Chapter 1

'Damn it' she thought 'What the hell happened? Where the hell am I?' Sitting up from the hard, cold floor, the young girl quickly realized that she was in a school gym, it was easily recognizable with its two story high walls and slanted metal roof. It was raining hard, the pinging on the roof like a thousand angry woodpeckers confirmed it. The girls head was throbbing and because of her confusion, had only just realized that there were other people in the gym with her.

'Seriously what happened!?' The other people that were currently occupying the gym with her, were all residents of the town and they looked just as frightened and confused as she did. Most were huddled in groups together consisting mainly of families and friends.

Maybe I should introduce myself in a way that would be easily read just for that said possible reader; I'm Elizabeth, but I prefer Lizzy, I have brown hair that reached just past my shoulder blades and bright blue eyes, not particularly tall but not a hobbit at 5'7 and finally, im a 17 years old, orphan, living on the streets with no family left alive. Mother died when I was born, father… dead also. Now that that's out of the way I can go back to figuring out why I'm h-'

All of a sudden there was a blood freezing scream in the distance that cut off her monologue 'That answers that question' slowly she got to her feet and awkwardly made her way to an isolated corner of the gym, she was in a bit of a daze from whatever they had used to knock her out, she sat herself down and leaned back against the cold wall, she knew that she needed to keep calm and think of a way to escape. If that was possible. Looking around she saw that the windows were much too high and the only door was locked…Someone was trying to pry it open at the present moment.

The Overmind was the subprime consciousness that controlled the Zerg. But having been tampered and experimented on by the Xel'Naga, a single overriding objective was forced onto them... the destruction and assimilation of the Protoss. The Overmind was formed with thought and reason but not free will. It screamed and raged in a prison of its own mind. In order to escape this fate, the Overmind had captured, altered and corrupted the Terran, Sarah Kerrigan by infecting her with the Zerg Hyper evolutionary virus and made her an agent of the swarm. Her subsequent evolution unlocked incredible strength and immeasurably potent psionic abilities.

But why would he only stop at one?

Kerrigan was overconfident and excruciatingly brutal and vicious (not that these were bad qualities) but the Overmind couldn't have Kerrigan putting the swarm at risk. He needed another like her to keep her in check; to be her 'conscience' if such a thing was possible. And of there were two like Kerrigan, the Zerg would be unstoppable.

That was when, once again, he felt it. A small psionic presence. This is what the Overmind was waiting for...

'Argh...' Lizzy moaned rubbing her temples, ever since 'the incident' she kept getting headaches that, at first, were little more than annoyances, but as time went on they kept getting worse and worse. And the worst part, she didn't have any painkillers on hand. But that came with the territory of living on the streets, eventually the things you stole ran out.

At that moment, she could hear a strange noise at the doors; it was like claw's scrapping and clicking against the floor. To be honest it sounded like a huge wolf walking past the doors. This was shortly followed by a 'slithering' sound, and the doors opened...

What Lizzy saw was only describable as horrifying. She had no idea what she was looking at. It was equivalent, in size, to a large dog. It stood a meter tall and had claw like toe's. Their eyes were an orange/red colour and there were 'tusk' like things protruding out from the side of its head behind its jaws. The jaws in question showed a row of exposed, sharp, razor teeth without any lips or covering of any kind. There were a second set of 'arms' protruding from its back ending in claw like scythes. There were two of these 'dog' creatures standing at the side of a snake creature.

The snake creature had a hard shiny carapace and long 'mandibles' that covered their jaws and sharp teeth. In addition to their porcupine like spikes that covered there back's and protruding from under their carapace, they had long arms that ended with huge sharp looking scythes'. It was lucky, (I think) that there was only one of these in between the 'dog' creatures. They entered the hall together as if in an army walk and began to wade through the people gathered.

Well I say gathered, but I mean everyone moved as far away from them as fast as they could in the confined space of the gym full of people. Lizzy had instinctively taken up a defensive pose, her hands balled into fists in her pockets.

It seemed like they were searching for something (or in this case someone). A child about 12 or so couldn't move away fast enough and stumbled backwards onto his ass. The snake creature, annoyed by the child not moving fast enough, slashed at the child with its scythes, intent on slicing through his flesh. Lizzy got incredibly enraged at this and memories of being beaten herself, at the hands of her father. Damn him in his grave. It was a memory of her father beating her as he shouted and blamed the death of her mother as she gave birth to her, in one of his drunken, angry stupors.

And now all the pent up anger that she had bottled away was being directed at the snake creature. The creature brought its scythe blades to its head 'gripping' it in a way, all the while it was howling in agony. After a short while its eyes started to bleed and its skull started to crack, blood seeping from the wounds. In that moment she felt a connection with it, like she was in its mind part of it. The strange part was it wasn't only its thoughts that, Lizzy could hear, she found that it was part of a hive mind, and so was she for those few seconds. And through the connection, the 'Leader' was connected to her as well.

Time seemed to stop; Lizzy was 'pulled' into a dark black world. Not the darkness of night, that couldn't make such utter blackness. And she wasn't alone in this world. It was more like she 'felt' more than saw the 'Leader' of these creatures, and she could also feel its joy, its glee.

"There you are." It said in a purr like echo in her mind "You are the last piece that I need to make the swarm unstoppable."

At that sentence Lizzy started to panic. It seemed to feel it also, further proving the 'We are connected' theory.

"Do not worry; I will have my swarm quickly place you inside a Chrysalis. You have so much untapped Psionic potential." The link was severed, not by Lizzy I might add, and she was 'dropped' back into reality with no idea how much time may or may not have passed. The snake creature, 'No, Hydralisk' she thought, as in the brief mind connection, names for these creatures came into her head...Forced knowledge, she had no want for it. The Hydralisk was dead on the floor, its brain had 'exploded' and turned into the scrambled bits had seeped from its skull.

Lizzy, along with everyone else, started to panic at these turn of events. The lucky spectators had no idea that the young girl standing not feet from them, was the one that had killed the Hydralisk. Trying in vain to calm her chaotic mind, she knew she wouldn't be able to think clearly if both her body and mind panicked. The doors to the hall opened again, this time opened with such force that he doors were nearly forced off its hinges, to reveal a Zerg hugely different from the others. For one this one was human...ish. It was the body and shape of a human woman, but the skin was wrong, a mottled green that somehow appeared slick, like the flesh of a dolphin or seal. In many places it was hard and glossy, a protective shell, though Lizzy could see no pattern to the protection's placemen.

The armour extended into spikes over some of the shoulders, at the elbows, along the back of her hands and along her legs. Jutting from her hips were what looked like skeletal 'wings', like those of a great bird or bat, they were no more than pairs of elongated, segmented spikes, huge hooked claws protruding from her lower back. They were wing blades she realized. Her hair was in 'stalks', somewhere between tentacles and spikes, sharp and cylindrical but limp around her face and segmented like an insect's legs...or human bones.

She looked straight at, the young girl responsible for killing a member of her brood with glowing yellow eyes. Lizzy was panting, close to hyperventilating, her heart going so fast she feared it would burst form her chest, even though the adrenalin was helping keep her mind clear. The Zerg woman walked straight toward the petrified, a tiger stalking toward a frightened rabbit, her wing blades twitching as if in anticipation. Finally, her 'fight or flight' response triggered and she tried to walk backward, knowing that she stood no chance in a fight against this thing, only to trip on someone's feet and fall on her ass. By the time Lizzy regained her balance and sense of awareness after the short stumble the Zerg women was practically on top of her.

She reached down and pulled Lizzy to her feet by the front of my jumper holding up her weight with ease in one hand. Her fingers were as sharp as blades and easily tore into the thick jumper she wore. At any other time, the girl might just have been angry about her favourite jumper being destroyed. In one final act of desperation she grabbed the arm holding her and attempting to both hold herself up and dislodge the hand.

"So, you're the one the Overmind wants." It was more a statement than a question. Her voice had a strange echo like quality to it, it echoed both in Lizzy ears and in her head as if each word carried layers and meaning and emotion, too much for her to catch all at once. The words rolled across and through her, sending shivers down her spine.

"Don't worry; you'll soon leave your humanity behind, as I once did." She was smiling at the last part of her sentence as if it was a private joke. Lizzy brought her hand back in an attempt to lash out and fight back, she wasn't going to let her be taken away without some kind of retaliation. But she never got the chance. The Zerg woman used her Psionic powers on me to put Lizzy to sleep. At the same moment she felt a huge pain in her head at this things intrusion of her mind, the last thing that went through Lizzy's mind was "No please, this can't be happening…!"

(Kerrigan)

After the human child was asleep Kerrigan dragged her out by the scruff of her jumper. The child's limp arms were just shy of scraping the floor. Kerrigan turned toward a hunter Hydralisk.

"Prepare the Leviathan and the Chrysalis. Then kill the rest of the humans. We don't need them." As Kerrigan left the sound of screaming could be heard from behind her. And she smiled in ecstasy at the glorious sound. She continued to travel down hallways that had been adapted by the Zerg swarm. Creep was growing all over the walls and more Zerg were patrolling, some running to join the frenzy of killing and murder.

Kerrigan was coming up on the exit and closer to the Leviathan. She left the girl in an isolated room and assigned a Hunter Hydralisk to be sure that she didn't escape

'Like this mere child could escape anyway.' Kerrigan thought as she turned away from the girl.

(Lizzy)

When Lizzy awoke her senses came back slowly, one by one. She was made aware, first, of a splitting pain in her head and second, that she was laying on something soft, like a mattress. A strange dripping sound was heard all around her along with a... breathing sound and a strong heartbeat. Finally Lizzy felt something warm, hard and smooth lying beside her. Opening her eyes with some effort, she was greeted by a Hydralisk a few inches from her face, watching her. It took all of the will power she had to not scream, she feared what it would do if she did.

It didn't seem to want to hurt Lizzy, so far all it was doing was watching her. So as slowly as she could, she tried moving away from it, taking up a defensive posture in case it suddenly lunged at her. Slowly she kept crawling backwards but after managing to get about two meters away from it, it seemed to deem that was 'too far a distance' and moved closer brandishing its scythes. Lizzy immediately stopped in her retreat. There was a huge amount of adrenalin coursing through her veins and she thought it would be better to wait for it to die down before she did anything rash. Her 'flight or fight' reflexes were in full effect and every fibre of her being was screaming for her to run. As she laid there and waited for the adrenalin to leave her body she began the strangest starring contest in her life. The Hydralisk didn't take its eyes off her, and Lizzy was too afraid of what it might do while her back was turned.

The only time she took her eyes away from it was to survey the room, but her gaze never left it for more than a few seconds and it always returned back to it regularly. From what she see, they were in, what could only describe as a...stomach. The walls were made of flesh and a strange liquid type thing was being secreted from it, which was causing the dripping noise she heard earlier.

Gathering up all the courage she could, Lizzy very slowly raised a hand and reached out to touch the Hydralik's head. It didn't move as the hand inched toward it, it only followed it hand in some kind of hypnotic trance. When her hand finally touched it, it did not feel as she had expected. She had honestly expected that it was going to be cold and rough like sandpaper, only to find it was the complete opposite. It was warm, like a stone having been baking in the sun and incredibly smooth. As this thought went through her mind, Lizzy silently scolded herself for not realizing that it was lying next to her in an attempt to keep her warm.

There was a strange organic noise as a wall of flesh parted and opened. The Zerg women from before entered the room as if she had been waiting for, Lizzy to pluck up the courage to pet the Hydralisk. Immediately she moved her eyes off the Hydralisk to look at the new comer, more afraid of what she could do rather than the Hydralisk.

'Who is she' Lizzy thought, 'Why does she look so human?'

As if hearing the thought she answered "I am Kerrigan, a leader of the swarm."

Lizzy's mouth was as dry as a desert she gulped. "Where am I?" It was the obvious question that had to be asked. Kerrigan smiled, and it was defiantly not something that was reassuring or even meant to be reassuring.

"You are on my Leviathan. A Zerg that was created to withstand the rigors of hyperspace and act as a transport for a large fleet from one planet to another. It is a much more effective way than using countless amounts of overlords... And much more comfortable." She added as an afterthought. She brought her attention back to the frightened girl. "We'll soon be arriving on Char, the Zerg stronghold, where you will be forced inside a chrysalis where the Zerg hyper evolutionary virus will infest you into a Zerg as well."

Kerrigan tilted her head as if hearing something, Lizzy couldn't. Turning back she smiled smugly at the girl who was frozen in fear at what was said before "We've arrived." She turned to the wall of flesh. "Come" she said turning and expecting her to follow. Lizzy stood but didn't move, she was petrified. Kerrigan looked back over her shoulder and glared irritably at her. She held out a hand and gestured with two fingers in a 'come hither' movement and Lizzy felt a pull, like someone had yanked an invisible rope around her waist. Lizzy knew that Kerrigan had used her psionic power as a warning to get her to move.

Not wanting Kerrigan to literally drag her, she took a breath attempting to steady her frantic heart and moved forward. She desperately needed to think of a way to escape, and if to have any hope of succeeding, she would need to be walking on her own and not dragged. They walked a long corridor that was filled with the same liquid secretion as in the room. It made a sick 'squelching' sound from their feet as they walked. Finally they exited the Leviathan and with morbid curiosity she turned to look at what they had left, Lizzy's eyes nearly popped from her skull, it was Huge, easily larger than a Military mother ship.

But she had little time to stare at it as there were noises all around them. There was no doubt they were defiantly on the Zerg stronghold. There were thousands of them, all ranging from the snake like Hydralik's, the dog like Zergling's to the flying Mutalisk's. Lizzy even saw the gigantic Ultralisk's mulling back and forth.

The planet that they were on was warm, but not unbearably so. Air a bit sticky and filled with ash. One visible sun, two moons and a red ringed planet nearby. The surface was covered in ash, pale grey, at least an inch thick. Some hills and small mountains were visible in the distance, black rock rather than dirt. Fire and smoke all around the horizon. Probably volcanoes everywhere. No vegetation or animal life...If you don't count the Zerg.

In the middle of the Zerg gathering was an oblong 'pod'. That had to be the Chrysalis!

It was now or never for Lizzy's escape. She elbowed the Hydralisk that was guarding her in the face and sprinted to the right. There was a few seconds of pure undiluted freedom before there was pain in her chest. Looking down, Kerrigan's wing blades had pierced right through her peeking out through the other side. She took the time to notice that they had formed some strange 'X' shape. Reaching up, Lizzy gripped a blade not believing that something could possibly have the strength to pierce through her. Those were her last thought before darkness enveloped the young girl.

(Kerrigan)

'Stupid child' she thought, pulling her wing blades from her as she went to pick up the now quickly bleeding and dying child. It was a good attempt, Kerrigan admitted, but she was waiting for her to try and run. She picked up the child and held her in her arms as she quickly walked to the Chrysalis, when the Overmind's voice broke through Kerrigan's thoughts.

"Kerrigan! What were you thinking!? We need the child alive." His voice boomed in her head.

"I know Father, but it will be much easier to place her in the Chrysalis if she is unconscious. And the Zerg hyper evolutionary virus will heal all her injuries." She retorted.

The Overmind didn't comment, but Kerrigan could feel his displeasure. She placed the child inside the Chrysalis and watched it slowly close. The Chrysalis was partly full with viscous liquid that acted as a 'cushion' and supplied oxygen directly to the host when its lungs were filled. As soon as the Chrysalis had closed the liquid had filled it completely and needle like tentacles pierced the child's spinal cord, arms and legs ready to administer the virus.

"Begin" the Overmind commanded.

And as the virus was forced into the child it could be seen faintly writhing in agony…