*000000*

It is actually an escort of Ratlings and Zerglings that takes Emily home. The clone does still have a duty to fulfil after all. A passing thought makes me wonder why I bother. It would be so easy to just… send in the Zerglings. There's nothing they can really provide that I can't grow myself. Weapons and technology? They lack the industrial capacity. Soldiers? They lack the numbers and strength.

I banish the thought. Their very existence gives me the one thing I cannot create. It sets a precedent. It proves in the weeks, months, perhaps years to follow that my swarm can be reasoned with, that diplomacy is an option. They, and the others to follow, will be living proof that the coming war is not one where humanity faces extinction should they lose. Should they choose to sit down and talk.

… Also, it's the right thing to do.

Nineteen survivors spread across two vehicles. They are all wearing collars attached to chains, the length just long enough to drag their legs on the ground if they try to jump out of the moving vehicle. The rear truck is mostly women, and had also held a handful of raiders celebrating the spoils of their victory. My concern for safely separating the raiders from their prisoners during the battle turned out unfounded. Hidden advantage to having an army of monsters — the bad guys don't bother with hostages. Even so, there had still been a death amongst the prisoners during the battle. One raider had thrown the woman he was playing with at the first Zergling, likely as a distraction. While the Zergling ignored her in favour of killing him, the abrupt fall interrupted by the collar and chain broke her neck.

My clone goes to the forward truck. Prisoners huddle down in the bed, unable to escape or run, defenceless and awaiting death at the claws and teeth of my organisms. I stand by the tailgate, Zerglings — those that are not busy with cleaning up the battle site — in a semi-circle around me. I double check my shroud is in place and hiding every inch of skin before speaking. "Raise your heads. You are victims here, and my master has no quarrel with you. You will not be harmed."

A few cry out in surprise at hearing a voice, but they finally look up. For a while, they just stare. Should I say something else? I think I told them the most vital information so they can behave like humans and not… cowering vermin. Finally, a rotund, bald man with a rather fuzzy moustache rises to his feet, pulling on the chain of his collar.

"Ah… would you be… the cape controlling these… beasties, then?"

The clone may be failures in its original role as infiltrator and diplomat, but it remains a way to interact with humans until I grow something better meant for the purpose. "You may call me Face. I represent the one who has ordered the death of your captors."

He blinks, and his eyes scan over my clone, its face just as obscured as the rest of it. He's doesn't seem in the mood to appreciate the joke. Fair enough. "Right… is this a rescue, or… entertainment before dessert?" His eyes visibly tack across the half circle of Zerglings standing around me, and the hulk of a couple of roaches nearly lost in the dying light. A few of the Zerglings still have bits of flesh stuck in their teeth and claws.

"Rescue. If you will remain still and… please don't panic, we will remove your chains."

At his nod, one of my Zerglings leaps forward, and the man I was speaking to falls over on his ass with a pained grunt. The prisoners scream and try to pull away, but the chains stop them short. Ahhh… I should avoid quick movements like that for now. The man cries out and raises his hands in a futile defensive gesture as the Zergling reaches for him, despite its scythe being folded up. Its four fingered claws grab hold of his chain and yanks on it with all the strength it can manage. Fortunately, the chains are not very heavy, and its brute force is enough to rend the links apart. Soon all the prisoners are free, and the Zergling retreats to rejoin the others. The bald man finally lets go a breath he's been holding. As do a few others.

I hear him mumble under his breath. "Bloody hell, my heart can't take too much of today." Despite his protests, he puts himself together fairly quick and rises back to his feet. "Thank you, our gratitude to you and… who do you represent?"

I'd known I have to choose an official name eventually, something that lets people identify me. I also spent a fair bit of time trying to decide on one. The short list was Legion, Typhon, and Abzu.

Typhon… is hands down the most impressive sounding, and I think the most familiar to people with any interest in mythology — or decent schooling. A giant serpent of Greek origin that fought against Zeus himself. The father of monsters via Echidna. It's a fine name, and yet… something about it just… doesn't feel right. If nothing else, Typhon is ever the monster with no good sides to him, a creature of pure chaos, destruction, and ruin.

"I represent Abzu. He commands the creatures that you see here, and others besides. Do you speak for all the survivors?"

He looks at the faces of those around him, frightened, desperate, uncertain. "Yes. I suppose I do. The names John Hewson." He seems on the verge of asking something, likely about my organisms as he eyes them warily, but whatever it is he thinks better of it, and instead asks something else. "May… may one of us release our fellow prisoners back there?" He waves to the other truck.

"Of course. Will you need help to break them free of the chains?"

He pales a bit at the suggestion. "Perhaps it would be best if we did it ourselves. They have had a rougher time of it than us. Perhaps just… a raider's weapon? Or if the raiders didn't damage our gear too badly, we had quite a few of Doctor Solaris' laser rifles. Some should have recharged over the past few hours."

There are a few trucks carrying looted supplies. Mostly food stuff, some electronics, and a rather large stash of tinker-tech. I haven't touched it yet as I recognised those spheres, despite these looking disabled and inert. "Are you familiar with the operation of the tinker-tech?"

He smiles at my question. "Quite."

Hewson picks through the box of gear, eventually pulling out one of the large, boxy weapons I had seen being used to significant effect during the raiders' attack. "This one will do."

I wait a moment to see if he does something stupid with it. Like take a shot at me or a Zergling. When he doesn't, I point to one of the dark spheres in another crate. "Are these the light sources I have seen some surviving groups using?"

"Yes, Doctor Solaris has been giving those out free to any enclave that will trade with him. Much like his other inventions, they are entirely solar powered, storing and releasing the light gradually throughout the night. They can be a bit… unstable if disturbed while active."

Hmm, yes, I gathered the last part. "Show me how to operate one." Finally, light for my bunker! Er, a safe distance from myself, just in case it explodes.

They aren't complex, and his demonstration of their safe use is rather quick and simple. I'm on the fence on if he is in fact this Doctor Solaris himself, or just well acquainted with him. Really, things have been going much better than last time I tried talking to a group of people, and Hewson has a fair bit of information to share while one of the other prisoners takes the rifle and makes her way to the other prisoner transport truck. She hugs the weapon like a talisman as she passes between the Zerglings.

The various groups use the term enclave, often linked to either the name of a founding member or neighbourhood. They rarely interact in person — as I have seen — but there are some early radio setups opening communication. That is a slight concern. I had not thought about radio use within the city, and it means word of my presence can spread faster, and further, maybe even outside the quarantine zone, well I was already planning to pick up the pace, so this is just more motivation.

Those I have been calling raiders are, according to John, the Independent Nation of Canberra. He doesn't know a lot about them, except that they have — or had — the largest concentration of parahumans of any enclave. Also, the most population because of their raids on others.

"One question Face. The two parahumans that were with the Nation of Canberra, did they both die in the fight?" He asks soon after the two groups of prisoners are reunited.

"Yes. Even if one of them had escaped however, and came back with reinforcements, Abzu would deal with them as he did the first."

"No, it's not that. Rather… Both of them had been rather well known before the Simurgh came. Livewire, the electric themed cape, was a villain. Reflect… She had been a hero before. I was surprised and disappointed to see her working with the I.N.C. If she had lived, I would have liked to understand why. Perhaps she could redeem herself, we always need more capes."

In the end, the Watson Enclave survivors return to their home to begin the long, arduous work of burying their dead and repairing what they can. I see no reason to tell them about the creep yet, or that as soon as they finished burying, strands of creep grew from fractured sewers into the shallow graves. Waste not and all that.

Relatively useless and yet desired information they had, I now know the date! It's March thirteenth, which tells me… little about the timeline for what's happening over in the US. At least events shouldn't be too far along, since I didn't spend half a year or more insensate or capturing rats.

"How did meeting the prisoners go?" Emily asks the moment my clone returns.

"Better than expected. Nobody started a fight this time. It's obviouse my organisms terrify them, but I think it's mostly because of the savage violence and visibly bio-tinkered nature. But they owe us their lives, and they know it. As they interact with other enclaves, they will spread word about the scary but probably-not-going-to-eat-you Abzu."

"Abzu?"

"The name I gave them. It's an… old Mesopotamian primordial god. Or concept. It's a bit blurry."

Emily stares at me blankly. "Mesopo… what?"

What do they teach kids nowadays? "I'll… tell you all about it in the morning. This clone needs to recover its health after watching the battle with you."

"Aww, okay..."

On impulse, I reach down and pull her into a hug. She's startled for a moment, but shortly her thin arms return it, her lissom body pressed against my clone's, only separated by — rather too much — fabric. I hold her for a moment, enjoying the contact.

My tentacle-roots hold the struggling Reflect in the air. She's a tall, thin woman, mid twenties I think. Her skin is tan and smooth, with only a few old scars from her life as a cape. Moderately large breasts, not much of an ass. At least that is what I saw of her with the eyes of the Ratlings and Roach that brought her comatose body to me just before she woke up. Soon I will have light within my bunker, but the light-spheres I had claimed from the loot have not made their way here yet.

Hewson said she used to be a hero, but I'm not seeing it. Just a mass of sub-par Essence struggling futilely against my grip, screaming obscenities into the darkness. If she didn't want to end up like this, she should have stayed a hero. Everyone knows Post-Apocalyptic Raiders are right up there with Nazis and Commies as socially acceptable research subjects.

One of my pulsating tentacle-roots wiggles its way into her ear. I'm about to burst through the thin membrane that blocks further access to her cranium when the cocoon containing the remains of Dundee bursts open. What fortuitous timing. I withdraw my tentacle and grant Reflect a respite. How has turning Dundee into the lowest of creatures worked? Does the shard that once connected to him still do so?

I easily slip into the Dundee-larva's — perhaps worm is a better word — simple mind. Its senses are nonexistent, it can't even move, its brain lacking most of the bits for that. Glaringly obvious within the emptiness is… a feeling. An itch scratched practically by reflex and… I am suddenly ejected out, unable to focus on the worm's mind. I lash out with tentacle-roots — those not holding Reflect — and grab hold of a… grown man?

What the hell? How did… tentacles prod him, and he comes alive struggling and shouting. His Essence is pure human, no trace of the Crocodilian Essence I had gathered from his body before changing him.

Reflect interrupts my thought process. Likely, having heard Dundee's shout of surprise, she starts calling for help. That's annoying, and her voice causes Dundee to fight even harder against my grip. I stuff a tentacle down her throat. She gurgles and gags, but is too busy trying to breathe around the obstruction to be a further problem. I turn my attention back to Dundee just as his body rapidly shrinks, his Essence somehow being… overwritten as I watch. Then the worm's empty mind is once again open to me.

Did… Is that what's going on? I check the worm's Essence a few times. It's the same Essence I had pushed into him after he lost his fight. His shard! It must be swapping Essence — or some rough equivalent — out, while storing the other! When I changed him into the worm, he was still in his Changer state, so that's the state that had its Essence changed. His human Essence must have been kept safe by the shard. I wonder how his mind interacts with the transformation, especially now that he has no capacity for a mind in his Changer form.

The practical uses of an organism that can change between two forms is… I could make a were-type organism! Or… could I use this quirk of Dundee's power to bypass the problem with a clone that can blend in with humans?

Poking and prodding at the idea for a few hours, I run some experiments with my Larvae and track their progress through the first stages of evolution. I force Dundee to switch between human and worm a few times as well. He doesn't seem to realize what's happening. With no mind in his alternate form, he has no memory of transforming, and trapped in complete darkness it probably seems to him as if his powers just don't work.

Unfortunately, I can't quite force an update of his 'human' Essence onto his shard that doesn't require sticking him in a cocoon first, which falls into the usual pitfalls of growing clones.

Oh woe is me. I will have to live with just making a transforming organism instead.

Right, the Dundee-worm will wait, Reflect might not. She's already gone limp, exhausted from struggling and trying to breathe around the tentacle shoved halfway into her stomach. Ah… if anyone was around to see this, they would definitely get the wrong impression… It's… a little tempting, she is a fairly attractive woman now that I think of it… No. If I wanted to I could grow a vaguely humanoid lump of flesh to play with. There's no fun without intimacy, emotion, and reciprocation. While terror and fear is an emotion, it's not the right one at all.

Considering that, I should put her out of her misery. The intent had been to see if the Corona Pollentia of a living cape had some Essence, since that of a dead cape was an unnatural void of such. That plan has changed now, with Dundee still having access to his power after being altered. I need to confirm if that will be the case for non-Changer type capes too, and her power set is too useful to risk.

My tentacles pierce her flesh, and I push Essence into her. As with Dundee, a simple, mindless worm. If it keeps her power, I can get creative. Perhaps I can simply give it a form that has its brain exposed and spread out, to reduce the risk of death by poking my tentacles around inside while looking for the Corona Pollentia.

That's probably a good idea. I should do that. Or perhaps… My thoughts turn to Emily. She was rather determined yesterday, and I expect she will want to go out and be involved more with the passage of time. Unfortunately, she is also rather squishy. I need to fix that.

Armour is a basic start. I can probably… oh yes, creating an organism that she can wear as living armour will be no major issue. The only roadblock is control, as obviously the best living armour has to tie into the nervous system while causing no harm to its host.

Reflect's power would be a good fit for her too, especially if it can contain her aura. Maybe if I strip away everything except the Corona Pollentia, I can turn it into a symbiotic organism within the armour to grant it a force-field of sorts… or better yet… a symbiotic organism within Emily, always with her even when she's not geared up for combat. Yes, I like the last one.

… Emily might disagree. There's a long way between stripping in front of someone and having an alien creature crawl into an orifice as a semi-permanent occupant. Well, plenty of time before that's something to bring up, anyway. It's going to be a day or two until I can confirm that Reflect's shard keeps its connection. If it does, I have to run a lot of tests. I don't want Emily to die because I misunderstood how Reflect's powers would work in the situation.

I am a complete idiot! Worrying about how I will deal with long range ballistics, and I completely forgot about one of the Zerg basic air units! Probably because their AI sucked, and they relied too much on micro to be cost-effective for me. The Scourge. Small, expendable, explosive, self-propelled bombs. At least I'm pretty sure those were a thing.

The Scourge is all about speed. I use a small fast bird as the base. The only internal organs it has are a heart, lungs, and brain. All tuned for maximum performance and a very limited lifespan. Unlike my other organisms to date, I do not cover it in smooth armor. Its entire body — except for the wings — grows thick, sharp spikes of carapace, all neatly folded side by side along its body akin to scales. Inside its torso… the usual explosive mixture of acids and alkali. At first it has organs to produce such, but then I realise those are needless complexity for a suicidal organism.

When the two chemicals mix, there is nothing to protect the organism from its own internal explosion, and no path out. Instead, it will swell up from the size of a fist, to around the size of football. The spikes all along its torso stand upright. Then the entire organism detonates along fracture points between those spikes, sending them flying for short range all around. The effect is — I hope — not too dissimilar from standing in proximity to a grenade going off. With the Scourge being alive, they can also aim themselves directly at things such as air intakes, engines, open doors, or any other weak-point worth targeting before detonating where they will do the most damage.

Their short lifespan would be a problem. Fortunately, nature has an answer for me already among my collected Essences. Several small animals enter various levels of hibernation and torpor. More than enough to allow the Scourge to last… potentially indefinitely as long as I provide them minimal amounts of nutrition while asleep.

If fired upon, they can make evasive manoeuvres. If needed, they can dive at ground-bound targets like tiny artillery. How the fuck did I forget about these? There are downsides to them. They can't really exist on their own. They need a mother organism that grows and feeds them around until awakened.

For the carrier — no, no, that's the Protoss one. These are… Scourge… Crawlers? Close enough — I borrow heavily from the Roach, but throw in large Essence chains of the Hatchery's reproductive capacity. A slow but incredibly heavy ambulatory organism with thick carapace plating. Taking a page from centipedes, its torso is long and flat, keeping as low a profile as possible. It can store hundreds of Scourges in hibernation. With the Scourge's small size and the Scourge Crawler being hyper-focused on birthing them, she can resupply her stock within a few hours. On the downside, a Scourge Crawler takes a while to grow to maturity. All the better reason to start a few right away!

While I am tinkering with Essences, I distribute the hibernation evolution to all my organisms. I've been hitting the catch twenty-two of needing more forces before I feel safe in allowing creep to overgrow the surface in plain view and yet hitting a limit to how much my current hidden creep can maintain. The black aquatic creep had helped immensely, but allowing organisms to hibernate when not needed — thus lowering their maintenance needs — will compound that.

Wait… why is the sun setting again? It was already late at night… Where… did the day go? Is that what a tinker-fugue feels like then? I can decisively say I don't like it. In fact, I hate it. A lot.

A quick survey of my organisms shows nothing went horribly wrong while I was so distracted. I'm not missing any. For a moment I had been afraid my organisms could go feral, but if that is a possibility it's not triggered by me simply being completely absorbed in something else.

The Watson Enclave has made good progress repairing their walls. I let a few Ratlings wander close in plain sight, and while it causes some measure of excitement — or perhaps consternation — among the survivors, nobody tries to kill them or chase them off. Good. I reward them with a small stash of supplies. Two-hundred Ratlings can scavenge a lot more food than Emily can eat, even when they have to dig it out of the places human scavengers have failed to reach.

Emily is -! Why the hell is Emily poking around the access shaft of the bunker

Alright, so Emily went exploring while I was in a fugue, and — somehow — made her way to the bunker access shaft. It's not like there's a giant sign marking its location or anything. Just an old government records facility, with a locked metal door blocking access to the stairwell into the bunker complex. There… might be a small sign by the door that marks it as an emergency shelter.

Or well… It used to be. Zerglings and Roaches are much too big to enter and exit through the Ratling tunnels and sewers, and so I was forced to rip the door — and a good chunk of the surrounding wall — out and excavate a tunnel.

The beam of Emily's flashlight lances through the darkness, illuminating the mossy dark green fungal carpet that makes up my creep, just missing the Ratling that spotted her. "Eeeeh, it went down into here?"

A human — or any being without strong claws — traversing the tunnel would have a hard time. The sides are steep, and Creep can be rather… slick. Slime Mould lives up to its name after all and is much too good at finding nutrient sources to just leave its Essence out. This slickness gets cranked up to eleven when it's melted into nutrient rich goop by a preteen girl's death aura. Emily… carefully makes her way through the first part of the tunnel, till she stands at the edge of one of the steeper inclines. "Mmm…" She crouches down and pokes at the creep on the slope. "How do I get down this… It's dying already too…"

I let out a sigh of relief, for a moment I had been afraid she was going to climb down. Where's Face at… back at the house. Let's get him to head in this direction and intercept Emily. In the meantime, I take the Ratling and head back up the tunnel towards her.

Then suddenly, just as Emily turns away from the slope, she slips on the liquefying creep, and with a high-pitched yelp, her feet slide out from under her, dropping her on her bum, and right over the edge! She tries to dig her fingers into the Creep, but the material is too tough for her nails to bite into — or too liquefied to matter — and the incline is too steep to gain traction. Emily flails wildly, trying to grab a hold of anything.

Instantly I throw my Ralting at her, trying to grab a hold of her and stop her unplanned and rapid descent. Her flailing leg connects with the Ratling mid-leap and sends it careening off at an angle. It's unharmed by the impact or landing, and grabs hold of the wall with ease, but by the time I reorient, Emily is gone out of sight down the tunnel.

Instantly, every organism in the bunker rouses itself and swarms towards the tunnel as my will to get to Emily over-rides all other instructions. Then Emily comes tumbling down and sprawls in a pile on the creep covered floor, her death aura on maximum power and range. I feel the effect immediately, and even as fast as I pull my organisms back, a few are already too close and their bodies show advanced stages of liquification by the time they withdraw to the edge of her range. Thankfully, it ends just short of the Hatchery, though around twenty cocoons are too close and rupture, partially developed organisms twitching in the air before also collapsing

"Ouch. That sucked." Emily says, carefully sitting up. "Hello? Alexei? Anyone? Where's my light…"

Light? But it's… oh right! I've been operating on heat vision and touch. It is rather pitch black in here.

Emily stands up, but collapses onto her bum with a pained cry and clutches at her foot. "Ow ow ow… Alexei?! Please… anyone?"

My organisms hiss and growl… they really aren't made for reassuring vocalisations. I need to get to her, but her power is cranked up to maximum and not going down. Ok, calm her down first. That means restoring her sight, so light. I had a team of Ratlings lugging one of those light spheres this way from the raider ambush site. It should be here by now. Where did it get stashed… there it is.

Emily freezes at the various sounds of my organisms coming from multiple areas around her. "Alexei…? I really really, really hope that's you and not some…. bad… things..."

A Ratling rolls the sphere out into the main room of the bunker, and taps a few spots on its surface, as Hewson had shown me. Instantly, the sphere lifts off the ground and floats a few meters into the air. With a low hum, it starts to glow. It's not bright, the charge must be low, but it's enough to provide some illumination of the room.

"Oh light! Umm…"Emily peers around in the twilight provided by the new light source. "Light's good! Are you here Alexei?"

Yes I am, but I can't speak because you left Face behind dammit! Well… I have the backup Face I made after the other two died… Was it amongst the cocoons that were too close to Emily? I take a moment to inventory the damage. Thank Ziz, most of the damage was to Zergling cocoons. Painful, but easy to replace. A couple of Mutalisk cocoons are much more painful.

I pull the Face clone out of hibernation and bring it as close as I dare, while remaining out of sight. "Of course I'm here Emily, who else would make alien monsters in Canberra, the Queen of Blades? Why did you come here? How did you even find here? No, most important, are you alright? That fall could have killed you!"

As soon as I speak, Emily flops to the ground and sobs. "Alexei! I'm sorry for… whatever I did!"

What? Sorry? She can't know about the cocoons that died. What's she talking about? "What… I you did nothing, Emily! Well, except almost getting yourself killed by coming here. What's… wrong?"

"Then… you aren't angry at me?" She asks, her voice small and stained with hope.

"No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

"You didn't come by in the morning… or at all, and the Ratlings were all… weird. Like… just dumb animals. I… I thought I'd done something wrong… that you were angry at me…"

Oh… Oh! "No Emily! Never! I should be the one apologising. Sorry for not coming to see you. I… I got lost in a tinker fugue, I think. After I left you, I had some ideas on organisms to make and evolutions to work on and… completely lost myself in working on them. I didn't even notice the day passing!"

"Tinker fugue? Oh! I read about those on PHO! Um… you… really fell into a fugue? Uh… oops? Sorry... I was worried… and scared… and a bit bored." She admits, looking down and tapping her fingertips together.

"So you decided to what? Come look for me? How did you even find this place?" I want to give her a hug so bad right now. She definitely looks like she needs it bad. This Face clone is, however, completely nude and uncovered. Speaking from the shadows is the best I can do.

"Mhmm. The Ratling just picked itself up after lying around all day and seemed to head somewhere in a hurry. So I followed it."

And since I wasn't paying attention, but still subconsciously considered Emily a trusted friend, it didn't hide from her. But why would it suddenly come here if it had been lying around the house all… day… "Emily… how many times did the Ratlings switch out today?"

"Umm… none? Yep. None. Why?"

"Ah, not important right now. Foremost… your leg. What's wrong?" Please don't be broken, please don't be broken… I do not know how to fix a broken leg. I don't even have any healer type organisms or anything. What do I do if she broke something coming down? Or there could be internal damage from the trip down!

Mutalisks should hatch in a few hours… If they can exfiltrate the dome, it would be a… roughly three to four day flight for them to cross the Pacific and continental United States… If I send all twenty-one, they should be enough to cause a distraction so one can grab Panacea out of Brockton Bay. Another three to four… maybe five day flight back carrying her… If I stick a tentacle into Panacea, who wins the resultant… Wait no, that's a stupid plan, and way over-reacting.

"It hurts, I think I twisted it when I landed." Emily says. She prods at said ankle and winces as she gently moves it around.

"Anything else? Does anything else hurt?"

"Yes? But I think it's just a few bruises from sliding down? My ankle hurts worst."

Or she's in shock and not feeling a worse injury… "I… I need to check you over and make sure. Face is still a ways away though. I've got another Face here, but… it doesn't have its coverings. Can you close your eyes and try to relax, focus on restraining your power? I'll have it check that you have nothing else wrong. You slid a rather long way."

"Face?"

"Oh. The minion I've been using to talk with you. I had to introduce it to the raider's prisoners, so I called it Face."

"You named the minion that constantly goes to such effort to never show itself… Face." A deadpan glare loses a lot when you don't know where to point it, Emily.

"I thought it was funny."

"Pfft. Well… maybe a little. Okay!" She closes her eyes. "I'll… turn down my power..."

I poke and prod at her body as gently as I can. Since I still don't know exactly what I am doing, and only paid the barest amount of attention in First Aid… I turn the Face on the surface back, and reroute it to the Watson Enclave.

Two guards are posted, watching over the area around their fortified building. They notice me as soon as I step into view. Good, it would be rather disappointing if the guards were slacking off right after being attacked. "Who's there?" The older looking of the two challenges me at a distance.

"It's Face. I must speak with Hewson. Or er… actually, do you have someone with medical knowledge?"

"Mr. Face! Hewson is sleeping. Old lady Mashal has been patching us up. Would you like me to fetch her?" He asks. At my affirmation, he immediately runs off.

He's back shortly with an elderly woman. I vaguely recalled having seen her with the other prisoners the raiders took, but she'd kept her head down and not stood out, aside from the simple fact of being twice the age of anyone else present.

"Hello, I'm Isabelle Marshal. Young Jake here says you have need of my help? I must ask, don't you work for one of those capes that can heal people?" She introduced herself.

"A pleasure to meet you Mrs. Marshal, you may call me Face. And no, Abzu's talent is in creation and modification, not healing without… changing in the process. It's… very different."

"Hmm hmm I see. And the patient? Is it you, or shall we go to another location? I'm not a doctor so there is only so much I can do, but I was a nurse for most of my life."

"Ah… about that… the patient is… unsafe to be around. You'll have to walk me through doing a check up. She…she fell, well more like slid down a fairly long drop. I just want to make sure there's no… undiscovered injuries. She's awake and lucid. Only reported injury seems to be a twisted ankle."

I try to pretend I am communicating Isabelle's instructions to a second party via some unseen device, while in fact I am simply having the Face clone with Emily follow along. Emily at least is very co-operative and lays there patiently while I fumble my way through the octogenarian nurses' instruction, my fingers poking, prodding, and feeling for sensitivity, swelling, or any other sign of something wrong.

"Alright Emily, you seem to be relatively uninjured after all, and the twisted ankle isn't even too bad. You should be fine in a few hours at most. Ah… you'll have to wait here until then… A Ratling can't carry you back and Roaches don't have resistance." I finally tell her.

"Mmmm… okay. I told you I was fine. That was… kind of nice, though." She admits, her face reddening. "Hey Alexei… I really want to know what Face looks like."

"It's… not good Emily." I say, standing up. "The usual Face clone will be here in a bit alright, just wait here and relax. Keep your eyes closed for a few more minutes while I get this one out of sight."

"Alexei… you're being silly. I will not run away if Face looks weird." She doesn't give me a chance to argue — or try to escape, or turn off the light sphere — and simply opens her eyes. I freeze, as does she. Then she takes a very controlled breath. "It's not that… bad."

"It's… not?" I ask, looking down at Face's body.

"Oh wow, nope, never mind!" Emily shuts her eyes and puts her hands over her face. "The moment you moved it's like… It's like… wow, so wrong. Like one of those mani- mannequins, just moved, while wearing someone's skin? I think? I'm okay not seeing that after all. Also… umm… it's uh… naked."

While Emily relaxes — in a puddle of melted creep — and waits for her ankle to recover well enough to stand on, I look into the Ratling she had followed here. She says it didn't switch out all day. There's only one way that's possible, and that is if it has either finished adapting, or at least is very close to doing so.

It would even explain why it would then head right for me. Even in my tinker fugue, I must have subconsciously realised that the Ratling had not suffered damage in long enough to be worth a checkup.

I pick out the right Ratling from the many bodies swarming around the bunker. Fortunately, Emily has got a handle on her aura projection range again, so there is actually room for my organisms to move around her. Shortly, the Ratling stands before my main body. I pick it up with one tentacle, and dive deep into its Essence, seeking that deep, faint piece of Essece that adapts to Emily's aura.

It's no longer faint. The Essence has developed, becoming strong and vibrant. It takes only a moment to extract it from the Ratling, and feed it into the swarm as a general evolution. Most organisms will take a few hours for the change to propagate across the population, but with creep it's almost instant. Within minutes, the dead spot around Emily begins to shrink as the creep surges through the previously uninhabitable space, consuming its own dead remnants to fuel its growth faster.

"Eeep! What's this?" Emily cries out, when the edges of the creep wriggle their way underneath her, lifting her off the cracked concrete floor.

Face — the one with covered in clothes — arrived just moments before, so I step into the chamber and answer her. "The Ratling didn't switch out all day, because it had become immune to your aura. Its reason for coming here was to deliver the newly developed Essence. The adaptation is spreading through all my organisms already, Creep is but the first and fastest to benefit from it."

I barely get the words out when my arms are filled with excited preteen. She squeals with excitement and before I even register it, kisses the clone on its covered up face. It's unfortunate I have to poke her in the ribs and remind her to watch her aura, cutting short her celebration. "It's spreading, but give it a few hours for the process to finish before you release your control, alright? There are sensitive cocoons in the next room."

Emily takes a few minutes to compose herself. At some point she realises what she did in her excitement as well and completely cannot fight down the blush. "So… what about other people? Can you give other people immunity too?"

"Ah no… well… yes, but… I doubt many would volunteer for that. Bio-tinker Master and all." Also, they wouldn't come out looking quite human.

"Oh… that's too bad. But now I can have a tour, right? I think my foot is better already!" She carefully puts some weight on her ankle. She stands on it for a moment, before collapsing against Face with an obviously exagerated gasp of pain. "Carry me!"

"What's the glowing orb thing?" Emily asks as Face carries her past it. "It doesn't look alive like everything else you've made!"

"It's not mine. One of Doctor Solaris's creations, a Sun Spot. I took it from the raiders yesterday. It has to recharge up on the surface during the day. That's why it's so dim right now."

Emily hums in thought as she looks at the floating sphere. "It doesn't belong in here, I don't like it. You should make a minion that glows! Like a firefly! Or there's these fish I saw on TV, that live super deep in the ocean where it's all dark, and they glow with really pretty lights! Can you do that?"

I… bio-luminescence… how the hell did I forget that option? Provides light, looks alien, and beautiful. "Y-Yes I can! I can't believe I didn't think of it! Luminescent spots and growths on the creep will give it a hauntingly alien beauty! Luminescent markings on my organisms, even! Maybe I can make the lights flicker and shift to make it look like they use light to communicate! I love it Emily!"

She giggles into my shoulder. "I can't wait! Oh, what are those?"

"Those are cocoons that are evolving more organisms. See the ones over there? Those are going to be Mutalisks. Flying organisms. I expect them to hatch by morning. With them ready… I will move on the raiders soon."

"Why? The raiders don't have any flying capes, do they?" She wrinkles her nose in thought. "Did the prisoners you rescued suggest they might?"

"No, but when fighting an enemy that lacks air support is the second best time to use your own."

"What's the first best?"

"When fighting an enemy that has air support." Well, probably, it sounds right, and it gets a laugh out of Emily.

"Hey, hey, Alexei?" She asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes?"

"When you attack the raiders… can I help? I said I was coming with you, and I meant it! But I don't want to just… follow behind. I want to be involved. It's… it's my future too." Her arms tighten around Face, pressing herself against it.

"I expected that. I know it's boring to stay back. One thing I was working on today was an organism you could use as living armour." I mustn't forget Emily is a natural trigger. Her shards conflict drive must be driving her stir crazy. The fact she has done nothing really dumb like go looking for raiders on her own… huh, I wonder if my Ratlings adapting to it has been frustrating the shard so much it forgot to push for more conflict? How pissed is it now that my entire swarm is making it irrelevant? That's right shard! For making Emily sad by not letting her turn your effect off, I will make it so nothing you touch will even notice you! Is it wrong to bully an extra-dimensional alien supercomputer? No, it's not.

"Oooh! What's it look like! Can I see it?"

"It's not finished yet." Even the basic design is still very much in flux. Despite the very real temptation to turn her into an Atlach-Nacha type monster-girl. Her personality is just all wrong for that. Also, the Atlach-Nacha has almost no armour value. Which is, of course, not to say I won't be borrowing inspiration! Zerg Queens are practically spider-girls and have plenty of space for Emily to fit inside. Just have to figure out the neural hookups. I'll have to take a good number of prisoners when I attack Capital Hill. Can't design a non-invasive neural hookup without scrambling some brains.

"So… will it be ready when you move on the raiders?" At my negative shake, she pouts. "Boo. Well, then… okay! I'll sit inside and be bored while you wage war on the raiders. But! You have to agree to something!"

"A condition? That's fair I suppose. Let's hear it."

"I want to see you." She says with a smile. "The real you, not just this minion."

I really should have refused her, I think to myself. Face carries Emily to the hallway connecting the Hatchery chamber to… the Overmind Chamber, I suppose. She swore up and down that she could keep her Aura weak and short ranged. I believe her. While she's had outbursts, usually brought on as an emotional response, she's also been pretty good at controlling herself in the aftermath, as long as the cause of the emotion isn't still around. Such as watching her bath.

"Put me down. I want to walk now." Emily commands. "Um… it's dark in there. No.. Sun… Spot?"

"No, I only took the one, left the rest with the prisoners. It was theirs originally. Here's your flashlight though, it was stuck halfway down the tunnel." I say, a Ratling offering the metal cylinder.

"Ooh thanks!" Emily cheers, and flicks the light on, its beam stabbing into the darkness. "Lets go!"

Within moments, we stand before the wide-open door to my chamber. Her light flickers over my form as she examines me.

"That's you?"

"Mmmm. I've grown. Used to be… around the size of a Roach. Now I'm taking up most of this room."

"You really look like a giant brain. With tentacles."

"Yup."

"So…" She steps into the room. Most of the space is now taken up by the bulk of my… self. I'll have to get the Ratlings to rip apart the ceiling soon, if I keep growing at this rate. "Who's the queen of blades?"

What? Where did she… Oh, right I said that didn't I. "… Is there a reason you ask that now, while standing right next to my actual body?"

Emily takes a hasty few steps back. "No! I didn't mean it like that! I just remembered you mentioning a queen of blades! The name sounded cool!"

Huh… Usually a reaction like that from her would be accompanied by a burst of her aura. Face is probably immune already, the evolution would have gone fastest with it since it had been exposed to her previously on many occasions, and was guiding her around… but I felt nothing in my Overmind body either.

"The Queen of Blades was a character from a video game I played way back. Ever hear of Starcraft?" I tell her, while simultaneously checking over my body. No sign of cellular breakdown or degradation… huh. What's this… The immunity Essence has been integrated into my body too, not just the swarm. Well, my shard may be a brain dead vegetable with no idea how human bodies look, and insistent on its own impressions being reality… but at least it recognises good Essence.

"Starcraft? No…?" She wrinkles her nose. "I never played video games much. William did, but I never heard of that one."

Makes sense, probably not a lot of girls her age that play Starcraft. Especially since it's probably a rather old Earth Alpha game, with the sequel being… doesn't it come out this year? "Eh, no matter. I can tell you about it at some point if you'd like."

Emily shrugs. "You promised to tell me about the origin of the name you chose. Umm.. Can I come closer?"

"Yes. It looks like my main body has become immune to your power too."

Emily smiles happily, and skips to my body, twisted ankle forgotten. She gently pokes my skin with a finger. "Huh, I thought it would be all slick and slimy when you said you were a giant brain. Uh… it's not fragile, is it?"

"No, it's actually a fairly thick, hide-like material." More evidence of my shard being able to identify quality Essence, I notice that there are carapace covered plates emerging from the base of my body. I expect they'll grow to provide additional armour to keep me safe from attack with time.

Hearing my response, Emily nods to herself, and… starts climbing up my body till she's sitting at the top. "Okay! So tell me about this Abzu you named yourself after!"

I tell her what I can remember about Abzu. The Mesopotamian primordial god of fresh water, who together with the — maybe — dragon Tiamat, primordial goddess of salt water, brought about all life. Or at least the first gods. If I get carried away on tangents about other aspects of Mesopotamian mythology I can recall, Emily seems to enjoy hearing the stories. When I'm finished, she makes a thoughtful noise.

"Hmm… Alexei. You have to make a body that fits the theme! Something that makes people identify you with this primo…uh… old water god! Oh, um… also… I think it's considered poor form for a cape to take mythical names?" During my story telling she sifted from sitting to laying down.

"Is it? I… hadn't been aware of that." I consider changing the name… "I'll stick with it. My choice of name being poor form is so far down the list of reasons or people to have issues with me, it's not even worth mentioning."

"Okay! Umm…" Emily shifts around atop my body. "Can I stay here tonight?" She asks with a yawn.

While Emily sleeps, I consider set about my work for the night. Bio-luminescence. I have firefly samples, so the Essence for creating the proper chemicals is easy. The process is fascinating, the subtle interaction of a few different materials to produce cold light. Complete and perfect conversion of energy to light, with none wasted on heat.

Creep starts to produce small growths that glow with pale blue, green, and purple luminescence. Then I go over all my organisms, both existing and evolving, and tweak their Essence to have a few decorative glowing points on their bodies. Hmm… actually… Its incredibly simple to make sure that the luminescent markings on my organisms are each unique, serving as identification when lit up.

Once I move on the raiders, I have to assume that my presence will certainly be noticed by outside forces. The Hatchery lays down cocoons for a massive increase in forces. A new Hatchery even, in preparation for the massive influx off nutrients to come.

My freshly hatched Mutalisks air out their wings in the morning sun. I can't afford to delay for much longer. My swarm is of sufficient size… I've got a decent selection of basic organisms — short of Hydralisks — and I can't waste too much more time preparing. Soon. At sunset I move, and by this time tomorrow… There will be no raiders.