A day with the Queen

A/N: I probably should NOT be writing, 'cause I just got my ass kicked in multiple video games. Meh, I need to update SOMETIME.

Haven; Bridge of the Hyperion

Matt was alone on the bridge, waiting for the guest to arrive. It didn't take long until Executor Selendis was escorted into the room.

"That will be all soldier."

"Sir!" The soldier saluted and walked out of the room.

"Entaro Tassadar Executor Selendis." Matt gave a polite bow after using the Protoss greeting.

"Enetaro Tassadar Mathew Horner. In your message it said it was urgent that we meet."

"Yes." Matt walked over to one of the consoles. "There is something I need to show you." He pressed on the blinking button and the holographic screen came to life. It showed the different footages from the helm-cameras of the men who went into the laboratory on Castanar. Selendis showed no signs of emotions during the short dialogues Raynor and Matt had about the early Hybrid clones. What did the trick however was when the Hybrid itself came into view. Selendis' eyes widened at the sight and how it absorbed Zerg and Protoss alike. Matt stopped the footage at a point where the face of the Hybrid was in full screen.

"Luckily, the Hybrid was destroyed thanks to the explosion of the generator. However, we can't say for sure that this is the only one the dominion created."

"Humans don't have the necessary means to create such a monster." Selendis stated as a matter of fact. Matt silently praised her for keeping a cool head.

"Yes, however, we have no information as to who helped Mengsk with creating the Hybrid. What we do know for sure" the man took out Zeratul's crystal from his pocket "is that there're more." As if it was listening to his words, the Crystal activated and went into standby.

"Where did you get this?" The Protos asked.

"Zeratul gave it to the commander. It apparently stores information about the Hybrids and...I think you should see for yourself."

XIII

Wild of Lordaeron

This wasn't the direct way towards the capital. To be precise, it was way off. And it was this very reason the undead reinforcements had taken this way in order to get there. Time was valuable in this mission. They took too long and Arthas would slay Terenas before they could interfere.

Three caravans were on their way. Finding their tracks hadn't been exceptionally hard. They did cover up their tracks and somehow prevented the land from being corrupted, but they totally didn't thought about eyes from the air.

"Okay guys, no need for a strategy here. Hit 'em hard and hit 'em again." Claire declared, riding on her Zergling. "Let's rock!"

Raynor wasn't riding another one. His armor made it impossible for a Zergling to keep up with the rest. They had deployed him earlier in an Overlord near the marching caravan. He had his Sniper Rifle equipped and was looking for someone or something that looked like the/a leader. It would be bad if he/she/it was with another caravan. He also got the tip in case he wouldn't find a leader, he should instead kill all necromancers who could summon buildings.

"Like the Protos. I sure would like to have a little talk with this Blizzard team." he muttered to himself. "Also to the guy who came up with those "stories" in the first place."

A sudden rumbling caught him off from his thoughts. The Zerglings were attacking, led by none other than Shotgun. The bigger Ling charged up his psi energy and head-butted directly into a meat-wagon. It must have been loaded with corpses, since all kinds of body parts flew in every direction.

The men in the robes turned around and stared in shock for a few seconds, before they started to bark orders. Raynor was already aiming at this point and started shooting, though due to the mess of the battle, he didn't exactly hit what he was aiming for, even hit a few Zerglings. He started aiming at the Abominations, which were easier to hit. As it turned out, even they needed a brain for their body to function. Some kind of green gas started coming out of their bodies and even though Raynor was in a safe distance, he closed his visor, so none of it would come in. The Zerg didn't seem to mind the gas that much.

Finally the Hydralisks and Roaches arrived, taking care of the rest of the rest with their more advanced attack methods. Half of the Hydralisks acted as mobile artillery, shooting their spines high in the air, before they came crashing down upon the undead masses. An acid pool was created by the roaches. Remnant bones could be seen swimming in there for a few seconds, before they too disappeared, leaving some sick green cloud.

A sudden noise cause Raynor to turn around on the ground and aiming his weapon up, only to see the body of a woman in black ropes to be sliced in half. The two halves fell onto the ground, revealing Rose being the slayer.

"The other two groups are building up settlements. They must have learned somehow about our assault and now both groups are preparing for a counterattack." She held out her hand. Raynor hesitated to take it. "I am more than capable of heaving up the heavy armor."

Instead of waiting for an answer, Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him up almost effortlessly. "We need to get going."

"Yeah, guess we should or we'll miss out all the fun."

The two of them started running, with Raynor following Rose, since he couldn't know where the Zerg would meet up and plan their next move. They had ran in deep into the woods, which slowed Raynor down quite a lot.

All right, HOLD ON GUYS!

"Gah!" Raynor almost tripped at the sudden voice inside his head. "Claire?!"

No time to explain, still sorry. Listen, the two of you are separated from us. You see there's this hill kinda mountain behind you and it is in front of you. Guess it was kinda stupid to put the rendevous point next to it, BUT ANYWAY. It'll take some time until we can get to you two.

"Great." Raynor muttered. "So, should we just wait?"

Eh...better not. That girl Rose sliced up kind off managed to get a message through to the rest. I'm still looking into how, but my Overlords tell me, scouting troops are already looking for you. So uhh...good luck.

"Yeah, right."

Rose looked around, relying on all of her senses to see if she could spot any undead nearby. Finding nothing, she turned towards the rebel leader. "Shall we go then?"

The man nodded and closed his visor. Rose walked ahead, carefully eyeing her surroundings and also using her other senses as already mentioned. Raynor's powersuit was capable of zooming in, as well as having auto-aim (noob), but in these woods the former wasn't much help at all. As for the latter function, there was no need for it. They were zombies! There is no need for aim!

It didn't take long for the two to encounter a group of Ghouls with a bunch of Necromancers. "There they're!" A woman shouted. It was the first female necromancer they had encountered so far. "Kill them in the name of Ner'Zhul!"

[10 seconds later]

If a Zergling is considered overpowered on this planet, then Raynor's gauss canon was godlike. There was not much left from the zombies. In fact, you couldn't even tell anymore what had been a zombie and what had been a necro-dude (or dudette).

"It's surprising those things are even able to walk, given the state of their rotten flesh." Rose stated, kicking a skull away that was somehow left undamaged.

"I wasted too much ammunition." Raynor realized, when he checked the display on his weapon.

"Maybe you should use more melee oriented attacks, as long as using your weapon isn't a requirement."

"You don't happen to know where the next best cleaner is. Brains don't exactly combine well with my suit."

"You need to work on your jokes, commander."

Raynor shrugged and looked around. "So, where to next?"

"This way." Rose pointed in a direction and walked ahead, the man in the marine suit following close by, but still outside the range of the wings. The rebel had still mixed feelings about the zerg woman in front him. Obviously she reminded him of Kerrigan, point. There's no need for further explanation as to what kind of an impact this had on the man. Second, hell she was a zerg. His fingers constantly itched to pull the trigger. Third: DAT ASS!

Just kiddding :)

Where was I? Oh right.

Now, on the other hand, he had fought alongside Rose and generally alongside the Zerg. It wasn't the first time that happened and the last time it happened they were betrayed by Kerrigan. Who said it wouldn't happen again? The Zerg here right now needed to get rid of the competition in order to become a threat to the habitants of this planet. Yet finally there were those two teenagers. They were crazy, each one of them in their own way. They didn't SEEM to be into conquering everything and extinct every other race. Actually they had reasons just not to do it, mainly meeting characters they learned to be not "real" until they found themselves on this planet. And it certainly wasn't their fault for having the powers of the Zerg.

Raynor's train of thought was interrupted by some not so stealthy Ghouls, which jumped out of the bushes. Rose took care of them with a few slices. However, as it turned out they had been just a distraction. Nerubians, the oversized spiders, had been buried behind them and quickly used their webs in order to make the two immovable. The powersuit however was capable of breaking free from those things, even if it took some seconds. Spider web is after all one of the strongest materials that exist. Rose didn't even bother with breaking out. She used her psi-abilities to throw them at each other. Raynor, after being able to free himself, finished them off with each a knuckle sandwich.

"Didn't know some of those things could think."

Rose closed her eyes for a few seconds, scanning Ray's memories. When she opened them, she started explaining. "The Nerubians still have a consciousness, although they're not alive anymore. I think those are not as much under control via magical influence as the completely mindless undead, but that is debatable and none of our concerns at the moment."

Indeed from now on the two had barely breathing room for some time. While the ghouls weren't much more than a distraction or a living eh...UN-living meat shield, the Nerubians were quite annoying. The Necromancers were an actual problem. Raynor got to experience what magic did to his armor. The dark blasts were effective projectiles against it and one time there he got hit there was a malfunction in his armor, so he needed to quickly reboot the system. Luckily afterwards the systems showed green light again, except the yellow ones stating: Hey idiot! Do me a favor and don't get hit again!

The real dangerous things were the Abominations. Were they solo, Rose could easily outsmart them and either butcher them to pieces or use her psionic abilities to for example literally let its head explode. When there were two or more and worse when they spotted the two, then things got a bit hectic. The worst thing that possibly happened that day, was when they encountered the largest group of the search parties with Ghouls, Skeletons, Necromancers, Nerubians, Banshees, Gargoyles and Abominations.

"Find them! We cannot afford to fail!" One of the necros shouted towards a group of Ghouls, which then ran into the woods.

"There's no way we're gonna make it through them." Raynor whispered, watching from behind a huge tree.

"Reinforcements won't arrive in time. The armies are positioned in the worst possible way at the moment. The undead are between us and the others." Rose informed the man. "I'll distract them and you run."

"What?!"

"I can be reborn. And unless there is a hint of truth behind the Terran religion known as Hinduism, you cannot."

Raynor saw the point. Still it didn't sit right with him, leaving someone behind. And here were his mixed emotions again. He couldn't decide how to feel about these Zerg here in the end.

"All right." He nodded.

Rose looked for the perfect spot from which she could strike, when things went downhill. Thanks to the trees none of them got hit by the shot of a Gargoyle, which had sneaked up. The next moment it let out a screech, alarming the rest.

"Shit!" Raynor exclaimed. Seeing as there was no point in stealth anymore, he raised his weapon and shot the stupid thing.

"Plan B. Run!"

Talk about a nightmare coming true! Raynor thought as he kept running and shooting behind him every now and then. The terrain of course wasn't exactly the best for a high speed marathon, except for rose. The Abominations threw the trees out of their way and sometimes even after the group. Only the smaller ones, after all they weren't as big as the Mountain Giants of the nightelves. Finally the banshees every so often flew above them and then landed in front of the two, cutting their way out. However as a response, Rose focused her psi-energy in order to shot lightning out of her fingers.

Black lightning bolts barely missed, when finally things turned for the better. One of the abominations was suddenly caught up in a Void Prison. All involved parties were still processing the happenings (more or less for the undead), when suddenly the head of the creature was cut off and landed in the mud.

Keep running.

"I owe you!" Raynor shouted to Zeratul, shooting a few slaves while falling back.

Zeratul made himself visible to the pursuers, so all of their attention would be at him. He narrowed his eyes before disappearing again in a dark cloud. Seconds later another Abomination found himself in a Void Prison before it too lost its life for good. The psychological impact was present on the necros.

"Find the demon!"

Behind you.

Another one bites the dust.

Zeratul easily had been capable of killing every single one of the forces, but in reality there were just too many. Enough slipped from his grasp, continuing their chase of Rose and Raynor. However he was certain that the two were more than capable of taking care of themselves, while he took care of the rest.

Of course there was always something the enemy could come up with, namely the Shades. Zeratul couldn't see them, but they could see him and tell the rest. It doesn't mean that it mattered much. His shields protected him from most of the strikes and even from magic, if he got hit at all. His teleportation abilities allowed him to confuse his enemies and cut through the rotten flesh. He considered this could be a good training for early acolytes. No real danger, but still an enemy fighting back.

Still his shields could only take so much and they were down to 70% now. Zeratul decided to play his own trump card: Observers. Inside his shuttle he had managed to repair a few Observers, which always gave him live feed towards a small device with which he controlled them. A simple button press and one of the three Observers, which now always stayed close to him, flew towards the area he had been fighting. Not expecting something like this and of course not hearing the Observer, the Shades didn't look up. It was their death sentence (this type of joke is getting old. Man, I'll be happy when I can really include the other races).

Unlike in the games, be it Warcraft 3 or WoW, physical attacks had no effect whatsoever on Shades. Zeratuls psi blade was a completely different story. He didn't even need to aim for the head or anything. One swift strike and they were gone. As he was completely undetected again, the rest decided: Screw this, I'm getting the fuck outta here. They purposely left the lesser undead there to distract Zeratul, but he saw through it and gave chase himself. He realized it would take a while to take them all out, since they split up in every direction.

XXX

Some random cave, I wanted to call it Johnny, but that name is already reserved for my future gun

"I think we lost them for now. Or not." Rose muttered as four more Abominations, followed by 20 Banshees, scouting the area.

"They're purposely looking for us. How do they know about us?" Raynor asked.

"A good question." Rose leaned against the wall, breathing a little heavily.

"You look tired."

"My psionic level is still low, compared to that one of the Queen of Blades or even that of a Protoss Executor." she explained, resisting the urge to grit her teeth. One such Protoss just saved their asses and in all honesty she preferred to be dead by now without coming back, than having to live with that. Maybe in a couple of hundred years she'd find an opportunity to erase her own memories.

The human tried to ignore the mentioning of Kerrigan and looked outside again. If it would be only the big guys, he easily could have given each of them a headshot. But the ghosts pretty much turned this into a suicide action.

"Let's go deeper inside. This thing doesn't exactly make me stealthy." He pointed at his armor.

Deeper inside, the lights on the CMC-300 were the only things illuminating the area. It was too small for the big Abominations; however it had the downside of not having an escape route in case those things found them. So in order to lower the odds of being discovered the two refrained from talking for quite some time.

The clock-hologram showed barely thirty minutes passed. It looked like their enemies were too dumb to look for them in here, but still none of them got up to check.

"How's the fight going?" Raynor asked instead. Rose looked up and closed her eyes.

"Not bad, but the inexperience of my Queen has led to some losses and false decisions. The Banshees have disturbed the Hive Mind with their possession ability. More than one time my Queen was occupied with..."exorcising" them from our troops one by one."

Raynor nodded. "So, no help anytime soon."

"No, but the defeat of the undead is a given. They have bunkered themselves behind their precious towers and have Shades patrolling, so none of our Roaches can go in undetected. They're desperate, anyone can tell."

"Hmm. How many are left."

"Enough to put up a decent fight with the army Garithos attacked us. My queen has sent a scouting party to go a long way around in order to get to us and another three in order to find an alternative way inside the enemy base camp."

"But you could just overrun them."

Rose gave the man a stern look. "As you might recall, we have limited recourses available on this planet. Also dying isn't exactly a pleasant experience."

Raynor held his hands up. "Whoa, sorry. Didn't mean to offend."

"Just be careful with what you say. We're not monsters."

Raynor wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh at the statement or not. He decided to not laugh, for his own health.

Another long while passed. At one point Rose got up and looked outside, only to find the undead still snooping around. "Still too many Banshees..." she mumbled.

"How stupid are they? We're literally in front of their noses."

Just then, as if by some silent command, the undead turned around and walked/flew (depending) away.

"Now that's curious."

My Queen, our pursuers just turned around and walked towards the battlefield.

*sigh* Are you telling me those douchebags actually HAVE a plan? They want to sandwich us?

My Queen, I doubt they're enough to become a real threat to our forces.

No you don't understand. On the other end, Claire rubbed her temples. The second caravan left only a distraction. I don't know how, but they somehow found out about you two and tried to capture or kill you.

I see. Shall I distract them?

No, come back with Raynor, but be careful. And in case you see Zeratul, pick him up.

As you wish.

XXX

The Battlefield

"You know Shotgun, I hate to say it, but I think we need you and your bros to turn into Banelings." She really hated sacrificing her own children, even with the knowledge that they would come back. It wasn't because of the lag of supplies, heck even with her minimal supplies she was still able to build a very big army. It was pure motherly instinct telling her that it was the wrong thing to do. Whether it was a leftover of her humanity or the general feelings of a mother, she didn't know and frankly, did not care in the slightest.

Claire looked towards the enemy camp and was about to give the order to morph Banelings, when the air seemed to crackle all of the sudden. Every Zerg could feel the sudden shift in the air. The girl narrowed her eyes and tried to pinpoint whatever that shift in power was. The "what" was soon answered by huge blue circles appearing in mid-air, flying up and down until they came down fast forward with alliance troops appearing inside them. Claire raised an eyebrow, when she found Uther and Delil as the commanding officers.

"Gotta give you guys credit. You know how to make an entrance."

It was pretty obvious that most of the soldiers didn't like the fact that they were surrounded by an army of oversized insects. In their eyes, the Zerg were all demons after all. On plus Uther and his troops saw them for the first time so close.

"If you wouldn't mind, please tell your troops to give us some breathing room." Delil stated.

Claire gave a mental order and her Zerg gathered behind her. "Sorry about that. First time I ever saw a mass teleportation spell like that. You got me agitated. Anyway, what's up brothers and sisters of the light? I didn't expect the boss of the holy cows to appear himself hear." She grinned herself at her own joke.

Delil allowed herself a small smile, while Uther pretended he didn't hear the small insult. He cleared his throat before speaking directly to Claire. "We have heard of the march of the undead army and your intended intervention from the slaves you freed from the orcs. I also came to thank you on behalf of King Terenas for freeing them."

"No prob. Didn't want them to end up as demon food. Thanks for letting my Overlords getting this close in the first place. I swear everyone loves to use them for target practice. Poor dears."

Uther nodded. "Can you tell us how the situation is at the moment?"

Claire crossed her arms. "Those suckers have summoned their defense towers and are hiding behind it. In the meantime a second army is coming from the woods over there" she pointed with her thumb "and trying to sandwich us."

"Pardon my interruption, sandwich?" Delil asked.

"A sandwich is made of two slices of bread with something between the slices, a snack. Get it? As of now, I can either advance towards the base or towards the army. In any way, I'm going to get hit from behind. And you guys now too."

"I think we can help you with that." Uther waved with his free hand towards a large group of mortar teams.

"NOW we're talking. All righty, mighty. If you get rid of the towers, then my troops can cover yours when we deal with the rest."

XXX

"This is gonna hurt." One of dwarfs drank from his beer, before he set off a shot. Many others followed doing considerable damage at the towers.

"I love fireworks." Claire giggled like a little girl. "Wow I'm getting all homesick just thinking about fireworks." she blinked. "I miss Sylvester, oh well. Guys, show those suckers what it means to live."

Note to self, work on wording for battle-cries.

Like any slightly decent A.I., calling those guys smart would have been an insult to every general in Azeroth, the undead at first tried to get rid of the Mortar Teams. But they were stopped by Delil's and the other mages blizzards. The few that slipped through were easily cut in half.

Uther himself now witnessed the true might of the Zerg. Without the towers, the undead lost their only damage source for the beasts. The few necros left tried to run, leaving the rest as a distraction behind. Why none of them was capable of opening portals, Claire could only wonder. Ray told her in the book about Arthas they couldn't do it, meaning they would at least incapable of opening portals throughout Reign of Chaos and until Frozen Throne. Afterwards it wouldn't even matter anymore, decided the Queen.

Three meat-wagons somehow were still operational, but Shotgun led a group of Zerglings to destroy them for good. The spines of the Hydralisks ripped the undead flesh to shred. The Banshees and other ghost like units were taken out by the combined power of priests and mages.

The enemy reinforcements were in for one evil surprise, as the knights galloped in their direction with raised swords and a holy aura surrounding them. Claire could also feel the effect, but it didn't do anything to her. Maybe because she didn't have any faith in this holy light thing.

This time she herself captured one of the surviving necros and even "interrogated" him by herself. At the end she made a mental note to be more gently, as he was taken away, blabbering all kinds of movie quotes.

"Whoops."

XXX

With Rose and Raynor

"Urrgh..." Rose stumbled, raising her hand to her head.

"Something wrong?" Raynor asked.

The Queen unit shook her head clear. "I'm fine. It's just fath-...Ray...seems to have a little frustration episode. And since he's currently part of the hive, he leaked it through to everyone else."

"Part of the Hive?!" he exclaimed, surprised. "I don't claim to be an expert, but even I know the human brain can only take so much. If you wear a psi-inhibitor for more than six hours, you're nothing more than a helpless vegetable."

Rose shook her head again, slowly so the Zerg dreadlocks wouldn't slap her face. "He's fine. My sister queen is taking the pressure away from his mind. Though, he just got beaten in one of his video games, so there's really no need to worry."

"Hmm...oh man, is it that late already?" the man asked as he saw the setting sun.

"As humans say, time flies. We'll be soon facing the champion of the undead, Arthas."

"How do you suppose we go against him? We can't just storm in and attack him without any kind of proof that he is not himself."

"There is a plan for this:

First my Queen, Ray and you will meet with Terenas in the castle to "formally" meet the prince. Alliance soldiers have appeared during our absence and right now my Queen is talking with their leader in order to arrange this meeting.

Second, Roaches will be buried under the city, waiting for the undead to strike first. This seems to be a risky move, but it doesn't go any other way. Arthas army has become part of the purge themselves. Whether we can save them or not, is questionable at best.

Third, Sil, my sister, and I will coordinate our forces outside and stop any undead reinforcements trying to take over the capital.

Fourth, you will have to try to capture Arthas, since we know there is still hope left to save him. Don't hesitate to kill him in case you need to.

If we can take out Arthas Ner'Zhul will not be able to do anything else. Without him he will die within time. As for the Burning Legion, they will have a hard time taking over Azeroth."

"Well" Raynor checked his weapon "sounds like a plan. So, no Legion no trouble as far as I understand it?"

"That is the general gist. The undead are only here to help the Burning Legion taking over this planet. Ner'Zhul has his own campaign going on. As they say, kill two birds with one stone."

"Eh, knowing the humor of the universe by now, something is bound to go wrong." The rebel leader told her. "We should be prepared for something...unexpected."

A/N: Got tired/lazy towards the end. Wish I could have made 5k words again, but meh...

Okay next time reunion and battle against Arthas.