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// Colgate vs Defiler 
// Story: Ponies Versus Starcraft 
// by ambion 
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The zerg defiler is the single most incredible unit strain the swarm ever managed to come up with. Anyone who disagrees may want to presently check the back of their skull for a neural parasite stabbed into their brain, because no sane and healthy mind could think otherwise.

Its not that the infestor is bad, oh no. It does its thing, and is commendable for what it brings to the swarm, but... it’s no defiler. Look deep, deep into an infestor’s array of ocular organs and there it’ll be: the remorse that no matter how much they achieve, the infestor is a placeholder, a runner up living in the shadow of glory. They know it, and it’s a sad truth: they’re jealous.

The defiler is legendary. It’s not something that can be described by halves... actually, no. It can be exactly described by halves.

The defiler is half snake and half scorpion. Half hero and half team-killing fucktard. Half bad and half ass. It is two and a half halves triple distilled awesome.

Presently one was burrowed into the ground. It was not the ‘yeah I’m chillin’ kind of burrowed in the ground, nor the ‘these guys won’t know what hit ‘em’ burrowed. It was the burrowing of a creature hiding in desperate trembling fear, which says a lot considering this thing can make an ultralisk explode pretty much at whim.

If there could possibly be one fault with the defiler, it was that they spent so much time looking awesome that they really didn’t run that fast and could be the slightest bit squishy. The defilers were normally too plain awesome to know fear, but this one was learning really quickly.

The musical feminine voice that had hunted it all day drifted down through the narrow crack in the rocks the creature had slipped through. “You’ve skipped another appointment!” the eerie echoes called. “I know you’re in there! Nowhere to hide and nowhere to run! Come out!”

A face peeked over the edge of the hole and the defiler snarled and spat defiance. She was a cool blue and grinned down at the cowering monstrosity.

“Don’t get nasty with me, you did this to yourself!”

The defiler roared a blood curdling threat that rang with death and desolation, but Colgate was entirely unfettered. She tut-tutted to it.

Colgate turned away out of sight for the briefest second and the monster dove into its opportunity. With unnatural agility it sprung to the surface and shook a heavy miasma from its body into the air, a literal dark swarm.

The rust red haze was the perfect cover and the zerg’s mind surged with elation at the escape it had assured for itself.

Then the laughter started, thick and hearty despite the soft nature of Colgate’s voice. 

“You can’t escape the dentist! No obstruction will bar my way, no obscurity will bar my sight! Behold my pearly whites and be DAZZLED BY THEIR RADIANCE!”

There are smiles that can light up rooms. There are smiles that can warm a cool heart. This smile could have powered a small city. It was a spectacular shining white, like the light of creation. It cut through the greasy haze like a hot gas powered chain saw cuts through butter.

The defiler ran as fast as its scrabbling scorpion like legs could take it, and with absolute dread knew that the pony was gaining on it.

“Aha!” Colgate bellowed as she leapt, brandishing a massive weapon over her head with both forehooves. There were more destructive weapons, but few had the nightmare inducing quality of being the BRUSH. The capitalisation were entirely justified. The dentist weapon of choice, these weighed in the triple digits and required an extra high ceiling just to fit into a room. A small onboard fusion reactor powered the rotary action and the complimentary vice grip, and various compartments filled with nightmarish tools made it a viable field office.

The defiler shrieked as Colgate’s silhouette blocked out the sun. She dove down towards the beast, and in desperate panic it flung a thick gooey stream of blood red ooze.

To the defiler’s maddened elation it hit her full on and knocked her from the air. The base of the BRUSH hit the rock with a resounding crack and stood there, imbedded in the stone. 

The Plague was the trump card, the ace in the hole of any self respecting defiler. A biological concoction so virulent that even inanimate objects up and died, the Plague tapped other wannabe diseases on the shoulder, roughed them up and told them to stay off its turf. It was the cellular equivalent of carpet bombing. You didn’t mess with the Plague.

Colgate shuddered under the heap of red ooze. The defiler roared at its most ominous, just like it had practiced when no one was around. It moved in to watch the life fade from the pony.

The blue pony groaned and, with a shaky hoof, wiped the worst of the pasty sludge from her eyes. To its awe struck horror, she regained her hooves, and fixed the monster with a glare so terrifying it was rooted to the spot.

“You think this is enough to stop me?” She shook thick gobs of the stuff from her coat and hoisting her mighty weapon struck a fierce pose as if ready to bring down the sky itself. “I’ve spent years building up an immunity to Plaque. This is isn’t even halitosis to me! Who the hell do you think I am?!”

It... it wasn’t possible! The Plague was extinction in a can!

“I! Am! THE DENTIST!” She charged with impossible speed, her grin shimmering like a beacon to the stars. “OPEN WIDE!” she shouted as the BRUSH bludgeoned the defiler’s head.

There was a moment of absolute horror as the BRUSH was crammed into the defiler’s mouth and the light of hellfire flared in Colgate’s eyes. The scrubbing head folded into the BRUSH and the infernal vice grips took their place.

“You haven’t been taking proper care of your dental hygiene! This tooth has to GO!” and on that that she yanked with her whole body.

The defiler’s howls echoed off the horizons and a thick black fang fell to the dirt.

The beast thrashed and screamed, but Colgate had it in a headlock and pinned it to the dirt. It couldn’t see what the monster pony was doing in there and its zergy soul hit new depths of despair.

It couldn’t see her, but it could feel. The scratching of picks, the plucking of floss, the insanity inducing squeal of the drill. 

And then, like the break of a storm it ended, and there was only the strangely nice feel of squeaky clean teeth and a breath steeped in minty freshness.

Colgate stared the defiler in the eye from half an inch away. “I don’t care how crunchy those zerglings are. You brush before and every after meal. Every. Meal. Before. After. Got that?” The zerg tried to lower its head further into soil, keening a high pitched whine.

Colgate’s smile shone with blinding brightness. “Good,” she said sweet as sugar, though she would not have liked the analogy. “Have a tooth brush.” She gave it a bright pink one, which she put on its snout. It whimpered as if violently struck. “Remember to use small circles, you’re trying to get under the gums and gently lift everything out, not scour the enamel.”

Her voice turned hard again and the smile sharpened around the edges. “I will be checking up on you, and I do not want to see that you’ve fallen back into bad habits. There is no excuse for not taking care of your dental hygiene. If I found out you’ve been skimping, I will hunt you the ends of the universe. Got that?”

When she was gone, the much humbled defiler slunk into its burrow in the certainty that the tiny plastic brush was the only thing in existence to spare it another savage attack, and that there was a desperate life or death need to figure out how to use it as quickly as possible.

Upon the crest of a lonely ridge Colgate checked her schedule. One zerg down. A hundred trillion to go. Some were massive as mountains, some as quick as the wind. Others still flew in the cold depths between stars. And every last one of them needed an education in dental hygiene. She flashed her smile to the horizons and crackled her shoulders. 

“Bring it on!”