Arcive: RPG: ENCROACHING DARKNESS

this is a finished RPG on EAUK. but it shall be placed here as insperation:

Me:

OK before i start lets go over the rules

1. making other empires do or say things that you don't control
2. no complaining about a new RPG
3. read this post
4. any one can join
5. no just butting in come in graduly
6. i control the 'nids any on can control the grox
7. have fun!

500 years after the events of the grox allience the empire is cleansed of the grox, the tyranids are beaten back and crippled and A time of peace was opon us.....



It was not to be..... Crippled after an infestation of genestaelers on an unimaginable scale was found and another tyranid atack left the galixy in ruins. the grox rose up in the destruction and rebuilt there empire.....


but there was still hope..... for the old empires were being joined by the new ones and andd the rebellion saw the grox destroyed and there planets busted. but the damage had been done and now the remenants of the old allience fights each other for what little is left as the grox return and grow ever stronger....


My empire is the rogeoids (pronounced ROGE As in roge creature-oids)
a highly developed empire the rogeoid Psykers are second to none. thay also have a highly trained military and air force (pics will folow but im not on my computer). thay are a new empire but now of the old allience because thay found records of it on there home planet witch turned out to be an old allience base. it is thought the rogeoid psykers are so good because the reminants of the old allience bless them. thay are serching for new empires to alliey with (Cos thay are Knights) and are sending signals into spaceto see if thay can find any more empires, whether thay be old allience ones to learn more about them or new ones to educate them in the old allience and get them to join them. my story starts on Ataris prime, home planet of the rogeoids, with a little infentry soldier called Veldik, a good psyker, he is quickly moving up the ranks in hope of becomeing battle comander.


Veldik looked around his room, a small room with a single web (the rogeoids sleep in webs), a table and a few chairs. he could feel the minds of the other men in the next room and knew thay were ordinary infentry. the men were currently playing space chess and took no notice of him. he skuttled into the small cooking area and fixed him self a meal. while doing this he thought gee, we can't be the only race left, I hope someone answers our signals, then we could rebuild the allience. but that seems imposible. the grox grow stronger every passing day and soon thay will destroy us all. he shifted his wings and thought a fine wast of power and time that would be! but now it seems that there is nothing left....


Boy was he wrong....




Yes my first true Uber post! im so pround!

-- starship Mystic Hawk --

Veldik scuttled out the doorand started to make his way down the corridor, the star ship he was on, known as starship Mystic Hawk, was flying to the wreck of an old allience starship, known as The King of the red lions(notice any thing familiar???) , death ship, The swarm magnet, gost ship, and lost soul but most called it SPACE HULK . it was known by many names in the allience database and the Rogeiod's decided to try the given co-ordinates and bring the ship back. the tech would lead to the upgrading of there ships and planets.


Veldik scuttled up the wall and onto the roof and continued walking thinking I hope the ship is more then just a few bits of space junk like last time. what a waste of time that was. until he got to the the landing bay. he met up with the rest of his team: task force Iota. he was the pshyker in the team. the others were;

Ray: the team leader he lets his powersword and shruiken launcher do the talking but isn't heartless, and he trys to keep his team alive

Jet: fights with Thunder claws, he is an infiltration expert and often strikes from behind. he is the silent type.

Kelrak: uses heavy shruiken launcher(rogeiod weapons shoot shruiken Instead of bullets) . the team joker, he always trys to keep spirits up

Sacom: the techy in the team Sacom uses mines and a flamer to deadly efect. he is pesimistic and sees the bad in everyone

Veldik: the team phyker he fights with his mind and a double power sword. he is the all rounder

Lor'em: the last to join the team he is the anti tank guy. he uses an enchanted hammer and a storm sheild to squish those before him. he is valient and hoped to earn glory and favour by doing great deeds. this has got him into a few sticky situations before Ray told him not to get himself killed.

-- The King of the red lions (Aka SPACE HULK)

thay got into the launch pod and were launched into space. the boster kicked in as soon as the pod started to slow and lanched them into the ship. thay were here to make sure the ship had no hostiles onbord and to make sure the ancors were securly hooked. the squad got out. Veldik looked around. he saw that there was corpses of the anchent race the had once owned this ship. he felt uneasy already. he moved forward and looked around thay had landed in the landing bay (Duh) further ahead was the door. Ray walked to it and tryed the code he had learned the door beeped a feable cry in justiceicon and died. "Lor'em!" he cried
"yes" replied Lor'em scrambling out of the pod. he ran over. "what is it?"
Ray pointed t pointed to the door and said " time to do what you do best"
"Yay" Cried Lor'em and with that he swung his hammer. it hit the door and blasted a hole in it

the squad moved forward, and turned a corner and made there way to the bridge. on the bridge thay saw many corpses of the crew on the way. along with horific gashis in the walls. thay came to the bridge. the door had been ripped apart by the same creatures that had made the gashes and killed the crew. thay moved forward and found a recording on the floor. Veldik picked it up and pressed a buton the screen fisseled and sparked before a recorded message came through. it said

Captins log. Stardate July the 31st 20000 Justiceicus time. the fleet has engaged the Tyranids and we are fighting to defend The Bannanas empire. the nids have engaed our fighters and thay are preventing them from fireing the super laser. the nid fighters are Deafeting ours the nids are closing in............... Oh lalalala thay landed on decks 4,5,6 and 10 We've got a hull breach! the nids arew swarming in!!!! Oh Link why!?!?!?! we are lost!. you there bar the door! A diferent voice says The door is jammed sir! the fist voice orders get to your posts deafend the door aim lasers. we can't escape. thay are coming. there is the sound of crashing and tearing of meatal there here!!!!! open fire! There are sounds of men dieing Oh why link Why! the message ends with a mumbled prayer to link and the sounds of combat............


"thay were killed by 'nids!" said Sacom. thay got back to gathering info and tech. then


"Sccrreaaachhhh"The sound of feet came to them. And thay knew not all the 'nids were dead....

--The King Of The Red Lions (AKA SPACE HULK)

Ray swore And shouted at veldik "Make a psyhkik Sheild!"
"Ok!" Veldik Replied. "Letta Du Luknola!" (notice this is the ancient language for stop the genestealers (genestealers is Luknola))
The genestealers poured into the corridor and charged toward the squadbut when thay reached the door thay stopped and couldn't get past. the ones at the front were squished and died.

Heres a pic of a rogeiod:



Breathing heavily Sacom said "look at them.Thay're discusting"
"help!" Veldik Cried! "I can't hold 'Em much longer! .........Oh lalalala! I feel a powerful phykik Presence coming! .......... Its like a genestealer only larger stronger and through it is comeing a phykik precece so vast its mind blowing! .......... lalalala. A broodlords coming!".
"Oh Barzul!" Cried Ray. "arm guns. Take positions and When i say fire realese the barakade and gun 'em down! 3. 2. 1. FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!"
with that Veldik Realeased the barrier and the genestealers fooded in, only to be gunned down by Kelrak, his heavy shuriken launcher tareing the 'stealers appart. then the torrent stopped and Kelrak had to reload. the genestealers charged in again. and were met by the rest who attacked the 'stealers with there weapons. the group were winning and soon had the upper had with the genestealers thay were fighting. but thay were tireing and then thay heard the pitter patter of a Broodlords feet moveing towards them. the Broodlord moved at a frightening rate and crawled along the floor on all 6 of its limbs then it moved and ran up the wal and onto the ceiling where it continude its charge. this wasn't going to end well.......
Ghelae:
OOC: I got your message, Stitch. While I don't think that this RPG will die any time soon, I've decided I might post here occasionally anyway.
I just have to think of a story...

-- Somewhere near the edge of Grox Space --

A small, saucer-shaped craft floated in deep space. It glimmered slightly in the faint starlight, but otherwise was nearly invisible. It had no lighting, nor was there any other evidence of life on board.
Two Grox Probes dropped into sublight near to the ship, dwarfing it hundreds of times over. The strange craft sent out a message in a strange and untranslated language to the Grox. Then a reply came:
"We are the Grox. Your technolgical uniqueness will be added to our own. To be honest, we couldn't care less about your biological distinctiveness. You will be exterminated. Resistance is futile."
From the small saucer, a glowing purple beam emerged and struck the closest Probe, instantly destroying it without consideration for its shields, armour or massive size. Before the second could retaliate, another beam struck and Grox dust was now scattered throughout the area.
Me:
--King of the red lions (AKA SPACE SULK)--

The broodlord hurled through the door only to blasted back by A Physkik blast. it flew the lenth of the corridor and was blasted into the wall.
it stept forward an shock its head. then it snarled and leapt forward. Veldik dispached his oponent and charged toword the broodlord. the broodlord screached and picked Veldik up and through him bodily through the ceiling. Veldik fliped and used his legs to launch himself at the broodlord. he swung his double powersword. but the broodlord caught it and swung him back down the corridor! But Veldik Still rose and he still charged back into combat with it. It mached him blow for blow and asulted his mind with such streanth he knew he would die by mind or body. then the atack faltuered and Veldik did his own mental atack uterly cruhing the broodlords defences. Veldik was blasted down the corridor by the shear power of the Hive mind! Veldik struggled to get up. the broodlord slowly Walked towards him.....

OOC: Here have a Description Via Wikapiedia


Tyranids - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That should tell you everything about nids

--SPACE HULK--

Veldik Strained and looked up. the broodlord stood over him. it raised its talon and........ a power claw produced from the Broodords chest. the beast snarled and tore the power claw from his chest, grabed Jet, Who had stabbed him, and threw himinto the wall. Lor'em The screamed a harsh war cry and hurled down the corridor and swung his Enchanted hammer. The broodlord Grabbed it and swung Lor'em over and threw him into the ceiling. it walked toward Lor'em and Jet and picked them up and was about to gore them until Veldik and stabbed him through the chest. the broodlord screamed and fliped over Veldik He was about to gore him with the others until its head exploded in a shower of gore. Ray stood there with a smoking shuriken launcher.
"that was close." he said. "to Close"
"the 'Stealers are retreating!" Kelrak cried. and so thay were.
"I guess Its true, then" said Sacom "Thay are uncoordinated With out synaptic control."


Thay secured the teathers. And brought the Ship To Ataris Prime and The tech Made the Rogeiods stronger. Mission SPACE HULK was a sucess!

Ghelae:
-- Edge of the Wastelands --

An old Explorer-class starship sailed along the edge of the Galactic Centre, near to where the Second Arm had once been before it had been destroyed by the Grox over half a millennium ago.
"This galaxy is doomed." commented a Belatra on board, looking out of the viewscreen.
"Captain?" replied a Bellatharx.
"It will take thousands of years, but two black holes here will collide, and merge into a larger singularity, which will then attract another, and another, and more. It may be half a million years in the future, or longer - or shorter - but one day, there will be a black hole barely a hundred parsecs away from here rivalling the Core."
"Is there any... purpose... to what you're saying?"
"No. Not really. I just hope this project is a success."
A Federation base on the planet Cthon was to be the end of the starship's journey, and soon, Project Starfield would be complete.
Me:
--Ataris Prime--

"...And thats what happened" Finished Veldik. He was telling his supiriors about what happened.
"interesting..... And you say you saw the hive mind and were in unity with all tyranids for a few seconds before you were blasted away?" Said Science Oficer Tokan.
"yes Sir." Replied Veldik.
"well, What did you learn?"
Veldik listed the tyranid antonimy and everything about them he could remenber. Not least of with a hive fleet was heading this way.
"How dose the hive Mind Know of us!" cried Tokan.
"It must have felt my precence in its mind."
"but acording to the Justicicus' Documents it formed the dark one and killed alot os ships. then was killed by the combined effort of all races, Includeing, amazingly, the grox. How can it still exist?"
"I know not."
"this is bad. Very bad."
Ghelae:
-- Planet Cthon, Taire system, near the Wastelands --

Cthon was a relatively small gas giant undergoing rapid environmental change. A spaceport in a habitable layer of gas had been mining white spice for for the past 200 years and processing it into whatever was the most popular spice in the sector at any given time, but after the lower liquid layers of the planet started to evaporate white spice production had fallen dramatically and most of the warehouse facilities on the planet had been converted into scientific research stations for Project Starfield: experimental intergalactic travel.
The Explorer-class Renu set itself in orbit above the planet and several members of the crew beamed down to the spaceport. Inside the large research station were various pieces of machinery, monitors and some holograms. At the far end of the room was a gigantic projection of a rotating galaxy, and a set of stairs leading up to a platform which extended into the centre of the holographic galaxy.

A Belatra scientist greeted the crewmen, mainly talking to Captain Tarid. "Ah, Captain! Hello! It's nice to see that you came here. We've received your antimatter supplies and we're ready to go! If you want, the hologram to my right will tell you all that you need to know about the planet you'll be heading to, and-"
"Wait a minute," interrupted the captain, "we're going... to the other galaxy?"
"...Yes... weren't you informed of this? You volunteered for Project Starfield, I don't know what you thought that might have implied..." the scientist seemed to be feeling a mixture of disappointment and worry. "You will still participate as we were expecting, right?"
"I suppose we may as well. Any objections?" None of the crew gave any answer. "Very well. So, what's this planet like?"
"It's a ringed ice planet about 70 parsecs from the Core, with several small moons in orbit from captured meteoroids. There seems to be no native life from what we can pick up through the scanners, however there appears to be an abandoned alien base so we'll provide you with the necessary equipment to work from there. So, when you're ready..."

The six crewmembers of the Renu picked up their bags, ascended the stairs and walked through into the black hole at the centre of the holographic galaxy. There was a flash of light, and they disappeared.
-- Ice Planet, Lixis Galaxy --

The crew of the Renu fell three metres onto the rocky surface of their destination. They were on a beach lightly covered in ice and sand. Lifeless, yes. There was no evidence of any life on the ground - in fact, there was barely enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support the explorers.
Then they all looked into the sky. A large space station or stationary starship hovered about three hundred metres up, spewing green particles out of its engine end which drifted slowly downwards. The entire structure seemed to be made out of old bits of technology from the home galaxy, joined together to make something new in this galaxy. Around the craft was an unusual but familiar sight - a flotilla of Grox starships.

Maybe they're attacking the station, thought Tarid. That would explain why it seems to be damaged. But why aren't they firing now? Of course! That's the abandoned base! The Grox must be trying to steal the alien technology inside... Before he could discuss the matter with his crewmembers, a green beam emerged from the structure, captured the entire team, and quickly drew them up into the sky.
-- Ice Planet, Lixis Galaxy --

When the crew of the Renu rediscovered their consciousness, the first thing they heard was the noise of weapons fire. A Grox Drone, holding a strange-looking weapon, leaned over the awakening aliens and asked:
"Are you going to help us, then?"
"Wh... what?" asked Captain Tarid.
"Help us? I assume that's what you're here to do. I sensed some thoughts in your mind about helping the inhabitants of this Station. That's us."
"But... but you're Grox!"
"Hmm?" The Drone looked confused. "And these are our enemies, firing at us. Will you help?"
Tarid stood up. "Very well." He lifted up his railgun and clenched his lightning sword, and stepped into the firing line of the enemy aliens.
One of his crewmembers, a Skipey, questioned his decision. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Helping the Grox?"
"I've never met a Grox like this one. And if we don't help them, these... enemy aliens will no doubt start attacking us. I think. It's a risk I'm willing to take."
As another squad of aliens moved into the smoke-filled corridor, Tarid fired his gun. A missile sped down the hallway and exploded. The weapons fire stopped. The explorers and the Grox waited for another half a secton, and when no more troopers arrived, they started walking down the corridor to where the bodies lay.
Bellatharx Xenobiologist C'trax inspected the burnt corpses. "Bananaz," he said, "by the looks of it. They really seem to travel about a lot. Still holding their favourite plasma pulsers."
Tarid turned to the Grox. "So, what are Grox doing all the way out here in another galaxy?"
"Oh, are you from the Sporexid Galaxy?"
"Is that what you call it? We just call it home."
"We are descendants of travellers from the... the Home Galaxy, who travelled here about twenty million years ago."
"You seem more peaceful than the Grox we know of."
"We have little to fear out here. At any given time in the Home Galaxy, there were about 1300 Empires from Spodist seed threatening to destroy us at any given moment. In this galaxy, we are the leaders of a galactic Republic. There are only two Spodespawn species around here. One of those are the Bananaz, who arrived five hundred years ago. They were a part of our Republic, but then last year, after our spacefleet arrived too late to defend them from an attack by a Xynax saucer, they decided to rebel against us."
"Xynax?"
"It's a long story. It will be explained to you at the Conference in a while. You don't happen to have any pink geodes on you at the moment, do you?"

-- Planet Cthon, Taire system --

A silvery glimmer appeared in the sky.
Purple beams of light struck several buildings in the spaceport below.
The silvery glimmer disappeared from the sky.
And the spaceport was no more.

-- Starship Republic in the Lixis Galaxy --

Repairs had finished to the space station's engines and it could once again travel through space. Its interstellar drive whirred into life and it finally left the ice planet over which it had been hiding from the Bananaz.
The Republic, as it was called, was the flagship of the eponymous Republic fleet. It was build by the Bananaz using technology that they had brought from their homeworld, modified and taken over by the Grox and eventually damaged in battle against its creators in a nearby system. A boarding party had sneaked on board but had since been expelled, and so the Republic was back on its way to the galactic capital.
During transit, the crew of the Renu were being informed on the state of affairs in their current location.
"And now, we are on the way to Ecumenopolis in order to meet with the new Bingfish arrivers who left the Sporexid Galaxy 500 years ago, at what you are telling us was the outbreak of the Great Grox War?"
"Yes." replied Tarid. The Grox leader turned to leave. "Oh, and just one question: What are the 'Xynaxes'?"
The Grox turned back. "Ah. The Xynaxes... there are records of them in your home galaxy, are there not? In the documentation for an artefact known as the 'Pink Geode'? They claim to come from 'the Girdo Galaxy'. In their language, 'Ger'to' means 'conquered'. I think that should tell you all you need to know about them for now."
"Actually-"
"Well, we're approaching Ecumenopolis now. I'm needed on the bridge."
Me:
--Ataris prime--

The next few months on ataris prime were spent in construction of a huge star fleet. Ten millions fighters 1 million Captal ship an Old Justicicus Flagship Called The empirors Fist Were preped for Battle. The Mystic Hawk was one of the lead ships. 5 Million Dropships containing death Watch Teams of Aspect worriers Were loaded onto The Capital ships And All avalible people On ataris prime was prepared for war. This Was Going to be one Heck of a battle.

2 Months later the tyranid ships arived.Thay filled the skys of Vesticon, a beautiful garden planet, withing 2 Days the whole planet was a barren rock. the Rogiod fleet Came to meet the nids A few days From Ataris prime. An Almighty battle began

The Drop Ships on The mystic hawk Were aimed at 5 Diferent hive ships and Launched Veldiks face peeled back as the acceliration Shot him And the rest of Task force Iota Into The main hive ship. The pod opened And The Tak force climed out. Alomost imediatly the Squad was attacked by a dozen Hormagaunts. You had to feel sorry for the gaunts. Thay were torn appart. The squad moved forward and turned a corner to see a carnifex Finish of another squad. it turned its have and, with a Defaning Roar It charged the hole leanth of the corridor in 5 strides and bowled into the squad. Iota was ready however And soon dispached the monster. thay proceded forward and turned another corner to find A broodlord And Genestalers chargeing at them full pelt. With a defaning cry Ray Shouted "Burn them Sacom!" and a blistering Torrent of fire incinerated the genestaelers The broodlord however was still alive and proceded to atack iota! The Brood lord punced At Lor'em Only to find some thunder claws in its belly.
" Thanks Jet" Lor'em said. Jet just nodded And sprinted down the corridor into and aproaching Squad of Gaunts. The rest folowed. With the gaunts pollished off thay proceded to charge into a room. it was a storage chamer. the Tyranids Hung from the walls in pods. "Mine them" Ray Ordered. The squad proceded to plant mines around the room And Ran down into and aporaching Sqaud of HormagauntsThe Hormagaunts Fell Quickly But Kelrak Was wounded. He actived his teleported and beamed out. then Veldik Seanced something. "barzul" he Swore "Zoanthropes!" A FEw CAm roun the corner. "well Lets Smash there big brains Out" said lor'em. "Wait" cried Veldik But Lor'em had already Engaged them. He cried out as thay broke his mind and flung him away. he only just managed to beam out. Veldik Muttered a spell laced with the 9 Death words and Launched it at The Zoanthropes. It Failed. Epicly. The only way to kill it was a mind war. Veldik Launched his Consiousness at The zoanthropes There mental defeces were flawless. he couldn't get in. The thay wavered and he broke through! Instantly he was imersed into the entrie Tyranid race again and He Again knew all. The he Was jercked out and He remembered to break there minds, witch he did with great difcultty. he thenRetreated into his mind and saw the zoanthropes Lain on the floor Dead. " He celebrated Until he saw what had happened. A HHive tyranid had slain them To distract Him while the Hive mind Destroyed him. he realised how lucky he was. One more seconed in there and he would have been a goner. The hive tyrant was angrey the its masters plan had failed and proceded to tear and atack the gruop. veldik charged into battle and ran Up the wall onto the ceiling and fliped onto it The hive tyranid Simply Raored and flicked its lash wip up and caught Veldik It the throagh him in to a squad of Hormagaunts. Veldik Spun his double powersword and Beheaded 12 Horma's And The blasted the others away. mean wihile the hive tyranid Had converget onto the rest of the squad And atacked them. Only to be driven back by sacoms Flamer.then Ray pounced and stabed it in the side And Jet Started To slalalalala up with his energy claws. it died when Ray poped its head Whith his shuriken launcher. its body fell dead on the floor. thay were about to procede when There coms said
"zZtttt This is Craft World Brisingr, The tyranids have broken through. repat the tyranids Have broken through. Get Out of there. Reapet GET OUT OF THERE!" Task force IOTA Looked at each other and As One telepoirted to Brisingr. It was over. Atrais Prime was Lost. Thay looked back at there home and thought of how they had to live in the craft world from now on. thay had saved every thing thay could and left in a craft world (Basicly an Artificial worlf thay can move through space.) Then thay saw the Needle Missile launch. Veldik Shead a Tear. The Needle Mission drilled into the planet and stayed there Dormant Untill the 'nids had Taken the planet. Then It exploded. The planet impoded and killed all the nids. The Rogiods were now wanderers....
Shrooblord:
A huge flash of light suddenly lights the always so dark Spider Nebula. Seconds later, the Shrooblord Mothership is instantly warped into this dimension. Not knowing what just happened, Commander Shrooblord looks at the monitors. He is pondering what to do next, when a crew member steps up to him.
"Commander Shrooblord, sir. Meek reporting. What's our status?", he sais.
"I have no idea where we are or how we got here. We were near that planet and fighting of endless waves of Grox ships. Or at least, that's the last thing I remember. The next thing I knew, we were here.", Shrooblord replied.
"That is what all of us have experienced, sir. Readings show we are inside a diffrent Galaxy now. We don't know our exact location, but we think we are close to a star orbited by a planet known as Ataris Prime."
"What in the name of Spode just happened?" Shrooblord went on.

Shrooblord decided there is no use thinking about their fate, so he decided to head towards Ataris Prime. Upon arrival, the crew of the Shrooblord Mothership were in for a big fight again, but they did not know it yet, for they were at the wrong side of the star system. Had they been just a few lightyears to the other side, the Spider Nebula would not have blocked their vision. Alas, it was not so and the Shrooblord crew were ambushed by a large amount of Tyranid Ships. They were later escorted to a barren planet.

Meanwhile, in the cockpit, a video broadcast was received. A long-faced turqoise head appeared on the screen. (OOC: I have no idea what Tyranids look like)
"Y... of... et... ahn. Be... re... ion." the monitor pronounced. The transmission then ended.
"Meek, can you repeat that transmission?", Shrooblord asked.
"Yes, sir. We can recall last received message... All done. I'm tweeking the video's wavelength for better reception."
A few minutes later, the long face became understandable. The crew horrored at the sound that they were hearing. This is what the transmission said:
"You are in the presence of the great Shikahn. Be aware that your time has come, intruders. You shall be taken to the nearby Outpost where you shall await your execution."
The Tyranid had a horribly dark and eery voice that made getting this news even more terrible. The crew was in despair. Shrooblord asked the monitoring crew to check if they could broadcast a call for backup.
"The hostile fleet has disabled our communications, sir. And even if it hadn't, remember we are in a diffrent Galaxy now, and that any hope for rescue is minimal."
"We cannot give up. Search on all wavelengths. There must be a frequency at which we can broadcast an emergency signal."
And indeed there was. The Shrooblord Mothership broadcasted a destress call to the Universe. It was only more horrid that the signal would never leave the system. You see, the Spider Nebula produced so much radiation that it blocked the signals. But all was not lost, for beyond the knowledge of the Shrooblord Mothership's fleet, there was another space-faring Empire just around the corner on planet Ataris Prime. It was only to hope that that Empire would receive the transmission and be compassionate enough to rescue the crew from the clutches of this evil Tyranid assault force.

Perhaps... even the fate of the Grox would be of influence to this battle. For not only did the Shrooblord Mothership warp into this strange new dimension, but as too did the Grox. And not only that, but the Grox had been teleported to the nearby star system of Vertigo, not even 15 parsecs away. It would only be a matter or time before they would install their Black Hole Manipulation Device, a wretched machine that can turn stars into Black Holes, and threaten the very existance of this whole Galaxy.

To be continued...

Ghelea:

-- Ecumenopolis, Lixis Galaxy --

The meeting with the Bingfish arrivals had gone down well. Both the Bingfish and the crew of the Renu were suprised at how friendly these Grox seemed towards the aliens compared to the vicious Grox Empire's attitude back in the home galaxy.
Captain Tarid ran and quickly caught up with the Grox leader whom he had been pressing for information ever since his arrival on the Republic.
"Hey! HEY!" The Grox turned back around, and his vocal implants seemed to make a little robotic sigh. "The Xynaxes. Tell me more!"
"Fine." replied the cyborg. "The Xynaxes... well, to be honest, we don't know much about them."
"Tell me what you do know, then."

"Okay. Hmm. Hundreds of millions of years ago, an alien race evolved on a planet about nine thousand parsecs from here. They had a brutal civil war, and the victors were a group calling themseles the Ix Zinak-su - 'The Superior-lives'. The elite caste of this species, composed of high-ranking Zinak-su, started to make improvements on their bodies with cybernetics, like the Grox. But they went further. After thousands of years, each 'Zinax' (as they were now called) was almost completely machine, only a small biological organism residing inside a central spherical shell. On the outside were powerful weapons and devices. A single Zinax could lay waste to an entire planet in a matter of hours.
"This, however, resulted in extreme power consumption. They used small pink crystals mined from their homeworld as a power source, but it was not enough. Soon, they began to run out. They travelled around the galaxy to other planets, forcing the locals to mine crystals for them or be exterminated.
"Eventually, they ran out there too. So, not long before the founding of the first Galactic Federation, they attacked your home galaxy. They found a small planet, Artes, which had trillions of these little pink crystals, locked away in geode form.
"The Xynaxes shipped away billions of these crystals back to their homeworld - so many, in fact, that I doubt they've used them all up now. But eventually, the Grox Empire decided that this valuable resource was being wasted by these aliens. So they blockaded the planet and sent a Planet Buster down."

"Ooh." replied Tarid.
"Don't worry. It got better. It's a long story."
"And this isn't?"
The Grox rolled his single organic eye. "The Xynaxes there were all destroyed, the Grox fleet suicidally staying there to distract them and prevent them from leaving.
"Then, when we arrived here, the Xynaxes recognised our species and held us responsible for minimising their crystal profits and destroying their people... as if you could call them that. There was a war. The oppressed species of the galaxy joined us, and a force of a million ships eventually beat back the Xynaxes to the distant edges of the galaxy. But now, they're back for revenge. And they want crystals."

Me:

--Craft world brisingr--

"Barzul! What the hell just happened" Shouted Veldik. I was casting about in space with my mind And suddenly BLAM A Load of Alien minds! What Happened"
"We have a load of backround Radiation And A HUGE ship Just Appeared on the sensors. Its Right next to the 'nids aswell There going to die! We HAVE to help them. Oh and ontop of that A LOAD of Grox appeared Right By Them." Reaplied the Ensin.

The Rogoid Leader was Soon Informed And He said " We Must help these Aliens. Thay May be good allieys in times to come and if not then atleast thay won't turn on us. However Since we don't know it thay are Tyranid Or Grox, We must arm all fighters and be prepared. Turn the craft world around. We must destroy the Tyranids And Help these poor souls."

Ghelea:

-- Planet Artes, 210 million years ago --

While the Screebles and the Greevils and hundreds of other races were unimportant little creatures scurrying and skittering through the forest floors of their various homeworlds, the Xynaxes and the Grox were at war. About one hundred Xynax saucers were on the planet Artes, mining the precious Artesian gemstones found just below the topsoil. Artes itself was a barren planet, home to no more than a few shrubs and insects. It's sky was permanently dark and cloudy, yet the ground was mostly desert.
Nothing on the planet, insect or Xynax, was aware of the fate that was about to befall them.
For a few minutes, the sun's light broke through the clouds and shone along the valley where the Xynax machines were working. Then the valley was in shade again. Not by clouds, but by starships in the distance blocking out all light. Everything went black - or, more accurately, a dark shade of mauveish-grey.
The Xynaxes went back to their ships, preparing for evacuation. For all the gadgets and accessories on their outer shells, the Xynaxes did not have any faster-than-light travel capabilities. The Xynax saucers fired up their engines and started to leave the planet, but it was too late.

The Grox had arrived.

Shrooblord:

Hope was dwindling. It was only a matter of time before the Mothership would be landed on a strange, barren planet. This would be the end of the Shrooblord Empire, or at least, for the Shrooblord Empire in this part of the Universe. Spode knows where the rest of the Shrooblord Empire was, probably still fighting off hordes of Grox Ships in another dimension.

"Captain, incoming object from beyond the star!" Meek reported.
"It looks like it's big! Really, really big."
"Then let's hope it is the enemy of these Tyranid creatures. If they aren't, we are about to be in more trouble than ever before." Shrooblord replied.
About an hour later, the Rogoid ship was blocking off sunlight. All went dark. For the Shrooblord crew on this ship, it meant that they were truely lost. They saw it as a sign of Spode leaving them. Of course, this was not the case. The Rogoid ship had just positioned itself akwardly infront of the star, blocking off light.


Meanwhile, in the Vertigo system...

The ship was catching fire as it was drawing nearer and nearer to the planet's surface.
"All systems down! CPU overload! Imminent collision with object in T minus thirty seconds!" the ship cried.
"BZZZRK! STATUS REPORT." ordered a dark, small and cudly figure.
"Shields down. Engines down. Escape capsules out of order." the monitor replied.
"NINE-NINE...IMPOSSIBLE. DOES NOT COMPUTE WITH SYSTEM DESIGN. SHIP HAS NO FLAWS. ZZZT!"
"CPU failing. Shutting down." the monitor said, turning itself off.
The ship went dark. The strange creature turned around.
"SOLDIER. REPORT."
"OUR SUDDEN APPEARING IN THIS NEW GALAXY HAS CAUSED SHIP MALFUNCTIONS. ZZZT! SYSTEM OVERLOADED. WE WILL CH-CH-CHRASH INTO THE NEARBY PLANET."
"THEN I SUGGEST WE SET UP OUR EMERGENCY BRACE-FOR-IMPACT POSITIONS."
"WILL SPREAD COMMAND ACROSS SHIP."

The little bear-like cyborg limped toward the intercom, which was actually still an old model, to the crew's luck. For had it been upgraded to modern versions, it would not have functioned due to the power failure. The old version, however, spread sound via pipes throughout the ship. This is what they said:
"WARNING. INITIATE EMERGENCY PLAN DELTA-4. NINE-NINE FOUR--! GROX COMMANDER, OVER."
The whole Grox crew curled up into a little ball, which they were able to do due to good evolution benefits.

As the ship rushed through the planet's stratosphere, the ship began burning up. Parts started falling off the ship and the ship was split into three pieces. All pieces would chrash into far away located places on the planet, which would by far later cause trouble. But now the only thing that the Grox would have to worry about is how they would survive the impact, and further more, how they would survive this atmospherical enviroment. As we all know, air and water are like poison to The Grox. And this planet was full of it.

Ghelae:

-- Planet Artes, 210 million years ago --

The Grox ships formed a geometric formation all around the planet. Thousands - if not millions - of starships, from enormous Probes to miniscule Attack Fighters, all aimed their turrets at the Xynaxes below, charged their weapons... and fired.

Missiles, bombs, pulses and every type of ordnance in the Grox arsenal fell downwards. Flames curled through the lower levels of the troposphere. However, nearly all of the Xynaxes were still alive. Their powerful guns worked as highly-effective point-defence systems, and only a few saucers had been destroyed in the initial bombardment.
The Grox armed their lasers. The Xynax saucers were not pleased at this, and retured fire. Hatches on the undersides of the Xynax ships opened, releasing 24 individual Xynaxes each - one remained on board each ship as a pilot. This may not have seemed like many, but there were around 90 saucers on the planet. And Xynax crystal lasers were powerful things.

In a few sectons, the skies were filled with green and purple lasers and vaporised Grox-hull, but there were still many Probes and Assault Craft for the Xynaxes to destroy. A command spead throughout the Probes - "Activate Protocol P/B-Delta."

Planet-busting antimatter topedoes flew downwards, impacting on the surface of Artes. The Xynax saucers desperately fought through the remainder of the Grox blockade, but to no avail. There were too many enemy ships, and a few seconds later, all but one saucer and one Probe - each on opposite sides of the planet - were no more.

The rest of the Xynaxes left the galaxy with their cargo, and went home. What happened between then and the arrival of the Grox explorers 190 million years later is still a mystery.

Shrooblord:

Leaving the Shrooblord crew in the star system of Vesticon, we travel 15 parsecs to see what is happening in the star system of Vertigo.

The heat got intenser by the minute, and the ship started shaking like a banana in the blender. Not that the Grox noticed a lot of this. You see, The Grox is a truely vile species. They have traded most of their emotions, except for anger and joy (in very rare moments a Grox creature can be happy), in for mechanical supremity. They also supressed feelings like pain and comfort to replace them with logics and algorhythms. Their internal CPUs, however, picked up the stress that the ship was going through and although they cannot feel real pain, a stabbing feeling was all over them.

One of the engines came chrashing through the windows of the bridge, and many Grox were sucked out of the ship.
"CLOSE AIRTIGHT LOCK!" the Grox leader yelped. But he had forgotten that the CPU of the main computer had shut down and the ship was out of power. Suddenly the ship began to shake and rattle more and more, until the eastern Command Center was seperated from the western Command Center and the bridge, and all flew off in diffrent directions. As the ship started losing more parts many more Grox followers were sucked out of the ship and died terribly, even for The Grox. The eastern Command Center chrashed into a mountain, just a small mountain, and split it in half. It came down on the ground with a chrash and even more Grox died, but that was not the end of it. Sharp rocks came raining down upon the survivors. Fifteen miles west, the western Command Center splattered apart onto the planet's giant ocean. Most of it was lost, but the rest of the ship bounced onto dry land. The bridge then came down as last, chrashing into the South Pole of the planet. Ice shattered and many of the remaining crew were killed instantly. Not at all a comfortable landing, but a few had survived. It was a true carnage.

Of all the parts of the ships that has chrashed, the western Command Center was the most unlucky. You see, the other two parts of the ships chrashed in extreme enviroments, which would mean trouble for me and you, but it meant home for The Grox. Yet this part of the ship had chrashed into the most pleasurable part of the planet, which meant being in a desert, in open space and trapped 100 miles underwater all at the same time to the Grox. As they gasped to breath, Meek shot a horrid laser into the skies which obliterated the atmosphere above them. Only a small hole, but large enough to let out air so they could breath again. The atmosphere soon closed up, and Meek had no mre ammunition, but it would take days before the air around them had restored to normal values and they would be in trouble again.

As for the other crew members, they all remained unconcious for quite some time. Quite some time indeed.

Ghelae:

-- Introduction Room of the Starship Republic, orbiting Ecumenopolis --

"Here," said the Grox leader to the stranded crew of the Renu and the new Bingfish arrivals, "are the allied species that form the Republic."
On several seats around the room sat (for lack of better term) several alien representatives. The leader pointed to each alien in turn and explained what they had done for the Republic.
"Oracle:" he said, pointing to a strange floating fluidic creature that looked somewhat like a backlit nebula "Gave us this technology:" He lifted his gun in the air and pressed a button. A small jet of flame flew into the air. "This can extend for up to eighty metres. Perfect against Xynax shells inside a crowded starship.
"Bananaz:" he continued, pointing to several elongated yellow creatures, "Built this spaceship and most other ships of the fleet. There are some rebel Bananaz who dislike our Republic, but many have remained loyal to us.
"Pseudomorph: Their shapeshifting abilities are their most valuable gift to our forces. Never underestimate them."
He continued for several other species, including an invertebrate squid-like species, a mushroom-like race and what looked something like a robotic plant.

Suddenly, the Republic started to shake.
"What is it?" asked the Grox through his COMS. "Oh, okay." The shaking stopped as the inertial dampers and deflector shields came online. "We're under attack by the rebel Bananaz," he explained to everybody in the room. "And they've brought some Xynaxes with them."

Shrooblord:

Meanwhile, near Vesticon...

A great ship came floating towards the Tyranid fleet. The Tyranids recognized the ship as a hostile force and started to aim and load all their defensive systems. As they were fireing upon the Ragoid ship, one of the lasers deflected off the surface of a nearby asteroid. Its orbit was changed and it came rushing towards the combat zone.

"Warning! Warning! Location in collision course with unidentified object! Collision set for five minutes!" the monitors cried.
Shrooblord shot up and gazed at the monitors, and then at the windows. He did this for some time until he realised what was happening.
"We have to get out of here! Meek! Status report!"
OOC: I just noticed... I accidentally included Meek in the Grox storyline. >.< That name was not supposed to be there and you should probably ignore it.
IC:
"Commander, sir. No way out. We're trapped between Tyranid forces and the asteroid. If we move, the Tyranids will be sure to destroy us with one shot of their missiles, but if we stay... the asteroid will obliterate us."
"Can we shatter the asteroid?"
"Negative, Commander. All our ammunition was lost in the great battle we just came from."
"Drat! ... Hmm. We have to be able to divert one of the Tyranids' missiles in our favour."
Then Shrooblord remembered the Magnetic Beam, a device he had recently installed.
"Meek, fire the Magnetic Beam. But be careful, don't fire it up too much, or the missile will come after us instead of the asteroid, and don't set the beam up too low, or we will not affect the missile's trajectory. We don't have enough energy for countless tries, so this shot is our only chance."

Meek walked over to the cannon, readied the beam and aimed. A bright green laser shot out of the Shrooblord Mothership and hit right on target. The laser was spot on, and the amount was exactly right. But little did the crew expect what was going to happen next. For luck was definately not on their side, as the asteroid happened to be made out of a lot of iron. The asteroid was pulled out of the missiles way and was now speeding towards the ship at a higher speed than ever.

"Impact in one minute and counting." the ship responded.
"Oh, dear. Spode, Spode where are you on this frightful day? We need thy help, oh lord of creation, for thy followers' lives art in jeopardy!" Shrooblord cried to the heavens. He did not really know in what direction he should cry, for there was no sky to cry at. So he cried at the thing that reminded him most of the sky, and that was the Spider Nebula. And it is then that Shrooblord discovered what would be their saviour.

Ghelae:

-- Battle of Ecumenopolis --

The defence force of the aptly-named city-planet of Ecumenopolis raced into action as the Bananaz ships opened fire on the Republic. High-powered autoblasters picked off the smaller fighters, but they were not going to be sufficient for the larger capital ships. Fortunately, the rest of the fleet managed to fend them off long enough for the Republic to escape.
Then, the Republic found itself followed by Xynaxes. Sixteen of them, to be exact. But they weren't firing, even though the autoblaster system was targeting them. Then, they set their plan in place. Picking up speed, the Xynaxes flew about three kilometres in front of the Republic, formed a circle and fired their weapons to a central point between them and the starship. The Republic was too large and going too fast to move out of the way. But it wasn't doomed. As the starship flew into the crystal lasers, all went black...

Me:

--Ataris Prime--

" Launch fighters Capital ship and every thing we've got." Comanded the Rogoid leader calmly "dispach deathwatch teams to help the Aliens."

Imeadiatly Iota was teleported to the asteroids witch Sacom blew up. then they teleported into the Alien Ship the genestealers were swarming. Thay were gunned down. Iota moved forward as one and veldik Felt for the telltale Presence of the Broodlord. He found it and the squad diverted down a corridor hunting it. thay turned a corner and found It. unfortuatly it had 100 Genestalers with it. It stood at its fell hight and Screached seanding rifts of pshykik energy through the air. Veldik was Blasted away and Imobilised, struggleing to fight the streath of every tyranid there was. the the scream stopped And veldik fell to the floor. imeadiatly the genestealers converged on him. thay He stayed down until thay were close and then rose doing a riseing attack and killing those closest to him then he blasted the rest back with a pshykik burst. thay died. the broodlord pounced on him and tore at him with Dimond hard claws. Veldik deflected and lunched it up were Kelrak Shot him down with his heave Shruikan launcher. The rest of the genstealers Started to retreat and crawl into the walls, then thay stoped cocked there heads, as if thay were listerning to something and turned round and atacked again.
"Thay Should be reatreating!" Cried Lor'em "Why Arn't thay Falling back?!?!?"
Why thay wern't falling back came round the corner. it was a hive tyrant. It roared and Lashed its whip, entagleing Jet, who had tried to sneak up behind it And lifted him up. The the Whip suddenly fell apart And whrithed on the floor as veldik ran up the wall for another assult The hive tyrant was ready though and Blocked his Attack with its bone sword Then Gave Veldik A load of acid in retern But Veldik was to quick and ran on its back and stabbed its head The genestealers Screamed and Thrached as there master Fell convulsing. The Genestealers Were cut down by The others. thay made there way to the command room and found the aliens

Veldik said "Eka Comeent Unin Mor'ranr" I come in peace. This was in the anchient language So the beings understood it. Veldik Gave them a translator. Now thay could speak...

Ghelae:

-- Battle of Ecumenopolis --

Where the sixteen beams met, a portal had opened up in space. The Republic sailed right through it, followed by the sixteen Xynaxes, then eight more, then a Xynax saucer. By the time the rest of the Republic fleet had noticed what had happened, the portal was closing.

On the other side, the Republic's sensors took about ten seconds to adject to its new surroundings, by which time the Xynaxes had entered their saucer and left the scene.
"Now," asked the admiral, "where are we?"
At that point, the crew of the Renu arrived at the bridge.

Shrooby:

Leaving the Shrooblord Mothership, due to confusion, we return to the planet orbiting the star Vertigo, 15 parsecs from here...

Hours had passed and Krog (that's the name I was supposed to use, not Meek) was feeling weak. With no vacuum around him or no spaceship to board, his Grox companions were having trouble holding on. Krog was about to give up hope when he smashed his gun on the ground in rage. It splattered the soft and warm sand, dispearsing it in every direction. This was to great luck of The Grox, as here it revealed a shiny metal object of some sort. Krog started escavating this object and he soon came to see that the thing embedded in the ground was nothing more than a small cabin. Not too large, more of a janitor's closet-sized cabin. But it was a cabin. The Grox ship had chrashed violently and had shattered parts of itself everywhere. Here lay an airtight escape capsule.

Overjoyed (or as near to joy that a Grox can be) Krog called his fellow Grox survivors.
"SAVIOUR, SAVIOUR! CALCULATING CHANCE OF SURVIVAL -- 98%!"
They decided to take turns in the cabin, breathing some what was fresh air to them. Soon they had all regained strength and were making plans again. Many suggestions involved things like destruction and flying across stars killing everything, but Krog reminded them of the situation they were in. Then he came up with the idea to build a small encampment. If they could make a little base, they might be able to develop some way of contacting other survivors.

It took a few hours, but after a while the beginnings of a small camp started to emerge. Krog ordered a few people around here and there, and the camp was starting to flourish. Some Grox had come back with resources they could use to power processors, while others came back with a solution to create helpful devices.

Now rotating around the planet, we come back to the Grox leader, on the South Pole...

When he awoke, the Grox leader, named Kryone-1, found himself in the middle of a great white haze. To his delightment it was awfully cold, and the atmosphere above him was thin. He took a deep breath and started gathering the rest of the survivors.
"OUR FALLEN COMRADES SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN," he spoke, "BUT THEY MUST NOT BE WASTED. THEIR CYBORG PARTS MAY HELP US RECOVER AND THEIR BODIES WILL POWER OUR MAIN COMPUTERS."
Grim as the suggestion was, the Grox survivors all agreed and started gathering all the casualties. They took the ship parts they could recover with them and built a big computer-like device. Kryone-1 crawled into the wirey encasement of the computer and asked for some tools now and then. He came back all covered in oil, but as The Grox are cyborgs, this was actually a pleasure to the Grox leader.

It took a while to get the computer up and running, but when they got it working, they could calculate the location of all the other shipwrecks.
Kryone said the following:
"BASED ON IMPACT DATA AND LOCATION CALCULATION, WE NOW KNOW THE PLACE WHERE OTHER CREW MEMBERS-ERS-ERS HAVE CHRASHLANDED. WE MUST, TO OUR REGRET, CROSS A --ZZT-- OCEAN."
The crew shivered by the pronounciation of this last word.
"BUT DO NOT FEAR. THE COMPUTER HAS LOCATED WAYS OF EASILY CROSSING THIS DEATH PIT. WE --BROARK-- NEED NOT WORRY. SOON WE SHALL BE UNITED WITH THE REST OF THE SHIP'S CREW."

And so they worked on it. Building rafts and ships, The Grox started to find ways of crossing the trechourous seas. However, not all would go entirely as planned. For Epics realm even the surface of this planet, and The Grox would soon find out.

Continued:

Ghelae:

-- Battle of Ecumenopolis --

Where the sixteen beams met, a portal had opened up in space. The Republic sailed right through it, followed by the sixteen Xynaxes, then eight more, then a Xynax saucer. By the time the rest of the Republic fleet had noticed what had happened, the portal was closing.

On the other side, the Republic's sensors took about ten seconds to adject to its new surroundings, by which time the Xynaxes had entered their saucer and left the scene.
"Now," asked the admiral, "where are we?"
At that point, the crew of the Renu arrived at the bridge.

Shrooby:

Leaving the Shrooblord Mothership, due to confusion, we return to the planet orbiting the star Vertigo, 15 parsecs from here...

Hours had passed and Krog (that's the name I was supposed to use, not Meek) was feeling weak. With no vacuum around him or no spaceship to board, his Grox companions were having trouble holding on. Krog was about to give up hope when he smashed his gun on the ground in rage. It splattered the soft and warm sand, dispearsing it in every direction. This was to great luck of The Grox, as here it revealed a shiny metal object of some sort. Krog started escavating this object and he soon came to see that the thing embedded in the ground was nothing more than a small cabin. Not too large, more of a janitor's closet-sized cabin. But it was a cabin. The Grox ship had chrashed violently and had shattered parts of itself everywhere. Here lay an airtight escape capsule.

Overjoyed (or as near to joy that a Grox can be) Krog called his fellow Grox survivors.
"SAVIOUR, SAVIOUR! CALCULATING CHANCE OF SURVIVAL -- 98%!"
They decided to take turns in the cabin, breathing some what was fresh air to them. Soon they had all regained strength and were making plans again. Many suggestions involved things like destruction and flying across stars killing everything, but Krog reminded them of the situation they were in. Then he came up with the idea to build a small encampment. If they could make a little base, they might be able to develop some way of contacting other survivors.

It took a few hours, but after a while the beginnings of a small camp started to emerge. Krog ordered a few people around here and there, and the camp was starting to flourish. Some Grox had come back with resources they could use to power processors, while others came back with a solution to create helpful devices.

Now rotating around the planet, we come back to the Grox leader, on the South Pole...

When he awoke, the Grox leader, named Kryone-1, found himself in the middle of a great white haze. To his delightment it was awfully cold, and the atmosphere above him was thin. He took a deep breath and started gathering the rest of the survivors.
"OUR FALLEN COMRADES SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN," he spoke, "BUT THEY MUST NOT BE WASTED. THEIR CYBORG PARTS MAY HELP US RECOVER AND THEIR BODIES WILL POWER OUR MAIN COMPUTERS."
Grim as the suggestion was, the Grox survivors all agreed and started gathering all the casualties. They took the ship parts they could recover with them and built a big computer-like device. Kryone-1 crawled into the wirey encasement of the computer and asked for some tools now and then. He came back all covered in oil, but as The Grox are cyborgs, this was actually a pleasure to the Grox leader.

It took a while to get the computer up and running, but when they got it working, they could calculate the location of all the other shipwrecks.
Kryone said the following:
"BASED ON IMPACT DATA AND LOCATION CALCULATION, WE NOW KNOW THE PLACE WHERE OTHER CREW MEMBERS-ERS-ERS HAVE CHRASHLANDED. WE MUST, TO OUR REGRET, CROSS A --ZZT-- OCEAN."
The crew shivered by the pronounciation of this last word.
"BUT DO NOT FEAR. THE COMPUTER HAS LOCATED WAYS OF EASILY CROSSING THIS DEATH PIT. WE --BROARK-- NEED NOT WORRY. SOON WE SHALL BE UNITED WITH THE REST OF THE SHIP'S CREW."

And so they worked on it. Building rafts and ships, The Grox started to find ways of crossing the trechourous seas. However, not all would go entirely as planned. For Epics realm even the surface of this planet, and The Grox would soon find out.

Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic, somewhere in space --

"There's an unusual concentration of black holes in this area." noted a crewman on the Republic's bridge.
Tarid ran over to the crewman's display. "We're a couple of parsecs from the Wastelands." he said.
"Back near home?" asked another Belatra.
"No. We're near to the Third Arm. Scanners aren't detecting much life around here. This must be where most of the Tyranids are concentrated. We're about 70 parsecs from the nearest imperial signature, just next to the Spider Nebula - not too many light years from where the Justicicus settled near the end of the Great Grox War. It's, umm... I can't quite make it out... Rogeoid? I don't think we should go that way, though. Place's swarming with Tyranids and Grox."
"Are there any other options that you know of?" asked the Grox admiral.
"Nope. It's called the 'Wastelands' for a reason. There's so much radiation that there's barely any life for forty parsecs from it."
Shroob:

Leaving the Grox to their struggle for survival in the Vertigo system, we return to the constant clash going on in the Vesticon system...

"Shrooblord, Shrooblord!" a voice is heard from within the bridge.
"Shrooblord, it's the Tyranids, they have boarded the Shrooblord Mothership!", the voice, which was Meek's, said.
"Aboard the fleet that invaded our ship was something called the Broodlord!"
"Broodlord, you say?", Shrooblord replied, "I have heard of it. It is known throughout the Galaxy as a vile creature. Very powerful indeed. Any sign of help?"
"Actually, a strange alien race has managed to board our ship and is now attacking the Broodlord."
"Good heavens, does Spode no longer protect our ship? How did all these visitors get inside?"
"That would be my doing.", a dark voice replied.
Shrooblord and Meek turned their head to the doorway where the sound was coming from. A robot-like creature stepped into the bridge, where the guards instantly took aim of this stranger. They were blasted away with a slight raising of the stranger's hand. Out of the shadows stepped a vile red and yellow creature, with robot-like claws and armoured plates. On its stomach lied the destinctive sign of evil, a red eye with spikes all around it.
"It's The Gix*!" Shrooblord said.
And indeed it was. The Gix had somehow managed to climb aboard the ship earlier and rip a hole in the cargo room. Once there it had disabled all the ship's defence systems; this is why the magnetic cannon used earlier didn't have much ammunition. The Broodlord had soon found out and climbed aboard too, followed by the Rogoids.

The Gix gave a terrifying scream which shattered the control systems and the spirits of the crew.
"You will now be my prisoners.", The Gix continued, "And I shall take you to my Master."
And with those words he tied up the entire Shrooblord crew (which had become weakened by the scream earlier) and took them aboard his little ship. Shrooblord, however, managed to escape, but you will read about that later. The Gix's master was of course Darkness*, one of Phozar*'s finest Demons, which was located in the nearby Spider Nebula, not at all far from the location where the Shrooblord crew had suddenly emerged. Phozar had placed them there to start an assault on the nearby Rogoid forces, when they discovered the Shrooblord Mothership. It was at this time that one of the Gix crew members was sent to the ship, but it had arrived before they left the Spider Nebula, which destorted its presence on the radar.

And there the ship flew, off towards the Spider Nebula, with the entire Bridge crew aboard. Shrooblord managed to gnaw the tight ropes until they broke, but he could not do anything for quite some time, due to the constant observance of their Gix captivator.

*=
The Gix is a race of creatures, a prototype to The Grox, created by an evil being called Phozar, which can travel the dimensions and alter existance itself. Embedded with each creation he makes is The Mark of Phozar, an evil sign of his creation. See the picture for more detail. Darkness is one of Phozar's highest ranked Demons, just like Despair. They often fight his battles for him and command the creatures that he assigns to their will.


Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic, en route to the Rogoid territories --

Everything had been explained to everybody on board the Republic and repairs had begun. In this state, it would be another couple of weeks before the Republic arrived at their destination.

-- Planet Heldes, halfway between the Wastelands and Grox Space --

Heldes was a volcanic planet, covered mostly in igneous rock but also with several rivers of lava running across its barren and boiling surface.
Two Xynax saucers entered the choking atmoshpere of the planet and settled down on an island of basalt somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Their work was about to start.

-- Galactic Core --

500 years earlier, towards the beginning of the Great Grox War, a being calling itself "Spode" left the centre of the galaxy for the first time in millions of years. It destroyed several Grox Probes, killed the last Grox Lord personally, and destroyed the rogue planet Zesinfire that even Planet Busters had no effect on.
That was 500 years ago. Half a millennium. And it was time to return.

Shroob:

Vertigo system, 3 days later...

Many had died by the hands of vicious Epic seamonsters, which lived in giant underwater dwellings beneath the sea's surface (lol, underwaterstage suggestion. Personally, I'm against the water stage, but it's of good use in RPGs). Kryone-1 looked upon the shores they had arrived on. All was quiet and still. He had designed a vacuum helmet for him and his crew to wear for surviving the hostile nature of this planet. He was a smart Grox creature, which is why he had become the leader of a great Grox ship. Soon he had counted all the survivors and many were still alive, yet dozens had perished. He spoke to the surviving crew members as follows:
"GROX BRETHERIN. I CALL UPON YOU THIS GRIM DAY FOR THE CALCULATION OF NEXT MOVEMENTS. OUR NEXT OBJECTIVE... --ZZT-- IS TO LOCATE AND MOVE TOWARDS THE OTHER SURVIVORS. WE..."
"HOW DO YOU KNOW THERE ARE SURVIVIORS?", one of the other Grox creatures interrupted him. He was punished by shoving him into the waters where he was tortured to appology.
"I SHALL CONTINUE. WE MUST NOW HEAD TO NORTH-EAST, TOWARDS THE MOUNTAINS. WHEN WE LOCATE THE OTHER CREW MEMBERS, WE SHALL CONTINUE TO THE WEST, WHERE THE OTHER --NINENINE-- MEMBERS ARE. --RRRT--".

So the Grox survivors headed for the mountains where they would find other survivors. Later on they met up with the small colony of Grox in the East.

Me:

--Shrooblord mothership--

The Gix Had taken the crew. The Rogeoids Had been hidden by a pshykik Rift. thay were neather in realspace or subsace. nothing could harm or hear them. Sacom was in hysterics, Veldik Was Broken and was waiting for his pshykik powers recharged. Jet sat there. Lor'em was rareing to kill The Gix. Kelrak was rappidly reloading his gun. Only Ray was Still composed. he roared at Iota "YOU SHALL FIGHT IN THERE NAME!" Iota was instantly snapped back. there moral had returned.

They teleported away. Iota was now back in Craftworld Brisingr. The tyranid ships were Being beaten back. the farseer council waas now told of the Crisis. The grox were a few systems away. the hopwful allys had been taken by a Gix. The Tyranids were being beaten back. but had taken a heavy toll on Brisingr's pilots. The Rogoid race was dwindling as it was. now this. And to cap it off the Spider nebular was crawling with deamons. the farseer council scryed the future and deided the Rogoids could not help them without being wiped out. Brisingr The activated its Webway telporters and vanished without a trace to a diferent arm in the galixy.

Shrooby:

IC:
As the small ship sped along, Shrooblord looked for an opportunity to capture their Gix captor and turn the ship around. When the Gix was briefly destracted by the vanishing Rogoid spacecraft, Shrooblord saw his chance and whacked the Gix captor on the head. Being a little more thick-skulled than he had expected, Shrooblord soon had a ship on auto-pilot and a showdown with some Gix unit. He instantly thought of the rest of the Shrooblord crew and released them when the Gix captor was still recovering from the blow to the head he had just had. They then faced the wrath of The Gix. They were just about to launch an attack on him, when the darkness of the Spider Nebula surrounded them and they were blinded. The Mark of Phozar lit up the room and the Gix captor had soon once more set Shrooblord alone. With all the unconcious crew members all around him lying on the floor paralyzed he ducked to the floor and knocked the Gix soldier off his feet. With a loud bang he chrashed onto the ship floor and he was rendered unconcious.

Shrooblord leapt for the controls and tried to steer the ship around. Useless as this was, the ship sticked to its auto-pilot destination. Shrooblord then saw no other option than to tie the Gix pilot up and see where they were headed.

A time that seemed like days had passed before the ship came to a standstill. When Shrooblord looked around, he was surprised to see ... nothing. Nothing at all, but darkness all around him. This is when he was suddenly blinded by one red eye that shone a piercing light right into the cabin. "You must be Shrooblord.", the light said.
"You have met your destiny. Prepare yourself... to behold... THE FUTURE!"

Everything around him turned bright blue and the last thing he knew, Shrooblord hit the floor. He was about to witness what no other creature would know of for a long time to come.
Until then, he would remain asleep.

Continued:

Ghelae:

-- Republic Bridge --

Bee-BEEP!
"Erm, Captain?"
"Yes?"
"These Rogoids... they seem to have disappeared..."
"Disappeared?"
"Yes."
"The Tyranids?"
"Maybe. I can't tell. Their imperial signature has just... disappeared. They might have found a way to hide their signature, which would be why I can't detect it."
"Try all psychic frequencies. We won't find their signature, but we'll be able to see if there's any sapient life there."
Bee-bee-boo-BEEP-boop.
"Well... there's something there. Not Tyranid, or Grox, but somewhere near the system. But I can't make it out with all the interference."
"Hmm... I don't think we'll make it to the Spider Nebula and survive any attacks in this state. If there's nobody there to help us, it'll make it far worse. Divert course to... to the Galactic Core."
"Captain?"
"Do it."

-- Galactic Core --

A small, metallic, disc-shaped object left the Core. Eight tendrils of light unfurled from its rim, stretched across the diameter of its home, and then relaxed.
It's nice to be back, thought Spode.

Shroob:

Soon the Spider Nebula receeded to show a vast amount of stars. Nobody knows how or why this all happenened, but they would in time. The Spider Nebula had actually folded only drifted a couple of lightyears fairly quickly, for some reason. It would all become clear in time, but at this moment Meek was gazing at the new stars.

"It's a ... mini-Galaxy?" he exclaimed. Of course it was not, but it's not odd to say sch a thing upon your first gaze of a cluster of stars so closely together. Soon the rest of the crew were staring at this new miraculous formation, when Meek told Shrooblord he should come look. When Shrooblord did not respond, Meek started to look for him and found him on the ground, not moving at all.
"Guys, GUYS!" he yelled.
"It's Shrooblord! He's... he's..." He felt for Shrooblord's pulse.
"Oh, goodness. He's only unconcious. But, it's not like anything I've ever seen before. We have to find help."
"Where can we find help?" said one of the other crew members.
"The Rogoids have disappeared before our eyes and I don't see the Tyranids helping a fallen enemy."
"Maybe we could try the planet we were near to."
"Impossible, it's guarded by dozens of Tyranid forces."
"But what if... why don't we... if I..." Meek said, trying to find a solution.
"Meek, sir. There's an alien vessel not too far away from us.", another crew member said, "If we follow it fast, we might be able to ask it's assistance."
"We don't know if they are friend or foe! It could be dangerous."
"Yes sir, but we need all the help we can, and I don't see any lifeforms beyond this solar system other than Tyranids and Gix, do you?"

Meek pondered it for a small amount of time, before he ordered the ship to follow this alien vessel. It wasn't too long before they had gained on it, for a small ship only needs a little time to move forwards, while a bigger ship takes longer to do so.
"Sir, we are nearing the ships radar. They will see us in a moment. What are we to do?"
"Try to establish radio contact," said Meek, "We want to find out if these strangers are friendly."
So they beamed up a radio signal towards the Republic in hope of finding a new ally.

Meanwhile, in a dark, dark place...

When he woke up he was lying on the floor. All around him was pitch-black darkness. The only light that shone seemed to be emitted by himself. All around him was a small beam of light. He was alone in a dark and large world. Shrooblord tried walking towards a sorce of light, but in whatever direction he walked, nothing came. So there he sat for a while, thinking of what to do next, when back came that big red eye, this time from straight above.
"You are awakened." it said, "Good. I have many things to show you."
A blue light surrounded Shrooblord once more, while the blackness faded into a landscape of a certain planet. It was dark and gloomy, but much lighter than the darkness that had been all around him before.
"Here you see the habitat of a species most alike yours. That is, it came from another dimension like you did. But it is hated across the Galaxy from whence you came, and so is it in any other. It's sole purpose is to destroy, and no emotions nor feelings exist in it."
"Grox...", Shrooblord answered.
"Yes, you call it The Grox. These Grox have built a Colony and established an ecosystem most comfortable to them."
"So? That's what all Grox Colonies do."
"Yes, but this one is diffrent. Remember the great Grox Leader?"
"Zirg. He was slain in a great war centuries ago."
"Yes, but his kin remained. Kryone-1 is now the Grox leader and has chrashlanded on this barren planet."
"Why are you telling me all this? Who are you?"
The eye paused for a while and even faded for a moment.
"All answers will come swiftly, Shrooblord."
"How do you know me anyway? Who are you?" he repeated.
The voice laughed.
"You may question all you like, but I shall not answer. Not just yet."

Shrooblord was taken inside the heart of the Grox colony.
"So why are you showing me this?" Shrooblord asked again.
"It is of great essence that you know of the future that is about to occur. Many weeks shall pass before it shall come to this, but many weeks you shall need to prepare. And many weeks shall I need to tell you all of the events bound to happen."
"But how will I have time to prepare then?"
Again the eye paused.
"You will not. You will awaken only hours from the happening of this prophecy, and in the nick of time will you have to stop it. It is my amusement to see if you will be able to. HAHAHAHAhaha... yes... It is the will of the Gods."
"The only true god is Spode!"
"You are foolish, young one, but yes, Spode is among the Mystical Beings."
"And so are you."
"No, no... not by chance. I am among the Demons."
"Demons? Then why are you helping me prevent a terrible future? Isn't that what you have planned? For us all to die?"
"And that is where my amusement lies... Many will die for the grater good. And many will distrust your species forever."
"But, why?"
"You will save the Galaxy."
"Me? All by myself? Why would I need to be the saviour? Can't Spode handle all this?"
"I am not asking you to do this, Shrooblord, but you all will save the Galaxy. From the Grox. Besides, Spode has other matters to attend of."

And many more would Shrooblord hear from the evil voice in his long sleep. For a long time, Meek would have to do things by himself. With or without the help of others, but he could no longer rely on Shrooblord.

Me:

--Craftworld Brisingr--

The Rogoids rematerialised. craftworld brisingr Was Now many Parasecs Away. The Farseer Council had scryed the fate of The Rogoids. It was free Of trubbles! Unfortuantly All those Who had stayed Had Much darker futures. The rogoids were Strikken With grief. How Could Thay have done this. The Seer Council Decided To return. On condition That Thay help the others. However The rogoids Are A very Unpredictable Race. And Decided That If any started to mine or Try to learn what they wern't told, Thay would destroy the races Findings. By force. Thay had a dark secret That no one Could know...

Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic, in Grox Space --

The Republic drifted into Grox Space. Suprisingly, it went unnoticed for over 1000 parsecs - or maybe the Grox did not want to react to it. But there was still a long way to go before they reached the Core, and long-range sensors had detected a Probe moving to intercept them. It was still over fifty parsecs away (the crew of the Republic wondered why they had not sent ships from one of their closer colonies) but would reach them in less than an hour, and only half-way from their current location to the Core.

-- Galactic Core --

Spode's eye scanned the galaxy surrounding him.
Grox. he thought. What are they doing here?
Then he sensed another ship heading towards his home. It was made mostly of familiar technology, but some of it was... different. Very different. He could almost hear the organisms aboard it. He also knew that the Grox were soon going to find them, and that the aliens wouldn't stand a chance. Not without help. Not without the help of a god.

Shroob:

Solar system Vesticon, Grox territory by now...

The Grox were coming along fine with their preporations. Soon their Atmosphere Drainer would be done and they would rid of the toxins that surrounded them. Kryone-1 was heading towards the town's, for the colony had grown significantly, center. There he met with the Council of War, a very evil organisation indeed.
"PREPOR...ATIONS CHECK. ARE WE ON SCHEDULE?", he asked the Council.
The head of the Council rose up and said:
"YES, OH MIGHTY ONE. WE HA-A-AVE FINISHED BUILDING THE PARTS. IT WILL ONLY BE A MATTER OF TIME NOW. CALCULATING SPECIFIC AMOUNT."
"REQUEST TO SPEAK.", said one of the Council's members.
"PERMISSION GRANTED.", answered Kryone-1.
"WE SHALL NOT FINISH OUR DEVICE IN TIME TO LAUNCH BEFORE... BEFORE HE GETS HERE."
"HE?" asked the head of the Council.
"... S... SPODE, SIR."
"NINE-NINE-- HOW DARE YOU! WE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF OUR WORST ENEMY."
"BUT, SIR. IT IS A MAJOR PROBLEM TO FACE. WE WILL HAVE TO..."
"ENOUGH.", said Kryone-1, now very agitated with the Council member,
"YOUR FLAW TO UNDERSTAND THE SAFETY OF THIS COLONY CAN NOT BE TOLERATED. YOU SHALL BE ERASED FROM EXISTANCE."
And with those words said, the Grox Council member was erased from existance.
"ANY MORE VIRUS-INFECTED THOUGHTS? GOOD. PLEASE DO CONTINUE, COUNCIL LEADER."

It is long that the Council and Kryone-1 discussed these matters, but in the end it all boils down to one point: A Grox superweapon was being built and it would take only weeks before it would be finished.

Me:

--Craftworld Brisingr--

Brisingr exploded into The battle. The Craftworlds many Guns Swiveled and blasted and shot down the many alien craft. The 'nid Lumps of bone thay called fighters fell in peaces. The hive fleet knew nothing was left worth eating and so fell back and left. then The craft world turned to the spider nebula planning to rescue the Shrooblord mothership. They were sure the craftworld could stand whatever was in there. after all what could destroy a cruiser with no weak points that was the size of a planet


Ghelae:

-- Grox Space --

The Republic cruised near to an uninhabited star system, when the sensors noticed a dramatic change.
"Erm, Captain?"
"Yes?"
"This star system... it seems to have disappeared..."
"Disappeared?"
"Yes?"
"Another thing, disappeared? First an empire, now a star?"
"Well... not entirely. There was a short burst of energy, apparently directed away from us, and now... there's just a black hole."
"Hmm. Odd."
"Sensors seem to suggest that it leads to... to the Galactic Core. If we activate our Wormhole Key-"
"No. It might be a Grox trap."
"It can't be," interjected a Belatra from the Renu. "The Grox don't have that kind of technology. Nobody in this galaxy does, or ever has."
"Captain! We're being pulled in!"
The captain paused for a few seconds, thinking about everything that had been said. His Grox mind quickly worked out the appropriate solution. "Activate the Wormhole Key, then."

The Republic fell into the wormhole...

-- Grox Space --

The Republic cruised near to an uninhabited star system, when the sensors noticed a dramatic change.
"Erm, Captain?"
"Yes?"
"This star system... it seems to have disappeared..."
"Disappeared?"
"Yes?"
"Another thing, disappeared? First an empire, now a star?"
"Well... not entirely. There was a short burst of energy, apparently directed away from us, and now... there's just a black hole."
"Hmm. Odd."
"Sensors seem to suggest that it leads to... to the Galactic Core. If we activate our Wormhole Key-"
"No. It might be a Grox trap."
"It can't be," interjected a Belatra from the Renu. "The Grox don't have that kind of technology. Nobody in this galaxy does, or ever has."
"Captain! We're being pulled in!"
The captain paused for a few seconds, thinking about everything that had been said. His Grox mind quickly worked out the appropriate solution. "Activate the Wormhole Key, then."

The Republic fell into the wormhole...

-- Planet Baetarie, Second Arm, approx. 200 million years ago --

OOC: The Council of Bilzac and the first Galactic Federation were explained by a Greevil in The Grox Alliance. Instead of going through another person for this Council, it's now... flashback time!

IC:

A few decades after the Council of Bilzac which set out the rules for the first Galactic Federation, the Zealot empire (no records are left about their species, presumably being wiped during or after the First Grox War) were preaching their religion of Spode to the other seven Empires of the Federation. The Grox were not preached to, as after the first few attempts the Zealots found that their ships were mysteriously vanishing in Grox Space.

The Scientist Feesh Empire decided that they had now had enough, but did not want to deal with all-out war. So the Federation convened on the Feesh homeworld of Baetarie in order to resolve the problem.

Three empires each took the sides of the Zealots and Scientists, and one individual from each side became Chairman of the Council to ensure fairness.
One the sides of the Feesh were the Warrior Greevils, the Shaman Screebles and the Bards, who looked like relatively close relatives to the Bananaz Empire which appeared after the end of the First Grox War.
One the side of the Zealots were the Ecologist Willosaurs, the Diplomats (a species of humanoid frog-like beings) and the Traders (semi-humanoid Llama-like creatures).

"Now," said the Screeble chairman, "It is time to begin the discussions of this Council."

And so they began.

Me:

--Craftworld Brisingr--

The carftworld charged forward into the spider nebula to rescue the Shrooblord. Only to find the nebula Empty. The Craft world Then turned, and Ignited its webway sencers and found the other Ships heading onto grox Space. It Then telported to there position and hailed the Smaller craft. (remember the craft world Is huge).

Shroob:

Meek could not control the ship as the wormhole was getting nearer.
"Does this ship ahve a wormhole key?" he asked the crew.
"This is only a patrol ship, sir. We don't see any signs of surviving that Black Hole over there."
"Dear Spode. If only Shrooblord were with us right now... he'd know what to do."

The Black Hole kept tugging on the small ship and it plunged into the point of no return: the Event Horizon. It was sure the ship would be lost forever now, and the crew would die. But some mysterious force kept them from falling in.
"What's going on?" Meek asked, "Why did we stop falling?"
The ship's windows were covered in black and red and it felt as if they were being lifted over somebody's head. A voice came out of nowhere:
"Do not fear me, dear friends. I am your ally. I will save you from the terrors of this Black Hole."
"No! The alien spacecraft! We have to follow it! Erm... ah, yes. Oh, mighty being that is our saviour, please allow us to follow that vessel over there, entering the Wormhole. We must remain closeby them."
"Very well. I shall help you cross the Wormhole."
The ship then dived into the Black Hole at full speed, and it actually gained on the Republic. For just a brief moment, everything stood still and they were right in front of the Republic's bridge. Then the Black Hole's force returned and they were sucked in. All turned black.

Then everything turned red again. As they were nearing the end of the Wormhole, the red started to fade. When they reached the end of the interstellar tunnel, they flew a few miles away from it and the red vanished.
It would take a long time before the crew would realise what just happened, but that was all a business for later to deal with. They now had to relocate the Republic and try to contact it.

Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic --

"Erm, Captain?"
"What now?"
"We're about fifty million kilometres from the Core. And our scanners have detected another ship in the area. That thing we saw when passing through the wormhole."
"Grox?"
"No. It's... I can't tell what. Though, all that really tells us is that it's not Grox.
"Can we make contact with it?"
"Yes, we can, although I wouldn't recommend that you open discussions with them. After all, you are a Grox. Maybe one of the aliens from this galaxy can talk."
"Very well, you are correct. Tarid?"
The Belatra stepped over to the captain. "Yes, Captain?"
"Do you have any ideas as to who should make contact?"
"Erm..."
"I suppose you should, really." He turned to his own crew at the control panels. "Send a transmission to that small ship. I and all other Grox will move out of the view of the COMscreen now."

-- Council of Baetarie, 200 million years ago --

"If I could present the first piece of evidence in our favour?" asked the primary Zealot representative.
"Of course." replied the Screeble Chairman.
The Zealot placed several stone tablets on the long council table. "These," he said, "are several ancient tablets found on the ruins of the planet Earth in the Sol system. They are artefacts from a colony of what we can only believe was a species that existed long ago - billions of years, we think."
The Greevil representative had already spotted a flaw in the Zealot's argument: "If these are billions of years old, then why have they not been broken down into dust? Why are they still perfectly intact?"
"That is one of the strange things about this. These tablets, it seems, are not real stone. They seem to be composed of a strong, rock-like substance that is purely artificial and non-biodegradable. Is that a satisfactory explanation?"
"I would like to have the Feesh examine these tablets to determine if you are telling the truth about their origin. But it will be enough for now."
"Good. As I was saying, these artefacts were found in a colony on a distant, frozen planet. They seemed to be inside a temple of some sort, with all the religious symbolism and utensils that should be found in such a structure. These tablets seem to show a story, a myth of some kind, regarding a spiritual being."
The Greevil interjected again. "So how are you to know that this is not simply a story of some kind, like an ancient mythological epic?"
"These were not a primitive people. As I have mentioned, they had colonies throughout space and they had developed materials of which we have no idea how they were made. Why would they still believe in such simple fairy tales?"

-- Planet Heldes, present day --

The combined efforts of the two Xynax saucers had allowed for the creation of a third on the planet. Now there were three saucers and seventy-five Xynaxes. More than enough, they thought, to conquer a few hundred systems.

Ghelae:

-- Council of Baetarie, 200 million years ago --

"Might we have a look at these tablets?" asked the Feesh.
"Erm... yes, certainly." The Zealot passed the five small items over to the Scientist side of the table.
Each tablet was divided into what appeared to be several rows. The first row and every third row from it was twice as wide as the others, and contained pictograms apparently showing various scenes and stories.
The other rows were thinner and apparently contained some sort of inscription in an alien language. The symbols were simple, consisting of curved and straight angular lines arranged in various formations, along with dots and swivels that presumably formed punctuation marks.
"These," said the Zealots, "are the Rocks of the First."
"Interesting." said the Screeble representative. "Carved by laser?"
"Particle beam, we think."
"Must've been thin for a particle beam."
"Thinner than any of us has managed to achieve, at least for a beam with that power."
"Interesting."

Continued:

Shroob:

"Meek, sir, we have located signals coming from the direction we just flew from!", said one of the crew's members called Bruff.
"What, from that alien ship?", Meek answered, "Good, good! Try to open video-transmission. We have to ask for their help immediately."
"Sir, the signal is too weak. But we can relocate where it came from and..."
Bruff was interrupted by a violent shaking that made the whole ship turn and swivel in all directions, almost at the same time, it seemed. When the ship regained stability, Bruff thought of simply relocating the alien vessel, which was the Republic, again by tracing where the radio-waves had come from, but the radar showed something quite out of the ordinary. There were small red blips everywhere on the screen.
"Something," reported Bruff, "has apparently disturbed the radio-waves' signature pattern. We can't see where they are coming from."
"Okay, try steering into the last direction we came from."
"I will check the co-ordinates in the ship's memory. But... what? The ship's memory is ... cleared. Completely erased. There's nothing. Absolutely nothing."

A radioactive cosmic disturbance had interfered with the ship and pierced through the ship's protective Magnetic Field Shields. Before they had time to figure out what had caused the disturbance to their apparatus, the ship found itself spinning once more. Only shortly after, this happened again. And again. Something walalalalaing them continuously and trying to bring them off their path.

"What's going on?", Meek demanded to know.
"It seems we're being attacked by a type of highly radiative rock of some kind. It must be attracted by our MF Shields."
"Then turn the shields off!"
"Sir, I am convinced that is impossible. Once we do that, we will be vulnerable to all radiative forces out there."
"In that case we'll have to find a way to get us out of here!"
"Wait, sir. Look, the screens! They're displaying an image of something. The image is moving. I'll try to enhance our view."
After some tweeking and turning lalalalala, the screens displayed a highly disfigured shape of an organism. Or at least, that's what they thought they were seeing. What they thought was absolutely correct. The Republic had successfully established contact with them. The rock had messed up the signal so badly, however, that they could not quite think of what was being said. It sounded a bit like this:
"Grt...gs. R...u...k ? We...ll...elp...u. By...al...mns."
Puzzled by this greeting message which offered them help, they looked in all directions to find the ship that was contacting them. All they saw was blackness, and a rock that came closer, bumped into the ship and then flung itself further away again, before repeating the sequence.

It was a very unlucky position they had landed in, because the Republic was only right above their heads. It was so large that they could not see it clearly, but more important than that: they weren't looking at it. The only one that saw the big ship was the captive Gix that was now lying on its back flat on the floor, staring directly up.

"I'll try re-establishing contact with them.", explained Bruff.
"They are not far away. They can't be, as the radio signals this ship can receive only travel for a few hundred miles before they become so faint that they can't be noticed."

Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic --

"Odd." said Tarid. "Why haven't they replied? We're only a few hundred metres away from them, they must have noticed us!"
"I don't know, Captain." replied a Bananaz. "Should I try retransmitting the message?"
"No. Transmit a new message."
"Okay." The Bananaz tapped a few buttons. "Ready to go."
"Greetings! I am Captain Tarid of the Federation starship... Re... Republic... the Starship Republic. Sorry about that. Do you require any help?"
He sat back and waited for a reply.

-- Council of Baetarie, 200 million years ago --

"What does this story tell?"
"Well... we can't translate the language, but we can make an educated guess as to what is happening in the pictures. The first tablet" - the Zealot pointed to the appropriate stone - "tells the story of the First: how they rose to power, evolving from primitive creatures to become a mighty empire, stretching across an empty galaxy.
"The second tablet tells us how they found Spode. One day, they prayed for an answer to a question, and for a divine being to provide the answer. Why were they alone in the universe? Then Spode appeared in the sky above their homeworld and granted them the power to create life.
"But they misused the ability, as the third tablet explains. Their first attempts were cyborgs, and Spode hated them. He killed most of them and the rest fled, later dying and rotting somewhere in the dark corners of the galaxy."
"Fascinating." muttered the Feesh.
"The fourth tablet is about their redemption. They prayed to Spode again, promising not to misuse their power. Spode returned the power to create life to the First, and so they did - but at the price that they could only create primitive creatures that would take billions of years to reach any level of intelligence. The First said that they would wait.
"However, as the fifth stone tells us, Spode's wrath fell upon them. It seems that after the cyborgs were created, Spode made a new species and gave them powerful technology. The Second attacked the First, and the final line shows battles over First planets, with the Second starships bombarding them with antimatter bombs."
"As I said before, fascinating. But how can you get that story from these rocks?"
"Well... the images are very detailed. I'll admit, our theories are mere speculation. But speculation supported by these inscriptions and our faith in Spode!"
A Screeble looked worriedly at the final line on the final tablet. "These ships of the Second... they look remarkably like Grox ships..."
All the aliens in the room looked at each other in stunned silence.
"I should hope they're not." said a Willosaur.

Continued:

Me:

--Craftworlds Brisingr--

"whats happened." Said the Farseer Leader "Why can't we make Contact."
"the Shrooblord Tech is to different from our own. its not even made of bonewraith!" Repiled The techy Person. "What would you have us do O Exalted One."

"Send Iota Down On a diplomatic mission. warn them That we shall destroy there ship if thay proceed. Thay must not Know Our secret. Offer Them Allience if thay Should take our Advice. Mayby we could share our secret with them, but I cannot see That far."

Iota Was Assembled And sent on the mission thay teleported abord the shrooblord mothership.

Shroob:

IC:

While the Shrooblord Mothership is being constantly attacked by a piece of rock, now several thousands of parsecs away, in the star system of Vertigo...

Only one week before finishing now, the Grox superweapon was looking more and more terrifying by the hour. Kryone-1 was once more in a meeting with the Council of War leaders.
"FIRST OF ALL, I WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR FOLLOWERS FOR GIVING US FRESH VACUUM.", he said.
"IT SURE IS NICE TO --ZZT-- BE ABLE TO BREATH NORMALLY AGAIN.", commented another Council leader.
"NOW WE SHALL DISCUSS MORE URGENT MATTERS.", Kryone-1 continued,
"WE ARE ONLY DAYS AWAY FROM COMPLETING OUR --NINE-NINE-- DEATH MACHINE. HOW IS IT COMING ALONG?"
"IT IS DOING EXCELLENT, OH GREAT GROX LEADER. WE SHALL CONTROL THIS GALAXY SOONER THAN WE ANTICIPATED.", a Council leader replied.
"THAT IS CORRECT. WE HAVE NOW A NEW OBJECTIVE: NOTIFY EVERY LIVING ORGANISM OF OUR DEVICE. WE WILL HAVE THEIR SURRENDRANCE; OR ELSE THEY WILL ALL DIE."
"BUT, SIR. WE HAVE NO ESCAPE ROUTE. WE MUST BUILD A TELEPORT DEVICE FOR IF WE NEED TO ESCAPE WHEN FIREING THE DOOMSDAY DEVICE.", added another Council member, who was a bit worried by now.
"IT WILL NEVER COME TO THAT. ALL SPECIES WILL SURRENDER HAPPILY AND WE WILL DECONSTRUCT THE MACHINE.", Kryone-1 answered.
"THEN WHAT USE DOES IT HAVE?"
Kryone-1 had to think about this for a while.

"OUR MIGHTY GROX LEADER HAS FAILED TO SUPPLY US OF A SUFFICIENT ANSWER. WE --ZZZT-- WILL BUILD A TELEPORT DEVICE.", continued the worried Council member.
"NO. PERMISSION NOT GRANTED.", Kryone-1 stated.
"SIR. WE HAVE TO. OR --BRRRRT-- ELSE WE SHALL ALL PERISH WITH THE OTHER INHABITANTS OF THIS PITIFUL GALAXY."
"I'D RATHER DIE TAKING EVERYTHING WITH ME THAN DIE AS A COWARD IN SAFETY."
The Council leaders were worried about this last exclamation and were beginning to get doubts about their leader.

In a mysterious location, inside someone's imagination...

It was very dark and cold. Much like when he had first awoke from his slumber and the red being had spoken to him. Shrooblord got himself off the ground. He was looking for anything recognizable, but there was nothing but total darkness all around him. The red light from above appeared once more before him.
"You are awake," it said, "Good. I'll continue my story."
"No! I demand you show me your true identity right now!", Shrooblord said.
"All will come in time, Shrooblord. Now let me continue. I am taking you aboard your ship."
"Oh, great. Then I can see myself lying on the floor, I suppose?"
"No, no. By then you are in good care aboard a Grox ship."
"Good care? In a Grox ship? It's more likely I'll be a prisoner in a wet and dirty prison cell!"
"You are mistaken once more. These Grox are diffrent from the Grox you are familliar with. They are... more intelligent, I suppose. They are not at all evil. I am taking you back to your ship because you need to know something. It involves your friend Meek."
"Oh, no. Meek! What's going to happen to him?"
"He will die."
"What? No! I have to wake up! I must warn him. Wake up, wake up!", Shrooblord said, hitting his head several times with his six fists.
"There is nothing you can do. You will awake several days after the Gix Patrol ship and your Shrooblord Mothership are blown to bits."
"Wait, what? Not only my dear friend Meek, but also my precious ship and all that remains of my species will die?"
"Hahahahahaaa... yes."
"Why?"
"I said it is my amusement to see you help save the Galaxy at the cost of all that is dear to you." and with those words said, the light vanished.
"Hey! Come back here!", Shrooblord yelled.
"Show yourself!"

Now going back to the small object in the skies being bombarded by a little piece of space rock...

"Meek! Incoming transmission! It seems we have picked up the radio signal of that big ship once more!", a monitoring crew member said.
"Oh, excellent! Don't worry Shrooblord, you'll be in safety soon!", replied Meek.
The screen showed Captain Tarid. He was asking the Shrooblord crew if they needed any help.
"Oh, mighty Captain Tarid of the Federation starship Republic, we are in need of your help indeed. Our Captain and leader has suddenly passed out on the floor and has been asleep for ages now! We kindly ask you to care for him, if you will allow this. We would be ever greatful if you would," Meek answered the screen, "And if we could we would be thankful if you would let us aboard your ship as well. We have a prisoner among us, who is apparently from some evil race called The Gix. He has captured us in this patrol ship but we managed to overpower him. If we may not come aboard, at least care for our dear leader, it is the least we ask of you."

He then waited for the other end to receive his reply and was hoping for a good answer. One of the other crew members whispered in his ear and said:
"Sir, although Shrooblord is in need of help, can we really trust these aliens? I mean, look at them. They're Grox!"
"I know," whispered Meek, "But this ship is not at all Grox. Besides, we urgently need someone's help and if that is the Grox's, then we need the Grox's help. Let's just hope this Grox appearance is just some radio-transmitted disguise to fend off enemies."

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vesticon...
The Shrooblord Mothership was empty, except for a few guards and the population of planet Shrooblord. When Iota arrived, (s)he (OOC: I don't know Iota...) was instantly grabbed by some guards.
"I don't know how you got here, or who you are, but you are coming with us." they said.

They led Iota to the bridge, which was devestated and most surprisingly empty. They wondered where Shrooblord had gone to and decided to lock Iota up for the time being. This would of course offend the Farseer Leader. It would greatly offend him/her.


Ghelae:

-- Starship Republic --

"Ah, good." said Tarid towards the COMscreen. "You've replied! Yes, we'll help you as much as you can. We can... erm..." - he turned to a Grox engineer nearby - "what features does this ship has to transport people on board?"
"We have a teleport system, designed by the Oracles. I'm not sure if it'll work on these aliens-"
"Does it work on the Bananaz?"
"...Yes."
"Then it'll work on these." He turned back to the COMscreen. "Yes, we'll beam all of you to the nearest medical room, and the Gix - that's that strange, Grox-like reptile on board, right? - will be teleported into the... brig?"
The engineer nodded.
"Yes," continued Tarid more confidently, "are you ready to teleport?"

No sooner had he asked that the Republic's inter-ship teleporters whirred into action, teleporting all living things on board Meek's ship to their designated locations.

All the Shrooblords appeared in a large, sterile white room. Enormous windows faced the stars outside, surrounded by balconies on at least five storeys of floors around the edge of the main room.
The whole medical room (if it could be considered a room - it was larger than most buildings) was devoid of sapient life apart from a Bananaz, two Grox and a few of those purplish mushroom-like creatures, all of whom were walking over to greet the arrivals.
"So," asked the Bananaz in a soft and friendly voice, "where is your leader in need of so much help?"

The Gix himself was teleported to a brig near the other end of the spaceship, shot with a low-powered plasma pulse from a Bananaz blaster and thrown into a cell. A few guards watched over this brig, armed with blasters, flamethrowers and a couple of other types of strange alien weapons.
Each cell was protected by a force field, and if the power was somehow cut off from any particular field generator, the power would also be cut off from an electromagnet holding a large, heavy door above the floor which would then block the cell exit and instantly crush any would-be escapee.

Tarid took a lift down from the bridge to the medical room where he would meet the Shrooblords and try to help them. He would find out about and deal with the Gix later.

Shroob:

Meek saw Tarid come into the medical room only moments after their teleportation, which had not been to soon, as the asteroid had by now completely destroyed the Gix's patrol ship. He recognized him from the video transmission and greeted him with joy in his heart: "Captain, I thank you from the bottom of all our hearts for bringing us aboard. Commander Shrooblord's condition is worsening by the minute. I have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's like he's having some sort of nightmare..."
And in fact it was. Shrooblord's journey in his imagination had suddenly taken a bad path, when he found out Meek was about to die. He had been chased by strange flesh-eating reptiles and all kinds of sharp objects across several hazardous enviorements. It was not at all a nice experience. It would be days before he got cured, though, but the Republic's hospital would soon find out how to.

While Meek was talking to Tarid, one of the crew members crept to a dark corner of the room, making sure he wasn't seen by anybody. He then grabbed a communication device and said in a deep, dark voice:
"Darkness. It is all set up. The great plan can now commence. Preporations are complete."
A strange low-pitched voice speaking an ancient and now dead language replied to him saying something like this:
"Excellent. Have they found anything out yet?"
"No. My disguise has been unnoticed. I cannot believe the Master is actually worried about these dumb lifeforms. They do not seem at all intelligent. At least, not what we call intelligence."
"Despair," replied the voice, "do not question the word of the Master. We must obey him and follow him until our dying day. We are his creations. Now for the grand scheme: you must find a way into the control room. There must be some way of activating the teleportation device. We will need to summon the most dangerous of shadows and our Gix troops will have to come aboard."
"But brother," Despair replied, "I do not see the use of teleportation. Why don't we just break the ship and let all our troops flow in?"
"We must not make the enemy weary of any dangers lying ahead of them. We do not know their strength, but we do know their size. And their size is big. Very big. We must break them from the inside. Now go back to the 'dumb lifeforms' before they notice your disappearance."
"Yes, brother."

So Despair once more put on his disguise, and headed back to the rest of the Shrooblord crew. Now armed with a dangerous plan, he tried learning all about the Republic.
"Captain Tarid," he said in his 'Shrooblord voice', "how did you teleport us to this mighty fine ship of yours?"


Ghelae:

-- Council of Baetarie, 200 million years ago --

The silence held the room for several sectons, before the Zealot cleared his throat and hurriedly collected the tablets back in. "Well... what conclusion does this Council reach?"
The Screeble chairman replied, "the Scientists will have to... erm... perform the necessary analyses of these tablets. And we will not speak of the Grox in reference to this again."

-- Starship Republic medical room, present day --

Tarid looked at the Shrooblord, whom he could have sworn had not been standing there a few seconds ago. He decided that he had just not been concentrating, but he could not shake an unusual sense of suspicion. "Well, to be honest... I'm the wrong person to ask. I'm not really an engineer. I just run the ship. You should ask one of the Oracles, they designed the system."
At that comment, an Oracle materialised next to the Belatra. The Oracle's mind seemed to probe each one of the Shrooblords, scanning them all in a matter of seconds. It then seemed to face (seemed, as Oracles have no actual faces) the one who had asked the question about teleporters. Its telepathy could be felt in the minds of everybody in the room.

OOC: It's a shame that the English language doesn't really have any suitable words to describe the sensations of psychic powers, really.

IC:

Its "voice" seemed to be gentle and mellifluous, almost musical yet in a way... mechanical.
The details are... far... too complicated for you to know, young creature... even the Grox technicians that work on it only know a little of its internal mechanisms. It is much more advanced than the transport beams that are used throughout this galaxy, that would not even penetrate this craft's hull.
In the Oracle's telepathic message, however, were layers of hidden information available to any who chose to listen to it. Technological details, depicting antimatter power plants and nanotechnology and the combined efforts of half a dozen species and tens of millions of years.
"I'll be leaving now," said Tarid hurriedly. "Let the mushrooms know if you need anything, they'll tell me about it." and with that he left the room and went back up to the bridge.

-- Security Station 024 of the Republic --

Several Bananaz armed themselves with plasma pulsers and whispered their plans to each other. They walked towards the primary brig, a journey that would take them almost half an hour. These were Bananaz rebels, and were not going to cancel their plan for revenge even though the Republic was nearly a million parsecs away from their homeworld.

Shroob:

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vertigo...

"HOW IS THE STATUS SO FAR?", asked Kryone-1.
"ALL IS WELL. ONLY ONE PLANET CYCLE BEFORE COMPLETION.", answered one of the Grox engineers.
"GOOD. NOW IT WILL ONLY BE A MATTER OF TIME. LITTLE TIME. SEARCH THE SKIES FOR THE NEAREST STAR. WE WILL DO --ZZT-- A LITTLE TEST RUN."
"YOUR REQUEST IS MY PROCESSING, LORD KRYONE."
Kryone-1 walked towards the gun, which was now as large as the Council of War's meeting building and twice as high. This was, in Grox terms, big. As big as the Empire State building is to us kind of big. Grox were used to small things. They liked it small. "SMALL IS ALL.", is a popular Grox saying. Except for fleets. Fleets are best when large. Also territory is considered something good when large.

"EXCELLENT.", he muttered, "JUST OBSERVE THE TECHNOLOGY. LOOK AT THAT FINE PROCESSING WORK. IT DOES PLEASURE TO MY CORE PROCESSOR TO SEE A --NINE-NINE-- BEAUTY LIKE THIS. AND ONLY ONE MORE DAY LEFT BEFORE SHE IS TRIED OUT..."
It was not uncommon for Grox to fall in love with a machine, and that is precisely what happened here too. After all, Grox, technically speaking, are machines themselves. That is exactly what had happened here. Kryone-1 had fallen for this metal construction.
"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE TALLER THAN ME," he said to the superweapon while carressing it softly, "WE CAN WORK SOMETHING OUT."
"SIR?", asked a Grox soldier that had just passed this odd scene.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"SILENCE. YOU ARE DISMISSED FROM POSSITION.", replied Kryone-1 angered.
"BUT SIR, I HAVE A FAMILY AT HOME!"
"THEN SPEAK TO NOBODY ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAW."
"WHAT DID I SEE?"
"PRECISELY."

Kryone-1 then walked away hastily and went back to the Council of War. There he discussed other matters of high importance, like what their first target would be would the threatend Empires not cooperate.
"IT IS NOT USEFUL TO DESTROY EVERYTHING," he said to them, "WHEN ONLY ONE EMPIRE REFUSES TO SURRENDER. WE CAN OVERTHROW LITTLE UPRISINGS. BUT WE CAN'T --RRRT-- HANDLE A WHOLE GALAXY OPPOSING US. THEN WE WILL BE FORCED TO USE THE SUPERWEAPON TO DESTROY THIS GALAXY."
The board members all agreed, but were still a little upset with the fact they would die with the rest of the Galaxy. They didn't show this though, in fear of being 'erased from existance'.

That night Kryone-1 went back to the superweapon.
"WHO ARE WE KIDDING? THIS CAN NEVER WORK OUT. YOU AREN'T EVEN... ALIVE."
"Who is to judge whether I am alive or not?", the superweapon replied.
Kryone-1 jumped ten feet into the air (remember Grox are only about 3 feet tall at most) when he heard his loved one speak.
"YOU CAN TALK? DOES THAT MEAN YOU HAVE A CORE PROCESSOR?"
"Yes, my darling. I am alive. And I long for you, but I am not mobile, as you can see. If only I could turn my head to see your face..."
Kryone-1 felt so happy when he heard this, which is very unusual indeed for Grox, since they don't really have emotions.
"TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OUR PLAN?"
"I hate it."
"WHAT?"
"Do I look like I want to destroy? Is that really all that I am to you? A machine? A gun?"
"NO, YOU ARE... YOU..." He couldn't finish this sentance. He was never programmed for romance.
"I WILL NOT LET THEM HARM YOU."
"But will I be fired?"
"YES. YOU WILL."
"Then that is more harm done to me than I wish to have. I will then sabotage myself from fireing. If that is all that can stop you, I will destroy myself."
"NO! THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE WITH MY CORE! DON'T! I... I WILL NOT LET THEM FIRE YOU."
"Then the both of us might still have a chance."

Kryone-1 now happily walked home. He felt so overjoyed that he couldn't sleep that night. Actually, he stayed up all night just staring out of his window and gazing at the superweapon. It was only a matter of luck that his house was on the East side of the gun, or else he would have seen the small light that came out of the superweapon.
"That should buy us some time," it said.
The light then sped along and shot up into the sky.

Continued:

Shroob:

Back aboard the Republic, conditions have worsened still...

Meek turned his head a few times and looked for a 'strange mushroom thing', but couldn't find any. He was sure there were some just moments ago, so he started looking for them. He told five of the crew members to help him find some, as he needed a little lunch by now, and two others remained in the hospital. This was exactly the moment Despair had been waiting for and he knocked the other crew member unconcious. He then headed for the hospital bed that Shrooblord was lying in. Quickly he looked for any other hospital staff like Bananaz, but found out there weren't any. Then he did what he was planning to do:
He tied up Shrooblord (if he was awake he'd be complaining about being tied up once again) and managed to hide him in some closet. Then he altered his disguise and took the shape of Shrooblord, then took his place on the hospital bed. He then assumed a sleep stance, which Depair was very good at. Like a wintersleep, he slept and slept and slept, until the time came that he would awake again.

When one of the Shrooblord crew returned, he was surprised to find an unconciouss crew member and one crew member missing. Quickly he looked for Shrooblord, but found him sleeping on the bed, still where he had been all the time.

Meanwhile, speeding across the vast amounts of space, was a small light...
"I can't keep them from executing their plan for much longer," it said telepathicly to another being.
"They will fire the laser and then we will be too late."
"Don't worry," the other being replied from some completely remote part of the Universe, "we will do our best to keep that laser from hitting anything that is alive. You just concentrate on getting to that ship."

P.S.
You might want to see what the Demons look like by now. So I opened up my Spore since a month or so and took some pictures. Here's the results, with which I am quite happy, actually.

Phozar, the greatest Demon of all. At the top of his head, his eye which also is The Mark of Phozar, which you will find on all his creations.
Click this bar to view the full image.

Despair, from the front.
Click this bar to view the full image.

Despair, from the back, showing The Mark of Phozar.
Click this bar to view the full image.

Darkness, front, showing The Mark of Phozar.
Click this bar to view the full image.


Ghelae:

-- Republic bridge --

"Captain Tarid!" called out a Bananaz.
"Yes, I'm here now."
"We've detected something heading towards us from the Core."
"What is it?"
"I don't know..."
"Let's hope it's who we're looking for."
"Who's that?"
Suddenly, the bridge was bathed in a warm white glow.
"That," said a loud voice, "would be me."
"Who..." asked one of the crewmembers.
"Silence, Grox!" The voice then seemed to start talking to Tarid. "I was going to meet with you all tomorrow, but time is running out. All I will say is: watch out!"
The light disappeared.
"Captain! Security cameras on Deck 3 show unauthorised armed Bananaz moving towards the brig!"
"Captain, something's latched onto our hull."
"And the cameras in the Shrooblords' medical room have all gone down."
"Okay," said Tarid, "we can ignore the hull leech. Get armed soldiers down to Deck 3 now and alert all the Brig Guards to prepare their guns!"
"Okay, sir."

OOC: "Hull leach" is just a slang term for an unknown object that's attached to a starship's hull, not a literal spacefaring creature.

-- Republic Brig --

A Grox guard on the brig received a message from the Bridge. "Arm your weapons, shoot to kill any Bananaz who enter the room."
"Yes, sir."

At that point, the door to the brig slid open and a few dozen Bananaz stormed the room, firing their blasters. Most of the guards were shot down with plasma, and rest found cover behind several columns around the edge of the room. They returned fire, with pulses, flames and bullets cutting down several of the Bananaz. Then there was silence. When the ventilation systems had removed most of the smoke, only the yellow-skinned assaulters remained. One of them went over to the cell that the Gix was contained in, typed in a code and the field shut off.

OOC: There is a special system accessed by the computer to keep the defensive door in place while the field is down, otherwise nobody would be capable of putting any prisoners in the cells in the first place.


Me:

--Shrooblord mothership--

Iota was haveing a quiet disscusion in the quarters thay had been given. As usual sacom was pessimistic "what if thay don't acept our advice. We would have to destroy these nice people. from what i've gathered the people here are the last of there kind. I can't be Sure though."
"Dont be So Pessimistic Sacom" Ray Said. "once thay see our advantage and Sizeable forces Thay'll Except. Of course Thay don't reliese while our troops move quickly and teleport, Thay are quite lightly armoured and fragile."
"we'll see in negotiations." Said Veldik Who had recently be premoted to Farseer. "we'll See in negotiations." What the Rest Of Iota Didn't know was That Veldik Was Starting to fall into a Dangerous Cycle Of Disobediece And Reclessness. The Dark Secret of the Rogoids Was About to infest itself in Him. to the perril of all.

Shroob:

Meek, on his search for some food, accidentally came across the bridge. Upon opening the door he first wanted to appologize for interrupting, but when he saw what was happening he curiously stepped inside and asked what all the commotion was all about. He saw Captain Tarid, and lots of Grox too. He was already aiming his weapons at The Grox, just after he asked his question.

Meanwhile, one of the other Shrooblord's Mothership crew members was getting a little lost. In fact, all other crew members were too. One of them ended up in the toilets, one near the Brig and one actually found the buffet. He took some of the food with him and headed back to the hospital wing, when something appeared before him. In astonishment he dropped everything he was holding, which was about a three-course meal (remember Shrooblord have six arms). A bright light shone and he thought he was hearing it talk to him. A kind and defenitely female voice told him the following:
"Noble Creature, be not afraid, for help is drawing near. I am the prophecy. Soon my brethering shalt arrive and will help thee in thy quest..."
"Who," the crew member replied, "are you?"
"Ah... I have misunderstood the time era we are now in. I, my dear friend, am Light. The two others will be coming soon. They will help you..."
"Yes, I understood all the other stuff. But... who are you?"
"I clarified that just moments ago, did I not?"
"Yes, you are called 'Light'. But who are you?"
"Child of Spode, ask not what you already know. I must go, but I will return shortly and aid you in the battle. I must await the others now."
"Wait, what battle? Who's all the others and... who... are you?"

You have to understand that Light has a certain effect on Creatures. Some tend to forget small details, like a name, and some go crazy upon her sight. On the other hand, some get inexplainably happy (those are creatures that like stars and sunlight), while others get extremely angry (these are creatures that hate good and light).

Light then shot up towards the ceiling, but remained in sight for quite a while (I understand the ceiling is pretty high up). When she disappeared, the crew member snapped out of the spell and saw all the mess he had made. Being a polite Shrooblord, he decided to clean it up, but being a bad-mannered Shrooblord, he did so by licking it off the floor. One of the other Shrooblord crew members had found a way out of the toilets and came across this weird sighting. He asked the other crew member what he was doing and all he could grumble while licking was "dinner". Realising he had reached the buffet, the other crew member now went in and took some dinner with him for himself and the others, noting that the floor-licking one would not really be of any help for the time being. So he kicked the other crew member (Shrooblord have four feet so this is easily done while holding a three-course dinner) and told him to help carry the food. Refusing, he decided to drag the other crew member with him by using his mouth.

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vesticon...

With still no sign of Commander Shrooblord or Co-Captain Meek returning, the guards decided to hear out the captives. They said something about alliance and destroying them if they would refuse, but they weren't really scared. They told the prisoners they could not decide and that the Iota team would have to wait until Shrooblord would return before they could decide what to do with them. In the absence of Shrooblord, they followed the prisoner protocol 7. This meant the prisoners occasionally had some food thrown to their heads, which was of great amusement to the guards. They knew the prisoners wouldn't like this, but they cared no less. 'What are the prisoners going to do about it anyway?' was a popular thought.

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vertigo...

One day had now passed and the superweapon was complete. For some reason there was a dark nebula above the skies of the planet of The Grox. They liked it, because it looked evil and it blocked out sunlight. Kryone-1 was sitting in the Council's meeting room thinking about what had happened last night and had gone back to the cannon the same morning. The cannon had not spoken to him again, so he concluded this must have been because there were too many witnesses.
"THE TEST RUN SHALL BE PERFORMED IN LITTLE TIME," said the Council's leader.
"WE SHALL AIM THE GUN AT AN UNINHABITED SOLAR SYSTEM," Kryone-1 added.
"WHY DON'T WE JUST AIM IT AT THE MOST POPULATED SOLAR SYSTEM? THIS WAY WE WILL CAUSE GREAT --NINE-NINE-- TERROR."
"FOOLS. THE EMPIRES WILL THEN KNOW OF OUR EXISTANCE AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, THEY WILL KNOW OF OUR SUPERWEAPON. THIS WILL MAKE THEM ASSEMBLE GREAT FORCES TO TERMINATE IT."
The Council admitted their mistake, although they did not do so out loud.

After finding the appropriate target, the Council of War aimed the large gun at the skies and fired. A giant laser came out of the gun and hit the targeted star instantly.
"I AM SORRY, MY DARLING," Kryone-1 was thinking, "BUT I COULD NOT OPPOSE THE COUNCIL."
Something went wrong though. The superweapon started shaking and smoke was coming out of it.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE SUPERWEAPON?", Kryone-1 shouted.
"THE FIREPOWER HAS APPARENTLY COME TO A COST OF INTERNAL DAMAGE!", an engineer replied.
"TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!"
"BUT THEN THE TEST WILL FAIL!"
"NO! YOU MAY NOT HARM HER!"
Kryone-1 leapt for the controls and fought for them. While doing so, the navigation button was pressed. The superweapon shifted its targeting area only slightly, but with great effect. The laser rushed past the star it had been targeting and headed right for the solar system of Vesticon. Only minutes later, the laser hit the Shrooblord Mothership. Then the cannon was switched off.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?", the Council leader spoke, "YOU BROUGHT US ALL IN DANGER. WE CAN NO LONGER TRUST YOUR LEADERSHIP!"
This had been the moment the Council was waiting for. Kryone-1 was overthrown. He was thrown into a spaceship and shot into the skies into some random direction. The troublesome thought of being destroyed with the rest of the Galaxy was now no more.

Meanwhile, back at the Republic...

This time, it was white in every direction when Shrooblord awoke. It was quiet and cold all around him. He tried to get up, but something was holding him down. He wanted to shout out to someone to help him up, but something was stopping him doing so. Just when he was wondering if he had finally got rid of the creepy light, the red light appeared once more.
"You might be wondering why you are all tied up," it said, "This is because you are getting near to awakening. Your conditions will push more and more to reality as you do so."
When hearing this, Shrooblord realised he would awake as a captive once more, which was not a pleasant thought at all.
"No worries. There's still plenty of time we can spend together."
Shrooblord sighed, but the scarf in his mouth prevented this from making any noise at all.
"There is one more thing I am going to show you."
The light got brighter and smaller as it was saying this. It was coming closer!
"What you about to behold, is what not many will or ever have."
Just when the light had become almost unbearibly fierce, a white flash made it disappear. A terrible hiss had come from the other end of the world and Shrooblord moved his head a little to see what was happening. The red light was lying on the floor and a bright white light was hovering above it.
"No! That is impossible!", the red light said.
The white light chrashed into the red light, which then faded. Soon afterwards, the white light came speeding towards Shrooblord, which was now ever more frightened. What horrible thing could knock out a Demon?

He was surprised to hear the voice of this light. It was soft and almost melodic. It was certainly very comforting, but Shrooblord remained a bit cautious. After all, this could be a trap. This is what it said:
"Shrooblord, I am going to wake you earlier than the Demon had expected you to wake up. There will still be time. Now I must leave, but once I return you shall walk once more and change the fate that the Demon has laid in front of you. Do not fear me, I am your ally. Now sleep, you'll need all the energy you can get."
With these words said, the light parted with Shrooblord, who had suddenly become a bit drowsy. It took not long before he was fast asleep, forgetting all his troubles and fears.

Me:

--Hive Mind--

The Hive mind was furious! the Tyranids it had sent were deafeated and falling back! how could thay! Stop! Ordered the hive mind, and, in the drifts of space, the fleet came to a complite stop. Now, Find the nearest inhabited planet and eat it! then use the re-gained numbers to destroy the Republic, Craftworld Brisingr and the shrooblord mother ship. We shall not fail. the hive mind released a few happy thought bubbles into subspace. The efect was great fear overcame the nearest planet. it was the Hoggeraptor empires homeworld. The fleet released a genestealer pod onto a passing Hoggeraptor ship And infeasted it. now thay were heading towards the homeworld with one thing in mind. kill....

--Shrooblord mothership--

Ray decided to try and open up negoitiations as thay were haveing food thrown at there heads. Veldik was getting Very annoiyed And decided that if one more peice of food was thrown at him he would kill the guy And damn the consiquences. Then he thought whats happening to me. I wouldn't have even thought of that before. he hoped this shrooblord person woke up soon and let them negotiate, because the Aliens were getting annoiying.

Ghelae:

-- Republic --

On the bridge of the Republic, the bridge crew had noticed the small Shrooblord enter. Tarid was talking very quickly to his crew memebers, nearly to the point of hyperventilating. This continued when he turned around to Meek.
"Sorry, erm, what's your name? Meek, is it? Well, it's a long story. And by a long story, I mean... erm... rebel Bananaz are trying to take over the ship, the Gix has escaped his prison cell, something bad has happened in the medical room - but we don't know what - and some strange entity has attached itself onto the hull. Nothing much, really." The Belatra took several deep breaths and calmed down. "So, is there anything I can do for you? And why are you pointing your weapon at... oh, don't worry. The Grox... oh, it's another long story. Erm, I've been rambling, haven't I?"
He took several more deep breaths, sat down, and breathed again. When he finally had full control over his respiration, he asked his question again:
"So, what can I do for you?"

On the lower decks, Grox soldiers had managed to kill or capture most of the Bananaz rebels, but some were making their way to the communications array that stuck out of the side of the main bulk of the ship. The Grox followed.

Finally, there was the Gix. A shapeshifting Pseudomorph had managed to confuse the evil creature for a while, and had led it back to its cell. But after a long struggle, one of the Gix's hands was grasping around the end of one of the Pseudomorph's limbs, preventing it from reaching the control panel and activating the field. There was only one thing that could be done...

Shroob:

IC:

Aboard the Republic...

Meek was still a bit causious of The Grox all standing in one room, but as none of them seemed hostile (for now), he lowered his gun once more. He then told Tarid that he was looking for the buffet, but he was not searching for food anymore, since his help was needed, or so he thought. So he offered to help the crew out. He understood something about rebels, and he was an excellent Riot Control back on planet Shrooblord (I didn't know I was typing the name of the planet when I created my first game).

Meanwhile, the rest of the Shrooblord crew had discovered a passed out crew member on the hospital floor, three crew members missing and another one trying to aid the one on the floor. They put the food somewhere safe and tried to help as much as they could. The purple mushrooms had returned so they asked them where they could find the Bananaz, who had seemed to be good hospital staff. They then stumbled upon a body, fully alive, in the closet. It was Shrooblord, all tied up and fast asleep.
"So who's the guy in the hospital bed then?", asked one of them.
"He must be an imposer! We can't let him know that we've figured that out though, or he might do something bad to us."
"Okay, I've got a plan. Here's what we do..."
Classicly he whispered the rest of the plan in the other crew member's ear, while this one nodded occansionally.

The last crew member missing (the one that wasn't Shrooblord nor Meek) was looking at The Gix and the pseudomorphic lifeform struggling. He aimed his guns at the pair, but couldn't quite pull the trigger, as he didn't want to hit the pseudomorph.

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vesticon...

The ship shook for an instant, but regained stability quite quickly. When it had, the guards leapt up from their positions and wanted to see what had just happened. One of them stayed with the prisoners, who were occasionally asking to negotiate, to which he replied he could not act until Shrooblord would return. The other walked into the hallway with his gun drawn, hiding behind pillars now and then. Just as he was going to turn back, he felt something tugging at his waist. His keys were trying to float to a further point in the hallway. He used his keys as a compass and figured out where the source of pulling was coming from. The tugging got worse by the step and eventually he had to release his belt and hold on to that instead. When he had found what he had been looking for, he tied up his belt to a nearby pipe, and tied himself around it. He was having trouble holding on. The nearby source of pulling was starting to pull on him too.

What he had found, was a tiny Black Hole. It was growing as it was consuming more mass, but this was at a slow pace. He was alarmed though, as he knew it wouldn't be long before the whole ship would be torn apart. The problem was that the Black Hole was in front of the Bridge entrance and the guard could not turn the ship around. He pressed the nearby alarm button and called the following through the intercom:
"Warning! Warning! Immediate evacuation advised. We have a lethal breach in sector 36 B. Attention to all civilians, move towards the nearest escape pods. Guards, get into the emergency release cells. We are taking the prisoners with us. I repeat..."

When he had said this, all the guards moved to the onboard prison and all the escape pods were fired. Thousands of Shrooblord were now flying seperately across space. When all the guards had gathered in the prison cells, the chief guard spoke to them:
"This is Chief Ryphos speaking. We have discovered a code 11-C in the bridge vicinity. We decided the only way to stop this Black Hole from consuming everything in and around this solar system is to sadly self-destruct our Mothership. The implosion will cause it to collapse. Now release the cells!"
A red button was pressed and a loud clicking was heard.

The prison blocks disengaged and the whole quarters sunk through the floor. Soon it was a couple of hundreds of feet below the Shrooblord Mothership. The cells were already protected by a shield against the vacuum and the jet engines had deployed.
"Do it," Chief Ryphos regretngly commanded, "Shrooblord would have wanted the best for the rest of us."
"Sir, the honour is yours," one of the other guards said, holding the remote in his hand.
"It's more like a shame," Ryphos said when he clicked the button.

Seconds went by, while the Shrooblord crew and civilians sung the global anthem. The a loud bang was heard. The Core Generators had started their self-destruct sequences. It was at the time when two more verses had been sung that the first parts of the ship started collapsing inwards (this was due to escape time. It would not be optimal if the ship's destructing would pull you back in). First the bridge came towards the sleeping dorms, which were collapsing towards the toilets, collapsing towards the medical care centre. The whole ship had soon become the size of a peanut, and the dark black hole was clearly visible. Then the sky flashed with beautiful red and green as the Shrooblord Mothership blew apart. The implosion crushed the Black Hole (not very likely to happen, but come on, this IS RPG) and completely irradicated it. The survivors rejoiced, though they soon grieved the loss of their last reminder of home.

Ryphos told the crew to send the ships towards the nearest point of interest and they steered towards a star system that appeared to support life, only several parsecs away.

Continued:
Ghelae:

-- Republic --

"Experience with riots, you say? Maybe you can take some Pseudomorphs on a mission to the rebel's new base in the Communications Centre." There were several Pseudomorphs on the bridge. Most of them had taken the form of tall, slender humanoids and were armed with various alien weapons. "If you want to, we'll teleport you about fifty metres away from the main console room." Tarid leaned over to a teleport control panel and started preparing it. "When you get there, deal with any Bananaz with guns. Only the rebels will be armed, and the armed rebels should be the only rebels you have to deal with. Bananaz are not famous for being good fighters. Or we can send you elsewhere and just clear the rest of the ship, leaving the Grox soldiers to deal with the Bananaz base. Your choice."

One the brig, the two struggling aliens noticed the Shrooblord standing by the door.
"Shoot the control!" shouted the Pseudomorph, having hastily formed something like a mouth on one side of his body.
The Gix looked upwards, and realised exactly what shooting the control panel would do. The Pseudomorph, now no longer trying to reach the panel, managed to wrap its whole body around the Gix to trap it beneath the cell door. The Gix was strong, however, and would soon be able to tear the fragile shapeshifter's body apart and escape.
"Shoot it!" cried the Pseudomorph.

On the outside of the ship, the communications turret rotated and the main dish now faced the Galactic Core. The Bananaz rebels were preparing something - but what?

Shroob:

Meanwhile, back at the Republic; the Brig to be precise...

The Shrooblord pointed his gun at the controls, or what he thought were the controls. He shot them and hoped for a good result. What happened next was, although it was a good result, not exactly what he had expected to happen.

On the other side of the ship, Meek agreed to take off towards the Brig, but wanted to walk there, neutralizing any other Rebels along the way. This way he would have time to find out what the pseudomorphs were capable of and he would also have some time to figure out a strategy.

Now we travel somewhere inbetween the two parts of the ship, to a white room. Here two Shrooblords walked over to the hospital bed where 'Shrooblord' was lying in. They then grabbed something heavy and held it over their heads. Just before it awoke, they hit the creature in the bed on the head and it went unconcious. Actually, it seemed to go unconcious for some time, but it opened its eyes only seconds later.
"We, err...," said the assaulter, "expected you to pass out."
"Fools," the creature replied, "why would you knock out your leader?"
"We know you're not Shrooblord! Now stay there and don't move a muscle. You're under arrest."
"Fine. Arrest me if you really want to. But, ah... I'm a bit hungry. I wonder what's for dinner. Maybe some grapes? Porcupine chops? Pie?"
"Oh, I hope it's pie!" said another Shrooblord.
"You're wrong," answered Despair, "It's not pie."
He took a deep breath and then said, while he got up: "It's YOU!"
He then leapt forwards and devoured the Shrooblord whole.
"Dear Spode! Help! HELP!" yelled the other one.
It was too late. Before hospital staff could arrive the Demon had eaten both of the Shrooblord and left no trace. He was lying in his hospital bed when they found him.

Meanwhile, some 500 feet above the Republic...

There were gentle pulses coming from the bright white light that had emerged from the ceiling of the spaceship. Soon another light had gathered.


Ghelae:

-- Republic --

In the Communications Centre, the Bananaz had piled the bodies of various loyal crew members and thrown them into a cell in a nearby brig. They cut the power to the force field, causing the door to fall and keep the corpses out of view and smell.

The leader of the rebels stood at a console. "Is the code ready?"
"Yes." replied another Bananaz.
"Fire!"
The other Bananaz pressed a button. There was a click. Then... nothing happened. "It's not working."
"They must have shut off the controls at the bridge. Get to work on fixing it!"
"Yes, sir!"

A few minutes later, various mechanical modifications and code-breaking activities had returned the situation to the rebels' favours. Before they could try to bring their plan into action again, however, there was a large CLANG! at the door. The metal slab fell down, kicked to the floor by a Grox soldier who was now pointing some sort of handheld gatling gun in the general direction of the Bananaz commander.
"I've always wanted to do that." said the cyborg, in a voice as close to happiness as Grox could feel. "Now... are you the leader of this thing?"

Shrooby:

IC:

Meanwhile, in the star system of Vertigo...

Things had gone a lot swifter than planned now that Kryone-1 was abandoned. The teleportation device was ready and the gun was fixed. It now aimed at another point in the skies. Just when they were about to gather for a meeting, the Council of War saw lights in the sky. First there were only 5 or so, but after a minute dozens had appaeared. They were coming closer and they kept growing in numbers.
"WHAT DO WE DO?" asked one of the Grox.
"I DON'T KNOW. KRYONE-1 USED TO DO ALL THIS!"
"WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE DISENGAGED!"
"RUN FOR YOUR PROCESSORS!"

Panic arose in the little Grox city while all the Shrooblord dropships started gathering in the atmosphere. Hundreds were screaming and aimlessly runnning around in circles. Only a few thought of acting and got into the cannons. They started shooting these mysterious lights but usually missed them as they were not the Grox trained to arm the turrets. Those who hit the lights jumped out in despair of angering the things that were coming at them.

"Are you sure this planet is habitable? It doesn't seem at all to have an atmosphere," Ryphos asked one of the scientists.
"Sir, we have readings of tons of lifeforms on this planet."
"But how is that possible? Unless... Grox? Here?"
"We are with far more, sir. We can win this fight!"

And so the ships started chrashing into the planet surface, obliterating Grox structures. Amazingly enough, the superweapon was not hit.

Gheale:

-- Republic --

The rebel leader was clearly frightened. You would be too, if a Grox trooper was pointing a modified machine gun at your face. "Y... yes, I am." He took a deep breath and his confidence increased. "And I have... many soldiers here, ready to kill you if you don't put that gun down. Now."
"No."
"Fine. Even if you kill me, our cause is good enough to sacrifice myself for."
"If you say so."
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat... gunfire filled the room. The Bananaz had been slaughtered, and not a shot had been fired in the Grox's direction. But the leader had, in his dying seconds, pressed the button that activated the communications systems and sent a signal to the Galactic Core. Another signal bounced back to the ship, and the primary communications dish shattered. Slowly, the ship's hull around the Communications Centre began to fall apart.

-- Somewhere near planet Heldes --

The Xynaxes had been forgotten by many, but they were still alive. Three Xynax saucers entered the stratosphere of an alien planet a few parsecs away from Heldes. The seventy-five Xynaxes emerged and engaged in battle with the inhabitants of the planet.

Three sectons later, the planet was a wasteland. The Xynaxes, apparently satisfied by the devastation they had caused, travelled back to Heldes.

Continued;

Shroob:

As there were Shrooblord raining from the sky, the Council of War held an emergency meeting. On the street. One of them nearly got killed by an incoming ship, but luckily didn't.
"DESTROY THE CORE NOW!" one said.
"NEGATIVE. WE MUST --ZZZT-- KEEP THAT AS A BARGAINING CHIP," another replied.
"NO. WE MUST FIRE!" a final one yelled.
And so the Grox were argueing about when to fire the now armed superweapon. Then one of them really got hit and was killed instantly. Shaken with horror, one of the others coninued:
"ALL IN FAVOUR OF DESTROYING THIS GALAXY RIGHT NOW, WHILE WE STILL CAN?"
They all agreed. Apparantly, the one who got killed was the opposer of this thought. So in a way, his death was a lucky one for the rest of the Council.

The superweapon was checked for a correct target and was loading its beam when a ship part chrashed right down its barrel. It split in a banana-peel and the superweapon fired upon itself. Gun parts were everywhere and so were ship parts by now.

Meanwhile, above the Republic...

"How is the other one coming along?" the white light asked. A red light answered:
"He is coming quick. Soon we shall be united and Shrooblord shall be awakened."
"We must hurry. The Demon has almost completed his plot..."

Gheale:

-- Republic --

In the main brig, the Shrooblord shot one of the control panels on the wall. It exploded, and several small sparks flew off and many of them hit the Pseudomorph and the Gix. The skins of the two aliens burnt where they were hit, and the Pseudomorph melted and trickled inside of the Gix. Soon, the Pseudomorph was gone. The Gix stared angrily at the Shrooblord and ran towards it. The Shrooblord lifted his gun towards his enemy, even though he knew that it would do no good. Then, as if by means of some long-thought-out plan, the Gix exploded, leaving the molten Pseudomorph lying on the floor and Gix juice covering everything in a ten-metre radius.

OOC: That unusual enough for you?

IC:
However, not all was going well. The Communications Centre had now completely collapsed, and all attempts to fix the problem on the bridge had failed. All predictions showed that, in half an hour, all but the first few decks and the engine rooms would be destroyed. Since the two locations were seperated by a good three kilometres, this was obviously not a good thing.

Shroob:

Meanwhile, on the Republic...

Meek and the others were helping repel the uprising Bananaz when they came across the hospital wing. Meek saw all the commotion and rushed inside. Purple mushrooms were running around screaming yelling things in some language that he couldn't understand. The Bananaz staff were also running around with fear on their faces. When Meek asked what was going on they said that one of them had seen the Shrooblord in hospital bed 8 eat two other Shrooblords. They also told him that he didn't know that they knew, which was of advantage to Meek.

He walked over to the hospital bed and pointed his gun at Despair.
"All right. I don't know who or what you are, but you'd better tell me where Shrooblord is if your life is dear to you."
"Fool," Despair replied, opening his eyes, "I am not what you expect me to be."
He grew to such a size that he almost touched the ceiling and then showed his true form.
"I am Despair! Highly ranked Demon of Phozar!"

Me:

--shrooblord prison block--


The prison cell drifted away. unfortuantly for Iota, it was headed to the hoggeraptor empire. the turbulece from the black hole blocked there com and teleport devicees. thay drifed ever forward. the Craftworld grew smaller, smaller and smaller. they were lulled and eventuly droped into sleep. in his sleep veldik Dreampt of the Dark secret of the rogeoids. it called to him to do things. to betray his masters. it conviced him to kill farseer Eldrin, the leader of the rogoids, and take his place as leader of the Rogoids. He faught the dark things gathering in his mind, trying to push through. he kept them under control. he needed more time.

Shroob:

I was waiting for one of you guys to post, and now I found out you DID! >.< Sorry.

Ghelae, I don't really mind the Gix being killed off, it wasn't really of any importance. More Gix might come soon, if I want to keep The Gix in the story, but it was really just a background character, if you know what I mean.

IC:
Trembling with fear Meek kept his gun pointed at Despair. He thought he was hallucinating, because he saw some sort of red light shine from the inside of his eyes. The light told him:
"Meek, you aren't hallucinating. I am Knowledge, one of the three supreme Spirits. I want you to try and sneak up on Despair and shoot him in the eye on his back. Shoot him in The Mark of Phozar. It is Despair's one weakness."

Meanwhile, above the Republic...

"Where is he?" the white light asked the red one.
"I don't know," the red one replied "He is the Spirit of Knowledge, so I'm sure he should KNOW that we need him."
"Wait," the white light suddenly said, "I can feel him... Grace, Knowledge is aboard the ship!"
"Then what are we waiting for?" Grace replied.

The two lights, which were the Spirit of Light and the Spirit of Grace, dived into the ship and headed towards the hospital wing.

Ghelae:

-- Republic --

A COMs message was sent hastily from the bridge to the engine rooms.
"All crew below Deck 33 please move to the main Habitation Modules. Repeat: All crew below Deck 33 please move to-"
"Captain?" A Bananaz engineer looked sadly towards Tarid, who was the one speaking into the COMs system. "Captain, the scanners... everybody below Deck 33 is dead, Captain."
"Oh..." Tarid's eye was filled with the same emotion as the Bananaz was showing. The same feelings quickly seeped throughout the entire Bridge. "Detach the Modules from the Engines, then."

Several large impulse drives at the bottom of the four main Modules which comprised the lower ten decks above 34 whirred into action, and the front third of the ship broke off from the rest. Behind it, the rapid decay had disabled and quickly destroyed the smouldering engines, and finally the top surface of Deck 34 faded into glowing, yellow dust. And then, a few seconds later, there was nothing but the front section of the Starship Republic moving away towards the Galactic Core.

continued:

Me:

--Prison Block--

Iota was still asleep. but the craftworld had noticed they were missing, Eldrin Sent a Ship to investigate And thay were now being towed back to the craftworld. the rogoids had a mild intrest in alien technology and how it could advance there own (remember SPACE HULK) the prison block was brought abord and striped, but the tech was to alien. Veldik Regained consiounes. Iota was brought to the council. Veldik explained the situation.
"they, didn't listen to our offer of allience and imprisoned us, but they did start to move away. some of there ship broke apart but the remaines disoved.we can't recover them."
"ok." replied Eldrin "Let us go."
The craftworld then activated its subspace teleporters and vanished to a differen't part of the galixey. It then drifted.
veldik was thinking in his room. the voices were erging him to kill Eldrin. Do it, do it. they urged become great, save your speciese, kill that old fool. you would be a better leader aanyway. but Veldik fought. No, I won't Do it! he screamed at the voices, but they found this increadably funny. You won't! You won't! Ha we are more powerful then you could possibly imagein. Mwwhhahahah. very well. Don't do it. we will leave you now. Veldik was suddenly filled with fear. Don't leave he crielalalalala it. You win. I'll do it. he broke down in tears, sobing at The Voices cruelty. but he would do anything for them not to leave. they were part of him he was part of them. it was a deadly combination.

--The hive mind--

The hoggeraptors were no more. this pleased the hivemind. his fleet was strong again. and he could now attack the Ones who had brought his fleet to near death before. it pained him. he was the fleet. the fleet was him. they would be lost without him. he would be dead inside without them. soon it thought, I will feed more than i have ever before. even more the time of the dark one. Subspace rippled with happyness.

Shroob:

Meanwhile, in the star sytem of Vertigo...

It was still raining Shrooblord's Mothership all over the planet, but most of the escape pods had chrashed into the planet's surface by now. The prison cells soon followed and all the cell blocks split right open. There were released criminals everywhere, but most of them were bodies. The ones that weren't, like Taskforce Iota, were quickly recaptured.
"Right," Ryphos spoke to the remaining crew, "Let's recon, people! Where are we and where is the rest of the crew?"
Another survivor replied:
"We are all here, Chief. According to readings, all the other ship parts flew off into critical areas. All other survivors will by now... be dead."
"Dear Spode. It is a dark day in the history of the Shrooblord."
"AND IT WILL GET DARKER YET," one of the Grox guards said.
The Shrooblord crew were surrounded. Completely surrounded.
"Okay, okay. We surrender," Ryphos wisely said while raising his six arms.
"PRISONERS DO NOT COMPUTE WITH --NINE-NINE-- GROX STANDARDS. YOU WILL BE TERMINATED."
"Then we have no choice. Guards!"

The Shrooblord Guards quickly got four guns out each and rapidly killed all the Grox surrounding them.
"You were right," Ryphos said sadly, "It was Grox. I saw there is a Grox Colony just North of us when I was still in the sky. We'd better capture it before the Grox get a chance to rebound. We can't afford any more casualties."
"Chief! Chief, we found the prisoners," a Guard yelled from across a hill, "We have found those intruders of the Shrooblord Mothership. The ones trying to bargain with us?"
"Ah yes. Taskforce Iota, was it not? Bring them to me. I would like to have a word with them."

When Taskforce Iota was set in front of the Chief, he told them the following:
"I wouldn't normally do this, but these are dire times. We need your help. We are going to invade a Grox settlement just North of here. You know The Grox, right? Grox, evil teddybear-cyborgs? Well, we're going to take control of their Colony and capture all of them. I am sure we will be able to reward you in some way. A pardon, for example. You will be released and we will make sure you arrive back in your ships from where you came. Now, are you with us?"


Me:

--star system vertigo--

Veldik woke up with the rest of the team. he looked around. this wasen't his web. He swore quite violently. there rescue had all been a dream. unfortunatly the voices wern't. they tryed to persuade him to steal a fighter, but managed to ignore them. then some shrooblord gards came in and escorted them to the shrooblord leader.

After being asked to help with the grox taskforce Iota decided that thay would, on condition that no threat would be made to there craftworld, and if they co-operated, they could become ally's. they were escorted away while the shrooblord leader made his decicion. All the while the voices had called veldik to kill the shrooblord leader. only the thought that they would soon be home and he could finaly end Eldrin had stoped him. his mind was straining to its limits ignoreing the voices, it wouldn't take much more. soon the only thing stoping the voices from escaping woyld be the fact they would reveial the dark secret of the rogeoids. he couldn't be the one to let it out. it was so unfair.

Gheale:

-- Republic --

The most important parts of the Republic had been saved from the catastrophic Quasar Wave, but at a terrible price. Half of the crew had been killed and the Republic was left without any faster-than-light travel capabilities. On the bright side, no more Rebels were going to cause any harm - those that had been above Deck 34 were quickly dispatched by the squads of loyal soldiers roaming the ship. But now there were only two possible routes for the Republic to travel - a three-thousand year journey through Grox Space or a trip into the heart of the Galactic Core. In its current condition, the ship was not in a fit state to do either of those and survive.

Me:

--The Shrooblord/rogoid delecations (between Iota and The shrooblords council)--

This grows boreing Waitting for the shrooblord leader to decide. icould be killing eldrin now. i guess i'll just have to wait...........


-- The hive mind--

Soon my Tyranids will destroy theese pesky aliens. thought the hive mind, it released a phew endorphines, it was going to enjoy this...


Shroob:

Meanwhile, somewhere in the vast depths of space...

"THIS IS INACCEPTABLE! UNCONCEIVABLE! IMPOSSIBLE!" a small teddy bear cyborg was screaming at the top of its voice box.
"I AM KRYONE-1 DAMNIT! THE SUPREME MOTHERBOARD OF THE GROX ORGANISATION! HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME?"
As Kryone-1 was feeling as sorry as his emotion-disks would let him for himself, the small pod floated across a seemingly empty solar system. But when he entered it, the pod bumped into something. Something big, no, huge.
"Who dares enter my realm?" a loud voice exclaimed.
"STATE YOUR PURPOSE, INTRUDER OF GROX... ER... HABITAL ZONE."
"You are the one asking questions? Hah! You have no idea who I am, do you?"
"MY CALCULATIONS TELL ME NOTHING."
"Which means you don't have a clue, does it not?"
Kryone-1 paused. Then he replied:
"CORRECT. --ZZZT!--"
"Then I shall show you!"

A great red light was shining everywhere and seemed to be coming from nowhere at the same time. Total darkness floated in the red occassionally and Kryone-1 really coulnd't make up what kind of organism could do this sort of thing. Of course, Grox were not programmed to know about supernatural beings, for they were usually fiction, no reality, but Kryone-1 had stumbled upon something that was neither fiction, nor reality.
Before he could do another 0-1 operation, the red light sweeped him away and next thing he computed, he was flying across space itself. Vehicleless.

Meanwhile, in the Republic, hospital wing to be precise...

The lights accidentally collided with Meek while they were rushing to the hospital wing and they merged with his soul.
"What is this?" Meek found himself saying, "It's some mortal's body... we're in it! But how could we? I don't know. Well, what do we do now? I guess we wait for Knowledge; he'll find a solution to this. But the mortal is standing against a Demon! Shouldn't we do something?"

Meek was finding this questioning and answering to himself rather confusing, and so was Despair.
"Stop it!" Despair roared, "Stop confusing me! You pesky little bug, I shall crush you like a twig!"
Enraged Despair lost control and rushed towards Meek, slipped and fell over the hospital beds. He was flat on the floor and Meek clearly saw the Mark of Phozar on his back. He was just about to shoot it when the whole room went pitchblack.
"You will NOT interfere!" a squeaky voice said, "No Demons will fall under my guard!"

The Spirit of Light trapped inside Meek made his body glow like the full moon and the room was partially lit. It was still grey and dark, but there was a smudge of darkness just where the Demon was lying.
"There! There are the two Demons!" the Spirits told Meek.
"Is this my mind finding things out for me that I don't even know about?" Meek questioned himself, "Did I just tell myself there are now two Demons?"

At that moment the red light reappeared.
"Meek," the light said, "you are not going crazy. The Spirit of Light and the Spirit of Grace accidentally merged with your soul while they were rushing over here to meet me. Not very graceful of you, I must say."
"I'm sorry, Knowledge," Meek found himself saying in a quite diffrent voice, "but there are some pressing matters we must attend to!"

Thats enough for now, commemnt please! Part 2 will come soon!