———3POV——-
Kerrigan body after absorbing the avatar underwent a massive transformation. Her body was suffering from significant damage so needed some time to be mended.
With the available biomass that was surrounding the cocoon and the powerful essence taken from the avatar, her evolution was going to be far more powerful than her previous one.
as time passed, her body recovered and her evolution took place, she had now the appearance of her master skin in Hero of the storm.
In the surrounding space, the Zerg swarm was on the receiving end of a large-scale assault from a rogue brood led by Hybrids.
Narud had kept his eyes on the recent events and he notices one of the big Psionic signals of the two have been gone, so knowing Kerrigan personality he was sure that there was a conflict with each other. And whoever had won may be very injured and needed time to recover, it would be a perfect time to launch an assault, aiming to eliminate the next leader of the swarm whoever may it be. Since the swarm is in commotion, but by the time he arrives, he didn't expect them to recover so quickly since he doesn't know about the hive empress.
However, he did not expect how coordinated the defense fleets around the Maw acted after sensing the presence of an intruder. He was believing that without an overall leader, the majority of the swarm would a reverted to a more feral state. And this was not counting the living planet was frustrated of having a battle inside of it.
The hybrid mastermind in charge of the attack was clueless of how to eliminate the world ship, having being trained specifically to eliminate zerg force he had managed to best most of the defensive fleet at an acceptable cost to his force.
But for the planet, he had no idea on how to proceed. A swing of those giant tentacles was enough to crush leviathan with each strike and his smaller forces were swarmed by an endless amount of scourge.
And as if the Overmind wanted to make the life of anyone wanting to mess with his flagship more miserable, from the titanic mouth of the monster, raw psionic energy came out like the breath of a dragon, frying the totality of the Hybrid vanguard.
Having observed at distance, Narud believed that the fastest way to eliminate the ruler of the swarm was to enter the Maw and eliminate it from the inside. Which was far more complicated than originally planned.
Haft of the hybrid which wanted to enter the same way Kerrigan entered in order to launch a killing blow to the command structure of the zerg swarm were instantly killed by the breath, and the second half who managed to make it out alives were impaled by spine crawler (long spine variant) and on the receiving end of a barrage from spore crawler.
To make it worse for the attacker, a lot of reinforcements were warping in the system, far more than the intel gathered by Narud suggested.
Even with the superior strategy of the hybrid mastermind, he could not outplay the meat grinder that was the Swarm.
Realizing his defeat, he wanted to evacuate the remaining hybrid to a safety and use the rest of the feral brood in a suicidal attack against the Maw, but the hives empresses had none of that.
Using their power granted by the Overmind, they disturbed the warp (the way of traveling not the Warp of 40k) making it impossible for them to leave at the cost of having the swarm reinforcements warp in farther.
The first queen of the Overmind Slyria, now a hive empress took command of the swarm. After being stuck on earth for a long time directing the stealth brood, she was craving for action and the blood of the enemies of the Swarm.
( By the way, I had an interlude planed for her, but I discovered I hated writing interlude)
While the Overmind did not plan for his possible death. the hive Empress and Broodmothers had already established an inner hierarchy which Slyria sat at the top due the being the favorites of the Overmind.
Seeing as his efforts trying to save the chosen of Amon, the hybrid, were in vain so the mastermind ordered an all-out assault on the world ship, hoping to possibly establish a base on the surface of the planet and dig his way down to his objective, maybe with Amon willing he could find a side entrance.
——-MC POV——
inside of Kerrigan mind.
The former Overmind was chained to a wall. He currently possessed the appearance of a regular human male, his clothing nonexistent, wound covering the totality of his body and his bone were clearly visible through his skin.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Looking at him one might believe he suffered heavy torture and starvation and this was true.
For The Overmind, when he was sucked inside of Kerrigan mind, he received unimaginable suffering in order the break his will and mind but managed to survive only to chained and cut from the source of his power.
But he did not die, whatever trap him here have enough of him after a while and left him to rot here.
After regaining his consciousness, the first thing he did was to call out for the system hoping for help or answer, but nothing happened. after some time of screaming, he abandoned the hope of someone helping him out.
But he started to look for a way to settling himself free. His power was out of reach, he could still feel them but unable to use them, his arms and legs were tied and could not move them.
when he started observing his surrounding and remembering what happened in the pool room he guessed where he was, in Kerrigan mind.
There was a giant screen on the wall in front of him, it was turned off.
A vast library was on his right, on the shelf there were books and many of them had small locks on them. Reading the title from some of them they ranged from childhood dreams to espionage.
On his left was the strangest thing in the room, a little girl with red hair, she looked in the same state as the Overmind, beaten and starved, but the major difference between them is she was sleeping in a comfortable bed and had an IV connected to her.
and finally on the top of the room, near the roof, there was an orb emitting light across the room, upon seeing the orb, information deep inside of his mind was pulled to the surface of his thought, the main linchpin of this universe.
It was just floating there just out of his reach, his Geass was now imposing an order on the man soul, his soul, forcing him to act and accomplish his mission. Turning him into a madman with the single purpose of destroying that orb.
But the binding holding him prevented from doing so. It did not stop his body to struggle.
This went for a day, the overmind spiritual body struggling against his binding until he stopped suddenly. A suggestion Coming from his more rational side of his mind. The original personality wanted to steer the geas in another direction sice direct action would not work.
‘If those chains are indestructible then no matter how much you struggle, they won’t break, but they are tied to the mind and will of Kerrigan, so that can break if you did it the right way’.
With this suggestion, the geas compelled the spirit body of the Overmind to act again, this time he only bites his lip making it bleed.
The blood began to fall to the ground, as it lay on the floor it began to boil, turning in smoke. But as the last bits of boiling blood evaporated a single stain remained on the ground.
This process keeps going for what would be hours, days, month, year, decade or centuries the Overmind would never know as time flow inside of a mindscape is quite suggestive.
But every time a drop of his blood fall to the ground, the taint grew in size.
——-Kerrigan pov——-
I was inside of a cocoon, again.
I could no longer feel the presence of the Overmind so I must have killed him during the beating I have given him
I could feel the swarm, my swarm, outside of the cocoon. They were fighting feral zerg led by hybrid.
As I looked at the hybrid, new information is sent from the memory archives. I learn of what hybrid are, who and what Narud is, his location and the overmind plan to deal with him.
He wanted to capture him and extract all of the xel'naga knowledge in the most painful way he could find, he also knew after Narud death he would return to the void were his body and his master Amon existed.
‘Amon’ the amount of anger and revulsion I felt as a new set of memory came to me could only be compared to my hatred towards Mensgk.
I also now knew of the fate the protoss will fall to, of Amon resurrection on an insignificant world with my lost power, and the many plans the Overmind made to counter the one made by Amon.
I agreed with most of them and modified those that I did not agree to.
They were a little overboard, killing and infesting the totality of the koprulu sector to find and eliminate all of narud hidden facilities.
There was also the plan to abduct all the protoss he could find, turning them into his version of hybrid, the memory of Alarak breaking out of his prison was quite the sight, his enhanced body was so strong that he ripped a Hydralisk in half with only his hand. While the power of those new hybrids were tyrannical, they would never hold loyalty to me.
So she quickly put an end to those plans. No need to create more enemy.
And whatever the Overmind had as a failsafe, she could not find it by looking at the repository of knowledge that was the archives.
Soon will the time where I could walk again, but for now I will make plans and prepare, I will take my revenge on Mensgk first, Amon would certainly be my next target.
--------Narud-----------
This is becoming frustrating, just how big did he want his swarm to be?
And that planet, the overmind certainly wanted his flagship to rival Xel’naga temple ship with this size.
And my hybrids were getting butchered. Each of them lost were years of work gone. As for the feral zerg accompanying them, those were acceptable lost since I made sure to have an endless supply of them.
Some forgotten world were used for breeding new brood for my hybrid to use.
And besides Amon will soon walk in this reality. The tal’darim fleet I sent will ensure of that.
Speaking of Tal’darim, Alarak and his followers just resurfaced with impressive power. He quickly gathered supporters and challenged the new first ascendants after Nuroka demise in Rak'Shir.
His victory was so swift and brutal that the supporters of that ascendant almost all of them survived the Rak'Shir. And many of the survivors had sworn themselves to Alarak after seeing the power he wielded.
Such a powerful individual he had become in such a short time, I should probably order him in a mission that meant to butcher his force and then capture him before he becomes a trouble.
He would be an interesting specimen to vivisect and maybe led me to create more powerful hybrids.
Thinking of hybrid I may need to ramp up production, a trip to Skygeirr station will be needed.
I have done everything to prepare the Mobius corp to serve Amon in my various facilities.
——Protoss POV——
Report coming from the long-range psi sensor were alarming. The psionic signature of the Overmind just went silent in the corner of the galaxy that the Terran call the united earth Directorate.
Observers were reporting a possible new brood war ongoing near the last known location of Kerrigan and the Overmind.
The last brood war was brutal, it engulfed all the factions of the koprulu sector. And many of his friends perished in that conflict.
Dark time was coming, the number of reported Zergs life forms were terrifying, there was at least three confirmed zergs for every Protoss and Terran warriors and civilians in the sector and those were the one who the observers were able to find.
With a brood war on the horizon drastic measures needed to be done.
Artanis stopped meditating and finally took his decision.
He entered a war room filled with Templar. Most of them were reading reports send by the observers.
They were not afraid of dying, but they were not stupid either. The swarm endless numbers would grind their army into dust in any long battle
Using an authoritative tone he said.
(Artanis ) Gather the Golden fleet, the reclamation of Aiur begins now!