The attacks from both sides collided with tremendous force, exploding violently in mid-air.
The shockwave from the energy collision tore through the ground like paper. Fanatic warriors scattered across the battlefield didn't even have time to react—they were ripped apart by the raw power of the impact, their bodies disintegrating before they could comprehend what hit them.
"So these are the so-called Protoss?"
General Zod studied the Tal'darim warriors with calculating eyes. This was his first real encounter with their kind. Strange-looking creatures, certainly, but the power radiating from them... it gave him pause. A faint sense of danger he hadn't expected to feel.
"Interesting. Their power is weak, yet somehow threatening."
Unlike the other Kryptonians fighting around him, Zod's perceptive abilities had always been sharper, more refined. He could sense something beneath the surface of these Tal'darim warriors—a mysterious energy woven into their attacks that registered as genuinely dangerous to Kryptonian physiology. Weak, yes, but present nonetheless.
"Take them down. Our objective is the Xel'Naga artifact—nothing else matters!"
The moment his command echoed across the battlefield, the Kryptonian strike team launched forward like living missiles. Sonic boom clouds erupted in their wake as they tore through the air at supersonic speeds, leaving trails of disturbed atmosphere behind them.
"God, are they even human?"
Tychus had stopped firing his heavy machine gun entirely, too awestruck by the display to do anything but stare. The sheer power on display was beyond anything he'd witnessed in all his years as a marine.
"Does it really matter if they're human or not?" Jim Raynor's voice cut through Tychus's amazement, pulling him back to reality. "If they wanted to, those Tal'darim would be wiped out in minutes. Now focus up and keep shooting!"
Jim was just as shocked by Zod and his people's capabilities, but he forced himself to stay focused on the mission. His rifle kicked against his shoulder as he maintained steady fire, pouring rounds into the fanatical Tal'darim forces charging their position. Every fiber of his being wanted to stop and watch the Kryptonians work, but discipline won out.
Right now, they were only facing the most basic Tal'darim units—Zealot fanatics wielding psionic blades and the mechanical Stalker walkers. Powerful enemies, absolutely, but nothing Jim's raiders couldn't handle with proper fire discipline and tactics.
The Protoss were incredibly dangerous in close combat, but Jim's team had the advantage of overwhelming firepower. Under the concentrated barrage from their position, very few Zealots managed to break through the kill zone. And even when one or two slipped past the worst of it, their energy shields had already been depleted by the constant fire. Without that shimmering protective barrier, even the most agile Protoss warrior couldn't survive long in a storm of armor-piercing rounds.
In front of their defensive line, behind blast-resistant shields, dozens of psionic warp blades had already flickered out of existence—their wielders cut down before they could close the distance.
Jim knew his limits. Without the overwhelming physical power of the Kryptonians, he stuck to what he knew best: coordinated fire, tactical positioning, and steady advancement through superior firepower. They'd destroy every Protoss in their sector and push forward methodically.
The stronger, more dangerous Protoss units? Those would have to be Zod's problem.
High above the ground battle, a Dragoon—one of the Protoss's mechanical war platforms—fired continuous streams of crackling energy at Faora. The bolts of concentrated power slammed into her heat vision beams, creating spectacular mid-air detonations. These mechanical constructs, piloted by grievously wounded Protoss warriors given new purpose, possessed formidable combat capabilities. Even Kryptonians had to take their attacks seriously.
Just like the Zealots posed a legitimate threat to the Kryptonian soldiers on the ground, the Dragoons presented an even greater danger with their ranged firepower. Unlike the close-combat specialists who could only charge forward, these walking gun platforms could engage from a distance with devastating effect.
If a Dragoon's energy bolt connected cleanly with a Kryptonian, even their steel-hard bodies would suffer significant damage. Burns at minimum, possibly worse.
Boom!
Faora, who had been flying in rapid evasive patterns, suddenly changed direction and shot forward like a meteor. Her fist connected with the Dragoon's chassis, and the entire mechanical walker was driven into the ground with such force that the rocky terrain shattered like glass. Blue-white light flared from the damaged systems as the machine crumpled under the impact.
But Faora wasn't finished. She descended with her target, slamming her boots down onto the twisted metal frame.
Her hands found purchase on the Dragoon's armor plating. Then, in full view of everyone watching from below, she began to tear. Metal shrieked and groaned. Energy conduits sparked and hissed. And then, with a final heave of effort, she ripped the entire Dragoon clean in half.
The sight sent chills down the spines of everyone who witnessed it.
This wasn't just strength—this was power on a level that defied comprehension. The Protoss built their war machines from the finest materials in the sector, materials that could withstand direct artillery strikes. Seeing one knocked around was one thing. Watching it torn apart like wet cardboard was something else entirely.
"Uh, Jim?" Tychus's voice had gone up an octave. "Could... could your Queen of Blades do something like that?"
The question hung in the air for a moment. Faora was easily the most physically powerful woman Tychus had ever encountered. But how did she stack up against Sarah Kerrigan, the infamous Queen of Blades who had slaughtered entire colonies after her infestation by the Zerg?
Jim's response came without hesitation, though his voice was heavy with complicated emotions.
"I haven't seen Sarah since she was taken. But even with everything the Zerg did to her, even with all that power..." He paused, watching Faora toss aside the ruined Dragoon pieces. "I don't think she could match them. Not in a straight fight."
It was a hard truth to accept. In terms of pure individual combat power, these Kryptonians were probably the strongest beings Jim had ever encountered. Even Artanis, the legendary Protoss Hierarch, would likely fall in single combat against warriors like Zod or Faora.
But Jim also understood something else, something that gave him a grim sort of perspective.
"Course, this is interstellar warfare we're talking about," he continued, more to himself than Tychus. "Individual strength only gets you so far. If Zod and his people had to face down the full Zerg swarm under Kerrigan's command—billions of creatures, endless waves—even they'd get worn down eventually. Eaten alive bit by bit."
Numbers had a quality all their own. Even gods could drown in sufficient numbers of enemies.
"Either way, let's move up," Jim ordered, pushing those dark thoughts aside. "With allies like this, we've got a real shot at the artifact. Don't waste it."
His team was only facing Zealots and Stalkers—the Tal'darim's basic combat units. If they couldn't handle this level of opposition, they had no business being on this mission at all. The artifact was within reach, and Jim intended to seize it.
The sounds of warfare filled the air—gunfire, explosions, the distinctive hum and crack of psionic weapons. The battlefield was pure chaos, but a chaos that was slowly turning in their favor.
Protoss warriors fell in rapid succession as Jim's raiders pressed their advantage. The tide was turning. With their momentum building, Jim's team accelerated their advance, breaking through the outer defenses and pushing toward the wall of the Tal'darim compound.
Perhaps it was because the Protoss operated on an elite-forces doctrine rather than mass armies, but Jim's team wasn't facing the overwhelming numbers they'd feared. The Tal'darim were falling back under the concentrated firepower, unable to hold their positions against the sustained assault.
"Push through! Don't let up!"
Jim yanked a grenade from his belt, armed it with a practiced motion, and hurled it toward a cluster of Stalkers attempting to regroup. The explosive traced a perfect arc through the air, landing right in the center of the formation before the mechanical walkers could teleport to safety.
BOOM!
The explosion was spectacular. The grenade's enhanced payload caught all three Stalkers at once, reducing them to smoking scrap metal in an instant.
"Hell yeah! Nice throw, Jimmy!" Tychus whooped, his earlier amazement replaced with renewed enthusiasm.
Jim had perfectly calculated the blast radius and timing. The explosion created a gap in the Protoss lines—an opening they could exploit to breach the inner compound.
"Everyone, with me! Push forward!"
Behind them, Vulture hover bikes and Siege Tanks provided covering fire, their long-range bombardment suppressing any Protoss attempts to reinforce or counterattack. Shells screamed overhead, impacting defensive positions and clearing a path for the advancing infantry.
In the skies above, the Kryptonian battle had reached its conclusion. Despite their power, the Dragoons simply couldn't match beings who could fly faster than fighter jets and hit harder than artillery shells.
General Zod reached into the ruined chassis of a disabled Dragoon and physically pulled the wounded Protoss pilot free from the mechanical wreckage. The warrior inside, his physical body long since damaged beyond normal function, looked up at Zod with defiant red eyes that glowed with psionic energy.
"Finish clearing this sector and locate the artifact," Zod commanded his forces, still holding the struggling Protoss warrior. "These creatures are... interesting."
He'd experienced Protoss power firsthand now. That faint sense of threat he'd detected earlier was real, tangible. These beings possessed something that could actually harm Kryptonians, even if only slightly.
But more importantly, Zod's enhanced senses were picking up something else. Deeper within the compound, there was a presence—a being or beings whose power far exceeded these ordinary warriors. The threat level radiating from that direction was significantly higher.
"Find whoever's commanding them," Zod ordered, his voice cold and focused. "And secure the Xel'Naga artifact. Move out."
Following their general's command, the Kryptonian strike team shot toward the heart of the Tal'darim compound like a squadron of cruise missiles. They had multiple objectives now: eliminate the Tal'darim leadership, neutralize any serious threats, and most importantly, secure the artifact they'd come for.
Twin beams of crimson heat vision carved through the Tal'darim compound, melting defensive structures and forcing warriors to scatter. The devastating display of power drew the attention of several High Templars positioned at the compound's center, and their glowing eyes narrowed as they observed the destruction.
"Is that a Colossus?" one of them asked through their psionic link, watching the red beams sweep across their defensive lines.
"Impossible. No Colossus moves that swiftly," another responded, confusion evident even through their telepathic communication.
As members of the Tal'darim faction that controlled this world, they were intimately familiar with Protoss military technology—even the weapons they didn't personally possess. The Colossus, one of the Protoss's most devastating war machines, was something every warrior knew to respect and fear.
Named for its towering size, the Colossus walked on four massive legs and wielded thermal lances capable of sweeping through entire enemy formations in seconds. Its heat beams could vaporize infantry by the dozen. But that enormous size came with a drawback—Colossi were slow, ponderous machines that required support to be effective.
What they were seeing now had the Colossus's firepower but with mobility that shouldn't be possible. The red beams were faster, more accurate, and somehow even more destructive than the weapons they knew.
Tssssst!
Two converging heat vision beams lanced toward their position. The High Templars barely had time to react before General Zod and Faora materialized before them, having crossed the distance in the span of a heartbeat.
"There you are."
Zod's voice was calm, almost conversational, but his eyes were locked onto the High Templars with predatory focus. These Protoss were different from the others—stronger, more refined. The threatening energy he'd sensed was concentrated in them, far more potent than in any of the warriors they'd faced so far.
The High Templars stood frozen for a split second, processing the sudden appearance of these strange beings. Then, realization struck—these invaders had been specifically hunting for them.
Training and instinct took over. As one, the High Templars raised their hands, and massive amounts of psionic energy began to coalesce around them. The air itself seemed to warp and crackle with building power. Then, with synchronized precision, they unleashed their assault.
Crimson psionic lightning erupted from their outstretched hands, multiple streams of crackling energy converging on Zod and Faora with lethal intent.
Sizzle, crack, snap!
Facing the oncoming storm of psionic lightning, both Kryptonians responded instantly with their most powerful weapon. Their eyes blazed with intense red light, and twin beams of heat vision—each powerful enough to cut through reinforced starship armor—shot forward to meet the attack.
The collision was cataclysmic. Red lightning and red heat beams crashed together in the space between the combatants, neither side giving ground. The attacks pushed against each other like opposing forces in a cosmic tug-of-war, the point of contact sliding back and forth as each side poured more power into their assault.
Energy readings spiked dangerously. The air temperature skyrocketed. The ground beneath began to crack and glow from the radiant heat.
Then, inevitably, both attacks reached their critical threshold.
BOOM!
The explosion was enormous, a spherical blast of unleashed energy that forced both sides backward. Zod and Faora slid back several meters, boots digging furrows in the ground as they absorbed and redirected the force. Across from them, the High Templars staggered, their formation broken.
"Just as I suspected," Zod said calmly, despite having been driven back by the blast. His expression remained neutral, analytical. "Your power far exceeds your subordinates."
The backwards movement hadn't truly harmed them—they'd simply been too close to the explosion's epicenter and needed to dissipate the kinetic energy. But Zod had to admit, these High Templars possessed genuinely formidable abilities.
For the Tal'darim, the experience was far more concerning. That attack had required their combined full power—everything they could muster—and it had only pushed these invaders back a few steps. They could feel their psionic reserves dangerously depleted, their bodies straining from the exertion.
The High Templars exchanged glances through their telepathic link, coming to a silent agreement. The red glow in their eyes suddenly intensified, brightening from dim embers to blazing fires. In the same moment, thick clouds of purple gas began to materialize around them, rising from containers built into the compound's structure.
The High Templars tilted their heads back as if breathing deeply, drawing the purple mist into themselves. As the gas entered their bodies, the red glow in their eyes burned even brighter, and a palpable surge of power radiated from their forms.
"Hmm? Terrazine?"
From his vantage point overlooking the battlefield, Marcus observed the purple fog with interest. He recognized it immediately—the substance was unmistakable.
Terrazine. A purple hallucinogenic gas with powerful psionic properties. The Tal'darim called it the "Breath of Creation" and used it to establish a connection with their dark god, Amon. To them, it was sacred, a gift from their master that enhanced their already formidable psionic abilities.
And now, these High Templars had clearly absorbed the terrazine, and the dramatic increase in their power was evidence of their connection to Amon being established and strengthened.
"Using terrazine to link with Amon..." Marcus chuckled softly to himself. "Only the Tal'darim would be so eager to chain themselves to that monster."
As worshippers of Amon, the Tal'darim genuinely believed they served a benevolent creator deity. They used terrazine enthusiastically, seeing it as communion with their god. The tragic irony was completely lost on them.
Unfortunately for these devoted fanatics, they would share the same fate as every other Protoss faction that had suffered under Amon's manipulations. Eventually, they would wake up to the horrible truth—that the god they worshipped had betrayed them long ago, that they were nothing more than pawns in his grand design.
"But more importantly... is that the artifact?"
Marcus's attention shifted, his enhanced vision picking up something unusual. Through his unique way of perceiving energy, he could see past the visual noise of battle. Beyond the red psionic energy crackling through the High Templars' bodies, there was something else—a faint blue glow emanating from an object partially embedded in the compound's foundation.
The object wasn't particularly large, maybe half the height of a person, and it was so deeply set into the ground that casual observation would miss it entirely. But the energy signature was unmistakable.
A fragment of a Xel'Naga artifact. And the amount of energy contained within it... yes, that would be more than sufficient for his purposes.
Marcus settled in to watch, content to let events play out. The battle would conclude soon enough, and then he could claim what he'd come for.
Down in the compound, the empowered High Templars didn't waste time. The moment the terrazine fully integrated with their systems, they struck. Massive waves of psionic power erupted from their bodies, a tsunami of mental energy that crashed into Zod and Faora like a physical force.
The assault was unlike anything the Kryptonians had experienced. This wasn't heat or force or kinetic impact—this was something that bypassed their physical invulnerability entirely and attacked their minds directly.
It felt like thousands of red-hot needles were being driven into their skulls, piercing through bone and brain matter, twisting and churning and scraping. The pain was immediate, overwhelming, and unlike anything their enhanced bodies had prepared them for.
This was the first time since gaining their powers—since becoming virtually invincible—that Zod and Faora had encountered something that could actually harm them besides kryptonite. And the realization was as shocking as the pain itself.
Their control shattered. Unable to focus, unable to defend, their bodies reacted on pure instinct and survival reflex. Heat vision fired wildly in all directions as they thrashed, burning and melting everything around them indiscriminately. Buildings collapsed, the ground turned to slag, and the air itself seemed to ignite from the uncontrolled energy being released.
"So it's true—Kryptonians really do have poor resistance to psychic attacks."
Marcus watched the scene unfold with a mixture of interest and sympathy. Zod and Faora were incredibly powerful, but watching them writhe in pain from psionic assault confirmed something he'd suspected.
Kryptonians, for all their physical advantages, had a critical weakness when it came to abilities that targeted the mind or soul. Their invulnerable bodies meant nothing against attacks that ignored the physical entirely.
"Though to be fair," Marcus continued his internal analysis, "this isn't purely a matter of resistance. The terrazine connected them to Amon's power, and that's what's really doing the damage."
The dark god's energy was particularly effective against beings who had no natural defense against such forces. The Tal'darim weren't just using their own psionic power—they were channeling something far more ancient and malevolent.
"Well, can't let this go on too long."
Marcus launched himself into the air, his body erupting with brilliant flames that coalesced and took shape. Fire spread from his form, extending outward into massive wings that beat against the air with enough force to create shockwaves. He transformed mid-flight into an enormous phoenix, a bird of living flame that soared across the battlefield.
BOOM! BOOM!
The sound of his passage was like rolling thunder. Everyone on the battlefield—raiders, Protoss, and Kryptonians alike—turned to look. What they saw defied explanation.
A firebird, easily fifty feet across with wings spread, had emerged from the sea of flames consuming the landing zone. It blazed across the sky like a second sun, trailing fire and smoke, heading directly for the compound's center.
"Holy hell!" Tychus's jaw dropped so far it nearly hit the chest plate of his armor. "What in the—"
He'd imagined countless battle scenarios in his career as a marine. Close-quarters combat with Zerg, artillery duels with siege tanks, even boarding actions against Protoss carriers. But a giant flaming bird dive-bombing an enemy position? That had never made it onto his list of possibilities.
BOOM!!!
Marcus hit the compound center like a meteor strike. The phoenix form crashed down directly onto the High Templars' position, and the resulting explosion of flame was apocalyptic. The temperature spiked so dramatically that nearby structures didn't just burn—they liquified, metal and stone running like water before vaporizing entirely.
The High Templars, despite their terrazine-enhanced connection to Amon, despite their increased power and psionic abilities, simply couldn't withstand the assault. The flames were too hot, too intense, too overwhelming. In the span of seconds, their bodies were reduced to ash. Even their armor and equipment melted into slag, leaving nothing but superheated metal pooling on the ground.
As the High Templars perished, their psionic assault cut off instantly. The attack that had been tearing through Zod and Faora's minds vanished like smoke in a strong wind.
"Wake up."
A thousand voices spoke in unison inside the two Kryptonians' heads. The sound was gentle but insistent, cutting through the lingering fog of pain and confusion that clouded their thoughts.
"Come on, both of you. Wake up."
The myriad voices began to consolidate, merging and focusing, becoming clearer and more defined with each repetition.
"You two need to wake up NOW!"
The final command came through like a thunderclap, a single unified voice that jolted both Zod and Faora back to full consciousness. Their eyes snapped into focus, the wild firing of heat vision ceased, and they staggered but remained standing.
Seeing that his allies had recovered their senses, Marcus turned his attention away from them. His eyes dropped to the ground beneath his feet—or rather, to what lay beneath the ground.
There, surrounded by molten rock and glowing lava from his phoenix strike, a fragment of something ancient pulsed with soft blue light. Even submerged in superheated material that would destroy virtually anything else, the artifact remained perfectly intact, completely unblemished.
The Xel'Naga artifact fragment. Right where he needed it to be.
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