Spikey’s movements are jerky, but his will is not yet his own. The damage his implant has taken is not enough to cancel his order to attack Lilly, and he lurches toward her, striking out with his claws. That will leave some bruises, but it does not even tear her leather jacket. With Imogen now tangled in the overlord, Lilly gives up all thoughts of shooting that way again. Neiman, though, she might be able to take down. Zagara has recovered enough to send a spine into his side. Lilly’s laser adds a nasty burn to the mix, which is enough for Neiman to call it quits. He dashes toward the doorway in the middle of the northern wall on the catwalk level. The only ones close enough to even try stopping him are the two guys with datapads who are too overwhelmed by the situation to do anything helpful. Neiman weaves right past them. Before he bolts from the room, he takes one more hurried shot at Zagara. She has the most potential for still endangering him, because if the overlord dies, she will be able to send all the zerg after him.
A second bullet rips through Zagara’s chest, and the broodmother collapses. Lilly dodges past Spikey, taking another scrape from his claws in the process, and runs across to Zagara. Even without her active guidance, the rescued hydralisk stays focused on his job of destroying Spikey’s tech, but his shots go wide. Lilly is not willing to take a chance on how long he will remain a friendly, though. She jabs her last painkiller into the broodmother, reviving her. Zagara’s eyes spring open and her claws rear up, but then recognition sets in, as well as the realization that Lilly is no longer tangled up with Spikey. “Get down!” Zagara yells at Lilly, who crouches out of the way so that the broodmother can hurl a spine at Spikey. She wakes up fighting. Have to remember that for next time, Lilly thinks. The projectile hits true, obliterating the technology embedded in the brain of Lilly’s old battle buddy.
With Imogen distracting the overlord, Shelley finally gets full control of the yellow-brown zerglings. The tactical situation on the lower level is a confused mess right now, though, so she sends them to the farthest corner possible, just in case she loses control of them again. Despite the purple zerglings slashing at her, Imogen finally manages to plant her psi-gauntlet in the overlord’s soft hide. Her strike slices open one of the many sacks that make up its underside, releasing a torrent of blood and creep.
Sparks fly around Spikey’s head, and he looks a little dazed. Then he gives his head a sharp shake and reaches up, using one of his claws to pry the rest of the implant from his skull. He flings the equipment to the floor and raises the other claw in a gesture familiar to Lilly. “All right!” she says, springing up and high-fiving him. “Good to see you, bud.” He hisses back at her, but it is devoid of malice. He swings his head around, looking for threats. His eyes settle on the overlord. Spikey is battle-trained and has experience fighting alongside terrans. He starts launching spikes at the zerglings, distracting them from their attacks on Imogen so that she can better focus on the main target. With the situation on this side of the room all handled, Lilly sprints toward Imogen, hoping to take some of the zergling heat off her. As Lilly runs, she shouts to the other terrans, “The zerg are allies. Don’t hurt them!”
“Yeah, I’ve got control of these two,” Shelley agrees. She continues feverishly pecking at her keyboard though, issuing a string of orders that it will take them a while to work through.
The other two former Rose slaves are too freaked out to really process Lilly’s words. “He went that way!” one of them shouts, pointing to where Neiman exited.
Zagara begins slowly dragging herself to the pool of creep below the overlord. “Finish it!” she shouts to Imogen. “Put it out of its misery!” Her hydralisk follows Spikey’s lead, harrying the purple zerglings with spines as well.
The overlord is floating above Imogen. Although she was able to get high enough for one good strike, it is really just beyond her comfortable range. What they really need, Imogen feels, is for Lilly to shoot the thing again. Imogen throws her weight into tugging the dangling legs, sending the overlord floating in Lilly’s direction. She will lose what protection their interference is giving her from the zerglings, but if Lilly can take the overlord down, it is worth the risk. “Take the shot, take the shot!” she yells to her partner. Lilly stops short, bringing the protoss rifle up to aim. She lets the overlord drift just a little closer then then sends a bolt of blue light at it. Sparks fly from the damaged weapon, but the overlord fares worse. It catches fire again, and its limbs stop their subtle twitching. The zerglings about to leap at Imogen stop suddenly, now under Zagara’s sway. The overlord drifts to the floor, dead.
Imogen, covered with scratches and bruises from the zerglings now sitting well-behaved in the creep, stumbles away from them. Once she is clear of the purple gunk herself, she mentally shuts down the psi-gauntlet and pulls out a painkiller. It helps with the zergling-induce wounds but does nothing for the splitting headache she has.
“There’s still that big zerg!” Shelley yells in warning, pointing down at the broodmother. “I can’t control the zerglings anymore!”
“Zagara’s got them under control; they’re not going to attack anything,” Imogen assures her wearily.
The broodmother continues to drag herself to the creep to recover some from her injuries, but she monitors both her new zerglings and the conversation of the terrans. This Shelley is not an enemy, she determines, and she grants the terran some measure of respect for how she kept the yellow-brown zerglings out of harm’s way. Zagara is impressed. This Shelley is a broodmother too, after a fashion.