"Tell me what this is."
When Arcturus Mengsk asked a question, one was always quick to answer, but the officer didn't know how to respond. It was likely that no one in the system, much less the entire sector knew anything about the strange woman in the holding cell. The greatest minds immediately available had their run of the scanners, crosschecked with their databases, but she remained an anomaly. Still, for Mengsk's patience and his own health, he had to say something.
"My Emperor," the officer replied, "scouts found her in the wreckage of an unidentified ship. She was able to eliminate two of our squads before our men were able to subdue her."
"Interesting," Mengsk said.
For a while he just looked at her. For this woman the battle was long over but she looked fresh, black and red armor in pristine condition. Her skin, ashen as it was, remained unblemished and she very much looked alert and dangerous. Mengsk's gaze drifted from her snow white hair, to her solid red eyes, to the smooth lines of her face and down her lithe body. Nothing like her in the universe, he decided.
Mengsk tapped a button on the console in front of him. "I am Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, Emperor of the Terran Dominion. Who, and what, are you?"
She said nothing.
"Are you Protoss? Zerg?"
She said nothing.
"If you don't answer me, these men will forcibly retrieve their tissue and blood samples and we will find out, exactly, you are. You will die."
The woman silently regarded him, having made no sign she heard, but merely stared straight into his eyes. Mengsk did not flinch, but her look bored into him, picking him apart from the inside. Wordlessly, she had reversed their roles, as if he was the one in the holding cell and not her.
"Enough of this." Mengsk turned away. "Protoss or Zerg, it'll talk and it will scream. Interrogators, inside! Fire up the shock rods."
Four men snapped to attention and, weapons at the ready, and fell into position at the cell door. Shock rods crackled to life, their low hum an assurance of pain to whoever resisted. Mengsk nodded and the door opened.
The first one was dead before he cleared the doorway, a purple glow tracing the hole burned into his chest. The next two nearly tripped over his body as they made their way in, but caught their footing and swung at the prisoner. She gracefully stepped to the side and landed a well-aimed kick onto one of their fists, sending his shock rod into the other before finishing both of them off with glowing missiles shot from her hands.
"Shut the door. Shut the damn door!" Mengsk yelled, and the men around him scrambled to comply.
The cell door closed and the last man collided with it, barely late to make his escape. She paced slowly towards him and he dropped his shock rod, electing to pound his fists against the doorway in a vain attempt to break it down. In his last moments he begged for mercy, from the prisoner and from Mengsk. Then, she stopped, mere inches away from her victim.
He screamed, and then she screamed. The cell filled with blinding light and no one could look directly at it. Then it faded, and silence filled the room. Mengsk opened his eyes, and they widened. He took a step back.
The prisoner was looking at him again, but leaning forward with her forehead pressed against the glass. Her hands balled up into fists and he could see a smile on her face. His breath caught in his throat, and then she spoke, her voice reminiscent of the Queen of Blades, but at the same time otherworldly.
"My name is Vengeance."
Months passed since then. The Dominion marched on, but Mengsk was troubled. Raynor and Kerrigan weighed on his mind, along with his traitorous heir. Oftentimes he pulled away from his attendants, his subordinate officers, but for the first time in a long while he found himself in this room again.
"Arcturus Mengsk," Vengeance said.
Despite the darkness, she knew he was there and despite the darkness, he could feel her red eyes on him, gently tugging at his mind. She said nothing more, letting the name hang in the air between him; his name, not his title. Mengsk didn't know what to expect, nor what he should expect having come to this room. The prisoner remained an enigma beyond the explanation of Dominion science and like an exotic treasure he kept her despite having no use for her and her having no use for him.
"Hello, Darkness," he said, more to himself than to her. He coughed and raised his voice so that she could hear. "Vengeance, I know you."
Once again, she said nothing, but Mengsk hardly cared now.
"I know Vengeance," he said. "I'm very well acquainted with the word and with the feeling. I am the Emperor of the Terran Dominion, having brought humanity out of its fragmented twilight and forged a single deadly blade to conquer this sector and whatever else stands before us."
He told her everything: the fall of the Confederacy, the rise of the Dominion, Raynor, Kerrigan, and Valerian. He talked about the Protoss and the Zerg. He told her about the men and women who conspired to take away everything from him despite everything he had given them. He talked until he had nothing more to say and he waited for whatever answer she would give.
"Kill them," she said. Mengsk's heart leapt. "Eliminate all who would oppose you, and all who would betray you. Every slight against you, repay in kind and let no one live."
Korhal was burning. Vengeance walked free amidst the collapsing buildings and fallen soldiers, breathing in the whole scene. The Dominion had fallen and the Swarm had already taken back to the sky, its work done and a new target in mind. Raynor's Raiders might have still been out there, plucking survivors out of the wreckage, and telling all who would hear about Arcturus Mengsk's death, but they were not here.
After a time she came to his palace. Half of it had been blown away by incendiary or psionic blast, and there would be nothing recognizable of his corpse to be found. In a way, this palace was the corpse of his legacy, a man who had risen through the ranks of his people to command them and, for better or worse, bent the universe to his will.
Vengeance didn't care for that man. She cared for the man who harbored her in his heart. She knelt before the grand stairs and touched the ground, as if some lingering remainder of his essence was present.
"My name is Shendelzare," she whispered. "I have had my vengeance."
She stood up and looked to the stars.
"You will have yours."