Feb 18 Update: I only updated the breaks in the lines so nothing new. Sorry :/
It had passed three days since Ace and Bandit had cocooned themselves in the middle of the day right outside Angie's house when she was walking them. They were just walking back home when suddenly the two stopped and stood ramrod straight, staring straight ahead at nothing. Then they immediately curled up and a strange semi hard purple membrane pulled around them. Angie had run inside her house and sadly told her family what had happened and pulled them outside to show them.
Over those three days each of her family had tried to comfort her as she started to hang around Ace's and Bandit's cocoons. Her mother tried soothing her while she could, but it wasn't enough. Her father tried to break into the cocoons, but any tools he tried broke right the first swing. Her sister Chloe tried to distract her with little games and stories. They usually worked for a small period, but Angie always went back to worrying about the two zerglings and what happened.
In the fourth day she had been sitting near the cocoons when she noticed a faint tapping sound coming from them. Angie looked over and saw the cocoons shaking. She ran inside her house and found her family at the dinner table talk about grown up stuff, things about the king and queen.
She ran into the room and yelled excitedly, "Something's happening to Ace and Bandit!"
The three looked at each other and hurriedly followed Angie out just as the cocoons began to shake violently. Neighbors had gathered around to watch as well when Angie's family had firmly moved themselves to the front. The tapping sound had increased as suddenly a sharp crack was heard and a split was seen on the cocoons. More splits started to crack on the cocoons until it burst open, spraying purple embryonic fluid in the directions of the watchers making them turn away.
When they looked back they saw Ace and Bandit but changed. Where both had been the size of a large dog, they now stood at about four feet in height and six in length. Their claws had grown sharper and more refined along with the appendages on their backs. Ace could still be defined by his facial scars while Bandit looked overall fiercer in appearance. But the most telling part of their transformation were the two pairs of wings that had grown on their backs. They held a look like a cricket's wings in shape. Ace and Bandit fluttered their wings around trying to dry off the fluid still stuck to them as they looked around at the various villagers staring at them in awe.
"Ace! Bandit!"
An ecstatic Angie ran towards the pair, heedless of the fluid as she crashed into Ace's right shoulder and hugged it with all her childish might. Ace immediately responded by bopping the top of her head with his as he gave a light purple and Bandit went around to give a friendly huff to the side of Angie's head.
Everything felt, in lack of better words, weird.
When Darren woke up he felt the connection to the Swarm, but this time, it felt stronger than before. He went through a quick check and found that he didn't need of focus as much as before to look through the eyes of his units, though all he saw was purple fluid. He felt like he floated in the cocoon for a while until he began to press against the walls with his hands. It didn't give way, so he pressed harder until his left wall gave from the pressure. He focused on the hole and pulled it apart until the cocoon exploded, finally releasing him into clear daylight.
Around him similar acts happened as the Swarm began to emerge from their evolutionary slumber. The buildings grew larger and the Zerg units all had visible upgrades about them as they all emerged.
He looked toward the newly formed Lairs and saw that they had become larger with the bone spikes reaching taller than before. It gave an overall more menacing look if one didn't find the sight friendly already. There wasn't an overall change to the Nydus Network physically except that it felt "better" along with the Evolution Chamber. The Creep Generators though began to look more like a fleshy spire instead of a sunken colony. It was about ten meters in height four meters wide with spikes like the old Hatcheries at the top. There were tendrils that sprouted from the bottom like tree roots into the ground and Darren sensed that if an enemy was too close to it, the Creep Generators would defend itself by using the tendrils go whip the enemy around. The tops could fire an acid that would be able to either disable or kill enemies that were in range, though that shouldn't happen as units would still patrol the area religiously.
Which now brought to mind about the units. The zerglings looked like an evolved version of the SC2 zerglings with the wing attachments in them. Drones and overlords weren't that different and still looked the same, but they were much tougher in a fight and the overlords could now make creep, carry units, and evolve into overseers which could spawn changelings for information gathering. Darren also found that he could now access the same other DNA strands for his army, but everything still wasn't available yet.
He could now order the creation of banelings, roaches, hydralisks, and mutalisks. Banelings were rotund creatures filled with explosive green acid that could burn through anything given enough time. While seemingly large, they were deceptively fast for their size as they charged the enemy and blew up. Roaches could be described as a large car sized beast with two large pincers on its back, ready to pierce through the toughest armor. It could spit acid at a large rate for a ranged option if need be. They also worked as wonderful shock troops to disorientate enemy combatants and further disrupt their lines. Hydralisks were snake like and upright with a large armored carapace that layered itself downwards to its back. Two large spiny hands served as its close quarters armament while it could also shoot poisonous spines at long distances while remaining bullseye accurate.
Finally, he took a look at himself in the nearby stream. When Darren peered at his reflection, he backed up in shock and ran his hands down his face, or rather, lack of face.
Instead of smooth skin he was covered in a large black carapace armor that went from head to toe and there didn't seem to be any sort of gaps in it. His legs were covered in black carapace that were shaped like armored boots while his hands were covered in gauntlets of carapace that ended with sharp claws at his fingertips. His torso was covered in layered black carapace that went with his every movement and it didn't restrain him in the slightest. Finally, his head was covered in black carapace shaped like a knight's helmet and the face was smoothed.
Darren poked at his face and heard a light tap where his claws met the face of his helm. As he felt around he noticed that while he continued to breathe that there wasn't any hole were his mouth or nose should be. Before he freaked out he started to rationalize what was happening.
Don't freak out yet. Let's just think for a second. I'm part of the Swarm and I got upgraded. Good. Okay so, I'm now a walking suit of armor that doesn't have any way that I could possibly breathe. Great. Just need to get this off first then I can freak out.
Just filling that train of thought for a separate occasion, Darren started to focus a bit. He began to think about the suit disappearing and willing it to go away. He looked at the reflection in the stream and saw the black carapace slowly shrinking down in size until his own features started to fade in. About five seconds later and he was normal again along with his clothes. He thought about the suit coming back and it immediately popped back into existence around him in an instant. A few more tries later and he seemed to have a handle on changing forms from normal to armored.
He turned away from the stream and walked back to the Lairs, intent to bolster his forces with the new Zerg units until he received an alert from an overlord that was making its patrols. A quick change in perspective and Darren saw what spooked the overlord.
A large pack of Wildlings were making their way through the forest. They all had the same shape as the one Wildling that had killed a drone and zergling pair earlier. From what he could see the pack consisted of about 15 Betas and were led by an Alpha. While the Betas had smooth shells with a few nicks here and there, the Alpha seemed absolutely battle scarred. There were signs of battle all over it like scars from swords around its legs and a large gash in its left side.
While Darren watched them, he noticed that the direction they were moving in was towards the village that Angie, Ace, and Bandit lived in. He snapped back to his own perspective and started ordering the new units to gestate while he decided on how to approach the situation.