//------------------------------// // Chapter 16. Attacks and small talk. // Story: The Zerging of Equestria // by Runa //------------------------------// "I have finished" Stated Prime Directive. I was startled out of my reverie by this, and listened as it continued, "I will tell you about the project as you are undergoing the redesign" I glumly said, "Fine." And I started to cross the cave to the Regeneration Vat. It was originally designed to heal in, but its properties also made it the ideal place to undergo something like this. I quickly shot a message to the Broodmother saying the equivalent of, 'If anyone asks, I'm out.' before clambering into the vat. I noticed that it had undergone some redesign as well as I not only got wet with nutritious fluids, but was stabbed with a huge needle and was hooked up to its 'heartbeat' as well. I then shutdown the majority of body functions as Prime Directive began debriefing me. As he got to the part about making a deal with Johnny, I angrily said, "What were you thinking! He had just put me through a horrible experience that might have permanently damaged me!" Prime Directive responded in its usual monotone. But it sounded a little off, like it was trying to speak like that. But I shrugged it off as I listened. "But it was the only possible way to get back here. And could you not interrupt?" So I stayed quiet as I was regaled with the events of the past. The only strange part was that it stuttered at three parts. I felt like it was keeping things from me, but I had plenty of time to pressure it later. "So you've cracked Johnny's genetic code then?" "Yes." "Do you have anything?" I was hopeful, but that hope died when it said, "I found something. But after I calculated what it would do, I found out that it would make the creature in question, if not dead, say 'Suck it' repeatedly. Like bird song." I was crestfallen. I needed something good out of this. But now I had less to work with than before. I decided to ask something, "So what is the redesign changing?" I crossed my metaphorical fingers and hoped. "Increased musculature, more durable bones, wings," Here was something good at least. "Improved eyesight, a change of morphology that gives you a total of eight legs, four arms, and a change in the positioning of vitals," Strange, but acceptable. "Retractable claws, increased reaction time, more powerful brain," I wondered how I wasn't noticing that one, but oh well. "And the last noticeable one is a reproductive tract." Ah, this was the one I was expecting, and dreading. I asked, "So I'm female now?" "You will be in a few minutes. It's the last change." I might as well enjoy the last little bit of my masculinity that I had left, so I just meditated. That is, until I received a report of a Slitherer raiding party. I gladly grabbed the excuse as I commanded, "The last of this can wait, I need to be in full command of my troops right now, so release me from this!" Prime Directive grudgingly submitted as I ordered my troops to move to Seaddle. I had just saved my manhood, for now at least. I reactivated the other parts of my brain as the needle slid out of me, and my increased regeneration started to kick in. I struggled to clamber out of the vat, not used to the changes yet. I managed to grab onto the side and pull myself out. I fell onto my back, and struggled for a second to right myself. I thought that I had felt Prime Directive have a flicker of emotion, but shrugged that off along with the earlier discrepancy. I flexed my new muscles to try to get used to them before turning my attention to the battle. I was lucky that I had managed to get some troops there before the enemy, so the civilians had time to begin evacuation. I was lucky that the guards that Celestia had positioned there could take a hint. But the enemy hit my still arriving troops before the evacuation was complete. I wondered why they hadn't pulled out once they saw that my forces there outclassed them, but I focused on the battle.But once I was halfway through the battle, I received a report from the other side of the continent. A force that was exponentially bigger than the one that I was fighting now was sweeping inland. I was going to recall most of my forces and send them to intercept, but just then, I felt the nydus worm closest to my army get cut in half, stranding them until a new one could get there. I thought in horror about what would happen if I couldn't intercept. "Prime, do you have ANY way of stopping this?" I felt Prime Directive shift in my head slightly as it said, "No." I could tell it was lying, so I pressed it. "Prime, you will tell me." I began to press my psyche against its. Its psyche formed spikes, but I pressed on despite the pain. I redoubled my efforts as my scout saw the first settlement get run over. Finally, it relented in the form of sending out a signal. I gasped as thirty totally new zerg came 'online', for lack of a better term. These Zerg were not your usual come in the millions, but ones designed to hold their own. "How did you do this!? No, not right now, we have to go." I commanded the small force to go into the network. I rushed after them and as I ran an hourglass appeared in front of my face. I reeled back as it collided with my face, but caught it on the way down. I looked down at it, shrugged, and started running again. I jumped into the network right behind my troops. I didn't have very long to wait as I was spat out about a mile in front of the enemy advance. I held out the hourglass as I tried to figure out how to actually use it. Suddenly, the voice of a young man entered my mind. “Time is an unalienable right. All creatures receive theirs. Freedom is another unalienable right, given to creatures upon their creation,” the voice echoes in my head. I took a good look at the small hourglass in my appendages, noticing how the sand wasn’t falling to the bottom. “No being, mortal or immortal, has the ability to take these two indefeasible entitlements.” I looked into the sand that was still stuck to the inverted hourglass’ ceiling, “Those who find themselves stripped of either, may this time piece find you in your plight; for I will heed that call to assist you in retaking that which was taken. Just say ‘tempus attinet, Libertas aeternam’ and I shall come to your aid.”I shrugged and said, “Tempus attinet, Libertas aeternam?”After a moment of nothing happening, I took a look around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, which disappointed me, seeing as the message told me to by the small timepiece was so dramatic and enthusiastic. “Well, that was anticlimactic,” I stated. “What was anticlimactic?” asked the same voice from before, only now outside of my head.This, strangely, made me feel a little more sane, for some reason. But as it was, I still jumped a little as I saw the other human. “So you DID come, after all. I thought that this time would be more like the last time. Only a little more, I don’t know, sandy?” “Sandy?” asked the new being, looking more than a little confused. “The hourglass. Sand. It went together.” “Oh.” Realization dawned on his face as he slowly leaned back, onto his heels. “Well, I assume you didn’t summon me just so we could have a nice little chat, my good... creature. What can I, Nicholas, do for you?” I suddenly remembered why I summoned him. “Oh, yes. The majority of my forces can’t get here in time, and there is a HUGE enemy force coming this way. What I need you to help me do is to hold them off for long enough, so that the rest of my army can get here before thousands of ponies are murdered.” Nicholas heard the words 'ponies are murdered' and promptly fell into a very professional posture. “What, specifically, do you need me to do? I mean, where do I stand, and what must I protect. I need details.” I started explaining things to him. “We are about... I’d say a quarter of a mile in front of the enemy advance. I also have no idea what you can do, so I can’t exactly tell you how you can best help. But I’d say, fight like hell, as they are about three minutes away by now.” “Three minutes to prepare for a stand against an army? Easy enough,” he said, before pulling a pocket watch out of his pocket.The next part was curious, as he pushed a little nub on the top of it, and absolutely nothing happened. “What?” he asked, more himself than anything. “Was that supposed to do anything? I mean, if you need some sort of advantage, you could ride on that Zerg there.” I pointed to what looked like an extremely fast, sleek, and small version of an ultralisk. “I’ve... I’ve lost my powers?” he began mumbling to himself. “But... I can’t fight without them... I... I’d be defenseless! How am I supposed to go on!?” the rambling continued for a while longer before the Ultralisk nudged him in the shoulder. “Gah! What’s that?!” “I honestly haven’t seen that model before today, but it’s an Ultralisk. And before we waste any more time, the enemy is about a minute away. Look, you can see them in the distance.” I pointed to a humongous cloud of dust rising in the distance. [c]NICHOLAS[/c] I was powerless. My watch wasn’t working. I was going to die. Then the ‘Ultralisk’ nudged me and brought me back to the present. “I honestly haven’t seen that model before today, but it’s an Ultralisk. And before we waste any more time, the enemy is about a minute away. Look, you can see them in the distance.” The... thing that had summoned me pointed one of his spike, claw, things off into the distance, where a large dust cloud was rising. It looked much like a sandstorm, only in grasslands instead of a desert. “That’s a lot of enemies...” I mumbled to myself, but my summoners hearing must be better than the average humans. “You’ll do fine. Just don’t die.” It gave what might be a smile... but those fangs weren’t reassuring at all. “Don’t... die...” I looked back to the steadily approaching cloud, fearing for the coming future. “I’ll do my best.” The bug thing retreated a little way and burrows himself into the ground, leaving me to fend for myself, albeit with a large monster... thing.I began talking to myself as the tension mounted up. “We have to think of a battle plan. Ok, every... thing, line up!” I yelled to all the monsters that had been left with me, around thirty total. They did as instructed. “I have no clue what all of your fighting styles are, or what your abilities are, but know that you’ll probably not make it out, if we’re going to be fighting an army.” I got a vague impression of eye rolling. “Now, My powers are pretty limited. I have this-” I pulled out my pistol, showing them. “-and the ability to stop time. Currently I’m not able to manipulate the flow of time, so I’m extremely vulnerable. I can’t tell you to not run, because you’re bigger than I am, so do what you want...” One of them snorted at this. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d help me.” The same Ultralisk from before took a few steps towards me, nuzzling my arm with it’s head. This took me out of my stupor. “You’re right, I’m just rambling at this point.” It gave me a look. “I should be focused on the coming battle, not worrying about my own life. I know.” Another look. “I know there’s lot’s of lives on the line! What do you take me for?” I yelled. Yet another look. “What do you mean ‘turn around’?” What I’d just said struck me a moment later as not a request, but a command. I quickly turned, unholstering my weapon and pointing it at... I’m not even sure what it was, but it freaked me out. Even more so when it dove for me. The trigger just kind of pulled itself at that point. The ultralisk, amongst the other monsters, charged into the enemy ranks. This had little effect on the overall numbers, although it did slow the march. I watched as five of the monsters that were left with me fell immediately. They seemed like grunts more than fighters, so that was expected, but I was now down to twenty five fighters, not including myself. “I need your help. Please, just give me a little bit!” I whispered to the watch still clutched in my hand, clicking the crown once more. When I opened my eyes again, I jumped a good twenty feet in the air. An enemy warrior was mere inches away from my face, lunging for said face. ‘It worked... It really worked!’ I thought to myself before I noticed that everything was still moving, just extremely slowly. ‘It sort of worked,’ I corrected myself. ‘Now, what to do...’ I walked over to one of the enemy warriors, watching as the tentacles whipped around through the air. I was highly fascinated by the creature, wondering exactly what it was. ‘It doesn’t matter, just kill them already! You have the advantage!’ Yelled Michael from the depths of my mind. ‘Be quiet, you. I don’t even know how to kill these things.’ I thought back.I then, experimentally, put my gun to one’s head--or, what I assumed to be it’s head. When I pulled the trigger it seemed to fall apart, disintegrating into a pile of black spike things. ‘Now we know how to kill them, so kill them!’ Michael was obviously becoming irritated with my inaction, but I frankly didn’t care. ‘Just shut up,’ was my only response. He grumbled to himself in our mind, festering in his obvious hate for me.I walked around, looking for my forces that needed my help most. I saw that the larger the monster, the less help it would need, in general. I found myself helping the smaller units more often than not, though that didn’t mean that I wouldn't pull the larger ones out of a dogpile every now and again. ‘This is becoming tedious. I need a way to fight them more efficiently.’ There was a moment of thought after this, and I came up with a simple solution. ‘Screw it,’ I thought as I began to run around, blowing all the monsters to pieces. [c]SEVERAL HOURS LATER[/c] ‘HOW THE FUCK MANY ARE THERE?!’ I thought to myself as I killed the five million, seven hundred and thirty five thousand, two hundred and sixty ninth. ‘It’s gonna be a long night.’ [c]DAHAKA[/c] One second, Nicholas was just standing there like an idiot, but over the following minutes, the enemy had been slowly slaughtered. As soon as the massacre started, I was overwhelmed by Prime Directive begging me to get a tissue sample. I’ll admit that this ability was so extremely OP that I would almost kill a pony to get it. And as the last of them died, I slowly unburrowed to congratulate him on his victory. He was, by far, the most reality hacking thing I had met to date. I walked towards him and Nicholas seemed to jump, but it was sped up several times, so he was on the ground only moments later. It was too fast for me to recognize, but he was suddenly began moving at normal speed. “You scared the crap out of me!” he yelled. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” I backpedaled, not wanting to face anything similar to the fury he’d shown only moments before. “Sorry. I was just going to congratulate you on your victory,” I said stupidly. “Oh... alright, then. Thanks,” he said, noticeably calming down. I relaxed. “Yes. And if you could do one more favor for me, Prime Directive, my roommate of sorts, wants a tissue sample.” “A... tissue sample?” he asked. Then his eyes bugged out and he backpedaled. “No way! You’re not getting any of my flesh!” I rolled my eyes. “It could be as small as a single intact skin cell, ya big baby. And it would help me keep my sanity from being destroyed by Prime Directives constant pleading, threatening, and other methods.” “I don’t see why you’d need a skin sample, anyway, but if all you need is a single cell, I don’t see how it would hurt.” Nicholas then took his coat off, revealing his rolled up sleeves and exposing his arm. “Just... make it painless,” he requested. I quickly reached forward and scraped the top layer of skin. I knew from experience that even dead tissue could usually be used, as long as it wasn’t too decomposed. “Thank you. You have NO idea what it’s like to have another person in your head that wants to kill everyone.” “Yes, I do,” he said, simply, allowing the implications to work their way through my brain. “You mean that YOU have a genocidal roommate in your head as well?” “I wish I could say I didn’t.” There was a moment of silence as he seemed to listen for something. “No, you can’t come out and say ‘hi’. We both know how that turned out last time.” I almost forgot to put the cells in my 'back pocket' I was so surprised. “Well, I guess that means we have something in common then.” “I guess we do.” we stood in silence for a moment before I said, “Oh, yeah, I need to warn you. If you find a weird glove that says ‘burn me’, DO NOT BURN IT! I did, and horrible things happened.” “I’ll... keep that in mind.” “But if you find a golden coin, do not hesitate to use it. It summons a guy named, what was it again? Oh yeah, Auric. He’s an awesome guy.” I smiled, but stopped once I saw the look on Nick’s face. “Well, as creepy as that smile wasn’t-” he said ‘wasn’t’ like he was implying the opposite “-I’ve already talked to Auric. He recruited me for a ‘War of Understanding’ that’s going on.” “He recruited me as well! But before I get sidetracked again, have you met any other displaced?” “Yes, actually. I’ve met... Nemesis, the Living Science Project; Gilgamesh, the Warrior of inconsistency and tumbleweeds; and a person who goes by the name ‘Pyramid Head’. You may have heard of him.” Nick seemed a little afraid of that last name, not giving it a punny name. “Hmm, I’ll keep those in mind. Also, my ‘summoning thing’ is a weird green ball of slime. Just channel some magic into it, even the smallest spark, and it will summon me. I would give one right here and now, but I don’t have one on han- cl- appendage.” “If I need you, I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.” He smiled, which was a lot more threatening than my own grin was, if the expression from earlier was any indication. “Umm, so how do I unsummon you? I have little to no idea how things like this work.” “Yeah, this is my first summon. Let me try something though.” He fished out his watch, once again, and held it in front of his face. “If this works, it was nice meeting you... monster... thing.” He then made a face of concentration and disappeared. I blinked as I realized that I had never told him my name, but shrugged. I commanded us all to head back to base. This certainly was interesting. [c]John[/c] NO! That didn't just happen, did it? One human didn't just come and slaughter my entire army. But it just had. I undulated angrily as i considered it. But I still had one ace up my sleeve. Too bad it wouldn't be done for another week, though. I began the process of recreating my army once again. [c]Dahaka[/c] I was sitting back at base, recovering, when I heard the call. "I call now to those who have allied themselves to me! To all who have replied to me, to those I call friend! To my fellow Displaced who fight on the side of the light, I CALL TO YE! The time has come! To those that hold my Token, find a reflective surface which ye could walk through, and I shall guide thee!"