Viper quietly sent a psionically powered bullet into a dark templar’s forehead.

A few minutes ago, after realizing they were made, the dark templars showed themselves and charged forward, changing the surprise attack to a frontal assault.

Usually, dark templars weren’t the best frontline warriors, but when there were five hundred dark templars...things change.

The G-1s unloaded a single wave of bullets. Their railguns accurately punched through the fragile shield and armor of the dark templars with the help of their installed personal detectors. Within two seconds, one hundred void shade dark templars laid dead. Not a single dark templar required two shots.

Even at the height of her power, Jean could only afford two hundred G-1s. The ridiculous cost of the G-1s came with a ridiculously powerful ability in combat.

The dark templars blinked forward in a wave of smoke. The G-1s immediately dropped their railguns and switched to duel wielding plasma swords. They went to melee with the dark templars without hesitation.

Zeratul blinked five times in one second. Before anyone could respond, he appeared next to one of the dark templars, killed him, and then blinked away. When he appeared at where he started, just one second later, he was facing five less void shade dark templars.

Viper silently took out two specialized EMP grenades and threw them into the middle of the dark templars. These grenades were expensive as hell. Even Viper could only afford a dozen. But they were powerful as well.

The explosion sent dozens of void shade dark templars to the ground. True. They were made up of void energy, but this didn't make them immune to the EMP.

One of the G-1s blocked a strike from a dark templar with both his plasma blades. As the two fought over control with their blades stretched, a tiny gun barrel suddenly appeared at the center of the chest of the G-1. The hidden railgun fired a single round, which went through the plasma shield of the dark templar and punched a hole through the templar’s chest. The void shade lived because of its special property, but the shot disrupted the void shade’s flow of energy, and he briefly let go of his psionic blade. The G-1 used the opportunity to behead the dark templar.

Across the field dark templars fell like flies, but G-1s were being destroyed as well. Dark templars lacked defenses, but they didn't lack attack. A single strike from them could take down a G-1. Since the dark templars outnumbered the G-1s by over 4 to 1, it wasn’t that difficult.

“We need reinforcement!” Zeratul shouted as he cut another void shade dark templar in half. He might be hesitant in fighting his own people, but he had no mental burden in slaughtering void shades.

“There is no reinforcement! Every unit we have is fighting!” Viper replied. In the heat of the moment, she was willing to let Zeratul go for his transgression...at least for now.

She was true. There were millions of Allied ground units, but there were billions of void shades. The other parts of the platform were barely holding their ground as well. Asking them for help is pointless. Even Jean, Delta, and Nyon were busy reinforcing weaker links in the line of defense. They knew if a single link was allowed to fall, then Amon’s horde would simply wipe over the line of defense and overwhelm everyone.

As for the Swarm...Zagara is fighting in the front herself. This was never supposed to happen to a Broodmother, but the Swarm was already falling apart. When hopelessly outnumbered, the fragile nature of zerg units was fully demonstrated.

Another G-1 was cornered by three dark templars. The G-1 charged forward at one of the dark templars, who did a similar thing. Within seconds, both had their weapons inside each other. As the other two dark templars moved forward to finish the job, the G-1 self destructed, taking all three dark templars to hell with it.

But even a 1 for 3 trade was a bad trade.

One of the dark templars reached Kerrigan. For some reason, unlike the original history, the Queen of Blades was defenseless during her transformation. Jean didn't know if it was her butterfly effect, which wouldn’t surprise her, considering how much she has changed this universe.

Viper saw it and raised her rifle. The dark templar raised his blade, but before he could strike down, Viper put a bullet into his chest.

But it was a losing battle. The dark templars were simply overwhelming. Amon didn't care about casualties. He was using precious dark templars as cannon fodders like zealots, and the tactic was working. Jean’s elite guardians were overran and destroyed.

More and more dark templars reached Kerrigan.

“Fall back!” Viper screamed as she threw out another EMP grenade, taking another half a dozen dark templars down.

Following the order, the remaining G-1s, only about 30 of them, started backing up. Some of them still had their railguns and were firing at the dark templars. Others used plasma blades to fend off the attackers. But it was too little. There were still over 200 dark templars.

“I’m out of options.” Viper threw out her last grenade. It landed at center mass and brought over fifteen void shade dark templars out of the fight, but 15 out of 200 is nothing.

Another G-1 collapsed when a dark templar blinked to right in front of him and cut him in half.

Zeratul suddenly sighed. He looked down on his green blade before turning back and glancing at the morphing Kerrigan.

He finally turned to Viper.

“Remember what I said. Stay away from Jean Turner.”

Before Viper could get angry, Zeratul suddenly started blinking. But instead of stopping after just five gos, he kept on blinking. Blink. Slash. Blink. Slash.

The female spectre watched in a mixture of amazement and shock as Zeratul ravaged through the void shade dark templars, taking one of them down with every single blink. The void shades tried to fight back, but Zeratul came out of nowhere. Be careful at the front, and Zeratul appears in the back. Be alert at the back, and Zeratul happens to be in the front. Be cautious about both the front and the back, and Zeratul jumps down and sends his blade into the dark templar’s skull from the top.

Finally, when the last dark templar laid dead, Zeratul returned to where he started.

Before Viper could say something, the Dark Prelate collapsed. The green light that was always in his eyes were nowhere to be seen. His body started fading away. It was first his leg, and then his body, and finally his head.

Only his warp blade generator was left.

Even to someone as skilled as Zeratul, doing what he did was impossible under normal circumstances. Even blinking ten times in such a short period of time was an impossible challenge. Zeratul accomplished a miracle in blinking nearly 200 times, but the price of that was his life.

Zeratul in the Brood War would never imagine sacrificing his life for the Queen of Blades...fate is indeed a trickster.

Viper looked down at Zeratul’s weapon. Her mind was a mess. Even before death, Zeratul chose to warn her about Jean. If he was indeed trying to turn her against Jean for some foul purpose of his own, then why insist on doing that even though he knew he was going to die? He was sacrificing his life. There was no need to lie.

Maybe he was telling the truth...No! Viper almost wanted to slap herself. How could she doubt Jean? It was Jean who saved her from death. It was Jean who lifted her from her lowest moment. It was Jean who first showed her live. How could she doubt her?

There were roughly 25 G-1s left. Viper glanced around and found no more enemy. The 500 dark templars must’ve gone through some sort of opening in the defenses, but the lack of further attackers suggested that opening must be closed or something. Still, just in case, she waved her hand and scattered the G-1s around Kerrigan as sentries, just in case.

---

On the other end of the defenses, Jean was in some real trouble.

One of the links, in charge of by the Swarm, was shattered. Three colossi and dozens of immortals made their way past thousands of glowing zerg corpses and toward Kerrigan’s position. Jean and her guards didn't hesitate to try to fix the breach.

It was a gruesome battle. 80 or so G-1s and Jean faced dozens of the mightiest of the protoss arsenal. If she could, Jean would call in more forces, but apart from the squad of G-1s with Kerrigan, every single unit was in combat. She couldn’t get even a single S-1 to her aid.

Well, there was not much else to say.

Fortune favors the bold.

The battle is to the strong.

Jean and the G-1s charged in unison. None of them spoke. The only sound from their flank was the noise of their boots hitting the ground and the sound of their weapons firing.

The immortals and the colossi fired. A wave of EMPs from the G-1s sent one of the colossi and several immortals crumbling to the ground, but their normal railgun rounds were ineffective against the barrier of the immortals. As for the colossi, the tiny railgun rounds were nothing.

The protoss weapons, on the other hand, were more effective. Within moments, the immortals have dropped a dozen G-1s and the colossi have fried four.

Jean tapped a button on her watch. If she had an army inside, she would be a very “happy” girl, but every single unit she previously had in the watch was on the outside, fighting. Instead, a modified device appeared on her back.

It was a jetpack.

She activated the jetpack, which sent her into the sky. She headed for one of the colossi. It was perhaps a design flaw, but the mighty colossi didn't have a single weapon against air targets. Jean safely landed on top of the giant metal machine of war. As soon as her feet touched the layer of plasma shield, she took out both of her particle disruptors and started blasting on the shield.

The colossi shook it turret, trying to shake Jean off, but it was of no use. After twenty or so disruptor shots, Jean returned one of the guns back to her watch and replaced it with a plasma blade. She jammed the blade down on the shield and started pushing it down. Finally, the combined strength of her physical capability and the plasma blade’s energy output was victorious. The colossus’s shield gave out, and all of a sudden Jean felt her blade cutting through the colossus’s armor. Instead of moving away, she held the blade down. The top of the turret broke into two sides and fell to the side, and Jean used the opportunity to fearlessly jump into the opening, still with her blade facing down, cutting through the colossus. She wasn’t satisfied with removing a small chunk of the turret. She wanted to take down the entire war machine.

The colossus was cut through like wood. In just seconds, Jean found herself back on the ground. Above her, two parts of the colossus fell to the side, crushing two immortals on the way down.

Jean v.s. Colossus. Jean won.

But just before Jean could turn around, a series of immortal blasts landed all around her. Her armor was immediately shattered. Her skin and flesh were blown up. More importantly, her jetpack was in pieces.

Instead of backing down, Jean turned and faced the immortals. With a particle disruptor in each hand, she simply held her ground and started gunning down the immortals. There were a dozen immortals shooting at her, and for a moment it didn't look like a fair fight. For a while, Jean was showing more bone and flesh than skin. But Jean kept on shooting, and eventually the immortals found themselves not living up to their name. Barriers wore out. Plasma shields were shattered. Strider armors were burned through. In several minutes, all the immortals were destroyed.

On the other side, ten G-1s took down the colossus as suicide bombers.

With the last void shade in front of her dead, Jean finally collapsed. She was void of emotions, which meant she physically couldn’t feel fear, despair, anger, or dread, but the pain she went through was just too much for her body to handle. She could feel her hands shaking even now. It was not due to fear, but rather because her nerve system has been broken so many times it was malfunctioning. She was also starving. The energy taken to regenerate her body had to come from somewhere. She felt like she could eat a cow, and she indeed could.

She knew she couldn’t do this anymore. She physically couldn’t do this anymore. One more engagement like that, and she would die. Coming from Jean herself, this was no exaggeration.

That was when she felt a tremendous source of power appearing from the center of the platform.

Finally...