A pair of mini-thrusters flared to life, spitting blue fire against the concrete. The high-pitched whine of the engines—EEEEEEEE—echoed off the narrow walls.

For a short stretch of corridor, Grayson closed the gap in seconds. He rounded the next corner, the friction of the turn sending a spray of sparks—shhhhhhht—against the wall. He bore down on the fleeing Zerg, his silver eyes narrowed murderously.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Keres scrambled, his claws skidded against the floor — skritch-skritch, screee! — as he desperately tried to outrun the alpha flying down the hall behind him.

His legs were already half-healed. The natural regenerative properties of a Zerg were working overtime, but they were still wet, bruised up with a sickening coat of neon-green blood because of Chronos’s attack.

The overlapping plates of his chitinous armor clicked and ground together—clack-clack-clack—as he exerted every ounce of his stolen strength to stay ahead.

Keres’s antennae twitched, vibrating at a frequency so high it was almost invisible.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

Something was wrong. The air up ahead wasn’t flowing correctly. Something was blocking his way out.

Keres couldn’t tell if it was a barrier overlay, a relay block, or maybe a hidden guard squad waiting in the shadows. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

He wasn’t even sure whether Grayson had already called for reinforcements or whether the Alpha had pursued him alone, without a plan at all.

Click-clack, hiss... Keres’s thoughts were a chaotic swarm.

The corridor path he had chosen for a quick exit now had an unknown variable, lying in wait.

Keres could only take a gamble.

Option one: Keep running. Find a vent to destroy along the way to fit his huge, cumbersome body. Find a way to quickly shatter the concrete walls of this basement to climb into the night, or simply take his chances against whatever was waiting at the end of the hall.

Option two: Jump back. Surprise Grayson, stun the Alpha for about half a second, and gun it in the other direction back toward the main entrance to the basement.

Option three: Fight to the death.

Keres did not like option three. He treasured his life more than anyone thought he would.

He had learned, painfully, over dozens—if not hundreds—of host-cycles, that bodies were cheap and consciousness was not.

To the Hive, he was a high-ranking Zerg soldier. But to himself, he was a survivor. He didn’t want to die in a dingy basement at the hands of a "broken" Alpha.

Keres yearned for one thing and one thing only: a proper host.

Not like Helena, an adult whose body came with too much baggage—too much memory, too much resistance, too many neural pathways carved by a life that was not his own.

He wanted a fetus.

Ideally, a newborn fetus, whose neural lattice had not yet finished forming.

Something soft, malleable, and pure.

A blank slate that he could build from scratch and dye with his own essence.

A sanctuary where he and the host could grow as one, until the line between Zerg and human vanished entirely.

His bloody red eyes glinted in the dim lighting.

The muscles around his strange, distorted human mouth pulled back, exposing wet mandibles in something that resembled a sickening smile.

If he could successfully enter a fetus, Grayson and the others wouldn’t be able to touch him.

At least, not without committing the kind of violence that respectable humans and beastmen wouldn’t dare inflict on an innocent infant.

He would have nine months, give or take, of guaranteed sanctuary.

The ultimate shield, Keres hissed internally.

By the time the child was born, he would be the child.

By the time the child could walk, he would be the real, beloved child of a human household.

By the time the child grew into an adult, he would have earned a second identity—a second body as a human.

By the time he, as a human, gets married, he could finally commit the forbidden amongst the high-ranking Zerg: creating a halfling with a human or a beastman.

Keres burned with a cold, sinister excitement as he imagined the future.

As the humans said, the forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

Hsssssssss!

Keres made up his mind and stopped trying to flee. The suddenness of his deceleration caused his claws to bite deep into the ground—CRACK—as he pivoted on his hind legs.

The floor below was destroyed by the sudden change in momentum; chunks of concrete, dirt, and metal flew outward.

Keres forelimbs came up, hinged outward like a massive, jagged pair of shears.

BOING!

Keres sprang back the way he had come. He flew straight toward his pursuer.

Grayson, caught in the middle of a high-speed thruster burn, saw the zerg turn. His silver eyes widened.

What? Grayson’s mind flashed the question, but his body was already reacting.

"Where do you think you are going?!" Grayson shouted, but the words were cut short by the sheer impact of the air displacement as Keres lunged at him

Keres’s plan worked perfectly. The sudden turn of events stunned Grayson for exactly the half-second Keres needed.

Grayson’s thrusters hissed—pfshhhht—as he cut them a quarter-degree to the left to avoid a head-on collision that would have pulverized his ribcage.

VREEEEEE—

The plasma blade hissed as it sliced through the air, barely grazing Keres’s shoulder plates.

Keres didn’t stop to fight. He used the momentum of his jump to soar over Grayson. His heavy shadow momentarily blots out the blue fire of the thrusters.

Thud-clack!

Keres landed behind Grayson, his legs already pumping to head back toward the way he came from.

Grayson skidded, his boots screaming against the floor—SCREEEEE—as he fought to kill his forward momentum. He spun around, the mini-thrusters sputtering as they overheated.

"You!" Grayson barked, his pheromones flaring in a desperate attempt to slow the beast down with sheer Alpha pheromone suppression.

The air in the corridor became heavy, as Grayson’s scent turned into a suffocating, aggressive wave of fresh water pheromones.

Keres didn’t care about the additional pressure. He didn’t look back and bolted away from Grayson.