Catalyst

Chapter 50: Aggravation

Abathur was never meant to be a commander. It wasn't a flaw, it was simply a fact. He had been grown as a researcher, a weaver of essence, a shaper of flesh. He was certainly capable of military command. In fact, he had enough skill to grow the likes of brutalisks and leviathans on the battlefield, in the midst of bloody combat. When growing weapons of war, a basic understanding of tactics was simply necessary. But it was not what he was made for. This conflict with the terrans, the mind games and deception, had sapped his time for evolution.

But Thenabar was handling the humans and working with Umbridge, who was managing the infiltration and the war, while Luna acquired more test subjects. And that left Abathur just where he wanted to be, standing in front of a row of cocoons, shaping and molding the next generation of the Swarm.

The Hive was both the first of his brood and the first place his attention was directed. They were an odd sort. A collection of traits and essences gathered by a primitive intelligence, focused on immediate survival and evolution. Almost like a primitive Swarm in their design, overly diversified with no real sense of cohesion and no specific roles to fill. That was fine. It simply meant they were in need of refinement.

The Hive had shined as spies, assistants, an army of hands and legs extended from a greater mind, such as his own or the weavers'. So that's what they would continue to be for now. Abathur took samples of each of the Hive's strains, mixed them together. The mass of the Hive would have to be simple, flexible. The end result was a small body, sitting on a series of branching limbs, each tipped with a single needle-thin claw. A small orifice surrounded by sensory organs would produce either the essence or silk needed for their controller's work. Simple, efficient. There would likely be need for more specialized strains, but for now, this would suffice. Abathur forced the mutation out from his mind into the flesh of the billions of already living Hive, forcing them into cocoons. Mentally observing the billions of individuals, he found another pleasant surprise: the Hive facilitated the mutation on its own. The newly evolved Hive attached themselves to the immature cocoons, piercing in and accelerating the process. Abathur estimated the Hive decreased their own mutation time by at least a third. A facet worth examining, a concept with massive potential. But later. He had other strains to evolve.

The weavers, eight legged shapers of wards and runes, were the next to gain Abathur's attention. Physically, there was little need for improvement. The acromantula had already been made to weave webs, and he had already set up places for the Hive to nest. Aside from some minor improvements, adjusting the jaw shape, replacing terran processes with Swarm ones, there was no need for him to do anything. The greater problem was with their mind.

When the weavers had been left to their own devices, they had constructed wards. Powerful wards, complex wards, but incredibly inefficient. The weavers had confined them to acting like beast-like behavior, as thought the wards were a crude thing of flesh and blood rather than the phantasmal force they should have been.

Part of that was his own fault. He had thought of runes as the essence of psionics and that thinking had contaminated the weavers. For the same reason, he wouldn't be able to fix it. As much as Abathur loathed to admit it, he was less than capable of filling this role. A disturbing implication. He had been guiding the Swarm's development since his creation. But psionics demanded a fundamental shift of nature. To advance it, he would have to overwrite almost all of his base instincts. Unacceptable. His ability to alter essence would be crippled. The Swarm would stagnate. A biological standstill just for the sake of psionic advancement would leave the zerg no better than humans. The very idea was so foul that he had to flood his brain with memory suppressants just to purge the comparison from his mind.

No, the Swarm needed a new Master, a Master of psionics, a mirror of his own position. It would be tricky. The Overmind had personally created Abathur from the strands of every zerg strain in existence. To do anything less would be a waste. He was sure there were a few methods that could work. Abathur just had to experiment.