The experimental Ultralisk - the Tarrasque, the name blooming in your mind with the same unnerving
already learned sensation that a lot of telepathic overlap gave you - roared and charged. So, you simply were not where it was going to be. You vanished, popping to through that space-between-spaces as Zeratul had taught you. You appeared and saw that even that much distance hadn't been quite enough: The Tarrasque's reach was wide and its reaction speeds were incredible. You rolled backwards onto your back as the scythe blade swept over where you had been, the wind buffeting you, roaring past your face and ears.
You continued the motion, rolling over your head and to your feet. You came up, panting - and saw that the spore launchers were firing their deadly payload. The wet
slap noise of them disgorging into the air was hideous. The spores were a lot faster than you expected too, whistling around and slamming into the ground to your left and right. Explosions of gore that turned into fireballs as the binary explosives mixed in the air slammed to your left and right. You crossed your psi-blades and snarled.
More spores came down, right on your position.
Of course, you weren't
there anymore.
Smoke bloomed around the beast's ankles as you stepped from the space between, and time slowed as you focused. His legs were armored too, but that didn't matter. Your psi-blades crackled and you sprinted forward, then slashed left, then right, then left, then right. Each time, the blade found an exact nick in his armor, and when they cut, you pushed and
twisted with your mind.
Just as Zeratul had said.
The damage didn't just bite. If it had, then the Tarassque would have healed the damage as quickly as you did. Instead, it tore out concepts, the possibility of repair. The weave itself was gone, untangled in your fingers as you sprinted past. You spun around and saw that the Tarassque was already falling. Stumbling. Its knees hit the ground as you skidded to a stop. The spore launchers started to fire, their payloads arcing up into the air.
In a flash you saw the opportunity. You turned and started to run, sprinting full out. Your legs had never pumped so fast, so swiftly as you arced back and around. The spores whipped after you, their courses leveling out as their stupid brains tried to keep pace with you - and then you threw yourself into a baseball dive, skidding underneath the scythe blade that protruded from the Tarrasque's jaw and made a shoulder high wall ahead of you.
You came up the other side and glanced back, just in time to see the spores crash into the bone blade. Explosions ripped out and you winced as the scythe was turned into a spray of shattered bone. You stood, panting, and looked into the vast, pained eyes of the Tarrasque. You felt their lowing confusion, their pain.
"Sorry," you said, then thrust the psi-blade deep. It's mind swirled and then rushed past you as you drew it away and sent it, threading off into the greater hive mind.
Then you turned to Daggoth.
Wait, I-
No. Not this time.
You sprinted forward, your feet crunching on the ground. The massive brain-shape of Daggoth swelled, but his psychic presence was vast enough that you didn't even need to reach him to touch him. You focused on everything that you had learned - the pattern of light energies, dark, energies. The swirling mass of energy locked inside your mind, that you could draw on, that you could use to make and unmake the song. It was funny...you realized that, in a way, Kerrigan had been teaching you too. Ever since you woke up, changed and confused, you had been learning to hear this. To understand this. Without that, Zeratul never could have taught you. Without that, you'd never have been here.
Would someone else have killed Daggoth?
You...didn't know.
You couldn't know.
Your mind reached into the vast shining core of that thing, that nascent Overmind, and you realized how fragile it was.
Your mental fingers touched Daggoth and you felt his haughty fury, his rage, his utter shock that something as singular as you could dare to do this. To him. To
Daggoth. To the first amongst Cerebrates. He really did see himself as better, more, greater than even his fellows. You felt his acid-bitter jealousy for Kerrigan -
spoiled human child - and his mingled joy and terror at the death of his parent mind. The Overmind was gone, and finally, he could grow and grow and grow...
And you twisted him apart.
The knot of light exploded and you blinked as you stood in a half real place - the distant land of Char was a shadow, and the vastness of Daggoth's body nothing but smoke. The glittering beads of light that were his mind drifted around you.
Like a human with slit femoral, he was dying and here to know it.
I'm...afraid...
His voice was softer now.
Your lips pursed slightly. A distant rumble shook the ground - nuclear weapons or artillery. Or-
Oh.
He sounded shocked.
Oh I understand now. Why he did it. Why he made her. Oh...
Daggoth's voice was softer still.
I'm...not afraid anymore, General Clarke. I don't...have to...I don't have to face them...
Your brow drew in. "What are you talking about?" you asked, quietly.
The Destroyers. They're here. He actually chuckled - the lights growing dimmer, dimmer. Dimmer.
I...don't think...you're going to...
He was silent.
He was dead.
The light returned as all the world seemed to still. The clouds of Char spread overhead. Golden rays of sunlight shone down onto the battlefield as the writhing mass of the Zerg laid down to rest, the driving force of Daggoth well and truly quieted. You breathed a slow sigh out, then turned back to start walking to your ACU. Before you could, you saw a dark spot in the sky - it grew and dropped before you...and Sarah stood. She looked severe and grim, her features splattered with blood. Her wings folded behind her back, though she hadn't been using them to fly. They had no flight surfaces, after all.
You smirked. "It's done, my Queen," you said. "Daggoth is dead. Now we just have-"
"Sam," she said.
You paused, smile faltering.
She looked aside. "...I..." she was quiet again. "I just wanted...to..."
***
President Riley was being hurried through the corridors of his own bunker by men with guns. For almost five hundred years, the secret service of the United Earth Federation hadn't fired a shot in anger. Why would they? Who would try and use violence against the man, woman or enby who was personally responsible for bringing forth the bounty of nanofabrication and the quantum gate network? Politics in the UEF had lost the hard edged, knife sharp quality that came with hunger, want, need.
Despite that long dulling, they were doing their jobs admirably.
"We have a quantum gate link to San Francisco," General Hall said, his sidearm in his hand. "Fletcher had gone ahead to get an engineering unit - it's not quite an ACU but-"
A secret serviceman lifted his hand. "Wait!" he said, his rifle snapping to his shoulder.
Hissing, the beast that came around the corner was familiar to President Riley. He'd read dossiers on the Zerg and knew this was a
Zergling. It was the smallest kind of Zerg there was. They were slaughtered in carload lots to secure a few inches of ground. Pathetic beasts, torn apart by artillery and laser fire.
It was the size of a small human being, and it sprinted down the corridor faster than a blink. The man ahead of Riley got off three shots, and the small caliber rounds pinged off the carapace. He went down, screaming, blood spurting as General Hall and the other members of secret service opened fire as well. The Zergling swept out with a single claw - and cut a woman entirely in half. But the concentrated fire managed to find something weak and soft in that edge of carapace and muscle. Red blood exploded and the Zergling staggered back and to the side, shaking its head.
Hall slapped a new magazine into his pistol, stepped forward, planted a boot against the Zergling's muzzle, jammed his pistol directly into the eye, and fired several rounds. The top of the Zergling's head bulged, then exploded with a spray of gore. Steam rose from its mouth as it slumped.
In its death throws, it had managed to impale a third serviceman.
President Riley panted. "Jesus," he whispered.
"Lets go," Hall said, gesturing.
Riley shook his head, then grabbed one of the dead men's guns. He checked the chamber, frowning - while General Hall gave him the smallest of nods.
They came to the plaza where the gate was located. Two mech marines stood beside it - and gore splattered the walls. The corpses of a few Zerglings were sprawled here and there.
"I want this base secured," Riley said, growling as he strode through the gate. He stepped out into a heavily secure room - cannons aimed at him and Hall. They walked past it and into the command center of the UEF, with a big window looking out over the bay and the pacific ocean. Riley flicked the safety on and tossed the rifle under handed to a secretary, who caught it nervously. As he did so, he continued talking. "I want the whole damn island secured. And..." He paused. "Scramble tier three bombers. I want to nuke the damn Black Sun device into slag before-"
The sky turned dark. An ultraviolet throb pulsed through the clouds, which bloomed away into nothingness. The whole building quivered and glass shattered across the city's streets. Everyone stood, silent, watching.
Then...the blue sky returned.
"...what happened?" Riley asked.
"T...The device failed, sir," a tech said. "It just...discharged into nothing. Nowhere. The energy's just gone."
"I may be a general, son," General Hall said. "But I didn't flunk out of high school physics - energy can't just vanish. It has to go somewhere."
"I...I mean..." The tech frowned, while the computer screens continued to scroll by. "Entropy, maybe?"
"Entropy is why a coffee cup cools, not why enough energy to power the entirety of China for a year
vanishes with no effect!" General Hall snapped.
The sky turned silver. It was not the same all encompassing color-flare as before - instead, it was like a curtain being opened. The silvery tear had a gently curving edge that was perpendicular to the horizon, but the upper side was a wildly chaotic shape, plunging up, sweeping down, becoming narrow points and cathedral arches. Riley glanced down at the computers and confirmed what he knew in his gut: The tear was over the Sandwich Isles. That meant that it had to be
huge and high up. It was big enough for him to see over the goddamn horizon.
"Sir, it's...a...a stable...quantum gateway," the tech who had been speaking said. "But the destination points we're getting from the signature - they're not to this universe."
"That's impossible," General Hall said.
A radar tech called out. "Detecting an incoming object. One. It's big, sir. Experimental class." She licked her lips. "T...Two. Three." She paused. "A dozen. Sixty eight. Four...hundred..." She paused, then turned back as the numbers kept skyrocketing - the radar reports showing them as a marching set of smallpox spreading across the meridian line that the tear spread along. "...sir, thousands. And more are coming."
"How many are experimental scale?" General Hall asked, sounding like this was just another day at the office.
"...all of them, sir."
"Whose are they?" Riley snapped.
"We don't know," the radar tech said. "They're fliers and-"
A distant pinprick of white light bloomed, just barely visible over the horizon. It was the smallest flash, and that alone made it clear how massive it was - to be visible at such distances.
The radar tech tapped away at her controls. "I don't even know what that was - it's power outstrips any of our strategic nuclear weapons, but there's no radioactivity. It's like...sir, Oahu is gone. All of it."
"Fletcher..." General Hall whispered. General Fletcher had stayed behind on the Sandwich Isles - was he even still alive?
President Riley felt the cold clawing weight of panic hit his back.
But he had not been elected because he couldn't make decisions.
"General Hall, effective immediately, I am ordering a complete evacuation of the Earth."
"Yes sir," he said.
Another flaring pinprick came from the horizon. And in the distance, silver birds were flying above the ocean.
They were getting closer.
***
"...I wanted to..." Sarah started again.
And then it hit you.
Pain. It exploded from inside your head. No. From deeper. From the hive mind itself. It was blazing fire, it was all consuming. It was a single word, a throbbing
totality. It was something you had never imagined...but part of you had dreamed it. Red energy flared around your head and you and Sarah fell to your knees. You clutched your head, screaming. You couldn't help it. But you weren't alone. Every Zerg on the planet was screaming.
In the distance, red lightning crackled around the Protoss carriers.
SUBMIT.
The totality burned in your nerves, along your spine. Blood dripped down your nose - you clung to yourself with frantic claws. Not again. Not again. Not again. Not again. Not again.
SUBMIT.
Sarah fell to her side, clutching herself. The red haze grew thicker. The two of you were sinking into it, like the air had become blood. Sarah looked so terrified, her eyes meeting yours. Her lips formed words, but no sound came out, and no matter how hard you pushed against the blood-air, you couldn't move. It was like a nightmare - the kind where you knew you slept, and you knew you dreamed, but as you struggled to wake, you couldn't. You couldn't help but see those kissable, purple lips forming the words.
"H-Help...me..." she whispered.
You tried to reach out to her.
You felt mind meeting mind.
And in that moment, there was strength. She closed her eyes.
"...I...love you, Sam."
She took that strength you had given you - and she used it against you.
The pain was unbearable. Blazing. The agony was nearly as intense as the sense of betrayal. She had thrown you aside, dropped you like you were a tool to be used. Your back hit solid ground and you gasped, blinking, opening your eyes. You sat up, your head throbbing. Blood dripped down your nose as Sarah writhed on her back.
You felt hollow. Empty.
And you realized what it was.
Sarah had ejected you from the hive mind.
The only pain you felt was the loss of the song.
You stood - and turned - and saw the red haze was covering Char.
***
President Riley stood in the tertiary command bunker, located in the Ural mountains. He had needed to evacuate twice in fifteen minuets.
"Sir..." The tech standing before him was the same quantum tech from the first base. He was holding a pad and looked grave. "...the quantum gate network has hit its capacity."
"How...can it hit a capacity, it's the goddamn gate network!" Riley snapped.
"It's never had to move five billion people in an hour!" The tech shouted back, his voice breaking. "W-We don't have the computation power, fuck, sir, we don't even have the
destinations. We can send, at max, twenty million people to our colonial settlements every...every..."
Riley looked at him.
"Every day," the tech finished.
Riley turned back to the window, his hands behind his back.
The tech looked haunted. "There's nowhere to go."
On the screen, the red line of dots had reached the Sierra Madre mountain range - and had left a smoldering pyre behind them. The southern line had just reached Peru, Columbia, Chile.
***
In the quiet of deep space, in a room of silver and glass, a woman stood and watched the stars. Her gown felt gaudy, and the creature comforts of her room felt like an insult - a degradation worse than any misery and privation might be. A wine glass was held between her fingertips as she watched the stars. It was strange. They were normally so comforting - but today, they just felt cold.
The door behind her opened. Another woman stood, bowed. Her green and black armor glittered, and her facial tattoos that marked her a Crusader glowed in counterpoint.
"Princess," she said. "The sensor officers have determined that you are correct. The Earthers have attempted to fire their weapon."
"And the Earth?"
"It is the first site of Amon's attacks."
The Princess was silent for a long moment. She half turned. "Rhiza, I want you to go to the command and control center and open the Aeon Illuminate's quantum gate network to the United Earth Federation. No limitation, no restrictions."
The Crusader looked shocked. Her eyes were wide. "P-Princess I- the...the Order faction will not take this lying down. Evaluator Kael-"
"I know what Kael has planned," the Princess said, sadly. "I know it will be civil war. But I cannot let this happen. Do it."
Those words were gentle. They were soft. They were, fundamentally, kind. And they were made of steel - stubbornness that could quake the galaxy. Crusader Rhiza bowed again, then turned to go.
Princess Rhianna Burke turned back to the stars. She continued to twirl the wine glass.
Her fleet continued, into the darkness.
Into the unknown.
***
Brasília was a writhing carpet of panicked humanity. The public transport stations had broken down, the point to point teleportation pads weren't working. The skycars threaded through the air, but they were heavy. Sluggish. Moving as if they were trying to carry too much. Some took off with people clinging to them - and they fell, screaming down into the megacity below, dropped like bombs onto the panicking crowds. Tramping feet and pressure had done enough to bring down more people than one would ever want to think, and it was still not as bad as what was happening to the west.
In the distance, traceries afternoon sky - anti-aircraft weaponry firing up into the distance. Engineering units and even a few ACUs had been mobilized. But most of the UEF's immense military might was focused outwards. Not inwards. Who had ever imagined that Earth, venerable Earth, would need to be defended.
For Bruna...all of this felt surreal.
Bruna was just an average woman, who had been living her normal life. She had gone to college, met a boy, married, had children. She designed consumer goods at a corporation that handled right-management for day to day consumables. Her workweek was about six to seven hours on a busy day. The rest of the time she spent with her children, or in play. She enjoyed reading trashy romance novels, and studying pre-nano cultures. Every year, she took a month out of her time to visit a revival retreat that recreated some fascinating slice of the 20th and 21st century.
She had just come back from the Enclavers run - it had been scary and thrilling to sit in an actual bunker from 2056, lovingly recreated and maintained, and eat real food that clavers had eaten. Well, okay. They had been
recreated real food. But still.
It had seemed so safe. So distant.
"Why can't we go through the gate?" Her youngest, Ferdinando, asked. He tugged at her sleeve. João and Hipólita were both sullen and quiet. Their phones were unable to connect to the communication grid, their friends on Mars and Luna and Europe were all as unreachable as if...well, as if they had lived on Mars, Luna or Europe.
"I don't know, honey," Bruna whispered, brushing her hand through his hair, while her husband stood. There were masses of people streaming into the gate nexus area, but the normally bright and welcoming quantum gate doorways were all empty. Quiet. The big letterboard signs that proclaimed where people were to go in every language were flashing red warning signs. People kept trying to run through the gates, stepping into the empty arches, as if they expected to get somewhere.
A sudden scream split the air.
"They're here! They're here!"
Everyone turned to look.
The incoming bombers were massive. They were like someone had taken a wedge of sky and given it teeth - silvery birds, with a circular hole in the center that let loose a low, thrumming pulse. Projectiles slammed into them, but they shrugged them off. Barely noticed them at all. Bruna drew her arms around her children, pulling them in close, her heart hammering. The surreality had become nothing but thick, animal panic. The pressure of their slender bodies, the warmth of their skin, it all felt like a sick joke. She almost wanted to laugh.
Then-
"The gate!"
Who shouted it, she didn't know. But the cry was picked up by another - and Bruna lifted her head, to see that gate after gate was coming online. People surged forward. Her husband grabbed her arm, she grabbed her children. They rushed forward, along with the streaming mass of humanity. People screamed and cried out - and they were through. The flash of light was subtle and the change in gravity made her want to throw up. She stumbled, and blinked as a comparative trickle streamed out of the gate behind her. Surely, someone was splitting the destinations up, to not dump the entire population of Brasilia on some single colony.
The buildings around her were silver and the people were dressed strangely.
"...where are we?" Ferdinando asked.
"...I don't know," Bruna whispered.
The Aeon Illuminate civilians surrounding them blinked as, for the first time in six centuries, the two branches of humanity stood in the same room without a single gun.
***
You scrambled to Sarah's side. "Sarah, honey, Sarah, take me back." The words were babbling, inanity, stupid. Stupid. Stupid. But they were the first and only thing that came to your mind, a panicking need to not be
alone. Stupid. How had you gotten like this? How had you gotten so fucking codependent?
Sarah remained curled up. Then, quietly, she whispered. "Sam...run..."
You froze.
Her hand closed around your throat. She lifted you and squeezed. Your legs kicked, wildly, eyes widening in shock.
Sarah's eyes flared with a red light. When she spoke, her voice was so smug. "
Pathetic," she said. "
To think, the traitors thought that your kind would be able to stop us."
Your hands scrabbled at her throat. "S-Stop...who?"
She laughed. "
The Xel'naga, of course," she said.
Or...
No.
Someone else said through her.
Your eyes narrowed. Your vision was going dark as she squeezed and pressure thumped against your cells - burning dark fire.
"Who...are..."
She laughed, then threw you. Your back smashed into the ground and you skidded dozens of meters, coming to a stop. You gasped heavily, your eyes wide and confused as Sarah blurred atop you with shocking speed. Her foot smashed into your chest, pinning you down. She smirked. "
A thousand years of war, and you don't even know why." She grinned. "
I am General Amon, leader of the Xel'Naga Empire's Expeditionary Force. And you? Are a bug." Her foot drove in, hard.
"Get away from her, you bitch!"
The booming voice came from the PA system built in the final Monkeylord. You had no idea how distracted you had to be to miss a whole goddamn experimental robot from stomping up on you, but apparently, it was
this distracted. Sarah-Amon turned and stepped away from you. She spread her arms, and laughed.
The microwave laser blazed to life. You lifted your arm, wincing.
The light faded.
Sarah was gone.
But you knew she wasn't dead.
Your hands scrambled and you found your earpiece. You tuned in - and heard panic over the freqency. "Artanis, your forces are attacking mine- Artanis, what the hell is going on down there buddy!"
"T-The Zerg that Kerrigan suborned are swarming my positions - I don't have defenses back here!"
"Sir, the Protoss are launching interceptors! Incoming-"
"-antimatter missiles hitting my-"
"Their shields are on maximum!"
"-Zerg are hitting our flanks-"
"Scourge! Evasive! Evasive! Evasive!"
And through it all, Dostya's voice.
"General Clarke! Your orders, sir."
You frowned, then tapped at the earpiece. "All forces, retreat. Immediately! Disengage Protoss and Zerg forces. We're leaving! Now!"
You turned.
And saw that Sarah was emerging from the ground. A crackling buzz of a point to point teleporter filled the air to your right. Artanis appeared, his body wreathed in red flames. His eyes glowed with the same unnatural red light. The monkeylord staggered as several Protoss scouts swooped upon it, opening fire. Their proton cannons slammed into the thin armor.
You weren't getting saved twice, it seemed.
"Artanis?" You asked.
He shook his head, eyes blazing.
You may actually be a threat, looking at everything you've done through my tool's eyes, General Amon said, his voice amused.
You wiped at your jaw, then activated your psi-blades.
"I'm going to find you, Amon," you said. "And I am going to fucking kill you."
I've heard that before, Amon said.
In a countless worlds, from countless mouths of countless mayfly species. Bravado in the face of extinction repeats across convergent evolution again and again and again, like bilateral symmetry and sexual reproduction. It's gone from cliche to comforting, I have to admit.
You snorted. "Do you always fucking talk this much?"
I've been told I am somewhat verbose, yes.
Artanis' voice sounded so wrong, speaking like this.
Then he and Sarah rushed you. You parried a blow from Artanis - a spray of crackling energies from psi-blade meeting psi-blade - only for Sarah's knuckles to crack into your jaw. Your head snapped aside and you fell. Artanis kicked your stomach, then stabbed your shoulder, slicing deep. Your Zerg regeneration struggled, while Sarah knelt down, grabbing your head. She started to tug at you - and the strength of her was stunning. You squirmed, focused, then vanished. Your body flickered from place to place and you appeared, standing, your arm half-hanging off your body. You clutched it to your side, trying to will your regeneration to go faster. You spat blood.
"You know, I actually think if you surrender, my Zerg puppet here will resist fractionally less," Amon said, through Sarah. His hand caressed her body - using her own fingers. You saw red. "
Think that might make it more or less painful for her?"
You clenched your teeth. "You bastard..."
Well, I-
There was a flash.
A momentary haze, a pause in time. You saw Artanis, moving, turning, his pony tail flickering through the air. And suspended in the air behind him was Zeratul - his body still wreathed in the smoke from his shadow step. His blade plunged down. He was aiming for Artanis' pony tail...
And then, with blurring speed, Sarah got between the two. Her palm slammed into Zeratul's chest and sent him flying away. He crashed into the ground, skidding to a stop. Artanis brushed his hand along his ponytail, while Amon spoke through him.
A simple weakness, easily rectified in time - and one you will not exploit, insect.
No... Zeratul whispered.
Both Sarah and Artanis' heads jerked - as if they had both heard the same thing. Sarah grabbed onto Artanis and he vanished with a whirring blast of a Protoss teleporter. Zeratul reached for him.
ARTANIS! He bellowed.
Your head swam with the pain of it all.
Huh.
Your regeneration wasn't...working...quite as well as it was...
You blinked, wobbled, then fell to your knees.
Zerg were crawling over Matt's ACU. Their claws slashed into his armor. Mutalisks were swooping towards the
Hyperion, which bled smoke from its engines as scourge were barely kept at bay. Protoss fighters were blowing apart Wraiths - both those marked the blue of Raynor's Raiders, and those painted the red and black of Alpha Squadron. The
Norad III loomed over head, surrounded by a haze of Protoss interceptors. And it all felt so very distant.
You closed your eyes.
When you opened them again, the sky was full of silver disks.
Beams of searing heat came down and washed the world clean.
You closed your eyes again.
***
You opened your eyes. You were wrapped in medical equipment. Soft voices spoke. "What if it's a backdoor? Something that Amon could use-"
"I won't allow anything to be done to Samantha without her consent. She's gone through enough, damn it."
"But the Way-"
"Shh. She's awake."
A face swam into view. She was so beautiful.
You smiled. "Hey Sarah..."
"I'm not her, Sam." She looked exasperated. "You are on quite a lot of painkillers right now. I need you to focus. You can be made free of the Zerg. We...can make you human and keep you safe from Amon. But there's another way. If you wish, you can stay this way - you can stay Zerg and we can still shield you, through the Way. It's your choice."
You focused, hard. Scrabbling for clarity.
You found it.
You...
---
[ ] Become Human - respec character
[ ] Stay Zerg - keep character as is
