Chapter Eight: In Which Generic_Generica becomes the mother of all evil.
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A few hours after I pulled back my forces ADVENT's air force moved in.
They buzzed my main hive cluster with their UFOs. And for minutes on end I let them strafe my drone lines, I let them blast huge sizzling chunks of chitin and flesh off of my Lairs and Hatcheries and Spawning Pools with their plasma weapon. The only thing I could do was burrow the units I'd already had and hope for the best.
This didn't save the units I had morphing in. As soon as my units popped out of their eggs? Those fucking UFOs bombed the everloving
crap out of them. Roaches died screeching, Zerglings and Zergling bits were hurled everywhere by the force of the impacts and Drones simply ceased to exist every time one of those UFOs struck with their… Actually pretty lethal weaponry.
And I couldn't contest any of this unadulterated bullshit because I didn't have anti-air.
Well I had Queens but I didn't have dedicated anti-air and that was the problem. Those UFOs were too heavily armored. Queens were capable of shooting spines and shredding lighter aerial units, but those spines would do dick for shit against something that moved
that fast.
And these UFOs weren't the only ones. Through the eyes of my Overlords I could see more flying discs vectoring in onto my position over the horizon.
A lot more. Less a group and more a mob of UFOs.
"Hrm. Guess they really want me dead. Aaaand that's why I morphed in Spore Crawlers."
Ah yes,
Spore Crawlers. I'd begun morphing those in after ADVENT's air force had stymied my advance and bought their ragged defenders enough time to lick their wounds and regroup. The Spore Crawler was much like the Spine Crawler except instead of poking holes in enemies it was essentially an oversized anti-air gun that shot globs of horrifically corrosive spores at aerial units.
If I'd morphed in one or two or a few dozen I'd have still been in some shit all things considered.
Unfortunately for them I'd elected to morph in hundreds, liberally peppering my main hive cluster with the things. Because hey, redundancy is the spice of life.
Unfortunately for
me I'd begun morphing them in far
far too late. I'd overestimated the amount of time I had to prepare, and now I was paying for that error.
More than a few Spore Crawlers were destroyed when those annoying UFOs strafed my base, but those UFOs never specifically targeted my slowly morphing crawlers, instead focusing on my production facilities and the occasional unfortunate unit that'd popped out of its egg at the exact wrong time. My hatcheries, my drone lines, all of those huge 'soft' targets. They must've thought I had no counter or something, because as time went on those UFOs started bombing lower and lower to the ground.
Complacent. Arrogant. Feh.
It must've been a nasty surprise for them as the first crawlers finished morphing and began to tack their targets. Many acid spores were spat out with deadly accuracy, and when they hit they… Started to melt giant holes through the UFOs with alarming speed.
Because fuck you it's the Zerg, we have magical acid that fucks your armor. To be fair, Spore Crawlers wouldn't do shit against something as massive as a Battlecruiser but against fighter craft?
Yeah, Spore Crawlers eat fighter craft alive.
Those UFOs then proceeded to tumble to the ground, trailing drops of acid and smoke as they went like some freakish comet. And then they crash-landed onto the creep. Surprisingly remaining mostly intact. Well, if you ignored the gaping steadily expanding holes caused by Zerg-magical acid spores.
And they were on fire of course. Don't forget the fire.
And through the eyes of my Overlords I could see the rest of the fleet of UFOs promptly wheel about and…
"Huh. They're running. Or… no, they're patrolling. Clever bastards, they know I don't have aerial superiority yet….
…
Oh wait that's a filthy lie actually I do have aerial superiority. Fly my pretties, fly!"
That statement was punctuated by several disgustingly organic sounds as more eggs hatched, revealing their deadly payload. Leathery wings unfurled and beady eyes opened. Carapace glistened in the weak sunlight as my first
Mutalisks took to the sky and
screeched.
First there was one lone Mutalisk. One winging towards ADVENT's lines like some unholy demon from the fiery pits of hell.
And then there were two. And then five, then twenty, and then a hundred and then-
Yes I may have gone overboard. Just a bit.
Actually that's a lie, with the Zerg there's never 'enough' Zerg. It's like Dakka. Never enough.
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I've got to say though, ADVENT's UFOs were
fast.
Unfortunately for them my Mutalisks were also pretty fast.
Double unfortunately for them Mutalisks were deadly as fuck. Ah Mutalisks, Mutalisks, Mutalisks. Shooting your
glaive wurms everywhere like-
…
… Yeah I'm not going to finish that analogy. Metaphor. Something. Bleh.
So yeah, ADVENT's UFOs kind of all died. And when I say died I mean they were literally torn to bits by a semi-sentient parasite that disintegrates explosively when it hits something. And when I say explosively I mean explosively, as in 'creating massive pits and dents in alien-alloy UFO' explosively.
… Okay so most of the damage was superficial because damn those UFOs are tough but you get the idea. It's the golden BB effect. Eventually something was going to hit something critical, and sure enough… Something did. One of the fleeing UFOs caught a glaivewurm to the back. It started trailing smoke and then it spiraled into an uncontrollable descent and it plowed a massive furrow through the creep and the earth.
Oh they fought back. The UFOs were still fucking UFOs. They wheeled about and opened up on my Mutalisks with plasma weaponry that vaporized entire swathes of the buggers wholesale. They zipped about at ludicrous speed, doing barrel rolls and loops and… And…
… They were really fast, really maneuverable and really heavily armed and armored alright? Yes I know absolutely nothing when it comes to aerial combat. All I know is that it's impressive.
But much like the previous few engagements these efforts didn't mean jack shit. Because I…
I was in control of the Zerg, and I didn't give a shit if I lost a few units. One mutalisk died, blown to smithereens by some sort of missile. Another careened out of control, its wings were shot off. Two more died as a UFO actually rammed
through the mutalisk cloud… Which was actually pretty badass.
But I didn't care. I had reserves. As Sarah Kerrigan said, "My numbers are limitless and yours are dwindling by the minute." Something along those lines.
The massive flight of UFOs did end up escaping but not after my Mutalisks had whittled them down to… Maybe a quarter of the number they started with?
Welp, it didn't matter all things considered. Aerial superiority? Acquired. I ordered my flock of mutalisks to harass the shit out of one point in the perimeter defense line ADVENT had set up while I readied the rest of my ground units for one concentrated assault on one specific point in the line. All I had to do was break through once and ADVENT was kind of toast.
"Really this kind of containment is kind of unfeasible all things considered, they're probably bleeding themselves dry just trying to-
Is that a fucking wait what the hell is th-"
Ah yes, that'd be about the time when, through the eyes of my Mutalisks, I noticed a queer structure nestled behind ADVENT's lines. The only reason I'd even
seen the thing was because I decided to fly my Mutalisks over to harass. ADVENT had been doing a pretty decent job of shooting down any low flying Overlords.
It… It was a round structure. Offline but-
… That was one of those fucking
gateways the Ethereals used to transport troops in XCOM 2. Except… Bigger. A lot bigger. Building-sized and…
"Oh god it's glowing. It's glowing-"
And all I could do was watch as that gateway activated with an ominous purple glow and disgorged a
shitload of troops.
Sectoids scattered out of the gateway, pink and naked and muscled. I could feel them glowing with some sort of
power.
"And that must be… Oh that's fucking wonderful."
Reptilian
Vipers slithered out sinuously. The true form of the fucking thin man. Except worse because they're snakes.
Mutons piled out like big muscled brutes that they were.
Andromedons in their clunking battlesuits marched robotically out of that gateway. They had acidic blood, and a big hulking battlesuit capable of trampling Zerglings underfoot.
And there was more ADVENT infantry on the way. More and more Troopers and Stun Lancers and Shieldbearers and Officers.
In the distance I could 'see' more gateways coming online. It was pretty obvious what with the fucking purple glow.
"Well. It looks like ADVENT isn't fooling around anymore. How the fu- How the hell did they get this shit here so fast? I… I haven't been keeping tabs on them. Fuck. Just- where the fuck are you getting these units from? Come on, this isn't fair- ... Goddammit that's hypocrisy. Wow did I seriously just think that?
... Whatever I'm still gonna call bullshit. It's only fair when i do it and all that rubbish."
And more troops kept piling out of the gateways. More Mutons, more Andromedons and Vipers. With a throaty bellow, a horde of
Archons flew out of the gateways, golden and resplendent in the sunlight. Colossal building-sized Faceless trundled out of the gateway, all fat and gristle and tissue. But I didn't care about
those. They didn't have my attention.
The fucking Gatekeepers and Sectopods had my attention.
Gatekeepers. Round, white, spherical ipod robot things. They flew out of that gateway unnaturally. I knew what these bastards did. They were basically the bastard love children of a Sectoid, an Ethereal and a Cyberdisk what with their death lasers and psionic zombie raising bullshit.
And the
Sectopods. Taller than the First War variant but no less deadly. All chicken legs and black armor and red sensors and bristling with guns aplenty. They stomped out of the alien gateway, and under them more troops kept pouring out. Just more and more reinforcements for the beleaguered ADVENT lines.
I remember thinking two things as I saw all of this, as I hastily pulled back my Mutalisk ball and recalled my ground army. Well three things. One: I clearly hadn't done enough scouting.
Two: Where the
fuck was ADVENT getting all of this shit
from.
And three: Clearly. Clearly I needed to escalate more because for fu- fucking
aliens. Just fuck off and
die already.
"If you're gonna go to this much effort just drop a nuke goddammit why are you doing this shit? Do you have any idea how much time I'm going to have to spend killing you bastards?! I- Okay, I have anger problems. I really have anger management issues.
… Well it's a good thing you fuckers are acceptable targets. Especially since you're trying to kill me."
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I spent some time trying to decide how to pace this.
So one more story chapter to actually wrap up this overly long battle scene and then a few interlude-eque things and then a few more story chapters and rinse and repeat.
I might change this. I might not. I'm the Joker in this scenario. You know, 'If I'm going to have a past I want it to be multiple choice' except replace past with story.
… God that's a terrible analogy. Metaphor. Whatever.
Also I need to scan this chapter for typos and add links.
