Weiss carefully navigated her way through the large cave, where the Vale Hive had placed its primary cluster. Originally this cave hadn't been that big, but in order to properly hide from both Grimm and Human/Faunus sight, the Zerg had greatly expanded the cave system, building a literal labyrinth. Key structures, which were always needed, when leading a brood were hidden in the deepest parts of the tunnels. Everything else consisted mostly of different types of static defenses, including a literal wood consisting of nothing more than Spine Crawlers. Those made it even for some of the bigger Zerg difficult to walk through, but that was a prize Weiss was willing to pay for a "safe house", so to speak.
After a little more walking, Weiss arrived at the Evolution Chamber, a structure which took two entire rooms of the size of a regular Beacon Classroom. The inside actually looked like a sized down version of Abathur's evolution chamber, only there was an acid pool in the corner, primarily used to recycle failed experiments. The local Queen Syama was standing in front of a couple of eggs, inspecting them with a critical eye. Weiss approached the Queen and addressed her.
"Syama."
Said Zerg turned around and bowed respectfully.
"My Queen, has your conversation with the Terrans ended?"
In response, Weiss let out a humorless laugh. "I wish. I think their brains short-circuited a while ago and we decided to take a short break. Blake is right now calling Beacon Academy, simply to assure that we did not end up as Grimm food. But enough about this."
Weiss approached the eggs, which from the outside looked like ordinary Zerg eggs. Very carefully, she stroked with a hand over the shell. "These are the last batch of Zerglings that were augmented with Ruby's gene strain, correct?"
"Indeed." Syama nodded. "As you know, Integrating a semblance to our units is a surprisingly complicated process. I have integrated the necessary strains a week ago following Abathur's instructions of course. Yet they're only due to hatch in a few hours."
"Unacceptable." The Schnee heiress stated. "We need to improve the process. Being able to replenish our troops in a matter of minutes is our biggest advantage over the other races. We cannot lose it." The humanoid Zerg let go of the egg and turned her head to Syama.
"I trust the Nydus-Network has been re-established?"
"The worms are digging tunnels as we speak, my Queen. It will take them a little longer than usual."
Weiss nodded. "That is acceptable. As long as we avoid another cave in and inevitable destruction of the Network. Damn King Taijitu. How can one Grimm do so much damage?" the girl muttered the last part.
"Well, we didn't expect a Grimm to find the worms and since we had no defenses-"
"That was a rhetorical question." Weiss deadpanned at the Queen.
"Forgive me, my Queen."
"It's alright. Did Abathur leave you with some of Blake's and Yang's samples?"
The Queen slowly shook her head. "No. He said the samples were too sparse. Apparently, he needed all of them to make proper test subjects."
"Well, it wasn't exactly easy getting them." Weiss crossed her arms. "Blake being a Faunus notices every time I come close to her and Yang is so protective of her hair, I am literally risking my life here." The SDC heiress shivered just thinking about what the blonde girl would do to her if she ever found out about what Weiss had done.
Just as the heiress composed herself, an earthquake appeared seemingly out of nowhere, lasting for only a couple of seconds.
"Ah, I assume the Nydus Worms have finally arrived."
"No, my queen." Syama disagreed, her voice on edge. "They're still digging the tunnels. And I do not have any Zerg here capable of creating such an Earthquake."
Weiss' eyes widened at that. "Shit." she cursed, spinning around and running back to the entrance.
XXX
In the meantime on the surface, Ruby, Yang, and Blake were holding onto each other, even though the earthquake already stopped.
"Wow. That was a real shocker." Yang proclaimed, earning her groans from her fellow teammates.
"I didn't know there were occurrences of earthquakes in this region," Blake commented, slowly loosening her grip on the others. However, a second later she did the exact opposite, as the ground shook once again this time more violently than before.
"A-a-a-a-a-a-a-f-f-f-f-f-f-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck-ck?-?-?-?-?" Ruby asked, her voice shaking, due to the tremors.
"What?!" the other two shouted over the noise or at least attempted to. There was just too much noise what with rocks falling off the nearby mountain, not to mention the screeching of the agitated Zerg creatures. Like in water, tiny waves rippled throughout the creep due to the constant shaking.
Speaking of the creep, it didn't exactly give the faunus and human siblings a good footing. As such it was to no surprise that after a particularly violent shake, all three girls fell to the ground. All three groaned in dismay, not because of the pain, but because of how sticky the creep was. Not only was it on their clothing, but it also stuck to their hair.
"Eugh. This will be a pain to get out." Yang mumbled to herself while making sure she was still holding her sister and her partner. In return, Blake and Ruby made sure to cling onto Yang's arms. Luckily for them, everything slowly but surely calmed down, until the shaking completely stopped.
The Zerg creatures had crouched down to the ground during both quakes, in order to not lose their own footing like Team RWBY just did. All of them stood back up to their feet or whatever equivalent they possessed. It could also be noted that the creatures were tense after the recent earth movement.
"We should look for a safe spot," Blake advised, getting up and helping her teammates. "It's not unusual for multiple aftershocks to occur after an earthquake."
As if to prove her point, the ground began to shake once again, more violent than the previous two times. And once again the three members of Team RWBY found themselves on the creep ground.
"You just had to jinx it!" Yang exclaimed, shooting Blake an angry look.
"Girls, look!"
Although it was hard to understand Ruby, the other two girls got the meaning of her words, due to the smallest girl pointing a finger to the west. What Ruby had spotted looked like the work of the biggest mole in existence. A massive amount of dirt, rocks, and creep was all piled up onto an at least 10-meter high hill and still growing. And it wasn't the only one. All around the nest more and more of those insane piles appeared from dirt being dug up from the underground.
"What the hell is going on?!" Yang exclaimed, desperately trying to get back on her feet.
The Zerg weren't particularly happy about everything too. The earthquakes already got them agitated, but the sudden appearance of those dirt piles almost turned them downright hostile. The insectoid aliens began surrounding the dirt piles to the best of their abilities, however getting up was a challenge in of itself, due to the shaky ground. Those who did make it, soon found an untimely death, due to multiple King Tajitus breaking through the ground, either sending the unfortunate Zerg flying or burying them under massive amounts of rock and dirt. The breakout sent one last shockwave across the ground, after which the earth finally stopped moving for good.
"Grimm!?" Ruby exclaimed. "King Tajitus?! And so many of them?!" As quickly as they could, the girls got up and drew their respective weapons.
"They're big too," Yang commented, searching for the best target to punch. "They look like they're at least twice as tall as our house."
"This is bad." Blake carefully aimed Gambol Shroud at one of the massive snakeheads, knowing full well she'd need to get a lucky hit on the eye to do any damage whatsoever. "Huge Grimm-like these aren't supposed to be even remotely nearby one of the Kingdoms. At least to what I have read."
"Well, looks like your books got it wrong this time," Yang commented.
The Zerg in the meantime had recovered from the shock blast and immediately started their counterattack. Zerglings being the fastest creatures in the current unit roster, swarmed the gigantic snake-like Grimm and began biting on their scaly exterior. The problem was that Grimm scales tended to be much tougher than most vehicle platings, especially when it came to the really old Grimm. As a result, it would have taken a lot of time for the Zerglings to kill the Grimm all on their own. Time the Grimm did not plan on giving the comparable minuscule creatures.
The King Tajitsu slammed it's body on the ground, flattening all the Zerglings in front of it. It then proceeded to swipe it's body over the floor, gathering many more Zerglings and smashing them all together, once they come into contact with a mountain. Similar tactics were utilized by other King Tajitus. Those that had no point of squashing the Zerglings, either tried to eat as many as possible, smashed their bodies multiple times to the ground or dug themselves out completely. The last option proved to be the most problematic one because as it turned out, the snake Grimm weren't the only ones attacking. Out of the holes appeared Deathstalkers, Beowulfs and even Ursars. To put the cherry on top, a considerable amount of Nevermores came flying from the southwest, rapidly approaching the hive cluster.
"This is a freaking army!" Yang exclaimed, killing an attacking Beowulf with a one-two punch combination.
"We need to get away! There are too many!" Blake shouted and began shooting into the ranks of the Grimm. "Plus, we need to warn the village."
"What about Weiss?" Ruby asked, shooting every Grimm that appeared between her crosshairs. "We can't just leave her here!"
"Maybe one of us should go looking for her?" Yang suggested, punching another Beowulf in the face.
Before a decision could be made, however, an Ursa Major had fought its way towards the trio of huntresses and forced them to dodge in very different directions. Each of them found themselves afterward in the middle of a fight between Grimm and Zerg, given them no chance to reform. For the moment the girls were forced to fight alongside the Zerg, which wasn't such a bad thing entirely.
The Hydralisks had been long since mobilized and moved into anti-air position to properly greet the nevermores, while Roaches acted as a shield against any ground Grimm that tried to get close to the softer snake-like creatures. A couple of Hydralisks, however, didn't move to the southwest, instead, they used the high ground to shoot their poisonous spines against the Grimm, focusing mostly on the King Tajitus. That being said, the Tajitus soon enough recognized the threat and their long bodies allowed them to reach the anti-air fighters of the Zerg and eat them with one bite. This didn't faze the local Zerg in the slightest. Each Hydralisk that was killed, was quickly replaced by a new one. Plus, reinforcements for all Zerg units appeared from out of the cavern, it what already appeared to be an endless stream of them.
Roaches proved to be very effective against the armored Grimm. Their acid ate through biological mass just as quick as it did with metal, nullifying a significant advantage the bigger Grimm usually possessed. This bone-like armor was, after all, bulletproof. The Roaches weren't done just yet, however. With their tunneling ability the Roaches that normally wouldn't have been able to attack, until one of their breather bit the dust, they appeared from the underground, surrounding the particularly large Grimm beasts and started spraying their acid on the enemy.
Team RWBY had no time to pay attention to such details. All of them were busy with their own fights, hacking, slashing and shooting whatever came in their way. Occasionally they would even hit or outright kill a Zerg on accident. Luckily for them, it didn't appear that the Zerg cared that much about friendly fire from their "allies" if RWBY could be called as such.
Speaking of the "W", Weiss finally managed to come out of the cave and came face to face with chaos itself. Many of her Zerg had fallen to the Grimm, their body parts and liquids being splattered all over the ground. At the same time, many dead Grimm already began disappearing into the black mist, blocking the Queen's line of sight in certain areas, thanks to the high amount of casualties.
Weiss didn't even try to suppress the growl that escaped her throat. She didn't know how the Grimm managed to assemble such a fighting force without anyone noticing and to be honest, she didn't care much either. What she did care about was that her home was being invaded, while at the same time her children were being slaughtered! These Grimm obviously had a death wish. And Weiss, the ever generous Queen would grant it to them.
Firstly she ordered some of the crawlers to reposition themselves in a more efficient manner. She also ordered every Zerg in the range of a King Tajitsu to attack the snake being immediate, since those had a bigger attack range than any of the stationary defenses. Finally, Weiss played her trump card. Although like any mother she didn't like sending her children to death, this was what was necessary right now. The Banelings, which had kept themselves hidden up until this point, unborrowed themselves and rolled in the direction of any large Grimm numbers. For the Grimm, those new enemies looked like easy pickings. That is until an Alpha Beowulf came into contact with a Baneling, which caused the rolling insect to go pop and the Beowulf to disappear in a pool of acid. It didn't even have the chance to scream. Other nearby enemies were also within spraying radius and experienced a rather painful demise. Armored Grimm, like Ursa Majors survived at the cost of their armor, making them easy picks for the other Zerg.
Weiss in the meantime wasn't just standing by idly. She rushed in right in the middle of the battlefield, ignoring the shouts of her leader and other teammates. There was no reason for her to hold back anymore. Her friends knew her secret and now she would show them just what she was really capable of.
She had no dust chamber selected, yet her blade was glowing in an icy blue light, similar to her eye color. The Grimm felt her rage, which caused three young Beowulfs to straight up jump at her with raised claws. With a single motion of her blade, the three monsters were beheaded, before they could even reach her. From an outsider's perspective, it looked like she just swung her blade in the air, when in reality she unleashed a very thin psionic wave.
Without even acknowledging the dead Grimm, the Queen sprinted forward until she was in front of an Ursa Major. The gigantic creature roared in rage, slamming its paws down at the disguised Zerg. Seeing the obvious attack coming, Weiss conjured a glyph and used it as a shield. The Ursa screamed in pain when it felt all of the damage being reflected back into its paws. For you see, Weiss hadn't just conjured a normal glyph. Instead of resembling a snowflake, like it was the norm with the Schnee family, the inside now showed the symbol of the Zerg, one that had been invented by the Queen of Blades herself. Why the ascended queen created such a thing in the first place, Weiss could only guess, but she was proud of being able to bear it. It also allowed her to use her glyphs in very different matters from the norm.
For example, Weiss drew a glyph beneath her, making sure there was creep all around her. What followed was the multiple creep cylinders raising into the air, until they were as long as Spine Crawlers and took on the form of said static defenses. Those then proceeded to attack any nearby Grimm, from which still more poured out of the holes the King Tajitus created. Speaking of them, quite a number of them fell under the constant barrage of Hydralisk's spines, allowing the long ranged fighters to focus on the other Grimm. Weiss still held up her Glyph, knowing that the Spines surrounding her would disappear ten seconds after she stopped conjuring the glyph.
Ruby didn't understand what was going on, then again, she had a hard time comprehending everything from the very beginning. Plus she didn't have time to think about all the craziness anyways because those Nevermores were not only bombarding the Hydralisks, but also the three huntresses. Since killing Grimm didn't actually require a lot of thought, Ruby had turned her attention to the fliers and started shooting them. Her sister and Blake did the same since their leader didn't give them any other orders. And with the current amount of Grimm attacking, there wasn't much strategy that could be implemented anyway, aside from kill everything and stay alive.
The Spore Crawlers proved to be surprisingly resilient against the feathers of the Nevermores, even though they couldn't lose forever. Half of the original number were already lost. However the Spore Crawlers had a bigger range than the bird Grimm and given that those had no armor whatsoever, a single shot at least crippled the creatures, before they could do much else.
"I know this is the wrong time," Yang shouted, while reloading "but I just want to point out that the entire situation her is just downright crazy!"
"I think crazy is pretty much becoming the norm!" Ruby shouted back over her own shots.
Blake used her shadow clones to dodge an incoming onslaught of feathers, before shooting back, using electricity rounds. She managed to pump enough of those into one Nevermore, which temporarily stunned the creature and caused it to drop to the ground, where it was quickly torn apart by the Zerglings.
"We still need to get out of here! I have already used up three-fourths of my ammunition."
"Yeah, similar with me." Yang agreed with her partner. "You know, those guys here," she pointed at the Zerg "are actually doing a fine job themselves. We should just grab the Ice Queen and get out of here."
"That will not be necessary."
With the help of her normal glyphs, Weiss had jumped back to the position her team was currently occupying and turned towards the Nevermores. She conjured a huge Zerg Glyph, which covered a huge area, reflecting the Nevermore shots. With this being taken care of, Weiss turned her attention to the nearby Hydralisk.
"Kill the remaining King Tajitus. Clear the area, so that our Nydus Worms can break through."
The Hydralisks obeyed without question, snaking their way towards the ongoing fight.
"Er...Weiss?"
"Yes, Ruby?"
"What are...Nydus Worms?"
In response, Weiss simply smiled devilishly, as the ground began to shake once again.
XXX
The fight between Zerg and Grimm didn't go completely unnoticed. A singular Terran Battlecruiser, belonging to the rare class of so-called "Super-Battlecruisers", was stationed in high orbit around Remnant. An outsider might have asked how this thing was still capable of maneuvering, given that it looked like it had been navigating straight through an asteroid field, not to mention the flesh, spines, and tentacles growing out of it.
Yet the Aleksander was fully functional and occupied at the moment. Most of the crew had fallen to the Zerg Virus years ago and lost their individual minds. They could be compared to robots, only there to do a specific task on the ship.
Alexei Stukov, one of the few unfortunate earthlings to have survived the Brood War, was currently seated in his old command chair and watched the ongoing battle through a still functioning hologram of the star map. With him on deck were not only the necessary board personal but also a Broodmother by the name of Ki'Nara. Ki'Nara was a veteran Broodmother, having served ever since the Queen of Blades replaced the old starfish like Queens with the nowadays Broodmothers, like herself. She was smart enough to stay out of the conflict or civil war as the Terrans would name it, between all the other Broodmothers and decided to search with Alexei their lost Main Leviathan.
Finding it wasn't as hard as they expected it would turn out to be. Plus it appeared as if Izsha and Abathur had already decided on a successor to Zagara, that being the Terran girl named Weiss Schnee.
For years the two had observed the growth of the new Queen, trying to determine whether she was a worthy successor or not.
"Well," Stukov spoke with a heavy Russian accent "I didn't expect the Grimm to attack like this. It kind of reminds me of how the Zerg usually fight a foe."
Ki'Nara nodded in agreement. "Perhaps they possess a hive mind similar to our own."
"It seems like it. Interesting, wouldn't you agree? I wonder if they too have an Overmind controlling them? Because if that is the case, I am wondering why they haven't used their superior number to wipe out the humans from the face of this planet already?" Stukov stroked his beard, thinking.
"Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it was a coincidence that so many Grimm attacked at once. Or maybe they have a form of communication unknown to us." Ki'Nara suggested.
"Hmm… I doubt it is a coincidence, but so far this is the first time we have seen such a grand scale coordination between the Grimm. For now, we should see how Miss Schnee will fair in this battle. Ah, Nydus Worms. An old classic by now." the infested man commented.
"They have proven to be very effective if placed correctly," Ki'Nara commented. "This fight is over. The Grimm stand no chance against our Ultralisks."