Jean sat in the bridge of her Warden flagship.

The Second Battle of Korhal ended with the complete destruction of the Golden Armada. Not a single Khalai ship fled. At the end of the day, the ship Artanis and Narud were on was fully destroyed by Purifier bombardment. After destroying the Purifier boarding party, Artanis and Narud tried to launch a counterattack and retake the Purifier mothership, but when Delta realized what they were trying to do, she simply pulled the ship away out of warping range. Eventually, an endless wave of interceptors, tempests, and mirages was able to take down the practical floating city.

The net of observers around the mothership reported seeing no survivor. It was reasonable to say the Daelaam Hierarch went down with the ship, along with Narud’s hybrid body.

At the end of the day, it was safe to say the Khalai protoss have become extinct. Perhaps there were some protoss that escaped the fate of being corrupted by Amon and were able to survive the onslaught, but they were definitely an endangered species now.

But victory came with a high cost. Korhal was in pieces. The Dominion Fleet was in pieces. More importantly, Emperor Valerian’s authority was in pieces. After the atrocities the Khalai done to Korhal, the Dominion public wondered if their new emperor could really protect them. Massive protests were launched in the streets of Augustgrad, where the corpses of the war was not yet buried. A not insignificant group of people even went as far as to preferring Arcturus Mengsk over Valerian. At least the people of Korhal was never slaughtered like this when the old emperor was in charge.

Even worse, Viper told Jean she spotted multiple high ranking Dominion officers conspiring against Valerian. One of them was General Caroline Davis.

Jean had Viper deliver the news to Valerian. But whatever Valerian does next, whether it was to crush the rebellion with an iron fist or back off and resign the position of emperor, one thing was for sure. The Terran Dominion would be able to make little to no contribution to Jean’s plans for the future.

The Swarm and the Death Fleet had it better compared to the Dominion, but they still took quite the damage. The Purifier Fleet suffered significant damage against the suicidal Khalai ships as well. It was hard to keep the losses down when enemies were literally ramming capital ships that were set to self destruct at your fleet. Plus, millions of Khalai were projected onto the Purifier capital ships. Just killing them took a while.

At this point, following the fall of the Golden Armada, whatever influence Amon had in the Koprulu Sector was gone for good, but Jean’s mission wasn’t yet complete.

Name: Jean Turner

Dimension: Starcraft

Mission: Terminate Amon, the dark god.

This was what Jean saw on the mission panel. Her task was to terminate Amon.

Amon was in the void.

Jean knew about the void through the memory she was given, and she had to say it was the worst battlefield there was for her. The void was the home of the Xel’naga. Whenever a Xel’naga was killed in the material world, he could be revived in the void. She killed Narud twice, and twice Narud was brought back to life in the safety of the void.

The void was filled with void energy, which was inherently corrosive. Amon turned them into natural defenses by using void shards to use the void energy to extract life from voyagers from the material world. In other words, if anything with a heart, like Jean, stepped into the range of a void shard, they would be dead within moments. This meant only units like the Purifiers and the Wardens could really fight in such an environment.

Obviously, that was a problem. Every other faction Jean had, including the Swarm and the Ta’darim, were practically useless. Even if Jean was willing to throw units away, Nyon and Kerrigan wouldn’t agree.

That wasn’t the only problem. On top of the corrosive battlefield, Amon could use void energy to form void shadows, which mimicked units from the material world. They were also harder to kill. All you have to do is put a bullet into a marine’s head to kill him, but you’ll have to completely rip a void shadow marine apart to put it down for good.

Plus, who knows how many void shadows there is? Amon has been in the void for milliniels. As far as Jean knew he might have enough void shadows to engulf her fleet the moment they enter the void.

For now, Jean’s plan was to sit back and build up a fleet as large as possible. There wasn’t a timer on her mission. She could take all the time in the world if she wanted to. It was better to be safe than sorry.

Suddenly, alarms started blaring. Jean glanced at a computer screen in front of her and saw something cloaked was closing in on her location. Automatic defenses sprung into action, but that figure simply blinked through whatever was in his way. He made this look easy when in reality even the best ghost would be halted.

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Jean tapped her watch. Thirty G-1s formed in the empty bridge. If she was still the defenseless girl she was when she first arrived, that dark templar could easily kill her. Things changed. Now, a single dark templar was merely inconveniant.

She waved her hand and put the G-1s away when she realized how the visitor was.

Dirty cape. Dirty mask. Rugged skin. Green eyes. Single green warp blade.

Zeratul.

Surprisingly, Jean has never met Zeratul through all the time she spent in this world. When she was with the Raiders, Zeratul probably met with Raynor at some point, but they were never introduced. Zeratul should’ve introduced Kerrigan to Zerus, but Jean did that for him. The dark templar didn't have time to warn the Daelaam about Amon either because, once again, Jean did that for him.

Following another blink, Zeratul went through a triple layered blast door and appeared in front of Jean.

“Zeratul. Dark Prelate of the Nerazim.” Jean tilted her head. “Have you came to avenge your Daelaam brethren?”

Zeratul and the Khalai have fought side by side during the Brood War. He was both brother in arm and dear friend with Artanis. Something tells Jean he wouldn’t be too happy toward the woman who burned his dear friend to crisp.

As Jean guessed what Zeratul was here for, Zeratul was also looking at Jean was a mixed feeling.

On one hand, Jean did what he tried to do for years. Zeratul found out the Moebius Foundation has been kidnapping protoss, but just before he could do anything, Jean wiped out the Moebius space battle platforms. Zeratul found out the Moebius were breeding hybrids, but once again, Jean destroyed those labs. When Zeratul thought about getting Kerrigan back to zerg form for more power, he realized Kerrigan was already on her way to Zerus after talking to Jean. In a sense, Jean did everything he wanted to do, only better and more efficiently.

In that sense, he should thank her. Perhaps he should meet up with her some time, praise her, give her all the information he knew, and retire to some barren planet. After all, his job was taken over by someone who was so much better at it.

But things took a downward turn when the Daelaam was corrupted.

After Zeratul went through all the trouble to figure out Amon’s threat, he tried to warn the Daelaam. Unfortunately, he was too late in that regard. When he reached Shakuras, he found the planet destroyed. It was only a Nerazim straggler that told him what happened.

The Golden Armada has fallen. It has destroyed the Nerazim and was fighting its way through Umoja at the time.

At this point, there was very little the Dark Prelate could do. Perhaps, in the original history, he was able to infiltrate layers of Daelaam in disarray and reach Artanis, but there was no chance of doing the same thing when Artanis was in the heart of the Golden Armada. Zeratul’s ship, the Void Seeker, would be destroyed the moment it got into detection range.

So Zeratul had no choice but to sit back with the Nerazim survivors and try to help them rebuild their world. Days later, when the Second Battle of Korhal abruptly erupted, Zeratul left Vorazun and the Nerazim and went to Korhal to see how he could help.

The fall of the Golden Armada sank Zeratul into a period of self hatred and doubt. The Dark Prelate already thought himself responsible for the destruction of Aiur. Now, he wondered if he could’ve saved the Daelaam from complete destruction if he was just slightly faster in his task. He didn't blame Jean, but instead turned on himself.

That was when a voice called out to him.

“No, commander.” The Nerazim replied. “I have came to deliver you a message.”

“A message? From where?”

“From beyond the void.”

“You are working for Amon?” Jean demanded. In the darkness, several G-1 readied their weapons. She didn't know how in the world could Zeratul be turned, but she wasn’t willing to let that lack of knowledge threaten her life.

“No!” Zeratul realized the misunderstanding. If it was another situation, he would be laughing out of irony. “Amon is not the only Xel’naga in the void. There is another one. A friendly one. He called out to me.”

Jean immediately realized who Zeratul was talking about. Ouros. The third surviving Xel’naga, aside from Amon and Narud. After being betrayed by Amon, Ouros was forced to hide in a distant part of the void. For millennials, he scoured the material world with his conscious, attempting to find a way to destroy Amon. In the original history, he would pose as Tassadar and guide the Allied forces to him before passing his essence to Kerrigan, making her a Xel’naga and giving her the power to destroy Amon.

He was definitely a friendly. Without Kerrigan’s Xel’naga power, the allied forces would have trouble taking down Amon.

“I can sense his lack of hostility. He means to aid us.” Zeratul continued. “He wants me to tell you Amon is preparing for war within the void. You have already seized all his control of the material world, but if you intend to finish him off, you must step into the void, and you must do so quickly.”

“Why?”

“Because it takes both time and energy for Amon to build up his void shadow army.” Zeratul continued. “Void shadows can’t survive for long in the material world, so for all his time in the void, Amon didn't find the need to create and maintain them. But now that you have threatened his dominance, he has started to form an army. The longer you wait, the more forces he will have to defend the void.”

“The longer I wait, the more forces I will have to take the void.” Jean replied. Amon could build up an army, but couldn’t she do the same? Neither Purifiers nor Wardens were afraid of a war of attrition.

“Perhaps, but the entity that called out to me doesn’t have that time. I can feel him gradually dying.” Zeratul continued. “If we don’t act soon, he will be lost, and we will be all alone within the void.”

Now this was something Jean couldn’t ignore. If Oreos died without passing his essence to someone else, then Amon and Narud would be the only two Xel’naga in the void. Is it possible to take down a Xel’naga with sheer firepower? Sure. The Alliance killed Narud with conventional means. But would Jean and her forces have the same overwhelming firepower against Amon? That was the problem. Without a Xel’naga on her side, Jean doubted her chances of victory within the void.

“We must act.” The Dark Prelate pressed on.

Jean finally nodded.

Then so be it.