Chapter 20: Burning Shadow

"What the hell is happening now?" Naruto pitched forward slightly as another tremor rocked the ground.

"Nydus worms; they're tunneling underneath us!" Thanatos stood up.

The ground began cracking and splitting nearby. Giant fault lines began to spread in all directions at an alarming rate.

"We have to warn the defense! Rally everyone, quickly!" Sasuke sped off in the direction of the barracks.

"I'm going to radio the Gantrithor, you rally your templars," Naruto ordered. Thanatos nodded, and the pair of them began running in opposite directions.

Naruto had nearly reached the radio tower next to the nexus in the center of the base, when screeching sounded overhead, followed by another noise he had never heard before.

"What the hell was tha-," a shinobi ahead of him started, but never finished.

The ground split and was wrenched up, flinging Naruto straight back into a building. He looked up to see his fellow shinobi hadn't been as lucky; he was right under the eruption of the ground, and so was flung high into the air like a ragdoll, going at least 50 feet into the air. A massive worm broke through the surface, easily towering over the 3 or 4 story buildings around it. Similar violent shakes followed by an ungodly shrieking signaled the arrival of even more of the giant things. The worm's head settled back down on the ground, and, disgustingly, Zerg minions began streaming from its mouth. Naruto scrambled to his feet retreating back down the road as swarms of zerglings began to flood the roads. There was no need to radio the Gantrithor now; if the Executor didn't know about the surfacing worms already, she would any second.

Sasuke had run to the barracks to find the whole area in chaos. There weren't any worms surfacing in the area, but there were already zerg attacking everything they could reach. He found Sakura at the front line punching a hydralisk straight into a group of advancing zerglings. He rushed over, using fire to burn through the lightly armored aliens.

"What the hell is happening?" Sakura asked him, "There was a small earthquake and suddenly there's zerg crawling all over the place!"

"The Zerg tunneled massive worms underneath us; that's how they're getting in," he explained.

"I thought Tenten made something to stop them from doing that!"

"She did. The worms must be too big for her countermeasures to deal with," Sasuke shook his head. A trio of hydralisk spines flew past them.

"Come on, we need to get everyone together before we're overrun," Sasuke motioned down the street he'd come from, "Let's find the others, then find a way to push back and kill the worms."

"Okay," Sakura nodded, "Last I saw, Shikamaru and Ino were on the Gantrithor, Sai was over near the airfields, and both Gaara and Mei were at HQ by the nexus."

"Naruto was headed to the radio tower right by HQ, so he'll probably be there too," Sasuke started running again, "We can meet up with all three, then go from there."

Naruto looked around; the way to HQ and the nexus was cut off, he'd have to find another way to get there. If he went around, through the airfields, he could avoid the main body of the zerg's steadily growing horde. He turned down a road to the right. He could hear shinobi fighting from the building above him, sending jutsus and kunai into the throngs of zerg on the other side. He was nearly at the end of the road when the building shook. Naruto turned around to see a dust cloud coming out from the building, and one of the shinobi get sent flying through the window into the building across from it. The top floor collapsed downwards, causing an even bigger dust cloud to be expelled from the blown out window. Through the dust and debris, he could see the hulking form of an ultralisk lumbering past.

The airfield wasn't a much prettier picture when he got there. Most of the ravens were already gone, and there were bodies of both shinobi and zerg strewn around the ravens that were still grounded. Two of the grounded ravens were on fire, with the crew either dead inside or nearby.

"If you're here to request air support you're a little late," Sai ran up to him, "One of the worms surfaced just down that road, and we barely had time to react before we had zerg all over us. Most of my ravens were forced to take-off; I need to get up there and get them all organized."

"You will be able to help us though, right?" Naruto pressed him, "We need control of the skies."

"All air forces are under command of the Gantrithor, but unless the Executor says otherwise, yes we will help."

Naruto nodded, "Good. I need to find the other Kages and join the defense." He took off through the airfield as fast as possible.

Strangely, the roads around the nexus and HQ were almost completely silent. Signs of battle lingered, but there were no people present. Buildings burned, the roads were torn up, but no movement. Naruto rushed across the street to find the door to shinobi headquarters ripped off its hinges, and its windows shattered. With a feeling apprehension, he walked over the threshold to find blood splatters, and dead zerg. Stooping down, he picked up a small pile of sand and let it slide through his fingers.

Up on the bridge, Selendis watched as zerg began flooding the base beneath them. Acting quickly, she ordered the Gantrithor's weapon systems be trained on the surfacing worms, but before they could, mutalisks were swarming around the carrier, attacking indiscriminately.

"Hostile air units will overwhelm our shields if we don't stop them," one of the officers announced, "Diverting all batteries to engage them."

"No!" Selendis stood up from her chair, "If the worms are not destroyed Antioch is lost. Redirect all fighters to engage the mutalisks and defend this ship. All batteries, focus on those worms. Bring them down!"

Sasuke and Sakura fought through the streets, gathering the scattered shinobi they could find. A raven flew just above the street, launching missiles at large groups of zerglings.

"Come on!" Sasuke motioned them all down one of the quieter streets; a building had been half demolished already.

"Rest here for a minute," Sakura advised, "Let me see the radio."

One of the shinobi handed her the still buzzing mic.

"Sai, we need eyes, down here," she tried to talk to the ravens flying above them, "What's the situation?" She waited, but there was no response, "Sai? Can you hear me? What's the situation up there?"

"Sorry, we're in a bit of a mess right now," Sai's voice came through patchily, "The Executor's ordered all airborne fighters to defend the carrier so it can focus on killing the worms as they surface. I'm afraid you won't be receiving any direct help from us."

Sasuke swore.

"Alright, we'll have to make do without," Sakura shook her head, "We need to keep moving; find a way to get back into the fight."

They looked as the ground rumbled outside their building, as a huge worm surfaced. Sasuke and Sakura rushed to a destroyed part of the wall, looking down at the worm in the street below. The worm just started settling back down as the great ship above them started firing on it. The beast writhed as blast after blast from the Gantrithor's particle disrupter cannons struck it. It slid back down into the earth as it died, but even as it disappeared from sight, another one surfaced further down the road. The carrier circled above and began firing on the new one. It was like watching a huge game of whack-a-mole, only they were caught in the middle of the game.

"You want to get into the middle of that, okay," Sasuke looked across at Sakura, "But if we die because of that floating hunk of metal, I blame you, and will not let you rest for a millennia."

Ino and Shikamaru watched from the Gantrithor's observation deck, watching as the ship's guns shot down worm after worm. To add to the scene, every now and then a mutalisk would fly right past them pursued closely by a raven or phoenix, and occasionally the other way around. A phoenix flew past, flying backwards as it fired on a mutalisk. The zerg's wing was shot straight off, and the pair of shinobi watched in shock as the creature suddenly spiraled downwards right in front of them.

Not even 5 seconds later, a raven flew past, away from them, when a new creature suddenly broadsided the fighter. This new creature looked almost like a flying brain, with tentacles trailing behind, and a wicked beak in front. The creature spat acid straight through the raven before slamming through it, breaking the ship in half. The halves of the raven plummeted to the ground as the new creature turned, heading straight for the observation deck window. A shot from one of the ship's broadside photon cannons hit it from underneath and the new monstrosity fell with a surprised sound.

"What the hell was that thing?" Ino stared down where the creature had disappeared from view.

"Corruptors!" a warning shot through the ship.

"Corruptors? But that's impossible," Shikamaru shook his head, "The ship's databanks confirmed the corruptor strain was lost. The Zerg have no way to make them any longer!"

Selendis closed her eyes and shook her head. The corruptors would destroy the fighters with ease, and then the carrier if they didn't fight back, but fighting back meant leaving everyone on the ground to deal with the surfacing Nydus worms on their own. If the base fell, the carrier would be vulnerable to attack from both ground and air, but if the carrier was destroyed, not only would the ground forces lose the vast majority of their air power, but the wreckage was likely to crush whoever survived the attack anyways.

"All batteries, switch target priorities; target the corruptors!"

Naruto looked up at the sudden movement above him. The carrier was moving up and away from the center of the base, and had stopped shooting the Nydus worms. Instead, a massive battle raged in the skies above. Swarms of smaller fighters and creatures flew all around the carrier, as well as all over the sky in general.

Sai was flying high above, shooting at everything that wasn't made of metal….. which was quite a lot of things. A phoenix sped past, less than a foot from hitting him.

"Sai, watch out! You've got two mutas on your tail!" Kankurō's voice came over the radio. Sai checked to make sure.

"I see them. I've got this," Sai responded before turning to the other crew members, "Get flamethrowers at the ready; I'm going to lay them out for you."

Sai yanked on the controls, forcing the raven to turn on a dime. He could feel the metal straining around him, but the ship held steady. Doing a total 180, the raven sped right past the mutas that had been tailing it, and the broadside flamethrowers roasted the both of them.

"Got 'em!" Nice job," Sai called back to the others.

There was no time for congratulations though as yet another mutalisk flew down right in front of them. Another raven pursuing it ducked underneath them in order to avoid crashing. The fighting was becoming more and more chaotic as time went on. Sai had to yell for the others onboard to hold on and was forced to do a barrel roll to the side to avoid getting splattered by a corruptor. Unfortunately, the corruptor did not keep going; it turned around and started speeding right back after them. Sai swore, and swerved to avoid the acid the corruptor had started spitting at them. Sai dodged to the side, but one of the shots still slammed into the raven's top, right behind the left wing.

"Damn it!" Sai swore out loud as smoke began to issue forth from the damaged section. The ship began to shake slightly as Sai struggled to shake the corruptor off his tail. The corruptor continued to attack it, hitting the ship in the side, even as the rear gunner of the raven scored several hits on their attacker. In desperation, Sai began to climb as fast as possible, trying to put some distance between them and the zerg. He turned back to check, and was surprised to see the corruptor was breaking off and flying in the opposite direction. Sai looked forward and instinctively jerked the controls up as hard as possible to avoid the reason why. A huge black disk of unworldly depths had appeared and was growing steadily; half a second's reaction later and Sai's raven would have flown straight into it. Sai looped up and around, speeding back towards the Gantrithor.

The Dark Prelate paced the bridge of his ship. Even though he did not have the Khala to link him to the minds of his crew, he could feel their anxiety. The technology was new; who knows what they were going to be met by.

"Prelate, we'll be exiting the rift in 10 seconds," the helmsman reported.

"Good. Status report."

"Shields are holding strong, engines are nominal. No ill effects from the rift detected."

"Excellent."

"Rift exit in sight; all hands prepare for deceleration."

The great ship slipped out of the blackness of the rift, into the blue skies of an unknown planet. The sight that met them was not a pretty one.

"Sir, scanners detecting overwhelming numbers of zerg and terran biosignatures," a crew member called out.

The Prelate leaned forward for a better look; there was single golden supercarrier floating above a primitive settlement surrounded by a huge flurry of different ships. Even from this distance, the profiles and flight patterns of both mutalisks and corruptors were unmistakable, as were the glints of protoss phoenixes and interceptors, as well as a few types of ships he did not recognize.

"It is as I feared it could be," the Prelate shook his head, "We must aid our brethren at once! Void rays, disengage prism inhibitors; burn through those corruptors. Phoenixes, corsairs, mop up the mutalisks. Oracles, descend to the surface and aid the ground forces. Captain, plug us into their psionic matrix; I want all combat-ready units to prepare to warp down to the surface the moment the link is established."

Onboard the carrier, Selendis couldn't believe what she was seeing. A fleet of Protoss ships, sixteen void rays followed by compliments of fighter squadrons were heading out of a rift exactly like the one her ship had come through so long ago. She ordered a channel be opened to the oncoming fleet.

"This is High Executor Selendis, commander of the Gantrithor II. Identify yourselves."

The response was swift, "Adun Toridas Executor. This is Dark Prelate Mohandar commanding the void ray flagship Burning Shadow. Forgive our late arrival. We would have been here sooner, but the hierarchs held us back."

"Your assistance is most timely, Prelate."

The squadrons of fighters overran the battle quickly, intercepting zerg fliers in a huge broadside sweep. Zerg began to flee as the tide of battle began to overtake them, but the void ray's prismatic beams melted and burned many as they tried to escape. The Burning Shadow, a great elegant ship 37% larger than the normal void ray sailed past the Gantrithor in pursuit of the last of the flying zerg.

"Gantrithor, you are all clear. Let's take this battle to the surface."