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Dehaka, roused by his pack when a Swarm overlord approached, growled lightly to himself. What did the Overqueen want now?
She had not reached out to him in some months, letting the Primal Zerg do as they pleased within her territory, within reason. Dehaka himself had begun to understand the emotions he had begun to experience following gorging himself on Terrans, having found little use in the Protoss essence, and the Hybrid essence was so heavily tainted with Amon's influence he had to expel it from his body lest it injure him.
He also found he could dream.
Dehaka had first not understood what his mind was doing as he rested. Why, often when he would wake, he remembered small pieces of his dreams, memories in truth, from when he was much smaller and before he had taken command of his own pack.
The most recent one concerned him, and that Zagara had reached out to him now, further unnerved him. There had been Terrans on Zerus once before, briefly, and a Hybrid he never saw during the End War, with another Hybrid who had become Primal as Kerrigan did. It had warned Dehaka before he had become a pack leader, years ago now, to watch for one who would bring Essence and Death and to follow or die.
Just a few hours earlier, he had felt something far off, almost a roar echoing from space itself. A female presence, tempered and directed by a male one -that felt strangely similar to the one who had taken the power of Zerus before- crying out in rage and sorrow, uttering challenge to opponents numbering far beyond his Primals. It had subsided almost as quickly as it appeared, Dehaka ignoring it as likely the Protoss fighting amongst themselves, shortly after he had seen ships, clearly as though they were within his territory, completely foreign and alien in appearance. They appeared in flashes of light before moving slowly away from Zerus and the other Zerg worlds. Perhaps these new aliens were what Zagara wished to discuss.
Dehaka rose from his den, approaching the Overlord as it moved close to the ground. His size had nearly tripled, since last he had seen Zagara, the Overlord hesitating as it appeared Dehaka would be too large for it to move.
**Dehaka, I wish to converse, however you appear to have grown much since our last encounter. Is this sufficient, or would you prefer if I come to you?** Overqueen Zagara asked, her psionic voice projected through her Overlord. Dehaka nodded, offering a bow.
"Yes, this is sufficient." Dehaka paused, he could tell something nagged at the Overqueen based on her willingness to cater to his preference.
**Good, I'm certain you've seen the massive spacefaring vessels near your territory.** She began, pausing to receive a nod of affirmation from the Primal. **New allies have come from another realm entirely, and have warned that our Queen did not completely destroy Amon as we all perceived.** Dehaka growled, eyes narrowing briefly. He had been unnerved and, while he and his pack had fed well, the Void beings that mimicked even the Protoss had provided them no essence and had been in numbers he knew would have been a challenge their Queen would have willingly taken on herself. Kerrigan had warned him away from Terrans as he and the others had been pushed out of the Void to allow her to defeat Amon fully. That Amon had somehow survived, despite all the new essence and life showing up in the sector, set the large Primal on edge.
"What of, their essence? Useful?" He rasped, guttural voice still hampered by his growl.
**Of yet we are unsure. Some may be, some may be too similar to Terran to be of use. I wished to ask you, do you remember encountering any hybrids on Zerus? Have any appeared recently?** Zagara asked, obviously holding back more information. Dehaka narrowed his eyes, shook himself once, as though knocking small insects from his carapace.
"Not recent, no. Years before, yes." He responded cautiously, Zagara knew he held more information with that simple admission. The gemfire glow of the eyes on her Overlord dimmed and flickered a moment before she asked more pointedly.
**Do you remember it? Did you speak to or see it at the Primal Spawning Pool?**
"Yes. It had, warned my pack. To wait for Kerrigan, years before she had come." Dehaka hated this, Zagara had only come to ask him questions, not to truly tell him anything new. Zagara's Overlord hovered a bit backward, the Overqueen surprised by the Primal's admission.
**Were there others?**
"Terrans, all controlled by Void. One, another Hybrid, shapeshifted and confronted the new Primal. It let them live, killed and fed on a Torrasque from Brakks pack, before they disappeared through a portal." Dehaka paused, closing his eyes to think more clearly. "He was... Larger than I then, more... Developed. Same colour as Kerrigan." Zagara balked lightly.
**Even then, he shared similar essence to her... Interesting. Would you recognise him, if you encountered him again?**
"Yes..." Dehaka disliked the line of questioning and where it was leading.
**Once I have the ability, I would like you to come with me to see him again. I am confident he is the one we encountered today.** Zagara paused, Dehaka could almost envision her lying on the floor of her Hive, lightly reclined while she conversed with him, shifting her position once or twice to remain comfortable. **The Protoss found an ancient Xel'Nagan prison deep below the remains of the Overmind, shielded and encased in a barrier designed to drastically increase the passage of time inside, while remaining independent of the rest of time. The Primal Hybrid you encountered was bound and left to desiccate by Amon, with some of his own Brood, who are more akin to Primal Zerg than to Hybrids, yet are obviously part Protoss.** She paused, Dehaka nodding. While confusing, he appreciated her explaining events to him, and this had been the most open she had ever been with him. He visibly relaxed, curling his tail around to lie it around his feet where he crouched, an invitation for her to continue. **I did not see him released from that prison, however I saw him later battling Amon's thralls, protecting the Protoss and Terrans. He appeared as though completely comfortable being Primal, that he had been able to replenish himself without biomass is, intriguing. Afterward, he went to dwell amongst these newcomers to the Sector, where I hope we can parley.**
"I am, interested. But wary. Why is he of interest?" Dehaka asked, tilting his head to one side slightly. "He is Hybrid, would not have Essence we can use."
**He was born Protoss, that much I know.** Zagara admitted, to which Dehaka hissed.
"Slipped past us, my pack and I. I saw him, before he became Primal, had wings, tail. Not possible as Protoss." Dehaka scoffed, shaking his head adamantly.
**Then we will have to inquire when we encounter him.**
Elsewhere, Overqueen Zagara had tasked one of her Young BroodQueens to search one of the worlds previously deemed inhabitable but off limits by the Overmind. Aliszha, only a few months old herself, had been curious when they arrived, that the Overmind would have kept its cerebrates so in the dark about a tiny world on the outskirts of their territory, in a star system very different from Zerus, three very dark worlds orbiting a small blue star, a further world, larger than the other three combined, showing visible signs of Amon's influence. Massive rents in the planet's surface, like the talons of a massive beast had raked across it, visible even at a distance from the planet. It didn't spin on an axis, and its atmosphere appeared to slowly be lost to space, the glow of the planets core faintly visible in the deepest parts of the visible craters.
**Aliszha.** The young Broodqueen closed her eyes and bowed reverently, as her Overqueens presence wafted over her. Zagara watched from her Hive cluster on Char, through the young Queen's eyes, scrutinizing the world before them. Zagara had dug into the genetic memory of the Zerg, to the Overmind, when she found something hidden under previous layers of knowledge, buried so deeply that her Queen had not seen it.
A Protoss male, different as proven by the tail he sported, vivid violet gemfire eyes, caught and captured alive, on this very world, before being ferried to Char swiftly. Beyond that, Zagara could only feel Amon's influence in the memories, so much so it actually caused her physical pain. That this world had been marked off limits and the entire system to be avoided as per the late Overmind, Zagara had to investigate.
**Your orders, Overqueen?** Aliszha asked hesitantly.
**Survey each of the planets carefully, send only some Zerglings and Hydralisk to the surface once you have confirmed there are no hostiles planetside. I wish to know everything about these worlds, why Amon would direct the Overmind away from it.** Zagara then withdrew, the young and inexperienced Broodqueen, Aliszha directing her Overqueen-gifted Leviathan closer to the planet furthest from the star with its massive claw-mark craters. When they drew close enough, Aliszha quickly directed her Leviathan back, spotting movement far below. Sending an Overseer closer, it showed her a closer view of the surface, where Void energy seeped from the massive wounds in the surface of the planet, small ship-like forms obscured mainly by the Void as it drifted further from the planet. She spotted what appeared to be Protoss ships, the automaton ones, Warp Prisms as her genetic knowledge informed her, and some she had never seen before.
The Overseer hazarded closer, and closer, until she could see it was not ships, but Hybrids, massive Destroyers wearing armour and enhancements to allow them to work and move with ease even in the near atmosphere-less world.
As she watched, the Hybrids moved large structures that appeared similar to the constructs from the Void which Overqueen Zagara and the others had seen, into parts of the planet's surface that had been removed. Aliszha noticed too late, that her Leviathan had been targeted from a distance by a massive missile array on the planet's surface, unable to withdraw her Overlord in time, one volley of missiles, Terran in design, impacting the side of her Leviathan with enough force to blow it open.
Connected even at such a distance, Zagara quickly forced the Leviathan into Warp, to the only fortified location nearby.
"Adjudicator, a Zerg Leviathan just dropped out of warp nearby, its... It's badly damaged." Announced a young male Ahr'Aht at a console on the right side of the forward bridge. Xerxes Surriel, having been relaxed and reading through the information Leon had already gifted to the Terran Dominion, raised his long sinewy neck to peer over at the young male, his blue-green head feathers still barely Pinfeathers and not fully filled out, an image of a Zerg Leviathan, visibly losing blood and other fluids from its lower left, massive impact crater visible on the view screen before him. Xerxes stood swiftly, looking to the Taalrulthian nearby, a young male Air-element, who perked up when he moved.
**Harumistrel, contact Samateus, get her out there now. We need to know why it's been injured so close to us.** He sent, turning to the young male who had alerted him.
"Well done, though I hope it does not prove we have been targeted."