Author's Notes:

This chapter was going to be longer, but I realized three quarters of the way through writing it that what I'd had happen made no fucking sense whatsoever. A huge rewrite ensued, eating twice as much time as I wanted to take, but this SHOULD be much clearer now.

If there is anything here that is still outrageously confusing; please let me know and I'll see if I can make edits to clear it up a bit.

Yes, I am intentionally starting this story off with chapter titles based around campaign names from Starcraft 2. That means the next one will have a title based on Legacy of the Void.

...

Oh, and the first person to correctly name the language ponies speak gets to suggest a name for Sarah's brood. Hint: Video game source.

I waste no time after my warning to Celestia. The miniature drone drops out of my hair and scurries away a short distance to begin mutating into a Hatchery. "Liz, find a vantage point to watch over the area, one where you will not likely be seen." My thoughts gather, only to be disrupted as the tip of a horn and the barrel of my rifle press against opposite temples.

"Sarah, I insist that you explain yourself. You are hardly in a position to threaten me or make demands."

"Don't lose yourself, Sarah. Telling her to leave, dropping the drone, and having it start building for you seconds after she does us a solid? Do not go 'Brood War' on me."

"A Zerg mind contacted me, either that or something close enough to being a Zerg that it makes no difference since it mentioned the Overmind." The gun is immediately removed from its position. "Why would you even think I'd betray her?"

"Oh, I dunno, you screwed me over often enough in multiplayer that seeing a drone start to mutate within fifty feet of me kinda puts me on edge. Either that or it could be the fact that your eyes were glowing green instead of purple right before you said that. Take your pick."

Fear once again emanates from Celestia, followed by a single word before she vanishes in a flash of light. I pay it no mind as I turn in place to take in the entirety of the immediate area. As promised, it is a swampy area with trees that wouldn't look too strange in the backwater areas of Louisiana. The ground is soft and springy, but too firm to casually wear a hole in by rubbing your foot around. It doesn't stand a chance against my heel, though, and the stench of decaying vegetation rises from the black rift in the brown surface. "It's a peat bog, freshwater, near volcanic activity. No salt in the air, plenty of sulfur, and the heat speeds up the decomposition process. Which came first, though, the firey monsters or the fire?"

"What do you think she meant by 'Smooze?' It's certainly not a word I recognized. How do I know if this gun is loaded or not?"

"You'll have time to figure that out, Liz. Aim and shoot, open end points at what you want to kill. If it helps, pretend you're playing Team Fortress 2. Move out."

"As you command, my queen!" My head snaps towards the new voice, only to see Liz standing there with a shocked expression and her hand covering her mouth. "Okay, I think I know what happened to my phone now, because that was the sound clip of Inferno I wanted to play to be sarcastic."

"Why am I not surprised that you had that on your phone?" If sarcasm could be concentrated into liquid form I would have just puked up a gallon. "Let me guess, text from Mom alert?"

"Don't you have something more important to do than needle me over my use of storage space?" She's right, but she's also smiling as she says it. "Find a vantage point. Kill anything that isn't you, one of your Zerg, or a watercolor horse. Wait...how will I tell your Zerg from enemy Zerg?"

"Direction of travel would be a good indicator, for starters!" The wet sound of flesh ripping open and various fluids rushing everywhere as a result heralds the emergence of the completed hatchery structure, and the viscous lavender substance known as Creep begins to spread further. I sink a hand into it, touching every organ in the hatchery at once as I try to get a feel for how this will work now that it's no longer a game. Larvae gestation tubes: standard, nonindicative of capabilities. Biomass storage? Volatile substances storage: obviously 'Vespene' gas doesn't exist. Energon storage: Minerals, but where...wait, WHAT!? Worry about it later, hatch two drones, standing order: Acquire Resources. "Liz, we need to talk after we survive this."

No response. I try to stand up, only to wince in pain as I realize my command tendrils have also sunken into the creep. Converting excess biomass into rebirth chamber for Queen of Blades. More biomass is required to generate further hatchery organs. Creep will digest any biomass not originating from this hive cluster that does not register as being alive. Inititating primary neural connection. Creep surges up the tendrils, tethering me in place even more securely as I feel it reach my skull, gather around the joints where bone meets zerglocks, and press into them.

Agony is the result. Seconds feel like years as neural tissues bridge the gap between the Human and Zerg portions of my brain. My body convulses as synapses are tested, resulting in my wings stabbing into the ground all around me as well as into my own flesh more than a few times, and my throat is left raw and sore by my screams. The living carpet releases its hold on me after about a minute, allowing my body to slump over as I desperately try to catch my breath. Images come into focus quickly as I open my eyes, and my eyes, and my other eyes, followed by the eyes on my actual body. Two sets of eyes have their forward field of view dominated by purple crystals with what looks like lightning trapped inside: my drones. The third remote viewing position is clearly airborn, and bobbing up and down slightly as if constantly adjusting bouyancy: An overlord.

I stand up, my legs shaking from the injuries I inflicted on myself. Enemy approaching base, Queen. The thought coincides with the aerial perspecting shifting in a way that produces a wave of nausea, then zooming in on a swarm of creatures with carapaces as black as onyx. Come on, come on, heal faster! A wave of energy builds up inside of me, releasing after a moment and rapidly regenerating the damaged tissue after leaving me feeling like I just woke up. "Huh...so that's how I trigger the Mend effect, and if I have access to Mend..." I concentrate, holding my arms out in front of me and waiting as the enemy forces approach. "That means I should be able to shoot lightning!"

The leader of the pack of the first assault wave manages to get within ten feet of me before I figure out that I just have to focus my thoughts on which one I want to die first. Unlike the character in the game I am not limited to standing and shooting when enemies are trying to bite my tits off, and I take full advantage of this by crouching low to present a smaller target, as well as to make it easier for my wings to attack anything in front of me as well as to the sides with their devastatingly-sharp tips and serrated edges. As I stand my ground and easily destroy nine out of every ten of these zerglings before they can so much as scratch me; a song begins playing in my head. I blow up the next 'ling's head with a bolt of lightning that chars the wings of four others before I begin singing along. "And now my unfortunate friend you will discover a war you're unable to wiiiiiiin! I'll have you kno-oooow, that I've become INDESTRUCTIBLE! Determination that is incorruptible; from the other side a terror to behold. Annihilation will be unavoidable..."

Six minutes, five additional drones, and four reminders from the brain of the hatchery that it has enough biomass to create a Spawning Pool now later; I have the first dozen Zerglings of my own ready to meet the next wave of enemy forces. Creep and ichor cover my legs and torso, none of it my own as mend has been more than enough to keep up with what little harm has been inflicted on me so far. The occasional enemy head exploding into a cloud of orange mist and black exoskeleton shrapnel well before it reaches my line of defense is enough to tell me that Liz is doing her part and staying hidden. I decide to make use of the luxury of no longer being the first line of defense by using my right wing to stab one of the black-carapaced Zerg in both legs on the same side and pulling it behind the line of my own troops.

It hisses and snaps at me with a mouth that appears far too large for its head. My response is to charge my arm with lightning energy and pull it close enough that my backhand slap becomes a sawblade of bony protrusions starting at my elbow being dragged across its face and utterly destroying one of its insectile compound eyes. "What are you, you genetic clusterfuck? Clearly a Zergling analogue, but what made you?" Tattered wings with drab, faded colors lay along its back with a dull green being the most prominent. Features that do not physically protrude away from the generally horse-like shape are hard to distinguish due to the uniform blackness of its exoskeleton, and it isn't until the horn on its head starts to glow that I realize that it isn't dead yet. You will NOT steal my brood, beast!

I whip my wing to the side, trying to fling the not-quite-carcass away as its limbs begin to twitch again. This movement causes the exoskeleton to break and crumble away, revealing neon colored flesh that clashes so horribly against the color of the body part next to it that I can't even continue looking at it. Turning my head away and giving one last flick of my wing likely saves me from more serious damage as the creature screams and violently explodes in a burst of pure magic energy. Two of the three blade-spines are vaporized outright due to being the ones that transected its body, the third one only twitches uselessly as I try to move it. "Baneling morph...without forming a cocoon around itself, and using magic instead of acid. FUUUUUUUUCK THAT HURTS!" Trying to move my right arm is a mistake, the spiked 'pauldron' has shattered, as have the internal bones beneath it, and feeling the edges of bones grind against each other is enough to make anyone want to escape the pain.

The hive mind offers me that escape as I feel my body succumb to shock and my focus shifts to monitoring the battlefield through the eyes of the overlord high above. Another drone egg hatches and it begins to burrow straight down through the creep and peat beneath, seeking out underground reserves of volatile gasses such as methane. My aerial sight picks up a figure running away from the treeline towards where my body has fallen; a figure colored black and gold. I would frown if an overlord were capable of doing so, but I do send a series of commands to the hatchery. Without worrying too much about the how, I attempt to move the overlord further from my little base to establish a bit more breathing room by expanding the creep field.

The alien body obeys, moving with all the grace and speed of an eagle...piloting a blimp. Hello motion sickness, my old friend, I didn't think it was even possible for Zerg to vomit...oh! So that's how overlords spread creep... That's even more unpleasent than I imagined, but the endless torrent of purple biomass is stopped by an explosion inside of this body; becoming a rain of napalm as it is bifurcated by a beam of solidified light. My mind is ejected from the dying Zerg, snapping me back into my own body. "Owwwww, the fuck was that?"

"Tacdnuo dra vuim paycdc! Duilr hud dra binbma cmesa, ryns hud dra uhac dryd ybbayn yc cgehho sehudyn lufc. Vun meva, vun rynsuho, vun Axiacdney!" I can't understand a word of it this time, but the voice is familiar despite the harsher tone. Celestia has returned.