The Ark
Niadra quietly gazed out the filthy viewport at the front of the Infested Protoss refugee ship, watching a strange ball of green and blue drawing closer in the slime covered glass.
The Daelaam Ark had originally been a refugee ship, loaded with Protoss colonists during their flight from the ice planet of Kaldir. The mighty Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, had landed on the icy planet originally to find more essence to improve her Swarm, only to find a large Protoss colony established there already. The Protoss were foolish enough to attempt to escape and warn the Golden Armada of their presence on the planet, but Kerrigan and her Zerg halted their escape at every turn...
Enter the Daelaam Ark. The Protoss had used this ship to colonize Kaldir and was using it to escape from the pursuing Zerg. There was no way to catch them. They were safe... But suddenly, a lone Protoss presence on the planet was revealed. Not leaving one of their own behind, she was transported onto the ship... and was subsequently destroyed by a Zerg larva that had been planted inside her by the humanized Queen of Blades.
Niadra was this larva. Kerrigan guided her throughout the ship, helping her survive and grow. When Niadra had matured into a full Broodmother, all hell broke loose. Niadra and her spawned Zerg swept through the Daelaam Ark, eradicating the Protoss within thoroughly and brutally.
When the last Protoss had fallen and the Ark's warp drive was destroyed, Niadra let out a triumphant, terrifying cry, and the Zerg she had spawned all joined in. Niadra reached out to Sarah Kerrigan to inform her Queen of her success. She was met with silence.
They were alone.
That day, Niadra resolved to grow her new Brood, using the ship itself and its former inhabitants to sustain themselves until they day they were needed again.
That was fifty years ago. Since then, her once thriving and terrifying Swarm had begun to dwindle as resources ran low. After they had run out of corpses to feed upon, they turned to the creatures the Protoss had been keeping in captivity for study. When they had been picked clean, they began to use the minerals stored on the ship. And following that, the ship itself.
While the outside of the vessel appeared perfect, the once pristine, shining, glorious interior of the ship was now dirty, damaged, and dark. They had fed upon the energy source to allow for their own growth and it left the ship devoid of light and power. All non-essential systems had been devoured; weapons, engines, sensors, anything not protecting the ship or keeping them alive. The Zerg Creep covered every inch of floor, fleshy and dark and emitting a certain odor that its creators recognized as theirs.
---
Broodmother Niadra watched the planet they approached with a small degree of anticipation. While her loyalty to her Queen was absolute, the prospect of settling in on an actual planet was welcome to her. It wasn't just the fact that the ship was slowly running out of oxygen, but it certainly put pressure on her. Her Zerg needed sustenance and time was running short...
---
At last, they had closed in on the planet enough to be pulled in by its gravity, making it accelerate towards the rocky ball of green. But without power to engines, there would be no way to safely land on the planet; Niadra was well aware of this. She ordered her Brood to prepare for a harsh landing upon the planet's surface as gravity pulled the ship directly into its atmosphere. Niadra wondered idly if entering orbit around the planet would have been better than a crash landing... No, it would have been a death sentence, with no way of restoring power or entering the atmosphere themselves. They did not have drop pods.
This could go badly, she remembered. Her Brood would no doubt be cut down by the landing, but with luck it would only be a small cut. It was a chance she had to take.
The Daelaam Ark began to rumble as the golden ship began to push into the atmosphere. The heat shield protected its hull for as long as possible, but without power to sustain the ship's plasma shields, it began to rip itself apart around them. Some of Niadra's Zerg cried out as they burned, but the Broodmother stood firm at the ship's non-functional helm. One could only guess why.
The heat tore holes in the ship and ripped her Zerg to pieces, leaving the craft in a state of grievous disrepair. Deep breaches of the hull had drained those compartments of air, but the braced Zerg attempted to endure. Some perished, others did not.
But after two agonizingly long minutes, they were through. Parts of the ship with holes in the hull flooded with oxygen, filling the craft with fresh, clean air. The bulk of the ship was on fire, though, further damaging it and dooming it.
Niadra watched through the forward viewport as the vessel rushed towards its eventual landing site: a heavily forested area with a sizable river running along it. On their path towards the ground, Niadra managed to briefly take in the surroundings, even as they hurtled right through them. They passed a large mountain, which had a curious, brilliant structure perched upon its side. The colors of this world, even in the planet's nighttime, were bright and vibrant... This was all she could gather before she noted that the ground was coming up fast.
She braced herself.
---
Nighttime in Ponyville was as peaceful as it usually was, with most of its residents having turned in for the night or being on their way to doing so. Animals were asleep in their pens or nests and little foals had long since exhausted themselves into a deep slumber. It was quiet, serene, perfect and picturesque.
---
Fluttershy sat near her fireplace at her cottage, quietly sipping a cup of tea that Zecora had given her ingredients for; she had had trouble with falling asleep recently, and the Zebra had very kindly given her an herbal remedy for her insomnia. She liked its taste. It had only needed a tiny bit of sugar.
The pink maned pegasus took a long sip of her now-warm beverage, letting out a quiet sigh and a following, fleeting yawn. Being awake so late did have its perks, she'd admit. The quiet allowed her time to think, and the relative solitude made her feel a little safer to relax. No eyes to judge meant no need to be shy. That being said, all of her animals were asleep and it was also rather lonely. And the quiet, while refreshing every now and again, allowed her mind to wander into bad places sometimes.
Fluttershy rubbed her eye with one hoof, quietly wishing she didn't need the tea to fall asleep. The cottage was dark, illuminated by the occasional candle and the light from her fireplace. But these lights were enough to cast shadows all over the place, and every time she saw one, she flinched and cowered, if only once per shadow. It was unnerving for the poor little pegasus... Perhaps another cup of tea might help it along?
The Element of Kindness stood up and walked to her kitchen to put on another kettle, heating it slowly in case she decided to change her mind. And that's when a new light filled the room, never mind the entire area. She gasped and cowered behind a table as the illumination moved... it looked like something was burning and falling!
The sudden, loud, metallic noise it made upon landing confirmed it, its impact gently rattling her home. Her thoughts immediately turned to her animals, which she could now hear crying out in panic and protest at the foreign object and its rude interruption of their slumber. Fluttershy ran outside to check on her animals, bursting out her front door and stopping in her tracks at what she saw. She was not afraid of it for once... But she was awestruck...
Despite the fact that the object was currently on fire, it was alien and... beautiful. Its golden surface, while charred and slightly melted by an intense heat, gleamed gloriously in the firelight... Fluttershy's next thoughts were about the fire. She spread her wings and flew straight up to fetch a cloud, finding one nearby and moving it over the strange object... and that was when she saw it. In the distance, heading away from Ponyville, was a ball of flame that was on a westbound course. She could only guess at its true destination, but for the time being, she focused on putting out the fire. She squeezed the water out of that poor cloud and extinguished the flames.
Flammable crisis averted, she flew back down to solid ground and stared at the object from afar, slowly beginning to approach it. The thing was about as large as... Big Mac, perhaps, but it still seemed too small to hold anypony or any other creature that Fluttershy might have the (mis)fortune of encountering.
After a long minute of just walking forward, she concluded that it was just an object. Nothing within it was alive... But it made her stomach turn uncomfortably; a grotesque splattering of red adorned the non-golden side of the jagged debris. Fluttershy did not want to think about who or what left it or how. She needed to tell somepony and quickly. And so she spread her wings once more and made a beeline for Ponyville, hoping that her friend was still awake.
---
Twilight Sparkle took a long drink of coffee from her mug and then poured herself another cup as she pored over a new book she had found that day. It was a mystery novel, penned by an emerging writer by the name of Novel Tale. And she was enjoying it profusely. She had attempted to go to sleep midway through the book, but she couldn't stop thinking about where she had left off. Thirty minutes more and she could take it no longer. She picked the book back up and resumed where she left off, a soft smile adorning her face. So wrapped up in her book was she that she didn't even notice the strange light that streaked across the sky until it was almost gone.
"... Huh?" she uttered quietly, marking her page and walking over to her window. Her eyes shot open and her mouth hung slightly agape. "A shooting star!" she emitted in an awed tone, watching it fly west over Ponyville. As she saw this, she also noted some things falling off of the star... while meteorites often broke up upon entering the atmosphere, this one was obviously no longer in the atmosphere, considering how low it was to the ground and how much light it was giving off.
Chancing blindness, she looked into a telescope she had placed at that window and aimed it at the unidentified flying thingy, watching its descent... Upon closer inspection, it didn't appear to be a meteorite at all... but some kind of... flying contraption. Sure, it was on fire, but it was also coated in gold plating that peeled off as it fell. Twilight wondered at the possibilities.
When the UFO was out of her sight from that window, she moved her telescope to another to continue watching... It must have been one heck of a thing, because she saw it near the ground and then disappear into a mass of trees in the western distance. Her eyes lit up; if she could get out to the White Tail Woods and examine the object, who knows what she'd find! This thought alone excited her more than the book had, getting her to do a little excited dance in place as she knew nopony would see it.
She heard a sudden knock on her door, startling her a little bit and making her look at the staircase back to the library. Twilight crept to the stairs - careful not to wake the sleeping Spike - and went down them, using her magic to open the door before she got there.
"... Fluttershy? What are you doing here this late?" the unicorn asked, watching as her shy friend walked in with a rather... spooked look on her face. "Are you alright?" The yellow pegasus didn't answer until she was close to her friend, looking down and away as she spoke with that soft, meek tone of hers.
"I'm sorry. I hope I didn't wake you."
"No, I was already awake. Did you see that shooting star thing?"
Fluttershy nodded. "I did. I saw it going toward White Tail Woods."
"I think it was an airship of some kind!"
"Y-You do?" Fluttershy answered, her tone seeming discouraged.
"... Is that a bad thing?"
"... W-Well, I... Something fell next to my cottage... it scared all of the animals and it was on fire..." The meek pony took a deep breath before continuing. "... And it had b-b.... blood on it... I think..."
Twilight raised an eyebrow at that one, her excitement souring a little. "... Blood...?"
Her friend nodded, saying nothing. Twilight Sparkle let out a soft sigh and put a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder.
"Do you want to sleep here tonight?"
Fluttershy nodded.
"Okay... I want to see it tomorrow, though... do you mind?"
Fluttershy shook her head no.
"Alright. Let me make up a bed for you."
---
The sun had just begun to rise over the eastern horizon, casting its dim first light upon the wreckage of the Daelaam Ark. The Protoss vessel was a scene of carnage and grotesque horror... Zerg blood was everywhere, as were pieces of the ship. The ship itself was still smoking and on fire, but not as badly as it had been before - perhaps the impact was good enough to snuff some of it out.
If any life forms had seen fit to explore the ruined Ark, they would find nothing. All of its occupants were dead. Every last one. Even Broodmother Niadra, whom had stood so stoically (and perhaps foolishly) at the helm of the doomed ship had perished - her midsection had been crushed under bent metal and earth and the gore stretched for at least ten yards from her corpse in several directions.
All was quiet.
... Until something shifted under a mound of dirt, then popped out and shook itself off. It was an insect-like creature, with six large eyes and crab claws. Its back was lightly armored, and a strange orange-ish webbing connected four bone appendages sprouting from both sides of its body. A Zerg Drone.
It blinked its six eyes twice, then turned itself to examine its surroundings.. Or rather, it tried. Instead, it got a faceful of dirt. Its float bladder must have been damaged in the crash... It tried again, and to no avail. A deep, guttural hiss escaped its maw as it began to use its webbed, fleshy "wings" to turn itself, gazing upon the wreckage. The ship was destroyed and all of the Zerg within were dead. It did not care that it was in a forest.
It noted something odd. Nothing was exerting control over it. It wasn't being told to do anything. It wasn't being made to gather resources, to defend itself, or to mutate and spend the rest of its life as a building in service of the Swarm.
It knew only one thing: it must multiply.
The drone clumsily began to turn itself away from the Daelaam Ark's wreckage, then started to move itself forward, navigating around trees mindlessly while creatures around it hid from it. They knew it to be an alien, but that was enough to deter them from approaching it or attempting to eat it. In its wake, it left a trail of messy, but obvious tracks, using its stabilizing membranes to drag itself forward and occasionally attempting to float.
---
Twilight examined the fragment of the ship closely, trying not to think about what had been splattered across the interior of the debris as she looked it over. "... It's definitely not something anypony we know would make..." she remarked while the rest of her friends, never mind a few of Ponyville's early risers looking on. "... When did the Princess say they'd be taking it?" she asked, glancing towards the rest of the Elements.
"Any minute now. I do wish they could leave it here, though... Such gold would make delightful dresses!" Rarity replied, earning an eye roll from a few ponies.
"Rarity, I don't even know if it is gold," Twilight reminded her, shaking her head. "Besides, it's from outer space! It could be aliens!"
A look of "You can't be serious" washed over many faces, but none of them got to express their disagreement as a chariot appeared in the sky and began to fly down to them. Once landed, the pegasi drawing it, plus a few earth ponies in the slightly larger chariot, approached the artifact and pulled it out of the ground. Twilight attempted to speak to them, but was met only with silence. It was like she wasn't even there to them. Then they carefully loaded it into the chariot before taking it away. They said nothing to anypony.
"... Well... That was rude..." the purple unicorn commented, frowning a little.
---
The Drone had finally traveled far enough. It had found what it was searching for: minerals. They were not plentiful, but even on this strange world, there were those precious blue crystals, just waiting to be harvested.
The Zerg worker immediately set about to gathering them. Its pincers cut and picked away at the blue crystals, occasionally taking a large chunk it had broken off to a small, grassy clearing within the Woods. It mindlessly mined those minerals and did not stop for anything, despite the long, daunting, tedious task (only made worse by its inability to hover. By itself, the progress was slow - agonizingly slow. It gathered them one by one, taking at least a good 15 minutes to pry any worthwhile piece off.
By the time it was finished, it was already midday. A sizable pile of minerals were gathered in the clearing, gleaming softly in the light. The Drone stood next to them, looking at them with its expressionless eyes. After a moment, it approached them and began to devour them quickly. It broke them down with its pincers and crab like claws, eating them voraciously until not a single piece remained.
The very second it was finished, the Zerg laid down on the grass, its finned spines resting on the ground as its eyes closed. Its body began to expand into a sort of cocoon, growing larger and larger until it was the size of a small house. And there it remained for a long while, changing and preparing to continue to multiply...
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continue this story its good
Yay and insect in Equestria AND ITS A ZERG DRONE..... But sad thing is... I don't know how big it is?
Can some one tell me?
4786458 I wish I knew. I tore the internet apart today, looking for an answer to that, but I never could find out. I'm thinking that they're about the size of a small bear. Big enough for a pony to stand on its back, perhaps. I dunno.
Multiply, infest, thrive and run!
A gold star and thumbs up for you.
Hm, this.... is not going to be without many, many deaths is it?
You must construct additional chapters.
4786523 Underway even as we speak.
I can't stop!
4786531 The queen is happy.... She also requests that many ponies become part of the swarm.
4786536 THE TRUE QUEEN HAS ABANDONED US IMPOSTOR.
4786539 I speak for The Queen Of Blades Kerrigan. I know mother would never abandon us.
4786545 Did the Zerg ever refer to Kerrigan by name in Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm?
4786550 I can't remember if they did but if so they would refer to her as mother or my queen.
The idea is intresting i hope you continue it
4787524 Don't you worry. As of right now, Chapter 2 is 1,353 words long and counting. More is coming.
Interesting, another Zerg fanfic, another one was Strokes of Fate so I will read it
4787618
4787618 Thanks for the reply i will be waiting for the chapters, and hope to read
They say that every story should have a "hook" in the first paragraph. Something to keep the reader reading. So I'm sorry to say, as someone who haven't played Heart of the Swarm, I think that both your beginning and synopsis needs work. You don't want to start out with a flashback filled with strange names and places... Or at least not if you want more than Starcraft fans reading it.
Hmm, seems interesting, I'll keep reading. I also don't mean to be nitpicky but;
"In its wake, it left a trail of telltale tracks with its many legs, the imprints narrow, but deep. Like a giant centipede."
I know it seems like they should have legs, but they actually don't, or if they do they don't use them. They just float. Yeah, I know its weird.
Now, here's the thing about the Zerg: they're fucking awesome. That single drone is probably gonna lead to the extinction of ponies. They're like the Vengevine: leave so much as a single drone, and they will come back, stronger and hungrier than ever.
4797720 I always thought them more of like Cell from DBZ. All it takes is one little thing to reform him...
I haven't finished playing Brood War yet, but I'll hav a look
>It only needed a tiny bit of sugar
It needed only a tiny bit of sugar
>It's golden surface
*Its
>They knew it to be an alien, but that was enough to deter them from approaching it or attempting to eat it
I suggest rewording this. At the least, change 'but' to 'and'. It doesn't make sense to use 'but' here.
4805026
Ok, sorry, what?
To " 'only need' a small amount of sugar." says that there are no other relevant needs.
To "need 'only a small amount' of sugar" suggests that the unit of sugar is negligible, relatively.
They both seem correct here. Why and what are you correcting about this? Or, are you just suggesting that you think the second one is more accurate to the author's intentions, which is an idea I agree with?
On seeing this fic, my first impression was one where the drone was the main oc of the story who would fill the common role of the pony-land foreigner oc. I thought he would show up for unimportant reasons and pinky would through him a party and maybe fluttershy would try to take care of him and applejack would have him work on the farm and twilight would find his enjoyment of books a wonderful common point they shared(rather then study him, like she should be doing) and dash would try to compete with it and rarity would give it a fancy dress. Eventually it would help save equestria from some evil by being nearly useless but somehow getting partial credit for helping the main six get over their social problems. Then it would eat the wrong chunk of rock and destroy canterlot and celestia, luna, discord, twilight, sombra, chrisalis, twilight, fluttershy, rnbwRrtySctlooSpkZecoraSmbraEveryone and flufflepuf would sit there and go "Oooohh drone. hahahaha/pfthpt"
4806845
4805026 "It had only needed a tiny bit of sugar."
Very nice. But one complaint. You forgot the Zerg's capability to regenerate. Even drones can regenerate health over time. Though, old age has been said to still apply to effecting their ability to do so(Izsha said as much). So, guess that can explain it. And even though they can regenerate, it still takes time to do so.
But glad to see you're keeping it mostly mindless. Admittedly, it's been revealed in various online missions that it's possible for Zerg to gain sapience if forced into a circumstance without a leader for a long enough period of time, though the chances of it happening are very rare and take time to do.
Oh yeah, case in point about the Zerg.... when Kerrigan fought Zeratul... in less than five minutes of idle moments, she was able to regenerate an entire wing. Admittedly, she's a stronger Zerg than most, but Zerg I think still recover fast enough for one to see their wounds heal in front of one's eyes, even if not as fast as Kerrigan's...
But as said, Izsha said that Zerg are effected by old age. For all we know, that drone could have been one created early in that fifty year voyage, eh? That likely hindered its regenerative abilities.
4786469 Well, a drone is probably about two feet tall and six-ish feet around, including wingspan, perhaps a little more.
I'm going off of a Terran Marine (which give about one foot of height to a human as seen in WoL) for reference. Although drones are never shown, you can probably use the cinematics in aggregate to get an estimate on most every other unit. The game shows units not-to-scale for the sake of keeping either infantry from being a few pixels or buildings taking up a quarter of the screen. From what I can tell, the individual races' infantry seem mostly to scale to each other realitive to themselves, and then the same with air units (disregarding Battlecruisers, Carriers, Motherships, Leviathans, etc). That said, a zergling is about two to three feet high, and seems to support my estimate on drones. Same for Zeratul (who stands a bit higher than Raynor).
So there's a bunch of estimation you don't have to work out, and it was kinda fun to do. Zerg make everything better!
[Written on my Kindle Fire - tpyos may apply, Hehe.]
[ninja edit of clarity seconds after posting, thanks Captian Hindsight!]
I'm not up to date on the lore, but can an unled drone really mutate? I thought bottom-rung Zerg that got cut off from their brood turn feral. A leader (the Overmind, a cerebrate, Kerrigan, or a queen) is required for a brood to grow.
Ahh... I remember back in the SC and BW days where Zasz went and told to to never make a building with your last drone... tried that and got a Game Over screen instantly XD
Cue SC2 and now it no longer applies
(insert explictive) ya zerg and ponies
Ohh, Zerg and ponies, this should be interesting.
4811382 Really? I remember Stetman's report saying that Zerg don't suffer from the effects of age at all.
And so the colony is started. One thing I have always wondered though, what exactly are minerals and how are they made? Every race uses them as the basis for everything they create, so if the stuff is so valuable, why hasn't the entire galaxy been strip-mined of them? Can they regrow or something? Is that why they're so valuable, because they're sustainable? I need to know, it's breaking me.
Shouldn't that drone have healed by now? All zerg have passive regeneration, so after a few hours you'd expect that drone to be healthy again.
Etriax I know you wanted to make a good story, but it doesn't seem like zerg AT ALL, first of all they don't need food, oxygen,two niadra had a lot of armor on her, she could survive atleast 10 tons of metal on her, she would've survived,three drone couldn't be spawned on the ship, nyadra couldn't spawn them, four zerg would become feral and attack ANYTHING on its path even if its a drone. Its called hivemind sistem, drones soldiers and other beings get orders and follow them without them ,they won't be building or evolving, only follow their destiny, hunt.
No dislikes I only get off the facts of the story, I like the story it self though.
P.S. too much writing!