The Bladeless Queen [Starcraft][Misc]

Chapter 1







She came to while still in a haze. She shook her head, trying to get the cobwebs loose like a girl finally waking up from a decades-long lucid dream, but she found she could not turn her head. There was an ache in each muscle she could feel, and numbness in those that she could not. A poorly cut tuft of bright red fell into her eyes. She wondered to herself, 'When was the last time I had hair?'



When she tried to push away the bangs from her eyes, her wrists moved two centimeters before stopping. An iron grip held onto her wrists and her elbows. Her ears perked up in disbelief at the sound of chains rattling beside her. The sound was like a bucket of cold water being poured down her back and it washed away the cobwebs.



'What were my last memories?' She wondered silently in that minute moment of time. She had reached a new height of power, but she had been rushing towards something...



Something... someone... they were designed to rend her weak.



She could not allow weakness. She had bred strength in not just her followers, but also herself. She...



Her eyes blink in confusion. A single tear leaks pointlessly out of her dry eyes as emotions she had thought long since buried and killed reemerged onto the surface of her mind. For that brief moment of time, her eyes flashed gold with power, but it faded before she had even seen the change—repressed by her own grief and realization. She had lost.



She had been betrayed by her own emotions at the very, very last moment and allowed her defeat. That must have been how it happened.



There was no way she could have lost... could there?



Looking around, she saw more than enough chains to hold down the Torrasque; the ancient one strain of Ultralisks that had evolved and grown on its own to such heights that no single city was safe from its might. Neosteel restraints covered every visible inch of her body, while she was housed in a room large enough to hold such an Ultralisk. The walls were of a clear, plastic white, though she knew it was merely coating for something stronger. Along the restrains that chained her to the floor and her arms to the walls, she saw needles too large to fit injecting a human body and tubes dripping chemicals into her body. Dozens of tiny pricks made themselves known to her then, as she felt each of them on her skin. Through these observations alone, she knew—from the containment room's plating to her chains to the machinery around her—that this was a test facility made for the largest of the Zerg's arsenal.



A hiss echoed through the room, causing her to strain her neck to perk up and view the walls sliding across to show what must be hundreds of humans in white lab coats scrambling about. And all that separated them was a thin layer of sapphire neoglass.



But they lost her attention almost immediately. Only the two men in the middle of the room, standing so close to the glass she could almost feel their presence, were on her mind.



“Valerian,” She tested her throat and found it surprisingly dry. Her voice cracked, but one of the devices near her was a microphone and her voice echoed through the room. “And... Jim?”



Valerian Mengsk, heir to the throne of the Terran Dominion, raised an armored hand and rested it on Jim Raynor's shoulder. It caused a shiver to run down her spine. He exuded charm and sincerity, and his eyes were so seductive, so charismatic, that she knew he would one day replace the tyrannical father who caused her current predicament. Then he shook his head and whispered, just loudly enough for the microphones to pick up and for the sound to travel to her still-enhanced ears, “Remember, Raynor.”



Her body shivered from the way Jim's gaze hardened. He had been just as shocked to see her as she was to see him, even though she knew intellectually that he was the one who defeated her. He was the one who carried her away. But this was not the Jim she knew from so long ago. So many strands of his hair was white now and he was so unkempt that even his younger self would cringe. He turned to her and his face grew grim, “Sarah.”



“Jim? What's... why?” She had so many questions, the first of which was why all of this, if she had given herself up to him in the very end.



He ignored her question. “Sarah, we need to talk.”



Her heart sank. Those words were never good for a relationship, even one as dysfunctional as theirs. Still, she did not express it and she kept the anticipation and her fears bottled inside. “What, did you think I'd run away rather than talk?” She tried to so hard to smile. It did not work. She rattled her chains just a little, as if to show how futile her efforts to escape would be. “You have my attention, Jim.”



Jim snorted, but the amusement did not reach his eyes. He almost turned away, but he merely looked down instead and sighed.



Valerian took that moment to chime into the conversation, “Hello Sarah, I'm...”



“I know who you are,” She growled at him more roughly than she intended. She just wanted to speak to Jim, to hear his voice after such a long time in the dream that was her...



“I see.” He backed up immediately, shaken. “Well, you can sit comfortable, because we have enough psi dampeners and restraints here to even lock away someone with as much power as you.”



“That'll be enough outta you, Junior,” Jim grumbled. He slammed his hand on a console.



She felt amused to see how all of the men and women working around them—trying so hard to pretend that this entire conversation was nothing and not happening before them—jumped in their skin. Her eyes focused and she found it hard to fight a grin as she saw the sweat rolling on these professional researchers' foreheads and cheeks. “Jim,” She said with more sensuality in her voice from the amusement. “What is it that you wanted to talk about?”



His eyes turned back to her. “You killed a lot of people, Sarah.”



It was so hard for him to even look into her eyes, she realized.



And suddenly, she found it so, so easy to keep a grin off her face.



“... I did,” She felt numb and allowed her body to go on autopilot as she tried to reconcile this Jim Raynor with the one that tried so hard to help everyone. He was so old and so tired now. The work and everything afterwards from the battles to the Brood War... it drained him of his vitality.



And thus, it drained her of hers too.



She kept her eyes on him though, because she knew that if he would just look back at her... If Jim would just treat her as he did back then... If he would even return her affection, this everything—everything they had done, everything they had lost—she could put all behind her. If he would just reciprocate...



… She could have hope.



For a moment, he did turn back to her. They stared into each other's eyes, trying so hard to recapture that old flame. “I'm sorry, Sarah.” He turned away and the windows close. No matter how hard she cried for him and no matter how much she struggled, it was a return to isolation.



Her last vision of the man she had loved was of his back, hunched in defeat.



That was the last time she saw Jim Raynor.

 

Sarah 2







She struggled against the chains. She wanted Jim back. She pushed with everything she had, with every muscle she had. The neosteel creaked. No doubt the scientists hiding on the other side of the wall were panicking. A growl escaped her lips as she exerted herself further.



The walls groaned under her strain. For a moment, she thought she was victorious.



But nothing moved, nothing changed, and she felt more tired than she had ever been since her transformation at the tendrils of the Zerg Overmind. Even with most of her mind shunted into a deep, dark corner and far out of her reach, she psionic powers were enough to feel the problem within her veins. Dozens of chemicals swam in her vessel, pumping with the beat of her redundant hearts. The strength that once tore apart entire battle cruisers was now only barely strong enough to lift inches off the ground.



From the intercom, Valerian's smug, snide voice blared into the room. “It's useless, Kerrigan. This is the strongest containment facility in all of Terran space. You probably can't even think correctly with all the inhibitors we planted inside you.”



“... Junior.” She hissed through her razor sharp teeth.



“I'd be more respectful, if I were you, Kerrigan. You're going to be here until we've unlocked how to control the Zerg completely... out of your dissected corpse, if necessary.” He replied coolly.



The barb stung, but it was once that Jim always used in face of Mengsk's son and heir. It felt wrong to use his insults. It made her heart hurt. As she tried to reach for her powers, all she found was emptiness and pain. “Aah!” She cried out.



“I see you found our little surprise,” Valerian noted. “It took you long enough.”



She peered around, looking for the source of pain. No simple chemicals could cause her such pain. even reduced to the mere mortal that she was, she was still more than powerful enough to block out pain! Yet all she found was numbness and pain and the coalescing confusion that it caused in her mind. “What... did... you... do?”



There was a sound on the other side. It might have been a cough or a snort, but it was abrupt. Valerian Mengsk was anything if not proper in behavior. In his reply, his smugness was twofold, “I see you can't feel it through the other inhibitors we pumped inside you. Well, you know how it is with precautions, Kerrigan. We had to be thorough, to make sure you couldn't access your powers, after all.”



“What...?” It was hard to keep her eyes open, yet she could feel the fires of her power burning, just outside of her reach. Cracks in reality in the form of psionic energy whispering and crackling on her skin formed like visible, uncontrolled electricity running up and down a Tesla coil. They only flickered in the air, too quick to be perceived and too slippery for her to direct.



They burned the air and burned her skin.



The pain pierced her flesh right into the bone and right into her own mind as her powers attached onto the first target within range: herself. It hurt almost as much as Jim turning his back on her.



“I know it's difficult, but look down, if you will.” Valerian said as if she had not shrieked in pain.



She craned her neck, stretching what little muscles and bone that were unrestrained. A smooth, shining surface reflected the room's light back at her, but what watched her was not a simple reflection of herself. It was a visage of her full form, one that had the body and powers of the Queen of Blades. It was something she was not anymore. She felt her tear ducts attempt to water her cheeks once more, but they were newly grown—having been removed so long ago due to their lack of purpose—and they were empty.



After all, she had no tears left to weep.



She knew what the material was, and she realized it was indeed her body that was too numb to feel it. It was clear and blue with a purplish hue, just reflective enough to see a vague silhouette of a reflection in. It might have crackled with unconstrained power once upon a time, and it might have been used to create mighty structures meant to stand for eons. It might have been the building blocks of the elder Protoss.



But now, this reddish energy that was at its center was something far more enigmatic—something Kerrigan could not understand how Valerian Mengsk was able to attain.



Her past incursions made sure of this.



“What have you done?” She murmured in horror. This was a perversion of something ancient...



“Well, that's need-to-know information. And you don't need to know,” Valerian replied nonchalantly, as if he were just bluffing his nails as he conversed with her. “I always wanted to say that. Do you know what that is? It's vaulted Khaydarin crystal and many others like it. Did you think Raynor's single intern of a scientist is any comparison to my legions of researchers, Kerrigan? We have unlocked far more secrets than Egon Stetmann could ever dream of... though we have his notes too.”



“Who...?” She fought to keep herself conscious. It was difficult with the Khaydarin crystal sheet that made up of the stand she was held on. The crystal seemed to be shrieking in pain, be it because of its formation or because of its purpose. She found herself craving more anesthetics, if only to keep its baleful cries out of her mind.



“Ah, you don't know him. Well, he's a small character, but he is important. Without him, Raynor and his boys wouldn't have had the power to... well, get you. But of course, you don't care about us normal people, do you, Kerrigan?” There was finally an emotion in his voice other than smugness, but contempt made the conversation no more pleasant. “I had nothing but a name to myself, you know? I had to build this all up. Nothing like you, all your talents were things you were born with or given.”



Even if she could refute him, what could she have said? Instead, the chemicals seemed to be wearing off. Perhaps it was some past adaption within her body urging her on or maybe it was just her own inherent metabolism. She was getting used to the painkillers, at least.



The pain was not just from the crystal she was kneeling on. It was on her skin. It was in her skin. It was in her breath. It was in her throat, choking her. It was in her lungs, sinking into her capillaries. It was in her blood... in her heart... in her brain. It was everywhere, and from the numbness rose a thousand, thousand knives of pain stabbing into her from every direction in and out of her.



Stabbing at her skin and stabbing out from within her skin. She hissed as she suck in air and tried to wait out the pain, to repress it as a natural part of her bodily function. No matter what, it kept growing... growing...



Just like Jim's back kept fading in her mind...



“So weak...” A voice whispered to her.



“What?” She snapped up.



“Does that interest you, Kerrigan? The plight of innocents... of the powerless, now that you have no power?” Valerian asked, hatred seeping from his words like a black poison that burned and boiled all the minds it touched.



“I... I heard...” She had definitely heard a different voice, but it was not there. It did not answer her call.



“You know nothing, Sarah Kerrigan,” Valerian said softly. It might have had less effect if he had roared, but the raw emotion in his voice was clear.



It left her wondering how she had affected him. Her past seemed like so long ago...



“You might be noticing it now. We're grinding it up and injecting you with choice doses too. You see, we found that even with a few drops, we could control the lesser Zerg.” His voice grew softer and she had to strain to even hear him. Everything seemed so blurry. “I wonder... how long will it take until we can break the Queen of Blades?”



“Does Jim know...?” She wondered more to herself than to him.



“It is a necessary evil,” Valerian's voice echoed into her mind.



As the world spun around her and she lost control of her vision and hearing and thoughts, she could only cling to that single rock within her mind that had kept her relatively stable for so long. Without it, what was she? Without her power, without her only remaining... person in her life, without it all, how could she even define herself?



Somehow, she finally had the tears to cry. As she blacked out, she whispered a final plea to the world.



“Jim...”

 

Sarah 3







Time did not seem to pass in that chamber. They had drugged her well, but she had modified her own body and had been modified by others enough that she should not have the simple flaws that would cause lapse of memory or sense of time in lesser beings.



Lesser beings... since when had she started thinking of humans as lesser? It was never one large decision to become the Queen of Blades. No matter how Jim had defended her, it was a conscious decision. She never took a giant leap. It wasn't just a transformation.



It took steps, she acknowledged.



It was not a single choice. It was just... a series of small decisions, so unnoteworthy that she was surprised she could remember each step. Her stairway to hell was laden with her...



“Oh, do spare me of your drama.” It taunted her.



“Who are you?” She asked the voice that spoke only at the edge of her hearing, always just a degree too far from where she should be able to hear, a decibel too soft too low for her senses to catch. There were not vibrations in the air for her skin to feel through the few crevices that peeked through the chains. “... Are you still there?”



If she had her psionic powers, she might not have felt so... vulnerable. But they were ever out of reach, even as her conscious grew and stretched to grasp that ever-distant goal. It was amused and disgusted by her. It was very low, dark, and filled to the brim with rage, as if there were nothing left in its soul but that. And it laughed its horrible, spine tingling laugh. “What's it matter who I am? You are nothing.”



“I am still Sarah Kerrigan. I am Sarah Kerrigan. What do you want from me?” She defended in futility.



“You are a shell of yourself. How few of the broods still sing their baleful song for your awakening? How many still remember you wait and dream?” It wondered aloud, knowing that answer already. There were none even at the edge of her mind. The few Zerg in this facility were wiped and cleaned over and over until they had not even the mind for the most simple tasks, and were like organic automatons. They were controllable, but dead inside...



She pulled against the chains, wanting nothing more than to shut the voice from her mind. She banged the back of her head against the walls. She wanted to cry and ask why none of the scientists and researchers here bothered look in on her. Where was Valerian? “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”



“What's wrong, feeling... bad?” It japed and poked at her. It got its jollies from the way guilt built up inside her.



“I am no longer that person. I don't want to be...” She whimpered. Perhaps this was all a test, she thought through the escalating headache. Perhaps this was Junior's sick, twisted way to make sure she was not her former self.



“... Get over yourself. I did.”



“Show yourself.”



“...”



“Where are you? Answer me!”



“...”



Was there even a voice to begin with?



She tugged against her chains in agitation. They felt like a thousand spiderwebs, sticky and holding her as a whole but each individually weak. The more she shook at them, the more they did not feel... real.



Yet the more she moved, the weaker she felt. Again and again, the cycle continued—she woke to the same room, to the same conditions, only to be taunted and then left alone. Then she would struggle each time to escape. And each time, she would fail.



Perhaps only one day had passed.



Perhaps a hundred years had passed.



She lost track of time.



The monotony might have never ended. This sort of deprivation had striped her of so much, but something burned beneath. Perhaps they were looking for that speck of what was left of the Zerg within her. Or perhaps Junior forgot all about it. Did he think she would break so completely just for him?



Thus the cycle ended, not with a whisper but with a bang. it ended when someone crashed a half-vaporized battle cruiser into the facility.



“One.”



As much as she might have liked to have escaped, she could not bring herself to stand. Even if she had all that still made her what she was, she had long since lost the very pure essence and reason that she fought in the first place. Everything else...? Everything else was too vague, too fragmented, and too lost.



She did not stand, but she felt it: each drop was one drop less. Whatever had broken in had caused the loss of her restraints.



“Seventeen.”



With each second, the inhibitors receded.



With each second, her strength returned.



She predicament now was not what restrained her physically or psionically, but her own self standing against her. She knew that if she stood and walked out, the killing would start again. It never ended.



It would not end with Mengsk, it would not end with the Protoss, and it would not end with whatever else was out in the darkness.



“Thirty-two.”



The seconds counted down and she did too. There was the wellspring with her; the pool had grown vast and it was ready to be unleashed and engulf her body...



… She was afraid. She did not want to lose her mind again. It was like death...



It was death, in her mind.



She might never return from it.



So she turned away from it, and sighed. The chains relaxed and fell against themselves with a dull, clattering noise that would have been more audible, if klaxons were not blaring above her. The white of her walls were flickering and colored with bright, bloody red lighting of emergency.



“Sixty.”



She felt powerful enough to break through these chains.



Just so, when an entrance to her long-term abode slide open with a hiss. She had not even known it was there. but now, just as it opened all the way, it fell an inch awkwardly to a side and clicked inappropriately. It was stuck, pushed and bent by psionic power, but not of her's.



A ghost walked in.



No, a Ghost sashayed in. The skin-tight cool-ivory suit that stuck to her body accentuated her curves as her hips swayed. The overcompensatingly large rifle slung over her back bobbled with her every step, just as the other parts of the Ghost's attributes. She radiated with purpose, but upon inspection and as their eyes met, she smirked sideways. “Hello, Kerrigan.”



“You have me at a loss.” Her eyes lidded, she pretended not to care. She spoke as if talking of the weather, and completely ignoring her imprisonment and the explosions now rocking the facility.



The blonde Ghost raised her gun at her forehead and her smile broadened behind the scope. It was loaded and ready, and she had no doubts it would blow her head messily off. The splatter would cover half the walls. Every part of the Ghost's body language told the simple tale of that she valued and enjoyed her work, but this one would be the best shot of her whole career. Yet as quickly as it came, the expression left, and the Ghost's professionalism kicked in.



Everything for the mission—because they were brainwashed, implanted with controls, and forced to be so.



She knew that well.



Time seemed to slow as the Ghost stared down at her, just a meter away.



Yet staring down the barrel of the new rifle that replaced her old and trusted C-10, she could not help but feel an assortment of emotions. Loss, perhaps, rage and regret, and the sinking despair that seemed ever present and... This cocktail of feelings included even envy for the Ghost and respect for the beautifully crafted weapon. It must have been the successor to her canister rifle, but this one looked easily customizable and had a larger magazine. The built-in grenade launcher was also a new but interesting addition. She noticed how well-worn the gun was, not just by weather, but also by close quarter combat. It was a thing of beauty...



As the Ghost's finger caressed her trigger—utterly savoring the next few seconds and confident in the former Zerg Queen's demise—she replied in good humor, “You may call me Nova.”

 

Nova 1







November Terra—no, that person was dead. She was Agent X41822N, sometimes called Nova Terra, but never... that. Nova stood tall on the bridge of her battlecruiser as it hurtled through warp space. She was beautiful in the classical sense, with flawless, porcelain-like skin and and a golden mane tied back roughly. Her blue eyes glowed with the faint hint of psionic exertion, pulsing ever so often as she scanned the screens on the console before her.



They had arrived.



Nova wasted no time exiting warp space.



Her body guided her through all the steps, cold and methodically. To those around her, Nova seemed clear in her professionalism and discipline. They did not know she was barely thinking about her actions. They did not know that while she might look like an angel, she was empty and dead on the inside.



She did not think about these smaller actions. Her body and her training did that for her. When she turned, twisted the mind of captain of the battlecruiser to plot course for the secret research facility where the dominion delved into unsettling mysteries. She had seen enough with her own eyes to feel something akin to disgust at what went on there—dissection of the Protoss and Zerg aliens, and the crossbreeding of the species. As if the universe had not enough monsters to defend against; she cleared her mind as she concentrated on the operation of the vessel.



Nova Terra only thought of one thing and that was the enemies of the Terran Dominion. The enemies of the Terran Dominion were everywhere and she was the best line of defense against them. She thought back to what she knew and what she pieced together...



… And Nova Terra must now protect the Terran Dominion from elements within.



The defenses surrounding this research facility were many, because while it was supposed to be a secret what was being studied here, the cover story given was of something else entirely—something harmless, like genetic research into crop growth or something like that. The innocently unhidden defenses were simply there to defend against... pirates. Yes, that was it. There were pirates who wanted to steal super crops after all, the Universe News Network had even done a propaganda bit on this, despite the usual low ratings resulting from being a government mouthpiece.



Her mind analyzed the situation immediately—for her standpoint only. The number of turrets activating and the resulting battle would result in a loss either way; she had rushed here rather than wait. She was racing against time.



The console zoomed in on the most probable area for entry; she had her way in and Nova had little doubts that her goal had not been moved in the weeks since she had been moved here. She brought it up onto the display for the crew and commanded, “Ram there.”



“Excuse me?” The captain blurted in surprise.



“You heard me,” Nova replied in a no-nonsense tone. For a brief moment, the crew had thought of fighting against her will, but her will was cold and ironclad.



Nova had no room for errors.



She closed her eyes.



She saw the room, filled with blood.



She heard the dripping, the dripping, it was always dripping and never stopping.



It would be this, and forever more. Nova opened her eyes, the memory gone and wiped away, as if it had never been there in the first place. She had a mission and that mission was the preserve the Dominion... even if she must fight against it. “Ram it.”



It was said that Nova's presence inspired both lust and fear. With her physical actions she inspired lust. Her every move was sensual, even when she did not intend for it. Perhaps she was bred for it; pedigree was ever so important to the...



*Bzzt.*



… Nova only inspires fear now. She was cold and methodical. All of her actions were guided by her body and her training. As the battlecruiser's shields fell and its head breached into the hull of the research facility, she allowed those same instilled discipline turned into instinct to guide her. She turned to the teams of Terran marines standing ready.



She had briefed them herself. They knew their mission as she knew hers. “Begin your sweep—find Kerrigan!”



But in truth, she had studied the plans for this facility. She had charged in with only what she knew, but she had prepared for this. She knew where the most likely locations for Kerrigan's containment were and she was going to visit each and every location on her own.



At best, Nova mused, these marines are fodder to distract the real defenders from stopping her.



She passed many former enemies of the Dominion—some she might have even had a hand in capturing herself—as she made her way down the sterile, white halls. The lighting flickered as power in the station grew more and more uncertain.



There were beings of ancient ages bound here, desperate and crazed for release. If she still had her youthful curiosity, she might have wondered how long this had been going on.



The current Nova did not linger on such thoughts.



She did not even bother putting the Protoss, Zerg and human subjects out of their misery—and this was not because taking an extra shot might delay her. There were more important things requiring her attention.



As she neared the one minute mark and came to the final chamber, which was far too large to hold a simple human, she felt the emanating powers of the being within. It would either be some kind of super archon or it would be her target. The doors were locked as a security feature, and she knew even the strength of a marine enhanced by their suit would not be enough to pry this open.



But Nova had more than enough power.



The door slid open before its locking mechanisms crumbled and melted into a block by Nova's judicious application of her mind. She peered inside and saw enough chains to hold down a docked battlecruiser and she almost sighed at the redundancy if she did not think it was actually necessary. The redhead—Really? Kerrigan reverted so completely?—inside was a surprise in appearance. She perked up as Nova entered the room.



“Hello, Kerrigan.” Nova greeted coolly.



“You have me at a loss,” Kerrigan looked like she was about to yawn.



Nova raised her canister rifle at the target and prepared herself mentally for what was about to occur. It seemed almost ludicrous that Kerrigan took this moment to observe her with an appreciative gaze. It was only cordial to respond, however. “You may call me Nova.”



“Nova,” Kerrigan tasted and tested the name on her tongue. “Tell me, Nova, where is Jim?”



This question almost threw Nova off balance. “As in the infamous Jim Raynor?” She asked with an eyebrow raised. “Raynor was captured and executed. Valerian did not come to gloat about it?”



Kerrigan's head drooped and all of the chains that held her seemed to slink down too. For a moment, Nova thought her endeavor was pointless, but then Kerrigan's breath quickened and the golden brilliance of psionic power returned to her eyes. She was blinding and Nova nearly turned away. “What?”



So this is what other people felt, when they felt her presence, Nova realized. She had not been on the receiving end of such a visible display of extraneous psionic power.



“What?” Kerrigan repeated, her voice more like a rasping hiss than a human's voice.



Nova knew then that several Zerg Hydralisks had escaped containment. They had traded one prison for the prison of their minds, and they had all successfully slithered into the room silently as she focused her attention on Kerrigan. It was a terrible, stupid mistake.



They were three in number and they surrounded her.



It was almost fascinating how their hissing and patterns were so in sync with the rise and fall of Kerrigan's chest. There was a blank sort of grin on the chained Queen of Blades' face. It puzzled her that she could not even feel the rage anymore.



But then Kerrigan shrugged the chains off and stood up from her kneeling position. Nova felt her against her mind. “But seriously, Nova Terra. Where's Jim?”



“We've had past business. I had worked with Raynor to put down rogue agents. I told you the truth,” She said with a frown. “He's dead Kerrigan.”



“I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you, darlin'.”

 

Notes: if you have any comments and concerns, please do voice them. If I can, I will do my best to address them, otherwise, I will assume you are discussion among yourselves.

Sarah 4







Sarah's eyes grew wide. Out from the shadows came the focus of her obsession.



“I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you, darlin'.” He walked out in his black armor, worn from decades of use. The painted white skull on his visor was still barely visible from weathering every type of terrain in the sector; there were barley enough flakes left to make the image visible. He looked like he had not aged a day since Tarsonis now, rugged in his unshaven-in-a-month and with the very slight drawl from the Confederate heritage.



Beside her, the blonde Ghost shivered and shuffled. She did not so much as shake her head, but for a Ghost she might has well have been waving her hands around like a child screaming for a scary story to end. “No...” Her tone sounded more puzzled than filled with fear. “It can't be you.”



Jim ignored her and stared straight at Sarah. “I came as fast as I could when I found out what they did to you.” There was rage in his voice.



She wanted to believe. “Jim...? Is that really you?”



He nodded and stepped towards her. It was with nonchalant ease that he pushed aside one of the hydralisks to reach her. It towered over him by at least a head, even in his modified armor, but he showed no fear for his desire to reach her. “We need to get out of here. But first...” He turned to Nova Terra.



And just so, the blonde Ghost's canister rifle went off in a precision shot against the side of Jim Raynor's visor. It did not seem to pierce and the shot did not throw him aside as most of these types of shot might have. Instead, Jim only shifted his weight with the shot and seemed barely inconvenienced by it. Nova turned to Sarah and shouted, “Kerrigan, that cannot be Raynor!”



Then she let off a burst of automatic fire, only for it to be blocked by the side of a hydralisk. It hissed at her and then whipped its tail around, sweeping at her feet and forcing her to leap back.



“That's enough out of you,” Sarah muttered with a hint of animalistic rage. A second hydralisk charged and tackled the lithe Ghost, pinning her to the wall. Dismissing her almost immediately, Sarah turned to Jim. “Jim?”



“Yeah, darlin'? She got me on the side, lucky dodge,” He smirked tiredly.


“How are we escaping?” Sarah looked around. The two-way mirror that the researchers observed her through was a wreck, yet there were nothing on the other side. Where were all the scientists?



“You didn't think I'd come unprepared, did you? I've a way out.” And Jim—silly, brave Jim—took that opportunity to quote some long-forgotten lore of ancient Earth that flew right over Sarah's head. He stretched an open palm towards her and said, “Come with me if you want to live.”



“What about...?” She looked over her shoulder. It was so strange to finally see over her shoulder and not see skeletal wings and tendrils draped over her shoulder.



“You don't even know what they really did to you!” Nova yelled, and the world shook. A blue, fiery aura rose from her feet and rushed through her body, bursting out before her in an ear-popping explosion.



The hydralisk that held her down was blown away.



Sarah idly grimaced at the shards of bone and droplets of blood that splattered onto her feet. She winced at the casual death, because her mind was connected to the hydralisk and felt everything it did as it lost the ability to hold its molecular bonds together and was shred by the blonde Ghost's psionic power. “That was unnecessary.”



“You're not listening,” Nova grumbled.



“You're right about that, at least,” Sarah noted as she allowed the blood to seep in between her toes. It left an awfully familiar feeling, but from where...?



“You...” The ghost stood, but just as she did, she backed away, eyeing Jim warily.



“She doesn't need to listen to the enemy,” Jim stepped closer and over the rumble. He hefted up his own rifle—one made for such close quarters and with the weight that required a powered armor to wield. “She's Dominion, Sarah.”



“I know.” She replied.



“She's one of Mengsk's agents,” He added.



“I know,” She said again, but she was watching the Ghost more closely now. Her eyes dared the Dominion agent to refute Jim's words.



“I won't deny that, Kerrigan. But this is about something greater than you or me.” Nova Terra claimed. She sneered in agitation and brought herself up to her full height. “This facility was made for testing. You know this. But do you even know what they were making here, or did you actually accept that this was just a facility for the Dominion to make a weapon against the Zerg?”



Sarah pulled away from Jim, curious but also furious at the Ghost's suggestion. She was the eye of the storm that was her emotions and she felt anything would push her over that edge.



The vision of the death of cities... of planets...



Kerrigan hid a wince and cleared the old, tattered memories from her mind. They were only distractions now, or just reminders at best. She would not commit such atrocities again. “You've just been talking... it seems that's all the Dominion is good for these days. I hope you can understand when I don't take you on your word... Nova Terra.”



Nova Terra sneered at the dismissal, but she still acted like she knew something that Sarah did not. And yet, the Ghost was cold and to the point with her next words. “They make hybrids... of Protoss and Zerg here. Tell me Kerrigan... do you even know what you are anymore?”

“What do you mean by that?” The rage returned, but it had no direction and no target. The blonde Ghost before her was only a target of convenience. She was barely holding back form lashing out... and if she still had her wings, she might have.



The only reminder of that was the phantom pain and feelings as she flexed those nonexistent muscles.



“You know exactly what I mean, Kerrigan,” Nova hissed. They were only a few steps apart, and Sarah saw that it was not truly rage that the Ghost felt. Everything the other woman did feel was filtered and almost false, a sign of multiple and judicious usage of mind wipes.



“No...” Her hands shook. She took a step back. “The artifact... the artifact made me human.”



“You aren't human.” Nova's reply came immediately. “You haven't been human in a long time, Kerrigan. You don't even know... And I had thought you had a hand in all of this. I was foolish.”



She lashed out with a blinding explosion of orange light. It only knocked Nova Terra back against the walls, but a loud thud reverberated through the chamber. That was not a light strike. Sarah nearly fell to her knees.



“I... I...” She had held back, with more of her power fighting against itself, but the totality was a lethal dosage of psionic might. Why, she wanted to ask herself. Why did she hold back? Sarah panted tiredly from the exertion and turned to Jim.



“For what it's worth, I think you're human,” Jim noted. He walked towards her calmly and held out his hand again.



“Thanks, Jim.” She took it, too tired to fight.



She just wanted to leave. Perhaps if they escaped far away enough, Mengsk would stop following them? She wondered how they would live far off in a different sector. Would they build a ranch and have Jim run the town like the sheriff that he was before...?



A green psi-blade stabbed through her torso. She felt the pain, but it felt surreal. “What...?”



“I am sorry, Sarah. Truly, I am,” His voice twisted, deeper and much darker. A hollow vibration at the back of his throat perverted all of his words. “But this is the a part of the completion of a cycle. It was... preordained.”

 

Sarah 5









The dull, green blade in her gut sliced upwards into her heart and twisted. In its trail, it left a smoking line of ghostly vapors, which exploded in an array of ghastly lime-green light that overwhelmed the emergency lights that flared with the blaring klaxons.



As the blade made its way through her flesh, many of her redundant organs shrieked in painful submission—those very cells' psionic connection to her body nullified. Sarah gasped, as if suddenly cut off from the air and thrown into a vacuum, trying as hard as she could to push this man who looked and sounded exactly like Jim away from her. His grip felt too strong on her throat and as hard as she slapped against his armor, she was ineffectual.



Once the blade jammed into her hearts, Sarah felt the pain too great and her concentration broke—over her control of her psionic powers and of her connection to her Zerg. Jim's face was so wrong when it smiled down at her. “Sorry, Darlin', but I ain't Jim,” He whispered to her, his face intimately close to her.



“Then... who... are... you?” She reached up with both hands and took the opportunity before her. Her fingers clawed at him but grabbed hold of both sides of his head. The pain was too great for her to bring focus to her power, but never let it be said Sarah Kerrigan could not unleash unadulterated hatred in its unfiltered form.



Psionic fire burst form her palms and burned both her and the bastard who held her, yet she only strengthened her grip. This pain was self-inflicted, but it lent her a focus.



Within her mind, a crude mantra repeated itself. “Through pain, I gain strength.”



“AAAHH!!” The being recoiled at last. Unable to pry Kerrigan off of its head, this doppelganger of Jim Raynor summoned its awesome might to fling Sarah aside.



As the fires faded, his face shifted, unrecognizable for one moment and then next, never stopping on one shape.



Sarah's back slammed against the neoplastic walls. It strange how the Zerg ability to heal had not already closed the wound on her torso. She could feel the air reach in and caress her still beating heart. The pain was blinding, though no longer unbearable. Though her enemy's face kept changing to all the different forms it had taken before, Sarah took pleasure in the way its lips twisted downwards. The feeling of skin caught in her nails never felt so satisfying. Even the burns on her hands were... exhilarating.



The being stood once more, his features settling on an ebony face, complete with a red beret and a cleanly shaven goatee. For a moment, he pulsed with green energy, and for once, he was no longer amused. “Ah, that's better. Wipe that grin off your face, Sarah Kerrigan. You are already too late.”



She picked herself up, only to be slammed down against the floor by an overwhelming force of nullifying energy. Her muscles—those powerful engines she had refined over many generations of Zerg—loosened and gave in immediately. Sarah ground her teeth together, not wanting to give this mad man the satisfaction of seeing her scream. From gritted teeth, she hissed, “... Samir Duran.” Her eyes narrowed into a glare. She seethed. “What are you?”



“I wonder...” His form shrunk into that of the Ghost who had stirred up so much shit. The powered armor shrank into him and the excess melted off of him into non-existence. Yet the silhouette of something ghastly grew behind him, the shadow of something monstrous. He rubbed his head as if actually affected by her wild assault. “What did that misbehaving boy feed you?”



Seeing that he had intention to answer her, she summoned up the will to fight again. She would not go down, not to someone like him. Debris scattered around the wrecked chamber began to shake.



She began to push back against the oppressive green aura.



The air was electric. Shocking, clashing power could be tasted on the tip of the tongue... on the skin, raising goosebumps. In the background, the facility shook, as explosions became more frequent.



Sounds of gunfire echoed through the halls, but for the first time, Sarah heard sounds of things more... primal.



Suddenly, the clues added up, and the fragmented memories clicked into place. She pulsed with light—white, electric-blue, but not orange—from the deepest depths of her mind, from the places she still could not reach yet somehow answered her call. “You... the whispers from my shadows... the whispering in the stars...”



Samir Duran perked up and for a moment, the shadow of the beast paused in its expansion. “Oh? You understand, dear girl, that you cannot win.”



“I understand just fine,” She hissed.



“It seems I must become the teacher once more,” Duran sighed theatrically while shaking his head.



“Teacher? No... you are just the servant,” She replied. The wound still reverberated within her, but she blocked it out of her mind; she stood defiant and took a step sideways, studying the monstrosity's countenance—reactive to its body language.



Duran paused in his advance, watching Sarah in return with a keen gaze.



“You aren't a leader. You are barely a follower. Just a pawn, a servant who can't even act openly. And where is your master?” She circled him.



“Destiny is... Destiny of the cosmic order is beyond your comprehension, Kerrigan.” He replied. His feet floated centimeters off the ground, and a great husk of a being became visible around him. It was a many-tendriled creature, with elongated claws and a misshapen head sunken into its many spiked torso. “The inevitable approaches.”



“Perhaps,” She replied with the confidence she might have once had, without the power she once had. Even the escaped creatures were outside of her purview... and yet, she lashed out—not with a psionic strike, but with a sweeping kick.



Duran hopped back, dismissing her attempt with a snort.



“Perhaps, because the inevitable always approaches. Nothing can stop what is to come.” She echoed those sentiments she once felt. Using her weight as counterbalance, she spun sideways and kicked out again, slapping Duran's face before he could duck. “I had resigned myself to that fate.”



“And yet you struggle. How infantile.” Duran growled as he grabbed her by the ankle as her third kick was less than a centimeter away from impacting against his head again.



Using his hold as leverage, Sarah spun in the air. She hooked her heel around and slammed it into the back of Duran's head with the force of a burst of psionic power imbued into the impact.



His grip immediately loosened, but he howled and a shockwave of green energy burst from his body.



Sarah flew back, but she held her balance. She skidded back on her toes with one hand leaving a series of claw marks into the floor almost an inch deep. Then she harrumphed and tilted her head, predicting where her opponent was to strike.



A flash of the null zone burst over her shoulder.



The energy rent a scar into the neoplastic, then into the neosteel underneath for as far as the eye could see and further still. Around the edges, the melted material glowed orange with heat and green with residual power.



“I struggle. That is the way of the universe... Either dominate or embrace oblivion.” She slugged back a burst of psionic power in the form of lightning, shredding local space asunder but missing Duran by inches as the psionic shielding around him flared into life and deflected the blast.



The research console behind him exploded in a shower of shrapnel and sparks. The aftershock of her attack echoed through the room, upturning machinery and furniture, and leaving glowing, jagged marks all over the neosteel plating. Even as the blast passed, pieces of metal broke and fell away.



“Then embrace oblivion!” Duran's patience with her seemed to be at an end, and he leaped and flew at her.



She rolled aside, barely escape the artillery-like shell that Duran's form had become.



Even after rolling, she leaped back almost with the walls to her back and eyeing the many exits and openings in the chamber that formed in their scuffle.



The location where she had occupied had become like a crater. The floor, which was thick enough to support the largest of the Zerg land units, had sunken downward into what appeared to be an abyss. Duran floated above it, supported by illuminant, translucent limbs that looked like monstrously sized spider legs attached to his torso.



Without giving Sarah a break, he clasped his wrists together, and a green sun lit up in his palms. Its beam of ghostly light shot at her, burning into and through her side before she was able to escape clear of the blow.



It had kept going, cutting through what might well have been the rest of the facility.



Sarah touched her side; it seemed like only a grazing shot, but it burned into her from within... eating at her psionic power with an attribute that seemed to silence her mind locally. Well... two could play at that game.



Having experienced the attack multiple times intimately—once right to the heart, in fact—Sarah knew enough of the properties of the substance. It was obviously an armament of psionic roots... and she was nothing if not creative with her ways of the mind. An orange ball of power formed in her hand.



She did not even know what it would do... other than perhaps, they could counter each other out?



They shot at each other for the fraction of a second, and from the surface thoughts that she scraped from Duran's closed and guarded mind (since when could she do that?), she felt a hint of surprise when their powers met and collided. In that fraction of time, she saw herself forced back, but once they moved and their beams of light were cut off, it was enough that she had held him off.



Then they clashed again... and again. Each time the beams grew brighter, larger, and were sustained longer.



Sarah knew she could not defeat Duran through attrition.



She was exhausted. She could barley see out of her one of her eyes without a blur. The concept of human stamina that she had forced out of her body so long ago had returned with a vengeance. Even if she could, she could not—he was more powerful than her.



And she had a hole in her chest directly to her heart.



She looked down and blinked.



Yeah, she needed to get that checked, probably.



As they clashed again, a burst of gunfire sounded out with resounding fervor behind her, making a splattering of flares on Duran's psionic shielding. Sarah looked over her shoulder; Nova Terra had picked herself up, though she too was bleeding out of the side of her head and it looked like a piece of shrapnel had buried itself in her thigh.



Nova's cold glare told her to turn back to the fight, but she acknowledged Sarah nevertheless with a nod.



Sarah wanted to laugh. Even a year ago, if she had told herself, this was probably going to be her last stand, she would have laughed. And then she would have cried. She had expected to go in a blaze, Sarah mused. That might never come.



Holding back the laughter felt strange... She almost did not know why she wanted to chuckle. In the end, as both backed off just for a second's reprieve, she did, albeit tiredly. “Duran... Your master's arrival can't be stopped? Alright. Alright... fine. But you know why I'm laughing now?”



“More insolence, Kerrigan?” Power welled from within him, surging forth like a wave of malevolent... hatred. It was a sort of insane hatred of all life—the sort of insanity that would drive the universe to extinguish the stars.



“Oh, you delusional maggot.” Kerrigan smirked, her eyes gleaming with that same insane rage. “I will face that day when it comes. But you? You won't be there for that.”

 

Sarah 6







“You are weak,” Duran spoke as if his words would twist reality. He stalked forward and the floor trembled with his foot steps. “You are in the death throes, Kerrigan.”



A wave of lightning erupted from the floor. It erupted from nothing and caged the beast in from all sides. “No, Duran. I am just getting started.”



It was a large part bravado, of course. Her power was not half as potent as when she was the Queen of Blades. She had multiple wounds leaking vital fluids. Yet the worst of all, she was unsure of how helpful Nova Terra would be to her, if she was to be helpful at all. Sarah smelled the scent of ozone burning before her and the oppressive opposite of pure force being gathered and forced into a shell behind her. The power her supposed ally was gathering could wreck the entire facility.



Duran charged, his half-corporeal body slamming into Sarah and then throwing her meters away.



She found herself just a meter away from Nova. Both of them were slumped against the now wrecked walls of the containment chamber. “Do you have a plan?” What she really wanted to ask was why Nova was here in the first place—Ghosts prepared for the scenarios they entered, so did Nova know what she was getting into?



“I have a trick or two up my sleeve,” The fellow Ghost replied, gingerly picking herself up from the wreckage. She asked after a moment's silence, “Do you have a plan?”



Sarah took a breath as both of them dodged out the way of an incoming blast of null energy. She shrugged mentally and shot at the blonde's mind, “I'm going to keep hitting his face until he stops moving.”



Nova paused mid-step. “That's not a plan.”



“Like you have anything better!” Sarah threw her body forward like a javelin, but she found her physical attacks too quickly diverted. It seemed that Duran had layered his green energy onto his psionic shielding, making him even more difficult to scratch.



“Two... for the price of one,” Duran taunted. He gathered up the energy again, and it rose from his feet like green flames beckoned on by a buffet of winds. “Let's wrap this up, ladies. I have... places to be. People to kill.”



Sarah smirked; after this extended battle, not only had she seen how Duran created his strange, nullifying energy, she also knew the steps of the process. It was only by breaking each step down was she able to make a crude mimicry of Duran's power—but using his power against him did little, compared to tried and true methods. She knew the steps... and the key to psionic power was similar to so many other types of mediums.



Psions were physically weaker than their other counterparts; however, Duran's base form, with his powers unleashed fully, was just too many times stronger and more powerful than the baseline human. Psions were powerful but required time between each usage of their powers to recharge; yet for beings like Duran, Nova, or Sarah, they were on a tier of their own in psionic power. They could unleash a chain of attacks without pausing. This too could not be a weakness exploited.



But Sarah knew the process; and thus, she knew when Duran would be most vulnerable when he unleashed his full powered null energy.



The gap between having knowledge and utilizing knowledge was a vast canyon.



Sarah threw more lightning, causing Duran's shields to flicker in and out of existence. The alternative was to try to kill him with a million, little cuts. She did not think she could do this however... he had a far larger pool to draw on, initially.



“Duck.”



That was all the warning Nova gave.



The blonde Ghost's pooled psionic power had gathered like a balloon above her head and she brought it down on Duran with overwhelming force. Its grievous intensity was such that even Sarah, who dashed a dozen meters away immediately, felt like gravity had increased twofold.



She stumbled as she scrambled backwards, but quickly braced herself.



Duran looked up, as if seeing a pretty light. “Oh, how cute.”



“Cute on this,” Nova whispered grimly. She ran at the beast, her gun on automatic, all the while her body glowed and her thoughts flashed white. Nova's mind directed the city-busting psionic attack she unleashed like a fifty-meter tsunami, and it crashed down on Duran.



He did not move aside. Instead, the null energy swirled around him, redirecting and canceling out most of the blast. What was left was eaten up by his shields, but he did not need to worry; such a charged blast was enough to drain even a Psi-10 human dry. He chuckled to himself, “A suicide attack is unbecoming of you.”



Only when the smoke and flashing lights cleared, did he see a cluster of explosives flutter passed his flickering shields. Time slowed as he tried to react; this was probably all of the explosives that Nova Terra carried on herself, enough to deal as much damage as her attack. He roared in rage as he realized he could not cancel the underhanded Terran trick, “You—!!”



It exploded in his face.



The explosion knocked Sarah back half a meter and she was barely able to react fast enough to Nova's body being thrown into the air like a rag doll. She leaped and grasped onto the blonde's waist with one arm and steadied herself with the other.



When she looked back up, the other half of that entire level was smoking slag. The room that researchers had watched her from had been immediately melted to a black, glassy substance, and even the floor she was standing on was orange with heat.



Her toes tingled.



Nova was near the immediate blast radius, and though she had been prepared for it, she was utterly dry of energy and Sarah almost thought she was dead, if not for the slight rise and fall of the blonde's chest.



Wreckage kept falling around them; Sarah did not doubt that the entire facility was going to collapse on itself at any moment now.



Her mind pulsed, scanning the room.



But the green glow answered her question for her. Duran pushed a piece of the roof that had fallen onto him off, his body misshapen and leaking energy. He was hurt, she realized. His rage was palpable, and it tasted delicious.



Duran saw her holding Nova in her arm, and a cruel smirk blossomed on his face. He was rapidly weakening from the way the light dimmed in his form—the ghastly silhouette almost faded away. “I will end you.”



The null energy charged in his hands, the sum of hatred he felt. It was brighter than his previous attacks, and it kept growing in his fervor. His intent radiated from his body for all on the base to feel. He did not want to... play with his food. He wanted... no, he needed, desired, most passionately, the end of Sarah Kerrigan.



'I will kill you.'



Then Sarah sucker punched him in the psionic balls by chucking Nova's gun at Duran's face, enhanced with her psionic power. The orange missile pierced through Duran's neck, before exploding into shards of psi-blades in every direction. His gathered energy punctured, and exploded all over his face.



“... Well, if you get up from that.” Sarah muttered with a frown, “I'm going to need a bigger gun.”