Author's Notes: Sup, dudes! Just wanted to make this update to tell you I'm not dead. And there's a new chapter! Yay! *Confetti* Anyway, enjoy the story!

By the way, I've decided to merge this story with Dust Integrity Failing, another FanFic I'm currently working on. The style will be exactly that of the Song of Ice and Fire; in other words, chapters alternating between Aesearia's point of view and Lyra's point of view. Should be fun. Right?

Whatever. Can't wait to set my plans in motion! BwAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

I'm going to end up in a mental asylum one of these days.

Enjoy! :D

AESEARIA

She was in the streets of a small city.

That was the first thing she came to realize.

She looked around, sensing something remotely different. She felt out-of-place here, as if she were a puzzle piece that did not quite belong in the big picture. She rose to the skies.

The city, though it would be more appropriately called a village, was distinctly Protoss. A tiny cluster of golden skyscrapers competed for dominance in the skies, reaching for the heavens, taller than is conceivable. Some distance away was a Nexus, the heart of it all, the stairway to the stars, supplying psionic power to all buildings around it, containing the life of the city. A giant Khaydarin crystal hung in place, frozen above the colossal structure, refracting the gleaming sunlight into a colorful rainbow. Probes mined away at the mineral patches at the base of the Nexus, periodically returning their cargo to it. Vespene harvesters pumped green exhaust out of its twin chimneys, spiraling upwards. Next to the Pylons were small, golden, elegant Protoss dwellings. Aesearia could see at least two dozen of such homes, all loved and endeared, and several more buildings, such as schools, stores, and even an open market. On the outskirts of the small city was a cluster of military structures, several Warp Gates surrounding two Stargates. The entire city stretched out on a beautiful and mesmerizing piece of rolling green hills covered with greenery. The skies radiated a shocking blue, and fluffy white clouds drifted past overhead. It was a beautiful place. It was almost like a dream. It was the home that Aesearia had been longing for since forever. She gazed upon the scene for quite some time, absorbed as she was in the picture, until night began to fall.

This place gained a whole new level of beauty at night.

Blue lights, somehow brilliant despite being dim, came on in each of the buildings. Triple moons rose in the skies in unison, bright, blinking stars complimenting them in the background. The gentle moonlight slowly crept into the city, and soon, everything was surrounded in a soft, silver glow.

The dim blue and the loving silver were very pretty together.

Suddenly, Aesearia found herself speculating within the deep recesses of her mind, placing herself in this attractive scenery. She saw herself tending the Nexus, fixing the Probes, and returning to home at night, sleeping a long, sweet slumber after gazing at the bright, blinking stars. She saw herself relaxing and writing literature under the shading of a tall, wonderful green tree, watching the animals grazing on the gentle rolling hills in the distance.

But the scene was disrupted.

The first sign was the zerglings in the distance.

The Zerg Swarm had arrived.

She watched helplessly as the Zerg advanced from the horizons, crossed into the city, destroying everything in their paths. Zerglings overwhelmed the Probes trying to fight back, tearing them apart, leaving nothing but their smoking remains behind. The Assimilators fell to needle spines, and the Nexus exploded into a shower of blue sparks after its shields failed.

But that was not the end. She could see several more Protoss warping in at the Pylons, and though some of them failed, the majority of them got through. Zealots began slicing away at the zerglings, and Stalkers Blinked left to right, baiting the hydralisks, killing them without even a scratch. There were Dark Templar, too; they were the unseen ones, creeping in the shadows, striking and then disappearing into oblivion.

But the Protoss army was not enough. The last of the Zealots fell as the Stalkers ran out of the mental strength to Blink. After the last Stalker was cornered near the Vespene geyser, all that remained fighting against the Zerg were the Dark Templar, who sliced away relentlessly with their warp blades.

But it was apparent that the Dark Templar were not enough to stop the onslaught, for more Zerg were arriving by the minute.

The last of the Protoss reinforcements began warping in at the few remaining Pylons as evacuation began. Zealots ran from the battles scenes, rushing towards the Protoss dwellings. Stalkers Blinked to the homes. It was so incriminating, seeing her Protoss brethren run from the battle. She wanted to scream, scream for the Zealots to Charge back into battle, scream for the Stalkers to Blink to the front lines, scream for them to face the Zerg and take the fight to them.

But somewhere down, she knew that couldn't, and wouldn't, happen.

She dropped down, descending to watch the scene better.

She watched, horrified, as the doors of a dwelling was destroyed by acid, roaches striding in and covering most everything with a vile liquid. A family cowered in the corner, mother and father hiding the son behind them. They dressed like Templar – the silken gold dress, the elaborate, rich robe, and the smaller, brown robe for the child.

The family radiated fear and terror. They watched on despondently, visibly shaking as the roaches slowly approached them with lust and hunger written all over their monstrous faces. Aesearia could feel something dangerously close to desperate anger radiating from the father, though, and as the roaches pressed closer, bright blue psi blades, brighter than any she had ever seen, burst nakedly from his bare wrists and he charged forward, simultaneously shoving the mother and the child away from him and towards the exit with pure psionic might. He roared one thought at them:

RUN

The mother, taking cue, took up the child in her arms and ran out.

Aesearia desperately hoped that she could help the warrior, but she was less than the meanest ghost in this world. His death was a glorious one, though. Aesearia felt his psionic signature go out as he vanished under a veritable mountain of roaches, mostly dead.

Aesearia murmured a silent prayer for him and left to pursue the mother and the child.

They were at least two blocks away by the time Aesearia found them, and they were taking a left turn when a Zealot rounded the corner and, upon seeing them, offered a helping hand –

The mother thrust her palm at the Zealot, which promptly exploded into organic purple flesh.

The mother kept running.

After passing the last house, they left the residential area and were approaching the only operating Warpgate when another Zealot spotted them and, again, offered a helping hand. The mother strafed the Zealot in a circle and kept running towards the Stargates, where safety was, when she turned back to see the Zealot burst into sparks and clouds of bright blue that were gone as quick as they came –

And felt a pang of guilt –

And kept running.

They were nearly at the Stargate when a clump of zerglings found them. Like a tidal wave, they rushed at the mother, their wings and fangs clattering in a cacophony of death –

The mother yelled -

ZERAH'HAH –

And there was light.

Bright blue strands of lightning arced from her outstretched hand to the zerglings. A mess of purple flesh and a pool of blood was all that remained.

But then a hydralisk slithered into view from around the corner.

Then another.

Then another dozen.

The first one raised its wicked talons to strike down the Protoss, but then –

A faint blur of a dancing, burning green –

The hydralisk screamed as its entire arm fell to the ground, blood pouring –

And the scream was abruptly cut off as its head fell to join its arm.

The hydralisks, now more concerned with the invisible threat rather than the civilian, began shooting needle spines in every direction conceivable, even the sky –

The mother fell, a needle spine jutting out from her chest, unnoticed in the chaos -

A hydralisk screamed psionically –

And an Overseer appeared in the skies –

The hydralisks now fired more precisely, aiming their spines at the shimmering figure that they can now decipher –

The figure rushed towards the fallen mother, whispered –

ADUN TORIDAS

and plunged his blade into the dying Protoss's chest. Something in the mother's eyes seemed to flicker, and then she was gone. The assassin quickly gathered the struggling child in his arms, ignored the mental anguish from the young one, dodged another round of spines, and ran down a dark alley –

The hydralisks slithered after –

And another Dark Templar dropped from the rooftops, taking a hydralisk down with him as he fell. He performed a spectacular back-flip, vaporized half the spines shot at him, and danced back to the other Nerazim.

"There are too many!" the one with the child said to the other, ignoring the child's outstretched arms still trying to reach his mother.

"This is a fight we cannot win! The Stalkers are already retreating at the east, 'tis time we did the same."

Lines of glowing dark blue suddenly appeared in the air to announce the arrival of at least half a dozen Stalkers, at the same time that a swarm of zerglings arrived to storm the Dark Templar.

"Fall back to the shadows! Come, brothers!"

The child suddenly began wailing (mentally, of course). The pure psionic anguish was enough that all the Protoss around felt his cries of

MOTHER!

"FALL BACK TO THE SHADOWS!" the Dark Templar yelled again, waving his arm over his head. Things seemed to slow then, the Nerazim's arms eternally hanging above his head, beams of blue eternally floating in the air. The only thing that registered was the child's feverish calls of

MOTHER!