Chapter 6: Wrath of the Void

Three observers flew past the base of Moebius Corps, trying to get information regarding the enemy army. They could not get too close, because there were missile turrets everywhere, as well as three vikings floating above the big Moebius spaceship. All of the photon cannons and void pylons had been dealt with by the terrans.

Something in the distance caught the attention of one of the observers. All three flew in its direction and, upon getting closer to the towering structure, they could tell by the rotating top that it was a missile turret.

After getting dangerously close to the turret's area of attack, they noticed that there were more such structures further ahead. Those turrets were definitely defending something, but it was too dangerous to fly further. In spite of knowing this, one of the observers came to the conclusion that if it would give its faction a bit more information about what was beyond the first turrets, the Nerazim might have higher chances of winning the war.

The closest turret locked onto the observer, detecting it in spite of the drone's cloaked body. Missiles were fired, and the observer got hit three times before exploding. Fortunately, its death was not in vain, because it managed to send images of the command center guarded by the turrets.

"Looks like they've managed to expand," Tony said, watching the screen that was on the cafeteria's wall.

"We shall strike their expansion, cutting them off from the mineral and vespene gas supply," Makatai told him.

Khor'kai interrupted them. "How are we going to attack them when they have so much detection?"

"Our warriors need not hide to take that expansion down," Makatai said.

"We have lost many warriors while you were gone, Makatai. The terrans on our side will defend, but we will not be able to do much damage if we attack with what remained of our army."

Makatai frowned. "The goal is not to deal damage, but to convince the enemy to stop fighting."

"You expect us to talk the enemy to death?"

"No. I expect our warriors to employ strategies meant to lure the enemy into traps first, and then attempt to negotiate. We will only use lethal force if we absolutely need to do so."

"So, you intend to save them," the signifier said, giving the prelate a nasty stare. "After all they have done, after all they have taken from us, are they not deserving of death?"

"The one who controls them deserves death. The manipulated terrans, on the other hand, deserve a chance to redeem themselves."

"Do what you want, Makatai. But I will no longer take orders from you. I seek only revenge."

The prelate frowned and shook his head while Khor'kai left the cafeteria. He understood that the signifier had no more respect for him, especially after the death of Aru due to lack of defenses in the settlement. Makatai hoped that Khor'kai would not cause their army too much trouble by going against orders.

Tony looked around at the SCVs near the Frigate. "Harold! You and the boys should get busy making turrets."

One of the SCVs came forward, helped by the thrusters on its back, and then saluted with its arm drill to the cockpit. "You got it, man!" its pilot – a dark skinned guy in his mid twenties – said. He turned his mech around to look at the other SCVs. "I will deal with putting turrets next to the Frigate. Lewis, Michael, and Josh, you guys cover the southern side of the settlement. Kyle, John Williams, and George, you guys cover the eastern side. John McDonald, Sergei, and Jake, you three will take the western side. That leaves Jasmine, Florence, and Jimmy with the north. You got your orders; now go, go, go!"

The SCV teams scattered and got busy, building towers near each edge of the settlement's short metal fences. Tony and the tankers put their tanks into siege mode to the left of the Frigate. Fifty marines patrolled around the settlement while other fifty patrolled around their team's ship. Brian preferred to hang around Tony's tank alongside ten other marines, just in case the enemy would get too close.

To the right of the Frigate, Smiley decided to make himself useful and planted a pylon between four blue barracks. There, ten more marines waited in case they were needed to replace the wounded – or killed in worst case – marines. Once the pylon had been warped in, he placed four photon cannons around it.

Six marines ran away, screaming, while the other four went into the barracks to start the buildings' jets and fly them away. When Smiley's cannons finished warping in, they began to fire at the fleeing barracks.

"Tony! Smiley's bringing the darn cannons again!" a marine said while following the flying barracks.

"Just stay out of their range," Tony said. "They'll still provide us with defense against the enemy."

Khar and Garf took the three hatchlings to the Temple of Young and put them in the machines that kept them protected from disease. Their nerve cords had been severed and clamped by their father.

"I shall stay here and protect the little ones. What about you, Garf?"

The ghost thought for a bit, and then said, "I take Raivn an' grd ousid'."

It took a while for Khar to figure out what Garf meant. "You will take Raven and guard outside?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Be careful. I don't want to lose you too." She hugged him. As he hugged her back, she was reluctant to let him go. Still, she knew he'd not change his mind, so she released him.

The Lady in Black passed through the settlement's cemetery. In it, a grave was made for Aru. It had a metallic monument shaped like the branches of a lightning bolt, at the base of which a blue crystal rested. Around the monument, there was a wreath for the fallen.

Twenty other graves were also there, fifteen of them having crossed metal blades, while the rest had metal sculptures shaped like void rays. All graves had blue crystals at the bases of their monuments.

The Frigate's crew members dealt with burying the corpses of Clara and the battlecruiser's drunk captain, along with its thirty crew members – an unexpectedly low amount of people for a battlecruiser. They could not find the bodies of the other Moebius Corps terrans, since the Frigate's cannons blasted the other five battlecruisers to pieces.

Moebius Corps was gathering its army at the edge of the forest once again, but this time they were ready to throw everything they had at the Nerazim and the other terrans.

The thor stood in front, flexing its arms. Five vikings hovered above it. Five banshees flew around the army, ready to shoot any ground attackers. Six firebats in orange armor similar to that of marauders showed off their arms' dual flamethrowers. Four reapers used their jets to fly chaotically next to the army. Forty marines were itching to get the order to march toward the settlement. Three ravens flew over the forest's edge, inspecting the area to make sure no dark templar or signifiers were around to strike from the shadows.

"This is the final strike," the deep voice of the mysterious boss echoed through the minds of the Moebius Corps terrans. "I will lead you to victory."

"Glory to the master!" the terrans said in chorus.

Five void rays flew past the mountains and headed toward the place where the expansion was spotted by the observer. Ten annihilators trailed behind, their cannons prepared to blast any enemies that would pick on the ships.

In the forest, Frank and Connor drove between the trees.

"Hey, Frank! Where are we going?"

"To rescue some buddies of mine."

"Oh. I thought you were trying to lure me into an ambush or something like that."

Frank stopped his cyclone. "If you fear that you might get in trouble for following me, feel free to go back to your ship."

Connor stopped his diamondback next to the cyclone. "I'm still gonna follow you. If it turns out you're just trying to get rid of me, first I'll be sad … then I'll turn you into a kite with the help of my rail guns. Don't worry; if I survive the ambush, I'll bury you."

Frank rolled his eyes. "Look. If there's an ambush, we'll both likely get killed. These guys don't take betrayal lightly. So either give me a hand or go back to the Frigate!"

"Did you just …?" Connor said, then looked at the stumps that were once his arms. "Man, way to rub salt into the wound!"

"Wait!" Frank said, his eyes widening after he realized why Connor was upset. "I meant I need your help. I'm not a jokey kind of guy."

Connor brightened up. "Oh. Okay. I'll help you find your friends."

Makatai led an army made of ten void rays, ten annihilators, one hundred centurions, four signifiers, twenty dark templar, six corsairs, ten stalkers, and the two dark archons. It took him a lot of discussions to convince his people to give him another chance, but they all knew that nobody else was willing to take on the responsibilities of leading the tribe. He gladly took the ones who still had at least a grain of respect for him, and brought them near the edge of the forest.

The first thing that caught their attention was a bright, whitish blue light. It was difficult to see what was emitting it, but judging by the many silhouettes of terran machines and soldiers, it was safe to say that it had to be something belonging to Moebius Corps.

As the Nerazim advanced slowly and carefully, Makatai and the signifiers felt a chill that seemed to pierce through their skulls.

"There is something sinister about that light," Makatai said. "It is full of hatred, and it holds a power much greater than a Khalai archon. Could it be … a twilight archon?"

"We want its energy!" the dark archons said, feeling attracted to the light like moths to a flame.

"Stand your ground!" the prelate ordered. "This could be a trap set up by Moebius Corps."

"It is a creature so strong that its brain waves are causing ripples within our minds," one of the signifiers said.

The light came closer, and Makatai could finally see more features at its core. "It … It looks like a protoss, but it is too monstrous. I would say it could be of zerg origin, but it has so much psionic power that it cannot be of the Swarm. Unless … the zerg have figured out a way to infest us."

The glowing, levitating creature had silver skin, with sapphire pauldrons and a similarly colored crest that looked like that of a hydralisk zerg strain. Through the crest, the being's pulsating brain could be seen. The creature's face had no mouth or nose, but an elongated chin. Its eyes glowed bright blue, like those of the Khalai. The body was like that of a protoss, but its hands had only three fingers ending in sharp claws. Its legs had a pair of spikes coming out of their thighs' outer areas. From the creature's back, six thick spikes with claws at their ends protruded – three on each side – along with four blue glowing tentacles that waved in the wind of the blizzard.

"We must try to sneak past that abomination," Makatai said.

Back at the settlement, Garf piloted Raven around the Temple of Young.

Magellan contacted Raven over the station and said, "Ray, try to avoid throwing turrets at the enemy unless there is no other way to deal with them. Focus more on deploying point defense drones."

"Ray?" Garf said, raising his left eyebrow.

"I gave our raven a name of his own," Magellan told the ghost.

Garf grinned. "Heh."

"What is so funny, UED scum?" Ray asked.

Before Garf could attempt to answer, he saw a cloaked banshee on one of the raven's screens. He pointed at it.

"I hope you have planned how to get rid of the attackers too, Magellan," Ray said.

"Indeed, I have. Our viking will deal with that banshee. Just deploy the drone."

Ray built and deployed the point defense drone, keeping the banshee's missiles from attacking the temple and the six cannons around the building.

"Hey, banshee!" the viking pilot said as he flew his ship toward the enemy. "Fight or flight? You choose!" He shot at the banshee, chasing it away.

Ray raised his fins. "Well, that was easy." Out of nowhere, two missiles were shot at him. His energy storage had been depleted. He vibrated his fins while saying, "Fuck your EMPs, stupid spectres!"

Ten marines rushed to chase the fully masked spectres away, but one of the Moebius Corps agents used his psionic powers to unleash an ultrasonic pulse, stunning all of the marines. When thirty more marines arrived, the two spectres ran away toward an area of the settlement where there was no detection.

Garf piloted Ray to chase down the spectres, knowing that they could be up to no good. He saw them, but he also saw Khor'kai, who was looking around while holding green orbs of light in his hands. The signifier was unaware that one of the spectres was channeling a lot of psionic energy while targeting him.

"Noooo!" Garf said. "Wa'n 'im! Wa' him!"

"He is too far away to hear me," Ray said. "You will have to snipe that spectre."

"But–"

"If Khar's father dies, I'm not the one who will feel guilty for not doing anything. After all, I have no energy left."

Garf ran toward the raven's hatch, which opened up to give him a good view of the spot of interest. Ray sent the location of the spectre to Garf's rifle scope. The ghost's arms began to shake as he pointed his weapon at the spectre's head. It took all of his mental strength to keep almost still. He gritted his teeth, pulled the trigger, and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see what became of the spectre's head.

Khor'kai saw the enemy's decloaked corpse to his left and then looked up to see the raven and Garf. The latter clutched his rifle and mumbled nonsense to himself. A bit further from the spectre's body, the signifier saw a shimmer, so he unleashed his psionic storm, causing the cloaked spectre to scream.

Once the lightning disappeared, the spectre uncloaked while being sprawled over the snow. He was paralyzed from the neck down, and was breathing rapidly.

A medivac arrived, but neither its healing beam nor its medics could do anything to help the spectre recover. "He's basically a vegetable," a medic said after using a device to scan the wounded man.

Brian approached the spectre and pointed his rifle at the guy's head. "Poor bastard. Might as well put him down." He pulled the trigger, and the rifle fired.

The void rays and annihilators tore down the missile turrets and were getting very close to the expansion. Moebius Corps was alerted, and twenty marines were dispatched to deal with the nuisance.

Frank noticed that his three marine friends were part of the sent squad, so he said, "This is our chance to rescue those numskulls. Let's go!"

"I'm with you!" Connor said.

The protoss-zerg hybrid levitated through the forest, leading the way for his army. The thor punched trees left and right to make way for itself. While most of the army went forward, the marines were held back by an invisible wall.

"What the hell is this?" one of the marines said, poking at what he could not see.

"Maybe we should shoot it," another one said.

Just then, a white fog descended upon the area, causing the marines to be unable to fire.

"Do not go any further!" Makatai said, remaining unseen. "We do not wish to battle you. You are being manipulated by that creature that leads you."

"It's the protoss!" a marine said. "And they used that corsair stuff on us!"

"The master said to kill them, because they will seek to prolong our suffering," another marine said.

When the disruption web faded out, Makatai and the other dark templar scattered away from the marines while a scanner swept the area. The prelate decided to take on another target. He went for the thor.

The giant mech followed the hybrid. Its pilot hoped to face glorious battle once he'd reach the protoss settlement.

Makatai took advantage of the pilot's mentality. "You say you seek a worthy opponent. Do you hope to find it among the protoss?"

"I sure do," the pilot said. "I have been waiting to get into a battle where I could show everyone what I am capable of."

"Are you aware that on this planet there is a creature much more powerful than any of the protoss?"

"There is?! Where can I find it?"

"It is right in front of you, and you are taking orders from it."

The thor pilot looked at the hybrid. "Oh. The boss. Ja, I have been thinking about challenging that asshole for some time now. He keeps pushing me around."

"Then why did you not challenge him?"

"Because I've never seen the douchebag until now. But now that I got him right in front of me ..." The thor's cannons were locked onto the hybrid.

The creature turned around and said, "Fool! I know your intentions!"

The firebats and the reapers started to attack the thor, only to be kicked away by the giant mech.

"Come fight me, boss!" the thor's pilot said, waving the mech's right arm toward himself.

"You dare challenge my leadership? I, Xilnu, have been appointed by the master to lead you stray creatures to victory. The master is the truth-bringer and is never wrong. He has chosen me because he knows I will successfully complete the task he gave."

The reapers backed off, but the firebats were crazy enough to go for a second attack at the feet of the thor. One of them ended up being hit by the mech's right arm, and held on to its cannon while he was lifted into the air. Then he was thrown at the hybrid.

After getting hit in the face with the firebat, who had only one third of the hybrid's height, Xilnu grabbed the confused armored soldier by the head and then threw him back at the thor.

The firebat slid off the mech and fell on the ground. "Is either of you aware that there is a person inside this suit?"

The thor pilot did not care. He lifted the firebat and threw him at Xilnu again. The hybrid was tired of the foolish game and put an end to it by crushing the firebat's chest under his right foot. The screams of his dying soldier meant nothing to him.

"That … was a bit too much," the thor pilot said. He pointed the right cannons at Xilnu. "You should pick on someone your own size."

Giving the thor a death glare, the hybrid put his hands forth and fired a purple beam at the giant mech, surrounding it with a sphere of the same color. The attack lifted the thor into the air and proceeded to slowly crush it. "Foolish creature. You tell yourself you are a god, yet you cannot even hold a candle to me. You lie to yourself to make your pointless existence feel less miserable. You are no god, and will die like the rest."

"I'll be back," were the last words of the thor pilot before Xilnu completely crushed him with the metal of the mech.

"Don't let them run to the sides, Connor!" Frank said while shooting at the legs of his three marine friends.

Connor drove his vehicle back and forth in a C-shaped path, making sure that the marines could not escape from the cyclone.

"I always knew you would betray us, Frank!" one of the marines said while holding his damaged legs and leaning against a mountain behind him. The other two marines tried to climb the mountain but kept falling back down.

"I'm on your side, you dumdums!" Frank said.

"Then why are you shooting at us?"

Frank stopped the missile launchers. "Because you've been brainwashed and I need to disable you before I can put you inside my cyclone."

"We're not brainwashed!" a marine said.

"Okay, you mooks, let me ask you a question. If your boss told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

"Yes!" one of the marines said.

"I think so," the marine holding his legs said.

The third marine fist-pumped. "Glory to the master!"

"See? You're all brainwashed," Frank told them. "Now stand still! This will only hurt a little bit, but it's nothing the medivac's healing beam can't fix."

The three marines started to scream.

"Motherfuckin' zealots!" a Moebius Corps marine said while firing his rifle alongside his squad.

"We are centurions!" the dual-bladed Nerazim shouted while blinking toward the marines and attacking. They left the terrans stunned and then retreated, trying to avoid killing them.

"Listen, terrans, I have an offer for you," Makatai said, being heard only by the marines. "Go to the mountains and stay there until the war is over. Then you will be taken by our allies' medivac. If you consider switching sides, then run away from the ones who remain in Moebius Corps."

Ten marines found the offer tempting enough that they gave in and ran for the mountains. The ones who remained shot at them, but only managed to kill three. The other seven disappeared into the forest.

"We are slowly chipping away at their army," Makatai said to his followers. "If we keep this up, Xilnu will be at a disadvantage against us."

The five Moebius Corps vikings arrived at the Frigate and did their best to dodge the missile turrets' attacks. As soon as the valkyrie came after them, they retreated to guard the banshees nearby.

The five tanks saw the hybrid, who emanated the ominous blue aura. They pointed their turrets at it.

"I don't know what that thing is," Tony said, "but it definitely doesn't look friendly."

The Lady in Black jumped atop Tony's tank and threw a flaming green scythe at Xilnu. "Heads up!"

Xilnu was taken by surprise when the tip of the scythe sank into his forehead. The weapon dissolved, leaving a huge hole in the hybrid's head. He fully recovered from the injury and said, "You will have to do better than that to defeat me!"

"Oh, I'm just getting started!" the Lady in Black said, her eyes suggesting she was smirking.

Xilnu's blue eyes glowed brighter as he used his mind to call the banshees to him. He absorbed the energy from the ships and then let them crash and explode around him.

The tanks and the Frigate's cannons could kill him, so he decided to blink out of sight while leaving his army to deal with the other terrans and the protoss warriors.

Garf sat in front of the raven's thirteen screens and sobbed while continuing to clutch his rifle. He was still not over the fact that he had just killed another human.

"Quit wailing, you wimp!" Ray said. "Sometimes you have to take a life to save another. That's how the world works."

The ghost continued to whine unintelligibly.

"How did you manage to survive this long? That is one of life's greatest mysteries."

Garf gasped and pointed at the screen in the top right corner of the large, central one. He saw the hybrid.

"I do not know what that thing is," Ray said, "but I do not think I have enough turrets for it."

Xilnu used his hands to fire blasts of bright blue plasma at the photon cannons around the Temple of Young until there were none left.

Garf grabbed the miniature keyboard he had hooked to the raven's wires at the start of their misadventures. He made Ray's body fly toward the hybrid.

"Are you crazy? That thing could blast me into spare parts."

"Ditract," the ghost said.

"What?" Ray said.

"Dissstract!"

"You want to provide a distraction?"

"Yup."

The raven used the interference matrix missile on Xilnu, rendering the hybrid unable to do anything. Three auto-turrets were deployed, forcing Xilnu to retreat.

Three Moebius marines – two men and one woman – were on the ground, leaning against the trunk of a giant tree. Their armors were darkened by soot, and their visors were gone, with only a few shards remaining on their helmets. One man was missing an arm, while the other man and the woman were missing their legs. The heavy blood loss was slowly rendering them unconscious.

The Lady in Black stopped next to them.

The terrans stared at her with wide eyes. They could not run, and they were unable to defend themselves.

One of the men asked, "Who are you? What do you want from us? Isn't it enough that your … high templar guy did this to us?"

The Lady in Black's green eyes started to glow brightly as she walked toward the marines.

The vikings managed to destroy three void rays before flying away from the valkyrie, wraith, and viking of the Frigate crew.

The goliath with blue armor tried to take on the four reapers but ended up constantly walking into the mines thrown by the enemies. Noticing that his walker was taking too much damage, its bald pilot yelled, "G.G.!" and ran toward the Frigate.

The reapers continued to chase him. "Hit and ruuuun!" they all said.

One blue vehicle with a flamethrower stopped in front of the reapers. Its pilot transformed the vehicle into a mech with shields for arms. "These guys turned my vehicle into a robot! Cool, huh?" He burned two of the reapers, then switched the mech back into scouting mode, catching the rest of the reapers and burning them as well. "That'll teach ya to pick on our goliath!"

The stalkers blinked around the marines, trying to lure them away from the settlement and the Frigate. The centurions and the annihilators did their best to keep the enemy marines away from the tanks' range of fire. Negotiations were difficult, because most of the marines were either too scared or too brainwashed to consider switching sides.

Ten dark templar could not sway any of the firebats, who cared only about burning all protoss to a crisp. Sensing the cruelty of the enemy, the protoss chose to keep attacking until all of the bulky armored terrans fell to their warp blades. The price paid was the lives of six dark templar.

The Lady in Black adjusted her bandanna over her chin. Behind her, resting against the tree trunk, there were three empty marine armors. Her body glowed green, and then she blinked away.

Makatai took ten dark templar with him and headed toward the settlement after hearing that Xilnu was already there. As soon as they saw the hybrid, who destroyed three annihilators with ease, they charged in to attack.

Xilnu emitted a psionic shockwave, blasting all of the dark templar away from him. "Puny little protoss. You should be thankful that the master has found a use for you, in spite of your failure to meet his expectations."

"What are you talking about?" Makatai asked, with his warp blade ablaze.

The hybrid looked at him. "I am perfection incarnate. I am what you and the zerg could never become on your own. I am xel'naga!"

Makatai stared with wide eyes at the being before him. "A xel'naga?"

"Keep telling yourself that, perversion," the Lady in Black said.

Xilnu quickly locked eyes with her. "What?!" He didn't get enough time to read her mind, because the dark templar jumped at him again, sinking their warp blades into his flesh. "Feeble creatures! Your own kind is on the verge of dying out. Your struggling is futile. To prove it to you, I shall strike you where it hurts the most!" He blinked away so fast that the dark templar could not keep up with him in spite of their own ability to teleport.

"Where is he going?" Makatai asked, trying to give chase by blinking as well.

The Lady in Black remained to guard the temple from five Moebius Corps ghosts that kept trying to call down nuclear strikes on it.

The three Moebius ravens were pestering Tony and the other tankers by throwing auto-turrets between their tanks.

"Whatever you do, don't fire your tanks at these turrets!" Tony ordered.

"But they will destroy our tanks!" the blond tanker said.

"Okay, let's blow each other up instead!" Tony said before face-palming. "Just sit it out; the SCV crew will be here to fix us up soon."

The SCVs came out of the Frigate and avoided the turrets while starting the repairs on the tanks.

The valkyrie and the wraith chased the ravens away. The three drones ended up getting shot by Smiley's photon cannons and suffered a system failure, crashing and exploding on the ground.

"Well, looks like we're only getting to keep one raven out of the deal," Jack said as he flew his wraith over the Frigate.

Garf used Ray to look for Xilnu. They found him at the lake where the Lorcadian nest was located.

Xilnu raised his hands and fired a plasma blast into the lake, turning the blue-shelled eggs into an omelet. Then he teleported away again.

"Fu' you, fk you, fuck!" Garf said, spotting the hybrid in the distance again.

Xilnu had his eyes on the Temple of Young. He raised his hands and prepared another blast.

Garf gasped. He saw the temple's top get obliterated by the powerful beam of psionic power. "Nuooooooh!"

Noticing that the ghost was forcibly opening the hatch, Ray asked, "Where are you going?"

Garf did not reply, jumping out of the raven and landing in the snow. He ran toward the temple while a few small branches got torn off from a tree and started to trail behind him, as if pulled by invisible strings.

The temple crumbled and was in ruins by the time the ghost reached it. He got smacked in the back by the branches, which then fell on the ground. He went to dig through the rubble and found Khar, along with most of the children, all alive and only having a few scratches. Khor'kai showed up as well. They dug together, getting out the rest of the wounded younglings.

The last youngling found was one of Khar's siblings, the one who shook Garf's hand when seeing him for the first time. The little protoss was gravely wounded, and his eyes had a dim green glow.

"Oh no ..." Garf said, sensing that the baby's life was fading away fast.

The little one reached for Garf's hand one last time, barely able to grasp it. Then the youngling's eyes lost their light, his body going limp and turning into dust. Some of it fell on the snow while the rest remained on the ghost's arms. Garf's future brother-in-law … was gone.

Garf stared wide-eyed at the dust, and then at Xilnu, who was in the process of absorbing the dark archons' energy. The ghost showed his gritted teeth while glaring daggers at the hybrid.

Small pieces of the temple flew toward Garf and stuck to his body, as if he were a magnet. He equipped himself with his rifle and charged at Xilnu while screaming like a madman.

"Let's not be too hasty!" the Lady in Black said, stopping Garf in his tracks and lifting him with her telekinesis. "You're just throwing your life away by charging at the hybrid like that."

The ghost protested in gibberish while struggling in mid air. The pieces of the temple fell off his body.

"I've got beef with that creature too," Lady said. "Let me handle it. You should keep the other terrans away. I don't want that thing getting free energy."

Garf pouted at being denied revenge, but he chose to listen to the mysterious protoss. As soon as he was put back on the ground, he nodded to Khar and left.

"Nandu-Xnora! Khartal-Solash!" Makatai yelled, trying to pull the two dark archons out of the hybrid's grasp. They pushed the prelate away, causing him to fall into a mound of snow.

"Our lives for the tribe!" the dark archons said in unison before their bodies exploded.

This dealt major damage to Xilnu, who had lost the opportunity to absorb the powerful protoss mergers. Yet he still had enough strength to push all of the dark templar away with another psionic shockwave.

"Hey! False xel'naga!" someone said.

Xilnu turned around to see the Lady in Black, whose capes fluttered in the wind while she stood there and held her fiery scythe with both of her hands.

"Who are you?" Xilnu asked, feeling an intense emanation of energy from within her. "How can you radiate so much power? Unless ..." He ducked to avoid another scythe thrown at him. The scythe came back like a boomerang and stabbed his back. "Argh! I should have known."

"I won't just sit back and watch as you kill these people, Xilnu," she said.

As the scythe dissolved, Xilnu read the mind of the Lady in Black and found out everything he wanted to know about her. "So, after manipulating everyone into doing what your plan requires, you pretend to care for them. Such a poser."

She scowled while tilting her head to the left. "Says the one whose creator is a poser."

"Oh, that he may be, but at least he has never developed feelings for any of his puppets."

She flinched after hearing that.

Xilnu laughed. "My creator does not care about what becomes of his servants. Unlike you. I cannot believe you once almost gave up your life to save a worthless piece of flesh that eventually realized it was better off dead. Such a fool you were, when you've only delayed the inevitable."

The Lady in Black scowled at him while she summoned a long, green warp blade out of the silver armor on each of her forearms. Without anything more to say to the hybrid, she lunged for him and pierced the flesh of his chest with both of her blades.

"I knew you would let your anger doom you," Xilnu said, smirking through his eyes. He used his hands to emit the purple beam, encasing her inside a sphere and lifting her above him. Her blades slipped out of his body, and his wounds healed themselves rapidly. "With your essence, I will become unstoppable!"

Behind Xilnu stood the five Moebius Corps ghosts, psionically charging up their rifles in order to snipe the head of the Lady in Black.

To be continued.