The Collection of The End

――TR.82.12.6――

Bucefalos, meeting room.

Renault's rangers, or "sentinels", are in a meeting.

Tassadar is still recovering with Ariel's imitation crystals, Mira is still pestering Matt, Tosh ran to eat, Tykes bragged with Captain Jax's acceptance, and Jimmy ran around. Go to guest reception.

Therefore, the specific implementation of the first mission of this "sentinel" can only be discussed by Renault, Nova and Ariel.

Renault tried to invite Captain Jax, but he stared at the coffee cup, as if thinking about some serious issues, and refused to participate.

"[The general situation is clear to everyone. Next, it is time to decide our itinerary, whether to continue recruiting mercenaries, or to go to the Protoss outpost to pull out their fleet once and for all-in the latter case, except for this one The fleet is out of control, which means that the original goal has been achieved in advance.] "Ariel, who continues to maintain the luxurious green evening gown, looks at Nova and said.

"I always feel that your personality is a little bit different before and after." Renault, who returned to the normal captain's suit, raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, it's like the sister next door suddenly became a female president." Nova blinked at her.

"Think about it, it's actually not a contradiction." Reynolds saw that Nova probably wanted to liven up the atmosphere, so he continued to cooperate: "You can also suddenly become a congresswoman."

"[You don't need to care about me,]" Ariel kept smiling: "[And, now is not the time to discuss my personal issues.]"

"It may be difficult, especially after reading Alex's intelligence." Nova made a gesture with teeth and claws.

Hmm... As expected, there is still a bit of worry, Renault nodded slightly.

The current Ariel, is the female researcher more personal or the ancient plant will?

When she says "the other me", it's hard not to worry.

"[Oh? Are you worried that I'm no longer yourself? That's not necessary, I'm in a fundamentally different situation from his.]" Ariel swept across the faces of the two with that kind of incomprehensible child.

"Want to hear the details?" Renault answered.

"[Since you want to clarify this problem first, then I have no opinion.]"

Ariel closed her eyes slightly, and the green vines and branches on her body swayed gently as if they had come to life.

"[Alex, as a former'ghost' instructor, he himself has undergone several memory adjustments and indoctrination, and his self-awareness has been fragmented. Compared to proving himself as the key to himself, his memory is more like him It’s decoration, so I look around, but I’m different. I’m like—” Ariel rolled her eyes, and a little confusion appeared on her face: “Like a country girl who suddenly received a huge inheritance from a distant relative. She had no idea how much these properties were, and she didn't know how to manage them, until she met some'agents' who knew how to manage them."

Not to mention her appearance, her expression now really looks like a little girl.

"Then smash the'agent' up and smash it?" Nova dismantled the stage.

"[His mistake was trying to use'psionic interference' to cut off my contact with Solian,]" Ariel raised his hand and opened a flower from his wrist: "[No control for the time being, these children Don’t we go and beat him up?]"

Calling plants a child... Is her self-awareness really all right?

"In this way, this cutting behavior actually proves that you are a person with plant power, not a fusion monster with human memory." Nova hacked Alex again by the way.

Indeed, Renault understood Nova’s logic after a few thoughts. If Arielle is just like Alex, she is just a mimicry of plants, then she will definitely not maintain a human form when she gets out of control by psychic interference. If those plants are the same She is not one, and when she loses control, she will definitely attack her. It is impossible to beat Tassadar angrily.

"[My original plan was to go to Tarsonis to recover other plants and destroy the bugs by the way. I think these actions should bring back more memories, but now it seems that Al is probably a better place.]" You retracted the flower and tilted his head to look at the location of the medical cabin.

"When you met Tassadar, you seemed to recall a lot of things, are they not enough?" Renault recalled some unfamiliar terms that Ariel had said at the time, such as the arbitrator.

Ariel shook his head slightly: "[How to say, yes, but not enough. After fighting with him, I recalled their class name, through crystal supply and the way of fighting through psionic energy, but it was done from the perspective of observation. Observations, just like--]"

"It's like how plants on the planet evaluate the battle between intelligent creatures." Nova interjected.

"[Yes,]" Ariel nodded: [I would like to know more about'Solian', but according to the information disclosed by Tassadar, those Solian who directly contacted them have been burned. 】

Because of this conclusion, those two vines fell so hard that he fell?

"In this way, they listed Solian as a must kill target, but there are reasons why there are few results," Renault nodded: "More often, Solian is self-conscious even if it does not parasite other creatures to become a threat. Will take the initiative to avoid these hunters."

"Hmm... wait?" Nova seemed to be aware of something: "If these plants have self-awareness and sufficient intelligence, and are more willing to quietly pretend to be ordinary plants, then their behavior of parasitizing other organisms is actually?"

"[Actually, it is the stress response when life is threatened. Civilization that will be destroyed by this must be a good hand at creating pollution or destroying the ecology,]" Ariel snorted: "[My situation is different, Sergeant Renault I know.]"

Renault nodded his agreement when he heard the words, think about it carefully, it is true, the vine creatures did not make any counterattack when they were inspected and tested by the Federation, until the agents tried to fuse them with the worms and killed Ai with the extracted toxin Riel.

If you guess at these Solian thoughts, they should be very simple: "Human research will study, anyway, there are more than one special plants, but if there is an incident in which poisonous plants kill the Governor’s daughter, we are afraid that we will be burned. In short, let her rescue her through parasitism first."

The result... Ariel's current form of the plant queen should have been unexpected to many parties.

"Then, we will go to El according to the coordinates given by Tassadar and see the kingdom of the Protoss." Renault concluded.

Although the emergence of a huge alien force out of thin air is an obstacle to Arcturus' ambition to unify the star area, it is regarded as a test that must be surpassed on the road of the king.

――――

A few hours later, the bridge.

"What is the exact location of the planet Al? Is it outside of our star area?" Renault projected the star map of the entire star area into the sky and asked Tassadar.

Tassadar seemed to have recovered, and the blue light in his eyes became bright again.

Although this "alien" made Renault's Rangers quite curious, it still couldn't be more attractive to them than Aire, who was based on humans. After all, apart from the armor, the Protoss body is more like an upright body. Insects, and there is no mouth.

"[Oh? Are you still using the interstellar folds left by Kara?]" Tassadar looked at the structure of those star gates: "[Although this allows you to quickly reach different galaxies, it can also lead to arrogance. .]"

"Arrogant?" Renault raised his eyebrows.

Arriving in an unfamiliar star area and discovering that there are star gates built by pioneer civilizations here, and each star gate connected to the galaxy has at least one habitable planet. In this case, how ignorant guys would be arrogant?

However, Tassadar is obviously talking about arrogance in another sense.

"[Think about it, when your control area continues to extend along the line of the interstellar folding gate, will it produce a feeling of'Between the lines, all are kings'?]" Tassadar raised. The hand traverses the lines between the star gates: "[But in fact, what you really control is only a few bonfires in the dark forest.]"

"[Dark Forest...]" Ariel seemed to have thought of something, whispering to herself.

Snapped.

Tassadar's two slender fingers were wrong with each other, and the star map channel that was originally a virtual projection was directly cut off by him.

The original bright star chart dimmed in an instant, and the boundless darkness rushed in, instantly compressing the influence of various colors that seemed to cover the entire star area to a small point.

"So scared!" Mira again hugged Matt, who was acting as the recorder of the meeting.

"Please don't disturb the bridge's energy supply at will." Matt said to Tassadar blankly.

Snap, Tassadar snapped his fingers again, and the dark star map was restored to its original shape. Renault could clearly hear the comfort of the staff at the corner of the bridge.

"[The interstellar gate left by Kara will only connect galaxies with habitable planets, but if there are creatures outside these galaxies that overcome the dangerous environment and survive, then when they reach out to the flowers in your greenhouse When you have fangs and claws, you will have no resistance at all, and protecting you from these monsters is our duty of the Zerg Hunter.]" Tassadar retracted his hand and stood with his hand.

If it weren't for the appearance of him being thrown to and fro by Ariel before, the low voice, deep tone and stalwart figure might still make people admire him.

But where does the greenhouse flowers throw nuclear bombs everywhere?

Renault looked around and found that his companions basically had similar weird expressions, so he took the initiative to change the subject: "So, you mean, your home planet is also in our zone?"

"[Not the home star, it's the outpost,]" Tassadar raised his hand again and pointed to the void on the star map: "[Al, right here.]"

With his movements, the star map dimmed again, no, it was not that the star map was dim, but a planet with golden and blue marks lit up at the location he pointed to.

Planets are bigger than galaxies. This exaggeration is really skilled.

In terms of specific location, it is a planet in a galaxy that is not on any route, but it is closer to the Gallente Federation in distance.

"If there is no Star Gate there, how do I get there?" Renault looked at the distance, and it would take about twenty-four jumps to travel from the Port of the Dead.

"['Subspace Tunnel', or in your terms,'Psionic Leap'," Tassadar replied, "[I have to say that the name is not precise enough and will cause misunderstanding.]"

"That seems to consume a lot?" Toxh, who has the most say in the psionic transition, interjected.

"[If you are building a star gate or need to protect the fragile body of the jumper, it will naturally consume extra psionic energy, but as a Zerg hunter, we don’t need to protect ourselves in the subspace-you have warship protection, don’t worry about it] "Tassadar shook his head slightly.

Renault raised his eyebrows: "That sounds like a dangerous way to jump, right?"

"[I seem to be a little impressed,]" Ariel said, "[The Protoss will use psychic energy to directly tear open the space, creating a huge tunnel that resembles the collapse of the void, and it will close itself after a certain period of time. , Anything that touches the'tunnel wall' or remains in the tunnel when it is closed will be directly annihilated.]"

"[That's not annihilation. When those objects touch the'tunnel wall', they will generate extremely tiny'subspace storms', throwing the objects to random locations in the universe.]" Tassadar corrected Ariel, but It is better not to correct it, the people who heard it are more entangled.

"It seems that Solian can still survive in space? This scene is not like what can be seen by surface plants." Nova tried to bring the topic back to the right path.

"[I'm not sure,]" Ariel pointed his forehead with a finger: "[It seems to be seen from many angles at the same time. If you think about it carefully, you will get a little dizzy.]"

"[Although I haven't read the think tank archives carefully, but I have heard similar news,]" Tassadar glanced at Ariel, "[There used to be strange clusters of plants into space and followed our fleet After passing through the subspace tunnels, because they showed no signs of destroying civilization, the fleet did not fire. So it was Solian?]"

"[If they open fire, you probably won't see this file.]" Ariel gave him a sideways glance.

"[...]" Tassadar seemed to want to refute, but remembered the situation of being thrown around before, so he remained silent.

"In any case, let's leave the port of the dead first and find a place where space anomalies of this scale will not attract attention to open the tunnel." Renault rounded the field.

"As far as I know, there is a strange galaxy composed of two blue giant stars nearby. Electric discharges and asteroid collisions are commonplace," said Jax, who had been silent for a long time. "If you open the subspace tunnel, you won't be affected by space. Abnormal impact, there is a good place."

"[Of course not.]" Tassadar nodded proudly.