Somewhere to Belong Ch. 18 (DC/Multi)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: It’s been a long day.

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"… Once we've dealt with the Protoss, we can do something about the Zerg. Arcturus will come around. I know he will."

"I hope you're right, darlin'. Good huntin'!"

End of the line. The realization washes over Sarah Kerrigan like a tidal wave, leaving her in a strange state of calmness even as she finds herself staring certain death right in the face. Her calls for evac have gone unanswered. Mengsk, Raynor… neither of them are coming for her.

New Gettysburg is in ruins. Tarsonis is in ruins. They’d defeated the Confederacy, laying waste to the old order… with the help of the Zerg. A blade without a hilt, to say the least. In drawing the Zerg to Tarsonis, they had destroyed the Confederate Capital World. But they’d also drawn in the Protoss, those inhuman aliens who constantly hunted the Zerg across the Koprulu Sector.

She’d fought off the Protoss on Mengsk’s orders, stopping them from stopping the Zerg long enough for the Confederacy to break. And this was her reward. To be left behind.

She’s already seen her end approaching through her goggles. Zerglings, Hydralisks, Mutalisks… all approaching in numbers too many to count. And her without any ammo left to end it cleanly. No matter…

Closing her eyes, Kerrigan tilts her head back and waits for the end to come. She waits for the feeling of claws to rip into her suit and flesh, for her body to be torn this way and that as she’s ripped to shreds. She waits to be perforated with needle spines or ripped into by glaive wurms.

She waits… and waits. Until suddenly, an unexpected type of shriek fills the air. A shriek of pain, a screech of agony… repeated a hundred times over.

Kerrigan’s eyes snap open to see the strangest sight she’s ever seen. A blur flies overhead, tearing through Mutalisks at speeds faster than she can possibly imagine. At first it looks like some sort of guided projectile… but then he stops for a moment and she realizes she’s staring at a man.

Just a man. No armor. No suit save for the form-fitting one he has on. No weapons either, save for his own body. He rips into Zerg like they’re nothing though, shredding any who approach him without taking a single injury.

“Hey, you alright?”

Kerrigan flinches, C-20A canister rifle half-coming up as she realizes there’s a woman standing next to her that definitely wasn’t there before. She’s blue-skinned, yellow eyed, and red haired, wearing a suit similar to the man above. And her hands are dripping with the ichor of slain Zerg, same as him.

Belatedly, Kerrigan looks around them and realizes they’re surrounded by dozens if not hundreds of dead Zerglings and Hydralisks. So many that the next wave is actually showing a modicum of caution and holding back a bit, allowing this alien woman to pause and speak with her.

“You’re the only living human being we’ve found for miles. Though I suppose it’s unlikely you can even understand me given this doesn’t appear to be Earth… Myk-Zod! Switch and learn this one’s language!”

Kerrigan blinks, a little confused. The alien is speaking English so of course she understands her… but what was that about Earth, exactly?

Before she could even open her mouth, however, the two have already switched places. The blue-skinned alien flies into the air seemingly under her own power as easily as the man does, blasting her way through the remaining Mutalisks still trying to get close enough to fire their glaive wurms and ripping them to shreds.

Meanwhile, the man lands at Kerrigan’s side with controlled force, cracking the ground beneath his feet but very deliberately not causing a shockwave that might send her on her ass. When he straightens up, Kerrigan tries not to stare too hard.

He’s extremely well built but without an ounce of facial hair. His jawline though is definitely upper percentile, as is his physique. However, it’s nothing that should have allowed the feats she’s seen of him so far. And it only gets crazier when the man, this ‘Myk-Zod’, suddenly whips around and actual fucking red laser beams shoot out of his goddamn eyes and burn their way through a sneaking Zergling trying to close in on them.

Kerrigan’s mouth is agape after that, even as he turns back to her with his eyes going from smoldering red to a different type of smoldering blue a second later. He flashes her a grin, even as his female companion continues to keep their airspace clear with her unbelievable powers.

“Hey there. Don’t suppose you would mind saying a few things for me real quick? I should be able to pick up your language in a few sentences and then communication will get a whole lot easier for us.”

As he speaks, he gestures emphatically to her, smiling broadly and encouragingly. He clearly doesn’t expect her to understand what he’s saying and is trying to get her to attempt communication.

Finally getting over her stupor, but far from getting over her incredulity, Kerrigan just shakes her head.

“… I speak English, same as you. Who are you people.”

It’s a fair question, she figures. The woman, for all that she’s blue and yellowed eyed, is definitely no Protoss. And the man… he might look more human than his companion, but what she’s seen so far makes it clear he’s something more.

A tremor of fear runs down Kerrigan’s spine as she briefly wonders if they might be… successful experiments. Much like herself, these two could be experiments of the Confederacy, possibly even part of the old families given how perfect the man’s physiology is. And if they’re part of the old families… well, she’s absolutely screwed, isn’t she?

“Oh! That’s extremely helpful! Hold on…”

Again, the man whirls around and fires more of those eye beams of his. This time he doesn’t just stop at killing one Zergling however… because the Zerg haven’t sent just one. His beams sweep out in a wide arc that takes him a foot off the ground and floating all the way around her person in a full circle as he kills every ground-based Zerg currently rushing towards them in a certain radius.

Kerrigan can barely follow his movements before he’s back down on the ground in front of her, smiling cheerily.

“Right. I’m Myk-Zod and the woman currently covering our heads is Mystique. We’re not exactly from around here… and we definitely showed up at a bad time from the look of things. Like Mystique said, you’re the only living human we’ve found for miles now. Don’t suppose you know where we could go to get away from these monsters?”

She just stares for a long moment, taking in his words. Truthfully, they left her with more questions than answers. But at the same time… this is an active combat zone. The Zerg are trying (and failing) to kill them all right this moment.

So Kerrigan pushes down all of her insecurities, her questions, her confusion… and focuses up. Eye on the prize. Mission comes first. Of course, her previous mission was over now. The new mission… was to survive. Something that had seemed impossible mere minutes ago now felt a lot more doable with these two on her side.

“There are billions of Zerg on the planet right now. We need to try and get off planet, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to find a functional ship. For the time being… we need to get away from the central platform.”

Myk-Zod arches a brow at that, prompting Kerrigan to explain.

“Tarsonis only has one core continent where everything is built up and the vast majority of the population lived. This is where the Zerg will be concentrated. If we can get away from the continent, find an island on the outer edges… we might be able to give the Zerg the slip for the time being.”

Of course, there was one small issue with that… Kerrigan eyes Myk-Zod’s arms and grimaces.

“You’ll have to carry me though.”

He’s covered in Zerg Ichor, not just on his arms but also all across his front. The idea of letting him pick her up is… not something she’s excited for to say the least. She’ll do it though of course, she’s not about to let a little squeamishness secure her death after she received this stay of execution.

Looking down at himself, the man blinks before chuckling softly. Then… he begins to vibrate of all things. Sarah Kerrigan stares, nonplused, as the ichor is not so much flung off as it is rapidly dried and then vibrated off of him in flakes within moments.

By the time he’s done, he’s completely clean… somehow. She opens her mouth… and then closes it, knowing better than to question things at this point. Questions can come later… or possibly even never, all things considered.

Clipping her rifle to her back, Kerrigan steps forward with only a slight bit of hesitation, not entirely sure how to best go about this… only for Myk-Zod to reach out and scoop her up in a split second. All she can really do is wrap her arms around his neck and try not to let the heat rise to her cheeks as he picks her up in a bridal carry of all things and lifts into the air.

More red energy beams lance out of his eyes as he rises with her in his arms, destroying all of the Zerg trying to approach them. Until eventually, they’re on the same level as Mystique, the blue-skinned woman ripping yet another Mutalisk in half with her bare hands before dropping the remains to the ground below.

“Mystique, we’re moving.”

Myk-Zod’s words receive a simple nod from the woman in question… and then they really are moving. Kerrigan instinctively tucks her head into Myk-Zod’s body as they rapidly approach speeds that make her wish she had a proper helmet on instead of the goggles that she’d discarded back on the ground.

She doesn’t complain though. Especially not when their speed might just be the only thing that gets them away from the billions of Zerg the revolutionary forces had drawn to Tarsonis. That thought causes a lump to form in Kerrigan’s throat, her eyes stinging as the weight of the day catches up to her.

It wasn’t like she’d known, to be fair. Mengsk hadn’t seen fit to let her in on that particular part of the plan. They’d made it to Tarsonis, fighting their way through the streets of New Gettysburg and into the heart of the city… but the psi-emitters that General Edmund Duke’s forces had planted on the central platform had come as a complete surprise.

Perhaps that’s when she should have bowed out. Jim had given her the chance, after all. He’d been outraged by Mengsk’s actions and as the Zerg had arrived on the planet, he and his forces had withdrawn. She should have gone with them… but the mission wasn’t done yet. The Confederacy was still standing. And more than that… the Protoss were coming.

As she’s cradled by the impossibly strong man now, Kerrigan is forced to reckon with her own justifications to Raynor. She’d told him that she had to stay because the Protoss would destroy the entire planet, not just the Zerg. She’d claimed she had to stop them in order to make sure some of Tarsonis’ two billion large human population would survive.

… In hindsight, that was a nasty bit of self-delusion on her part at best or a bold-faced lie at worst. Deep down she’d known all along that there was no surviving this invasion for Tarsonis. The Zerg would kill or infest everyone on the planet anyways.

No, the truth was… she’d stopped the Protoss on Mengsk’s orders for the exact same reason that he’d ordered her to stop them. To ensure the defeat of the Terran Confederacy. To make sure that the heart of the old families’ power was broken, once and for all.

And in doing so, she’d consigned two billion lives to be lost.

They come to a sudden stop, making Kerrigan blink as they slowly descend. Lifting her head, she looks out to see they’ve arrived on a small island. A look at the sky above shows it startlingly clear of Zerg… as expected, even if there are billions of the creatures, they’re focused on Tarsonis’ core continent at the moment, leaving the rest of the planet relatively clean… for now.

She doesn’t doubt that they’ll eventually spread out and rip and tear their way through the whole of the world before departing for their next target. It’s what the Zerg do, after all.

Still, she’s happy to climb out of Myk-Zod’s arms and put her feet on solid ground again if nothing else. That said… Kerrigan is left facing two incomprehensible beings that she still can’t even begin to explain. What she’s seen them do is utterly ridiculous so far. And she still doesn’t fully understand where they even came from.

“Sorry, we never caught your name. Like I said previously, I’m Myk-Zod and this is Mystique. Glad we could pull you out of that bind.”

He means the words but as he smiles at her expectantly, Kerrigan stiffens up. Her previous fear, that these two might be Confederate Experiments or part of the old families, rears its ugly head again as she considers them both. They haven’t recognized her on sight… but that doesn’t mean they won’t recognize her name…

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p4F9awyRrUMZ7wF5xUff7eKFhXAwKgQKlir_Y_m4Tzk/edit?tab=t.0