As soon as Jean felt her feet on metal ground and saw the yellow shading in the surrounding, she felt herself in the arms of a certain mechanical ghost.

“That was close!” Nova Terra whispered softly as she took several deep breathe. Back on Aiur if she made a mistake then both her and Jean would be dead. The planet was heavily defended, and all she had was the element of surprise and herself. Luckily it worked. The distraction proved to be more than enough.

“Indeed.” Jean didn’t break a sweat. She turned around and kissed Nova in the lips. The two held their for a few seconds before Nova broke away.

“Care to explain what’s happening?”

“A second. Can I?” Nova nodded. Jean put her hand on Nova’s forehead, and Nova was surprised but didn’t respond. A surge of memory was passed into Nova.

The ghost took a few seconds to process the information. “Wow.” She said quietly. “When I’m done with Amon, I will be taking a trip to Slayn, and I’ll bring the entire purifier fleet with me. Pity, I was beginning to like Nyon.”

Jean giggled at Nova’s promise. “Oh I’m sure we’ll be visiting our new Highlord, but now we need to deal with the god below. How did you find me, by the way? I remember the beacon was sending a signal to the AI on the Dominion fleet.”

Nova held her hand out. “May I?” Jean nodded, and Nova passed the information to her. As the memory flowed through her mind, Jean knew what happened.

After losing contact with Jean, Nova knew something was off. She warped her purifier fleet, roughly five hundred ships, to the terran Dominion.

What she found in the Dominion was some terrible news. Apparently one day the Dominion fleet just broke all communication with the outside world and jumped away to god knew well. There were tens of thousands of soldiers in the fleet, and the fleet was just gone with everyone on it.

Nova knew about Jean’s Warden mechanism and what she would do with ships she controlled and the crew members aboard the ships. She knew the thousands and thousands of soldiers in the fleet were probably dead. And yet Nova was never a nice girl. She was a ghost, and ghosts valued their missions over anything else. They could nuke a planet and kill everyone on it without breaking a tear. Granted this was the effect of the inhibitor chips, but who was to say the purifier upgrade and manipulation Jean gave was not worse than an inhibitor chip?

Luckily, Nova had a certain level of authority in the Warden rank to command certain Warden AIs. This came into effect, and Nova was able to contact the Warden AI commanding the former Dominion now Warden fleet.

When Jean broke free on Zerus she took out a specialized beacon from her watch and hid it in her arm, literally, in her arm. The beacon, upon activated, would be enough to attract all Warden units toward her location. It was hidden from plain sight, and Jean’s own psionic power disturbed with Selendis’ scan and hid it. The amount of essence flowing off her body might have also contributed to the covert operation. However, the device was dormant on Zerus, for Jean knew she would be examined and the beacon would draw attention.

It was when Amon was being merged with the overmind’s body that Jean activated the tracking device with a voice command. She really hoped it would work over the distance and would be enough to attract the Warden fleet to her. If that failed she would need to reveal the units in her watch and try to fight her way out. Luckily help came.

Nova had command over the Warden fleet. When the Warden fleet received its orders and jumped to the provided coordinates, the purifier fleet followed them.

That was basically how things that happened happened.

“What should we do now?” As the information were exchanged, Nova finally pulled her mind back to the current situation.

From the point of view of the fleet in orbit, Aiur was covered by a mixture of purple and red. Amon’s entering, or rather his attempt to enter, this material world transformed the once beautiful Aiur into hell. Even from orbit Jean and Nova could feel a hostile sensation from the planet below.

“Prepare all ships for orbital bombardment.” The combined fleet had total air superiority. Jean planned on using it.

In contrast to the excitement of reunion on the purifier flagship, the mood on Aiur was not exactly light.

“How!” Amon screamed. “How did that happen? Someone tell me how she got away! Who is that fleet! Where is our fleet?”

Feeling Amon’s hatred, rogue void energy randomly bombarded the surrounding space, regardless of who was in the way. A zealot was in the wrong place in the wrong time, and he was instantly ripped apart by his master’s wrath. Most of the khalai collapsed onto the ground and groaned in pain as Amon’s anger were passed down to them as well through the khala. The feral, even the lowest zergling, laid down in submission. The tal’darim lowered their heads.

Selendis silently stood by and endured the pain. She knew better than to talk to Amon now. She was loyal, not foolish.

Amon was beyond angry. He was so close. So close! A few more minutes and he would be a god among men. He would be unstoppable. He would be able to wipe out that fleet in the air with a few hits. And now...now he was literally stuck. Like a warping unit who had half of his body on one side and half on the other and the force field just disappeared, he was stuck.

Jean had the zerg essence, and she was gone. She left right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Just like his men, he was too occupied by the merging process and then the sudden fleet in the air to notice the escape. Now he was paying the price.

Without the essence Amon wouldn’t be able to enter this world. This body he was currently in, with just two of the three parts, was nothing more than a liability. It was defenseless. It was vulnerable. He was vulnerable...and he would stay vulnerable for quite a while, if not for an eternity. Judging from the hostile fleet in the air, he wouldn’t have time to gather more essence. This was it.

He had lost.

Sure, even if his host was destroyed Amon could simply return to the void, but that wasn’t as nice as it sounded. Amon had used everything in the material use that he had influence over for this plan, and from the look of the fleet in orbit he would lose everything. The tal’darim. The zerg. The Golden Armada. After this day he would lose his army. Thousands of years of planning and lurking, all gone in a few seconds.

That wasn’t everything. Amon was patient. As a god he could live for another several thousand years, and in those thousands of years he could rebuilt his influence. What really hit him was that after this world he would lose both the protoss body and the zerg essence. The overmind’s body would perish along with his host. He would never have a chance to enter the material world ever again.

He would be banished into the void. For an eternity. He would be locked up in hell forever with no chance of breaking out.

This hurts. This burns.