Part 1

Raynor opened his eyes and felt his mind return to reality. He grimaced as he moved his stiff body and sat up in his bed in the Captain's Quarters. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge. He held his head in his hands as he attempted to clear his mind.

When he was freed from the Moros, he was flown back to the Hyperion and sent straight to the med bay. The docs didn't find many serious conditions. He did have some malnutrition and he did experience some interrogation when he was held captive. The interrogations weren't as bad considering he learned how to resist them during the guild wars when he met Cole Hickson. The docs suggested that he'd rest in the med bay after he was given a meal but Raynor turned it down and retreated to the Captains' Quarters. The docs also strongly suggested that he'd not consume any alcohol while he recovered. That was one thing that Raynor could not, especially after seeing what happened. He had a secret stash of whiskey inside of his quarters and he indulged the bottle shot-by-shot until he collapsed on his bed.

All he could think of when he was in the tiny holding cell was what Sarah would do when she realized that he wasn't returning to her. After months of seeing nothing but the pitch black walls of his cell, he felt the entire ship shack and rattle. He heard guns firing and men shouting and screaming behind the steel door and it grew louder and louder until he saw the door compress and blown from its hinges. Afterword, he saw someone walk into his cell with his eyes that adjusted to the light peering in from the opened door. When he first saw who came into the room, he felt revealed when he saw what he thought was the one person that he cared about going out of her way to save him. But that hopeful feeling was crushed and shattered when his worst nightmare came when he saw those all-too-familiar wings emerge from behind her.

The ghost that haunted him and gave him so much grief for so long came on that infamous day four years ago when she was betrayed and left for dead and he was powerless to do anything about it. Then he heard a wispier from a far that said that she was still alive. But the hope he had of getting rid of that ghost that lingered in him only lead to more pain when he saw what really had become of her when he arrived where she was calling for help. He didn't know what do next when he realized his efforts were in vain. But when his instincts kicked in, he moved along when the war escalated and swept him along with it. After fighting alongside an alien race to fight off another, another threat came and that swept him even further when he was forced to align himself with whatever it was that used to be that person he cared for only to be stabbed in the back and to see his soldiers and one of his new friends die. From that day, the ghost took control of him as anger and hate fueled him to avenge those that had died by her hand and to get even with the man who let her become what she was.

After four years of fighting ageist the man who was responsible for her fate with little success, he felt himself begin to fade away from the little amount of anything that could humanize him anymore. That was until the alien threat returned and he was swept up again into yet another war. Amidst the fighting, he managed to make the man he hated the most even more angry when he discredited him in public with bits of a recording of his conversations he had with him. It was one of the biggest steps in bringing him and his iron fist down. Raynor did find satisfaction in it. But he found no relief from the torment that still plagued his mind. That was until he found out that the things he was collecting to keep his crew and his ship afloat was actually the key to silence that ghost once and for all. After fighting his way through the fortress of the most hated person in the galaxy, they used the device that was the key to saving humanity from the greatest threat they had faced. When they explored the aftermath, he felt the pain lift away with him when he saw the person he remembered from so long ago lying before him. But before anything else could happen, he was put on the spot to sacrifice one last thing from his old life that came back and ended up betraying him. He blocked the shot and put the one bullet that was meant for the man he hated more than anything between the eyes of his old friend to save her.

What followed was anything but a happy reunion. After barley escaping from the hostile world, they were met by the man he hated who was hunting for the precious cargo they brought back from hell. When they thought they found refuge, they were betrayed again by the man who was behind the collecting of the artifact that restored her. They escaped but not without scares and unsettling realizations. They finally found true refuge at a secret location owned by the kindest of the three factions in this corner of the galaxy. There they stayed until they were ready to leave and continue what Raynor had begun after that infamous day. But they still tracked him down and they came again. In the end, he drew the short straw and was taken away.

When he saw her come into the cell, he felt as if everything had turned against him. It was as if the ghost had returned and inflicted more pain it ever made on him when it mocked him with devilish laughter. Everything he worked for, the loss of trust of his crew, risking their lives for something that can be seen as only a personal vendetta, it was all in vain.

But some part of him told him that he shouldn't be surprised with what he saw. One reason came when they were on the run. She had a hard time believing she was "saved." She told him it was her fault entirely; that the horrific creature was actually her and she caused the pain of millions. But he persisted. Again and again he told her, "That wasn't you, that was the Queen of Blades." But she always told him, "How do you know if it wasn't me?" The second reason came as the running came to a stop when he saw the rage that existed inside her. It was the rage that he had four years ago for the same man but her rage burned even more than his. He understood her rage; having to live with it for four years and having almost no way of getting rid of it. His hatred still burned for the man who betrayed them both and caused so much pain to billions of people. But that fire burned lower because he knew that he had to keep the rage against the tyrant under control if he was to keep himself and the women he moved heaven and earth to bring back alive.

When he wasn't coming back for her, he knew that the thirst for blood would probably consume her into inflicting so much pain on the Dominion. But what he didn't expect was for her to go back to what he went through hell and back and through hell again to bring her back.

Raynor began to doubt if there was anything human left in her when he saw that she deliberately chose to throw it all away on her free will. Maybe she was right that it was really her in the driver's seat when she sent out her minors to kill billions. That was what the ghost whispered in his ear when he first saw her.

But why did she show signs that she still loved him? Why did she go out of her league to save him when she could have just go and gather her minions again to slaughter millions more?

When she handed him his gun, she told him about the promise he made years ago to kill the monster that she was. She gave him that chance to fulfill it when she brought in up to her head.

At that moment, he heard the ghost that returned to him shout in his ear to pull the trigger for all the pain she caused in the past and for betraying him as a person. The anger and hatred weighed heavily on his finger as he pushed down on the trigger. But for some reason, he allowed himself to move the gun away and discharge all the rounds into the wall.

Why? Was it because some part of him still believed in her when she asked him before putting her life in her hands? He doubted it. If it wasn't that, it must have been what his Protoss friend said about her and the end of the universe.

She dies, we all die.

He saw the vision of Armageddon through the Ihan crystal. He knew he could not let anger get the better of him after seeing what he saw. But whatever the reason, he was still upset and crushed after he lowered the gun after he unloaded it.

"I love you Jim... never forget it," was all she said before he walked out and returned to his ship.

Raynor moved his hands from his eyes and moved weaved his fingers together in front of his lips as he sighed deeply. The sigh wasn't from what he thought about the day before when he was rescued, not entirely at least. His mind was swimming with the thoughts he had about the dream he had when he collapsed.

The dream began when he and Sarah were fighting their way through the Umojan labs all the way to where the Archangel separated them in the fire fight. The steps played out just as it did but when he told Nova to take her best shot when she confronted him, everything went black. What happened next was unclear but he remembered what he saw.

When he heard the whisper that Sarah was still alive after her betrayal all those years ago, he saw images of a fiery planet inhabited by nightmarish creatures swarming around an object that contained a figure that looked human and he heard a voice call his name. It was Sarah sending out a call for help to him when she was incubated inside the Chrysalis.

He realized that what he dreamed about just now was what Sarah was showing him all the way on her monstrous Zerg ship. She was contacting him psyonicly again. He assumed that Kerrigan would think that he would be too angry at her to think about sending him a psyonic vision into his head. But if she knew he was angry and she went into his head, she wanted to show him what she wanted him to see very badly.

In his dream, he saw Kerrigan fly his drop ship to the rendezvous point where the Hyperion and the rest of the rebel fleet were waiting. He saw her burst into rage when she heard that Raynor never made it and grabbing a hold of Valerian's throat with her mind. He saw her get back to the drop ship and leave just as the rebel fleet escaped the Dominion ambush. He saw her make contact with a Zerg hive cluster and assembled the minions as they assaulted the Dominion base and destroyed the orbital cannon that was a threat to him coming to the rendezvous. Afterword, he saw Kerrigan sit at the console and speak into the microphone trying to contact him.

"Jim? Are you on this frequency? Jim, are you out there? I'm at the rendezvous, it's all clear here. I've been thinking about what you said. There's something dark in me Jim. I need you. I need you to hear me right now."

Jim felt a cold rush of loneliness and desperation surge through him when he saw Sarah speak. He saw her point her gun at the Zergling that came aboard and then a familiar voice on the spoke through the speakers.

"We interrupt you regularly scheduled programming to bring you this news: notorious rebel Jim Raynor was captured in a daring raid yesterday. He was briefly interrogated and snarly executed."

What followed was an over flowing rush of pain, anger, sadness and helplessness as she screamed and the entire ship shook and the lights and systems flickered. He saw her curl on the floor and shed a tear from her eye. It was an experience that was all-too-familiar to him. The Zergling approached her and when she looked at the creature, she listened to Mengsk's voice echo in the ship emphasizing the glory of the Dominion now that the greatest threats to humanity where finally dealt with. The sadness slowly turned into something that was also too familiar to Raynor. What other option was there when everything that you kept close to yourself was taken away? Raynor had an idea before he saw Kerrigan set the coordinates into the computer and fly the ship away.

What he saw happened next was what Jim could only describe as a montage of memories. Raynor sat there on the side of his bed still staring into the nothingness of his thoughts of what Kerrigan had showed him.

The way she reacted to the newscast made Raynor think about what he tried so hard to tell Sarah before they were separated. He wanted her so badly not to throw away all of his efforts to make her human again. But there was some part of him, perhaps it was the ghost that he though he got rid of was still whispering to him from a far and slowly filling him with doubt. That part of him had a feeling that she would do the unthinkable and deliberately go back to the swarm. That started to make him think that she was right that she was in the driver's seat ever since she emerged from the Chrysalis four years ago up to point where he freed her.

It felt even more so when he saw the scenes where she murdered a whole colony of Protoss on a remote ice planet similar to Braxis. The reason she went there was to reclaim Zerg that were under the control of a controlling Zerg called a Broodmother.

When she arrived, the Broodmother was dead and the Protoss saw her. If they told the rest of the Protoss, they'd exploit her weakness and have their fleets hunt her down. So, the way to keep that from happening was to silence all the voices so that the dead men tell no tales.

The way that she acted when she cut off their communications and how she even used a prisoner as a Trojan horse to catch those who did manage to get off planet made his ghost shout loader in his mind and pull him deeper into despair. The prisoner, who was called Lasarra, told her that she could just run with the Protoss hard on her trail. But, Kerrigan chose not to. For the sake of getting everything together to bring Mengsk to his knees, she had to butcher every single life including innocent lives, on an entire planet. That angered Raynor even more. Not even seeing Kerrigan tell her Zerg adjutant that she doesn't have to enjoy kill when she had to could justify anything.

The next battle happened on Char. After seeing her dual with a Broodmother and getting her and her Zerg to join Kerrigan's army, she set her forces loose against Warfield's men and completely destroyed the fighting machine.

Amidst the gun and cannon fire and the shredding of metal and flesh, Warfield's voice echoed:

"Damn it girl, we saved you! How could you return to this?

"You gave up your humanity for this; to kill more people?"

When the fighting ceased, he saw Kerrigan staring down at an impaled and crippled General inside the operations center littered with bodies of marines deceased in their CMC armor.

"Kerrigan," He said with the strength he had left. "You listen to me. I have three shuttles filled with men too injured to ever be a threat to you. Husbands...fathers...you let those shuttle's go, you hear me?!"

Kerrigan showed little signs that she heeded any of Warfield's words.

"You bitch; you're not even human anymore. You betrayed us all. For what? Petty revenge?!" Warfield weakly raised his robotic arm cannon and aimed it at her. "How many innocents have you killed?! How many more have to die?! What if Raynor could see you right now?!"

The rage in her eyes burned as they glowed orange and the area between them shook as she drove the steel beam strait down into Warfield's torso. Warfield then closed his eyes and his cannon fell beside him. After the rage subsided in Kerrigan's eyes, she took a pause and closed her eyes. She tilted her head up and reopened them as she turned and walked away from the expired old soldier. In the last moments, Raynor herd the voices of the Dominion officers on the radio saying the Zerg that pursued them were falling back and they were going to make it out alive.

It was hard to take in that she spared those Dominion soldiers, who were a part of the thing whose leader was who she hated the most. Then again, Raynor was a part of the Confederate army when he was a Heaven's Devil. When he learned that the war he was fighting was only to fill the Old Family's pockets, he went AWOL after seeing his unit fall to the Confederate military. The soldiers weren't the evil one's inherently, it was the person sitting on the throne that was. But she still spared them while she killed a planet of Protoss whom she didn't hate as much.

What happened next was unexpected. Zeratul appeared in her ship and, after a bitter greeting from Kerrigan, gave her a vision of Zerus, the birth world of the Zerg.

When Raynor looked into the Ihian Crystal, he saw Tassadar, who wasn't as dead as he, Zeratul and the rest of the witnesses of his magic track on Auir thought, said that the Overmind was created by a Xel'naga and altered the Zerg into weapons. This Zerus planet must have been where it started and those primal Zerg he saw in the vision that Kerrigan received from Zeratul were what they were before they became the ravenous killing machines that he was all-too-familiar with.

Kerrigan and her crew of Zerg arrived and Zeratul was there waiting for her.

"The power of Zerus called you here." Zeratul said when she walked up to him on the planet's surface.

"My need to see Mengsk dead called me here." She retorted. "These Zerg will help me destroy Korhal."

"You must let remake you, Kerrigan! The final war nears, and there is little time."

"I don't need to do a damn thing. I will not be a pawn in your prophecies."

"But you will do anything to have your revenge?"

"Anything."

"Then that is enough,"

What followed was a frenzy of blood as the native creatures battled Kerrigan and her brood as she set out to clam the power of Zerus. He saw her awaken the large primal Zerg creature that was referred to as the Ancient one whom spoke to her about her desire to clam the power of the planet. After the ancient one told her what to do, she entered the center of the pool and encased herself into something that Raynor never wished to see again; another Chrysalis. When she emerged, she took on her infamous form again and showed even more power than what he saw when she emerged the first time on Char.

Afterword, she told her Zerg crew and the Ancient one, Zerven, that she felt even more power than she had before when she was the old Queen of blades. She also mentioned that she recalled an influence on her from Amon, the Dark One Raynor had seen in the Overmind's vision, and the Xel'naga artifact removed it. At first, Raynor felt relief that he was right that the thing Sarah was before wasn't entirely her. But the way she embraced her new powers as she set out and killed the rest of the Primal pack leaders and collected their essence and their packs, including Zervan who turned on her, Raynor began to think that it didn't matter whether she was Amon's puppet or not.

But when she seemed to have all the reason to march straight to Korhal and start the body count that would end with Mengsk's on top, she was looking down at a two-way communicator that was brought to her by her swarm when thousands were said to have been released to Char. The holographic image of Mengsk's head then appeared.

"The Queen of Blades. I knew you'd return to your true form; a monster." Mengsk said. Kerrigan rolled her eyes slightly and her vision drifted to the side.

"Now you'll do exactly as I say if you care at all about Jim Raynor."

When she heard his name, her eyes widened and shot directly to Mengsk's image.

"Yes…" Mengsk said with a sadistic tone, "He's alive. So you will keep your swarm away from Korhal, and away from me, or he dies."

He grinned as he began to mock her. "That man sacrificed everything to give you back your humanity. And you threw it away. How he must be disgusted by you. Why, he'd be the first in line to kill you." Then the communicator went dark.

Jim didn't need to feel Kerrigan's emotion she project through the vision to see what she felt.

When the leviathan departed and warped back to Koprulu, Kerrigan was told that something that was Zerg but not of her brood was contacting her from afar.

"I know you wish to topple Mengsk. His alien soldiers, the hybrid, are your greatest threat." The voice said to her, "If you wish to stop them, meet me at these coordinates."

The Hybrids. Jim remembered infiltrating the Dominion bio-weapons lab at Castinar and seeing the specimens and escaping from the hybrid that rampaged free from its cell when he and his men took out the reactor to blow it all sky high.

Kerrigan knew that Jim was out there somewhere and she needed to find him but the threat of the Hybrids was something she couldn't ignore. She followed the trail the mysterious voice left for her to an orbital platform called Skygeirr Station.

There, the speaker of the voice revealed himself.

Stukov? Raynor was surprised again.

Whatever the reason he ended up the way he did, Stukov told Kerrigan about the lab and how it contained more Hybrid. Raynor saw glimpses of the battle on the station platform; how she infested the garrisons and used those soldiers as cannon fodder to clear out the platform and break through the front door. Inside, he saw the Hybrids in the holding chambers and Kerrigan moved quickly to eradicate them before they could kill her.

Before they descended deeper into the station, Stukov explained that Dr. Emil Narud was at the head of all it. That wasn't surprising to Jim, considering how Naurd betrayed him and his Raiders when they ran from the Dominion and nearly trapped them at the secret research facility in the Kirkegaard Belt. That was until Stukov told her that Naurd wasn't really human; he was a thousand year old shape shifter who had major ties to Amon whom Narud was trying to resurrect somehow. When Kerrigan and Stukov discussed how Narud was doing this, Kerrigan realized why Narud was behind the findings of the artifact pieces and what really happened when Raynor blasted her with it.

Son of a bitch

That whole time when Raynor was collecting the pieces was all a deceptive plot to release Kerrigan's psyonic energy to have it given to Amon. It was the perfect plan; Tychus's itch for freedom combined with Mengsk's rage to see Kerrigan dead and Raynor's own desperation to make her human again was the perfect set up.

He saw Kerrigan and Stukov descend deeper into the lab to find an ancient Xel'naga Cavern populated by Tal'darim Protoss. There, Narud showed his true form to her as he and his fanatical followers battled her and her brood. But Kerrigan was too powerful for the fanatics as her brood tore every Tal'darim to shreds and Narud retreated deeper into the cavern. Kerrigan followed him. She entered a dark room as the large door opened. Inside was a temple interior with spires reaching out from the ground.

"Face me Narud," she spoke into the darkness of the chamber, "it's over."

"It is only beginning," Narud's voice echoed in the darkness. "Amon whispered of this from the stars. He told you of his return. He told you of ruin…extinction...the end of all things."

Kerrigan looked around seeing shadows shift in the corners of her eyes. "Your god is dead and he is never coming back!"

"Is that what you think?"

She whipped her body around and swung her bladed wing tip where she heard the voice. She froze and stopped her blade where it was when she saw who spoke.

"No," She hesitated and stepped back. Her eyes were filled with shock at the sight of Jim Raynor standing in front of her. But then his eyes glowed red and he looked up. From above, a fragment of the Xel'naga structure fell like a falling chandler and landed where Sarah was standing. But the fragment glowed and sizzled with energy and disintegrated. Sarah was crouched down panting and supporting herself with her wings.

"No," she slowly looked up at the shape shifter, "You're not him."

Energy surged around her as she unleashed it through the ground toward Narud. He was launched off his feet and he flew up and landed into the side of the crystal segment of the main spire in the center of the room. She ran toward the spire and from the ground began to crumble bellow her feet. A Nydus worm emerged skimming the surface and she leapt on top of it as it stretched out of the ground with its mandibles heading straight up toward Narud. The worm's mouth collided and broke through the pillar. Then an orange glow grew inside the worm's mouth and then an explosion erupted inside. Narud shot out of the worm's mouth and slammed down onto the floor. Just as the Nydus worm fell in its own demise, Kerrigan slammed on top of Narud and began delivering punches onto the shape shifter's head.

"You are not Jim!" Sarah shouted with anger as she slammed her fists again and again into Raynor's face. "You are nothing!"

When the last punch connected, Raynor's face changed into something that was even more haunting.

"I am everything you lost." Kerrigan looked down at a redheaded ghost that she had though she all but forgotten. The Queen of Blades hesitated again and Narud made his move. In the form of Kerrigan before she was taken by the Zerg, Narud shot his hand up and forced Kerrigan off her feet and suspended her in the air. He was on his feet and he swiftly pulled his fist back which suddenly emanated with an orange Psi-blade and shot it into Kerrigan's abdomen. Kerrigan's eyes widened when she felt the breath from her body forced out of her and the pain shot to every corner of her body. She looked at her former self who looked back at her with a mocking stare.

"I am everything you never had."

With what energy she had left, the Queen of Blades forced herself down and wrapped her arms around Narud. From behind her, Kerrigan's wings glowed violet and she forced them behind Narud and put all six razor sharp tips through the back of Naurd's body. The shape shifter's body shuttered and he groaned with pain.

"You already lost," Kerrigan's own voice whispered into her ear. As Naurd's strength failed, his voice slipped into the dark whisper of his unnatural tone. "Amon lives, you will see him soon."

The blade came out of the Queen of Blades' body as Narud fell down to the floor dead but retaining the redheaded Ghost's form. Kerrigan fell down next to the shape shifter and lay curled on the floor as her strength and her consciousness faded away into darkness.

Kerrigan found herself inside a pool and the voices of her brood communicated with her. They told her they managed to get her out and put her into the pit to heal. She'd barely escaped death. As she rested and her body put itself back together, all she could think about were what she had seen when she dueled Narud. Seeing Jim again; the mixture of fear, guilt and even regret filled her. He was still in danger and he still didn't know what she had done to herself. And seeing her reflection of what she once was so long ago; she couldn't even comprehend the burden she had on herself.

When she was fully healed, she came to her companions who were waiting for her. She gave the order to leave the station and one thing was on her mind as the Leviathan warped out: Jim.

When the Leviathan came out of its warp, she reached out with her mind into the far reaches of Dominion space. She found the Hyperion's signal and she reached out to it.

Matt and Valerian received her call and they were initially surprised seeing her the way she was. She told them Raynor was alive and told them to hack the Dominion network to find him. The wait was long and tedious. While she waited, her Zerg minions bickered that they disliked working with the Terrans and slightly questioned Kerrigan's orders. But Kerrigan told them to shut up and deal with it. After waiting for hours, Valerian told Kerrigan Raynor was held on the Moros and they determined where they would intercept the prison ship. Matt suggested that they would let Tosh onto the ship to find him but Kerrigan hastily insisted she'd do it herself.

Alongside the Battle Cruiser, the lavation came out of warp before a large ship docked to a station. The creature extended its colossal tentacles and punched them into the bow of the ship. Kerrigan emerged inside of the ship and she began her march. She and her minions tore through the ship, section by section and level by level; impaling, shredding and even infesting all who got in her way. The ship then began to tear itself apart when she made it to the lift to the prison deck. She hurried through the cell blocks as the Moros collapsed section by section until she arrived at "Maximum Security." She told her Broodmother to have the Leviathan stabilize the ship. Its tentacle's torn through the hull and embedded into the steel structures; the section of the ship wasn't going to destroy itself now. She then proceeded into the corridor and took out the remaining guards inside. As she proceeded, she came across the contraband section. She went inside and found what she hoped to find, Raynor's revolver. She continued on until she turned her head to a cell door. She focused her psyonic energy and blew the door off its hinges into the cell. Just as she was about to enter, the image of her doing so began to darken until it became total blackness.

"I don't want you to forgive me. I only want you to know."

Those were the last words he heard before Jim found himself in his quarters again.

Raynor pondered everything that he saw for many long minutes before he closed his eyes and bent his head down to his knees.