A/N:
This is my take on the "the Swarm explores the multiverse!" type of fanfic.
However, this is slightly different in that:
a) it's not an S.I., and no ROB is involved in causing the crossover(s).
b) It's not all Zerg. The protagonist's "swarm" will include elements of Protoss, Xel'Naga, etc. So it's also more like an actual civilization.
c) Instead of having all the canon strains/technology and then adding more later, I will merge some stuff and leave out others as I see fit, so as to keep things simple and efficient. Of course, new strains/technology may be created as the story progresses.
As the sphere of light crashed into my body and released the swirling destructive energies that would rip my body to pieces, it was clear I would not make it through the wormhole I had opened in the sky to escape.
But the Chrysalis would, and that was all that mattered now.
When I lead my Swarm to invade Aiur, I had my minions mine the purest Khaydarin crystal from the planet's Khaydarin motherlode and place it in the Primordial Temple to absorb the latter's cosmic energies. With it, I would create another superbeing, just as I had created the Queen of Blades using the power of the Argus Stone. And whereas the Queen of Blades was once a human girl, here I found her Protoss analogue.
Hidden underground on Aiur, were the Arkships. As I learned in the middle of the invasion, the ancient Protoss had constructed these massive spaceships to evacuate and ensure the survival of their civilisation should a terrible disaster arise, such as their homeworld being overrun by an implacable enemy. What these ancient architects had forgotten to account for, were enemies that could tunnel through a planet's crust faster than a whale could swim in water.
We found and overran two of the Arkships before the Protoss could activate and launch them. And within each of these Arkships was the prize I have mentioned: a Protoss Grand Preserver, one of the most psionically gifted Protoss, just as Kerrigan was the most psionically gifted Terran. One of the Grand Preservers sacrificed herself in an attempt to obliterate my forces with a massive psionic storm. The other was captured and encased within a Chrysalis together with the pure Khaydarin crystal I had prepared. Having consumed the minds of some Xel'Naga long ago, I knew how to bypass the Protoss's resistance to infestation and merge the preserver's essence with that of the Zerg. Specifically, a portion of my own essence. I would invest much more in this creation than I did in the Queen of Blades.
So now as my consciousness broke down with my body, I sensed, with satisfaction, the Chrysalis ascending through the wormhole together with bits of my body that had been blasted off by the attack and sucked into the wormhole as well, all too inconspicuous to be targeted by the Protoss forces compared to my own massive form.
And then the wormhole closed, and I died.
…
Unknown amount of time later, on a very faraway planet:
I awoke to bright sunlight and the feeling of my lower body being submerged in water.
Fully opening my … eyes, I observed the landscape I now found myself in:
A wide but shallow lake, surrounded by seemingly nothing but desert.
There was a subtle tingling sensation over the skin of my lower body, and I realised that the waters of this lake had similar properties to that of the First Spawning Pool on Zerus, albeit in a milder form, such that it did not cause me any pain or rapid mutation. Yet I knew this could not be Zerus. Had my presence affected the waters, or had I landed on another planet touched by the Xel'Naga?
And then all the memories resurfaced in my mind. The memories of Shantira the Grand Preserver, of the Overmind and of all the other beings that the Overmind had previously assimilated.
Over and above those memories was a motivation: Rebuild.
Rebuild what though? Protoss civilisation? The Swarm? Xel'naga civilisation? Or the other more primitive societies overrun by the Swarm? The Overmind had passed all that information and essence into me. But I was not the Overmind. What was I?
Now I focused my senses on examining my (new) body.
First off, as you can tell by the fact that I was able to see the landscape around me, the shell of the chrysalis was gone. Either it was worn away in the process of landing on this place, or dissolved by the lake's waters, or absorbed into me during my metamorphosis. Perhaps a combination of all those.
My overall appearance was similar to that which the Preserver previously had, but taller and leaner, and without all the garments and accessories. My nerve cords were now much longer, slightly longer than my height from head to toe. Each had a diamond shaped tip, like those of a squid's tentacles. And like actual tentacles waving in water, the nerve cords waved in the air instead of drooping down like normal Protoss nerve cords. Perhaps it would be more convenient to simply call them head-tentacles. Whenever I exerted psionic power, their tips glowed pale blue just like my eyes.
Through the Overmind's memories, I recalled the inspiration for the tentacles. During its travels the Swarm encountered a Xel'Naga nexus from which emerged a being of immense power. It obliterated the entire brood of Zerg that had been sent to capture it, and then flew off, vanishing into deep space. Since then, the Overmind had been trying to create a similar being, with little success. Kerrigan could be considered a first attempt. I would be the second. Yet even if I had a characteristic of the Energy Creature in terms of appearance, I knew I was far from matching its power … yet.
No matter, all in good time. Right now, something else drew my attention.
There were familiar psionic presences all around me. More precisely, two kinds of presences.
The first was being emanated from the Khaydarin crystal embedded in the lakebed in front of my feet. It seemed to be affected by the lake's waters. As I observed more closely, I saw that smaller shards were sprouting and budding off from its surface at a barely perceptible rate.
Corresponding to the second kind of presence, scattered all over the lake and in the desert sands nearby, were black blobs of various sizes. Pieces of the Overmind that had been sucked through the wormhole. Those in the lake had been exposed to the mutagenic properties of its waters for Void knows how long. Even now, some of them had morphed into sea-slug like creatures, swimming lazily through the water or crawling slowly along the lakebed. Miniature cerebrates, physiologically more robust than the Overmind's former subordinates, but mentally too primitive to have personalities of their own.
Through the invisible connection I had with them due to the Overmind's essence in me, I telepathically called to one of them, which had the size and appearance of a Black Sea Hare.
Promptly, it swam towards me, stopping in front of my belly and gently nudging me curiously.
I returned the gesture by brushing the tip of one of my head-tentacles along its back. As we touched, so did our minds, and somehow we felt we understood each other completely. It quivered, emanating a feeling of warm satisfaction. What initially felt like me exerting a rudimentary hive mind centred on myself, shifted to take on aspects of an egalitarian empathic link. Furthermore, I felt faint traces of cosmic energy flowing between us, and between both of us and an invisible dimension. The Void.
And at that moment, the answer to the question of "what am I going to rebuild?" occurred to me.
Also, regarding my choice of title:
"The Eternal Swarm" was a phrase used by the Overmind in its speech about merging the Zerg and Protoss, at the culmination of its invasion of Aiur. (we never got to see whether it was successful or not. As you can infer from the first link in this post, the Overmind ended up dying.)
And Shantira was a Preserver.
Now the being resulting from her merging with the Overmind's essence, is, in a sense, a Preserver in the Eternal Swarm.
Hence An Eternal Preserver.
As the story progresses, another significance of the title will become clear.
UPDATE:
Chapters with a .5 in the number are "background info" (e.g. starship classes) to go along with the story
I extended a foot to touch the biggest piece of Khaydarin crystal in front of me. Then, psionically reaching into it like a user accessing a computer system, I began programming it to project an invisible power field that would uplift nearby semi-sentient life forms according to my general wishes, just as the Overmind once used Khaydarin crystals to increase the sentience of the creatures in his Swarm shortly after leaving Zerus. As the field of Khaydarin crystals in this lake grew, this power field would increase in power, until it affected practically the entire planet.
Satisfied with my programming, I took a moment to condense psionic energy within myself, then direct it upwards. As I did so, I began slowly and gracefully levitating out of the water, until I was hovering a hundred metres in the air, where I could see every fragment of the Overmind that had landed in the desert outside the lake. One by one, I telekinetically reached out to these fragments, and moved them into the lake, so that they would start being mutated by its waters as well. From afar, it appeared as if the black blobs were slowly crawling or sliding into the lake of their own accord.
The task took about an hour and left me a bit exhausted. Afterwards, I drifted back down into the lake and sat down, submerging myself completely in the water. After sitting for another two hours in a meditative, self-refreshing state, I glanced around at the slug-cerebrates swimming around in the lake.
It would be so tempting to force their evolution, remake them in my own image and impart my knowledge to them right away. But that way I would have just created extensions of myself, not individual creatures with their own experience. No, starting from this lake, I would spur the evolution of life on this planet, and leave the result of that evolution partly to time.
So without physically budging, I set myself reluctantly to my next task, for which I drew upon the knowledge of the Xel'Naga. The latter were able to manipulate matter at incredibly fine levels, creating life practically out of nothing, turning barren planets into forest worlds. However, to replicate that feat, I would have to enter a deeper trance. In this dream-like state, I would expand my psionic presence over the lands, seeking the base components of life and subtly bringing them together, then coaxing them to grow and evolve.
Before I began, I picked up a Khaydarin crystal shard and programmed it to project a small protective energy field around myself. Then I closed my eyes, and I dreamed …
…
It was not clear to me how much time passed …
Most of the time, the only thing I was aware of was the blooming of flora all across the planet, because that was the direct result of my influence.
Then came the first few instances that an intelligent creature died, and their essences entered my dream, like raindrops falling into a lake. And as the echoes of their minds touched mine, I got a rough glimpse of what had happened.
The slug-cerebrates had indeed evolved. Just like the Swarm's cerebrates, these new Cerebrates inherited the traits of the original Zerg insectoids, including the ability to infest, mutate and control other living things. Thus they set about dominating the continent on which they lived and shaping its ecosystems to their needs. From the living things they controlled, they created new, more robust bodies in which their basic slug-like bodies could inhabit and act as brains. Eventually, they even created bodies capable of travelling in space, analogous to the Swarm's Overlords. However, without a method to travel faster than light, their exploration of space was a slow process.
If I were the Overmind, I would have reincarnated the dead cerebrates right away. But I was not the Overmind. The latter and its cerebrates' overconfidence in their immortality had turned out to be a fatal flaw for the Swarm. When it turned out that the Dark Templar knew how to nullify this reincarnation process, the Swarm's downfall was assured. I wanted my new generation of cerebrates to learn to defend themselves properly.
So I simply accepted the essence of the dead cerebrates into my Dream.
Besides the cerebrates, I was aware of the deaths of another kind of creature as well. And as the latters' essence entered my Dream, I also glimpsed their memories, in the same way that Shantira would receive the memories of dying Protoss in her life as a Preserver.
To put it simply, it was as if a new iteration of Protoss had evolved, no doubt an echo of the Protoss essence (among other essences) that had been subtly diffusing over this planet through my Dream. However, unlike the Protoss I had known, this new iteration had human features as well. Perhaps the Overmind's original idea of using the Terrans as a counter to the Protoss had stuck, somehow got mixed up in my subconscious, and ended up causing the two races to get merged through my unconscious influence. Or perhaps it was just coincidence.
Either way, this new species emerged long after the cerebrates, on a separate continent, and called themselves the Firstborn out of ignorance of the former. When the Cerebrates started overtly colonising the Firstborns' continent as well, the Firstborn regarded the former's practice of infesting, mutating and controlling other life forms as monstrous and feared for their own existence. Eventually, attempts at communication broke down and the two species went to war.
As the war progressed, there was a mass influx of Cerebrate and Firstborn essences into my dream. It was very distracting, and eventually my efforts at directing the evolution of non-sentient life on the planet ground to a halt. From then on, I began reincarnating Cerebrate and Firstborn essences back into the physical world in the bodies of newborns of either species. This was done at a slow rate, and without completely restoring their memories, such that initially noone would notice what was going on.
The Firstborn had learned how to make themselves immune to infestation, and that, combined with their impressive psionic powers, turned the war in their favour. One by one, the surviving Cerebrates were driven into hiding underground.
Conquering the Cerebrates' continent, the Firstborn discovered the lake in which I resided. Or rather, they discovered the location where the lake had been. By now the Khaydarin crystals had grown into a mountain range.
Feeling the power of the crystals, the Firstborn eventually incorporated it into their technology. Through their ingenuity, they achieved what the Cerebrates had not: faster-than-light travel. There came a Golden Age of peace and exploration.
Sensing that the Crystal Mountain itself was somewhat alive and an important source of life force for the planet, the Firstborn came to see it as sacred, and took care not to over-mine it. At the same time, reports of individuals with "verified past lives" came to light, and a spiritual tradition centred around an "Eternal Preserver" gained popularity among the unified Firstborn civilisation.
Some followers of this tradition attempted to communicate with me directly. This provided me with an alternative method of knowing about events in the physical world, besides the memories of the dead, and sensing the planet's plant life.
And I knew the time for my awakening drew near …
…
I awoke to a series of tremors, and I opened my eyes only to see near-total darkness. Channeling psionic power, I caused my eyes and nerve cords to glow, and I saw that I was in a small cavern with Khaydarin crystal walls, corresponding roughly in size and shape to the protective field I had projected around myself before entering this trance. As I expected, the initial cluster of Khaydarin crystals had grown around this field. And the Crystal Mountain had grown around that. Whatever water trapped in the resulting cavern with me was now gone, replaced by air. Had I absorbed it? What would that mean for myself? Have I finally attained the power of the Ene-
Before I could continue pondering those questions, I felt another series of tremors, this time more violent than the last.
And then I remembered what really motivated me to awaken.
Streching out both my arms before me, pointed slightly upwards. I curved my palms forward as if holding a ball. I concentrated energy into this imaginary ball, until I was really holding a ball, of intense white light. Then a beam of similar light shot forth from the ball into the crystal wall in front of me.
As if responding to my wish, the crystals touched by the beam shrank away from it. Thus the beam tunnelled forward through layer after layer of crystalline rock, until eventually a straight tunnel leading forward and upward to the outside of the Crystal Mountain was opened, wide enough for me to comfortably go through.
Then with a mental pull, the ball of light between my palms shrank and vanished, and so did the beam. Then, in the same way that I levitated above the lake long ago, I levitated myself slightly off the ground. Tipping forward, I drifted through the tunnel. Gradually, I picked up pace, and I flew through the tunnel like a bullet through the barrel of a very long gun.
Then right after emerging from the exit of the tunnel I halted in mid-air and took a second for my eyes to adjust to the daylight.
The scene I saw around me confirmed what I had seen through the memories of those who had died recently.
This planet, the Cerebrates', the Firstborns' and my homeworld … was being invaded.
Another short prologue-like chapter.
The following chapters will be longer, and there will be actual action … hopefully
And we will see in detail what the Cerebrates, Firstborn, and the invaders look like, and what the environment of the planet is like now.
Please feel free to give me suggestions
As you can tell from the end of this chapter, the first crossover will actually not be the protagonist visiting other worlds, but the protagonist's world getting invaded.
If y'all are curious about who the invaders are:
They are based on the antagonists from the 2002 Hong Kong movie The Wesley's Mysterious File.
There's almost no detailed info (in English) about this movie out there,
so for now just imagine the antagonists as swarms of small (flying!) worms which invade and take over the bodies of other sentient creatures,
and have cool energy-manipulation powers and knowledge of technology.
(hmm, a bit like what would happen if the Zerg never evolved past "parasitic worm" in terms of morphology, but gained a lot of other advantages)
After the invasion is over, the protagonist & co. will visit the planet of Deep Blue, the last planet invaded by the ... worm-invader things.
And somehow that will lead them to the world of El Hazard where another arc will take place.
After that, I don't have anything planned yet.
Energy recharge:
Thanks to the properties of Khaydarin crystals, and the application of metamaterials on the hull that can draw in ambient energy (e.g. like a plant absorbing light), a Firstborn ship can recharge its energy over time. Hence, it almost never has to "refuel". That said, this recharge process can be sped up by transferring energy from another ship, facility, device etc.
Innate Cloaking:
The same properties that allow for the above-mentioned energy absorption also allows a Firstborn craft to turn invisible by finely regulating the light and energy emissions from the craft.
Self-heal:
Through the use of memory metal and Khaydarin crystals' ability to be programmed to influence surrounding matter in subtle and complex ways, Firstborn craft can gradually recover from minor damage and wear and tear. Thus they require almost no maintenance. However, drastic damage, that causes sizable chunks or parts to be gone, would still require the attention of repair crew and facilities.
Energy projectors:
This multi-purpose weapon/tool system features two or more sophisticated "projector elements" that can form and maintain a small energy field in the space between them. This field can then be modified to produce all kinds of effects such as energy projectiles, disruption fields, cloaking fields and tractor beams and even simple warp rifts if there is sufficient power. The development of energy projectors revolutionized Firstborn starship construction, rendering several conventional weapons or equipment obsolete, and blurring the line between military and non-military craft.
Quantum predictive analytics:
Through a combination of telepathic mind-machine interface and advanced AI, a Firstborn ship's systems respond to the needs and commands of its crew as if crew and ship were one cohesive living entity, rather than persons operating a machine. This efficiency allows the ship to function with a very minimal crew, even, theoretically, just one pilot and noone else. That said, larger ships usually function as troop carriers, and additional crew allow for more functions to be used in tandem, so such ships usually have much more personnel anyway.
Podship Length: 11 metres Warp: Short-range warp-jump able to reach the nearest habitable planet. One jump will leave the podship nearly drained of power. After that, it has to recharge for a few days before it becomes fully operational again. Armament:
1. Basic energy projector at the front.
Remarks:
So named due to its compact design, the podship is the smallest warp-capable craft ever designed by the Firstborn. Aside from flying through the air or in space, it can also manoeuvre steadily on the ground or on/in water like a hover-tank thanks to the four repulsor plates at its sides. Unlike larger craft like the voidseeker or mothership, the podship has no real form of consistent energy shielding and relies on its material toughness, maneuvrability and simple energy projector to survive a violent encounter.
Voidseeker Length: about 120 to 210 metres (exact length varies due to the spikes and intended capacity) Warp: A few consecutive warp-jumps are possible. Also uses warp-field to manoeuvre at sub-light speeds. Armament:
1. Energy projector arrays behind, at the side sides, and at the hole in the middle. The latter set of energy projectors can channel its energy through the two large spikes at the front of the ship for dramatically increased power and effective range.
2. The spikes can also serve as spears especially when sheathed in destructive energy (sometimes turning the ship into a giant flying sword).
Remarks:
The elegant voidseeker design is the result of several generations of optimization in speed, power and efficiency. Its simple thrusters are rarely used. Instead, its many energy projectors, aside from serving as weapons or tools, also create a warp-field around the ship, allowing it to manoeuvre at ludicrous speeds and angles even when not performing a warp jump. This warp-field also acts like an energy shield, protecting the ship from space debris or enemy attacks.
Mothership Length: 4km Warp: Can execute many consecutive warp jumps. Can also warp in smaller vessels. Armament:
1. Purifier Cannon at the front. Fires an intense stream of radiation and charged particles. At full power, a mothership is capable of single-handedly wiping out all life on the surface of an entire planet.
2. Retractable energy projector array at the bottom. Sophisticated enough to form not just one, but many distinct constructs, and project energy in several directions at once. At full power, can project a beam intense enough to punch right through a planet's crust and release magma onto the surface. This can be followed up with tractor beams to rapidly mine raw materials and use them to construct new ships. The array can also generate warp rift(s) to near-instantaneously summon smaller vessels from far away.
3. Stasis field generator.
4. Interceptors , servitor drones and other craft housed within the ship.
Remarks:
Despite their passion for exploration, the Firstborn rarely set off in fleets of numerous ships nowadays.
For expeditions which require a great level of self-sufficiency and defensive capability, usually a single mothership is deployed.
In addition to the smaller craft already housed within its hangar, the mothership is also able to construct or warp in new ones depending on the needs of the mission.
While the mothership may also defend itself using its projector array, the latter's complexity makes it prone to disruption and damage from enemy fire.
Instead, during or in preparation for battle, the projector elements are usually retracted into the mothership's central cavity (where they can continue to function within the ship), and the mothership defends itself with its dedicated primary weapon: the Purifier Cannon, which is cruder but arguably more powerful.
Its ultimate defense, however, is the Stasis Shield, which, when active, blocks incoming attacks by creating temporary walls of frozen space-time. The stasis field generator used to form this shield can itself be converted into a kind of weapon or tool by redirecting its energy through the energy projector array and having it freeze space-time around or inside another object (such as an enemy ship).
The Inter-Dimensional Ark / Arkship (WiP): Length (top to bottom): 75 km Warp: Untested Armament:
1. Rift storm. Side effect of unsuccessful attempt to activate the inter-dimensional portal generator. Catastrophic energy storms and space-time anomalies were unleashed, which shredded some nearby ships and space stations into their base particles, and turned others into twisted derelicts. Engineers eventually brought the rift storm under control, converting it into a potential weapon, among other applications.
2. Energy projector arrays at the niches on its surface
Remark:
Ever since the earliest days of their interstellar exploration, the Firstborn have dreamed of constructing a vessel capable of reaching other galaxies, even other universes, within reasonable time. The Inter-Dimensional Ark (or Arkship for short) was to be the prototype, starting small and then gradually expanded on to account for the astronomical amounts of energy that the vessel needs to channel in order to fulfil its intended purpose. However, as the sheer scale of the construction grew beyond anything they had handled before, the Firstborn engineers began running into various issues that they had little prior experience in dealing with. So far, these issues have prevented the Arkship from becoming fully operational.
A/N:
This is to help keep track of all the crossovers that have occurred or will occur in this fanfic.
Obviously, the list will be updated as the story progresses or I get more ideas.
Hovering at one of the peaks of the Crystal Mountain, I swept my gaze around my surroundings.
Most noticeable were the dragon-like creatures circling the air in front of and above the peak, but never actually approaching:
Instead, they breathed streams of heat wave, towards the peak, like the barely visible but hot flame of a fully opened Bunsen burner.
This attack never reached the peak itself as well. Instead, they were stopped by an invisible barrier, which I then realised, seemed to cover the entire mountain range, judging by the way the ripples induced by the heat waves spread out.
Using my psionic senses to follow the energy flow of the shields, I found that they were projected by shield generators situated at wide but regular intervals along the mountain range:
It seemed the mountain range was safe from the dragons' attack, but I quickly realised that they were not the main threat.
High up in the atmosphere, partially shrouded by the clouds, were three massive objects hanging moon-like in the sky, each resembling a dinoflagellate of cosmic proportions:
These were the invaders' ships.
Occasionally, bolts of eldritch lightning would issue from random locations in the atmosphere and the space beyond and strike the invader ships.
Those were the Firstborn's cloaked warships trying to repel the invaders. And doing so half-heartedly. Having observed the development of Firstborn starships from within the Dream, I knew that Voidseeker-class ships were capable of more intense firepower than what they were displaying at this moment, but they seemed to have given up, and were now content to strafe the invaders with attacks that would distract but not kill.
One particularly intense lightning bolt attack demonstrated why. It was strong enough to chip some fragments off of one of the invader ships, like a spear striking ice. Then some of the flying fragments exploded into a dark red cloud which then morphed into another dragon. Others fragments drifted down into the forests at the foot of the mountain. It was too gloomy and misty to see what happened to them with the naked eye, but I knew that they had morphed into other forms, to carry on with the invasion.
When initially the invasion began, the Firstborn had fought the Invaders fiercely, but gradually it was realised that no matter what the Firstborn shot the invaders with, the latter would scatter to reduce the impact of the attack and then reconfigure themselves into new forms. Heavy weapons were just amusing toys to these beings. Thus the Firstborn shifted their focus from destroying the invaders to preventing the invaders from reaching places of import. Such as covering the entire sacred Crystal Mountain range with shields. Who knew what the invaders would do if they got their hands on this powerful source of life force?
When I looked up, the superficial damage on the invader ship had disappeared, no doubt patched up through their reconfiguration ability.
And then as if in retaliation, an intense beam of fiery blue-green light shot forth from one of the grooves on the invader ship and struck a spot on the shields that was roughly above where I was hovering. The energy impact induced a shockwave and a series of tremors throughout the mountain range that I recognised to be the same tremors I had felt when I awoke in the cavern.
The other two invader ships joined in the attack, firing beams of their own at the same spot.
There was a loud reverberating boom, accompanied by a shockwave and another series of tremors even more violent than the previous ones. And the beams vanished, revealing a fluctuating and gradually closing gap in the shields at the spot where they were firing on. One of the dragons flew towards this temporary breach in the shields. When it was right outside the breach, it was clear that the dragon was too large to fit through the breach.
And then the dragon itself exploded into a swarm of flying dark red specks:
which quickly flew through the breach just before it closed. Thus I saw a bit more clearly the nature of the dark red cloud from before.
Having successfully entered through the shields, the dragon headed straight for the nearest shield generator, located at an area of level ground, some distance downslope from where I was. The dragon opened its mouth, emitting a dim golden glow from its throat, as it prepared to destroy the shield generator with its heat wave stream.
Just as I was about to swoop forward to stop the creature, I saw a cloud of glittering pale-blue light in the air next to the foot of the shield generator. Then this dissipated to reveal three humanoid figures standing next to the shield generator:
Firstly, a human-looking woman, except with grey skin, blue glowing eyes, and nerve cords in place of hair. And wearing something similar to a ghost's outfit:
Beside her, a man with similar eyes and nerve cords. His skin was also grey, but unlike the woman's smooth complexion, his was rough and scarred:
And behind the two of them was another man, much greater in stature. His skin was dark purple instead of grey, and in some parts, had tattoo-like lines which glowed dim blue like his eyes. In contrast to his overall imposing physique, his nerve cords were of the same thickness as those of his two companions, such that the nerve cords actually appeared more like hair on him:
In addition to his unusual appearance, he also gave off a subtle aura unlike his two companions. Inwardly, I smiled as I recognised the nature of the essence within him.
And thus, after all these aeons, I had my first glimpse of the Firstborn with my physical eyes.
Just a second after materialising, the Purple Giant jumped into the air towards the incoming dragon, his arms raised before him. Barely visible streamers of energy sprouted forth from his back, like sleek ethereal wings.
Taken by surprise, the dragon spread its own wings wider, decelerating to a stop in mid-air and rearing back from its previous swooping posture, but it did not have time to carry out any further action as the Purple Giant crashed into its chest. Reaching up, he wrapped his arms around the dragon's neck and squeezed hard. The dragon shuddered and involuntarily jerked its head as its neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Then gravity seemed to regain control over it and it plummeted onto the ground below, with the Purple Giant still holding tight.
After they collapsed fully onto the ground, the dragon continued to thrash wildly in an attempt to shake the Purple Giant off. Then the latter suddenly let out a booming roar, and an almost visible psionically charged shockwave blasted out from his body into his immediate environment, including the dragon. The latter immediately went limp, the shockwave having fried whatever passed for a nervous system in its body.
Letting out a breath of relief, the Purple Giant released his hold on the dragon's neck, stood up, and turned to walk away.
Suddenly, parts of the dragon's body exploded into a swarm of dark red specks again. This time, I was able to focus my senses to see these specks more clearly. They were flying worms, each slightly smaller than a human's pinky finger. The swarm engulfed the Purple Giant and the worms began attempting to burrow through his skin. Immediately, he held up his fists and began channelling psionic energy through his body again, focusing them to kill off the worms that tried to invade his body. The tattoo-like lines on his body glowed even brighter. Still, the sheer size and persistence of the swarm made it hard for him to completely shake it off.
"Braam !" The female Firstborn shouted out in worry to the Purple Giant. She also began channelling psionic energy through herself. Bright blue sparks began issuing forth here and there on her body. Then, taking a deep breath, she threw her hands forwards in the direction of where Braam was standing. A torrent of lightning burst forth from her hands and struck the swarm, then branched and spread over the whole swarm in the way that sheet lightning spread over an actual thundercloud. This successfully repelled the swarm, which flew away from Braam.
Then the lightning vanished, and both she and the other male jogged forward towards Braam. She placed a hand on one of the giant's shoulders and said something with a slightly concerned expression. Braam replied with something else, and the three of them turned to look at where the swarm was coalescing into a new form, about 15 metres away from them.
The woman exclaimed something in frustration. This time I was able to hear it, as by now I had subtly focused my psionic senses towards them.
"Do these devils never die?"
The man with the scarred skin looked towards the smouldering remains of the dragon. More precisely, those bits and pieces which had not transformed back into the flying worm swarm. "They will die, Jwala. We just need to keep burning them."
Jwala sighed, "I don't know, Ges. If they keep scattering and reforming every time we attack them, it might take forever."
The swarm of invader worms had now finished coalescing, into two human-like figures with brilliant blue skin:
Their faces were coldly expressionless. Extending their arms forward, they both sauntered towards the Firstborn trio.
Moments later, their fingers rapidly grew into long blue-grey tendrils which snaked through the air towards Braam, Ges and Jwala, like the growth of vines over an invisible wall, viewed in fast-forward.
Just as the disturbing aerial vines were about to reach the three Firstborn, Ges ran forward. A sword of bluish-white light now protruded from each of his gauntlets, like Protoss psi-blades. With a series of skilful slashes, almost too fast to make out the individual swings, he cut down section after section of the invaders' tendrils as he charged towards the invaders, intent to cut them down as well.
Yet there were too many tendrils, and one managed to wrap around Ges's left ankle. It pulled hard, and he began to fall backwards.
"Ges !" Jwala seemed to tense, and her right hand was slightly raised. Ges stopped falling and regained his balance. With quick swipes of his psi-blades, he fought back the tendrils trying to take advantage of his momentary loss of balance.
By now Braam and Jwala had run forward to stand beside Ges as well. Again, Jwala summoned her psionically-charged lightning and directed them to strike the tendrils to keep them at bay. Braam grabbed a few tendrils, and tried to channel psionic energy through them in an attempt to completely destroy them. Some free tendrils wrapped themselves around his arms and began to glow. And Braam gasped as he realised that the tendrils were returning the favour by also emitting energy intense enough to scald him.
"We must call for backup!" Braam exclaimed, as he warily watched the two humanoid Invaders steadily approaching them.
Deciding that it was time for me to intervene, I flew towards them.
Landing right behind the two Invaders, I quickly pressed a hand on each of their backs before either of them could react to my presence. Where my palms touched them, a purplish-white radiance burst forth, and engulfed the both of them. Then the radiance retreated back into my palms, and at the same time, the Invaders' bodies disintegrated into a glowing cloud, as if flash-vaporised, which followed the retreating radiance to be eventually absorbed into my palms. And thus I assimilated their essence. "Interesting essence" I remarked to myself.
The ropy tendrils, which were outside the effect of the radiance, exploded into flocks of flying worms again and began to scatter in various directions.
"No, you are going nowhere." Closing my eyes, I reached out telekinetically to every individual worm and crushed them. One of the skills I had inherited from the Overmind was the ability to simultaneously direct countless processes. Now, it was as if I had sent out tens of thousands of psionic threads to catch and kill the invader worms.
That task finished, I opened my eyes and looked ahead, and saw the three Firstborn staring back at me in shock. Especially Jwala, who had been the most expressive of the three. Braam and Ges's expressions remained mostly stoic, only their eyes widening subtly. Jwala, on the other hand, not only had her eyes dramatically wide, her mouth hung open as well.
I approached them, tempering my psionic presence to radiate a sense of calm and goodwill. "Fear not …"
For a moment, they stayed mostly still, though their expressions began to soften and they showed subtle signs of relaxing.
However, Jwala's eyes were still wide, and before I could begin to say anything else, she blurted out:
There's no crossover with Broken Trinity. I chose that image for Braam, for a reason that will become clear soon (and some of you may have already guessed it )
As soon as the words left Jwala's mouth, Braam and Ges briefly tensed, wondering how I might react.
"Haha, this does look strange to you, doesn't it?" I chuckled as I stroked my chin with a finger. "Let me rectify that."
Feeling for the essence of the invaders within me, I accessed their ability to reconfigure themselves, which, after being integrated into my own body, is now expressed as an ability to just shapeshift.
The lower half of my face twitched and writhed, as if tiny worms were swimming underneath my skin and shifting themselves to change the morphology of my face. Eventually, the movement stopped and I now had a nose and mouth just like Jwala's people. In fact, throughout the transformation, I had been looking at Jwala, taking her face for reference, so my visage ended up resembling hers.
In a similar way, I had even modified the rest of my body to resemble hers a bit more, except I was still a head taller than her, I still had the talons I had as a Protoss, and my nerve cords were still exceptionally long and tentacle-like.
Apparently, she did not feel very reassured by my new resemblance to her. "Ok, that … is no less disturbing!"
And I continued to chuckle.
Braam, deciding to step in before his outspoken female team mate started offending the powerful being who could vaporise creatures with a touch, asked,
"Actually, may we ask: who are you?"
"Oh, yes." I stopped chuckling but still wore a slight smile. "Well, the Cerebrates …" I paused as I recalled the term that the Firstborn use to refer to the Cerebrates, "… the Old Ones, call me the Eternal Overmind. The Firstborn … know me as the Eternal Preserver …"
At this, Braam, Jwala and Ges froze.
"… but actually you can just call me Shantira."
There was a moment of silence, until the three of them realised I was not joking. And once again, Jwala was the first to comment.
"Wait, if we're seeing you … does that mean we're all dead?"
"Do not worry." I radiated a reassuring aura again. "You are very much alive. It is I who have awoken and come back to the physical world."
Just then, we heard and felt another series of tremors, and looked up to see the invaders' ships firing on the shields again, except this time at another spot, above a different shield generator than the one we had defended.
"Who are these invaders?" I asked.
When they just stared at me curiously, I sighed, "whatever my Preservers have been telling you, I don't actually know everything."
"We still do not know what they actually call themselves." Braam started explaining, "All attempts to communicate with them, even telepathically, had failed. Those who have tried, only gleaned three recurring concepts from their … minds: 'warlock', 'toxic', 'gang'. Thus we have taken to calling them the Toxids."
"A good enough label." I nodded. "And a very ironic name."
Braam raised an eyebrow. "Ironic? How so?"
"You will soon know." My smile turned to a smirk. "This enemy is an adaptive swarm, aren't they? Well then, we shall fight them, with an adaptive Swarm of our own!"
Now Jwala and Ges continued staring at me curiously, while Braam lowered and narrowed his eyes in deep thought, apparently already having a suspicion about what I was referring to.
Closing my own eyes, I reached out telepathically to the mist shrouded forests surrounding the mountains, and then the ground below said forests, and then under that ground … and touched countless minds, and they knew my wish.
A second later, I opened my eyes, and gestured towards the foots of the mountains, and the land beyond, although from this position one would see mostly clouds or mist.
"Look!"
There was a distant but clear and fine rustling noise coming from all around us, and the three Firstborn hesitantly turned to look towards where I was gesturing. And then gasped in surprise as some parts of the low-lying clouds and mist started turning dark orange.
Soon though, it became clear that clouds of something orange were rapidly rising from the forests, through the real clouds and mist, and reaching up towards the Toxid ships, like a semi-sentient dust storm:
If one could examine the microscopic components of this dust storm, one would see little flying insects similar to thrips .
A bioweapon developed by the Old Ones, analogous to combination of two of the Defiler's traits: Dark Swarm and Plague.
A Plague Swarm.
At first the orange clouds simply engulfed the Toxid ships and dragons without having any effect on them.
And then one of the Voidseeker ships' attacks broke off some small pieces from the surface of one of the Toxid ships. Just like before, these fragments exploded into a dark red cloud, but instead of reforming into anything coherent, this cloud started turning black upon contact with the Plague Swarm and started drifting down towards the Earth.
"It … it didn't reform !" Jwala noted in wonder. Similarly, I could sense the feeling of surprise given off by Braam and Ges.
"See, you don't need awesome firepower to take them down." I gestured towards the Toxid ships. "They are all living things, with a consistent physiology. And what are living things vulnerable to? Toxins."
At this, Braam nodded in understanding, "… and a swarm of our own to deliver this toxin to every member of their swarm."
Indeed, whenever one of the tiny insects of the Plague Swarm came into contact with a Toxid worm, it latched onto the worm and released a dose of toxins so potent it could even wither rock, not to mention a living thing. And with the sheer number of Plague Swarm insects surrounding and going after the Toxids, there was no escape for the flying alien worms. Soon, the Plague Swarm even began seeping into the openings created in the Toxid ships created by the Voidseeker attacks. The walls of those openings also started turning black, and the blackness started spreading over the surface of the Toxid ships like fast-growing mold.
As Braam, Jwala and Ges watched with feelings of gradually rising excitement, the Voidseekers' attacks on the Toxid ships began to intensify, their crews beginning to realise, with each strike, that the Toxids had somehow lost the ability to reform after scattering.
Eventually, all seven of the Voidseeker ships uncloaked. One by one, they stopped firing lightning at the Toxid ships. Instead, each Voidseeker projected long glowing blades of energy from their front and sides. Then, like giant glowing swiss-army knives thrown at water melons, they dove towards the Toxid ships, skidding along the latters' surface, and slicing through said surface with their energy blades. After completely passing the invaders' ships, they turned and swooped at the Toxid ships again … and again … and again …, while the latter tried in vain to turn and hit the nimble and fast-moving Voidseekers with their energy beams.
In this way, the Voidseekers were removing chunks off the Toxid ships at a drastically greater rate than before. Every fragment thus thrown off was set upon by the Plague Swarm and fell, dead and blackened, through the mist. And every opening thus created on the Toxid ships was invaded by the countless microscopic insects.
The dragons themselves, on the other hand, were outright torn to pieces whenever a Voidseeker swooped past them, the resulting pieces further broken down by the Plague Swarm, like clumps of mud dissolving in a stream.
Eventually, all three Toxid ships became dramatically withered, blackened and tattered, and began drifting down through the clouds as well.
And then they crashed onto the ground below and immediately crumbled. The resulting series of intermittent thuds reverberated through the land. At the same time, leftover clouds of Plague Swarm, those bugs which had not had the chance to latch onto any target, gradually dispersed as if blown out by strong winds, until the sky was clear again.
(A/N: stop BGM)
Ges silently let out the breath that he seemed to have been holding.
Jwala cheered. "Woohoo !!!"
As for Braam, he slowly turned towards me. "Those were the Old Ones weren't they? I've always been able to sense them, and today I felt an unusually strong presence all around … and below us."
I simply replied, "Yes."
He nodded, "If the Old Ones are helping us, then we may yet be able to defeat the invaders."
Jwala stopped cheering and turned towards us. "Did you say, the Old Ones?"
Ges turned towards me as well, intrigued.
Still facing Braam, I replied, "Not so simple. The Old Ones living under and near the Crystal Mountains have been convinced to help, as they also hold these mountains sacred, but those living on the rest of the planet, they will not be so easy to convince. Especially considering what the Firstborn had done to them millenia ago."
"Oh." Jwala blinked, recalling what she had learned about her peoples' history. Ges simply nodded in understanding.
Braam, on the other hand, had a determined look on his face. "Then what must be done to convince them?"
Again, I smiled, "It is good that you ask, since you have what it takes to accomplish this. Tell me, Hybrid, have you gone through a Preserver initiation?"
I could sense a brief moment of surprise from him upon hearing me mention his true nature, but he did not comment on it. Instead, he calmly answered my question.
"Not exactly, but I have heard a Preserver explain to me about what it entails. A controlled near-death experience, in which one goes into the Dream and passes the little tests set by the Eternal Preserver, who then provides the initiate with something to bring back into the living world as proof of having finished the initiation. But if you are indeed the Eternal Preserver, and you are here, what will I look for when I enter the Dream?"
"Good question. Don't worry, when you're there, you'll know!" With that, I gently pressed a palm onto his forehead. The latter glowed green for a moment, and then he suddenly collapsed unconscious.
"Hey! What did you do?" Jwala exclaimed in shock.
"He's in the Dream now." I radiated reassurance again. "And he probably needs his vitals monitored. Why don't we go back to your base, where your medical personnel can attend to him? And I can talk to the rest of your people as well."
While Jwala hurriedly knelt down and felt for Braam's pulse to check that he was still alive, Ges nodded and pressed a finger onto the psi-transmitter he wore over one ear and said,
"Control, this is squad 7 at Shield Generator 31. The Toxid attack has been neutralised, but one of us has fallen unconscious. Please warp us back into the Temple. And also note, we have an … important guest with us. Activating extra beacon now."
Then he fished out something resembling a crystal medallion from within his suit and held it out to me. Understanding its purpose, I nodded and took it, just as it began to emit a blue glow.
And then the air among and around all four of us shimmered and we were engulfed by a bright blue light.
…
Within the Dream:
It was dark and strange.
After the being who claimed to be the Eternal Preserver had pushed his consciousness into the Dream, he found himself standing on a clearing of grass, surrounded by what appeared to be other types of vegetation. A bit further out, the surroundings were shrouded in an iridescent multi-coloured mist. And even further out, he saw the night sky, with what appeared to be a moon and stars. When he looked at the stars a bit longer though, he realised that they were subtly moving.
And all around him were blue wisps drifting about and fading in and out of sight.
After a moment, he realised that most of them were drifting towards him. As they approached their forms became more tangible and shifted to roughly resemble those of Firstborn. It was then that he that he realised that he was perceiving the essences of Firstborn who had died and gone into the Dream.
And then another kind of wisp started approaching him as well. Glowing gold instead of blue, and sprouting tendrils instead of just being roughly spherical. As each of these wisps approached, it also turned more tangible and morphed to roughly resemble a cross between a giant slug and centipede.
These were the essences of dead Old Ones, much less numerous than those of the Firstborn, but projecting just as imposing a psionic presence.
Soon, he was surrounded by a vast field of wisps, mostly blue on one side and gold on the other, and those near him taking the forms of their respective species.
And regarding him curiously. Some even prodding him with their fingers or feelers.
And he let them. "Noble ancestors, I understand what the Eternal Preserver wanted me to do now. It is to show you that our two species can indeed become one people. Look, I am the living proof of this possibility!" He spread his arms. "As I speak, our common homeworld is under attack by a vicious, implacable enemy. Some of you may have recently died by their metaphorical hands. So you know the situation we're in. It is time to put aside our old hatreds, and rise up as one against this enemy !"
If the wisps understood his message, they did not show it yet.
Instead, the Firstborn wisps currently looking him over suddenly grabbed his left arm, and tried to pull him towards his left where most of the wisps were blue. At the same time, a couple of Old One wisps wrapped their claws and feelers around his right arm and tugged him in the other direction.
"No, stop !"
Just then, the moon in the sky started going through a rapid lunar eclipse, until in a minute it faded completely out of sight, making the surroundings appear slightly darker.
At the same time, there was a roaring sound from the distance, like an approaching tidal wave.
For a moment, all the wisps stopped moving.
And then those closest to him started huddling onto him. As they touched him, he understood their panic.
"The Dream is starting to collapse isn't it? Now that the Eternal Preserver has stopped sustaining it?"
He brushed a hand through the tops of some of the wisps, trying to reassure them, and without consciously understanding why he did so, he spoke the first words he had heard from the Eternal Preserver:
"Fear not."
…
The hall of the Main Temple in the middle of the Crystal Mountains
As the teleportation field faded we found ourselves in a spacious hall,
In the most important temple built within the Crystal Mountains. Formerly a major centre of the Order of Preservers, now converted into a planetside headquarters for the Firstborn fighting the Toxid invaders. Its architecture reminded me of Xel'Naga relics. Yet another aspect of this new world that I have subconsciously influenced through the Dream.
Here and there were groups of Firstborn of various appearances going about their own activities.
A few wore similar suits to Jwala or Ges, and appeared to be checking their gear or walking towards the edges of the hall. Just like Braam, Jwala and Ges, these were likely squads who were supposed to respond to emergency events like breaches in the shields around the Crystal Mountains.
A few had cybernetic implants to varying extents, and were either prodding the walls or fixtures, or just standing motionless. Technopaths, able to psionically interact with technology, and thus important to the maintenance and monitoring of all the systems in this headquarters and beyond.
Some wore ornate black robes, and either sat or walked in meditation. The Preservers themselves.
The remaining Firstborn milling about the hall were dressed in various casual attires, with no immediately recognisable uniform or profession.
Shortly after we materialised in the middle of the hall, a few of the above-mentioned people gradually turned to look at us. Especially at me, with curiosity. The Preservers recognised the subtle aura I was emanating, and one by one, half-bowed and pressed their palms together before their chests in a reverent pose, much to the consternation of their lay peers. At the same time, more people were entering the hall from adjacent chambers in the Temple, and turned to regard us as well.
At the far side of the hall was a large altar. Above it, protruding from the ceiling, was another large fixture pointing towards it. A column of light ran down from the lower tip of this fixture, into the centre of the altar. Around this column of light floated various holographic displays, the most prominent of which was a display of the planet itself:
With a small blue triangle indicating the location of this Temple, a few small lime green triangles indicating the other remaining Firstborn hold-outs, and tiny red dots scattered all over the landmasses, indicating concentrations of Toxids. Upon close examination one could find that practically all the habitable spaces had been taken over by the Toxids, save for the areas around the Temple and the other hold-outs, for various geographical or technological reasons (such as the shield generator network on the Crystal Mountains).
Standing around and studying these holographic displays, were a group of Firstborn, occasionally exchanging remarks and observations with each other as they monitored the status of the planet's defense. They all seemed to defer to a silent figure dressed in the familiar black robes of a Preserver, but more ornate than those of the other Preservers in this hall.
Grand Preserver Relana, de facto leader of all the Firstborn currently taking refuge in this Temple.
She had spotted me, and was now making her way towards me, accompanied by a few other Firstborn.
These included one woman who was dressed in what I recognised as the attire of a medical staff, and was now hurriedly running towards us. There was something else I recognised about her, and inwardly I smiled.
When she reached us, she knelt down and checked Braam's pulse, then looked up at Jwala with a worried expression. "What happened to him?"
Jwala simply shrugged and shifted her gaze towards me.
The woman also shot her gaze towards me. "Did you do this?"
Instead of voicing out my reply, I projected a telepathic message directly into her mind, lacing it with the tone that I usually took when communicating with Cerebrates. "Do you not recognise me, Scylla?"
At this, she froze, then her eyes gradually widened as she sensed my unusual aura just as Relana had. "It is you … !"
"It is me. I have come to the waking world." I gestured towards Braam. "but he has entered the Dream on an important mission. A different kind of Preserver initiation. I need you to ensure that his life signs are stable."
And then telepathically, I added. "After all, you know your offspring's condition the best."
"Y-yes, of course!" Scylla promptly nodded and went to work, fishing out a few crystal devices from the pockets of her garb and setting them up around Braam's unconscious body. Then she put one of the crystals on Braam's chest, placed a palm over it, and closed her eyes. All the crystals glowed as they started to form psionic connections with Braam's body and monitor or stabilise his physiological processes under Scylla's mental direction.
Just then, Relana had reached us as well, and half-bowed in the reverent pose just like the other Preservers.
"Ah, Relana. It is good to finally see you in the flesh!" I said cheerfully.
"It is good to finally meet you in the waking world too, Eternal One."Relana replied as her posture straightened up again. "Though regrettably we are unable to give you a better welcome at the moment."
By now a small crowd of Firstborn had gathered all around us, keeping a respectful distance. From observing Relana's brief interaction with me, in addition to the unusual appearance of my nerve cords, even the non-Preservers could tell that I was no ordinary mortal.
"I understand." I nodded and briefly looked ahead at the holographic display of the planet over the altar. "Wherever the Toxids land, they have been unstoppable. Overnight, the Firstborn species has been decimated."
"Not entirely unstoppable though, it seems." Relana radiated a subtle feeling of hope. "Just now, I have been informed that three Toxid ships attacking the have been destroyed, after being poisoned by strange orange clouds arising from the ground. Similar orange clouds have been forming along the rest of the Crystal Mountains, moving almost amoeba-like to attack other nearby Toxid ships. Was that your doing, Eternal One?"
"They are the doing" I paused briefly in my reply to ensure that everyone around us was paying attention. "… of the beings you call the Old Ones…"
There was a series of gasps from all over the crowd, followed by murmuring.
Relana simply nodded. After initiation, a Preserver would proceed to learn more spiritual techniques developed by the Order under my guidance. Including how to access and interact with the essences of the dead. Thus a Preserver like Relana could know details about the past that were not recorded in publicised history texts, including details about the bioweapons used by the Cerebrates.
And then I continued, "… However, they are not fully your allies yet. Only those living near or under the Crystal Mountains have moved to attack the Toxids. And even then, they have unleashed only one of their many varieties of bioweapons."
Now I sensed that the crowd's initial shock at my mention of the Cerebrates was starting to wear off, and they started listening to me with fascination.
"Just as most of you vaguely know them as terrible monsters of ancient legend, they see you as the invaders and usurpers."
One brave on-looker spoke up. "I have never seen an Old One, but I believe they are sentient beings just like us. Is there no way to mend the gulf between or two species?"
"Well, good question." I smiled at him, then swept my gaze around the crowd. "You could go meet them and talk to them. But that will take time. And no doubt the Toxids will be using this time to come up with a new strategy to wipe you out."
Then I sighed. "So it has come to this. When I first awoke on this world, I set out to spur, and then simply guide the evolution of life here. Inevitably, I have been subtly influencing both you and the Old Ones, but generally, I have allowed both your species to develop your civilisations on your own, and hoped that one day you will, of your own accord, put aside your hatreds and come together as one people. However, now I realise that hands-off approach has left you vulnerable to a powerful enemy like the Toxids. I think it is time, that I took drastic measures."
As I spoke, I felt a sense of anticipation from the crowd.
Returning my gaze to the one who had asked me the question, I proclaimed, "The one way to mend the gulf between your species now, is for me to release the essences of your predecessors, both Firstborn and Old One, from the Dream." Then I swept my gaze around the crowd again. "And for each of you to partake of the essence of both species. And the Old Ones will do the same."
For a moment, there was silence in the hall. Noone was sure how to respond to what I had said.
And then Relana nodded and answered. "I understand what we must do, and I will gladly go through it to save our homeworld." Then she looked around and addressed the other Firstborn. "My friends, by now the evacuations all over the planet should be nearing their end. We could have gone with what remains of the rest of our people, to leave this world through the warpgates and go to supposedly safer settlements on other worlds. So why have we stayed behind?".
Now it was to her that the crowd paid rapt attention.
"We have done so because we have long overcome the fear of death. Preservers, Technopaths, Spectre Agents … all of us. …
We have done so, because we know that if we simply flee the planet, then one day the Toxids will catch up to us, or we might encounter an even more terrible enemy, and this tragedy will just repeat itself …
Now we have a real chance to actually defeat this enemy once and for all, and become strong enough to defend ourselves and our people from similar enemies in the future …
Will we not take it?"
For a moment noone responded. Then, one by one, the crowd placed their fists over their chests and proclaimed,
"We will take it, Grand Preserver !"
"We will accept the essences you speak of, Eternal One !"
"Let's do this !"
As Relana sent for a long range psi-transmitter to inform the Firstborn at the other hold-outs and the defense fleets about what was going to happen, I turned towards Scylla. "What do you say, Scylla? Or rather, what does the Collective say?"
Slowly, Scylla stood up. For a moment, she stood still, as if deliberating. Then, she seemed to take a deep breath and nodded lightly. The next moment, her nerve cords turned from grey to brown and became segmented. Brown freckles appeared on her face, and the glow in her eyes changed from blue to gold. This drew another series of surprised gasps from the crowd, including a "What the frakk, Scylla?!?!" from Jwala.
Ignoring the reactions of the crowd, Scylla addressed me, "On behalf of the Cerebrate race, I accept."
"Well then, I suggest all of you hold on to each other for support, as the process may be quite … unsettling." I knelt down and touched Braam's forehead with the tips of my left-hand fingers.
Then his forehead began to glow, just as it did when I sent him into the Dream. However, this time, the glow rapidly spread all around his body and then intensified, until it seemed like his entire body was made of light.
Then suddenly this light exploded into a fountain of blue and golden wisps which filled the Hall like a three dimensional image of a star cluster:
These stars became like comets as some of them hurtled towards the nearest living body and entered it. With multiple wisps going after the same body.
The Firstborn started convulsing and screaming to various degrees as they endured the sudden and massive influx of essence into their bodies, both Firstborn and Cerebrate, into their bodies, which began to glow like metal statues being heated to almost melting point. Some even burst into flames. Fortunately, I knew that they would not be harmed in the end.
Ges, Jwala and Scylla were not spared either, but I smiled as I saw Jwala embracing Scylla from behind, the intense glow from their trembling bodies temporarily erasing any visible signs of inter-species difference. Ges, also glowing, placed a hand on Jwala's shoulder for support as well. Similarly, all around us, the Firstborn were either holding hands, embracing, or adopting other gestures of mutual support. Relana, who seemed the calmest among them, held hands with two other Preservers.
The wisps continued to gush forth from Braam's body like a fountain of light. A fraction of them even began to emerge from my own body, and I felt some choosing to stay in it. I let them.
Eventually, most of the wisps thus released into the Hall ignored the glowing figures below them and instead shot comet-like towards the walls, floor and ceiling, and then went through them, to fly towards the Firstborn and Cerebrates all over the planet and its vicinity.
After what felt like half an hour, there were no more wisps in the hall. The glow and flames on everyone's bodies faded, leaving behind tattoo-like lines similar to those on Braam's body. These varied in colour (mostly blue) and exact pattern according to the individual, and glowed whenever the host exerted psionic power.
The experience had disoriented everyone to varying degrees, some falling unconscious, others struggling to stand upright. The Preservers sat down in silent meditation to calm their minds and bodies.
Relana was the first to regain her bearings. She was now levitating above the ground due to the sheer amount of psionic power she had just gained from integrating the essences from the Dream within herself.
Even her attire had been subtly altered during Awakening process by the now-fading green flames. Now it projected a sense of being from a deep dark alternate dimension.
"How do you feel?" I asked her.
She briefly looked down at her hands. "I have interacted with essences of the dead before, even some of the Old Ones … the Cerebrates, but not this intimately. Now it is as if I know all their history, their motivations, their hopes and dreams. And all the suffering they have gone through."
I nodded in satisfaction. "Then the Cerebrates who have gone through this process will feel the same way about the Firstborn. Now, we are ready to go to the next phase. Can I borrow your psi-amplifier?" I held out a hand towards her.
Promptly, she passed the device to me, and I held it up to my head. At the same time, I also closed my eyes and felt for my connection with the Cerebrates just as I had done .
And then I began projecting my message towards every Firstborn and Cerebrate on and the planet and in the space around it:
"Sentients of Firstworld" I began, recalling the Firstborn's simple term for their homeworld. "By now you may just experienced something extraordinary and feel a bit disoriented. For the Firstborn fleet crews in space, do not worry, in that brief moment, your ships' AIs would have handled basic defences for you. The Toxids were unable to take advantage of your momentary inaction.
What you have just experienced, is the infusing of the essences of dead Firstborn and Cerebrates into your bodies. If you focus on them, you will become aware of their memories, however faint.
For Preservers and Dreamers who are trying to feel the Dream but felt a weird sense of oblivion, a living nothingness, fear not. The Dream has collapsed. What you feel now is the vast extra dimension in which I had grown the Dream and kept the essences of the dead. Now that the Dream has collapsed, you perceive it in its true state. The Void between universes. In time, you will learn to wield its power just as you have learned to navigate the Dream.
Both Firstborn and Cerebrates, for your species are truly one people now.
The plight of one is that of the other. The achievements of one are those of the other."
So … all you who have hidden underground for millenia … RISE !!! DEFEND YOUR HOMEWORLD !!!"
With that, I opened my eyes, deactivated the psi-amplifier and handed it back to Relana.
By now almost all the Firstborn in the hall had roughly regained their bearings, and were either examining their new tattoos curiously, chatting excitedly about what had just happened, or gracefully getting up from meditation in the case of the Preservers.
And then I heard Braam's voice from the ground.
"Mo- Scylla, is that you?"
He had just awoken as well, his body having changed very little after the Awakening, in contrast to that of Scylla whom he was now staring at in shock.
Her face was recognisably the same as before, but now her skin was dark purple. The Awakening had burned off all her clothing, and left tattoo-like lines on her body which glowed cyan. Wings, made of living lightning, sprouted from her back.
Presently, she stood eyes closed in deep concentration. The lightning-like wings retracted and disappeared. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at Braam.
"Yes, it is I. And don't worry. Everyone already knows what I am. Or rather …" she glanced at the glowing tattoos on her righ arm. "… What I was."
Braam looked around, sighed, nodded in understanding and got up.
At the same time, we heard Jwala's excited voice.
"Ges, your face, it's healing !!!"
For the first time since meeting him, I was able to see Ges smile:
At that moment, a series of beeping sounds were emitted from the direction of the altar and reverberated throughout the hall.
A few of the personnel who had been working at the altar now ran back towards.
Curious, Relana, Scylla, Braam, Ges, Jwala and I followed along, together with several other people.
When we reached there, we saw the personnel staring at the holographic globe in shock. In addition to the indicators we saw previously, it now also had more prominent translucent bright red dots all over the globe. These dots blinked rhythmically and emitted intermittent red ripples which spread out over their immediate vicinity before fading.
One of the personnel exclaimed, "Seismic upheavals all over the planet ! What's going on?"
One of the other altar personnel hurriedly pressed a palm over a crystal embedded in one of the pedestals on the altar, and briefly narrowed his eyes in concentration.
The next moment, a few of the holographic displays faded, to be replaced by several new displays which turned out to be image feeds from observer drones and ships at various locations on or over the planetary surface.
And putting aside the differences in scenary, some of the feeds showed a similar thing:
Cracks appeared in the ground, as if an earthquake had occurred and then stopped right after starting. From these cracks the orange Plague Swarm rose high into the air.
Some of the cracks were so wide they might as well be newly formed valleys of unfathomable depth. From within these larger cracks, wave after wave of dark-coloured creatures, which looked like a cross between giant jellyfish and squid in shape, kept emerging and flying up into the sky, and then into space. These reminded me of the drop pods used by the Zerg, except these seemed to be able to fly by their own power.
Similar creatures were emerging from the seas and oceans en masse, accompanied by even larger creatures resembling giant but tail-less mantas, also ascending into space, and seemingly heading towards the main Toxid fleets in orbit of the planet.
By now a crowd had gathered around the altar as well,
And it let out a collective gasp as one of the image feeds showed what initially appeared to be an entire island rearing up and then rising into the sky as well, generating sizable tidal waves in its wake. As its body completely left the waters, we could see that it resembled a gigantic mutated whale. And then more and more of these leviathans began emerging from the water.
"These creatures … how have we never detected them until now ?!?!?" Someone exclaimed.
It was Scylla who answered. "We … the Cerebrates grew them with the intention of turning them on the Firstborn when the opportunity arose. They were engineered with the ability to scramble their own life-signs so as to appear to sensors as nothing more than giant coral reefs, underground fungal colonies, and so on. However, the over-emphasis on staying hidden meant that their growth also had to be carefully regulated and thus slow. Eventually, the initial motivation for creating them wore off, and they were left to grow on their own, becoming, in a sense, part of the natural biosphere which they had been blending into. But now … they have been Awakened."
Gradually, we turned our attention to those image feeds from space, and saw the swarms of space squids, space mantas and space whales approach the Toxid fleets, who themselves numbered in the thousands. The latter opened fire with their energy beams, carving off entire appendages and organs from the creatures, but the latter pressed on. Those that could reach a Toxid ship crashed into it, releasing clouds of Plague Swarm around and into said ships. Those that died before accomplishing this, too heavily injured or outright cut to pieces by the weapon beams, released swarms of the squid-creatures, who together with those that had travelled directly from the planetary surface, shot towards the Toxid ships and burrowed into the latter. Fragments that attempted to break away to avoid the attack were chased down by more squid creatures.
As was the case for the battle over the Crystal Mountains, the thus wounded Toxid ships started turning black and withering. Their companions, realising the danger posed by this new swarm-like enemy, began accelerating away from the swarm.
However, just as it was for the above-mentioned battle, the crews of the Firstborn warships were quick to notice that the situation had dramatically turned in their favour, and moved to intercept the Toxid ships through superior speed and manoeuvrability. Squadrons of dozens of voidseekers dove in and out of the Toxid fleets, slicing chunks off of the Toxid ships, to be further broken down by the Cerebrate space creatures, and also offsetting the escape paths of the Toxid ships in the process, and deftly avoiding the latters' return fire.
One mothership fired its Purifier cannon through several Toxid ships, smashing the latter into a cloud of fragments and plasma, which was once again consumed by the Swarm.
In desperation, a group of Toxid ships stopped their own futile evasive manoeuvres, clumped together into one huge lumpy sphere, which fired an unusually wide and intense weapon beam towards the mothership. The latter, being much less manoeuvrable than the Voidseekers, was being continuously tracked by the weapon beam as it attempted to fly out of the beam's path, and ultimately had to rely on its shields to temporarily resist the beam.
And then a pack of leviathans crashed into the Toxid super-sphere, knocking off its aim. Like sharks attacking a clumsy prey, they pressed their humongous maws against the surface of the supersphere. For a moment nothing happened, and then the super-sphere's weapon beam died down, and it started rapidly turning black, starting from the areas being bitten into by the leviathans.
Just before the super-sphere completely died, it suddenly began to glow red-hot, like a newly-formed planet or moon. It exploded into a rapidly expanding cloud and orange plasma, flash-roasting the leviathans still latched onto it, and sending fragments hurtling out at hypervelocity like gigantic shrapnel.
Similar super-spheres were forming elsewhere in the battle-space, and after a few token attempts to defend themselves with their super-beams, went through similar self-destruct sequences as the first one. The resulting vast clouds of plasma and barrages of shrapnel finally managed to cripple or break a few Voidseekers through the suddenness and unexpected range of the attack. Along with uncountable members of the Swarm sent out by the Cerebrates.
Yet ultimately this attack was but a last act of defiance by the invaders.
As the shrapnel flew out of sight and the plasma clouds faded, and more and more of the Toxid ships which had not joined into super-spheres started to wither to death,
Heart of the Swarm. Well, obviously most of you already know what it is. (But just in case: it's the Zerg campaign of StarCraft 2)
Bahubali is a recent 2-part epic Indian movie with an epic soundtrack. I recommend listening to the whole soundtrack, or even better: watch the whole movie. It's on Youtube, including a few versions with English subtitles.
Alien Empire is was an old but classic documentary about insects, with similarly unforgettable music. Again, I recommend listening to the whole soundtracks or just watch documentary if you haven't. All episodes except ep 5 can be found on Youtube.
A/N: background info subchapter about cerebrate aerospace vessels. Enuff said
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The Eternal Preserver
Chapter 4.5
Cerebrate vessels
General Concepts:
True body, outer body and servitors:
All Cerebrate "technology" is organic, and the distinction between user and tool is much more blurred for them than for the Firstborn. Each cerebrate has a True body, whose overall form has changed little over the evolution of the species: usually a cross between a slug and a centipede. This is contained within an Outer Body, which is tougher, stronger, more suited for manipulating the environment, and usually having an internal psi-amplifier for communicating remotely with other cerebrates, and also for remotely controlling the various creatures and life forms bioengineered by the cerebrates. These servitor organisms are genetically incapable of straying from the cerebrates' psionic commands, and practically act like detached extensions of the cerebrates' bodies. While outer bodies are highly variable in form depending on the cerebrate's preferences, servitor organisms are even more so, ranging from microscopic bugs to vast starships.
Cryptobiosis:
When inactive, a Cerebrate vessel can go into a full hibernative state, also fully shutting down its life signs, and rendering it invisible to sensors that detect such life signs. This process can also be modulated to scramble the vessel's life signs or disguise them as the life signs of the rest of the biosphere, thus allowing the vessel to stay partially active and yet hidden from life-sign detectors.
Chromatophores:
A vessel's stealth is further helped by the ability to roughly alter its external texture and colour, to blend in visually with its surroundings. However, this is not complete cloaking. If the vessel moved too much, or an observer knew what to look for, the vessel could still be spotted. Furthermore, certain backgrounds are hard to blend into using this method, such as outer space. Hence, this ability is usually only used after a vessel has landed and is resting.
Flesh morphing:
The Cerebrates have always been masters at transforming living matter. Now, this capability has been taken to new heights, after sampling residual Toxid essence in the aftermath of the Firstborn and Cerebrates' combined victory over the invaders. Whenever a Cerebrate vessel suffers a huge wound, it can now shift and convert tissue from nearby body parts to heal the wound in seconds. Similarly, if it were to lose an organ, the organ could be regrown rapidly. In addition to recovering from seemingly lethal injury, the vessel could also suddenly grow more armour to withstand attacks or other forms of punishment, or an extra sense organ to give it better awareness of its surroundings.
Sac module:
Essentially a hollow bulge, this external organ initially served storage purposes. Its dome-like lid can briefly recede like an eyelid or valve to allow intake or release of various cargo, payloads, or servitor organisms etc. Even personnel can be transported in a sac this way (although this is usually not adviceable as the passenger has no control over his/her own posture or how the vessel moves, unlike in a proper cockpit).
With the evolution of Flesh morphing, sac modules are now lined internally with special totipotent tissue. Depending on the needs of the situation, a new appendage can be grown in seconds within the sac and extended out, such as an organic plasma cannon for defense, a plasma jet emitter for propulsion, etc. A sac module can also be used as a birthing chamber to spawn more servitor organisms, smaller craft, or even a smaller version of the vessel, which then feeds and grows. Thus, each Cerebrate vessel is now capable of reproduction.
Grav-organ:
This internal organ, which incorporates traces of khaydarin among its cells, allows the vessel to manipulate gravity within and near its body. The most common purpose is passively generating an adjustable field of anti-gravity, allowing the vessel to levitate and fly in a planet's atmosphere or low orbit, minimizing the need for massive wing-like appendages or oversized reaction-propulsion organs. An array of grav-organs can be used to perform more powerful or complex tasks (e.g. see below)
Collective Wormhole warp:
After millenia of secretly observing Firstborn technology, the Cerebrates have finally attained faster-than-light travel. However, they have yet to reach the precision and sophistication of Firstborn warp drives. In particular, they were unable to fit a fully-functional warp drive in every one of their vessels (save for the leviathan). Thus, they decided to make up for this shortcoming with sheer numbers and raw power, which has ultimately led them down a path of development not explored by the Firstborn. Rather than each vessel warping on its own, a swarm of Cerebrate vessels would usually combine and focus the power of their gravity-manipulation organs to create a wormhole, which could be extended to lead to the intended destination, and held open long enough for the swarm of vessels to travel through. The more numerous the swarm involved and the more energy focused into the wormhole, the wider the latter grows and the greater its range. It is even possible for a wormhole to become almost as wide as a planet, and be extended towards anywhere in the galaxy.
Sac probe Length: 4 metres (when born) to 20 metres Propulsion: 1. Single grav-organ, 2. Plasma jet (from sac-module) Armament: 1. Vibro-spike, 2. Tentacles, 3. Each sac-module can hold a weapon-appendage, payload, or servitor bugs
Remarks:
So named because of the many sac modules that make up its main body, the sac probe is a highly versatile craft.
On one end is a cluster of prehensile tentacles. When simply hovering, this end usually points down towards the ground, in the same way that a jellyfish's tentacles usually point down. This allows it to pick up or manipulate objects from the ground, or to "walk" using its tentacles if it is very close to the ground. At the centre of the base of the tentacle cluster is a squid-like mouth through which it usually feeds.
At the other end of the vessel is a hardened, short but wide spike. It is in the direction of this spike that the sac probe usually flies. If it comes into contact with an obstacle, the spike can vibrate at a frequency resonant with the material of the obstacle, disintegrating said material. In this way, a sac probe can rapidly burrow through the ground, the wall of a building or the even the hull of an enemy starship. Thus the probe can serve as a massive penetrative missile, doubly destructive if it is carrying a lot of bio-chemical or explosive payloads.
The original sac probes were designed as Outer Bodies, each "manned" by a Cerebrate True Body within. These were the very first creatures sent out by the Cerebrate Collective to explore outer space, long before the Firstborn came to dominate the homeworld. Each probe would leave the homeworld and accelerate like an organic rocket towards a particular planet or moon in the system. Upon reaching its destination, the probe would wander the surface of the planet or moon, take observations and samples for study, refuel if possible, and then return to the homeworld.
After countless generations of mass (re)production and evolution, the sac probes of today have become servitor creatures that can operate cooperatively in swarms of millions, each probe able to perform all its functions without being "manned" from within by a Cerebrate. During the battle against the Toxid fleet, countless sac probes surrounded and decimated the Toxids by burrowing into the latters' ships or ship fragments and releasing Plague Swarm bugs which poisoned the Toxid constructs upon contact.
Behemoth Length: 45 metres (when born) to 400 metres Propulsion: 1. Grav-organ array, 2. Plasma jet emitters along rear half of the vessel Armament: 1. Servitor bugs and smaller craft (e.g. sac probes) carried within, 2. Giant sac-modules less numerous but similar in function to those of a sac probe, 3. Grav-field
Remarks:
If the sac probe is designed for versatility, then the behemoth is designed for one main role: an extremely tough, long-distance transport.
Its entire body is heavily armoured. Even the sac modules on its back have lids reinforced with hard plates and ridges and are rarely opened. Instead, the behemoth usually takes in or releases its cargo through sealable slits and folds at its sides. In addition, even its turtle-like head is so robustly armoured that from afar it looks like a shallow bump at the front of the body, with no discernible neck.
An additional layer of defense is provided by the behemoth's grav-organ array which is strong and complex enough to exert a repulsive or retarding force on incoming physical attacks. Directed-energy (e.g. laser) attacks however, cannot be reduced in this way, and would strike the behemoth's armour with full power.
Another benefit of a more complex grav-organ system is the ability to move through air or space using the force field it generates, supplementing the propulsion provided by the plasma jet emitters. This allows the behemoth to save reaction fuel, allowing it to take even longer trips without feeding or going through a wormhole.
Behemoths were the second type of creature grown and sent out by the Cerebrates for space exploration. It could carry numerous sac probes, and while each probe could usually only operate within the space of a single solar system, a behemoth was able to travel to an adjacent star system as well. That was as far as Cerebrate space exploration went, before the war with the Firstborn broke out and the Cerebrate species was forced to live underground. After the Awakening, with the unification of the two species into one, behemoths are being integrated into the fleets of the Eternal Swarm as massive transport ships and "tanks in space".
Leviathan Length: 1 km (when born) to about 13 km Propulsion: 1. Grav-organ super-array (capable of creating wormhole and propelling the vessel by itself) Armament: 1. Bio-plasma barrage, 2. vibro-spike tipped teeth and tentacles inside maw, 3. Countless sac modules along its lower sides, 4. servitor organisms and smaller craft carried within, 5. Grav-field and Offensive warp
Remarks:
This class of bioship was created over the recent millenia with the intention of matching the power of the Firstborn fleet. However, the intended second war with the Firstborn never came. Instead, after the Awakening, all leviathans that had been slowly growing underground and in the oceans of the homeworld, were roused and deployed with devastating effect against the Toxid invaders.
The leviathan's grav-organ system, even stronger and more complex than that of a behemoth, is capable of creating a brief wormhole on its own. Other than warping itself to a destination, the leviathan can also use this wormhole to send other, smaller objects (including vessels) to the destination. Thus the leviathan can serve as a main staging area for an expedition.
In addition, just like smaller Cerebrate vessels, the leviathan can combine the power of its grav-organ system with that of other vessels to create an even larger, longer-lasting and longer-ranged wormhole.
And just like that of a behemoth, a leviathan's grav-organ system can generate a force field to move the vessel through air and space, or reduce the force of incoming physical attacks.
Besides those functions, a leviathan can also use this space-time warping ability as a tool or weapon. For example, drawing in an asteroid and throwing or warping it as a projectile against a target fleet or ship. While potentially devastating, such attacks lack the precision and speed to be practical against individual enemy ships, and thus are usually used for things like orbital bombardment.
Rather, a leviathan's current primary weapon is a function of its advanced plasma generation and manipulation ability, which is in turn made possible through the energy manipulation ability obtained from assimilating Toxid essence. In short, the leviathan generates, focuses and shapes a cloud of plasma within its huge mouth, then opens the latter and releases the plasma as a barrage of fast-moving ball lightnings (each can be as large as a behemoth), a compressed stream or an explosive cone etc. This bio-plasma barrage is capable of obliterating an entire fleet of smaller enemy ships at once, or incinerating an enemy ship of equal or greater size than the leviathan.
When a leviathan gets really up close to an enemy or target, it has another crude but devastating attack. Its shark-like maw is filled with countless teeth and tentacles tipped with vibro-spikes similar to those found on sac probes. These, in tandem with its plasma-filled breath, help the leviathan to rip enemy ships to fine shreds when it bites down on them. Whatever useful substances found in those fine shreds are absorbed by the leviathan and added to its biomass. The useless bits are ionized and blown out, often as shrapnel against other enemy ships.
And so, together with the Firstborn starships (see chapter 2b), some main niches have been filled.
In ascending order of size:
-Podship: small versatile personnel transport
-Sac probe: small versatile scout/assault craft
-Voidseeker: extremely fast, agile and deadly warship
-Behemoth: massive armoured transport
-Mothership: expedition flagship (colonisation oriented)
-Leviathan: expedition flagship (assault oriented)
-Arkship: experimental inter-dimensional vessel
Alright, Google Image Search no longer provides direct links to images, so it's now harder to find and embed images into each chapter. Still, I'll try my best to do so, since I want to avoid lengthy descriptions as far as possible.
Also, I've changed threadmarks for the chapters about the starship classes to be part of the main threadmarks instead of the informationals, as I've realised that these subchapters work better together with the story rather than separate from it.
This chapter will sort of wrap up the Toxid arc, and the next one will start out on El Hazard.
Leaning her insectoid body closer towards the chrysalis, Sleuvan peeked through its translucent shell, at the humanoid figure curled up in a fetal position within.
Sleuvan's new Outer Body.
It had been agreed, to further unite the two races, that the Cerebrates would adopt outer bodies with default forms similar to that of the Firstborn, and live among them, just like Scylla had bravely chosen to do decades ago. In turn, the Firstborn would connect their minds to the Collective.
And Sleuvan would be among the first cerebrates to go through the transformation. She had always been curious about how the Firstborn lived, and had been eager to take this curiosity one step further. Presently, around her, stood a party of other cerebrates, as well as actual Firstborn, watching and telepathically encouraging her.
Then Sleuvan's body slumped, her head being just close enough to the chrysalis to touch it.
In the past, in order for a cerebrate's true body to emerge, a slit would open up somewhere on the outer body, most likely the head, neck, chest or back, and through this opening the centipede-like true body would crawl out.
Today, however, no such opening appeared on Sleuvan's outer body.
Instead, small tendrils of golden light emerged from a spot at the top of her back. As these extended outwards, it turned out that they were the feelers of an ethereal centipede-like creature, also made of golden light, now crawling out through the carapace on Sleuvan's back as if rising through the surface of water. This was what the true body of a cerebrate looked like after the Awakening.
Still not strong enough to manipulate the environment in the way that an outer body is used for. But having mostly transcended the limits of materiality, this new true body had far greater freedom of movement than before. (It was now similar in appearance to the essence-spirit of one of the Old Overmind's cerebrates)
As the last segment of Sleuvan's true body left her old shell, it appeared to swim in the air, before diving into the chrysalis through the latter's shell, again without creating any actual physical opening. Then she entered the humanoid body through the top of the latter's back in a similar fashion.
Then the body opened its eyes, which emitted a golden glow similar to the glow that Sleuvan's true body had been emitting just now.
Taking a few seconds to observe her new body, Sleuvan slowly shifted her feet until she had the leg leverage to stand up. And then she extended her legs, and spread her arms, pressing her back and hands against the insides of the chrysalis's shell. Cracks appeared and spread all along said shell, until it ruptured in an explosion of shell bits and residual amniotic fluid.
Then she looked around at the other people in the swamp, and bared her teeth. Her first attempt at smiling.
Meanwhile, at a clearing somewhere on the Crystal Mountains, above where the Main Temple was …
"It is fortunate that you have come to train with us." Relana remarked as she watched Braam, sitting cross-legged before her, manipulate the cloud of pure darkness between his raised palms.
Currently, the cloud had coalesced into an accurate three-dimensional representation of the region of the Crystal mountains that they were in, showing all the peaks, cliffs, cave entrances and other features. Little points of blue light indicated the current whereabouts of the other people in the vicinity, which Braam was aware of thanks to the ease of communication brought about by the Collective.
"Again and again," Relana continued. "you have pushed the boundaries of what is possible when wielding Void energies, and we have benefitted greatly from your demonstrations."
And that was no idle praise. Although Braam's physical appearance was basically unchanged by the Awakening, mentally and psionically it was a different story. Having channelled most of the essence of the Dream through himself, it was as if every possible mental and spiritual obstruction within him had been cleared. Now, it seemed there was no psionic technique known to the Firstborn that he could not master quickly, and he had even begun to develop techniques previously not thought possible. Mentally, he could stay calm, focused and aware of his surroundings with negligible effort. Even those who approached him tended to feel at peace and clear in mind. Unless he was deliberately radiating a different emotion.
And best of all, what Relana considered most fortunate, was that despite all his attainments, there was almost no trace of conceit in him.
"It was through Shantira and your guidance, as well as that of the other preservers, that I was able to further explore my potential." Braam replied.
The Eternal Preserver had told others to simply address her by name, i.e. Shantira. Since everyone was connected in the Collective now, one could easily feel genuine respect from others regardless of the words spoken. There was no longer any need to use titles to show respect. The word "Preserver" would become just a label for a profession.
And even that label might become phased out or need to be redefined.
"And in turn, my fellow preservers and I have learned a lot. Actually …" Relana pressed her lips together in thought, then continued. "We might have to call ourselves something different eventually. After the Awakening, everyone carries a piece of the Dream within herself, the essence of at least thousands of long departed Firstborn or Cerebrates. Everyone is a de facto Preserver now."
Then she gestured at the Void-energy construct between Braam's palms. "This, is what will distinguish our Order from now on. The same talents with which we delved into the Dream, we now use to become pioneers in wielding the Void. What do you think we should call ourselves?"
"Hmm, Void wielders?" Braam said matter-of-factly.
At this, Relana let out a mild laugh. Then she reached out through the Collective and felt for the presences of the other former preservers. "What do you all think ?"
And then both she and Braam started receiving telepathic replies from many of those preservers, containing suggestions for a new name for the Order. "Hmm, hmm," She nodded as she took in those suggestions. "Interesting."
Then she noticed something was off. "Where is Azara?"
At the same time, Braam suddenly focused his gaze onto a particular point of light on his Void-energy construct. It glowed purple rather than blue, and was flickering. "There is an unusually intense whorl of Void energy where Azara is. And she is not responding to my telepathic nudge either."
"We need to go to her, now." Relana said while standing up.
Braam also dispelled his Void-energy construct, stood up, and followed Relana, who had now turned around and was jogging towards the edge of the clearing, where a long winding stone path began and would eventually lead towards the cave where they knew Azara was currently residing.
Thus they hurried along the path, and into that cave.
There, what they saw caused Relana to widen her eyes.
A vaguely humanoid figure seemed to be sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cave, shrouded almost entirely by swirling clouds of pure darkness. Upon a closer look, many parts of this figure was being burned by an eldritch red flame, and crumbling into ash. Already, half the face was gone, as was one hand and a foot. The figure's thighs were half-buried in ash. The rest of the body was too obscured by the clouds of darkness to discern. The eye on the remaining half of the face glowed an eldritch red. Otherwise, the face was expressionless.
"Azara ! What are you doing ?" Relana exclaimed.
The figure, Azara, did not reply.
Braam stared at the figure for a moment, then said, "She was completely immersing herself in the Void. Without an anchor. Now the Void is consuming her, and she is struggling to keep the process under control."
"Have you attempted something similar before?" Relana asked, while approaching Azara with a hand raised, beginning to dispel the clouds of Void energy.
"Yes, but not this far." Braam gestured towards Azara. "Her whole body is -"
And then the clouds of Void energy were dispelled, only for Azara's entire body to also crumble into ash.
" – falling apart." Braam finished his sentence.
Where Azara's body once sat, a half-metre wide ball of eldritch red flame now hovered, slowly shrinking in size. The dark silhouette of something alive and moving within the flame could be seen.
Suddenly, Braam reached a hand into the ball of flame, then withdrew it, pulling out what appeared to be a large ethereal salamander which glowed blue. At once, the ball of flame imploded and disappeared.
Relana looked sternly at the salamander. Azara's true body.
After the Awakening, every Firstborn had also developed an ethereal true body analogous to that of a Cerebrate, except that in the Firstborn's case it appeared as a blue glowing aquatic vertebrate rather than a golden glowing centipede.
"What were you thinking?" Relana asked.
Azara, now cradled snugly in both of Braam's arms, looked back at the former Grand Preserver and replied telepathically. "I … the Void has been letting me know things. Somehow, I felt … I knew that I could fully embrace the Void … cast off the constraints set by this universe, to attain something more glorious … true immortality." Then she looked down towards the floor. "I did not foresee just how hard it is."
Relana sighed. "What you're reaching for can be reached … in time. Shantira did talk about things like this. But she also warned that the Void has a life of its own, and will catch us unawares if we have not steadily fortified our willpower or got someone to be our anchor. If Braam had not acted, you could have been completely consumed by the Void right before our eyes."
Azara placed a stubby forelimb over her head apologetically. "I know."
Then Relana grinned. "Well then, as punishment for skipping the safety precautions, you will remain in that form for a week, and then we'll have a new outer body grown for you."
Another two months later, in a city that had been abandoned by the Firstborn during the Toxid invasion …
As the podship Ges and Jwala was sitting in cruised through the abandoned city, she looked out with wonder at the environments they were passing through. "Look at all that vegetation! One would think that the city has been abandoned for years, when in fact it's only been a few months."
After the victory over the Toxid fleet, and the subsequent eradication of almost all Toxids from the surface of the planet, the Firstborn tried to rebuild their cities. However, they very soon realised that given their altered physiology and abilities, they no longer enjoyed living in cities anymore, at least not in the same way as before. They now preferred to spend as much time as possible in the outdoors and the wilderness.
When you suddenly found out that you are tough enough to walk naked in the snow without getting frostbite or hypothermia, swim for days in the swamps without catching any disease, climb up the tallest mountains without feeling tired, and so on so forth, you would want to experience all these things to the fullest. And the artificial shelters that you had previously depended on for your livelihood, would now appear as nothing more than stifling enclosures.
Joining the Collective also rendered a lot of the communications technology found in the cities obsolete.
It was then that a kind of sentient creature never before seen by the Firstborn, and rarely seen even by the average Cerebrates, began to emerge from their underground abodes.
The Dreamers.
Since the dawn of complex life on this planet, there had been ancient Cerebrates with particularly intimate connections to the Eternal Overmind, Shantira. All cerebrates could feel the Eternal Overmind's presence, but these ones had gone further and devoted themselves to becoming conduits of the Eternal Overmind's power to create life. Wherever they resided, vegetation would grow much more abundantly than in other regions. And injured or ill creatures who approached them would be healed, provided these creatures were non-hostile. Those who approached the Dreamers with hostile or malicious intent would suddenly lose consciousness or suffer from waking nightmares. Despite their awe-inspiring psionic power, they never took part in any violent conflict. Long before the Firstborn-Cerebrate war, the Dreamers had hidden underground, where they hibernated and communed through the Dream, helping the Eternal Overmind to guide the evolution of non-sentient life on the planet. Hence their name.
Now after the collapse of the Dream, and the shock of the Awakening, the Dreamers had also awakened, literally, to see a surface world that appeared vastly different to the one they had known. In particular, they saw the desolation caused by the Toxid invasion. Thus they began exerting their power to "regreen" the surface of the planet.
Which was why abandoned cities like this one were now overgrown with vegetation despite having been abandoned just a few months ago.
Presently, both Ges and Jwala heard the voice of the third passenger seated behind them. A raspy voice, of a creature not used to speaking:
"Here, I sense Toxid essence." Sleuvan said as she pointed to the middle of a small river that the pod ship was going to fly over. Then she telepathically projected an image of one of the large rocks at a bank of the river.
"Got it" Ges nodded, then touched a crystal hemisphere embedded into the control panel at the front of the cockpit, and stilled himself in concentration.
The pod ship slowed its flight. At the same time, a beam of blue-white light shot forth from the space between its two energy projector spikes, down onto the rock in question. Just before the beam touched the rock, it spread out to form a transparent dome covering the whole rock, like a large bubble of light.
Soon, the podship slowed to a halt in mid-air, then began to descend towards the river, all the while adjusting the angle of the projected beam such that the energy bubble stayed in place.
Finally, the podship landed in the river's water, just three metres away from the rock.
The transparent dome of the podship's cockpit opened up by retracting towards its posterior edge like an eyelid. Then Jwala and Sleuvan climbed out of the cockpit, to stand in the shallow waters outside. Jwala held a half-metre long sealed transparent jar under one arm.
"Alright, do your thing." Jwala said cheerfully to Sleuvan.
The latter waded towards the energy bubble and leaned towards it until her face was just a hand's breadth away from its surface. Meanwhile, Ges, his hand still on the crystal sphere, stared at the energy bubble, as he prepared to exert finer control over it through the pod ship's energy projector system.
Sleuvan held up a hand below and in front of her chin, open palm facing up. Then she blew towards the surface of the bubble. A small hole opened up at said surface, at the spot right before her face. At the same time, a puff of orange smoke streamed out from within her mouth, through this hole, and into the energy bubble. Then the hole closed up.
The orange cloud was in fact a small plague swarm. Once inside the energy bubble, it spread out and then sank into the ground below. Most of the plague bugs were drawn towards the underside of the large rock.
The next moment, several toxids burst forth from under the rock and attempted to scatter in every direction, only to find themselves trapped by the energy bubble. As the red worms glided frantically along the inner surface of the bubble, more and more plague bugs latched onto their bodies. To the naked eye, it was as if their bodies were being rapidly covered by orange mold or lichen. This time, instead of necrotic toxins, the plague bugs released paralytic toxins designed specifically to immobilise toxids. One by one, the toxid worms stopped flying, and fell to the ground below, where they twitched subtly before going completely still.
Jwala looked towards Ges with a smirk on her face, and telepathically whispered to him, "Hey, when we're done, why not ask if you can kiss her?"
"No." Ges whispered back.
"Why not? I've seen how you looked at her. And we know she's curious about what that feels like too …"
"No." Ges repeated.
Before Jwala could continue teasing him, they both heard Sleuvan calling out to them. "Finished !"
"Alright!" Jwala waded over to stand beside Sleuvan. At the same time, through his connection to the podship, Ges commanded it to shut off the energy beam, and with it, the energy bubble.
Jwala uncapped the jar, and held up a hand, palm facing forward at the ground below the rock. "Come to mama !"
One by one, the life-less suddenly flew up into the jar, pulled in by Jwala's telekinesis.
When the last worm had entered the jar, Jwala capped it, and turned to wade back towards the podship. Sleuvan repeated the posture she had when blowing out the plague swarm, but this time, the plague bugs coalesced back into a dense stream-like cloud and entered her mouth. Having gathered her microscopic servitors back into her body, she also turned and waded back to the podship.
When both Jwala and Sleuvan was seated back inside the cockpit, a transparent dome slid out to cover the cockpit again. Ges then commanded the podship to begin lifting off, before finally removing his hand from the crystal control sphere.
Jwala looked at the jar and chuckled. "Funny. A few months ago, we were being hunted down by these things. Now we're hunting them down. And eating them."
"Yes." Ges nodded. "And gaining their ability in the process. As a survivor of the Arkship Incident, I've thought that nothing could shock me anymore. But now every week I'm being proven wrong."
"Oh speaking of the Arkship." Jwala perked up. "I heard they're finally figuring out how to make it operational?"
Again, Ges nodded. "Basically."
Then he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see Sleuvan leaning in and staring at him. The next moment he felt her telepathically projecting a question into his mind. 'Will you mate with me?'
Yet another two months later, aboard the mothership New Dawn …
"We're here."
I heard the announcement, both the vocal and telepathic aspects, and roused myself from meditation, opening my eyes to look ahead, through the middle of the series of windows of the mothership's bridge, to behold the planet in whose orbit we had just warped in:
At the same time, a series of gasps could be heard throughout the bridge.
A significant fraction of the surface of the planet was in varying shades of red, save for the polar regions, where areas of deep blue, the planet's original dominant colour, and its namesake, showed through. We did not even need virtual indicators to tell that it had been overrun by Toxids. Such was the concentration of the invaders that they were visible to the naked eye from orbit. Strangely, unlike the case for Firstworld, there was no fleet of Toxid ships in sight. Whatever fleet must have moved on after conquering this planet.
A few hundred years ago, the Firstborn discovered this planet, Deep Blue. The latters' natives, later called the Blue-blooded Ones, or the Blues, had just started becoming a space-faring species. They had saturated themselves and their planet with a special kind of energy, which allowed them to psionically sense and manipulate their living environment to a subtle degree, and ultimately live in perfect harmony with it. As a side-effect, this turned their blood blue. Parts of their homeworld also turned deep blue. Other than that, the Blues resembled the Firstborn in physical appearance, except for having hair (like humans) instead of nerve cords.
Intrigued, the Firstborn initiated first contact, and the two species became fast friends.
Unfortunately, Deep Blue soon came under attack by the Toxids. The Firstborn sent a fleet to help repel the invasion. However, not only did they fail to defeat the Toxids, due to the latters' reconfiguration ability, this drew the Toxids' hostile attention towards the Firstborn. Despite the Firstborns' best efforts to prevent their own homeworld from being found, the Toxids eventually found it. And the rest was history.
Presently, Braam, who had been standing to my right, radiated a sense of calm through the Collective, so that everyone quickly recovered from the shock of seeing an entire planet occupied by Toxids. Then he asked a question that brought our attention back to one of the goals of the mission at hand. "Is there any Blue still living down there?"
I looked towards the figure standing (or rather, hovering) to my left:
Kania, the Chief Technopath, and pilot of this mothership.
"Scanning …" She said in an even voice as she psionically directed the vessel's sensor array to scan the surface of the planet for various life signs. The glow in her eyes intensified for a second, then returned to normal brightness. And that was all the indication that she had used her psionic power. As a technopath, she did not need any interfacing procedure to access all the systems in a technological construct, such as a ship. She just thought, and the ship obeyed.
"One life-sign detected matching known physiological indicators of the Blue-Blooded Ones." She announced, again in that even voice, same as the one that announced our arrival at orbit of Deep Blue just now.
"One?" I asked curiously.
Kania, understanding my unasked question, provided more details, "Yes, it is located in the middle of the white settlement … there." One of the cables sprouting from her body pointed forward, tentacle like. Then a large holographic representation of the planet Deep Blue materialised in the air in front of her, oriented such that the tip of the raised cable-appendage was just touching a spot, on the virtual globe, which was unusually bleached in colour, and devoid of any hint of Toxid occupation.
Nodding, I gracefully stood up, and said aloud. "Interesting. Alright, before we proceed with anything else, I am going down to meet with this survivor. Find out what condition he or she is in. Braam, want to come along?"
Without hesitation, Braam replied, "I am."
By now, Braam had an unofficial reputation as arguably the most powerful individual, both psionically and physically, among the combined Firstborn-Cerebrate species. Next to me of course. If any unexpected danger arose, or if this turned out to be a trap, Braam and I would be best able to handle it.
I turned to Kania and said. "Warp Braam and I near the survivor's location."
Kania nodded and the glow in her eyes briefly intensified again.
The next moment, Braam and I were engulfed in blinding blue-white light.
When the light faded, we found ourselves in the middle of a seemingly abandoned settlement in the middle of a mountain valley, with tall, impressive-looking and elegantly designed structures which stood in stark contrast to the lower, more mundane-looking infrastructure:
I stared up at one such tall structure in front of us, and sighed, "If nothing else, the Blues are marvellous architects. A shame that their homeworld has fallen to the Toxids."
Right then, we heard a woman's voice from behind us,
"Actually, whoever built these structures had left this world long before the Toxid invasion."
We turned around to see a figure looking almost exactly like a human woman, except her complexion had a subtle blue tinge. Clad in white robes and standing six metres away from us, she stared sternly and pointed a fist in our direction. I saw that on this raised hand, she wore a ring with a round, deep blue gem.
Narrowing her eyes, she asked in a firm tone, "You speak the language of the Firstborn, but I do not remember them looking like this. Who are you?"
In response, Braam and I radiated a calming aura, and I replied with a smile, "I am Shantira. This is Braam." I gestured to the purple-skinned giant. "As for our appearance, worry not. To put it simply, the Firstborn have evolved. We may look different now, but we still remember the ties between our two species. So, we have come to …" I paused and looked at our surroundings. "… help."
The Blue woman relaxed, lowered her arm, and sighed. "Thank you, but I'm afraid you have come too late. I am Heaven-Shore, or just Shore for short, and as you may have guessed, I am the only living Blue on this planet now."
At this, I slowly walked towards her, with Braam following behind, and radiated a feeling of concern. "Did some of your people manage to escape to other worlds?"
Shore sighed sadly. "My brother and I did. That is all I know."
Now Braam and I stood a metre and a half in front of her.
And Braam asked, "If you had escaped, why did you return? And why are the Toxids not attacking this region?"
For a moment, Shore stayed silent, unsure whether to answer, then she raised the hand on which she wore the blue-gemmed ring and gazed at it. "For a time, my brother and I lived on a remote planet, blending in with the natives. There, I developed a power which I realised could be used to defeat the Toxids, so I decided to come back here, to deal with the invaders and rebuild my home."
She raised her hand further and pointed the ring at the sky. The blue gem emitted a cone of brilliant blue light which shone up into the clouds above. Then the light faded, and she lowered her hand. "The Toxids fear this power. Unfortunately, this is still not enough to drive all of them from my homeworld."
"Worry not." I replied, "As I've said, we're here to help."
Then I telepathically reached out to our mothership in orbit. Specifically, I called out to Kania, "Call in the rest of our fleet. Start the bio-purification."
I felt Kania's mental nod, and looked up at the sky.
Curious, Shore followed my gaze, and then her eyes widened in surprise as she saw what appeared to be the faded-looking silhouette of a shadowy moon appear in the sky, first as a small spot, then expanding further. Soon, it became clear that it was no moon, as its edges swirled like that of a-
"a … a wormhole!" She breathed out in wonder.
From within the wormhole, a shoal of fish-like silhouettes emerged, as if emerging from a dark, underwater cave. From their bellies, these fish-like silhouettes began continuously spewing dark clouds, which rapidly sank down towards the planet.
From the ground, that was how it appeared.
From the mothership in orbit, which was closer to the wormhole, one would be able to see more clearly what was happening:
A large fleet of leviathans and behemoths, releasing plague-swarm-bearing sac-probes onto the planet.
Looking back at Shore, I said, "Within a day, most of the Toxids on Deep Blue will be dead. After that … I assume you have a way to repopulate the planet?"
Shore looked down at the ground. "Actually, I don't know. I'm probably the last of my people. My brother died protecting me on our adopted planet."
There was a brief moment of silence, before I replied in a consolatory tone, "We're sorry to hear that."
Then I held out a hand towards her. "We can help you to recreate your species. Even better, we will make you stronger, so that you need never fear extinction again."
Shore looked at my hand hesitantly for a while.
And I could not blame her. Besides the fact that my offer sounded a bit ominous in retrospect, my talons also made my outstretched hand look slightly more sinister than it otherwise would, reminding her that she was dealing with supposedly "evolved" Firstborn, rather than what she had been familiar with.
"Perhaps it is better if I'm completely honest with you." I continued. "I said the Firstborn have 'evolved', which is true, but technically I am a different kind of being. If you're willing, I can show you what I mean directly … in your mind. Then you can decide whether to accept my offer or not."
For a moment, she looked at me, uncertain. Then she slowly nodded. "Well, I have not much to lose."
I smiled warmly, radiating a relaxing aura, then telepathically reached deep into her mind. She gasped as she realised the true weight of my psionic presence, but did not resist. By now, she could not resist anyway.
Then I gave her glimpses of some of my memories. Memories I had about the Overmind and how It created me, then my arrival on Firstworld and subsequent creation of life there, then my subtle involvements in the history of the Cerebrates and Firstborn, then the Awakening and associated events, and then my goal, my own take on the Overmind's vision of the Eternal Swarm.
From an observer's point of view, all that took only a few minutes, but from Shore's point of view, I had spent a day telling a story to her.
When I finally finished that story, and withdrew from her mind, she sat down on the ground, panting, overcome by a sudden mild exhaustion. "That was … incredible. I need to consider."
Still smiling, I nodded. "I understand."
Then she looked around at our surroundings, her gaze pausing occasionally on the tall, elegant structures. "Maybe … let me tell you a brief story too." Then she smirked playfully. "And then if you can do what I ask of you … I will join your Eternal Swarm."
Again, I nodded with a smile. "Alright."
"As you may have inferred from what I told you earlier just now," she began, pointing at one of the tall structures. "These were not built by my species. In fact, by the time we found them, their builders seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, we built a settlement here, and tried to reverse engineer the technology in them, with limited success. For some reason, we just could not activate the major components. Then … one day, the people in this settlement also vanished. Sensor arrays stationed elsewhere had picked up on apparent space-time anomalies occurring here, but that's all we knew. When the Firstborn came, we thought that they were the mysterious ancient builders, but then we were told that the Firstborn had no record of coming to this planet before.
Now … you have come. A being more ancient than the Firstborn. Whose knowledge exceeds that of an entire species."
She paused, focusing her attention on me, then continued, "Are you able to tell who built these structures? And where the residents of this settlement had gone?"
In response, I adopted a playful smirk of my own, and slowly turned towards Braam. "Braam, ever since the Awakening, you have been learning one new psionic technique after another. Does that include technopathic ones?"
Understanding my intention, Braam nodded. "Yes." Then he gestured towards the tall ancient structures. "I have yet to practice on non-Firstborn technology though."
"Try your best." I said.
Braam slowly spread his arms and closed his eyes. Then he took a deep breath.
And the blue tattoo-like lines, as well as his nerve cords, started glowing brightly.
Gradually, a humming noise started reverberating through the mountain valley, as if machines were being activated all over the region.
Shore, who had been watching Braam's posture with fascination, looked around in surprise when the humming noise arose.
And then she widened her eyes and opened her mouth in utter shock, as she saw, just as I did, lights starting to come on all over the tall ancient structures. Then components on the structures started shifting, as if giant invisible hands were rearranging them.
"How … how are you doing this?" Shore stuttered in disbelief.
It seemed that Braam was about to answer, but then suddenly opened his eyes, and slowly lowered his arms. He looked ahead with a slightly concerned expression on his face.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I had underestimated the complexity of the technology within these ancient structures." He explained. "I can rouse them, but the core systems are somehow locked. I cannot access them in the way Kania accesses the systems on The New Dawn. And furthermore … I cannot shut them down." He gestured towards the structures, whose lights were still shining and parts still moving.
Then Shore voiced the question that had also arisen in my mind. "Is that dangerous?"
For a second, Braam did not reply, then an enigmatic smile appeared on his lips. "It appears, we may be about to find out what happened to those people who vanished."
The next moment, bolts of lightning burst forth from the structures. The resulting thunder caused the ground to tremble and even seemed to distort the air in the sky.
Then those distortions became noticeably real, and concentrated in a spot right above the valley. This spot darkened, becoming black, and gradually expanded into a giant sphere of pure blackness, wreathed in eldritch lightning, some of which were also pure black in colour.
Shore looked up at the giant black sphere, now larger than each of the ancient structures themselves, with a mixture of terror and wonder.
Braam simply looked up intently, with a focus similar to how he examined his own Void constructs.
I prepared to contact Kania and ask her to warp us back to the mothership immediately, but before I could do that, the three of us were each struck by a bolt of black lightning.
A few comments about the movie Wesley's Mysterious File:
- Heaven-Shore is my literal translation of the character's Chinese name in the movie (Tianya)
- The Toxids are called Warlock Toxic Gang in the English subtitles for the movie. I've shortened it to Toxids to sound less awkward.
- Things like the Toxids' dragon form, the Toxids' ships, the appearance of Deep Blue and the landscape on Deep Blue are only shown very briefly and in low detail in the movie. (In particular, the CGI was very simplistic). So I've had to take some liberties in my depictions.
- In the movie, the planet that Shore and her brother took refuge on was modern day Earth. However, I want to avoid mentioning Earth unless it's necessary for the story, so that when the universe-hopping starts I don't end up with too many versions of Earth.
And nope, I have no plan to link Shore's ring with DC's blue lantern rings … yet.
