Author's Note: Hey everyone! Sorry about the wait and everything, but school, employment searching, and family all take a higher priority compared to the fic. I hope you can understand that.

With the way things are going now, I don't know how long it'll be before the situation on my end improves, but it certainly won't be happening in the short run.

I'll do my best to post sooner, but I can make no guarantees of that.

I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please read and review!

Chapter 29

Scion Province, Aiur

Artanis stood from his position at the Twilight Council building, having departed his Command Mothership, the Shield of Aiur. The Zerg presence in Scion had been all but eradicated, and there was no longer any threat of them appearing out of nowhere within the city. Although the province was in ruins due to the Zerg infestation, there were still a few buildings relatively intact after Selendis had purged the veil creatures from it, this one being among them.

Zeratul was here with him, accompanied by his fellow Nerazim brethren, while the Hierarch had his own Daelaam Protoss Zealots by his side. With Selendis and the other high ranking Protoss away in assaulting the Zerg at Antioch, most of the other Protoss elsewhere on Aiur are stretched thin, but this was not a danger to any of them as virtually all of the Zerg scattered across Aiur had been eradicated.

Nevertheless, Zeratul had insisted that one important matter had to be addressed before the two of them turned their attention to Antioch with their fellow brethren. Shortly after he had emerged from the ancient Xel'Naga Caverns beneath Aiur's surface, he had brought with him 6 monstrosities that Artanis had only seen once before: the apocalyptic vision of the future from the Overmind. The Nerazim himself had encountered a similar beast at Zhakul, and while he had succeeded in slaying it, it nevertheless had taken its casualties on the Protoss there. Artanis had been initially confused as why Zeratul had allowed these vat contained hybrids to live instead of killing them on sight, but had been eventually convinced there even with the strength of both Zerg and Protoss, the hybrids were far from perfect. It was thus necessary to keep them alive for the moment so their weaknesses could be found.

As such, the 6 vat creatures were currently being transported to the Motherships where they would be Mass Recalled to Shakuras. Although there was the dangers of them taking control of individual Protoss as had happened on Zhakul, Zeratul saw that as long as they were inside the vat chambers, they will remain dormant. Nevertheless, Artanis's intention was to have them sent to the most isolated area of Shakuras to ensure they cannot do such harm.

However, Zeratul had emerged from the chambers with more than just the hybrid specimens. Another Protoss Templar had followed him out: Felanis, the leader of the Tal'darim on Aiur. Zeratul had told the Hierarch about how the Tal'darim had fractured into two different factions when the truth about their Xava'tor was in reality the Dark Archon Ulrezaj. However, Felanis was the leader of the Tal'darim that had remained loyal to him. The Templar had claimed that Ulrezaj had corrupted him more so than others using the Sundrop substance, but that the giant Khaydarin Crystal at the heart of the Xel'Naga sanctuary had restored him.

This Artanis had found difficult to believe, as no matter which faction the Tal'darim had belong to, thus far none of them had reacted to the presence of the Daelaam Protoss in a non-hostile manner. Vartanil had been part of the Tal'darim himself, although on the faction that had opposed Ulrezaj. Even after he had escaped to Shakuras with the terran Rosemary Dahl, he was unable to break the effect of the Sundrop immediately. It took the assistance of the Protoss on Shakuras to make that happen, and although Vartanil had regained his link to the Khala and fought by his Protoss brethren once again, the fact remained that cutting off the source of Sundrop to the Tal'darim alone was not enough fully undo their corruption and turn their loyalties to the Daelaam Protoss.

As such, Artanis had deep doubts in the case with Felanis. Although he did not show hostility to Zeratul upon their encounter in the caverns, the young Protoss knew that while Sundrop corrupted the minds of Khalai Protoss, it did not affect their intelligence to that extent. It was indeed possible that due to being outnumbered, as well as his own wounds, Felanis knew he could not prevail in combat.

Still, he had shown Zeratul the bodies of other Tal'darim Protoss as well as Zerg corpses in the Khaydarin Crystal chamber, as well as the vat contained hybrids. When combined with the fact that the Protoss had not fully understood the potential of the Khaydarin Crystals, the possibility that the giant crystal had restored the former Tal'darim leader to his past self before the corruption could not be ruled out. However, after being isolated from other Protoss for so long, it was unclear where his loyalties truly lie.

This was the reason why Zeratul had called Artanis to Scion, to discuss the matter with him, and for him to see Felanis face to face. The Hierarch had been convinced that in order to avoid the pending apocalypse, all of the Protoss brethren would need to stand together. There was little time to fight amongst each other as splinter factions, and for that reason Felanis could be vital in the task ahead. He was a Judicator before the fall of Aiur, and therefore his role in a leadership position could still be intact. Although there had already been much casualties among the Tal'darim here on Aiur, it is hoped that Felanis can resolve the matter without further bloodshed. Even if he is unsuccessful, Artanis still hoped that he could convince the Tal'darim on other worlds to join hands with the Daelaam Protoss against the greater menace.

Of course, none of this was possible unless Felanis had truly returned to the side of the Khala, and that is what Artanis intended to find out. According to his fellow Dark Templar brethren, there seemed to still be resentment towards the Nerazim Protoss, as well as the Khalai Protoss for joining with them. This was nothing new to Artanis, as even during the Zerg invasion that resentment between the sects had remained, and he still had a ways to go to correct this matter.

For now, he approached the former Tal'darim leader carefully, still cautious of any signs of deception. The Hierarch wanted the matter to be resolved as quickly as possible so he could turn his attention back to the retaking of Antioch.

"The so-called Daelaam Protoss has become more desperate than ever I see," Felanis observed. "You are not even 300 years old, Artanis. Who would have thought you would have been given such a position?"

"Our old traditions can no longer suffice in order for us to survive, templar," Artanis replied calmly. "We face a threat so great that the entire Protoss race must unite together, no matter what faction we belong in. Our differences must be set aside to avoid impending doom. As mighty Zeratul had discovered you in the ancient Aiur Caverns, you had already seen the vat hybrid creatures yourself. I know the Tal'darim have fought against the Zerg during the years you had been left behind on Aiur."

"And we have had far greater success than the Shel'na Kryhas! You act as if I had clung to the old traditions myself! I too had changed some of them upon creating the Tal'darim!"

"Your traditions were forged when you served under Ulrezaj," Zeratul intervened. "You had said it yourself you knew his true identity, and you had claimed you had been freed from the corruption that he had done to you with the Sundrop substance."

"I am no longer the fanatic I once was," Felanis answered. "Yet I still find it unwise for the unification of the Khalai and Nerazim Protoss. Although the Judicator Aldaris had changed his mind about consorting with the Dark Templar has being heresy, the fact remains there would be the hatred among the people."

"The task is difficult," Artanis admitted. "But as long as I am Hierarch, I will unite the Protoss together, the way it always was."

"You will never succeed, young one. By now even you must know the Dark Templar shall never embrace the Khala as we had."

"We need not to," Zeratul said. "The Khalai Protoss have yet to fully understand the power of the Void and what it grants us. It is from the Void that gives us the united strength of the Nerazims."

"The intention of Khas is to unite all of the Protoss to the Khala! It is what all of the Khalai Protoss stand for!" Felanis seethed with anger, staring at Artanis with hatred. "How dare you defy the very origins of our traditions!"

"You had come close to embracing the Void yourself," Artanis countered. "The Sundrop Ulrezaj gave you had cut off your link to the Khala, and the Tal'darim had displayed many characteristics that were similar to the Dark Templar. You forget that the Khala alone is not enough to stop the Zerg. Had it not been for Zeratul and his Dark Templar in coming to Aiur and bringing the presence of the Void, the Overmind would never have been slain."

"Khas may be revered and honored in Protoss history, but the truth is none of us could have foreseen the situation that we are in now. It does not mean that he was wrong to unite the Protoss under the Khala, but it is possible that this tradition was never meant to be held indefinitely. Throughout our entire history, the way of the ancient traditions is something we had always tried to hold on to, and now our enemies are using this against us," Zeratul added. "We no longer live in a world where these traditions can be followed. You had seen what horrors Ulrezaj had done to the Tal'darim, can you honestly say such actions were within Dark Templar traditions?"

"What is it that you ask of me?" Felanis said impatiently.

"Although much of the Tal'darim had been killed on Aiur, there are certain places where they remain," Artanis replied. "Thus far, you have been the only contact made that has not resulted in a hostile response. We cannot afford further bloodshed amongst each other when dealing with the Zerg."

"You wish for me to have the Tal'darim join hands with you? They will do no such thing, Artanis. They have been infused with the sheer and utter hatred of the Nerazim Protoss, and will oppose any Khalai Protoss that have ever joined hands with them."

"That is only due to them being cut off by the Khala, Felanis. That corruption is not irreversible, and we already have proof of such Tal'darim Protoss having regained their former selves. You were their leader once, surely you must still carry some weight amongst them."

"They will see me as nothing but a traitor who had been corrupted by the Dark Templar. If so, they would rather die than listen to what I have to say."

"We only ask that you try," Zeratul explained. "The more Protoss we unite, the greater our odds of surviving the pending menace."

Dominion Prison HQ, New Folsom

Colonel Winters listened grimly to the reports now flooding into his command center. The defenses on New Folsom were rapidly failing. Thanks to the actions of the two ghosts, several of the military cell blocks had already been burst open. The Thors he had sent to defend those blocks failed disastrously, and the freed prisoners were already commandeering Hellions, Siege Tanks, Goliaths, and Diamondbacks to support the assault. Raynor's forces, backed up by the traitor Warfield and his Dominion turncoats, were pressing forward with them. They were moving forward towards one of the Thor holding pens. Although there were many more throughout the complex, Thor pilots were not easy to train, and therefore there were very few of them at New Folsom. On the other hand, since Warfield had half the Dominion fleet with him during his assault to Char, it was logical to assume he still had plenty of such pilots left despite the appalling casualties they suffered, assuming Raynor had no Thor pilots of his own, what was highly unlikely.

If the Thors were released from the holding pen, it's all over. Although the gestalts in theory were individually capable of defeating a Thor by themselves, the fact remained that Mengsk had only sent 35 of them to New Folsom. By now, thanks to the actions of Nova Terra and Sarah Kerrigan, only about 20 of them are still alive. To make things worse, the holding pen they were pushing towards contained more than 100 Thors, and Winters was sure Raynor and Warfield had the pilots to get them all running, even of none of the prisoners could pilot the Thors themselves.

Should the mechanical walkers be released, they can easily blast a way to his Planetary Fortress command center. True his command center's Ibiks Cannon did hit harder compared to Thor's Hammer Particle Beams, but it had a slower rate of fire in comparison, and that was assuming the Thor did not use its 250mm Strike Cannons for an artillery barrage. In any case he was too heavily outnumbered, and despite the heavy armor plating on his command center, it could not last very long against dozens of Thors pounding at it.

"Colonel, we're not going to be able to hold out like this much longer!" A marine reported in from the communications console. "Raynor's top ghosts are countering just about everything we throw at them! Only your new hybrid soldiers seem to be able fight them on par, but his Raiders are preventing that! Whatever you're going to do, we need it now!"

Winters turned to one of his officers. "It's time to throw in the last gamble chip. Send word to all remaining tank crews. Tell them it's time to use the new generation of tanks that had been planned to eventually replace the siege tank."

"Sir, those are still unstable!" The officer protested. "Their weapons systems haven't been properly tested yet, not even for the mining purposes!"

"Look around you!" Winters exploded. "If Raynor gets to that Thor holding pen he'll have enough firepower to squish the rest of our defenses at will! His two top ghosts have already wrecked havoc with our security system, and the gestalts have been unable to deal with them thanks to the rest of Raynor's Raiders! These new tanks are our last hope to keep them back! Send word to all the tanks crews that can pilot those tanks and get them to the frontlines immediately!"

Dominion Base, Bel'Shir

Madison's recommendation of one shot one kill turned out to be utterly useless in battle. The two weakest Protoss fighting units were the High Templar and the Sentry, but due to their plasma shields, none of the bullets from the C-14 Gauss Rifles were able to penetrate in one shot. The auto turrets that had been set up along the defensive line fared better, but standard rifle fire was simply not going to cut it.

To deal with the Protoss quickly, most marines were resorting to their grenade launchers attached to their heavy gauss rifles, as did the general himself. Many of them were discharging EMP grenades to quickly drain the plasma shields power, while others waited for such a moment to fire their fragmentation grenades to deal with the Protoss quickly. The War Pigs have been especially effective at this, holding out successfully against multiple waves of Zealot attacks.

However, they too were beginning to show signs of cracks in their defenses, and it's not just because the battle was wearing them down. Quick to adapt to the battle tactics, the Tal'darim were sending in more and more Stalkers to attack the front lines. Madison was quick to see the implications of this, as the Stalkers had some sort of short range teleportation ability, and this made it extremely difficult to hit them with the EMP grenades as they did not has as large of a blast radius effect.

Behind him, the siege tanks were providing as much fire support as they could from their shock cannons, but each time a huge success was made, the Protoss would retaliate with a Void Ray attack. This had forced large numbers of War Pigs to immediately shift their position to go defend the tanks, and as a result they were forced to leave the relative safety of their trenches and be temporarily exposed out in the open, where they were frequently targeted by Protoss Immortals. Although they had additional protection from their shoulder mounted M98 Ballistic Alloy Combat Shields, these were still far inferior to the plasma shields of the Protoss and could withstand far less punishment. Indeed, by now many of them were forced to take the combat shields off Dominion marines as theirs had been blown apart by the Immortals' phase disruptor attacks.

In the air, the Scout attacks have also increased, but fortunately the Wraiths were still able to hold their own ground against them. Madison was thankful for that, as he and his fellow infantrymen continued to fire at the incoming Protoss attack waves while ships from both sides dueled for control over the skies overhead.

Vultures had been deployed to lay down more Spider Mines, but the Tal'darim were starting to adapt to this strategy as well. Due to their hardened shields, such an explosion would have little effect on Immortals, and as such in many attacks these cybernetic walkers spearheaded the assaults, flanked by Stalkers to provide fire support for the weaker attacks that are known not to trigger the hardened shields.

Madison was still firing at the Stalkers when a nearby console beeped, and he hurried over to it. Normally the adjutant AIs would not interrupt him in the midst of battle, as it knows such interruptions could do more harm than good in terms of casualties. Therefore, whatever info it had must be very important.

"Talk to me, adjutant," Madison said. "What's the problem here?"

"General, I'm detecting a high energy spike within the confines of the Tal'darim Protoss base."

"But I haven't ordered any attacks there yet! What's going on?"

"Bringing on screen now. High energy Protoss Archon warping in to Tal'darim base."

Madison shook his head in disgust. It was bad enough fighting the currently Tal'darim Protoss already, now they're going to bring in Archons. As far as he knew it, those things were made of pure energy, yet possess more power than most would dare admit. Beings like that would be hard pressed even for his Thors to take on.

"Analysis complete," the adjutant continued. "Class 11 Protoss Archon entity has entered the Protoss base. Recommend extreme caution: entity abilities currently unknown."

The general looked at his nearby marines, deeply concerned. Such a threat level class was virtually unheard of, and most of his boys never bothered to pay attention to the threat levels as they were able to handle them in battle. However Madison himself had shown interest during the occasional times, and most classes never went above 5 or 6. Just what kind of an enemy could they be dealing with now?

Tal'darim Base, Bel'Shir

"Greetings my brothers," Ulrezaj announced, as he warped into the Tal'darim base.

"Mighty Xava'tor," a High Templar greeted. "We are honored by your presence here. For some time we had only heard of you, but you are a legend among my Tal'darim brethren. We never thought we would be able to see you in person."

"Your humbleness is not necessary, noble Templar," the Dark Archon replied, thankful for the illusion spell that had been placed on him. Indeed, all of the surrounding Tal'darim only saw him as a Khalai Archon.

"Please forgive us, as you have caught the Tal'darim at a most unfortunate time. An unknown terran presence has landed on the sacred moon of Bel'Shir. Whatever their goals are, the terrans are clearly not friendly, and have no respect for the sacredness of these lands, or our holy relics. Our scouts had intercepted some of their transmissions, and we now know it is their intention to steal the Breath of Creation from our mystic altars."

Ulrezaj looked over in the direction of the terran base with disgust. Seems like that's all the terrans ever do: steal from the Protoss, no matter which sect they belong to, and desecrate anything and everything that is considered holy to them.

"I had come to ask of you to join hands with me in a mission of my own," he said calmly. "But it is clear these terrans must be taught a lesson in their arrogance in thinking they can take anything they desire from the Protoss without consequence. Send your Probes to seal off the Breath of Creation altars immediately, and mobilize your air fleet. As the terrans have refused to heed your warning to leave Bel'shir, we shall now burn their presence here to the ground."