//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 Meeting the natives 
// Story: Survive, adapt, evolve. The Swarm in Equestia. 
// by Krozairofequestria 
//------------------------------//

'Time to meet the locals.' With a happy smile, at least in my head it was a smile, I sat in the Overlord as it carried me to the clearing with the Changelings and my Zerglings.

>>>Clearing third POV
The Changelings were standing back to back, or flank to flank depending on how you want to see this. They all were shaking, from fear, mental and physical exhaustion. The day with all the horrors and all the wounds was taking their toll on the Changelings.
“What is happening? Captain what will happen to us?” A smaller female sounding changeling asked the leader of the group.

“I don't know. But even if we die here, we will do it fighting.” All of them gave sounds of approval as answer. But then they heard something from above.

“Greetings mortals! I am the god of all bugs and I give you the Honor to be the first mortals to lay an eye on me and my children!” They all looked up and saw a strange flying creature that looked more like an oversized organic ball of meat with tentacles descending.

“What?” they all said at once. The Zerglings around them had multiple reactions, some of them hide behind their claws others tried to hide in the ground below and others just shook their heads. After the flying meatball was close to the ground it opened its jaw and used one of its tentacles to pull out another strange being. This creature looked strange. A mix between a caterpillar, centipede and some sort of mantis. Or was it some sort of slug? Two giant claws growing out of its back looking like black scythes and behind this two more claws with some sort of green sack on it and the legs were short and thin, not made to lift the body, more to shove it over the ground. But this was just its lower body, the upper part was was scary as the lower half, or even more scary. A big head with more green sack like vices. Four lower arms with small claws, much like smaller versions of the back claws, and four upper arms with tree claw like finger. Four green glowing eyes were gazing at them. And the mouth was not horizontal as it was by creatures of Equestria, it was vertical with many many sharp teeth. And its head was covered in hard carapace only the green sacks looked squashy on its head. It looked terrifying and the Changelings shivered in terror. The creature started snickering, its whole body shook with its snickers as its eight arms tried to hold its body. 

“Your face! Sorry, but your face. This is too much!” Its body waved around as the snickers grow into hearty laughter. “HAHA! You are killing me!”

“What?” The group of Changelings couldn't understand what was happening. First they were chased by unnatural Timberwolves, and next some strange monster jumped out killed the Timberwolves and saved them just to catch them, and at the end some...... thing was coming down and make jokes in this situation. This. Was. Too. Much!

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF QUEEN CHRYSALIS IS GOING ON HERE?!” It was the leader of the group who exploded first. “FIRST TIMBERWOLVES AND NOW THIS?! WHAT ARE YOU?! WHO ARE YOU?! WOULD SOMELING BE SO NICE AND GIVE ME AN EXPLANATION?!” After his screaming he begun to cough up blood. The creature stopped his laughing at this and come closer.

“Wounds severe. Don't move.” For the Changelings nothing made any sense anymore. What did this creature want, and why was he here in the first place.

>>>Clearing Abathur’s POV

“Stay back. I heal. All!” With those words I got closer to the Changelings and slowly extended one of my hind claws with the green sacks. They tried to back away but my Zerglings didn't move, so they couldn't run away. “Don't move. Need stop bleeding. If not, you die.” These words froze them and I closed the distance between us again. I learned this after I got wounded in a battle with some sort of oversized lizard that wanted to take the cave I had grown the first of my buildings in. I could create some sort of slim that stopped the bleeding and speed up the healing. If the memory of Abathur was correct, the reason behind the healing was the high amount of nutrients in the slime of the sacs that was absorbed by the skin and helped the regeneration of the wound. The other Changelings faces were filled with fear, but the leader, which I coated with the slime had more of a curious facial expression then a scared one.

“What is this?” He finally asked me. I don't really want to answer him, they don't need to know all things right from the start. And also I would need to calm myself down to stop myself to speak like the real Abathur. So I stayed silence and continued.

“Next!” was all I said as I moved on to the next one, this one looked a bit slimmer, not by much but it looked like a female. Or at least I thought so. In situations like this I was thankfully for the bigger Brain and the part of the mind that made Abathur the one in the swarm who aimed always for the most efficient way. It maybe messed up my way of speaking but it also helped in situations like this to make the right decisions and stopped me from going in to a state of useless panic.
Most of the changelings let me heal them without any problems. But one gave me some trouble in his panic state. And didn't want me to help him.

“STAY AWAY!” He screamed at me, his eyes wide open in fear and terror.

“Just calm down and let it, him what ever, help you!” one of the already treated Changelings said. But then I got an idea.

“Is a falling tree making a sound if no one is there to hear it?” It was something I had read, if someone is stuck with panic, ask him something so out of place that he will have no choice as to snap out of his panic. And it worked.

“What?!” He stopped to shiver and his eyes slowly got back to a normal size. He looked at me confusing, but the senseless terror and the mind robbing fear was out of his eyes. It seems it worked. I got closer and slowly extended my back claws to put some slime on him. He tried to back away a bit but one barked order from his leader made him stop in the movement and I get the job done.

“So now that you have saved us what do you want from us?” I could see the suspicion in the face of the leader of the group, and to be fair he was right in doing this. Yes I didn't want to hurt him or his people, but only a stupid leader would think some stranger would help them and ask for nothing in return. At least from the start. But he was partly right. I wanted something from them, or to be more specific, I wanted an alliance between the Changeling hive and my Zerg swarm.

“Ah finally. Well to be true, nothing much. Only, and sorry if this sounds like a line out of some old science fiction movie, bring me to your leader. Please.” His look was strange. Ok this line was overused, and it sounded bad..... ok it was the most terrible thing to say in this sort of situation. But who can blame me? It was the perfect situation to say such a line. And I just had the need to say it. And I also got my way of speaking back under control. It was easier every time. The first time it took me more than a few days to get back to normal. But thankfully I wouldn't need to meet the leader of the Changelings while speaking like this.

“What?” I think I broke them, again.

“Ok listen, I want to meet with your leader, create friendly relations between our races and with luck forge a strong alliance between us.” I looked over the group before they answered a few seconds later.

“This is all? No pay no oaths of loyalty?” I nodded at his question. His eyes traveled over my Zerglings and me.

“What will you gain in this alliance? What could we have that you would need? There is no reason for you to do this as we have seen your soldiers are stronger than we are.” These were some good points, but it was not his place to ask me questions.

“I don't think you are the one I need to answer.” My voice gained a little edge at the end, maybe a little too much as I saw the rest of the team cringe at my words.

“You are right.” his answer come after some time a little more respectful than before. “But we can't move, and even if we heal faster, it will take us at least three days to get strong enough to travel through the rest of the forest.” He continued and in his voice was something like regret or so. But I just smiled at him.

“Don't worry about this, we will be on our way in a few minutes.” He looked at me and shook his head.

“No even with your help it will take us this long to be strong enough for a walk across the forest.” I just smiled at him as the Overlord behind me started to move again.

“Who said anything about walking?” With this the long tentacle of the Overlord wrapped itself around one of the Changelings and lifted him up. The leader could only stare in surprise as his whole team vanished in the Zerg. And then he was taken away too. Finally I felt the Overlord grabbing me and lifting me to the opening.

>>>Half an hour later.

“So we will reach the forest borders soon and then we will arrive in the badlands. Will you guide us from there or do we need to find the way without your help?” He had directed us to the right side of the forest, but didn't want to tell me where the Overlord need to move from there. I could understand why. We talked most of the way and he told me that his kind was hated by most of the other races on this world. Oh yes there were a lot of other races, it was nothing new to me, I had watched the show a little bit with my sister back home. Or to be more specific, was forced to watch it with her. With the only TV for us Kids in our shared room. Hurray. But in this world exist even more races. Changelings were a myth for most of them, and the myth was kept alive through the ones that were found out from time to time. And they were hated. So yea I could understand why he didn't want to lead me to their home. But for now he would need to trust me.

“Do I have a choice?” His face showed no emotion, but in his eyes I could see he was angry, not at me, not at his team, but at himself. It was one of this situations everyone hates. One of this when you only have two options and both endanger your family. Even I don't like them.

“Good, because we have reached the border. So would you take a look and tell me which way to drive this meatballoon?” I commanded the Overlord to use one of his tentacles to grab the Changeling and hold him outside so he can take a look. As he got back a minute or so later he pointed me in one direction but stopped talking with me. Like this we continued our way to the Changeling hive. They didn't know I had commanded a few changelings to follow us in another Overlord. And before we got to far in the badlands I got a call from the Swarm Hivemind. Everything just become much easier.