Chapter 13: Metamorphosis Complete
I was originally going to name her Ichi, because she was the first successful Zerg Larva I had created. I didn’t know whether she would survive. Not her body, that was much simpler and easier to fix. The real difficulty was her… Soul. Not her mind or personality, those can be programmed, reprogrammed, deprogrammed, whatever I wanted. The Soul was a bit different though.
Purity of Essence is the potential for change. Purity of Form is related to great psionic potential, or in this case, the Force. The Xel’naga wanted to merge the two aspects together to create more of their own kind. In the end, it was Kerrigan, a ridiculously powerful Psionically gifted human who became even more overpowered when she became Zerg, that was ultimately able to Ascend physically and spiritually into a godlike Xel’naga.
In other words, while the Protoss are badass, they aren’t exactly necessary. If he doesn’t go the Darth Vader route and get heavily nerfed, mentally and physically, then Anakin could possibly become a Xel’naga with my help. Assuming he’d actually wanna do that in the first place. He probably wouldn’t. And that’s fine too.
I can understand. I still haven’t completely transformed my head. What if the change in brain chemistry affects my Soul? It’s too risky. If something happens to Izsha, at least I’ll still be there to realize what’s wrong and try to fix it. But if somethin happens to me, she’s way too young and inexperienced to deal with it.
As for the face, there really isn’t a huge difference between transforming my skin into carapace and growing armor that can be removed or altered. In fact, the whole transformation to my entire body can still be reversed or changed. It’ll just hurt like a bitch.
“Master, are you still there?” Izsha’s soft voice startled me out of my thoughts. The huge cocoon was throbbing like a massive tumor next to one of the Krayt Dragon’s hearts. The beast was obviously in a lot of pain and discomfort, roaring and writhing from time to time. But ultimately there wasn’t much it could do to save itself.
“I’m here.” I ran my fingertips across the pulsating meat and could feel the giant scorpion swimming around inside, “It looks like your Drone body hasn’t fully broken down yet.”
“I’m close. My Metamorphosis is almost complete. I just wanted to hear your voice again.” She was terrified, but also really excited. It was understandable. She was going to fulfill her purpose.
“I believe in you, Izsha. You can do this.” I caressed the surface of the flesh as the temperature of the bloody liquid around my body increased. Zerg tendrils were reaching out in every direction and infesting the massive beast slowly but surely. A little fever couldn’t stop the infection.
“Thank you, Father.” After she said that, her body broke down completely. For a moment, it felt like she died, but it was only a moment. That enormous bubble finally burst and knocked me back into a rib!
“Fuck!” Cursed as the wall of meat started crushing me against the bone!
“Rooaoaaaaaar~!” The Greater Krayt Dragon started struggling even more desperately! It tried to breathe, but its lungs were being devoured! One of its hearts was ripped out and swallowed by that huge suction-cup like mouth! Gigantic fangs on the outside were drilling apart the internal organs and flesh. Five meter long fang-like teeth ripped through everything, even the bones of the Krayt Dragon were cracked and chipped from the force of those collisions!
“Master, are you okay?!” Thankfully Izsha was still in there, “My Metamorphosis is complete!”
“I can see and feel that, holy shit!” I didn’t get some silly magical System that creates Zerg just based entirely on the video game I played in my last life. Every lifeform I created had to make sense to me and used references from genetic samples I already had access to in reality.
“We have a Hatchery now!” She shouted excitedly, because this really was the start of our first Zerg Colony. The top half of her body was like a small mountain of squishy meat, with long armored purple tubes that were meant to collect various resources from the Drones. Long and powerful black tendrils reached out from the bigger and smaller tubes to collect the biomass all around us. Of course, at the very tip was a huge gaping maw, which was able to swallow things as well. The lower body, what would normally be below the surface, was essentially just a bunch of extremely long tentacles. They would spread Creep from the underground to the surface and ideally be able to reach the various other ‘organs’ of the Zerg Base, like the Spawning Pool, Evolutionary Chamber, et cetera.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
At the moment though, they allowed Izsha to swim around inside of the Krayt Dragon’s absurdly large torso. Seriously, it wasn’t even the largest it could get, but it was still more than twice as long as a Blue Whale and stupidly massive in terms of overall volume.
“Master, come inside me!” Izsha said something unintentionally hilarious and then grabbed me with a giant tentacle, pulling my body inside of one of the bigger armored tubes. I noted that inside of the tube there were fuckloads of black centipedes swimming around in the blood and gore. They weren’t Larva, just the generic Zerg parasites I designed.
“Smart.” I commented on her decision, “It seems you’ve learned.”
“Yes, Master. Although I have an immune system and a digestive system, there needs to be a defense mechanism between regular Zerg Units and microscopic Zerg parasites. Otherwise someone or something could infiltrate inside of me rather easily.” As she said that, the tentacle finally pulled me up to the very core of the Hatchery. There were lots of stomach-like chambers that could digest biomass, even various types of ‘minerals’ and inorganic matter. But she brought me to a different area. It was essentially a womb, filled with surprisingly clear amniotic fluid and countless little eggs that floated down from the sphincters that opened and closed around me.
“Any problems with egg generation?” I watched the thousands of tiny eggs rapidly grow and burst around me, transforming into little black or purple creatures. Mostly looking like centipedes, scorpions and leeches.
“No, Master. All of my features are functioning as designed.” Izsha was really happy and so was I, but I was still worried that something might go wrong. So I started taking control of parts of her body to check her gene strands, search for potential cancers or other issues that might crop up. I captured and scanned the bodies of various organisms that hatched from the eggs, but didn’t notice any problems. They were my designs, she was just pumping them out at a rapid pace.
“Are you enjoying your meal?” I chuckled as I felt the Krayt Dragon finally succumbing to its injuries and starting to die. It lasted a surprisingly long time to be honest.
“Yes, Master! Krayt Dragon Biomass is very nutritious and valuable! It’s unfortunate that they are so rare and require such a long time to mature.” She was already planning to raise them like fucking pigs.
“As long as we analyze their Essence properly, then it wouldn’t be too difficult to incorporate their genes into the Zerg.” The main theme of the Zerg is ‘Change’ and Evolution. They aren’t static, so even though I really wanna create all the standard Units and buildings from my memory, it’s not like I can’t incorporate other creatures into the Zerg or get a little creative with it.
“Their ability to swim through the sands will be useful for our Nydus Worm research.” She commented as a few larger eggs dropped down slowly and were deposited near the main exit, “Should I begin spawning larger organisms?”
“These are regular sized Larvae.” It wasn’t long since I finished making my daughter and she’s already morphed twice, now she’s pumping out babies. It’s kinda crazy to think about from the perspective of a human, but hey, I’m not a human either.
“We can wait, if you think it is too soon.” Izsha could literally abort them and reuse the biomass for something else, but it was totally unnecessary.
“It’s fine to start pumping out Larvae now. Just don’t go past the limit.” Even if this wasn’t a game, no, because this wasn’t a game, we had to be more careful not to overextend ourselves. We don’t want to end up like this poor Krayt Dragon. Being eaten alive from the inside out would not be a fun experience.
“My Midichlorian count per cell is lower now. But my upper limit does not seem to have changed.”
In other words, about 10k is still the upper limit. Don’t get me wrong though, that’s perfectly fine for becoming a Jedi. In fact, most Jedi are around that level. It just feels weird that the Midichlorians actively refuse to reproduce more than that within a single cell. Theoretically, you could even become a decent Jedi at only 7k per cell, but the higher the count per cell, the more attuned your entire body is to the Force. The easier it is to manipulate, the easier it is to defend against as well.
“With Yoda and Anakin as examples, the total Midichlorian Count in the entire body isn’t as important as the Midichlorians per cell in regards to Force attunement and manipulation.” I removed my mask and inhaled the amniotic fluid into my lungs. It was a little uncomfortable, but perfectly safe with my Zerg biology.
“Anakin is an outlier. A Vergence in the Force.” I rubbed my chin and watched some of the little centipedes swim over, munching on the mask I removed. Then they quickly left through the main cervix.
Izsha suggested, “We need to capture and experiment on Yoda or others of his kind.”
“Maybe not Yoda…” I thought about another Jedi Master of the same species, “Yaddle is destined to die. I doubt Count Dooku would mind having some help hiding the evidence?”
Alternatively, we could capture her while she’s still alive and have a living test subject. As for whether it’s right or wrong, or whether she deserves it or not? That’s debatable. How many hundreds of years has she been a Jedi? How much questionable shit has she been involved in over the centuries?
Hey, I’m not judging. I’m not a fucking saint either. Not saying I wouldn’t judge a piece of shit like Palpatine or Vader, but it takes a lot of effort to be that generically evil. Even the Queen of Blades wasn’t that bad and she killed what? Billions of people? Even after she was outside Amon’s influence and totally under her own control, she still did some fucked up shit.
“Master, the eggs are hatching.” Izsha snapped me out of my thoughts again and let me watch the ‘birth’ of her first real children. The purplish-black eggs burst open and revealed the six adorable little Zerg Larvae. By little, I mean that they were about a foot long and this is their smallest state.
“Hungry.”
“Need Biomass.”
“Master, orders?”
Three of them spoke to me telepathically, while the other three communicated with Izsha instead.
“Mother, nutrients are required.”
“Food.”
“Rip and tear!”
Well, they’re definitely adorable little murder machines. I telepathically whispered to Izsha, “Six is enough for now. Focus on eating and digesting the Krayt Dragon. I’ll start analyzing the Essence. The best case scenario would be to give you some more mobility.”
“Yes, Master!”