Jean’s fingernails digged into her palms as every single part of her body continued to burn. The zerg virus slit past her skin and sank into her bones. Jean let out a sharp and calculated scream that was designed to express her pain. For a second she thought of unleashing the Warden forces in the ship and end the metamorphosis by force, but her logic forced her to give up that idea.

She had spent too much to get this valuable opportunity. If she fell back now, she would not only be hunted by the swarm and potentially die but also lose a chance to be much stronger than she was before. She had no idea what opposition she might need to face in the future, and that wasn’t good. She needed to be as powerful as possible...no matter what the price was.

Jean had already lost her count of time when she heard the sound of her bones cracking and felt as if her mind exploded. The endless waves of pain had already numbed her senses, but the horrifying sound and the sudden comfort woke her up. Jean opened her eyes and saw the organic liquid in the spawning pool had already turned from green to translucent as if its essence was drained. In contrast to the depressing nature of the spawning pool, Jean herself felt full of strength, as if there was nothing in the world that could stop her. Kerrigan couldn’t. Amon couldn’t. The one that sent her here couldn’t. But her logic side told her it was a hallucination caused by her sudden increase of power. In reality a single Kerrigan could kill her. Re-entering the concealed and logical state, Jean stood up in the spawning pool and looked down on her body. What she saw not very visually pleasant.

Her pale skin was now covered in a thick layer of specialized blue carapace similar to that on Kerrigan. The carapace was modified to include minimal weight and provide maximum protection. Her back was bare, unlike Kerrigan. She looked down on her hands and saw that her long fingers were turned into long, dangerous claws. The wound in her palms that her fingernails created during the transformation was gone due to the mending ability she gained. Her entire body radiated with strength, but in exchange she had lost the beauty she had in terran form, not that Jean cared. Having a pretty face couldn’t save her from enemies. Having a powerful zerg body could. Plus, she could always transform back.

“Congrats.” In front of the spawning pool Kerrigan said with a smile that would only make normal people scared. “Your transformation is successful. You are now a zerg.” Jean nodded and walked out of the spawning pool and revealed her body to the queen. Kerrigan looked at Jean like she was looking at a piece of art. It was creepy to human standards, but neither of the two female was really human, and Jean replied Kerrigan’s glare with her own glare.

“Close your eyes.” The queen of blades ordered. Jean obeyed with no fear. If Kerrigan wanted her dead she wouldn’t need to trick her.

“Reach out into the surrounding with your mind.” Jean heard Kerrigan’s voice and understood what she was trying to do. All zerg units had psi abilities, and a special unit like her usually had a very powerful psi ability. Jean needed to be in control of her psi power to help Jean and lead the zerg. The girl reached out into her mind, and realized she could sense the surrounding without using her eyes. She sensed there were two other figures in the chamber. One of them gave off a weaker psi signal, but his signal was zerg specified. That was Abathur. The other one gave off an incredibly strong psionic signal and made Jean felt threatened. This one was Kerrigan.

Jean also noticed Kerrigan giving off a psionic order, and another figure walked into the chamber.

“What unit did I summon?” Kerrigan tested.

“A hydralisk.” Jean replied confidently. She could sense the psionic signal of a hydralisk in the room.

“Good, now try to control it.” Kerrigan ordered as she gave up the control on hydralisk.

The zerg command structure was fairly complicated. Even the Overmind couldn’t afford to use psionic energy to control every zerg unit in the sector. Sure, he was powerful, but even he couldn’t control billions of zerg. The amount of psi energy needed for one single unit was neglectable, but the amount of zerg was just too many. That was why the Overmind needed cerebrates to aid him in commanding the swarm. The cerebates, in turn, relied on queens and overlords to control the basic zerg units. In this case all the Overmind needed to control were the cerebrates, which made the job much easier.

Of course, no real leaders would risk trusting all his army to his or her underlings, even if these underlings were created by the leader and were genetically programmed to obey the leader. The Overmind had his own elite brood that he had direct psionic control over in case of rebellions.

This leadership style was passed on to Kerrigan’s swarm. Kerrigan relied on other Broodmothers and queens to control her gigantic sized forces, but she also had her own Leviathan and elite zerg units that she had direct command over. The leviathan Jean was on now was Kerrigan’s own ship.

Another thing was zerg units that had no psionic command would become feral. Feral zergs were aggressive and hostile to other creatures. Feral zerg could be controlled again psionically. The hydralisk, for example, was a member of the swarm before Kerrigan let go of her control. Now it was feral.

Jean tried to make a connection with the hydralisk and order it to obey her command, but the hydralisk became much more aggressive as it was no longer commanded by a higher power. Powered by a natural need to consume, it growled and suddenly charged toward Jean with its claws high. Jean did the only thing she could without breaking her cover. She held out her right arm in an effort to stop the claws.

The claw that could tear open the standard CMC armor of a marine in one strike smashed into the arm carapace...and didn’t even make a single dent. Jean’s eyes were still closed, but it didn’t stop her from grabbing onto the hydralisk’s claws and tossed it against the wall of the evolution chamber. The 2 meter tall living weapon was strong, but it was easily tossed into the wall. The hydralisk survived, thanks to its advanced carapace.

“Control it.” Kerrigan urged. If Jean couldn’t control the zerg units then she would be very useless to Kerrigan. The Swarm didn’t need another fighter. Instead, it needed a commander. “Make the minion realize it’s obedience or death.”

The feral hydralisk stood back and launched a needle spine toward Jean. Its 4000 or so muscles launched the projectile at Jean, but Jean subconsciously held her palm out, and the needle spine stopped right in front of Jean’s hand. Behind the girl’s eyelids, her eyes were radiating blue from the use of psionic energy. Before the hydralisk could do anything else Jean dropped the spine, focused her energy on her legs, and pushed herself toward the hydralisk. Her hand went up to the hydralisk’s neck and held it in place while her mind focused her psionic energy into the hydralisk. After a few seconds the hydralisk sent out a signal of obedience. Jean let go of the beast, and the hydralisk stood by instead of attacking her.

Jean ordered the hydralisk to take a few steps forward. It did. Like a girl that got a new doll, the new zerg creature ordered the zerg killing machine to go back and forth as if she was having fun.

“Violence is not the best way to demand loyalty,” Kerrigan, who had been silent during the entire process, finally spoke. “but sometimes it is necessary.” Kerrigan had been killing cerebrates and queens that disobeyed her since she became the queen of blades. “You need more practice to properly command an army.” Kerrigan concluded, and Jean nodded.

“Try...terran...phase.” Abathur, who had been quiet the entire time, suggested.

Jean nodded and tried to shift her body. For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the carapace on her body started to turn into the skin she had as a terran. Her hair returned to normal from the snake like fashion. Her claws disappeared and fingers took their place. In less than a minute she was back to the vulnerable terran lieutenant in figure, but what was underneath her skin was completely different.

Deep down, she was a monster.