The transformation process wasn’t a comfortable one. Jean found that out the hard way.

Jean’s entire body from head to toe was merged into the liquid of the spawning pool. The liquid was modified to prevent Jean from dying by suffocation.

As soon as Jean was inside, Kerrigan made a grin and psionically gave out an order. The mutation process officially began.

Jean keenly felt the water around her getting warmer and warmer, as if the spawning pool was set on fire. Her body subconsciously twisted and resisted as she felt like her body started to burn. Jean forced her eyes, which were also burning, open, and found black sparkles were up and down on her naked body. She thought it was likely a normal process in a transformation and closed her eyes.

Outside the spawning pool, both Kerrigan and Abathur were waiting and staring at the transforming body.

“This process...risky for subject…” Abathur advised quietly. “potential...mental damage…unpredictable...”

“Yes, but it is a risk I am willing to take.” Kerrigan responded coldly and not caring. “I have lived in fear for too long.” Abathur understood Kerrigan’s seemingly confusing words.

The world thought Tassadar was the end of the Overmind. Kerrigan knew better. She could still remember what happened on the exact day the zerg leader fell.

She had just completed the transformation from the Dominion ghost to the Zerg queen of blades. With increased psionic power and physical strength, she felt invincible. The only creature she knew she might not win against was the Overmind, her father. Apart from the Overmind, she felt invincible. And then she realized how wrong she was.

The fool Tassadar slammed his ship into the Overmind, but the zerg leader survived the blast. Sure, he had a few injuries, half of his body was gone, but it was nothing the zerg mending abilities couldn’t fix. It wasn’t that easy to kill one of the strongest creatures in the sector.

And then he came.

He came out of nowhere and appeared right in the middle of the swarm. He wore something that looked like an ancient armor. He was obviously a foe. The best of the swarm. Ultralisks. Guardians. Hunter killers. Zerg units with the best strain in the entire sector made a move on the man.

The man casually tapped something on his armored wrist and held out his right arm, and a black lance appeared out of nowhere and straight into his grip. His face was covered by a black mask, which, somehow, prevented the queen of blades from sensing anything from the man. It was strange. Blocking the psionic senses was much more difficult than blocking the visual sight. A piece of wood could do the later. Kerrigan suddenly had a bad feeling about this, but she hid the feeling. After all, what could go wrong? The man had a freaking lance, and his enemy was a race that was known for their pure physical strength. Under Kerrigan’s mocking eyes, the man flipped his lance and strolled forward into the sea of zerg. It was one man against an army. The result was....surprising.

Melee zerg units like Ultralisks and zerglings charged forward, willing to give up their lives to crush any enemy of the overmind. Thousands of hunter killers, elite hydralisks, created a forest of death with their spines, but the man’s seemingly decorative armor flashed, and all the spines simply bounced off one feet before reaching the man without making a dent. An attack that could wipe out an entire protoss legion was deflected with ease.

The melee units weren’t concerned with the power the man showed. Instead they bravely and selflessly launched themselves toward the man, trying to use their numbers to overwhelm their foe. However, the man merely moved his lance slightly, and it was as if the zerglings offered themselves up and smashed into the tip of the lance. The carapace that could stand against dozens of gauss rifles without breaking immediately was cut apart like they were hot butter. None of the zerglings even got close enough to the man to do real damage.

The Ultralisks followed their smaller comrades and smashed their tons of weight toward the man, but the armored man was as cold and confident as ever. One strike. All the man did was making one stab with his lance, and all the Ultralisks that made contact with the tip of the lance collapsed and died. If someone dissected the bodies they would find out that the randomly positioned organs that were aimed at keeping the Ultralisks alive longer were precisely taken out as if the man knew where the organs were.

Ten minutes later the man casually walked toward the Overmind. The best of the swarm charged at him fearlessly, but the man was an invincible foe. A thousand Ultralisks attacked. A thousand Ultralisks died. The man didn’t even pause for a millisecond as he brushed off the guardian acid spores just like the hydralisk spines.

And just like that, when the man was up to the Overmind, the surrounding was covered with rotten flesh and dead bodies, and the last hunter killer collapsed a second ago due to a wound in the neck. The man had no sign of accomplishment as if he just did stomped some ants on the ground. Kerrigan was beside the Overmind. She was the only one living except for the man and the Overmind. She keenly noticed something. The other zerg units died because they made a move attacked the man. She didn’t attack, and the man just ignored her.

Kerrigan didn’t know if she should feel lucky or ashamed, but she lived, and that was all that mattered.

“You know too much.” The man shook his lance, and all the blood from the dead zerg fell off. He looked at the Overmind and said in a foreign language, but Kerrigan somehow understood the meaning.

The Overmind made no reply. He was too intelligent to keep any more hope. Any resistance was futile. Mercy was impossible. What he knew was unacceptable to the one that sent this man. The next thing Kerrigan knew the Overmind, one of the strongest beings in the sector, was dead and the man was gone, leaving her alone in the field of the massacre.

For the following years Kerrigan rose to power. She was known by the world as a butcher and a queen, but no one knew her deepest fear. Kerrigan took down the UED. She took down the protoss by a cruel betrayal. She controlled the majority of the zerg swarm and she was the ultimate winner of the Brood War, but the more she learned about the zerg the more she feared the man and his mysterious power.

Later Kerrigan took on the corrupted Xel’naga, Amon. Amon wasn’t exactly the man she saw years ago and feared ever since, but he was also a formidable enemy. The queen used everything she could to gain an upper hand, but she knew very well even with the swarm she was no match for the xel’naga and whatever trick he had prepared in the thousands of years of his existence. She would be crushed by Amon just like the Overmind was crushed by the man.

The girl, Jean Turner, showed Kerrigan a signal of hope. Jean was smart. Very smart. Of course, she still made some mistakes that led to his capture, but Kerrigan analyzed everything Jean did in the past, including the war on the tal’darim and the war on the Dominion, and realized the girl’s tactical mind was impressive. She was a miracle maker. If the girl could grab a piece of artifact defended by a tal’darim fortress with a small group of terran Raiders, then what could she do with the might of the swarm behind her back?

Watching Jean, Kerrigan’s mind was years away from the spawning pool.