Chapter 14: Under the Dune Sea
How the fuck does the Greater Krayt Dragon ‘swim’ through sand? They aren’t Force Sensitive. So they didn’t cheat that way. Their scales are extremely smooth, they have lots of legs, a really thick and strong tail, a long neck and the ability to use infrasound to vibrate the sand ahead of them. How did they survive while being so damn big and heavy? Their muscles, bones and organs were just really fucking strong.
Ultimately though, while the Greater Krayt Dragons are definitely ‘cool’, they aren’t super efficient. They aren’t Zerg. They produced lots of waste, like most animals. In fact, Krayt Dragon shit was probably what kept a lot of smaller creatures alive and fertilized lots of plants.
“Well, this is pretty wild.” I took a step out of the dragon’s open mouth and looked around, “I knew there was no way there’d be ‘no water’ on a planet like Tatooine.”
In front of me was a massive underground lake. The ancient caldera was enormous. I could see tons of glowing fungi everywhere, with some tropical-looking plants in between. Even in the dark water, there were lots of vines and even plenty of fish swimming around. Yes, the vines were swimming around too.
“Squee~!” A pig-like squeal attracted my attention, so I looked over at the source. There was a giant grayish-blue lizard with a bunch of legs, looking up at me with a small creature in its mouth. The small creature had rough and thick lumpy tan flesh, four legs that ended in sharp points, while the head was… Well, the head looked like a big ass suction cup with tentacles shooting out of it.
“What are the fucking odds?” I thought I’d need to go hunt down the Sarlacc that Jabba keeps as a pet.
“Convenient.” Izsha whispered into my mind, “More Essence would be preferable. We should still hunt the adult Sarlacc.”
“I mean, yeah-”
“Death!” A tiny purple figure fell down from above! The thick mantis-like upper arms came down and tore into the blue lizard’s scales! At the same time, the toothy maw opened up and bit a big chunk of meat from the much larger creature’s side! The dog-sized Zergling let go and fluttered its wasp-like wings, kicking off the ground and avoiding the death-roll of the ‘small’ lizard that was already the size of a giant alligator.
“Squee~!” The baby Sarlacc screamed and tried to escape! It scampered off into the thick brown mushrooms nearby. A moment later, it was sent rolling across the sandy soil with big gashes across its belly that were bleeding green juices. A hulking figure emerged from the fungal foliage, nearly as tall as I was at the shoulder. Not to mention the huge white spikes sticking up from its long black lizard-like head, down across its ape-ish back. The scaly flesh was dark-brown, with some bright purple stripes along the extremely muscular arms, torso, legs and tail. On the hands and feet were super long white talons.
“Resistance is futile.” The lizard actually spoke in Galactic Standard, with her mouth full of giant fangs. Those three pretty golden eyes glanced at me on one side and glared at the struggling Sarlacc on the other. Within a moment, the beast pounced and bit down on the middle of the little Sarlacc’s torso, nearly snapping it in half. However, Sarlaccs are pretty damn durable, so it wasn’t even dead yet.
“Don’t kill it, Prima.” I told the lizard-ape, then yelled at the other brat, “Lingling, try not to die!”
“Yes, Master.” The Primal Zergling answered calmly, releasing the dog-sized creature onto the ground where it writhed in agony. I crouched down and touched the wounds, warping and weaving the flesh back together.
“Roooaaaaar~!” The baby Greater Krayt Dragon cried out loudly as it was suddenly attacked by four Drones. They looked almost identical to Izsha a few days ago, though maybe they were a little bigger and bulkier. After all, they’ve gorged themselves on what was likely this poor bastard’s father or older brother the past few days.
“Squeee~!” The Sarlacc struggled and tried to escape the moment I finished helping it heal. The creature didn’t really have organs in the typical sense, being more like a plant than an animal, which was fascinating. Even without my help, it might have survived and regenerated over time.
“It’s okay. There’s no point running away. There’s nowhere you can run from the Zerg.” I picked it up and looked into that huge funnel of a ‘face’. Then a beak shot out and tried to bite my nose off! It was blocked by one of my ‘bangs’, then some armored ‘hair’ on the sides of my head entangled the tentacles that tried to grab me next.
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“Master, my pack has captured the prey.” She really fell into the role of a Primal Zerg as We remembered them.
“Prey, captured. Unfortunately.” Lingling was really… Murdery. Murderous? Yeah, murderous. I’m not sure why though. It’s not about turning into a Zergling, because that decision was made afterwards. Could have something to do with the Dark Side, or it could just be a personality quirk.
“Father, should we infest this place or leave?” Izsha whispered into my mind as her purplish-black tendrils reached out of the colossal gaping blue maw. Mushrooms and plants were swept up, along with various insects, dirt and sand, before being drawn inside the mouth again. The rest of the body was hidden behind the rocky wall of this enormous cavern.
“No. We’ll gather a few more Greater Krayt Dragons and Baby Sarlaccs if we can find them. If there are any dragon eggs or Sarlacc spores that’d be great. I doubt we’ll find any Canyon Krayts down here, but we might. That’d save us a lot of trouble.”
I didn’t wanna ruin this little ‘paradise’ underground. It was also somewhat dangerous to wait around for another Krayt Dragon to show up. Izsha was pretty big now, but that would actually make her a target.
“Yes, Father.” Izsha has been calling me that a lot lately. I guess it makes her feel special, since I’ll be having a ton of her own kids calling me Master from now on.
“Roooaaaaaar~!” A deafening bellow came from up above! Then I saw a huge figure falling down from the ceiling along with lots of boulders!
*Thump-thump-thump~!* The noise was loud and the dust blinded us, but thankfully the Force guided all of us to avoid getting crushed. At most, one of the Drones lost a leg. The Sarlacc was still trying to escape from my grip, but I held it tightly against my purple tits, I mean pecs.
“What the fuck was that?” I immediately got the answer to my question, because a huge claw grabbed Droanna!
“Master!” She cried in pain and fear as her body was ripped in half!
“Son of a bitch!” I was pissed off. I mean, she wouldn’t die that easily, but it was still really annoying!
“Rancor! Kill!” Lingling didn’t hesitate or wait for orders, just buzzed her wings and jumped off the ground, flying onto the monster’s back. Those powerful claws and mantis-like blades were able to penetrate the ridiculously tough flesh, but she couldn’t really deal that much damage. In a lot of ways, a Rancor is even stronger than a Greater Krayt Dragon. At least in terms of how tough its skin can be… But just like a Krayt Dragon, it wasn’t invulnerable.
“Take this.” I tossed the baby Sarlacc to Dronii, who caught it with her pincers and quickly carried it inside the half-buried head of that giant blue Greater Krayt Dragon. Then watched the other Drones carry the top half of their sibling, along with the head of that baby Krayt into the mouth of the dragon as well.
“Prima…” I looked over and saw the sneaky bitch running away! “Are you fucking serious?!”
“Father, perhaps we gave the Zerglings a bit too much free will?” Izsha grumbled in my mind.
“Blood!” Lingling finally managed to break through the ugly Rancor’s flesh and drew a little blood. The creature had really long and powerful arms, with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, but it still couldn’t reach back to the spot she was attacking.
“We can deal with Prima later. For now, I’m gonna kill this motherfucker.” I rushed forward and jumped onto a huge boulder, but I was still only to the Rancor’s waist. It was probably about ten meters tall.
It obviously saw me with those comparatively tiny yellow eyes… Why does everything have yellow eyes?
“Roooaaaar~!” It screamed and swung a huge claw down, smashing the boulder I just kicked off of! Negating the gravity mid-air, I Force Pulled myself towards the bastard’s face! My clawed left foot dug into the huge nostril that was actually above the beast’s eye level, and also even bigger than the eyes.
“Aiirruuuuuoooooo~!” They roared in pain again, using their clawed hands to try to tear me off their face. It didn’t have a giant dick dangling around, so I figured it might be female, but I wasn’t really sure.
“Hate you Force-Resistant assholes!” I punched it in the forehead hard enough that I was sent flying upwards and away from the claws that smacked into its own face. A giant barbed tendril shot up from underground between the Rancor’s legs!
“Aoiiiiiiuuuuuuuuu~!” Uh, the poor bastard really screamed now… I shot bladed tendrils out of my palms that whipped to the sides and then hooked straight into those beady yellow eyes! I yanked them out and the giant tendril drilled upwards even farther inside the beast’s bowels or reproductive system, maybe both? Thousands of small Zerg Parasites were being shot up into their body and devouring their insides.
“Surrender, or lose your offspring.” Prima suddenly reappeared nearby with a little brown baby Rancor that was actually a little larger than its own hulking figure.
“Aoiiuuuuouuu~!” The baby cried for its mother, asking for help, unable to comprehend that its mother was totally fucked already.
“Oiiiiuuuuuuuuuooooo~!” Another roar came from the distance… Then another, and like twenty more.
“Master, I think I miscalculated.” My silly daughter quickly dragged the screaming baby Rancor into the mouth of that dead Greater Krayt Dragon, while I was still floating in midair with two big eyeballs in my hands.
“Okay, fuck this, we’re retreating.” I sent a message to everyone and landed on the eyeless bitch. The eyes in my hands warped and transformed into two big bloody red worms that drilled into her empty sockets. Her hands were busy trying to remove the massive tentacle from her ass, so she couldn’t really protect her face.
“You’re coming with us.” As I said that, the sandy soul under her feet broke open to reveal another few spiky tentacles. She was wrapped up quickly and pulled down without being able to do anything to stop it. With the Zerg worms rooting around in her brain, it really wasn’t long before she stopped struggling altogether.
“You shouldn’t have fucked with us. But hey, everyone makes mistakes… Welcome to the Swarm.”
Why does it kinda feel like the Zerg are the Borg? Hmmm, well, anyway, time to go. Need to find a place to actually settle down and start our base. I’m thinking about the Mospic High Range. We passed through there to reach this part of the Dune Sea, although we did get dragged along pretty far by the Greater Krayt Dragon, it wasn’t going in a straight line. Izsha should be able to swim that far at least.