//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: The Crystal Empire Falls // Story: Excalibur and the Zerg // by Disciple of Chrysalis //------------------------------// Excalibur was impatient it was finally time for him to return home to his fellow Changelings and his beloved queen "Impatient?" Zagara asked next to him and Excalibur could only manage a nod. He gazed up his home, the beautiful glittering snow of the north and the majestic mountains resting up the horizon, it was a true sight to behold especially from this height. He saw many shapes on the same horizon and though he couldn't tell what they were from sight, he could tell from the warm presence stating to appear within him that they were his people and in vast numbers he felt he should add. "Look at them all, it's good to finally be home" Excalibur said and took a deep breath of the ice cold air that the Changelings had no problem with, but lesser races might. The Changelings were closing the distance between the Leviathan and them quickly and he finally saw his Queen in her beautiful and deadly radiance. Kerrigan made her way over to him and Zagara and gazed up the Changelings coming ever closer, they stood in silence until finally, the arrived before the lone Changeling and the Zerg with his Queen before all. Chrysalis kept her silence and floated down onto the soft and spongy ground, she kept herself tall and dignified before the Queen of Blades, never wavering, never faltering. "Greetings Changeling Queen" Kerrigan said and took a humble bow before her and Chrysalis made no move just stood examining the Zerg Queen before Kerrigan pulled herself up. "As promised, the safe return of your Changeling" Kerrigan said and somewhat roughly, pushed Excalibur forward before his one true queen. Excalibur gazed up at the majesty that was Chrysalis and she looked down on her subject with a warm grin gracing her features. The Queen knelt down and hugged Excalibur and he returned the gesture, holding back a sob that put pressure in his throat. Chrysalis suddenly let go of Excalibur and went back to calmly looking at Kerrigan, but in her eyes he could see somewhat of horror and fear and not of Kerrigan, but of the sight of him and how terrible he had appeared. Chrysalis pov ~~~~~~~~~~~ Chrysalis looked into the eyes of Sarah, she had been somewhat mortified of what she had seen of her subject and friend, he was skin and bones, blinded in his left eye, plus many scars and bruises adorned his body especially a bruise around his throat that had only begin to heal. Chrysalis refused to waver, she was about the speak when Sarah spoke, cutting her off. "Excalibur told me about your problem with this 'Equestria'? was it? I can lend you troops that will help you conquer them" she spoke casually. Chrysalis couldn't move anymore now, an interstellar threat was offering her aid, it seemed far to good to be even close to true. She managed to move her jaw to speak "Is this some sort of trick?" she said, an edge in her voice and when she expect the Zerg Queen to respond, it was Excalibur who spoke. "It is no trick Lady Queen, she speaks true" he said, excited as he said it. "Excalibur is right, no trick, but there is something I want from you" Sarah said in an unsettling voice "Your troops will work with mine and your Changeings who fall will be... harvested, so to speak". Chrysalis's head recoiled from this, her dead were to be harvested, sure the death of a Changeling had some rather grim afterwards consisting of the deads body being used to help grow the garden that all Changelings owned so that even in death, they still provided for their families. "I suppose that would be acceptable" Chrysalis said in a barely audible voice, she could hear the soldiers she had taken with her begin to grow uneasy and mutter among themselves. Sarah Kerrigan offered her claw to Chrysalis, similar to the way she had in the dream and Chrysalis, all the same, took the claw with a cold feeling of dread coming from within. Kerrigan released Chrysalis's hoof with a smile "Let us go then" she said and Chrysalis felt the beast she was standing in give a massive shudder and through the opening she saw hundreds of pods dropping from the beast and they burst open once they hit the ground, creating fleshy structure almost instantly and spreading purple stuff over the snow. "What is the nearest settlement to our current location?" Kerrigan said, looking behind Chrysalis at the Changeling soldiers that had accompanied their queen. Chrysalis thought it over for a second and it didn't take her long to remember the only other nation in the frozen north. "It is a large nation that has only be uncovered recently and it is led by a foreign princess who just so happens to be one of the creatures that ruined my conquest of Equestria" Chrysalis said, her tone was of hardly disguised anger as she thought of Cadence. "Can I have a name?" Kerrigan asked "I think it's called the Crystal Empire" Chrysalis said, not really sure about one of the nations they were currently at war with, there were just so many. "Crystal? Why is it called the Crystal Empire?" Kerrigan asked, her head tilted to the side. Chrysalis looked back down at the ground and saw that there were many of the alien creatures below, all of which had been in her nightmares. "Its because everything there is made of Crystallized minerals, even the inhabitants" Chrysalis said, not taking her eyes off the growing numbers below. "Everything eh, that is a plus for us because my zerg need it to grow to larger sizes and morph" Kerrigan said and ran her claw across Excalibur's head. Chrysalis nodded, not really listening anymore and was somewhat glad to see the numbers below had begun to slow in their increasing. Chrysalis brought her head back and looked at Kerrgan. "Then let's begin" she said.