It took a while longer for Stukov to regain his composure after seeing his old friend floating in a tank.
Sweetie and Kerrigan looked at each other and sighed, “Looks like we’re taking him back to the Leviathan whether we like it or not,” Sweetie said.
Stukov unhooked any cables and clamps holding the tank in place so Sweetie could safely remove it and carry it with her back to the Leviathan.
After releasing DuGalle from the tank on the Leviathan, the Admiral was left in a corner of the command chamber while Stukov took care of him.
Kerrigan and Sweetie heard the opinions from the others about Narud. Dehaka was concerned about Narud’s master, Amon who would claim all essence in the universe for himself. Zagara was confident that her Queens could take on Narud. Izsha was more concerned about the Tal’darim force protecting Narud and how they worship Amon.
“The Tal’darim are a tragic sort, really. They actually believe that they will ascend to become Xel’naga if they worship Amon. They don’t want to believe the cold, hard truth: Amon is lying to them,” Sweetie said.
“That makes them even more dangerous,” Kerrigan responded. Sweetie nodded.
While they were waiting for DuGalle to recover, Abathur called Sweetie and Kerrigan to the evolution pit to introduce the modifications he made to the Mutalisks.
Part of Sweetie hoped that her own designs for the Mutalisk were not going too far…
Abathur wanted Kerrigan to choose which essence she wanted spun into the Mutalisk Strain. The choice was between the Brood Lords or the Primal Viper essence.
With that, the demonstration began. The Queens’ minds were projected toward a Dominion defense platform at Sigma Centari, where he located some feral Brood Lords.
Without the Brood Lords, the Zerg on the platform were at a stalemate against some Dominion Missile Turrets. Kerrigan directed a small group of Mutalisks to hunt down and devour the feral Brood Lords. Only a pair of Mutalisks escorted the hulking flyers and they were outnumbered by Kerrigan’s Mutalisks. Since the Brood Lords couldn’t attack flyers, they were easy prey and devoured as easily.
Once Abathur was finished working on them, the Mutalisks had a change in appearance. Purple pustules appeared on their backs and the membrane of their wings took on a bright green appearance.
The Mutalisks were quickly morphed into Brood Lords before Abathur provided more Mutalisks as air support. The Brood Lords launched Broodlings at the Missile Turrets from outside the Turrets’ range. While the Dominion focused on the Broodlings, the Brood Lords continued launching more. The Vikings converted to fighter mode to deal with the Brood Lords but there were too few to handle the Mutalisk escort. The Dominion sent in drop pods as a last ditch effort to save themselves but the Broodlings were too distracting for the reinforcements.
The Dominion were soon overrun.
The next planet was Brokas Hur, a Dominion storage world. The first thing noticed was a transport carrying Jorium crystals being guarded by a squadron of Dominion.
Abathur researched the Primal essences and managed to modify the Mutalisks based on that. The Viper Strain was the end result. Abathur sent a few Aberrations to support the Vipers. The dragonfly-like terrors latched a tendril onto each of the Aberrations and pulled them to them. A lone Siege Tank was situated on a small plateau. The Vipers yanked the Siege Tank off the plateau and into the waiting claws of the Aberrations.
After dealing with a couple more Siege Tanks, a lone Bunker was their next obstacle. The Vipers sprayed a cloud over the Bunker and left it helpless against the Aberrations’ assault.
Abathur delivered more Aberrations while Kerrigan had the Vipers pull them up a cliff. She then had them blind the last Dominion defenses with a cloud while the Aberrations dealt with the defenders while the Vipers shot down the Wraiths. Once the Jorium cargo was secured, Abathur’s demonstration ended.
Sweetie convinced Kerrigan to choose the Viper Strain for the tactical possibilities.
Next it was Sweetie’s turn to show everyone something. Sweetie’s demonstration involved a Dominion boot camp that trained a large number of infantry for future missions. The defenses around the camp were tight, but the outskirts were where the Dominion split into groups and did their survival training.
Sweetie called down a number of Mutalisks near one of the campsites. Her Mutalisks had slightly larger wings than the usual variety along with a longer body and extra limbs that ended in razor-sharp claws.
When Sweetie mutated them, their appearance was about as large as a Brood Lord with a thick body, powerful limbs, glowing green pustules on their backs, large, thick wings, and a large mouth with a huge underbite that was dripping with green ooze that burned whatever it landed on when it escaped its mouth.
Sweetie had her new Strain attack the first campsite. By the time the Dominion noticed, the beasts were already upon them. Their final moments was a sight of green flames before they rose again as mindless infested.
The beasts attacked the camps one by one and the number of infested were bolstered. Once ready, the infested troops moved against the boot camp. With the infested distracting the infantry, the beasts moved in and converted more troops into infested. The few Vikings in the camp lifted off to deal with the new Strain of Zerg. They weren’t counting on their claws being powerful enough to easily tear through metal.
Once the Vikings were dealt with, the creatures continued unleashing their plague on the unfortunate Dominion trainees. Sweetie’s demonstration ended when the camp was overrun with infested.
“I call these Blight Dragons. I combined Dragon essence along with the essence for those Virophages to create a strain that infest Dominion infantry along with powerful claws that would be the bane of any flying enemy. In the case of Protoss or Zerg enemies, while the viral breath wouldn’t infest them, the breath is still corrosive and will melt Zerg or burn down Protoss.”
“Deadly combination. Combining multiple sequences to create powerful weapon for Brood. Can sense that more control is necessary to keep in line,” Abathur said.
“Yeah, though about the same as a Protoss or Terran capital ship. These guys would be a good answer to those kinds of ships.”
Although Abathur didn’t express it, Kerrigan and Sweetie could tell that the evolution master was showing signs of jealousy.
The duo left Abathur to his feelings and returned to the command chamber to check on Stukov and DuGalle.
The two returned to find that DuGalle was awake and standing. He appeared to be checking his surroundings.
“I have informed Gerard about his situation. He is taking it as well as can be expected,” Stukov said.
DuGalle turned around to address the two Queens, his voice carrying the usual distortion that all Zerg have, “Ah, Kerrigan, we meet again. According to Alexei, it’s been four and a half years since our last encounter.”
“What happened to you? Last I remember, you and your ships turned tail and headed back for Earth. My Swarm made sure there was nothing left of your fleet. How did you survive?” Kerrigan asked.
“After my last defeat, I was a broken man. I was ready to join Alexei and go out on my own terms instead of awaiting my end like waiting for an executioner. Before I could pull the trigger, however, my body froze up and I heard the voice of the last person I ever expected to show up in my quarters: Duran. My memory of the last four years were a blur as my consciousness had drifted in and out. During those times of awareness, I felt nothing but pain; pain beyond anything I had ever felt in all my life.
“To think, the very creatures that the United Earth Directorate were sent here to tame, and I end up becoming one in the end. The irony is not lost on me, Kerrigan.”
“Rest for now, Gerard. Kerrigan, Sweetie and I will make sure that bastard pays for what he did to us,” Stukov said.
“Sweetie?” DuGalle looked at Sweetie. “If I recall, you were James Raynor’s second in command. With or without the infestation, you still look less human than myself, Alexei or Kerrigan.”
“I’ll explain later. For now, we have an evil shapeshifter to kill.”
With that, Kerrigan, Sweetie and Stukov left the Leviathan to return to the lower depths of Skygeirr Station.
Once the depths had been breached, Kerrigan, Stukov and Sweetie began encountering Tal’darim. Sweetie killed the few nearby by destroying their shields then impaling them on her tentacles.
Moving deeper into the facility, the trio encountered the beaten and bloodied remains of an Ultralisk. “A shame. This Ultralisk might have been useful,” Stukov said. Abathur corrects Stukov by saying that the beast’s essence was important. By manipulating its essence, the Ultralisk was revived and broke free of its bonds.
The group, now including Ultralisks, tore their way through the meager Tal’darim in their way.
Kerrigan discovered something unusual about the lab they tore through: it was built on top of a Xel’naga temple.
Narud suddenly made his presence known to everyone before unleashing a shadow of his true form and firing a Null Zone directly at Kerrigan who pushed back with her own power.
Stukov discovered that Narud was amplifying his power with some nearby temples. Kerrigan ordered Stukov to destroy the temples, to which he gladly complied.
Stukov got his hive cluster set up first before Sweetie eliminated some Tal’darim near a second location so she could set up her hive cluster.
Since time was against them, both had to work fast to get a strong force ready to deal with the Protoss. Stukov got a force of Zerglings, Hydralisks, Roaches and Ultralisks. Sweetie prepared a force to defend Stukov as he began deactivating temples, mainly using Scyllas. She also prepared an air force to deal with the Tal’darim while Stukov went around deactivating temples. She created an air force composed of Mutalisks and Blight Dragons.
Stukov cleared the area around the first temple and began deactivating it. Sweetie quickly had her Scylla burrow around Stukov to ward off the Tal’darim. Narud sent a Hybrid to stop Stukov but became distracted by Scylla heads. The Ultralisks assisted in the defense and tore the Hybrid apart. Stukov deactivated the temple in peace.
Sweetie was assisted by Stukov spreading the Creep all around the area and allowing her to use her Zerglings to multiply and face the Tal’darim forces. Using the opportunity, Sweetie used her Zerglings, Mutalisks and Blight Dragons to attack one of the main Tal’darim bases in the area. The Blight Dragons soon dominated the skies and rained acid on the unfortunate Protoss who were busy trying to put a dent in the Zergling numbers but were soon overwhelmed and overrun.
While Sweetie was having her fun, Stukov deactivated a second temple and shattered a crystal that Izsha said that Narud was using to store psionic energy.
After the first base was leveled, Sweetie found a nearby temple and decided to make her own attempt to deactivate it. Turned out that deactivating the temple was easy. Narud sent Tal’darim and Hybrid to defend the temple only for the Protoss to be overwhelmed by Zerglings and the Hybrid impaled numerous times by tentacles until they faded into shadow.
Narud began to grow desperate.
While Stukov focused on the fourth temple, Sweetie gathered a few more Zerglings, Mutalisks and Blight Dragons, taking advantage of the ever-expanding Creep, and moved against the other Tal’darim base in the area. Once again the strength in numbers and power were too much for the blind worshippers of Amon.
Since Sweetie was so successful, Stukov gave Sweetie the honors of dealing with the last temple while he and his forces shattered the remaining psionic crystals.
Once Sweetie deactivated the last temple, Kerrigan easily overpowered Narud’s Null Zone and drove it back at him, leaving him greatly weakened.
Kerrigan and Sweetie, who insisted on accompanying her, pursued Narud into his inner sanctum.
“Face me, Narud. It’s over,” Kerrigan said.
“It is only beginning. Amon whispered of this from the stars,” Narud responded. “He told you of his return. He told you of ruin, extinction. The end of all things.”
“And we will deal with him when the time comes,” Sweetie countered.
“Is that what you think?” Narud said in Raynor’s voice.
Kerrigan and Sweetie saw Narud in Raynor’s form. While Kerrigan hesitated, Sweetie didn’t and punched Narud hard into a wall.
“How cruel can you be to punch one of your friends without hesitation?” Narud asked.
“Maybe I’ve always wanted to punch him,” Sweetie said innocently.
Narud pulled himself out of the wall but not before Kerrigan regained her composure and charged at him while summoning a Nydus Worm to devour him. He countered by charging a sphere of void energy and detonated it in the beast’s maw, Killing the worm and sending him flying to the floor.
Kerrigan landed on Narud and started punching him in the face before he transformed into a version of Kerrigan from before she was infested.
Noticing that she was hesitating, Sweetie pulled Kerrigan off Narud with her telekinesis before he could counterattack. Narud slowly got back up. Noticing that Sweetie was approaching, he transformed into Lyra. He gave a saddened look, “Bonnie…” he said.
Sweetie walked up to the lookalike and before he could strike, she smiled as she placed her fingers on his chest to confuse him and whispered two words into his ear, “Nice try.”
This was immediately followed by a number of tentacles extending from Sweetie’s fingers and piercing Narud’s body and wrapping themselves around all of his internal organs and crushing them all at once.
With one last gasp, Narud faded out of existence.