——————Overmind POV——————-
Now that my little intruder he's gone, back to the matter at hand.
The world below was covered in creep infestation. I had let it run rampant.
The research facility was still producing those clone, my infested had begun to use them to blockade passageway, herding them to exposed zones where they were shot en mass.
I quietly ordered all the infested marine on the maw to prepare. I should probably wait for them to reach the point where they have no biomatter to make more bit, who knows, I ain’t waiting for a week here to see if they had more.
And looking at the essence from the clones, they had some concerning quirk that I needed to look into, my zombies, like Sasha had begun calling them, would get sick when they eat them.
They had artificial flesh, not like a terminator but more like everything was made as an imitation made by someone or something.
This had caused some serious alarm to ring, hell I could have found something I was not supposed to know.
To add to the weirdest that flesh is incompatible with zerg infestation, like oil and water, what more is their biomass was not usable or digestible by anything I had.
The cell of the clone was weirder, they were uniform, brain cell, muscle cell, bone, everything was identical. Like someone made a giant size 3d printer and made life-size mannequins.
I could not even guess how they were able to live.
The marine seemed to be able to kill them like any human, they just a bit more persistent.
But now I want to know what in that lab since ammo was being spent at quite a rate higher than I was making them, I had marine equipped with melee weapons.
Normal people would wonder why use melee weapons in a future setting, well simply it works, if your enemy doesn't have anything that can hurt you, nothing will stop you.
Club and axe while crudely made, my marine was physically superior to a normal human in every way. I added some adrenal mutation to make them for more aggressiveness and increased speed. I might work on them further after that but I might need someone who knows how to make proper melee weapon first.
But for now, I inform that actions are needed and casualty is acceptable.
She doesn’t like the fact I am rushing her but I told her that on this battlefield the only thing that is not expendable is her.
I guess she is still trying to be a good commander from a human point of view, but from the zerg point of view to lose a thousand to kill one is acceptable.
-------1 hour later on the surface----
My infested with melee modification were fighting like a bloody berserker.
Those with a club would do home run with the clone like pro baseball player, sending the clones crashing into a wall, and the ones with an ax would hack them into pieces, dismembering them from their limb or decapitating them. Some of the hit was so strong that the shoddy work on the weapon came biting back at my troop, then they use their fist, claw, and tentacle to continue their rampage.
When Sasha saw the progress they were making she had her marine march with their bayonet out, stabbing or gunning them. She was actually the first one to reach the lab.
----------------Sasha pov-------------
Inside of the cloning lab, what I saw was in one word, disturbing. Ever since I became a zerg I have seen some weird stuff from the maw, a living world, eaten what zerg consider food, had a disembodied voice as a boss.
But what I saw here was just wrong, a human that looks like the that many clones I had killed was connected to a giant's sphere of white flesh with tube and such, at the bottom of the sphere white bubbles were forming, from above an energy beam was used to feed the sphere.
When looking at the bubble forming below I could see them shaping themselves as a new clone in matters of minutes.
I command marine to go under the sphere and just kill any of the new clones as they were forming, those with melee weapon directly under and those with gun covering then.
Then I just saw a ladder to that allow someone to go near the humans who stuck in the sphere with numerous life support machines connected to him. Seeing that I go down with it
As I approach closer to the man, more details about his origin became clear, he had a scar from bullet and knife, diverse tattoos adorned his skin and when I check the detail, I recognized one of them.
It a tattoo that a spec op team used to wear, knowing who is he, I decided to interact and maybe I could learn something from this situation.
(Sasha) what is your name soldier?
The man below me raised his head with a tortured look in his eyes
With a whisper the man the said
(?) Pleaseee...killl meeeee
Then he returned to look at the ground, after a few seconds I decided to put my left hand on his head and quickly broke his neck. I never meet him, but for someone who was a soldier, that fate seems horrible, to become a scientist curiosity, forced to take a lot of pain, stay alive and die slowly like that, he should be released from that hell, I hope he will have a better fate in next life.
A few seconds later I am ripple formed on the surface of the sphere. The human experiments body was expelled from the sphere and multiple ripples appear on it. As the ripple increased in number, the corpse of the dead clone nearby began to evaporate in mist.
As I am connecting to other to see what going on, it show that the dead clone everywhere in the facility had also begun this process, white clouds were forming near the concentration of corpse, and the wall of dead clone as well falling everywhere, some of them end up burying a couple of marine.
Soon after that, I saw an infested moving towards me, a low level infested so he almost looked like a man, purple glowing eye betray his identity, from the way he looks I guessed who.
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(Sasha) Overmind?
The man looked at me with a fatherly look.
(Overmind) yes, Sasha, it is me, for now, I wanted to stretch my leg a little, a figure of speech of course
After saying this he began to look at the numerous consoles, reading reports or shifting through the torned papers.
I was wondering what he was looking for so I asked.
(Sasha) what are you looking for, my Overmind?
His eyes lit up and look at me, his response came in a flat tone.
(Overmind) I am looking to know what the hell is that.
He points the sphere that still being feed energy from the laser.
(Overmind) that thing breaks more law of reality than a superhero comic book here.
I was surprised, that thing was certainly weird but I mean I already had my fair dose of insanity introduced in my life, so I choose to ignore this issue and return to the maw.
———-Overmind POV————
What the hell is this?
I was probing it with my psi power ever since the zerg came in contact. The results are nothing, it does not exist yet it in front of my(flesh puppets) eyes, it was there looking happy to being fed energy.
(world system) Salutations!
The damn screen just showed up in front of my eyes, where it have been all of this time?
(world system) I need to congratulate you on this important discovery!
(Overmind) what?
(world system) you found a piece from a dead universe, only by looking in a place where no story happens can you find them.
(Overmind) what?
(world system) basically every time a universe dies it leaves behind a corpse of some sort. They are objects or being of incredible power, but they cannot exist inside of the omniverse so they fall into other universes. As a rule, they cannot interfere with any linchpins so they exist outside the perception range of any hero or villain from his hosting universe.
(Overmind) so I found this one, from what universe this came from?
(world system) secret :p can't tell you if I do the universe could resurrect itself, and you don’t want to see what happens to the host universe when it does.
Ok, this is interesting, I might give cause looking into other places that are mentioned in the source material.
(Overmind) so what I can do with this?
(world system) you can trade it with me and I give you a perk.
(Overmind) a perk?
(world system) yup, something related to the object in question, this one I could give you fast cloning of low infested.
(Overmind) do I need resources to make those clone?
(world system) nope that the beauty of a perk since they say fuck off to the law of reality as long as you give it energy and you could have infinite infested, but this perk will only work for trash level units if you take this as game perspective.
Ok, let roll with it. their more questions to ask anyway.
(world system) I will take this from you, now.
My (flesh puppets) hand moved by itself and energy began to pour out from it. the energy keeps coming out and surrounds the sphere, then it compresses itself until it becomes the size of a marble.
My body began to walk towards the marble, picking it up.
(world system) have fun, those things taste unique
(Overmind) taste?
As my view still obstructed by the screen, my arm moved and put the thing in my (flesh puppets) mouth.
The marble had a taste like everything it had in the universe, good, bad, evil, delicious, tasteless disgusting, everything all at once, to be honest, it was quite addictive and would not mind eating the second one, if I get the chance to.
But it seems my flesh puppet could not handle eating one, he exploded releasing an energy wave that was spreading across space.
As the energy wave passes through any of my zerg, my microbe absorbed the energy making my zerg glow for a bit, the maw was radiating so much light in the sky that someone could have mistaken it for a star.
Knowledge was made available to me, in a more intuitive way. Now I knew how to replicate the sphere but for all thing good and evil, I could not even begin to explain it, it would be like explaining why water is wet, it just like that.
---------------------3rt pov-------------------------
On the other side of the galaxy, after learning Kerrigan undone the infestation, Mengsk ordered her elimination by any means necessary right away.
The former raider fleet took a beating going from one hiding place to the next, and every time they believed to be safe Mengsk fleet would show up and open fire immediately, the number of narrow escapes were increasing.
Doctors narud just had stolen the artifacts from the raider and began to make preparations to the resurrection of is master.
The group were heading to the umoja space to meet up with Valerian after contacted
On the Hyperion, in the sleeping quarters Sarah Kerrigan was having nightmares and raynor was just looking after her. Her psionic ability while weaker that what she was as the queen of blade, she was still without a doubt the strongest human psi user and her nightmare were caused by her power showing her possible future and the past.
In zerg space a massive fleet had formed and left towards directorate (UED) space to the confusion of observers. To mengk displeasure, he had hoped that without kerrigan the swarm would turn feral and disperse.
The older brood and organism that once served the previous overmind were the one who wanted to embark in the long journey to find him. The more recent creation and younger brood were the one staying behind not really caring for the overmind, he was not actively trying to make them obey and many of them were fiercely loyal to the queen of blade.
The protoss were doubly more concerned since they had figured as for why that zerg fleets were heading further away from the koprulu sector, the overmind while not actively calling to them, his presence was felt by the other two psionic faction.
The Daelaam were sending more Observer to the region of space they believed the overmind was located, while increasing there operation to cleanse pocket of feral zerg which multiplying at alarming rate, easily attributed to the fact many broodmother were leaving this region.
Then Artanis ordered to increase the production of the golden fleet, ordering the phase Smith under his command to make new starship construction yard.
The Tal’darim who were following Amon as their god, had a fanatic named Ma’lash as a leader who receiving an order from his god, also had a fleet of the most devoted to the xel'naga temple on Atrias, now after he gets the Amon new order. As the highlord he will lead this mighty fleet ensuring the rebirth of is god.
---------------------in the palace of semi-Mengsk pov ------------------------
On Korhal, seeing the zerg fleet going in the direction of the UED, Mengsk was perplexed, two of his enemy to the domination the human race were going after each other soon, and that signal his psi sensor has detected may cause a problem to him, since this could be a second queen who would appear soon if he believes so.
He had called in one of his ghost, a young woman named Nova around 19-year-old. She had a psi index of 10, which was extremely rare, the same level of power Kerrigan has before her infestation. But like all ghost, who under his dominion had a series of implant forcing her to be loyal to him.
He considers Ghost as a tool, dangerous one. It was the only reason why he did not kill them all during the purge of the ghost program, they were too useful.
Looking at the woman before him he addresses her with barely concealed disdain.
(Mengsk) I have a task for you Agent X41822N. You are going to old earth to investigate where the zerg are doing there, then locate and bring me the origin of the psionic signal we are receiving all the way from there.
With that done, not even looking if she had understood, he left the room. Sending this powerful ghost after the zerg while Kerrigan was still out there was extremely uncomfortable but he would need an eye to keep him informed the UED and zerg, and any other tool would fail this mission. The Dominion fleets were completely engaged in multiple cleansing operations and due to the limitation to the mission, any other agent would fail.
And if there a situation like the zerg turning Nova into a new queen well she had the implant in her head, making it impossible for her to disobey him and if she manages this, pain is a powerful motivator.
And if those measures fail he had a resocialise (read brainwashed) crewman who was ready to detonate a rather powerful bomb, one able to crack planet, on standby. If there was a second queen of blade or nova betray him then it would go off.
------------------Nova -------------
Soon after an aide came with file and a mission brief then gave it to Nova. She was given a ship, an old battlecruiser refitted for long distance recon, most of its Armour had been stripped, same with most of the weapon, only the warp drive was noteworthy since it came off a UED wreck. It seems her mission would need to do locale procurement if she wanted to ever come back, her crew seem to have a squad of fresh ghosts as her back up so it would facilitate to eliminating pirates bases along the way.
The ship named Morpheus had a crew of 1200, so it was barely the required number need to man the ship. There was no marine corp on board, no vehicle bay and only dozen of old dropship to help in transport.
Nova wonder if she was sent to die? But there were an easier way that hauling her ass in the middle of nowhere to do this. The good new if there was any, was the ship had a lot of place for improvement.
In the back of her head, she had the nagging feeling that would be the only good news she will hear in a long time.
Her second in command was a scientific named Reigel, he was from the möbius foundation he was under the order of doctors narud to aid this expedition, his role would be to locate the source of the psionic signal and to figure it out what it is.
Compared to the poor equipment the dominion had given Nova, he came with top of the line equipment and staff, there were currently refitting the Morpheus with a new lab section, a factory, mineral processor and a vesphene refinery.
She may not have all the new toy of the dominion but with those facilities, her ship would be able to build and improve it into a mighty ship.