most to adjust. To my right was a scared little girl, twelve or thirteen at the most, with brown hair. She was clutching her head. To my left were half a dozen armed men. They were dressed in clothing that just screamed 'gangster' but didn't have any colors I recognized and all looked a little too old and were in too good of shape to be anyone local. A new group in town? They had assault rifles that looked like they'd been modded to some degree, but nothing obvious special.

"So," I said, "I see a bunch of grown men chasing a little girl… Part of me wants to ask why, but we all know that there's no possible answer you could give that won't make me kick your asses."

One of them had a more authoritative presence than the others. He went for his belt, he had a military surplus radio or something. I didn't know who he was calling but I wasn't going to let him finish. I raised a hand, palm up and with two fingers pointed to him and then waved them back to me. It was just for show, really, but while I was doing it I was seizing the man psionically and pulling him toward me. When he was in arms reach, I grabbed him by what I took to be his good arm and snapped it with a sharp twist. He'd barely had time to react before his arm was useless.

His buddies recoiled as he screamed and aimed their guns at me, but with a raise of my hand, I lifted them into the air and then, despite a fearful repetition of 'oh fuck' from one of the men, made them crash into each other half a dozen times. Then I dropped them onto the asphalt and chucked the leader at them. His walkie-talkie fell from his belt, and while their assailants moaned and writhed on the ground, I turned around to talk to the girl.

"Uh, hello," I said awkwardly as I kneeled down to talk to her more evenly. "Are you alright?"

"..N-no," the girl said. She was clutching her head and looked pained terrified, though I wasn't sure if it was of them or of me.

"Look, uh..." I was bad at this. "I know I look scary but I'm not gonna hurt you and I'm not gonna let anyone else hurt you, either."

"I know..." The girl answered. "Head hurts… Too many questions."

That… that was a question for later. "Look, uh… Let me get you out of here." We were in my territory, and this was no place for a girl her age to be alone in the middle of the night. She looked like she was a long way from home. Her clothes, pajamas, looked a bit too nice to be from around here, and her bare feet looked red, swollen, and bruised… I wasn't even going to try to guess how long she'd been running from these people, but she must have been exhausted.

After a few moments, we were down in the storm sewers with the girl riding my back, heading towards one of the nicer residential districts.

For The Swarm

The sun warmed my skin as I ran through the jungle, my fingers and toes digging into the dirt. I had never seen plants or animals like the ones here, but the little lizard ones tasted alright.

There was one now. It heard the sound of the leaves as I ran through them and tried to run, but it couldn't get away before I pounced on it and tore its throat out with my teeth. I ate its flesh and drank its blood, then rolled back and let the sun warm my belly while I rested.

I had been here for a while. Ever since Taylor had put me in that cocoon. I didn't know if this was a lifelike dream or if that had been some kind of teleporter made of meat and goo, but I know that this place is amazing and I love it here.

I'd changed. My teeth were sharper, my hair was longer, and I was way more flexible. When I got back, I'd be able to run with the Pack instead of riding one of them.

For The Swarm

So there I was, marching through the sewers with an exhausted little girl on my back, careful to make sure that her damaged feet didn't touch anything down here when I realized that I wasn't sure where she lived or if I was heading toward the right neighborhood.

"So… Little girl?"

"D… Dinah," the little girl supplied.

"Dinah?" I asked. "Where do you live? I'm sure your parents are worried about you."

"My parents are dead… They killed them." She said. That's a clawed foot in my mouth. "My fault. I didn't ask the right questions."

"I'm so sorry..." I started awkwardly, "So, do you...?"

"I have powers. I ask questions about the future," she explained. "And I get numbers on how likely things are to happen… They found out… wanted my powers... I found out they were after me and tried to… asked the wrong questions."

I blinked. "I didn't-"

"Earlier, there was a 78.727 repeating chance that I'd have to explain why they were after me to someone….. Didn't ask who, head hurt too much, but I figure you're what it meant."

"Okay," I said neutrally. "Now… Do you have a grandmother or an aunt I could take you too? Since..."

Since her parents were dead and I'd really rather not go anywhere near the police or PRT after what I'd done earlier tonight. I'd considered taking her to Dad and the Raiders, but I doubted that many people would be at the Dockyard this late at night and… And I really didn't want to explain what I'd been doing tonight to Dad.

So that left taking her to someone who can watch her and letting them call the cops or whoever.

"There's my Uncle Roy," she said.

"Uncle Roy, got it," I replied.

"Roy Christner," she continued. "The Mayor."

...I poked into her mind really quick to make sure she was telling the truth. She was, and now I had a migraine because she had a migraine. That's something to look out for in the future.

Well, it looked like I'd be paying off that debt. "Okay. You know, your cousin Rory helped me out a little bit ago."

"He did?"

"Yeah." It occurred once again to me that I didn't actually know where we were going, I was just heading in the vague direction of the nice part of town. I don't know where the Mayor's house was, either. "So uh… Where does the Mayor live again?"

For The Swarm

It was dark and storming. The first time it had been anything but warm and sunny since I got here.

I scrambled to my feet and took off, looking for somewhere to wait out the rain but… Something felt wrong. Bad. Sad. Scared wrong.

Like, 'Rollo's drowning' wrong. Kinda. Made it hard to think. Was scared. Was nervous.

Found a cave. The cave was dry… But something was in here.

It was like a snake with arms and legs, a bit lopsided with one big arm and one little one, with a long goat beard, orange lights on its body, and armor like what Taylor's creatures had.

"Sit," it said. "There. Is. Much. To. Dis-cus"

For The Swarm

The Mayor hadn't been much for words when I dropped off Dinah. Considering what had happened to his sister and her husband, I couldn't blame him… Though he might have also been startled by my unannounced presence. I mean, I knew he was working with my dad, but still, S-class Monster Cape Supervillain on your doorstep? I still had a headache so I didn't poke in his head to make sure.

It was a nice neighborhood, nicest one in town… Nosey neighbors had probably seen me carrying Dinah up but at this point, I honestly didn't care.

"Look," I said, "uh… It's a long story, and she can explain it better than I can when she's feeling better but… You might wanna… Call a Doctor to get her checked out and-you've got a Security detail, right? I don't think the people who are after her would be stupid enough to come to the Mayor's house but..."

He didn't seem to have the words to answer and I didn't blame him and, not wanting to linger in case the police or PRT showed up, I turned to leave.

"Wait," Dinah called out from inside the Mayor's home… "Empress? 59.6% repeating odds that everything will turn out okay for you if everything keeps going the way it has been."

She grunted and fell silent… I think the exhaustion had finally taken her, and I left as I heard the Mayor close the door and rush to her. Better than half odds, I'd take that. I'd find some way to thank her, later, if her prediction came true.

Rory, out of costume and feeling panicked to my psychic senses, arrived just as I was getting to the street. Our eyes met briefly before I returned to the sewers which had over the last few months become more and more a home to me.

As I marched back to the lair, the rush of adrenaline I'd been feeling since the Incomprehensible Rage that sobered me when I'd learned that Coil had set me up started to fade. That rush was soon replaced by a swarm of butterflies growing in my belly as I realized that I'd either cleared my name or ruined everything. And worse, I could feel Lisa from here and she was pissed.

I stopped and decided that now would be an excellent time to try and teleport on purpose. I took a deep breath closed my eyes. I focused on my room and concentrated… Concentrated…

...Yeah, nothing. "Useless ass psychic powers," I muttered.

I sighed and started back on my way, doing my best to think of anything but my growing sense of dread.

For The Swarm

"...And thus the only chance for your kind in countless realities is if. You. Stop. The. Gorger."

"So Scion is going to kill us all, and you gave Taylor her powers to help try and stop him?"

That was easy enough to get, once I got used to my new friend Dehaka's way of talking and figured out what 'essence' meant and who the Wasteful Gorgers were. Why had Taylor been so vague when she told us about aliens talking to her and the threat?

"This. Is. Correct." Dehaka said. It was weird. He wasn't a dog, but I didn't have any trouble understanding him.

"Now what?" It was still raining outside the cave.

"Queen Kerrigan brought strength to the Swarm and the Packs when She. Reclaimed. Her. Humanity." He explained. "Human Essence and Zerg Essence together are stronger than alone. This is why Your Queen keeps the traits of Terrans, as do you. But with human Strength, comes Human. Flaws."

I blinked. "...So we're gonna be assholes?"

Dehaka's lips curled up slightly. Not enough to show teeth. He thought that was funny. "Your. Queen's. Soul. Is. Sick… She. Needs support." He pointed at me. "Terrans say that hounds are their. Best. Friends. They provide Love. Support. Affection. Things that. Terrans. Need. To. Keep. Their. Souls. Healthy... Be her. Hound."

I was starting to feel a bit… Don't know, lighter? Dehaka kept talking. "Give. Your Queen. Support. Collect. Essence together. Grow strong. Help her grow strong. Slay the wasteful gorger and take his Essence for your Swarm and Pack. We will. Speak. Again."

I was going to ask why we couldn't just keep talking now when I was suddenly back in the cocoon Taylor had put me in. I thrashed for a bit, trying to get out before it threw me up onto the floor.

...Where was the breathing tube? Not like it matters, but… No, not important.

I pushed myself up with my hands and feet and shook the leftover goo. Then I stood up and looked at Taylor. I could feel her. She was tired. Sad. Scared… She was looking at me. Her eyes were wide and I could actually tell what that meant. She felt bad about… I looked at myself in her mirror… I liked this. I felt great. She shouldn't be…

I looked back at her. I wasn't sure how I knew what to do, but I got the feeling that this would fix it. "Taylor? How do I look?"

For The Swarm

Lisa was somewhat less pissed when I finally got home. She was sitting at my table, using my laptop, and occasionally petting the zergling I'd used to charade to her that I was alright.

"I hope you don't mind," she said without looking at me, "but I had to borrow your computer to steal all of our boss's money, fire his mercenaries, and tell him to go fuck himself with a rusty bread knife." She was quiet for a second. "So yeah, we're not gonna have to worry about Director Calvert fucking with you anymore. Especially once I finish sending this anonymous email full of evidence of his wrongdoings loaded with just the right buzzwords to get it marked a priority to every PRT Director on the Continent."

She dramatically pushed the enter key on my laptop. Then she went and used the mouse to actually send the email.

She finished up and then turned back to me. "Taylor. There's a lot that I want to talk to you about, but you're probably very tired." Now that she was saying it, I was feeling… Absolutely exhausted. "I'll leave you to rest, but first," she said, her emotions shifting to something far more… I couldn't tell. Scared? Sad? Hopeless? She looked me in the eyes and hers were watering. "I need you to promise me that if I leave you alone tonight that you'll still be here in the morning."

And that's when I started crying. I hadn't considered… Everything tonight…

I fell to my knees. "I promise. I-I'm so fucking pathetic."

"Taylor," Lisa said as she got up to kneel beside me. "You're a lot stronger than you think you are."

And then she hugged me. We stayed like that for a few minutes. "Okay," she whispered to me. "I'm gonna let you get some sleep. I'll break the news about everything to Brian in the… gentlest manner possible. And then you and I are going to have a long talk about… Taylor? I'm going to try and talk Brian into letting us go ahead with Operation Flew The Coop because you've got a problem and since it's gonna be really hard to get you professional help for a bit, we're going to have to improvise."

"...I, I think I'm going to be okay," I said. "I, I think I'm gonna be okay, but..."

Lisa stared at me, sternly, for almost a full minute before relaxing and letting out a sigh of relief.

"Well, okay. I'll let you get some sleep then."

A few moments later, I was alone in my room. Except for Rachel, that is. I laid on my bed, trying to sleep. I couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about everything that had happened tonight. Like I had earlier, I tried to borrow some of Rachel's pleasant dream to settle myself, but she wasn't sleeping so peacefully anymore.

It was then that I noticed that she was thrashing about inside the infestation pod. My hearts skipped a few beats and I jumped to my feat to free her, thinking something had gone wrong, but then it opened on its own and ejected her. That's right. It was supposed to do that.

She landed face down on the creep mat, then pushed herself up with her fingers and toes, arched her back, and gave a quick full-body shake to rid herself of the excess infestation goo. Then she stood up and I got a better look at her.

The experiment had been a failure: Rachel was Zerg, outside as well as in. She didn't look that different from me, exactly, but she was taller and more muscular. Not quite like a female bodybuilder, but not far off from it, either-broad-shouldered and muscular. Her scales were bigger than mine, looking kind of like a crocodile's and a pale green, layered thickly on her skin but thinner and a paler, almost white at her joints. Her carapace, positioned similarly to mine but noticeably thicker, was purple with orange at the edges. Her face was still in human colors, the scales thinning and shifting to smooth skin at her collar and fading into flesh tone midway up her neck, except for her eyes were violet on lavender with a faint glow. Her red hair had grown out into a wild, shoulder-length mane that hung back in natural spikes.

She had more armor than I did, on a second glance, at least in the shoulder-pad-carapace-things, with orange spikes that were a bit like the bones-spikes her dogs had poked about an inch out of her shoulders-four each, seeming semi-random in placement.

At least her face had stayed more or less the same.

As I looked over her body, I noticed that while my feet had stayed human, other than my claws and scales, Rachel's legs shifted to a strange angle at the calf and ended in big, strong digitigrade feet that were halfway between a dog's hind paws and some kind of dinosaur's, with four toes and thick, sharp claws..

I… I hadn't wanted her to be like me. I wanted her to be a stronger, most durable human. Not a Zerg. I…

Rachel looked at herself in the mirror, then back to me. "Taylor? How do I look?" When she opened her mouth, I could see her elongated, sharpened canines.

I wasn't sure how to answer and… Wait. When I thought at her, I could see through her eyes, just like with the Zerglings. I could… I could see myself and the expression of shame and horror on my was upset to see that... She liked this. She was happy with this, and… She was happy being attached to me.

So I thought about it. I'd noticed that the way I thought about certain things had changed since I'd gotten my powers-the eating human flesh thing, for one-and I think it was that part of me that had the answer. I let go of my preconceptions and just let the me that was the part of me that came from my powers ruminate on it, and then I looked at Rachel again.

I looked at my friend, who'd been turned into a monster-a perfect combination of peak human and apex predator-by my hands, and all I could think is of was the answer I gave: "Beautiful."

As I said that, Rachel jumped at me and soon I was pinned to my bed by a mass of zerg muscles that was hugging me tightly. I honestly had not expected that, even with the psychic link.

"Rachel, I-"

"Shush," she said in the exact tone she'd use to calm an upset dog. "You. I can understand you. For the first time in my life, I can completely understand another person," She said, more happily than I'd ever heard her, feeling happier than I'd ever felt her, "and I understand that right now you don't want to talk. Right now, you need hugs. Talking and Scion and everything else can wait till you don't need hugs anymore."

It was at that point that my door, slightly ajar from Lisa's departure, was pushed open by Brutus and Angelica fleeing their kennel in favor of my sub-basement and happily greeting their Mistress, who they recognized instantly and… And they were part of the swarm now, somehow. That… Fuck it, that's where I draw the line. Thinking can wait till morning.

So I stopped resisting, and fell asleep, cuddled by dogs and in the arms of my best friend. My last thought had been to wonder why Rachel had mentioned Scion.