An Ton's Journey

As Arbiter was scanning the planet, I looked at the beautiful space. Although it was not my first time in the space, but it was the first time I really looked at it just to enjoy the view.

Scan neared the end, and by the looks of it, there are no sentient life on this planet, but it have a lot of life all across the planet itself. All kinds of life.

In the sea, in the sky, on the land and even in the earth.

The only way for this planet to have sentient life and Arbiter nit being able to detect it, would be if they live deep in the water or deep below the earth.

From what I could see, this planet had two polar caps, one big continent, and many islands all over the planet. Really a lot of islands.

There were semi sentient species, but they were not evolved enough to be called sentient. They lived in the caves or in good natural places. But they didn't build or use any instruments in their life.

But looking at information about their size and strength, it is not really surprising. They could take smaller trees our of the ground by themselves, and using stones or bones they hunted for the food.

That was everything that Arbiter could find about them.

As for animals, there were a lot of humongous, some of them even reaching hundred and fifty meters in length. But these were rare, mostly max size of any animal reached thirty meters in length.

As deeper surface scan for potential resources and things that could provide energy required getting closer to the surface, I chose a place with moderately big amount of animals that I would hunt for food.

I decided to try to avoid these humongous things that could swallow Arbiter if they would ever feel like it.

As I landed, I decided to use some nanobots to shoot at metal parts and heat them up, so it would be used by the system.

But, after couple by of times, it was not worth it as wood burned much longer, releasing much more heat that was converted in the energy.

now, my length was approximately two and half meters, width of seventy centimeters, and height of half a meter.

And in the last few days, I was feeling itchiness growing. Itchiness all over my body. It stops after a while, then returns.

As another week passed, itchiness reached unbearable degree and I am scratching myself all the time.

After few days of suffering, I woke up better then ever.

But as I was trying to stand up, I lifted my eyes too fast, and hit the ceiling with my head. Yes, head.

Now I have head, and looking in the mirror, I am a mix of a larva, having lower part of larva, and a protoss.

I have eight pairs of legs on which I can stand, flexible body, that can turn in unimaginable ways, four hands, and a head.

As I opened my mouth, I could see not only that these tentacles became thicker and longer, but also that I had strong teeth.

As I continued looking at myself, I found no reproduction organs, and it disappointed me a little bit.

My hands were not very muscular, but they were looking pretty strong nonetheless.

I had five fingers on each hand, instead of 3-4 of protoss's, and I think I resemble Zagara from StarCraft, but I look more humanoid and physically pleasing.

At least I think so.

When I tried to use my second pair of hands, I felt a little bit confused. It felt like I had them for s long time.

After looking at myself for some time, and getting used to my new looks, I turned around and saw that the place where I slept had a big broken cocoon, with a lot of pinkish-purple slime coming out of it and spreading.

Is this creep?

It looks like it is not liquid, but upon touching I can feel springiness and softness of the thing.

As I am zerg now, with what looks like protoss hair thingy on the back of my head, making me something in-between, I decided that letting creep spread might benefit me.

After eating some meat and burning more wood, I decided to compare the current and previous sizes of the creep, and as I placed it outside, It began to grow more.

Nah, not trying it.bit looks nasty.

After couple of months, system finally could enable conversion function and now I just needed to deposit more things, without burning.

As in the last few weeks I collected tons upon tons of wood, and even though I burned it in huge batches, I still had a lot of it.

And by the way, creep spread out pretty far now, and even if it is slowly spreading, it still covered pretty sizeable portion of the mountain, making it look like a big meaty hill.

After a year and a half from me arriving at the planet, system finally came alive.

{ Energy deficiency removed }

{ Main functions enabled }

{ Saving mode enabled }

Half of all deposited resources would be converted in to energy in case of emergency.

{ new functionality available }

[ Zerg recreation ]

-Allows converting fresh genetic materials in to the zerg, requires meat. Low efficiency, requiring excessive amount of energy.

{ Protoss mutation found }

{ Zerg now have unpredictable mutation}

" Good morning An Ton, how long did I miss? "System asked before beginning to consume trees from my inventory that I placed inside conversion space.

" Morning... Well, I think around a year and a half? maybe a little more since I became a larva " I replied.

Presently, my height reached three meters and My muscles naturally, without much exercise grew up to be pretty strong.

My carapace grew tougher, and I grew sharper nails that I had to cut, so I could use them to reconstruct droideka.

" So, what is going on, and why am I now zerg? Why can I create zerg? The next thing will be me summoning Terrans?" I asked, finally being able to receive an answer.

" no, Terrans became almost extinct in the last war, and were sent far away to repopulate just like zerg and protoss. " System replied to my last question.

" As for the reasons of you becoming zerg, it was necessary breach of protocol, because survival was bȧrėly possible. " It replied.

" As for creating zerg, they can never rebel or betray us, unlike protoss, who were much better of our survival. Zerg creation is unlikeable choice, but in our situation it is the only one that would allow us to prepare for [ Borg ] invasion. " System replied, providing me with first portion of minerals, that was less then before, as rates were decrease from necessity.

" Borg? You mean these androids from Star Trek? " I asked.

" For you they are known as such, yes. It is just matter of time before they find this galaxy and ȧssimilate it "

" Being subtle or secretive will not be beneficial anymore. You can't work efficiently without anything to make you hurry, so it was deemed necessary for this knowledge to be told " System replied.

" Oh fck. I remember them being the worst nightmare of Star Trek. You should've told me sooner! When will they come?" I said, beginning to think about what can I do and when will they come.

" Time of their arrival is unknown, any other questions will have to he answered later. I request you to provide me with more matter to restore functionality to 100% " System said, making me hurry and fly out to collect dome trees, that were no longer visible as I already burnt most trees that I could see in my field of view.

" So, when will you be able to create drone, so I will be able to create my own colony? " I asked.

" Firstly, You would need to make cerebrates, and connect to them. Only after that would you be able to control all the zerg, and zerg would be able to function fully. " System said.

" Is there no other way? That doesn't include me connecting to big slimy worms? " I asked.

" There is. " System answered.

" What is it? " I asked, hoping for better choice.

" It is to evolve and become overmind. Result would lead to you becoming hive mind and it might have unknown problems " System replied, knowing that I would want to stay myself, at least as person.

" What would be needed to connect to the cerebrates? " I asked.

" You see, you would be connected to them like protoss to Khala, through these tubes on your head, but you would need to physically connect them to cerebrates after creating them. Also, you in your current form is different from Normal zerg, because in the beginning you were protoss, and by mistake In process of emergency, protoss DNA was mixed with zerg larva's, successfully making impossible possible" System replied, while I began getting trees. Happily from being able to talk with a system.

" So, how much cerebrates would I need? " I asked, after putting some boulder to convert it to minerals, or more correctly - energy.

" At first, two would be enough. They would allow to maintain hive and connection to you, but you would need to order everything by yourself, especially all major things." System replied.

" So, I would need to do everything? Even when I would cover the whole planet in colonies? " I asked, already beginning to feel tired from possible future.

" No, you could leave backyard colonies to queens, but expansion, creation of new colonies and practically everything else you would need to do yourself. Well, maybe except for minor details. " System replied.

After conversing and collecting resources, I returned back to my rebirth place, where I stopped being just a larva, and placed a lot of meat to create two cerebrates.

As all the collected resources were used for this goal, I decided to go and collect some creep to convert it. And by using nanocostumes, it was pretty easy.

These nanobots are useful.

" By the way, what would we do with protoss? would we be able to summon them? " I asked, as I was looking at this disgustingly beautiful process - creation of new intelligent life.

" I don't have ability to manipulate their minds, I could do this while they were being warped in this place, but not now. As for the buildings, I just made a change so now all newly created protoss buildings or fully technical things would not be accessible to them. As for new protoss, I could summon some, but there is a risk of summoning Dark Archons, and they can't be controlled. So only specific units could be summoned, and heroes too. " System said.

" Obviously heroes that were not summoned yet " It added.

After couple of days, and harvests, creation of cerebrates was finished. Now it is time to connect.

I sat close to them, lifted my 'hair' and connected to the cerebral.

Woah. Such an interesting view. It is like I am in the sky, but can see anything in detail if I concentrate my view on it.

Woah.

" woa. that was strange feeling " I said to the system after disconnecting from first one.

" Yes, it must be unusual for you, you might be feeling much weirder in the future, as the things that you will connect to with second one, wouldn't be felt just yet" system said.

" What do you mean" I asked, sitting close to the second cerebral.

" You will begin feeling connection to the whole swarm. And you don't have swarm yet. So, not yet. You will see.

And system was right, I didn't feel anything new, except for feeling existence of cerebrates.

As the night began, with me just finishing my connection, I ate and went to sleep.

After waking up, I felt good and in anticipation of new things.

As suggested, I created only one drone and as it appeared, it looked strange.

It's veins were blue, and eyes were burning in blue flames, just like Archon's. As fir the claws, they were much more sleek then in the game.

As difference was expected, as I am a mix between protoss and zerg, I ordered for it to mutate in to the hive, successfully creating my first living building.

It took time, time to grow and time to form.

Veins on the bubble surrounding the building were shining blue and the heartbeat was very strong.

After a day, hive was created. It was not as big as Nexus, but it was impressive.

And I think I just saw larva popping out of it. nice.

This hive was different, like the drone. It's blood was mix of blue and purple, making it's colour scheme different from normal.

In addition, I felt like it could use psi energy. I don't know how I know it, but I can feel it.

After asking system, it seems that most probably, I created a new zerg type that have affinity to psi energy, and it could bring very interesting changes to the swarm.

After hive appeared, all the larvas were immediately being changed to either overlords that could create creep and help controlling more zerg, or to the drones that were used to create more hives.

For now, I decided to fly all around the world and placed tens of new hatcheries all around the planet.

In a week, I placed a hundred hatcheries and these hatcheries were creating overlords and drones.

Drones were sent to collect any resource, and overlords delivered these resources to me. So I would convert or save them.

As creating Nexus was hardly possible, as it required a lot of resources because it was main control unit for protoss, I requested for Arbiter's probes to create fully functional normal one. This required resources, so they were bought and placed in the ship.

After first probe came out, I began establishing first energy perimeter. As building some things required energy, pylons were being built first, and then through the system, controlling station wad being created.

Now, only time was needed, until I would be able to return to the galaxy and show protoss how wrong they were.

And I better remember, that they had a lot of time to grow in power, and I should steadily expand before announcing myself to the protoss.

After a week of ordering around, I covered almost third of the planet in creep

I spent a lot of time on Flying everywhere and establishing colonies.

But after 250 colonies, I had to built new cerebrates, so I built them and stopped spreading hatcheries.

Now I began making all the colonies better, but mainly first one.

I still didn't have a spire, but first hydralisk was standing in front of me. And let me say, he can shoot two different types of projectiles. Psi spikes and he can spew acid from some kind of secondary stomach.

As for the zerglings, at first I used them to hunt for everything that could be eaten, but now they just patrol all around the colony.

I already have more than enough food in inventory.

As for what zerg eat? creep. and it is abundant on here, it regrows fast and fills their stomach fast.

As spire is very big building, just like hive, it took time to build.

After few days, this planet was half filled with creep. I didn't need to hurry up with complete control over planet, so I concentrated on Mutalisks that were flying in the sky.

If you consider that every colony now have a queen that follows my commands, I am almost ready to travel to the next planet and begin spreading my swarm there.

You can't imagine how it feels to sense all the zerg at once. It is like knowing they are there for you, always ready to help and do anything for you.

This made me feel safe and warm, successfully allowing me to forget that my swarm isn't really peaceful by nature.

But as I spread my influence, I avoided colonizing planets with sentient species, at least fully colonizing. I was creating a colony or two, but decided bot to spread out needlessly on these planets.

After couple of months of active expansion, system warned me about my imminent second transformation.

So, to provide me with enough tissue and energy, I returned to the first planet and dived into the spawning pool, that grew very big and was growing bigger and denser.

Upon entering it, I was beginning to fall asleep, failing to notice the whirlpool that was appearing because of me.

I couldn't see this, but at the place where my body was previously, cocoon began appearing and all the liquid from the pool was converging on it.

After a while, as the pool was emptied, the cocoon began consuming creep from the vicinity, making creep come from all around the planet and be consumed by the cocoon in which I was becoming something different.

This process was going for a while, as creep grew, moved and was consumed. I, in the previously mentioned cocoon was changing.

My stabby legs and lower slimy part if the body were becoming one and separating in three parts. After some time, these three parts were resembling two legs and a tail.

As for my upper half, I was growing slender, as there were not enough tissue. This was unexpected event, as even system had to interfere in the process.

From the looks of it, me being a mix of protoss and zerg made me require insane amount of biological tissue to evolve. System, forcing me to evolve when it expected everything to go fine, had to help me to survive by providing all the conversed energy that was saved, successfully avoiding failed mutation.

What system didn't take in account, before forcing an evolution, was existence of force. And that it existed everywhere in the living beings that grew in thus universe.

And as all the zerg, me including, were born in this universe, midichlorians existed in our bodies.

That, and existence of psi energy within me resulted in unexpected mutation while evolving.

As evolution finished, month passed by.

" Yawn " Came the sound out of my mouth, as I woke up floating on the platform that was flowing on the surface of the spawning pool that was refilled with time.

I woke up, and decided to look at myself first. Look at my changes. Thus, I took away a full-size mirror.

Unexpectedly, I grew a little bit shorter.y height, after measuring it became two meters seventy centimeters. Now, for some strange reason I had bigger ċhėst, and it was soft. Dud I become woman?

Doesn't seem so. I checked. I still can't have kids, but now, for some reason I have soft ċhėst. Well, it doesn't really matter.

My body was covered in dense plates that protected almost all the parts of my body, except for joints.

I had two legs, very long tail that I could lift up to my eyes and look at it, two legs like protoss's, four hands moved a little bit and became six. two hands, grew not from the sides, but from the backside, but were longer then normal and could be used beside my four previously existing hands.

My hair connectors grew longer, successfully reaching my tailbone, my face became more humanly, and eyes had some kind of transparent flame coming out if them. If there were no air disturbances from them, I wouldn't even notice it.

My hands, my torso, and legs were too slim fir my liking, but I will need to check their strength first, before making a decision to train or not. To increase muscle mass.

" System, why do I see zerglings being so thin? what happened?" I asked, after seeing that zerglings that were on the shore were malnourished.

" An Ton, in process of your stabilization evolution, unexpected mutation happened. Making you use much more tissue and energy then was previously Calculated. " System replied, explaining to me what previously happened.

" So, I now can use psi energy and force? " I asked.

" Most probably, but you will still need to get used to your body. And only then you should begin trying to use these abilities." System replied.

" Also, in the month that you were out, I detected protoss scouts closing in on our solar system. If my calculations are not wrong, we will be found in approximately two months. I recommend to get in contact with them first, otherwise they might attack our colony, successfully making us enemies even before we could try and clear our misunderstanding" System replied.

" A Month? well. I see. You say clear misunderstanding? they clearly betrayed us. I don't think that it us just misunderstanding " I replied, feeling a little bit angry at them for making me waste so much time.

" They were misled, and not all of them were brainwashed to think that we are bad. There still a way for peace. They are not our enemies. " System replied, making me sigh.

" Sigh.... "

" I still won't forget their betrayal, but I understand. We are fighting against species that doesn't care about our differences, and all help could be needed. But don't even hope that I would forgive them just like that." I replied, continuing, not allowing system to reply.

" Even though I didn't show it much, but I still feel bad about their actions. And they would have to bear with my anger at them, at least for some time. " I replied, not feeling that much anger after releasing it.

" Understandable. I hope you would be able to reign in your currently unstable emotions, and look into the future. " System replied.

" Okay. I will try. And I will go and check what I can currently do. Oh, also what is the progress with Tassadar? " I asked, remembering about it after system mentioned protoss.

" Currently you wouldn't be able to summon him, his current position was found, and with help of newly acquired information from your mutation, his summoning would cost you approximately 300 million minerals and a hundred million of vespene energy equivalent. " System replied.

" I wanted to ask you long ago, but why do you separate minerals and gas if it is just energy for you? " I said.

" The reason is these are two different energy types and for you to understand the amounts needed, I use minerals and vespene " System replied, successfully making me abandon any other questions.

After our talk, I arrived at the shore of the spawning pool, and gone to the Arbiter.

After arriving at the planet that was closest to the protoss scouting party, I began adapting to my new body.

Currently I would say me physical strength was immense, but when I tried using my two backhands, they unexpectedly fell off and disappeared before reaching the earth. Wtf???

________________________

Thank you [ Grey Knight ]

pa treon.com/Muraveyy

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``` Author's note ```

`` 93 +- words ``

` 3888 words in chapter `

Thank you for reading, and enjoy if you can.

Our mc will soon return back to the SW galaxy, and continue his journey in it.

As for the zerg? they would continue to spread outside the galaxy, and a little bit inside it.

Our mc finally found a really to use his abilities, become stronger and gain influence!

Who doesn't know, Borg is a race from Star Trek.. Google it, they are creepy to have as an enemy.