Episode 42- where disasters are averted, for the time being.
.
Artanis was… expecting something else. Really, to this very moment, the only way he saw psionics be used was the zerg way: control, and the Protoss way: telepathy, powering up specially attuned weapons, levitation and the psi storms.
From what little knowledge that he possessed, the Terran ghosts could achieve telekinesis, if they were exceptionally powerful. Kerrigan was the prime example, and after becoming a Zerg, she reached a level a little above average high templar, at last when it came to raw power. Somewhere in his mind wandered a small snippet of information about a weird incident where someone got into their network. Another snippet, something about a Terran planet which was sending out strong, unpleasant psionic waves, successfully scaring away the Zerg, and disrupting their local spy network. That was it, his mind didn't come for anything else.
He refocused his attention on Wit. He was still levitating, with the discs still spinning, but the speed of the rotations was certainly faster then in the beginning. The shroomman in question was surrounded by haze, which seemed to seep from under his clothes. Around the biggest golden half ring, another ring was formed, made from balls of… spores. The hazy not-mist slowly formed into those balls, just to slowly rotate, waiting to be used. And used they were.
Every time that some mutalisk or overlord flew over close enough, Wit just made a thrusting gesture with one hand, and the ball would sail forward with incredible speed, hitting the target. Or at last, six times out of ten. When one of those balls impacted the target, it would glue itself to it and do… something. In the first few seconds, the targets become sluggish, and after a few minutes, they just plummeted to the ground.
One of the mutalisks' corpses landed close for Artanis to see that something was growing out of his body. Mushrooms. Whatever Wit was throwing, it wasn't psionical in nature.
Artanis, on the other hand, felt disappointed, and mostly useless. The glaive thrower was very slow. It took him half a minute to charge it up, only to release a moon shaped projectile that was strong, true, but had rather short range. Simply put, it just disappeared after some distance. It was… barely usable. Dragoons and Scouts were so much more effective, leaving Artanis wishing very strongly for one of those Terran guns.
"Seems simple enough. Rufus, come to me!"
"One second, milady!" He sliced apart a jumping zergling with his scythe, then quickly placed his hand on his boar's head, and slowly slid it down. Getting the sign, his ride took a few steps back, and the defensive line was immediately closed up again by his fellow riders.
Releasing a quiet sigh, he steered his tusked friend towards his captain. After Dobromir returned all zerged over, he made a rather brief visit to their training grounds, and resigned from his position, promoting at the same time Katarina as their new commander. It didn't change much, really. Now, there just wasn't this one person who led them from time to time.
"Rufus, I, you, Don macabre, Bombastic Bill and Sarcastic Sally will split our band, ten people per group. I want you to brief everyone about our task."
"Which is, my lady?"
"Eradicate the source of our enemies' strength." Her icy blue eyes burned, leaving a wisps of light trailing off of her. "We'll begin once Smothership arrives."
"Hey, mustache guy!" A certain somewhat familiar voice sounded from somewhere, but looking around didn't show him the speaker. His commander was already stalking away on her snowy leopard.
"Hm, what?"
"You don't see the Sparkling Trixie? Pathetic." With a few chimes of delicate bell, a small, semi-transparent pony, adorned in familiar clothes and colors, hopped up into the air. Like a snow deer, pulling Santa's sleigh. "Listen Trixie, you oaf. I will tell you and the others how to deal with this plague. So listen closely…"
He knew Trixie, all got to meet her sooner or later. He also knew she was dealing with different types of perceiving things. Honestly, the illusion itself wasn't that surprising, but why that shape?
All around the duo, the riders of Po'Midor formed a circle, dealing with any rushing zerg that charged towards them. The first group of defenders, (sans Ixie and Trixie), was strewn about, helping where they could. Unknown to him, the young man was running himself ragged, helping all who received some damage, however slight it would be. For their luck, the zerg were coming in irregular waves, and didn't pose much of a threat, thanks to the other, older guy, also unknown to him. He changed from casting big, showy destruction spells, to causing their enemies life to be harder, changing the ground into mud, or growing spikes out of the ground.
Generally speaking, they were holding just fine. But they were at a standstill, waiting for their trump card to arrive.
"Fire!" The space was instantly filled with bullets, destroying the vultures defending the path. The troop quickly advanced, and started shooting the ERK's that tried to mine the minerals.
The two tanks accompanying the troop entered their sigmods, and begin their the mineral pool, in the enemy's base, began a mad scramble.
That was her chance, Mila pointed with her finger the nearby metallic platform/cliff, and they were off. The orange streak runned through the snowy ground like an arrow, reaching a certain point and performing a mighty leap! They soared upwards through the air, landing with grace, almost silently.
Now, the whole base spread out before their eyes. It was.. well a lot. A lot of marines, firebats, goliaths, vultures and siege tanks. And most didn't know where to go, as the other offensives just began. The mines were scanned out and destroyed systematically, and soon will come the time for the rest.
"I don't see a clear path for us… or maybe I do?" She looked all over the Barracks, Factories and Starports, an idea forming in her head.
"Hmm… I guess we can't just burn what is left of the forest, then." Mayor quickly bashed away zergling with his spiky shield, and the nearby rider finished it off with his bill hook.
He looked for a moment at the duo, the floating illusionary Trixie and somewhat ragged second commander of this band. Then he quickly whipped out his phone and dialed a number, still hiding behind his shield and holding it with the other arm. His wife mostly ignored the newcomers, and continued throwing her vials. She wasn't any kind of proficient in leading anyone, so she was here just to support her husband, and help with saving a very vital person, important to their whole colony.
"Admiral Helga, do you hear me?"
"Loud and clear."
"Hell has Frozen over, I repeat, Hell has Frozen over." And he ended his call. Rufus, tell the others too, we can't risk even a tiny flame."
"Of course, mister mayor, right away." The illusion trotting in the air to his side clearly didn't understand what it meant, but she didn't show it.
Bombastic Bill, who was repeatedly shooting with his giant crossbow, gave a fast thumbs up, and a "YEAH!". Clearly he understood.
'Zwish' something impacted Mila's back, and she lurched forward from the feeling, landing with her face in her furry ride's neck. They were jumping from building to building, and everyone was too busy to pay them any attention. Besides a Wraith, that is. Checking with hand, she discovered a hole in her clothes. Thankfully, the scales over her skin worked perfectly, nullifying any damage.
"This bastard is good." She looked back again, the flying machine was currently making a return, probably to make another hole in her clothing. Her friend followed her gaze, and turned around. They were standing on the edge of Starport, rather close to the point at which the ships started. Those structures were rather sizable, so maybe choosing it as their parkour journey was a risky move.
She foolishly thought that others would deal with potential flying enemies, and now she was attacked by a pesky fly, harmless, but very annoying. "Dammit. Let's go, my friend, quickly!" The fox lady yipped, and performing a short sprint she jumped away, towards a nearest barracks, barely avoiding the laser which singed a spot just behind her.
Touching a part of her helm, she quickly contacted her pilot. "Mina, come over here! Some hardass is trying to shoot me with his pathetic lazer, and I didn't come prepared!"
Another shot, this one grazing her left arm. "He's really good." On the plus side, they were rather close to their objective. And the Wraiths' anti-ground weapon was as pathetic as she heard.
The Assault was on! Their Nerazim brothers have sended over Corsairs as a support, making all their problems fade away. They created a 'disruption web' practically putting out of commission very zerg guarding the other edge of the ravine. It was very easy from there. The shuttles quickly transported them over, and the zerg were squashed by the roller called Protoss.
Still on the other end, Wit looked for a moment at the ensuing chaos. Artanis was at the front, charging the biggest and baddest enemies, dealing with them somewhat savagely. It must be that frustration at his uselessness against Mutalisks.
Right… those pesky flies. Wit floated over to one of those, defeated by his own spores. Only the overall shape remained somehow intact, but all of the body was overgrown with fungi, not showing even an inch of skin. Wit just kept hovering before it, thinking.
His musings were slowly interrupted by a weird sensation. Something was calling him from the carcass. Extending one of his hands, he beckoned this weird presence towards him. For a moment, nothing happened. And then… a small, green, almost glowing ball of fluff emerged from the mass, and floated over to him, attaching itself to the underside of his hat.
'Squish'. Looking back, Wit saw the remains sagging in itself, and the mushrooms just lost the… life in it. Still not knowing fully what happened, but feeling that this matter could be important, Ziemowit looked for the rest of the overgrown corpses, which didn't fall off to the ravine, that is.
The waiting in anticipation was making Kerrigan jittery, just a little. The Protoss above theme were wiping out the Cerebrate's forces, with a rather high proficiency.
Thanks to Dobromir shouting "Hocus pocus and you lost your focus, on us that is", they didn't have any problem with burying underground, and waiting. Talking with Protoss won't be easy, but it was necessary for her freedom. Dobromir, on the other hand, didn't seem concerned about someone controlling him, if it was even possible.
Speaking of the lunatic, Kerrigan heard a stifled laughter though the layer of dirt that separated them. She just hoped that he wouldn't ruin anything.
Mina saw the troublesome delinquent. Tis wooden boat had one, huuuge advantage. Being made mostly out of the wood, the Anti Air turrets ignored her vessel completely. The goliaths didn't see her, or couldn't lock on to her. Marines had better things to do than shooting at the, seemingly, primitive and unarmed boat.
Now, the boat was unarmed, but Mina herself wasn't. The moment she was called, she steered the boat in the right direction and quickly rummaged through the weapons assorted around the steering wheel & consol, for easy access at situations like this.
Now, Mina was gently steering her boat, much higher than the annoying wraith. Cranking her laser musket a total of SIX times, she looked through the eyegalls, and aimed properly.
Looking over her shoulder again, Mila quickly moved a little backwards on her friend's back, taking the full brunt of the laser. Practically half of her suit and clothing was burned away, leaving only the glowing scales on her back. Adding the insult to the injury, the cold was rather harshly getting to her.
Thankfully, a certain vessel appeared high above the battlefield, and she could see a momentary glint. A moment later, a powerful 'THOOOM' sounded out, and one of the Wraiths wings exploded, sending it plummeting to the ground.
Smirking, she returned to her target. Finally, one final jump, and the duo was on the edge of the platform, just behind a Tank. From there, nothing easier. Mina jumped off of the fox, landed on one of the tires' armor, ran up to it, and with a roar full of pent up frustration, she rammed her blade through the hatch. Then she retreated the blade, and rammed it again. A moment of silence, after which the lock opened with a hiss. 'Bang!' and a shot rang out a moment later, bouncing off of her scales with a 'plink'. The pilot inside looked with widening eyes, then tried to shoot again. Try is the keyword, because Mila quickly sliced his pistol in two, and then clubbed him in the head with the flat part.
Jumping down on her furry friend's back, they were off, towards another tank, situated rather close to this one. The whole interaction took less than 30 seconds.
Trixie sat on the hill above the cave containing the weird tree, looking at everything. Closest to her position were long, bing and green mushrooms, with their caps slightly curved upwards. Some distance away, there were other mushrooms, bluish, with their caps going downward. Trixie could see more details because it was mostly hidden by mountains, or maybe it was just a valley.
Everything else? Only shrubbery and grass remained. Everywhere she looked, there was empty terrain, or remains of raised trees. And of course, the many corpses of zerg, strew practically everywhere. And let's not forget the black spots, flowers of cursed bloom or something. Some zerglings were gathering around them, thankfully in small numbers, at last for now.
Her observations were cut short, as the emergency beacon lighted up like a ray of sun, and got many times bigger. Looking a little upwards, Trixie could see the end, the end of their problems. Smothership in all its glory, was surfing on the ray of sunlight.
When it reached a certain point, the giant ship engaged its own thrusters, and slid off the beacon, which faded to an unseeable point yet again. For a second, a silence overtook the whole world. And then, 'Thoom!' 'Thunk' 'Phis' 'Swish' and a myriad of other different sounds followed.
The sky was filled with things, things which started flying/falling towards the ground. Rockets, grenades', bolts, bullets, and even a single ray of ice cold laser, everything was aimed at the earlier mentioned black spots.
Rather quickly the whole world was filled with blue spots that looked like pox. Trixie looked at the nearest flower. Not only the black stopped flowing out from the flower, but everything stopped moving too. Seems any boost the zerglings got didn't include freeze resistance.
The Smothership kept flying and firing, going in the direction of the hive, or at last Trixie assumed so. After maybe a total of ten minutes, the freezing stopped. But not the shooting, oh no. A few basic munitions started falling down upon the popsicles. Some sniper rounds, ballistae bolts, cannon balls, everything that wouldn't cause an explosion, and potentially lead to fire.
"Now this, this Trixie calls a perfect kill. Because there isn't a kill like an overkill."
The moment Kerrigan felt the presence of Cerebrate fade away, she counted slowly to ten, and then ordered her mount to move. Tightly hugging her body to the zerglings, they burst out of the ground, scored a one second air time, and landed on the ground with a 'thud!'
Right after that, Kerrigan quickly stood up on her mounts' back, towering over the protoss. But she chose to not extend her bladed wings, erring on the side of caution. "Well done, mighty Protoss, I am glad to see that you are as violent as ever." She quickly glanced over the position where her companion was supposed to be, and the tension inside her rose significantly.
"Kerrigan, what mockery is this?" Zeratul still had some blood from the Cerebrate splattered over him. If he was a human, and would be smiling, the scene would probably be morbid. But accounting on the Protoss physiology, it just makes him look more fitting as a dark templar.
"Relax warriors, despite what you think, I didn't come here to fight you-" In that very moment, she was interrupted by two things. The aldaris buffon was starting to tell something, but more importantly, Dobromir burst out of the ground, with no air time.
Ignoring the voice of the Judicator, Dobromir hopped off of his mount, gripped his axe with blade pointing downwards in one hand, gripped the rim of his nonexistent tophat in the other, and took a deep breath.
"Hello my baby, hello my honey
Hello my ragtime gal
Send my a kiss by wire
Baby, my heart's on fire.
If you refuse me, honey, you lose me
And you'll be left alone, oh baby
Telephone, and tell me I'm your own"
His tapdancing ended here, and he took a deep bow, sweeping the nonexistent floor with his nonexistent top hat. Everything fell silent. Except for one floating shroomman who was beside Artanis, and just couldn't stop himself. "AhAHAHHAAHHA!
Kerrigan looked at the weird audience member only for a split second, before focusing her attention on Dobromir. Her face was full of fury, her hand tightened into fists, and her blade wings kept twitching, almost trying to strike him. "All of this for some cheap laughs?! I'll just, I'll JUST! ARGHHHH!" And she lunged at him.
Leaving his axe, Dobromir quickly began parrying her strikes with fists, or knocking away the blades. Even a kick with her sharp stilettos was batted away, giving him a chance to add oil to the fire "honey, you lose me!"
This time, Kerrigan roared, trying to hit him with anything even more than before. Dobromir just continued to parry her hits, adding the song lines or some other cheese ones, like "You wound me, dear!"
All the Protoss around just stood there, rather shocked, uncomfortable, and extremely unsure of what to do. Ziemowit, on the other hand, was rolling around in the air, his laughs getting redoubled, and getting even stronger after looking at his Protoss companions.
The two zergling just sat there and observed, their tails wagging back and forth.
"Ow. That hurts." despite the words, it was said in a deadpan tone. Mina was sitting on the boat, from waist up her body completely bare, sans a small bra. Mina was hovering around her back, checking every scale, and yanking out the loose and blackened ones. The fox lady was sitting a little to the side, head on paws, watching. with a slowly swishing tail.
"If you created those scales with magic, can't you just deal with it the same way." This time she found a really shaky, but stubborn at the same time bugger. After a few seconds of unfruitful tries, and hisses of pain, Mina used a little of her powers over the starlight. Heating the scale just a little made it loose enough to yank it out.
"Ouch. Growing those things was the easiest part. Despite my origins, I am not Dobromir. I found my own niche of magic that I can work with, and now I must learn from the ground up. Same as you. Ow."
"Okay, I think it's the last one. But Bugumila, you know that there is a rather high chance it would happen again, right? I can take care of something the size of wraith, but that doesn't mean I will have the freedom on the battlefield to do so."
Her boss ignored her for a moment, putting back the top of her suit, with her back still exposed. Then she went to some of the still unpackaged things, and started to search for one particular thing. After a minute, she brought out a small kite shield, and some straps. She threw the shield over her back, then attached the straps so they crossed over her chest creating an X. Checking her back over with hands, she sighed, the shield covered almost everything. Still, a bit of her back was still protected only by her scales, and nothing else.
Turning around, Mila answered, "I will think of something. But first things first, names." The fox perked up at the news. Mina just raised her brow. "You, my furry companion. From now on, your name would be Miko. Just Miko, for now. I leave the second part to our dear captain."
"Me? But I-" She didn't know what to say, honestly. The newly named Miko was with them from the beginning, but she didn't ride on her back, so she thought…
"You are equally important in our trio. Now, Bogumila doesn't really roll off of the tongue. Mila doesn't sound right either. But naming myself 'zirael' would be a little too haughty, coming from me, so just call me JARUGA from now on."
"Okay… I have to get myself familiar with that, I guess. What about our mission?"
Jaruga walked over to the railing, and looked at the post-battlefield. The remnants of the Dominion forces laid down their weapons when DZZ's forces walked inside the walled city. Thanks to her incapacitating the siege tanks, the forces could advance forward with ease, and shoot anything that moved. The rather small number of non-combatants were safely hidden in their barracks, so none of them died. On the other hand, a certain number of the soldiers continued fighting even when their companions laid down their arms, probably because they were Resocialized.
Overall, it was a smashing victory, with not too many losses. Some distance away, a certain wraith with one of its wings missing fled, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake.
The corruption was dealt with very quickly. The Riders of the Po'Midor was met with mostly popsicles, and maybe one or two barely moving zerglings. Shattering the ice
usually ended with shattering the thing within, of course discounting the black flowers. Thankfully, using a certain 'spring' of green 'fireflies', also known as dendrograna, the world quickly returned to full colors.
Riders shattered the ice mostly with the cloven hooves of their companions, or some weapons made for blunt damage. The further the five groups went, the less zerg they met, finally ending with the flowers being completely alone.
Smothership quickly located the pathetic zerg base, and using non-flammable explosions, dealt with the plague rather quickly. Seems those pests couldn't find vespane gas, or minerals for that matter, and used instead the fallen treants all around as biomass.
All this time, Trixie remained on the hill, looking at the art of war. Ixie, for safety sake, remained in the cave, guarding her sister, and the weird tree, which seemed to glow brighter with every minute that passed.
Author's not-read-me-note:
Yay, Christmas, I finally had more time to write more fully. Now, another week free (but not from learning) so I will probably write another chapter longer too.
Ah, and the song you can find by writing the first words, it's obviously not mine.