I'm writing this before people tell me if they really enjoyed or disliked Chapter 5, so I don't know how this is gonna go. Oh well, if people hate it, I'll still keep writing this, I enjoy it too much to stop.

Also wheeeee.

I may have gone a bit insane with the whole 'This isn't planned, what happens...happens!' stuff. When I say I don't plan, that doesn't mean every word is random. It means that I have no idea how this is going to end. I don't know how big the Lord-Castellan's army is, or what her foe after it is going to be. I don't even know who the first character introduced in this chapter actually is!

That's what I mean by 'I don't plan things.', and it seems to have worked out well for most of my stories. I just like clarifying it, so people can understand the utter insanity that is my writing style. I honestly doubt anyone else writes in such a stupid way.

Chapter 6

Kayla didn't know where she was.

It was...dark, yet it felt blinding. It was at the same time eerily silent and deafening, still and yet screaming through the stars, odourless and overwhelmingly pungent. A...paradoxical existence. Wherever she was right now was definitely not a logical existence, so despite her mindset of analysis, she ignored those facts and instead focused inwardly, frowning when she felt...nothing.

There was no presence. Not of the Zerg, nor Kefali, nor even really herself. It was like her own connection was invisible to her. But that didn't make much sense, she- As she began focusing on that fact, a migraine of a headache formed in her...her 'existence', devoiding her of that line of thought. "Beeeeloveeeed..." Well, that was certainly a presence.

Why it had to sound like that blasted snake monster from the Conan game she didn't know. At least it wasn't hissing. "Uhh, hello?" She tried, surprising herself when no sound was made. 'Hello?' She sounded out clearly in her mind, carefully. "Beeeloveeed, come seeee..." Scratch that, that word was definitely hissed. She didn't have a choice on the whole 'come see' thing though, somehow feeling herself move even when she couldn't feel her actual body.

Her head throbbed once in warning, telling her to put her thoughts elsewhere quite effectively. Instead, she pondered what she was about to meet, touching briefly on what had happened to her (That was met with another throbbing sensation), as well as wondering why she couldn't feel any of the Swarm. She couldn't even feel Kefali, who had become a familiar presence in her mind.

She wasn't left wondering for long, as an emerald-green chrysalis was visible hanging from nothingness in front of her. As she was forced towards it, she could feel...almost like a presence within her mind. Nothing like Kefali or Hatsune, not by a long shot. Where those presences were clearly defined as different beings to her, this one felt...similar, as if it were trying to mimic her.

Going off the words 'spoken' to her, she deduced that whatever was talking to her was using her mind to learn, trying to find the best way to communicate with her. "Beeloveed, aidsss...happinesss..." Smiling, or at least trying to, she looked at the chrysalis. 'Well, I don't know who you are, but, you're welcome I guess. Do you have a name?' A drawn-out hiss sounded through her ears. "Ssstolen..."

Looking down, she felt herself frown, jumping when movement caught her eye. Her hand was there. It was...floating in mid-air, momentarily reminding her of the virtual reality games she used to play, but she clamped down her thoughts of home before she could get another headache. As she watched, purple scales appeared from nothingless and folded onto the edge of her skin, slowly building what appeared to be her body. She looked up at the chrysalis with the mental impression of a sad smile. Even in a few moments, she'd gotten attached to a bloody green cocoon. 'Can I give you one then?'

The chrysalis was silent for a few moments. "Beeloveed, pleassse..." She thought for a moment, watching as her legs started forming, as did parts of her stomach and chest. Looking at the chrysalis, she tipped her head about. She didn't want to name the chrysalis after the Abyssal Remnant, even if it sounded just like the serpent. But she didn't really know much about it, so...she grinned, answering just as the rest of her body finished forming.

"Then...nice to meet you, Chrys!"

'Kayla?'

Sighing a breath of relief hearing the familiar monotone voice of Kefali, Kayla opened her eyes to the sight of a fleshy ceilijng. 'I'm awake Kefali.' She spoke mentally, her body too totally exhausted to even both trying to speak. She felt so utterly drained, almost like she'd gone running, then just didn't stop for a good twenty-hour hours of straight running. 'What the fuck happened?'

'Do you...not remember?' He asked slowly, prompting Kayla to at least attempt a shake of her head, giving up quickly as her neck made its tautness known. "I've got no fucking idea." She spoke, scratchily and with regret at even trying to do so, but she did at least manage a few words. 'You...attempted to ambush some scouts, but were defeated. Hatsune managed to stop them before they could kill you.'

She could almost feel the fact that there was a lot he was missing out there, but she didn't really give much of a damn at that time. From the fact that every time she tried to force herself to remember she got a migraine, she decided that Kefali would have told her if it was important. Evidently from his hesitance, whatever happened was most definitely not good, so it was probably- "Kayla?!"

Rolling her neck around a few times, she managed to turn her head, just in time to see Hatsune barrelling through the Hatchery and coming to a stop beside her. "Heya...Hatsune, you talk now?" The Queen gave her a curious look.

"I've...always been able to speak, Herald, I merely decided that mentally communicating is more efficient." Humming, Kayla rolled her neck again, then shifted her arms and started propping herself up. "Kay-...Herald, please do not strain your body. When we found that man atop you, you had already been put in bad shape, and to then go thr-" Kayla could almost feel Kefali yelling at Hatsune, though she was distracted by the strange feeling of her mind flaking, as though pieces of her memory were being forcibly pulled open.

She'd lost that fight...the spear. She pivoted on one hand and her legs to sit against a wall, her other hand searching her abdomen for...there. She could feel it, just underneath the scales which were on her abs, a thick, nearly round scar which most definitely wasn't there before. She was...pinned by the spear. No, she was pinned by...pinned by...a scout. There was a scout holding her down. She could recall the earlier scenes of the fight clearer now. She surprised the leader of them and killed him instantly, but her Zerglings didn't have enough numbers, they couldn't hold up against the scouts. They'd left her alone, and she'd...

"Kayla!" Hatsune yelled at her, jolting in surprise as the voice hammered her ears. She dragged herself out of her own brain-cracking thoughts just in time to see a Feederling slither across the roof of the Hatchery. She tipped her head to the side, trying to recall any information about the critter that she could, but nothing came to mind. "Kayla." Hatsune's voice sounded a lot more...weirdly exhausted. turning her head to the side, she could see the Queen tapping her back-mounted spines together as she looked at her.

"What's up Hatsune?" She asked, tipping her head back to look at the ceiling again.

Hatsune shuffled a little before drooping. "I made a mistake." That was most certainly not what Kayla expected, as her head snapped back towards the Queen in surprise, wincing when she felt her muscles seize up. "You wished for somebody else to handle all the work, at least presumably until the time you awoke. I may have...overstepped my boundries." The Queen waved her arm around the fleshy walls of...the...

"Hatsune. Did you change the Hatchery into a lair by chance?" Kayla asked, running a hand against the fleshy wall she was still sat against, looking up at the ceiling. It was...definitely different to how she remembered it, higher and with more space between fleshy...rib-like bits. "Because if so good job, I was going to use the resources to do that anyway, since a lair means we can get the genetic information to allow the Zerglings and others to burrow into the dirt." Hatsune shook her head. "Okay then, what did you do?"

The Queen beckoned her on as she turned, then stopped and whined slightly, spinning on the spot and helping Kayla up after realizing she wasn't actually quite able to walk at the moment from her exhaustion. "Not exactly. I did do as you said, Herald. We are now within a Lair. However...that isn't all I've done." The pair walked through the now-labelled Lair, which took a good amount longer than to traverse through the Hatchery, eventually emerging into...the shade.

"Oh." Was all Kayla said, peering up at the gargantuan floating Overlord which was lazily bobbing up and down in the air above the Lair. She looked at Hatsune, who was about twice, maybe three times as tall as her if she counted the spines on her back which stuck up into her scythe blades. Then she peered up at the Overlord again. Just his front claw was larger than Hatsune. His body was larger than the clearing they were now in. "Hatsune...how the hell did...please just explain." Kayla eventually settled for just getting the whole explanation.

Apparently, Hatsune decided that he was necessary. When asked, she revealed what had happened in the battle involving the Zerg, even with Kefali warning her that it was a bad idea to possibly provoke more memories whilst Kayla was still 'mentally delicate'. As she spoke, Kayla wanted to slap herself more and more for her stupid fucking overconfidence.

She had a fucking ridiculously over-strained control system. Kefali was keeping her from feeling it, but he was being completely overwhelmed by the hundreds of Zerg drones constantly clamouring for his attention, he just never admitted it, a fact he had already berated himself for, according to Hatsune. That was why they were so inefficiently gathering hematite when she awoke, he wasn't equipped to handle more than two dozen drones at a basic level. Having him commanding hundreds, alongside dozens of Zerglings, and then adding Hatsune onto that? That was a recipe for disaster.

Hatsune wasn't even able to be helpful in this regard, since her mind itself drained more control for every Zerg she took command of, making her incapable of helping. He had meant to bring it up at some point, but never got the chance to before Kayla was already in Karlshall baiting those scouts around. Where it really shone though...was during the battle, a fact Hatsune had realized far too late as she started commanding Zerglings and she herself felt the strain of different voices speaking. The Zerglings were constantly getting in each others way, some losing control entirely and reverting to a feral state, killing Zerg and scout alike, though mostly Zerg, as there were fewer scouts to target at the start.

The reason for this was because they had too many voices all speaking at once, every single Zerg trying to talk to Kayla, but getting redirected to Kefali. Kefali revealed then that he was a stop-gap measure, not a permanent fixture, he was basically acting like a temporary barrier for Kayla. She already knew that he was protecting her mind from being completely overloaded with information, but then he told her that, when she was able to handle the strain, the Zerg matter making him up within her would dissipate into her system entirely, leaving him formless. For a Zerg, that would mean he would die.

To say Kayla was furious learning that...was an understatement. She only let it go when she managed to wrangle a promise from him that when the time came, he would instead be expelled from her body and then be able to inhabit something, anything else, be it an infested Terran, a Zergling, just something. She didn't want him to die, not after all he'd done to protect her.

Hatsune then redirected them back on topic, as to why an apartment-block sized Overlord was hovering about aimlessly. With the Zerg all getting mentally scrambled by the different voices and signals they felt over the Zerg connection, which was apparently a low-level psionic field, ingratiated into every Zerg from the smallest Feederling to the largest Leviathan and binding them to the command units such as Overlords, Overseers, and others such as herself, they couldn't fulfil any orders. Being scrambled like that made them sloppy, weak, and some turned on their fellow Zerg after being driven feral, they'd already lost a few drones since while Kayla was unconscious, Kefali's control over them had slackened a little. As such, Hatsune had decided that, since it only cost Minerals and would alleviate some of the remaining strain on the Zerg control network, she would have a larva evolve into an Overlord, nice and simple.

That...was a mistake. Canonically, an Overlord was not even close to the size of the game-version of an Overlord. It was...at a rough estimate, about 6 times taller than Hatsune was, who herself was nearly three times taller than Kayla. 18 Kayla's could stand on each others heads and they wouldn't be taller than that Overlord. Thanks to the fact that her drones were most definitely smaller than canon, it would be reasonable to assume that maybe the Overlord would be as smaller as his canon counterpart...that was a big fat nope. He was just as big.

Bit, one interesting fact that Kefali pointed out, first to Hatsune when she first saw the Overlord and began whining in a corner whilst Kayla was unconscious, then to Kayla as she compared the size of the Overlord to the Lair again, was that her drones were nowhere near as draining as they should be. According to her memory, each drone should take the equivalent to one unit of control. But he could feel that a Zergling was worth about the same amount of control as four drones. Considering a Zergling canonically used half a unit of control, each drone was a single eighth of a control point. Since a single Overlord gave 8 command points, that one colossus-sized Overlord was alleviating a grand total of..."Kefali, how many drones do we have?"

'We've got 273 Drones remaining. Some died in the outbursts of feral Zerg, some in the inferno.' Nodding, Kayla did a few mental calculations, then gave up and dug a calculation into the Creep with her finger. "He's taking over control of about...23 percent of the whole Drone population, give or take a few decimal points, maths wasn't ever my strong suit..." Humming, Kayla peered up at the Overlord, reaching out mentally despite Kefali warning her, to prod gently against the presence of the Overlord she could feel.

Immediately, her mental presence was acknowledged by the Overlord. She could feel the inquisitive mind of the intelligent Zerg being viewing her just as she viewed him. It was...indescribable, the sense of connection she could feel. Feeling a presence within her mind was completely different to hearing Kefali's voice in her head. To a degree, it was similar to Hatsune's presence, though on a far greater scale. Hatsune, for all that she was incredible, still answered to Kayla without control of her own. She still drew control from her to then in turn control the Zerg beneath her, taxing the system the same as it would if she were to not control any Zerg.

And, while the Overlord acknowledged her command over him, he was still...disconnected to her in a way that none of the other Zerg were. He controlled his network just as Kefali handled her network for her, keeping it from straining her, but she could still command him, and he would in turn relay that command to the Zerg he was in control of. It was such a strange sensation to feel the 64 drones he held command over, to know where they were without having to do anything, but be unable to speak with them. She could, of course, command him to give her command of a drone to use, but she would only do so if she had a need for it.

'Overlord, by chance, can you feel a...metamorphosis option? Your size will attract attention, so perhaps you can gestate into a smaller version of yourself temporarily?' The colossal Zerg let a long creaking groan out, almost like a whale. 'I...do...not...know,...Herald.' It spoke slowly, each word carefully chosen. But that didn't matter, as it was reaching down with all its limbs and slowly lowering to the ground. She could see the giant bags of gas which held it aloft had shrunk slightly, leaving it less buoyant and allowing it to touch the ground.

She was curious about where the gas went, how it was produced, things of that nature, but pushed those thoughts aside to watch the Overlord landing so slowly. She mentally prodded the Overlord to ask what he was doing, and got the mental equivalent of a hand wave, telling her to leave him alone for a while. Shrugging, Kayla turned her attention towards the Lair. Like the Overlord being as big as lore, or the Drones for some reason being tiny, the Hatchery, and now the Lair, were about three times the size of the game version of the building, on each side. They also had tunnels leading downwards for more space which just wasn't visible.

With a single thought, Kayla asked the Lair how many resources they had, frowning as the number popped up in her mind. 1300 Minerals. They didn't have any hematite left to mine, so they had no income at the moment. 165 Vespene-equivalent units of gas. They would have had 265 is Hatsune hadn't pre-empted her and upgraded the Hatchery into a Lair, but she was going to do that anyway so it didn't matter. She then used 100 of that resource to begin research into the burrowing ability.

For a moment she wondered exactly how 100 minerals and 100 gas could teach all her Zerg...well, most of her Zerg, how to burrow, but she wasn't about to question it, too busy thinking of how to get out of her rut. Right now, their biggest issue was that they had no renewable resources. There were no crystal fields to harvest, nor Vespene geysers to extract from. Either they didn't naturally appear on this world, they hadn't found them yet, or...she looked skyward.

There was a chance. It was slim, but there was a chance that she was actually in the Koprulu sector, on a medieval world settled by colonists who lost their ship perhaps, or maybe they had their technology stolen, forced into a far more simple lifestyle. If that was the case...things might be far harder than she'd first expected. Despite trying, she couldn't feel even the vaguest sensation of a presence anywhere above them, no Overseer watching over their world like an experiment, nor any kind of psionic activity anywhere she could feel.

Granted, it was possible that they were hidden to her senses, but she knew far too little to even begin to know if that was even possible. Asking Kefali, he told her that he too hadn't felt any presences in the Zerg connection above them, but that didn't mean they weren't there, hiding. But, that was something that did them no favours of, wondering about things like that, so Kayla refocused her attention on the Zerg. There were still over 200 drones and, after asking Kefali once again, two-dozen Zerglings remaining in her swarm. That meant that she was managing 32 control units by herself, or rather, Kefali was.

The games didn't really have a control equivalent for what she was. She was kind of like the Queen of Blades, but the games never gave her a control stat. Throwing her hands up in the air, Kayla gave up trying to rationalize it. The point was that Kefali had too many Zerg to manage, so they needed another..."Hatsune, you could have just made a pair of Hatcheries in the space over there. That would have given us twelve units of command, and we wouldn't have a colossus laying about over there trying to learn if he can get smaller."

The Queen looked over at the space on the Creep, then chittered without saying anything for a while. "I...didn't think of that." Hatsune mumbled, slumping a little. Kayla patted the arm which was supporting her. She was trying her best at least, that was all Kayla could ask for from her Zerg.

"Don't worry about it boo."

"Could you...run that by me again?"

Her eye twitching, Kayla resisted the urge to rip off the scythe of a nearby Zergling...barely. She had decided to go for a stroll, to which Hatsune had informed her to be careful going north, because one of the Zerglings got blown apart after it skittered over an extremely powerful water geyser. Wanting to see this geyser for herself, Kayla had gleefully informed Hatsune of that fact, taking a few Zerglings as she departed, just to settle Kefali and Hatsune's worries.

The geysers had only just entered the area of the creep, so they were pretty far from the main base. However, thanks to the increased speed of travelling, they reached it after only an hour of meandering traversal, Kayla taking the time to actually appreciate the world she was on. Back home on earth, there were very few places you could go to get away from...well, everything. Here, all she could hear was the skittering of Zergling legs, the thumping of her own footfalls, and the calm melody of the lush forest around her.

For just a few minutes as they travelled, Kayla was able to forget that she was being hunted, that she was so displaced from her home, all of it. She could just be free. Well, as free as she could feel with a handful of Zerglings travelling behind her as an escort. Strangely enough, despite seeing several Amanita's and even a Vromeros, none of them attacked the small party.

Shrugging it off, Kayla continued cautiously but still relaxed, eventually coming to a clearing and seeing a cluster of yellowish sulfur pillars above a deep pool of green liquid. Or rather, because of the sulfur present in the water, as she looked down into the darkness, it quickly tinged green. This was where Hatsune chirped up, after looking through the eyes of a Zergling, that she should keep back, as the geyser-

At that moment, the pool started bubbling. Recognising that it was about to erupt, by the size of it a considerable eruption as well, Kayla got back a few dozen paces. After a few more seconds of bubbling, the geyser erupted with a burst, sending water flying at least a few dozen feet in the air. It jetted out water for a few moments, drenching the entire area in droplets, before finally receding.

Kayla then tipped her head, knelt down and grabbed a hunk of sulfur, dispersing it between her fingers. "Overlord...can you send a few drones up here to drag this sulfur back to the Hatc-...the Lair please." She gave the command, dropping the rest of the sulfur onto the ground and brushing her hands off. "Hatsune, can you please tell me how much of this sulfur has been found by drones and Zerglings?" Hatsune gave her a rough estimate.

"Could you...run that by me again?"

Okay, I'mma clarify this stuff.

Altogether, the Zerg command number comes up to 46.125 units. The Hatchery (Now Lair) handles 6. The Overlord is now handling 8. That leaves us with 32.125 units which Kefali is managing alone. The Overmind had a command limit of 30. Kefali is not the Overmind. Even if he was able to pull that off, he would still be managing a count above his limit.

And that's AFTER the Zerg all went a bit crazy. They had more units, but they died. That relieved some of the strain, but he's still being forced to manage too much stuff. A Zerg Queen actually uses two units of command, so I equated that to being that if she takes over control, her own control number rises as she commands more and more units, keeping it level.

Does that make sense? No? Oh well. That's how it works. Kayla NEEDS more Hatcheries, more Overlords, more things to take the strain of having hundreds of Zerg running around. She forgot about the command limit, and it fucked her. Or rather, the scout fucked her, the limit enabled that.

Anyways, Kayla's woes are far from behind her now. Despite defeating the scouts and learning of a major problem with her connection to the Zerg, she now is running low on minerals and gas with a punitive force being formed by the Lord-Castellan, though she doesn't know how long that will take for the enemy force to arrive.

But, she has found sulfur. And...Hatsune may be awesome and helpful, but she isn't the brightest spark in the fuse-box. She doesn't know that Sulfur is a natural catalyst. She only learns when she is told something. She won't experiment, because that isn't her job, that's the job of Abathur, or the Overmind, or Queen of Blades. In this case, it's Kayla's job, so Hatsune just thought it was a weird yellow rock of some kind. Meep.

Reviews are like hugs, in that they are absolutely awesome!