This thing has been eating at me for two months.  The story itself is
a crossover, though I don't know if I'll ever have enough elements to
do it justice.  I like to think the setup I've got is a good one, but
an entire fic does not a teaser make, so...  Anyway, if you've ever
played the game Starcraft, you might find this more interesting than
if you haven't.  :)



Titleless Teaser
by Lara Bartram


	The sky flashed a brilliant blue, like a giant bolt of
lightning arcing through the clouds.  The sound, that of a bomb going
off in mid-air, soon followed.
	People looked questioningly up at the sky, frightened by the
noise and strange light, but when it did not repeat itself, they went
about their regular business.

	Kodachi ducked instinctively when she heard the tinkle of
glass from overhead.  It had become second nature to duck when she
heard that noise while working in the greenhouse.  Many a time,
vandals had found it good sport to throw rocks.  Even as far away as
the wall that surrounded the property, they managed.
	Looking up angrily for her position below a workbench, she
looked for the hole in the glass where the rock had come through.  The
police did not like to hear such reports from her.  She could tell in
their voices that they didn't believe her, that they didn't really
think she should be bothering them.
	But this time, there was no gaping hole of shattered glass.
Kodachi remembered ducking as the sound came from...  She looked up
and saw the single broken pane.  Whatever it was, it had come from the
sky.  And at a high speed.
	Hunting, on hands and knees, she looked under all the benches
and on the floor until she saw it off in one corner.  It looked like a
rather large walnut.  It wasn't quite the size of her closed fist and
had a rough dark brown-grayish exterior.
	It was a seed of some sort.
	Kodachi stood, absently dusting herself off and looking at the
seed.  Never, in any book she could remember reading, had she seen
anything like this.  She wondered what it was...
	There was only one way to find out.

	A gray slime seemed to ooze up from the soil she had planted
the seed in.  Frowning, Kodachi first tried to scrape it off, but when
she had returned later, it was there again.  A plant that gave off a
slime like that was something unique to her knowledge.
	Well, when it started to sprout, she would get a better idea
of exactly what type of plant it was.  Until then...  Her nose
wrinkled at the slime, then she gave it one shot of pesticide before
she left.
	As the poison struck the slime, it appeared to retreat back
into the soil for a time, until it started bubbling up once again,
more violently than before.

	The next day, Kodachi was surprised to see a blackish-brown
sprout pushing up through the soil and the slime.  It looked very much
like a large thorn to her, and when she roused her courage enough to
touch it, it was indeed solid.  There was something very unplant-like
about it.
	It looked like a thorn, but something made her think of a
horn instead.  It was a distinct possibility that this was some
strange carnivorous plant and this was some sort of... defense, or
lure.  That would almost explain the slime.  She couldn't tell, but it
could have been attractive to insects...
	Furrowing her brow at the plant, Kodachi left to see if she
could find any information on a rare carnivorous plant.  And if not,
then she would have a find on her hands.

	The thorn didn't grow very much taller over the next few days,
but fatter.  The slime was now spilling over the sides of the pot and
leaving a sizable puddle on the bench.  Several tiny cracks worked
their way up the side of the pot, and the thick sludge oozed out of
those as well.
	Dark brown vines grew from the soil, thin and whip-like,
working down to the bench and across it, worming their way through the
slime.  Again, there was that feeling that they weren't wholly
botanical organisms, that there was a definite intelligence guiding
them.

	It needed a bigger pot.  Kodachi eyed the plant critically,
wondering just how she would actually move it.  First, she didn't
really feel like getting her hands in that junk spilling out, whether
it was something the plant was supposed to be doing or not.  Second,
the many vines that snaked out of the pot seemed rooted to the table.
	She had first attempted to move the plant to a different
bench, farther away from one of the vents, fearing the slime was a
fungus.  It had proven an impossible task.  The vines held the entire
pot down as secure as any glue, like a hand gripping the bench.
	"My mysterious plant, you are troublesome indeed," she said
to it quietly, holding a larger pot, but not having any clue how to
transfer it over.
	As if in response to her voice, another thorn-like sprout
pushed up out of the dirt.  This one was a pale gray in color, and
looked rough, almost like it was dried out.
	The speed and force with which it grew surprised Kodachi and
made her take a step back.  That was definitely something she had
never seen, and while there were instances of plants changing states
fairly quickly, overnight for example, nothing this fast was known
about.
	She set down the larger pot and said, "Mysterious indeed."
She picked up a spray bottle with a slightly shaking hand and gave the
plant a spritz of water.  If it was dried out, then perhaps it needed
water, and that slime...  So much of it.  Surely it couldn't be that
beneficial.
	Kodachi hurried out of the greenhouse to consider the latest
growth of the plant.  She locked the door, unwilling to let her
brother get anywhere near her plant, and went to wash her hands.  The
idea that her hands had even been near that fungal growth was
disgusting.

	No longer would it be confined to the small pot.  A tangled,
worm-like mass of something that could have been considered roots
burst through the already cracked clay.  Dirt spilled out, and the
root system immediately expanded, spread like liquid.
	Wherever the slime had spread, the roots spread as well,
punching their way through the wood of the bench.  The initial growth,
the large thorn sat prominently on the bench, ballooning in an instant
to the thickness of a man's thigh.
	The secondary growth, looking like the claw from a movie
monster, was joined by three more, ringing the main growth.  The vines
that had been barely the thickness of a piece of yarn, were now as big
around as bottle caps, and they stretched the length of the bench,
twisting around the other plants, punching their way through the bench
to droop down closer to the floor.

	Kodachi entered the greenhouse a day later and was dumbstruck.
The strange little plant was now testing the constraints of the
greenhouse's roof.  No longer was it a strange little plant, but now a
large, dare she consider, frightening plant.
	It had caved in the bench and was sitting directly on the
floor; that disgusting ooze now coated the entire floor of the
greenhouse and was over an inch deep.
	Kodachi could only stare at it as those vines, which she could
no longer confidently refer to as vines, spread out in all directions
from the base of the plant... of the thing.  One had even been sitting
up against the door and was now falling outside of it.
	No, she wouldn't call them tentacles, though they acted very
much alive, but they were not simply plant growth to anchor and
retrieve nutrients.  These were much more intimidating.
	Breath caught in her throat as another "vine", this one dark
red and covered with bristly hairs, suddenly advanced on her, Kodachi
took a step back, meaning to leave the greenhouse.  Her path was
blocked.
	"Sister, what is the meaning of this monstrous plant causing
such a disturb..."
	The sound of her brother's voice had surprised her, but his
sudden silence was more disturbing.  Kodachi turned, slowly, body
feeling like it was mired in concrete, and saw him standing there, as
rigid as a statue.
	One of those vines was wrapped around his leg, and she could
see, stuck through his hakama into his leg, was a long white barb.
	Releasing a strangled cry, she meant to push past him and run,
but the vine she had turned her back on latched on to her ankle as
well.  There was a painful stinging sensation in her calf and then
she could not move.
	She was quite conscious, had all her faculties about her, but
she could not move, not even to speak.  Her muscles were locked into
position, not like paralysis at all.  When she was lifted and moved to
a position closer to the main... body...  Kodachi could not help but
think of this as an animal, no longer a simple plant.
	Looking at the body, forced to look, unable to move her eyes
away, she saw, vaguely, her brother be placed nearby as well.  To her
horror, and her sudden wish for unconsciousness, the body of the
beast split open, the thick outer skin opening like a clam shell to
reveal the creature inside.
	The scream would not release itself from her throat.
	Something that looked like a rosebud pushed up from out of the
floor that she could see in her peripheral vision.  Its "petals"
opened slowly, revealing their true size.  Once they were fully open,
the colors revealing themselves to be a sickly fleshy color, veined
with deep purple, she was placed in the center of them.
	The situation was the same for her brother, and that was the
last thing she saw as those petals closed up around her.

*   ~   *   ~   *

	There was darkness.  Sweet, warm, comforting darkness.  He was
in a place he couldn't remember having ever been before.  But there
was a part of his mind that recognized the place as being very much
like the womb.
	Warm liquid pulsed around him, through him, and his head ached
with the unfamiliar pressure of it.
	Was that it?  The process of being born...  Would he have to
suffer that again?  Before he could consider such a thing, conscious
thought left him once more.

	~...awaken?~
	A voice, one he recognized as his sister's.
	~...shall in time.~
	A deeper, unearthly voice that he also recognized.
	He shifted in the comfort of his womb, feeling it give way to
his movements.
	~...moving...~
	His sister again, but he couldn't so much hear it audibly as
sense it, feel it.  It was in his mind.
	~...time shall be...become one of us...~
	The voice he was compelled to answer.  No longer could he
hide, no longer could he stay in the safety his womb.
	His walls of security wilted around him and there was light,
so much light, and cold...
	The somehow animalistic, yet plant-like pod peeled open and
dropped the body of Kuno Tatewaki to the floor amidst a flood of
viscous, ochre gel.
	He stood slowly on trembling legs, blinking rapidly in the
bright, natural light.  He looked first at the naked form of his
sister, the way her flat yellow eyes regarded him, the strange and
exotic blue and green markings that decorated her skin.
	That made him look down at himself to find he was in a similar
condition.  He didn't feel any different except for the whispering in
his mind, the relentless whispering that marked his every moment of
existence.
	"Brother..."
	He looked up at her, the world in complete clarity around him.
"Yes?"
	"What are..."
	"You are the first of many."
	The Kuno siblings both looked up at the towering form.  It's
single eye regarded them as if they were the insects and it was the
magnifying glass.
	"You are but the first of many, and when our numbers are
sufficient, this planet will be ours.  There are none that will stand
against the Zerg."

		...