Hey! This is the author I am rewriting the first chapter of this fic and finally continuing it! I'm expanding on all that I had written previously. Please Enjoy!
If you wish to support me, I have a Twitter! It is Little_Lamb31532, it is a place where I will post updates and stuff! It also has a link to how to support me!
The sole inspirations for this fic. Starcraft 2's Abathur being my favorite boy, MHA's Izuku being a soft boy, and Catalyst By Strandshaper, which I read around like… Forever ago, I recommend it, it's a Harry Potter x Starcraft 2 fic with a really well-written Abathur!
I would also like to invite you all to my Discord server for my fics— /tsCyUV2m6k . I do polls, post announcements for the chapters, and have links to all the important things on that server. It recently got a facelift as well, with the new surge in activity. Being on the server means you get to vote for the different fics and maybe even change a fate or two.
Anyway, back to the fic.
The empty expanses of space stretched for infinitum, the black nothingness painted in the colors of the cosmos. Drifting in that unforgiving void, a colossus of flesh and bone floated. The lesser Terrans roughly sized the creature to just under a small moon in length. However, as the beast drifted almost aimlessly, orderless, it was its master that spun the threads of genetics, it was its master that knew its exact length, its every hair and nerve ending. It had no need to measure—the beast it was hosted by stretched precisely 11.389 kilometers, or 6.835 miles. The leviathan felt the wandering psychic mass that was its master's mind. Their master felt no need to go anywhere. So it drifted in the cosmic wind, its large body flexing as adjusted its massive spined tentacles.
Slithering deep in the depths of the large space-faring organism; in interworking tubing, birthing chambers, and walkways, a large creature ripped the flesh of one of its newest creations into pulpy piles. Its body was cocooned in thick plates of chitin, protecting its soft innards. Massive, throbbing glands filled with fluorescent green liquid pulsed within. They pushed and pulled large quantities of the material from gland to gland, moving it between portions of the body as it synthesized and eradicated millions of genetic combinations. From its tail to its four-eyed head, these glands cropped up and reproduced the genetic material they housed, its thick plates similarly only being split to allow the multitude of arachnid legs. Sprouting from places between plates, they were either capped with sharp-edged points for traversal or a hand of varying fingers and properties. The hands pulled stringy fibers from the softly glowing glands near them, tying them with others and pulling the thin chain of genes to another hand that would alter it further.
The creature's mouth watered as it scooped the remnants of its last failure into the cavity. Thin endless rows of teeth began dicing the meat and bones as they began to get soaked with harsh acids meant to reduce the creature back to base-level elements. The thin teeth pulled the genetic code quickly before they could be dissolved. He only needed one full strand, but shredded gene sequences were never enjoyable to mend.
The eyes, each one shielded by a thick symbiotic outer eye lens of its own design scanned the pit. He had come to enjoy it here. Livable, full of biomass and subjects. Dense pockets of uteral flesh slowly pushed thickly armored worm-like creatures into the cavern around the creature. And the high moisture made its job easy. Its master had called it the evolution pit.
The creature, self-named Abathur, had worked in this same chamber for years. It felt the thousands of vital organs that ran through its body shudder in a familiar distaste. These shuddering caverns of flesh it designed had been where Abathur used to follow its goal. It had one goal, a goal so ingrained in its own form he could not process another. The goal of making the perfect swarm, the perfect weapon for an also perfect ruler. Recent events, however, have changed so much. It had a perfect ruler, that once perfect ruler had vanished. That perfect ruler had been his favorite creation, his most prized. The only one that scared him was the Queen of Blades.
Her perfection made his vertebrae shudder. If only he had taken more samples. More skin flakes, more genetic matter. He could have remade her. She had exceeded his expectations. Challenged all his ideals and forced her will into being. His Queen of Blades. The surge of ecstasy at her form, the way the muscles connected to the bone, the way the skin was layered beyond his own design. It almost suppressed the sheer hate burning in its meso-stomach. His Queen. He felt the digesting creature almost go against his digestive muscles. She had handed the mantle of the Queen of the Zerg to Zagara.
A mere Swarm Queen, a useless hive paw. His fingers. All of them. Clenched. He had made that pitiless creature into a fearsome beast indeed. Taller and broader than her peers. Smarter, more, and denser brain matter. Higher metabolic rates. She was indeed fearsome. However, she did not strike fear into him.
A choking, wet, cough came from a digestion pit in the chamber. Zagara was indeed fearsome. The mutilated form slowly being consumed by the cavity had no right to be called Queen by the Evolution Master. His foremost brain felt his midbrain call its attention. His eyes turned to the fake queen. How could she strike fear into him when he had already caused the cells in her body to begin to deteriorate? He had Ripped the egg glands from her thorax, being careful to leave the major nerves for last. He had dissected and consumed a portion of her intricate brain, the acrid taste of decaying synapses lingering in his maw. Her thoughts, and memories, all dissolved into nothingness as his digestive fluids reduced her mind to pure, unrefined essence. The brain had been an exhausting job, perfect in its design, yet still somehow beneath him—a small comfort in the vast emptiness of his purpose.
He could still feel it slowly being corroded away, dissected by his micrograspers and cutters. He needed to coax the secrets his Queen had given to Zagara out of her genes themselves.
He turned away and began to rip into the larvae produced by the spawning organs in the chamber, he was going to need to stock up on pure genes. Zagara had confronted him, much to his displeasure. He had set loose his newest creations on the Terran and Protos worlds. He could still feel them burrowing deep into the crust of the planets they were placed on, their own armies laying waste to scores of populations.
She had thought of him as weaker than he was. He could not fault her, It was easy to forget how large he truly was when he lived out his days hidden in the pit.
There was a reason this leviathan had no primary birthing chamber, he had to get rid of it to fit in this one.
Those who visited him saw only a small fraction of his body, no one but Abathur knew how long he was, coiled in hundreds of loops and paths.
He grabbed from the contents of the digestion pool, the slimy organs slipped into his maw, the compounds being extrapolated and deconstructed, then reconstructed to give him an idea of how it worked.
It would take a long time to fully decode the genetics, but more always allowed him to be thorough. The creature's foremost brain drifted as its many others did designated tasks of decoding and consuming. How long did it take for his queen to kill the dictator of the Terrans? It felt like an eternity.
Here he sat, in the deepest parts of unexplored space, his newly mutated swarm multiplying on their captured worlds, feasting on the flesh of countless species on planets with non-sentient life, and ravishing homeworld after homeworld of the other species. Abathur didn't pay attention to the conflicts and wars. He had made all the Swarm Queens exactly like his queen wanted Zagara. However, he altered that plan, adding more hate towards the other races, sidestepping a few portions of rational thought to bring to life a fine pseudo-queen. The wars will be won by his creativity. Even now he received requests for specific mutations and augments for environments far away.
Soon he would seed each army with more powerful gifts. Abathur reconsidered his title for the Queen of Blades, he had told her she was the greatest leader. Yet here he was, wielding the gifts of the Queen of Blades, reshaping the sector. Could he become the best leader? The thought lingered, gnawing at the edges of his mind—a dangerous desire for one so dedicated to creation, not command.
A truly funny thought.
As he found stronger strands of genes, he altered gene plans, some would gain stronger chitin plates, others denser muscles and sharper teeth. Slow and steady.
He flooded one gene set with evolution viruses. Watching as thousands of generations of the genes changed and altered inside himself, before collecting the most promising for immediate testing, transmitting the gene code into a strain of Zergling before finding it suitable.
He continued to watch the mostly dissolved Zagara fully become consumed by the digestive fluid. He watched the final breaths flitter out of Zagara. Unfortunately, he was not done with her.
He pulled at her consciousness carefully to keep it intact. He had done this for each Cerebrate of the overmind, keeping record of a creature's exact brain template, synaptic links, and even the personalities attached. Much like all the rest he deposited it in one of the glowing sacks of catalytic fluid on his body. Much like many other creatures of renown that he decided he wanted to keep backups of.
Abathur shuddered. He could soon remake his Queen. With the genes left to Zagara, his queen had left her own. It was her essence. He had a copy of her mind, taken secretly without her knowledge. He had implanted her wrath into his newest Swarm Queens.
It would take time and careful manipulation of her neural corridors for her to not remember telling him to never bring her back. But perhaps it was worth it. He required a stronger leader than he. He held great strength but was too busy improving the swarm. A strong leader for the swarm was needed, not for him.
The shift was subtle at first—just a slight chill creeping into the hot, pulsating chambers. But the cold grew sharper, draining the moisture from the air in an instant. Abathur's senses flared, his exoskeleton prickling with psionic energy. Still, he did not stop his work, one clawed arm plunging into the Leviathan's flesh, preparing for the unknown threat, copying a part of his mind and essence into the beast. He made copies of all the genetic data and minds and began to flood the space he pierced with a new genetic repository. The him in the ship would soon construct a new body if he were to be destroyed by the psychic energy.
Just a small safety measure he thought.
And then, without warning, it came.
A searing wave of psionic force, bright and blinding like the collapse of a star. Abathur's body vaporized in an instant, leaving only scorched flesh and bubbling pools of genetic material in its wake. But none of that mattered.
Abathur began forming his replacement body, it would take days for him to finish recreating his form, and a fraction of the time to fix the catalytic fluid organ of the beast, but that didn't matter, his consciousness was safe, same with the copies, and whatever stole his body and mind was nowhere to be seen.
But for now, he would need to focus on the war he was winning, then on the paracausal energy that tried to abduct him.
This was going to be interesting.
The Hero Public Safety Commission, or the HPSC, had their best quirkologists inspect the young child that had arrived at one of their centers. The child sat eerily quiet, watching the doctors as they monitored his vitals and drew blood. The bushel of green hair swayed slightly as they turned their head to watch another doctor.
The room was a usual one for child care, a brightly painted room, filled with playful jungle animals. It felt strangely mismatched with the sterile precision of the doctors. One doctor drew blood near a mural of a grinning elephant, its cheery colors clashing with the uneasy stillness of the child. The doctors completed each task in quick succession, one talked with the guardian in the hall, informing them that their child was experiencing a slow quirk awakening. Presenting updated charts showing high amounts of hormones and the usual sure signs of quirk awakening.
"Thank goodness." the woman had spoken softly, all alarm washing from her face to allow a beautiful smile to shine through.
Back in the room, the doctors were unsettled. Most children would be interested to get what little info they could on their quirk. It was their special ability after all. But this one sat quietly. Some of the doctors believed them unable to speak. However, the child's slight mumbling, as they kicked their feet, disproved this.
The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room beyond the quiet murmuring of the child, and the clinical speech of the doctors to one another. The doctors exchanged quiet, nervous glances as they continued their work. One doctor hesitated as she reached for her tools, her fingers briefly trembling before she composed herself. Mentally berating herself for such foolishness. Another rubbed the back of his neck, the tension apparent in his stiff shoulders.
Eventually, they sent the child home with their guardian and told the woman to take the child to a more local quirk doctor for further medical and quirk-related inquiries.
Those same doctors would unexpectedly see the child again in a short span of two months. The child had been brought by the same woman, hair messier and paler skin a contrast to how they looked just a few months prior. The doctors proceeded with their tests and study. However, no matter how hard the professionals looked, double and triple checking vitals and running the child through countless tests. They could not figure out why the child had been brought to them.
The child's file was still new, however, it was noted in the quirk abilities section of the file, that the kid could read genetic material. The genetic material Izuku seemed to interpret defied easy explanation. "He can tell someone's eye color by touch?" a doctor had muttered, flipping through pages of test results, their brows furrowed. "And yet... there's no change in his vitals, no detectable manifestation markers. It's like his quirk is… watching." The tension had broken with that one, the doctors crowded in the break room broke into laughter at the idea of such a thing, slow manifestation wasn't uncommon, they had seen it before.
The doctors at the HPSC had requested the kid be put under a distant watch and should something happen to their guardians, the child would be quickly taken into either a hero program, or sent to a quirk research college, genetic quirks were rare after all.
The only oddity of note about the child was the high amount of quirk material in his blood, which was nothing out of the ordinary for a child of his age. That and the extra quirk material could easily be written off as the quirk still awakening.
They had sent the child home hurriedly with their guardian after the final test had finished. However, the head of the facility noticed the fidgety way the mom moved as their child joined them.
After that, the child came back once a week. The guardian had begun looking more worried with each visit. Her hands shook slightly as she gripped her child's arm, her face pale and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes that deepened each week.
With each week, his mother grew more distant. She would fidget as the doctors spoke, her gaze never quite meeting the child. By the third visit, she had stopped asking questions altogether about their son's health and quirk. Simply standing off to the side as if she couldn't bear to be near him.
The doctors had even begun to consider turning the woman away if she continued to bring their child to them, there was nothing wrong with the child. As they had told her every time they came.
The sound of the car's engine starting, the smell of the hot car interior slowly being wafted away by the blasting AC, and the almost unnoticeable sweetness of an ancient car freshener barely clinging to life was what Izuku noticed as he sat in the back of his mom's car. He tried to be as silent as he could. Over the last couple of weeks, she had begun to get onto him when he spoke… She hated how he talked.
'But that wasn't quite our fault was it?' A feminine voice spoke clearly in Izuku's head, the guttural crackle of it giving it an unearthly edge. Her words helped Izuku stay calm as his mother slammed the car door and began to back up.
'Observation. Unneeded.' the deep voice growled in his mind, grating on the ears and reverberating. It was a vibration he could almost feel in his bones. Every time it spoke, Izuku's hands would tremble, though he didn't know why. It would have even vibrated the air if it was vocal. It spoke shortly, never used pronouns, and only addressed when needed.
'Oh Shut Up Slug.' The voice snapped at the other, sharp and fiery.
'Anger. Unnecessary.' Short, and bored, it never got worked up by the feminine.
"He is right, you know, it really is unnecessary to get so worked up." Began the third, "How about we just all calm down? Okay, partner?" The third was a thick southern drawl, similarly deep, yet not so as the second. The most human, the least monstrous.
Izuku let out a mental giggle at the voices fighting. They would go on like this for hours if left alone. It entertained the small boy as much as it annoyed him. He curled in on himself to try and fall asleep for the rest of the ride. The bumps of the road softly rocked the young boy to sleep as the voices quieted down.
The voices had become normal to Izuku, they were slow to show up and brought the young boy great fear in the beginning, but he had grown used to them. The first of the voices to show up, the day he had turned four, was the one with the deepest voice, the one with the odd speaking habit and lack of formality. The first time the voice had spoken, Izuku had frozen in terror, his small body trembling under the weight of its presence. But now… now, it felt different. The voices were still unsettling, their tones sharp and foreign, yet they were his constant companions, a strange comfort in the quiet moments.
As the voices faded to a murmur, Izuku's mind drifted back to the first time he had heard them, on a day much like this one, when the sun was just beginning to rise over the Midoriya household.
The bedsheets had been pushed to the side in excitement, the door left ajar and the sounds of an excited child blabbering to their mother echoed through the otherwise empty apartment.
The father had left on a business trip, three weeks he had said before kissing their wife and hugging their child tight. It was the usual, the two left ate a small breakfast prepared by the mother. A more western preparation of pancakes and eggs due to it being a special day. The two sat in a comfortable semi-silence. The older one listened to their child as they spoke excitedly about all the things they were going to do at daycare.
The mother, Inko Midoriya smiled softly at their little boy, he spoke so well for a child his age, able to go on and on for sometimes hours if left to it.
The child, Izuku Midoriya took a bite of his pancake, the soft sweetness spiking his energy with new vigor.
'Glucose units (C₆H₁₂O₆). Linked in long chains. Amylose and amylopectin. Wasted carbs.'
Izuku drank a bit of his milk, his head began to slightly ache, but he shook it off.
'Lactose. Disaccharide of glucose and galactose (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁).'
Izuku's small hands clenched tightly around his fork, his excitement evaporating as the strange, cold voice echoed around. The words didn't make sense, but they felt… wrong. He looked up at his mother, hoping she would make it all stop, but he couldn't find the words. His hands shook lightly, throat tightened as his eyes darted across the room. He had heard a voice. He knew it. A small, but sharp pain shuttered through his head, making him close his eyes.
Inko got up quickly as her child stopped his rambling and made a noise of distress. She looked her child over, watching as he held his head tightly with his hands. She scooped her baby in her arms and carried him off to his room, leaving the food forgotten.
"You don't need to leave home today. If you think you need medicine tell me okay? Telekinesis type and even just mental quirks can be a little painful on awakening. Just rest up okay?" She spoke softly to him like her own mom had done to her when she was a little girl.
Inko kept her voice steady as she carried Izuku to his room, but inside, she was falling apart. Something wasn't right. She could feel it in her bones. Her mind raced with possibilities—was it really a quirk awakening? Was it something more? She forced herself to smile as she tucked him in, though her hands trembled the entire time. She grabbed one of the many stuffed animals her son loved and sat it in his arms, bringing the blanket over him softly with a smile. "Just rest for today."
As she closed the door, she looked back at Izuku's pained expression, her heart twisting like a vice. She bit down on her lip, forcing herself to smile through the panic rising in her chest. "He's too young for this," she thought bitterly, a wave of guilt washing over her. "What kind of mother am I, letting him suffer like this?" She squeezed the doorframe to steady herself, feeling powerless in a way she hadn't since Izuku was born. Why did telekinetic and mental quirks have to hurt when awakening? She let out a soft breath, trying to push down the growing knot of anxiety in her chest.
Hours dragged by, and with each passing minute, the pain in Izuku's head grew worse. At first, it was a dull throb behind his eyes, but soon it spread—down his neck, into his arms, curling through his muscles until every inch of his body screamed in agony. His fingers curled into fists as his body seized, but the worst part was the voice—it never stopped. 'Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other. Form a double helix. Sequencing different.'
The room felt like it was spinning. Light flickered at the edges of his vision, too bright and too dim at the same time. The voice's clinical tone rang in his ears, but it wasn't just sound—it was like the words were being etched into his bones, each syllable sending an electric shock through his muscles. His skin felt too tight, stretched across his body like a rubber band ready to snap. His teeth itched and tingled like something was stabbing into his gums repeatedly. Its voice raised at something. About something. However, all Izuku could comprehend was the fact he could feel the smooth muscle lining his intestines wriggle in an way unnatural.
'Unacceptable. Absolutely Unacceptable!' The voice slithered through his thoughts, wrapping around each nerve like a steel chain. It wasn't like someone was speaking to him—it was as if the voice was inside him, tearing through every corner of his mind, calculating, dissecting, judging. No matter how hard he tried to push it out, it sank deeper, indifferent to his pain.
Izuku kept pleading in his mind, but the voice kept whispering, with each word Izuku could feel the muscles in his hands seize up, and his tongue felt like lead in his mouth. Then, it would just be silent for moments, moments that seemed to stretch on for both an eternity and not last long enough as it began to whisper in a voice too loud to not notice. The room, Izuku's body, shook with each word as it seemed to come from every angle.
'Pain. Excessive.' The voice whispered again, and Izuku's body stiffened. His fingers twitched involuntarily, his muscles locked up. It felt like something was crawling under his skin, tightening around his bones. He gasped, his throat closing up, as the words continued in his head, each one sending a wave of pain through his body.
'Organism. Host. Derivative structure of terran genetics. Processing extra genetic material. Conclusion. Evolutionary Virus? Preposterous. Genetic data inconclusive.' Another hot spike of agony, Izuku could feel that way the muscles in his legs stretched outward. The sharp pains of them stretching to their limit and beyond shocked him. He finally let out a breath as they relaxed.
For a moment, there was silence—a blessed, aching silence. Izuku's body was limp, his muscles finally relaxing. He clung to that moment like a lifeline, even though he knew it wouldn't last. The silence wasn't a reprieve—it was a calm before the next wave of pain. The voice would return. It always came back.
'Conclusion concerning. Terran genetics, corrupted. Early genetic lineage, much less clutter. Easy to simplify. Possible reconstruction of host genetics. Better fit. More perfect.' His legs stretched past their limits once more, the pain so sharp and sudden it left him breathless. He could feel the tendons pulling, the bones creaking under the pressure, and for a moment, he thought they might snap. The voice spoke of things beyond his full understanding as if it were nothing. Izuku had no idea what any of its words fully meant, but he knew what its words felt like. And it felt like his body was being torn apart from the inside. His screams were silent—his throat was too tight to let the sound escape. He needed to plead out loud, to get something out.
"S-Stop!" Izuku gasped out, his head was in a constant flux of pain and information, each word said by the thing wriggling in his mind made a form of sense, like he knew what it all meant, but hadn't heard the word before.
'Unacceptable. Host Organism. Inefficient, yet genetically in places, impressive. Host mustn't resist inspection and improvement.' Izuku clenched his eyes, tears streamed down his face in burning rivulets, he didn't know when he started crying, but it just wouldn't stop.
'Endorphins rising. Spikes when organism is spoken to. Concerning. Pain levels, exceeding want. Will relent for now,' the voice concluded, devoid of emotion. It wasn't talking to him like a person—it was analyzing him like he was some kind of broken machine it was trying to fix. As the final echoes of the voice filtered out. The shaking slowly subsided as the moments ticked by.
Izuku waited, his body trembling, afraid to move. He knew it wasn't over. The voice had promised it would return, and with it, the pain. He stared up at the ceiling, the stars blurred by his tears, wishing he could disappear into the darkness. But there was no escaping it. Not now.
His body couldn't take anymore. The pain, the voice, the fear—it all crashed down on him like a tidal wave, pulling him under. His eyelids drooped, the stars on his ceiling fading into darkness as sleep overtook him. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no pain. Only the soft, quiet darkness of sleep.
— Continue? —
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The voice font type!
Abathur: The evolution master, the basis of Izuku's Quirk
Zagara: Third leader of the swarm, General of its armies
Jim Raynor: Terran freedom fighter, war hero, and general.