Episode 52 - I am way out of my depth/ right in my element.
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Quest? Finding the lost Pilot, again. Now, foxes belong to the canine family, so if it was a normal fox, it could probably, maybe follow the scent of the person it was looking for.
Miko on the other paw, was very glad for her smelling superiority. As in, her nose wouldn't wilt from all those offending smells. Instead, she did the smart thing and let the feeling of companionship guide her way. Or to be more accurate, the familiar feeling of the little flame that Jaruga gave to both of them. It didn't give out a very strong signal or anything, but it was a terran ship so any psionic signatures were pretty scarce.
After getting lost a few times, and searching through the wrong level, Miko touched the screen beside the door with her paw, opening the metal sliders. Inside the dark room, two voices groaned weakly when met with the harsh artificial light.
It was easy, or rather too easy. Most zerg just charged inside and were instantly obliterated. The few that remained outside to gnaw on the improvised wall were quickly lured away or just simply shot down by the scouts. The defilers were quickly slashed apart by the Dark Templars before they could shoot their annoying clouds at the Photo cannons.
Guardians were quickly dispatched by Fenixex again, and the occasional swarm of Mutalisks were swiftly obliterated by the Corsairs. The overflow of zerg was of course culled by the High Templars, and the only tricky part were the Ultralisks.
Really, only the size contributed to their survivability and nothing more. With some thinking and strategic slashes from the ones hiding in the shadows, very little zerg even had the occasion to attack the defenses. The few destroyed Photo Cannons were quickly replaced by the new ones, thanks to the patrolling Probes.
It would probably look entirely different if there was anything controlling the Zerg. But thankfully, the small and lethal suicide bombers named Scourge were mostly absent during this battle.
The prisoner, rather shaken and buzzing with many different emotions (like Dobromir once upon a time) stumbled into the… improvised zerg lab? Or maybe more like a testing ground? Anyway, after stepping in, with the stability of jello and holding herself together with the normal sized hand of her warden she stopped to stare.
There were the duo of Dobromir and Mister Bit, like always standing too close to each other. Really, if she becomes fully zerg the idea of personal space would vanish from her mind too?
And there were the other, smaller duo, who still looked a little damp. The broken pods behind them gave a clear indication why. Their looks were the most bizarre thing she ever saw. First and foremost, both were females, both were short, and both didn't look too young.
The zergling leader morphed to a… goblin. The green skin, sharp ears, sharp nose, and needle-like teeth. But, despite that, her face was soft, holding almost an angelic beauty. And her eyes! Seems she took after her kinda father, because they were glowing. Not the strong and intense yellow, but gold so pure… and there were no pupils either. Her hair was rather normal by comparison, brown and currently a mess for obvious reasons. She was currently holding her hands behind back, looking quite majestic.
The other one was a… gnome? Or maybe a halfling? She was the size of a kid, but the face didn't look young at all. Her ears were only a little sharper than humans, same as her nose. Most surprisingly, her facial expression seemed to be in some bizarre perpetual sneer. She wasn't actually angry or anything, but the brows looked like two sharp lines, pointing inwards and downwards. Coupled with the rather sharp features, it added to her overall presence. She was holding her hand up, like grabbing a glass of wine or something. And… her feet were hairy, a halfling then. Again, messy brown hair, and pupils had actually little burning flames in them.
If they were clothed, their figures would be actually very imposing or awe inspiring. The moment of staring filled with ave ended with screeching halt, as always by Dobromir opening his mouth. "My Fair Goblin Lady, your name IS 'Patience Dear'. And my Righteous Halfling Lady, your name IS 'Benni Zali'." There was rather strong insistance on the IS, instead of the usual 'will be'.
Patience Dear didn't grin, oh no. Her serene smile was so radiant, that some in the room were blinded. Benni Zali, on the other hand, looked right at the incoming pure light, the ember in her eyes intensifying.
Nahida was the silent witness to the city going through night cycle. Somewhere around and after midnight groups of people were returning to home, usually swaying rather intensely from side to side. Surprisingly, there weren't any drunken shouts, but maybe it was because of the local police force patrolling around and shushing the overexcited ones.
Most of the houses were of course unlit and resting, but here and there some light could be seen in the distant windows. Some had gone black during the night, while some remained lit until the sun rose in the sky.
Through all these calm hours, Nahida remained on her ethereal swing, swaying a little back and forth, her mind not so much overwhelmed with memories as just simply slowly getting back on track, mostly empty of any thoughts. That was the change she needed, no sleeping but a calm, lucid meditation.
Some time after the sun arose, Trixie emerged from her tent, and went over to the little girl, sitting on the grass and letting out a yawn. Despite that, she remained silent and just sat there, rubbing her bleary eyes, and trying to wake up more. Apparently, she wasn't a morning person, or maybe she wasn't just a waking up person in general.
Returning her gaze to the city, Nahida could see citizens walking about, readying themselves for another day. What a lively city. Their peace was interrupted by sparks going some way from their position, soon growing into a spinning circle, which grew in size rather rapidly. After the rushing sparks changed into a calm oval, through the middle emerged two familiar figures, followed by three rather unfamiliar ones.
With a decisive, and somewhat quick step, an important looking man walked over to them. "I am Ebenezer Scrooge, one of the overseers watching the magicals. Now, lead me to your leader." Somehow, his sneer didn't seem to bother either of the duo.
Jaruga could hear the wailing of the damned. No, not the Undead. Not the Cursed ones either. And not Ghosts… or rather not exactly. She was hearing the Ghosts sent by the Dominum. Or rather, she was hearing the screams of their anguished minds. They themselves probably didn't know there was anything wrong.
Let's put it in a little contrast, the ghosts from the United Earth Directorate had the presence of a stalking predator, or like silence before a storm. Duran was… a chaotic wellspring of sensations that were mostly worry inducing and nauseating. The people with magic capabilities from her planet were more like ripples on water, some big, some small and in the triplets case, almost like a tsunami.
From the memories imparted on her, she could tell that Dobromir himself never experienced something like this. So for now, Jaruga would assume that is one of the unique abilities that she possessed.
Anyway, it didn't matter what the enemy Ghosts tricks will use to escape anyone's notice, for Jaruga it was rather impossible to miss the sound of anguished minds of those poor, unhinged and probably many times traumatized and mind wiped people. Speaking of which, one was gettin closer to the base she was supposed to protect…
Sitting on her orange furred companion Miko, they waited. And waited… and waited… Only to suddenly surge forward! Surging from her hiding place at the foot of the cliff, Miko started running up the rather narrow slope, Jaruga practically hugging her with whole body.
"Nuclear Launch Detected" sounded though the commons.
"ORA!" 'screeeccch!' and the danger was averted, by cutting the weapon of the surprised ghost in half. Of course, the danger to the two was far from over. The Ghost rather quickly whipped out a pistol and shot in their direction, backpedalling to gain some distance.
The two just landed on the ground from the glorious charge up the cliff, so with no time for any defense, Jaruga hissed quietly as bullets pinged off her stomach, arms and chest. With a small caliber like that, it wouldn't be a problem, at least if the Ghost didn't charge its bullets with a bit of psionic power. You know, they usually did it with their sniper rifles to get through all the thick armor.
Seeing no blood, the Ghost quickly changed its targets to the mount, and just as the trigger was almost pulled… a metal ball impacted his hand at high speed, shattering a few fingers and causing the Ghost to drop his ranged weapon. Mostly undeterred, her enemy quickly whipped out a knife, and prepared for fight, still slowly backing away.
Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for herself, Jaruga knows the first rule about the knife fight. After stashing away her sling, she quickly took the sword and readied for the fight. It all took place in mere seconds, but Miko after landing on her four paws charged forward like an orange rocket.
In the last second, the great orange fox jumped, high enough to be outside the range of the sharp implement. With the hand hidden behind her back, Jaruga dropped a special grenade in the meantime. First rule of the knife fight, never be in a knife fight. The grenade of course exploded upon lightly touching the ghost, exploding into the certain sticky goo.
The rider and the ride quickly made a turn around and Jaruga bashed the back of the Ghost's head with the flat part of her curved blade. "Even if it would be a sword against knife, it's still better to avoid close encounters with highly trained psychos."
Her friend let out a 'yip!' of agreement. Of course the Ghosts would be needed in the fights against the future zerg and protoss, so it was better not to kill them. But still… could Jaruga do anything for those tortured souls? Maybe…
"That being all said and done, ?" Looking into eachothers eyes, they would probably nod, if their foreheads weren't already touching that is.
The countdown could be almost heard, 3… 2… 1… simultaneously Dobromir turned his head towards the prisoner bound to the jailer, and towards the newly hatched.
"We have no idea what we are doing."
"We have no idea what we are doing."
The goblin lady just closed her eyes and sighed, head dropping a little. The former Zergling was practically Dobromir's oldest companion, since he started gathering zerg and Kerrigan couldn't really be counted as such. In short, Patience Dear had almost endless patience, and she already expected something along these lines. Really, despite their supposed intelligence, or cunning, they still were idiots.
The newly reborn (though not exactly for the first time) Benni Zali was… still somewhat absent minded. Regaining the simple ability of a short human(like) being was a rather jarring experience, though completely welcome all the same. For now, she didn't really care about their words, she was just overwhelmingly relieved to have escaped that neverending torment…
"You have no idea?! You…! You…!" The prisoner looked just like she was about to explode, before releasing a prolonged sigh of even more prolonged suffering. "Why am I even surprised…" The beginning of the question just petered out. Her jailer gently patted her on the head with the big zergy hand. It strangely calmed her down, and brought a small comfort.
The two idiots stepped away from each other, and Dobromir took a decisive pose, with fists held at his hips. "That leaves me with the only course of action. If poor me finds something too complicated for my small brain, I go to the… Mother!"
Amidst some more shouts form the prisoner, Patience just let out a thoughtful title hum, and whispered "Mother… Grandmother, huh?"
"Our head of technical research team will be here shortly. Now, I am truly sorry, but because of yesterday I have a lot of work piled up, and I am afraid most of those matters are time sensitive." Mayor Morales shot a last apologetic look before walking up the stairs of his home. Shortly after a furious keyboard mashing could be heard.
"Tsk." Even after letting out a sound of displeasure, the middle aged Ebenezer could respect the man's work ethic. Upon meeting the leader of the local colony, he immediately got to the issue at hand, all the research on the biological matters, and more importantly the Zerg and Protoss. Mayor listed all their facilities, and that was that. Now, waiting. As a man rather busy with many matters, he would rather do it before the sunset.
The group, counting seven people, sat or stood around the living room, depending on their occupation. Ebenezer the overseer was sitting on a high backed armchair. On a sofa to his side were the two mages, remaining silent for now. Opposite of them sat the two they met upon exiting the portal, both remaining completely at ease despite the slight tension. Behind Ebenezer were his two guards, standing. They were in the power armors but… ones that were about third times smaller than the common ones used across Koprulu Sector. Their weapons were too scaled down, though that didn't make them look less dangerous. They also seemed to be overall shinier, but maybe that was just the barely visible sheen of some kind of shield coating their armor. It wasn't the Protoss plasma shields, but it seems that the cradle of humanity didn't remain idle.
"Trixie informed him just before you walked through the portal. We can wait for him outside, and skip the formalities or needless etiquette." She tried to mask the smugness in her voice, but it seemed the inspector was already hooked when time was mentioned.
Without saying anything, he just stood up and walked out, tailed by the rest. Nahida, on the other hand, admired as Trixie practically played with the man almost effortlessly. Maybe there was some opportunity for her to learn more about social interactions here…
They practically waited for less than a minute, before a big boar with passenger on its back rushed along the road. It was building a nice bit of dust cloud too, before gradually stopping. "Chrum!"
The man hopped off. "Thanks for your service." He put his phone to a certain scanner on the boar's saddle harness. After a beeb, the transaction was completed. The boar nodded his head, and headed back into the city at much more leisurely peace.
Walking to the group, he introduced himself. "Stetmann, head of the Technical division. I'll lead you first to our tamer facility, then to our technical staff dealing with protoss artifacts, and lastly the zerg container lab." He shuddered a little mentioning the last one. "Despite everything, we still have some break efforts every week or so, and bringing a group of people usually agitates them even more. We are already mobilizing additional security, so it should be relatively safe when we arrive there."
Stetmann sometimes hated the position he found himself in, because it seemed that when it came to the most important researchers, he was most sociable. Which meant he barely avoided awkward conversations or geeking out about his research. And that resulted in him being the go to man for ANY sort of communication. At last in this situation, he could find a little support from Trixie and the new girl.
"Executor, the channeling is complete! Withdraw our forces into the temple… and brace yourself!" Zimowit didn't hear that part, but following the protoss retreating inside the giant temple was probably a smart choice.
First to take shelter were the High Templars, followed by the running Dark Templars. As the last, Artanis landed his Scout close enough to almost touch the temple, hopped off and ran inside to finish the ritual.
The rest of the air forces created a tight formation and blazed it out of there at full speed, completely stopping any shooting. The two outer bases were already evacuated, leaving behind only a few photo cannons as defense, they fell soon after anyway. The cannons around the temple, on the other hand, were doing their job, though the lack of support caused those defenses to fall one after another.
But that was fine, Ziemowit found a well… a gap. It was a temple so no windows it seems. Anyway the two stars of today were already at the top platform, activating the hidden power. The giant curved spiky arms rising out of the ground were rather unexpected. Seriously, those things were massive. The intensifying glow from somewhere above was completely expected. And then… Wit knew what would happen next, so closed eyes and turning away was the top priority in that situation.
And then… was it an explosion from big Nuke?! The sound, light intensity and heat were rather unmistakeable. Did they want to scorch half of the planet or something?! Anyway, Wit waited for the glow to fade away, before looking through the gap again. All the mountains and cliffs or small hills were completely leveled, together with everything else. It could almost be called a crater if it wasn't so flat. Hopefully, all this running around did get rid of all the zerg on shakuras, and not just this part of it.