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Fire. Fire bursts out of my Zergling's carapace, immolating its flesh and charring its bones. It wasn't the only one to suffer such a sudden and combustive end, as over a dozen other organisms burned. Mostly Zerglings and thankfully only a few of the significantly less numerous Mutalisks, as well a single Roach had been caught in the whirling cloud of embers.

The Roach even survives, though its carapace is charred black and partially melted — somehow. Probably shard shenanigans. The cape responsible reforms from the remaining embers that his body had become. I don't know how often or how many times he can repeat that trick, but seeing as I don't recall many capes having anything like a handy 'uses per day' limitation for their powers… I'm going to guess he's not going to stop if given breathing room.

A hidden Zergling charges at him, it's small wings deployed and beating furiously to aid in its movement. I'm almost upon him, scythe-blades raised and ready to rend his organs from his bloody corpse, when the giant sandy… thing steps in front. My Zerglings blades sink into the sand with little resistance, but before I can even consider following through on the attack, the sand explodes outward in a burst of intense force. Sand particles are driven partially into the hardened carapace, and easily blast through the thinly armored joints to shred ligaments and connective tissues. The Zergling is also thrown backward with enough force to leave it dazed as it crashes to the ground, slowly bleeding purple from most of it's body.

The woman with the sun and moon emblems is, annoyingly, focusing on my air support, keeping my Mutalisks too busy dodging her rapid fire barrage of alternating light and dark. Neither on their own is extremely harmful, under normal circumstances my Mutalisks would simply ignore her best impression of a bullet-hell game. When any of my creatures however is hit by both types of attack in close succession? Boom, no more Mutalisk.

"The big ones are too massive for me to burn up!" Shouts the ember-powered cape in the few moments between being a cloud of brilliant sparks. "Quantum, can you make them go away?"

The tinker nods, while focusing the shots from her revolvers at the approaching Roaches. "Sure, Firefly! Clear me a path!"

Firefly once again disappears into a cloud of swirling and burning embers, moving unnaturally and in complete disregard of any wind or laws of physics I am aware off, dozens of the lights sinking into a not in-significant number of my Zerglings.

The tinker, Quantum holsters her revolvers and draws the large sword, charging past the burning organisms and at the Roaches.

Of course I'm not going to just let her get free hits in, whatever that sword does they seem to be counting on it to at least disadvantage my heavier organisms. Multiple sprays of boiling acid wash over her, splattering the boob-plated power armor but not seeming to harm the cape within. As expected of proper tinker armor.

A moment later, she reaches the first of her targets, and swings her sword. The moment it hits, the Roach just… disappears. No… not gone, there's a moment of disorientation, but my Roach is alive and well. It is however enclosed in a glass holding cell, with a faint purple tinge in the air. I immediately notice its metabolism slowing. Not quite sleep, more like a complete loss of motivation and reaction to stimulus. It's… surprisingly effective at stilling the organism, and takes me a noticeable effort of will to force the Roach to examine the cylinders location.

Dozens of identical cylindrical cells fill the room. Dark uniformed soldiers stand interspersed throughout, and a cluster of people are observing and gesturing wildly at the Roach.

So that's why they abandoned the truck with its cargo of cages. Their actual sample gatherer is the tinker, or at least her sword. Why even bother with cages if they had that option? A backup plan? The tinker seems much more efficient then trying to overpower and stuff a bunch of alien organisms into cages, while possibly being under attack.

I refocus on the group of capes. The earth-mover cape is keeping the swell of earth under them mobile, either he lacks any other ability or controlling the swell takes all his attention. He has a decent number of kills to his name, as the first wave of Zerglings had discovered — to their detriment — that anything touching the ground when the swell reaches it is sucked in, ground up, and left behind as a bloody splotch in the rubble. Fortunately it's not hard to avoid, simply jump or fly over the leading edge.

Drat, doing so has probably tipped my hand on how intelligent or adaptive my organisms can be. Odds the government recognizes a sapient intelligence have just gone up.

These intruders are annoying, not least of all because they are actually inflicting relatively — for their only being five of them — heavy casualties. The amount of dead doesn't matter too much, the vast majority of expended nutrients can be reclaimed by the creep and my hatcheries are already producing more Larvae as fast as they can. The captured specimens are a larger concern.

A thought wakes hundreds of Zerglings out of hibernation sends them charging towards the moving battle.

What really pisses me off about their leaders chosen schedule to deploy this capture team, is that I have to be focus on the battle directing my organisms wile Emily is talking to the two unknown capes! Ziz damn them, I should be there for her first time meeting with other humans, not just relying on her escort of Zerglings to protect her, should the capes become agressive.

As much as I despise their choice of timing, I have to give the government team some respect. They know their rolls and are working together like a well oiled machine. Ah reminds me of a well established DnD group.

The sand golem playing hard defense, the mover keeping the entire group mobile even while standing still, the one known as Firefly cleaning large swaths of Zerglings away without falling behind, and Quantum alternating between assisting in keeping the air clear of Mutalisks with her revolvers or sending specimens to containment cells in some unknown location.

I can only see one glaring weakness in their lineup. The rapid-firing… striker? I think they're called strikers. Her accuracy at range is… completely atrocious. Combined with the need to connect with both of the energy types she's throwing out? It's only the sheer volume of bolts released into the air that is keeping my Mutalisks at bay.

I could pull back my organisms, and let the cape team proceed unopposed… but that really rubs me the wrong way. They came here, onto my territory, and started attacking my organisms with intent to capture. Just because it's expected doesn't make it acceptable!

On the other hand… the urge to Zerg rush them with my entire swarm and then keep going right through the quarantine is also tempting. So. Very. Tempting. I only hold myself back since I'd like a chance to speak with the Enclaves leaders before I start a full scale war that they will inevitably be dragged into. As long as the outsiders limits themselves to probing attacks and capture missions, I can wait.

A quick check in with Emily…

She's standing across the street from the two visitors, Face at her back. The squad of Zerglings hidden in the surrounding, awaiting if they are needed. Emily doesn't smell stressed, and they are chatting, mostly Emily catching up on news from outside, in exchange for… an interview on 'surviving in post-Simurgh Canberra'? Well yeah, I guess people would be curious. I don't have the time to pay attention, but she seems to be making up some stories based vaguely on her own experiences, but mostly on what I'd told her about the Enclaves.

I pour my entire focus into one of my Mutalisk. My wings hum in a symphony with the others, my body flexes and dances through the air. I screech and dive at the intruders, the rest of my Mutalisks following. Bolts of light and darkness are already filling the air in my general direction, but a flick of my wings sends my dancing to the side, then up, then- A bolt of light hits my gripping arm, leaving a tingling sensation and minuscule damage to the carapace. I reverse and drop, avoiding a barrage of darkness that would have ended this organism.

One second. I weave between a burst of dark bolts, barely avoiding clipping one.

Two seconds. My wings beat the air in sudden motion, and I contort my body trying to avoid an incoming bolt of pitch black. It's not going to be enough… only for another of my Mutalisks to zip past me and tank the bolt. It's life is short-lived as a subsequent barrage of light disintegrates it.

Three seconds. The tingling in my gripping appendage fades, but I continue to dodge shots.

Four seconds, a bolt of darkness connects and my wing goes numb. Thankfully the effect of the first light-based hit wore off just in time. My maneuverability is still severely hampered by the numbness in my wing, but it doesn't matter, I am close enough. I curve my abdomen forward and clench muscles no human has.

Uncured webbing is mixed with congealing agents only at the last minute, before it is blasted out in a aerosolized form. Rather then a string, a cloud of semi-congealed goop settles over the entire hero team, rapidly beginning to stiffen as it adheres to them, the ground, and itself.

I'd intended it to foul aircraft engines and possibly act as a home-grown equivalent to the PRT's containment foam, especially against brutes. In that function, it may yet serve… at other times. I did not count on the sand golem's response to being coated in quick-setting milky strands.

Whether the response is an automatic physical reaction, some aspect of its power, or if being coated in gallons of webbing has triggered some deep seated phobia… The golem explodes! A torrential hurricane of sand blasts away from the epicenter, washing over the rest of the intruders and the front line of my organisms.

The mover simply ceases to exist, his construction equipment-like armor can't stand up to the near point blank wave of turbulent sand that forces its way around and through. Flesh and meat are swept clean off his bones, and those along with pieces of his armor are scattered across the street.

The rapid-fire striker fairs little better, without even light armor, she becomes little more then a damp, rust colored streak of sand adhered a building wall.

Only Firefly and the Quantum remain relatively unscathed. The first was lucky to be a in his changer state, the cloud of superheated motes not caring one bit about the wall of grinding sand, and only melted it to create spears of molten glass that splatter on impact with hard surfaces.

Quantum on the other hand glows a pale blue, her body seeming frozen in place for the moment as the blast of sand washes over her. When it passes, the glow blinks out and she's back to normal.

In the epicenter of the explosion, a naked man is curled up in the fetal position, his skin rubbed an angry blistering red. Huh, I guess the golem wasn't a Case-53 after all. Another changer?

I don't give the survivors a chance to re-orient themselves, the explosion pushed my swarm back, but they are quick to recover. The closest of my Zerglings can hear Quantum yelling into what must be a radio.

"Shit, shit shit! Darude just blew up! Bulletspam and Bulldozer are… were are they?!" The last is spoken to Firefly.

He only looks around at the devastation, pieces of armor mixed with bones both human and not. He shakes his head. "They're gone. We need to get out of here. Activate the recall!"

My Zerglings draw closer, the front runners limping and bleeding from a number of injuries, but already beginning the slow healing process. You're not getting away that easily, not with all the captured specimens you stole.

That's when the surviving three humans simply pop out of existence, leaving my Zerglings to bite and slash furiously at thin air. Fuck, they got away after all. Fucking teleportation. I'm jealousy.

Not too far ahead of the intruders projected path, a fully grown and gravid Scourge Crawler burrows back under the Creep. I had so been looking forward to luring Quantum into 'capturing' the organism.

Juul happily chats with the girl — Emily — they met, while Dazza takes photos of everything he can get to hold still for a few seconds. Speaking of… She checks on her brother and finds him… apparently trying to lure some blue, armored monstrosity out of the sewer with promises of a sandwich, a camera in his other hand.

"Dazza ya flamin' galah, yer gonna lose yer fingers!" She yells, ready to jump up and run to his aid.

"Reckon I know what I'm flamin' well doin' mate, watched that Irwin bloke on the telly!"

"He wasn't handlin' weird cape blighters, ya dingbat! Also the blokes a brute who won't croak if things go pear-shaped!"

The creature he was trying to take a photo of fled with a leap and — were those wings helping it too? Their further argument is interrupted by Emily laughing.

"As long as you don't attack them, they're pretty harmless. I've heard them called Zerglings? Don't know where the name came from."

Dazza perks up at the promise of information on the odd creature. "Ya mentioned some bloody unusual critters poppin' up with this growth." He taps his foot on the dark green fleshy substance covering nearly everything. "Whaddya reckon these blighters are?"

"Mmmm…" Emily cocks her head to the side. "Well they showed up not too long ago… I heard they were made by some tinker or something? But they usually stay clear of Humans. Well unless you provoke them. I saw a pack rip apart some assholes that were really asking for it." There's an oddly satisfied grin on her face as she says that.

Juul frowns slightly, and leans in to Dazza, thankful that the girls request to keep a distance apart makes a whispered conversation with her brother easier without being overheard. "Oi, Dazza! Is it just me or does she seem bloody fit as a fiddle, considering all the shit she's been through?"

Dazza nods slightly. "Bloody oath, you're spot on. She ain't lookin' like someone who's scrapin' for a feed every day. She even turned up her nose when I mentioned tuckin' into some roo. Yeah, she might be a city slicker, but crikey… why would she be tellin' porkies?"

"Some people are just a bunch of bloody liars, ain't they? Remember ol' Travis? That bloke was a full-grown adult and couldn't help but spin lies left, right, and center. Maybe this sheila's hopin' we'll feel guilty enough to smuggle her out of quarantine. " Juul shrugged her shoulders. "We're 'ere to snap photos, not play detective. And you've got plenty of 'em already. Fair dinkum, we're sorted!"

Dazza rubbed his hand across his face. "I've gotta say, I've been considerin' it meself. This ain't no place for bloody kids, ya know? Stuck in quarantine for the rest of their days, 'til someone or somethin' gets the better of 'em."

Doctor Aldridge looks over the floor of his laboratory, the large tinker designed cylinders keeping the captured specimens contained and dormant. He'd had to pull some strings to get those designed, but double redundancy is better then just relying on sedatives.

Well as much as looking out over his new personal fiefdom pleases him, he has work to do, and the specimens weren't going to vivisect themselves! Or analyze their own genetics! Oh the glorious science to be done, and on creatures never before seen on earth! A few quick orders see his assistants begin to prep the operating room, while he begins to go over the specimens and choose his first subject.

It's a shame he'll have to part with some of the specimens for that Hoad women to play around with, just because she had the first team out to capture that solitary sample. Bah! What would the Department of Villainy Prevention know about real science anyways!

By god, signing up with the Ministry of Parahuman Affairs was the best choice he ever made!