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AN: AS a note to those who are wondering when this all takes place during canon, Chapter Three is
referencing mission Zero Hour from just after the start of WoL.

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"And over here we have an upgraded version of your standard evolution chamber."

It had been a fortnight since since She had assigned Xarozel to this test of his abilities, and She had decided to except his invitation of a tour. And by invitation, She meant the constant dropping of not so subtle hints that She should drop by. Though the deciding factor had most definitely been the smugness that was becoming more and more apparent in his voice. He wanted to show off. And if She had learned anything from the new Batta drones, it was that a smug Xarozel, almost guaranteed a wonderfully monstrous surprise.

And this, was no exception.

"Xarozel. What, in the name of the Xel'Naga did you do to that structure?"

Standing roughly thirty meters away, was a creature that seemingly resembled its namesake only in the fact that it was zerg. At just over forty meters, the structure could have easily dwarfed an omegalisk. It's head was huge, at three meters both tall and wide, and five meters long, its six giant glowing blue eyes seemed to search endlessly search for something to devour. Its maw resembled that of a titanic zergling. As She moved Her gaze further down She saw that, on further inspection, it in fact did vaguely resemble a traditional evolution chamber. Its body and torso were, in fact, the same for the most part. The biggest difference there, was that instead of laying on its side along the ground, it was upright and had a more standard musculature for organisms with limbs, which it also now had.

The huge arms on its shoulders were rather formidable, looking to be able wrestle an ultra to the ground and death soon after with minimal effort; and long enough that if really wanted to, it could tear a chunk out the hatchery some hundred meters away from it. The new creature quested back and forth, its gaze continuing its search for new consumables, but strangely, seemed just as protective of the hive as it was hungry. This beast was as loyal as any zerg to the safety of the hive. She was impressed to say the least. She had known zerg, that on rare occasion, would put their personal function/task in the swarm over the safety of the swarm itself. These She would promptly put down. An over obsessed zerg unit was not a wise thing to keep in the ranks. They tended not to work very well with others at all.

As She continued to observe the newest addition to the zerg, She noticed something moving near the base, and turned Her gaze to follow. Surrounding the base of the 'building' were a mass of writhing tentacles. Another remnant of its origins, She realized.

In front of the Chamber, obviously on purpose, sitting just under the head, was a standard spawning pool. However, this was had something slightly different about it. Apparently, it was now connected to the evolution chamber, as evidenced by the chambers tentacles dipping in and out of the pool.

At last She turned back to the trio of Her (sometimes) favorite Insubordinate for his, by now expected, overview of the changes and the thoughts behind them. It seemed he had developed a habit of always having three of himself around with his main body at the time. He really was confusing sometimes.

"You like?" Body A (a standard Arbitel) asked with his customary grin, though by the laughter in his voice he obviously was sure She was without a shadow of doubt. "You already know the answer to that Child." She responded with a small smile of Her own. She had been doing that a tad more often when it came to him of late. It seemed that after a while his grin was either infectious or so maddening it made you want to kill him. Sometimes both at once.

"Well, yeah, but it's still nice to hear you say it, M'Lady." Body C (another Arbitel) continued as if it was exactly the same person. Which it was, more or less. Rolling Her eyes, She decided to humor Him. "Yes, Child. I like."

Three near mirror image grins greeted Her words, and She smiled almost despite Herself.

"Well then! Let's say I introduce you then!" Body B (his 'battle body') exclaimed with his typical exuberance, and as one, the three began to lead Her to Her latest surprise. "Hatsuiku! Here Girl!" Body A called up to his creation; or was it Body C? It was getting very hard to keep track of them.

"You know," She spoke to him telepathically "You really should think of making another body type if
you're going to keep going around in trios like this. It's very disorienting."

"I'm working on it." He replied knowingly "Though that does give me a good idea for interrogation and
negotiation tactics. Meh, I'll look into that later."

As ever his gears were always in eight different directions. To which, She simply shook Her head in amusment. She doubted he'd ever change.

When 'Hatsuiku' heard Xarozels call, it imediately looked down at them with joy and proceeded to
pick up all four of them in its massive claws. 'No. Wait. She, not it. He does tend to put up such a
fuss when i do that. and he did say girl.' She sighed mentaly. Somehow, he had managed to convince Her go along with that. She still couldn't understand why She hadn't killed him yet, but by now it was just an accepted fact Xarozel would be Xarozel.

"Otou-sama! Okaerinasai. Ogenkidesuka? Kore wa kanojodeshou ka?"*

The obviously female voice in Her head apparently belonged to the new unit currently holding them in her hands. All three of him started laughing at the barrage of, what She assumed to be questions directed at him.

"English, Child! English! Hello, to you too, I am well, and yes, this is Her. But remember, M'Lady doesn't speak Japanese, Musume."

Body B chided warmly to her as gently took off and landed on her head to sit and give an affectionate rub. The image of that scene would stay with Her forever, She was sure. She never knew the zerg could blush!

"Gomen'nasai, Otou-sama. I'm still not exactly used to talking like this."

By the crusty old corpse of the Overmind! The thing was acting as shy as a schoolgirl!

"It's alright Musume. I'm not upset, just amused. Now, don't you think you should introduce yourself to our guest?" Hatsuiku's eyes widened in realization at how rude she was being to their guest.

"Hai!" Turning back to Her, Hatsuiku gave Her a bow as best she could while still holding Her in her hand.

"My apologies, M'Lady. I am afraid I let my excitement get the better of me. My name is Hatsuiku no Xarozel. Father has told me much about you."

Startled by the display of affection and individuality, She raised and eyebrow and looked questioningly at the pair in front of Her.

"Has he now? Father?"

The chuckle by beside Her was almost expected.

"A happy accident. It seems to due to the nature of her birth and my role in it, combined with her newfound inteligence, she has come to view me as her Father, which is not very far off. I am her creator after all. We have developed a nice Father-Daughter bond, Neh, Musume-chan?" This last was obviously directed at the...child, in front Her, as she nodded her head in deference, blushing just the slightest at his praise.

"Hai, Otou-sama."

This was something entirely new to Her. It seemed the child had as much free will as a broodmother! She turned to Body C (at least that's who thought it was..screw it WAS C now!)

"Two things. Japanese? And individuality?"

C responded with, of course , his ever present grin. "Ah, the Japanese was also a complete accident. Still not quite sure how that worked its way in, but apparently all of my creations for some reason speak japanese natively; though are all just as capable of speaking common, most simply prefer not to. As for the individuality, I think the Swarm needs more creative thinking. We have gotten too stagnant as of late, though not nearly so much since you rose to power M'Lady. The inovations you came up with during your quiet growth after the Brood Wars just goes to show you what some good old fashioned human creativity can do. Don't you agree?"

The one eyed grin he gave Her was, of course, expected. This was Xarozel after all. The slightly knowing tone he had was somewhat less so, though not completely so. And his complete disregard for anything else, just to surprise Her... She was starting to get an incling as to what She had been missing all these years.

"I suppose I do, Child. But then, You've always had a way with words haven't you, Xarozel?"

A three way smile was Her only response.

"So, are you going to tell me how you designed her?"

B blinked, "Ah! Yes! Well, to start, I got the initial idea when I noted a perfectly good set of spine, ribs, and skull complete with teeth in the original chamber. And I thought, 'Well, that's rather a waste of potential isn't it?'. So I got to work. The thing I did was make it upright. After all, what good is a mouth with teeth if it can't get to the prey? Then I took a cue from one of my old world memories. You see, as you were a video game, so were others, which being here now, I can only assume are also real. One of them was a game called Warcraft, made by the same company that did your game. In the third game there was a race you could play as called the elves. the thing about the elves was, most of there structures were great tree beings, that could root themselves to act as builds and spawners, or uproot themselves to move around and attack their foes. I decided to go for a similar concept here. After making the Chamber upright with a viable head and mouth, I gave it some arms. This not only gives her the ability to grab and eat attackers, but also smash them, claw them, anything she can think of she can do for the most part. After that was the enhanced intelligence to tell friend from foe, and also identify possible genetic strains of interest that may be nearby. Now, I realized that turning the whole structure might be a problem for the actual manipulations that occur within it, so I added in nydus DNA to solve that." He turned to Hatsiuku.
"Musume."

"Hai?"

"Take us in please."

"Hai, Otou-sama." and with that, the giant swallowed them whole.

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When they emerged, they were inside what seemed be a replica of Abathurs Den. The obvious resemblance to the geneticist's lair what not coincidence.

"As nydus network acts as a junction for all the worms it spawns under ground, this area is somewhat analogous. It is the place in the chamber where, as we former terrans say, the magic happens. Given time we could have workers down here facilitating the running of things, or, use this as a kind of bunker, for drones and other non combat oriented units during an attack. As an added bonus she has another stomach adjacent to this one where enemies can be deposited for
digestion and analyzation." Kerrigans eyes were doing there best to imitate saucers during his tour
and explanation.

"How do you do this in only two weeks?" Her mind boggled the possibilities. The whole of the swarm, evolved to the next stage, every structure its own its own defensive unit.

"Why, I had help, of course."

"You had help? Who?"

"Well my past for one."

"Me, Myself, and I, for another." He gestured to both his current bodies, B having been left outside
with Hatsuiku.

"And last, but not least, these guys." He gestured forward into the chamber they were rounding a corner into. Within, were at least a dozen Arbitels busy at their work. Though most were what She had come to see the 'standard model', about a third of them had further augmentations, namely the small, somewhat bulging blue patches on shoulders, thighs, chest, and forearms rather reminiscent of Abathur. The slightly less notable addition wasn't readily apparent until one of them opened his mouth to consume the piece he was working on.

Upon noticing Xarozel, one of the Arbitels imediatley straightened himself.

"Toushu-sama!" At his words all of the others turned and bowed as one.

"Youkoso, Toushu-sama." The perfect chorus had an interesting effect. An Army of these all speaking in unison would be damn unerving to face.

She looked to Xarozel to see what this was about, however She was met with an interesting sight. Gone was his charateristic grin, replaced with a look of stern displeasure.

"I believe I have told you all this once. Do not stop your work simply to bow to me. Genetics are a tricky thing, no matter how skilled you are. What may end up a dud, or happy accident could just as easily turn into a viral plague we may not be equiped to handle. If you feel the need to greet me the moment I enter the room, Use. Words. You just demonstrated you have them. Do Not, make me tell you again." She had to to admit, She was impressed. She hadn't thought him capable of such gravity, with the way he usually conducted himself in Her presence.

All the geneticists bowed again, deeper this time. "Gomen'nasai, Toushu-sama."

All of a sudden he returned to his usual demeanor. With his customary grin back in place, he gave the
group an eye smile.

"Totemo yoi, otouto-tachi." With that, he turned back to Her. "M'Lady, I introduce to you my Genetics Core. With these guys, and occasionally me, down here, all advancements take much less time to complete." The pride he had in his voice was evident, and made the members of the Core straighten themselves, taking great pride in the pride that he had in them.

"Impressive. I must admit, the advances you've already made are astounding! But what is with the blue patches? They remind Me of Abathur?"

"Ah, well, to facilitate in the actual manipulation of gene stands, I acquired and incorporated a bit of Dear Old Abby's DNA. They now have similar abilities but to a lesser extent. After all, I think we can all agree Dear Old Abby would be more than a bit miffed at me popping out copies of him." He snickered lightly, "One Abby is enough for the Swarm."

"Indeed." She could indeed see 'Dear Old Abby' being rather irate at such an idea, and it was quite amusing.

"I notice that they are blue. Abby is green. Care to enlighten?"

"My own personal touch. As all the broods have their own unique distinguishing feature, mine shall be blue luminescence. You may have noted outside that Hatsuiku's eyes are blue as well."

"So, if one were to face your armies in the dark, all they'd see would be a huge mass of glowing
blue lights?"

A chuckle followed this question. "For the most part, yes. though there may be some other glowy bits down line, we haven't gotten that far yet. You have to admit though, it would be quite a scare tactic. Humans as a whole are generally disquieted seeing one pair of glowing eyes in the dark. You can only imagine the terror they might feel seeing the galaxy turned blue come to ground to storm their position." He laughed, only slightly manically. "Oh the things I could do with all these ideas you give me M'Lady." His voice was tinged with awe and wonderment at the possibilities he saw before him in his minds eye.

"And I look forward to seeing them Child. You have obviously proven yourself capable in running a cluster. I think It's time for your next test."

His laughter died down as his attention was arrested by Her words. "Hmm?"

"It's time to show Me how you can handle combat. Let's see how you do off-world, shall we?"

At this both A and C just grinned, with more than a touch of wild glee in their eyes. The verbal response, however, came from behind. It seemed B had come down from Hatsuiku.

"By your leave then, M'Lady."

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So, here's chapter six. not much happens here. sorry, but i had this idea while watching a lets play of WoL for timeline stuff, when i saw that the evo chamber had skull with teeth in it! enter Xarozel's reasons for creating Hatsuiku above. Also, yes this story will be very japanese heavy in some spots, as i have a great interest in it.

In all honesty, this chapter could be better. but im really just letting things flow out of my head onto the keyboard, so, yeah. however! next time will be CONFLICT!(i hope)

As always read, review, i'm getting lots of watches and favs, but hardly any feedback!
PLEASE GIVE ME REVIEWS! things tend to go better with them. for any who are interested, i'm still working on Three Months to Live, but seeing this is aparently the crowd favorite, i'll problly be spending slightly more time on this; though not by much, seeing as TMtL is MY favorite story right now.

TTFN!

\/Translations\/

batta - locust
hatsuiku - development
Otou-sama - Father
Okaerinasai -welcome back
Ogenkidesuka? - how are you?
Kore wa kanojodeshou ka? - is this her?
hai - yes/okay/alright/affirmitive/etc.
Youkoso - welcome
toushu - Family Head
totemo yoi - very good
otouto-tachi - little brother