Remember how I mentioned that everything changed once night set? I wasn't kidding. I watched in dumbfounded shock through the eyes of my Overlords as the sun set, and the rising of the moon, monsters started popping up everywhere.
Not just any monsters though, no it had to be Zombies, lots and lots of Zombies. A literal horde just popped up out of nowhere with the rising of the moon. It gets even better though. Walking skeletons are with them, skeletons with glowing red eyes and wielding bows. You might start to see where this is going. I can see gigantic spiders in the trees as well.
None of that compares to the reason I recalled all my Drones into the Hatchery though. Creepers. They're everywhere. Stone arrows and grasping biting Zombies might as well be push overs, but walking kamikaze bombs? Yeah, I got my Drones back into the Hatchery in a heartbeat.
As if all that isn't bad enough, there's a handful of Endermen out and about too, and they're all freaking out trying to get at my Overlords, making those awful screeches! I HATE the noise the Endermen make. Freaks me the hell out! And thanks to these new ears of mine, I can hear them. All of them. My only consolation is that none of them have popped into the Hatchery itself, but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time.
Minecraft! Why'd it have to be Minecraft!? Starcraft I can handle, but MINECRAFT!? Not only is this absolutely ridiculous, but it explains so much too! You wouldn't hear bugs or birds or other animals in a forest of Minecraftia because there AREN'T ANY! It also explains why I just popped up here out of freaking nowhere too. New World generated MY ARSE!
Ok… gotta calm down. Calm down… BOOM!
Oh great. It seems the Creepers are treating my buildings as one giant creature and are starting to ram my Hatchery with their explosive selves. Wait, they're only doing 50 damage per explosion? How the heck does that work?
Having an Overlord angle itself so it can see the spot where the last Creeper explode, I watched in surprise as the Hatchery knitted itself back up near instantaneously, but the information it's giving me still says that it's HP is 50 less, though it is regenerating? That would suggest that HP is more of an energy source used to heal rather than an actual counter of health.
You know, that actually explains a lot. I always thought it a little ridiculous that a Siege Tank wouldn't just blow a hole into the side of a Zerg building in one shot, but after taking away so much HP, the building will start to bleed a bit, before it finally ruptures in on itself. At least that way, HP and physics can actually work together, rather than running completely contradictory.
I'm getting distracted though. With my Hatchery having 1250 HP total, so long as it doesn't get hit by 125 Creepers all at once, then it should be ok. Considering the Creepers only seem to be coming one every half a minute or more, the Hatchery should be able to pull through. I don't want to take any chances though, so I start to formulate a plan to slow down the Creeper advance.
Unfortunately, I don't have any cats, so that's out. Luckily, there's still a way. If there's one thing you can rely on with Creepers its sheer stupidity. If I can pile up something around my Hatchery, then the thing'll just sit there and stare so long as they can't hop over it. Unfortunately, I'm limited there too. Anything I could pile up, like the withered trees for example, would require approaching the ground. I really don't want to send my Drones out there, and with the Endermen doing their level best to swarm onto my Overlords, I can't use them either.
Then again, it might not matter. What the heck could an Enderman do to an Overlord anyway? All it does is bite, teleport, and have an extreme case of kleptomania. It doesn't explode, so maybe the Overlord will be ok? Sending only one towards the deadened trees as a test, I have it start gathering them up. Immediately, the Endermen use the nearby trees as launching points to Swarm onto the Overlord. As expected, nothing's really happening…
My eyes nearly fell out as the Overlord suddenly gave a death cry and collapsed to the ground, dissolving into nothing while being absorbed by the Creep. Those sick bastards… one of the Endermen teleported into the Overlord, grabbed a hold of its brain and yanked. That takes kleptomania to a whole new sick level, and the rest of the Overlords watched as the Enderman still hanging onto the large chunk of Overlord brain resumed the charge to get at the others. No way in hell am I trying that again, and now I have a whole new reason to be freaked out by the Endermen. Lovely.
Unfortunately, I can't think of anything else to try. Or at least, nothing I can try that I won't do unless there's no other choice. Hunkering down, I can only wince in empathy and helplessness as the Hatchery takes blow after blow. I do note, with interest, that each time a Creeper blows up, the Creep is destroyed, absorbing the blow and leaving the ground underneath alone, only for the Creep to just grow back as usual.
Actually, observing the Creep has given me a few ideas. Mentally contacting the Hatchery, I try to order it to grow a shield of Creep over its skin. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the biological capability to do that. Just another thing I'm going to need to change it seems.
That leaves my second idea. Scrapping the previous idea, I order the Hatchery to stimulate the growth of the Creep nearest to the Hatchery to extreme levels. Thankfully, it can and does so. Crossing my fingers, I watch as a ring of creep close to the Hatchery pulsates rapidly, building up higher and higher. It's working! The downside though is that the rest of the Creep outside that circle is degenerating.
I watch in sadness and anger as the degenerating Creep leaves the Evolution Chamber behind. The building is already almost dead from the Creepers anyway, but being forced to sacrifice it like that… it's a living breathing creature. It's a pitiful thing to watch as it slowly wilts and gets rocked back and forth from explosions. Finally, with one last shudder, the Evolution Chamber implodes and dissolves. I honestly don't know what to feel right now. Silent tears are streaming down my face, but my insides feel cold and empty. The gambit worked. The rest of the monsters can't get past the barrier of Creep, and the Endermen are still too focused on trying to singlemindedly get at my Overlords to do anything else, but it was too high a cost. Much too high.
I won't be getting any sleep tonight. Not with the Endermen constantly shrieking like that. I contemplate ordering the Overlord to move off and drag the Endermen with it, but then a different Endermen might not get caught in the trap of singlemindedly pursuing the Overlords and enter the Hatchery, and I can't have that. They're the only things that can at least. All the entrances to the Hatchery sealed off as soon as the monsters started appearing.
At least the wall of Creep is working. Belatedly I realize this is really going to screw up my bio-energy income, having the Creep formed up like this. Nothing I can do about it now unfortunately. You can bet I'm going to be militarizing the heck out of the Swarm come morning, but until then, I can only hunker down whilst a pair of Drones press into my sides while I pet them, and wait for morning to come.
I think I'm going nuts with how long I've had to listen to the shrieks of those Endermen. I may have shouted back once or twice. I can't remember. I'm so fatigued its ridiculous. Strangely, the Shrieks have been going on so long that I've actually been able to tune them out a little bit, despite how creepy and scary they sound. See? They're seemingly getting quieter already!
No wait, they really are getting quieter. They're teleporting off to who knows where. Why are they doing that? I look through my Overlord's eyes to determine the reason. Ah that explains it.
Morning has come.
-Chapter End Review-
OVERMIND
Health-50/50
Psi-energy-10/100
Psi-Replenish-10pc
Control-10ucp
Abilities
Spawn Hatchery-100psi-2hours-1ucp
ZERG SWARM Lvl 1
Bio-energy-125
Bio-replenish-100pc
Control used/provided-10/27
Strains Available
Larvae-0be-0:1:0-3 Per Hatchery-25hp-10armor
Drone-50be-0:20:0-1ucr-40hp-5ga
Overlord-100be-0:40:0-8ucp
Buildings Available
Hatchery-300be-2:0:0-1ucp-1250hp-800 m creep gen
Extractor-50be-0:40:0-750hp
Creep Colony-75be-0:20:0-500hp-500 m creep gen
Spore Colony-50be-0:20:0-400hp-15aa-700mr
Evolution Chamber-75be-0:40:0-750hp
Spawning Pool-200be-1:20:0-750hp
SWARM COMPOSITION
Sentients-1
Overmind
Underlings-13
1 Hatchery
2 Overlords
10 Drones
Vassals-0
Allies-0
REQUIREMENTS TO EVOLVE
Spawning Pool
A/N - Just fixed a few typos I spotted and changed the format a little. Unfortunately I added the Author's Notes after the fact so I accidentally erased a reply to DalintyMan's Review, so I'll have to retype what I can remember of it.
DalintyMan - Kudos to you for recognizing the Spore reference from Chapter 1. Hopefully my explanation of HP for this story makes sense to you. As for the low time requirements, I'm trying to make the Zerg Swarm as realistic as possible, and I feel that fast build times for the penultimate evolutionary race is only natural, especially when competing against Protoss who only have to step through a Warpgate already armed to the teeth, and Terrans who only have to stand still in an assembly line and have the armor built around them. Iron man can do it in seconds. Tychus Findley can do it in a minute. Zerg have to keep up with that and they do, and then some. Hence, they must grow up super fast. That's my take on it anyway. As for no SC2 Units, there's an explanation for that, but that'll be in the story later, so no spoilers. Besides, Mr. Parasini is well aware of SC2 and he can recreate those units if he wishes.