CF#28: "The Secret"

Started by Ariah, ended by Jason Barker.

The Omicron shone darkly in the void, distant light scattering against its midnight black hull. Great atomic engines flared silently in the endless black, making the enormous spacecraft shine like a tiny white star as it thrust forth into the cosmos. Encased within the ship's humming masses of high technology were a diverse band of heroes calling themselves the Crystal Fighters. They stood in little clusters on the ship's Bridge, a massive high-ceilinged room with rows of computerized controls facing a towering view screen that displayed the slowly passing stars. Opposite the view screen were the Bridge's three main entrances, each large enough to drive a truck through and possessing thick vertically closing blast doors that were rarely used. Two normal door-sized emergency exits were on the sides of the room, and other than them the only entrance to the Bridge was the maintenance hatch, to which only Entropy and the Head Engineer had keys.

Most of the crew avoided the CFs except when called for, scurrying silently through access tunnels during the day and partying uproariously in the crew quarters at night. The exceptions to this rule were Pedron Tallanvor, the Helmsman, Scillin Bitrim, the Head Engineer, and Bulsck Talon, Head of Security. These three men stood below only Entropy in matters of the Omicron's operation, and they walked as freely on the Bridge as though they owned it... for, in a way, they did.

Bulsck, whom everyone called Talon, was an enormous burly man rumored to have been genetically engineered. He carried big guns and a bigger ego, and became violent if anyone questioned the accuracy of his many boastful stories. His left eye was bionic, but anyone who said out loud that his eyes didn't look quite the same was likely to have their nose broken.

Scillin, fondly nicknamed "Mouseman," was Talon's exact opposite. Mouse was a tall, lanky man in his mid twenties who always wore an absurd pocket-covered grease suit that made him appear somewhat like a crumpled rag. Mouse's person hygiene was impeccable, but he somehow always managed to look dirty. The man was clearly a genius, but refused to acknowledge it. Shy and introverted, he largely avoided people, but was strangely likeable. Mouse was a Mutant, and had telekinetic powers, but they were so weak they were nearly useless.

Pedron, the Helmsman, was a fixture on the Bridge. It was rumored that he slept at his station, and the rumors were true. Pedron was proud of his unique abilities, and preferred to be called by his title rather than his name. Short, The Helmsman was overweight but not fat, and was an excellent conversationalist. Though he could never explain it, The Helmsman could instinctively sense things about stars, like "that star system is inhabited, and the residents are friendly," or "we shouldn't go there; that star will go nova in about a month."

The Helmsman was currently engaged in a game of chess with Pyromaster, and most of the CFs were watching, for both individuals were self-proclaimed masters of the game, and were playing for the title "Chessmaster of the Omicron." No one except the two involved cared at all about the title, but it was interesting to watch the pair's seriousness; from the intense looks on their faces, one would have thought they were fighting to the death instead of playing a board game. The Helmsman was a rook and two pawns ahead, but it looked at though his queen had fallen into Pyro's trap. As Pyro moved his knight in to capture The Helmsman's queen, the lights went out. Entropy, Pyro, and The Helmsman all swore simultaneously, each for a different reason.

"What the hell was that?" Entropy queried angrily as he looked around the room. Every light in the room was dead, and the only illumination came from the main viewscreen, which scrolled rapidly-moving gibberish for a few seconds and also went dead.

Dakey and Rupay were playing in the playroom that Entropy had had put in just for them. It wasn't a huge room but it had a lot of items crammed into it for the two youngest CF's enjoyment, including the swing set that had been placed into the center of the room. Each of them pumped their legs as hard as they could, determined to be crowned the highest swinger when suddenly the loud hum that had incased them constantly since arriving on board the Omicron died into an eerie still and darkness.

"What happened?" asked Rupay, she had noticed the brightness of the room leave telling her the lights had gone out and she heard the engines die.

"I don't know." Dakey responded from the next swing, they had ceased their competition and were now gently slowing to a stop, the squeak of the swing was the only noise that broke the darkness.

"Can you see anything?" Rupay asked.

"Nope, Zelda will be here soon though."

"Yeah."

There was a beep at the door and a few seconds later it slid open.

"Dakey? Rupay? Are you two all right?" Zelda asked as she walked into the room, she wasn't quite sure what had happened though it didn't *seem* like anything was broken..but then..she wasn't a tech officer, and she hadn't even checked any schematics yet.

THE BRIDGE

"The lights are out." Talon said, stating the pathetically obvious. Entropy rolled his eyes and looked at his WristCom.

"Main power's out," he said, "but we have life support, so we're not dead yet... let's see... doesn't look like there's any damage, computer didn't report any errors before it went out, let me look in the records..." The group swiveled as one to listen to him, as Entropy was definitely the most likely to solve whatever the problem is.

"DAMN! HELL!" Entropy yelled, and suddenly the crowd became far more concerned.

"It says I'm blocked," Entropy stated.

"So?" Someone asked.

"So I've got a security level higher than God, that's what," Entropy snapped back, "I CAN'T be blocked." The small crowd stood silently in the darkness, the only light coming from Entropy's WristCom.

"So we've been hacked," A voice said in the background, and a small light came on. Mouse stepped out from a terminal, a tiny flashlight clipped to a tinier cord around his head. Mouse didn't speak very often; in fact, most of the CFs had forgotten he was in the room.

"I thought you said the computer system was unhackable." Entropy said to his Head Engineer. "Besides, how could anyone get a connection? We're a spaceship."

"I don't know," Mouse said meekly, "but it has to be either a hacker or a computer virus of some sort. You were previously able to access the computer's log files, and are unable to now, so there must have been a change in programming. Since the intelligence required to do so precludes a random error or system crash, it must have been the work of a hacker or virus. It's impossible for someone to sneak onboard a spaceship in outer space without a hull breach, which leaves only the possibility of a virus. I recommend going to the main computer and purging the virus from there. If you are unable to delete the virus, you can manually disconnect the advanced functions of the computer, leaving the virus unable to do us further harm, and allowing us to dock and receive repairs. I'll do it for you; shouldn't take me more than half an hour." When Mouse spoke at all, it tended to be for a long time, and on a technical subject.

"No, I'll take care of it," Entropy said, already having regained his composure. "Mouse, make yourself useful and set up some temporary lighting while I fix this." Entropy addressed the group: "Don't worry people, this is no big deal. Mouse's gonna get some lights, and once I get this fixed we'll have everything working again except the AI and some hard drive files. No big deal." The relief was audible. "I'll be back in an hour at most." Entropy said as he began to stride for the main entrance. Tala caught his arm.

"I'll come with you," she said with a smirk. "It's a long walk to the main computer, and you could use some company." She smiled somewhat flirtatiously. "Besides," she said more quietly, "it has to be more interesting than sitting in the dark with these people." Entropy lit a flashlight, and the two of them disappeared together into the midnight black passages.

In the kid’s room, Zelda lightly touched her Crystal for comfort. Suddenly, there was a flash. She staggered back in surprise and noticed the globule of what seemed to be water, glowing in front of her. She shrugged, realizing that she had done it, albeit accidentally, and moved it into the center of the room. It let off slightly more illumination than a flashlight, but that was only because it let off light all the way around its surface, instead of just from one area.

Entropy mumbled his curses repeatedly as they descended down into Engineering, in several different languages. As he helped Tala out of the last crawlspace, he looked cautiously around the ship. It was pitch black, the only sounds from a few emergency machines and the hiss of steam from what must've been a ruptured pipe in the heating system. He looked to his WristCom, typing in a few sequences.

"Light." He said simply, and without another word a ball of illumination emerged from the device. "C'mon." He said to Tala, turning back to her. "Main Engineering shouldn't be too far from here."

"No more crawlspaces, ok?" Tala said, brushing off the last of the dust.

"All right, all right."

After a short walk, the two of them arrived at a massive door, the kind you most likely would have seen on a bank vault. A small handprint key remained. Entropy sighed deeply, pulling a small battery from his belt. Taking the key's access port, he quickly plugged in the battery and smiled as he input his handprint to open the door. "Wait here." He said to Tala, dead serious.

"But why-"

"First off, there's a reason that this is off-limits to everyone except me and the chief engineer. Second, I don't want you in the line of fire if someone IS in there."

"All right." She said, resigning herself to lean up against the nearby wall. Entropy gave her a quick kiss, then smiled.

"Look, this'll just take a second, and we'll have power back. I promise dining on your home world by 6."

"Better." She smiled before watching him head into the room.

"O-kaaay, let's see what we got." Entropy said as he arrived at the main CPU for the ship. Located by the actual ship's power source, a swirling orb of bright green that emitted a soft glow from inside its containment field, Entropy could see clearly enough, at least well enough to do his job. Activating the CPU off of emergency power, he keyed in a few passwords, offered up his handprint again, and then continued, searching through the diagnostic report before him.

"Well...according to this we've got all the power we need...so why isn't-Hey, wait a second." He keyed in a few more things, searching the power supply reports. "According to the readouts, it's all going straight to...What the hell is all this?" A noise further back suddenly forced him into action. Pulling out his sword, he walked over in its direction. The noise continued, a slight shuffling noise, with an electric crackle.

"Tala? Did you come back here or what?" he said to the darkness. Something moved back to his left. He moved over towards it, the utmost caution with him. Tala sighed again, waiting for him to come out. What was he doing back there, anyway? It couldn't possibly take that long to just come out and tell her what the problem was, wasn't it? Entropy stepped out a moment later, his sword in his hand.

"What happened?"

"I found our hacker." He said, somewhat monotonous in his tone of voice. "I tried to stop him, but I had to deal with him."

"Are you all right?" She asked, coming over to him. In a flurry of motion, Entropy's sword was in her stomach, running her through as Entropy smiled.

"Oh yeah. Never better." As Tala took her last breath, blood flowing out of her mouth, she saw the electrical burns across his neck and hands...the glazed over cast of his eyes....

"W...h....y......." She choked out before he pulled the sword out of her, sending her body to the floor.

Her first thought was.. "Why the hell didn't I phase?" The second.. of course.. was why. However, that wasn't important. She felt.. nothing? An odd detachment. She reached out towards Entropy, blackness clouding her vision. She tried to blink it away.. but it was there.. Nokomis however, seemed to want to say something.. so as Tala started inhaling what would likely be her last breath, she heard someone say.. "Damn you.." and then.. nothing. It was quiet now... quiet.. and sleep.. sleep was what she wanted to do. So tired..

"Zelda? What's goin on?" Rupay asked, sitting still on her swing.

Zelda walked carefully over to the swing set, "I'm not sure...I tried calling over the com, but I didn't get much information...but at the moment I think the only problem is that all the lights are out." She sat down near the swings, it probably wasn't a good idea to move around so much in the dark-even with her magic ball of light.

"What would you like to do while we wait for the lights to come back on?”

"I don't care. What is there to do?" Rupay asked.

"Well...I don't know.." she replied with a shrug, "We could play a game...tell stories...better not do anything *too* active though, I'm not quite sure how I got that light to work...working on figuring it out.. or how long it will stay."

The Bridge was transformed by light. Mouse had hauled in a portable fusion generator and manually wired it to much of the Bridge's overhead lighting, banishing the shadows and calming most of the CFs' nerves.

To break the tension and prove to themselves that everything was back to normal, The Helmsman and Pyro had resumed their game of chess, though their minds weren't quite in it. As the group chatted with artificial cheerfulness, a small white butterfly fluttered silently into the room. No one noticed, and the conversation continued. The somewhat subdued and patchy lighting added a degree of anonymity to their voices.

"Haven't Entropy and Tala been gone a bit long?"

"Don't worry about it. Engineer-type people always think they can do things in half the time it really takes."

"I suppose that's true. Knowing them, they 're probably enjoying a private moment together."

"Hehehe. Betcha you're right. But didn't he say he'd be back in twenty minutes?"

"I just said not to worry. What's the worst that could have happened? Besides, I think he said thirty minutes, and it's been less than an hour."

"Sixty-five minutes."

"Same thing."

Pyromaster looked up from the chess game. He looked around suspiciously for a moment, then resumed his game. A minute later, he looked around again.

"Something's out there." he said.

"Na-ya." Talon drawled, sounding sleepy. "Id's just yer imagination."

"No, I saw something." Pyro smiled suddenly. "But even if I didn't, as a security issue, it's your responsibility."

"Aww... Yeah." Talon marched off into the darkness of the unlighted corners of the Bridge as conversation stopped. They looked off into the darkness. One minute. Two.

"Talon, are you out there?!" someone called. No answer. Nervous conversation began.

"Dumb oaf." Pyro muttered as he stared at the chessboard. His stomach felt strange. Presuming he was hungry, he raided The Helmsman's chocolate stash. The Helmsman protested, but didn't put up much of a fight. More silence.

"Talon?" Again no answer. Then, with startling speed, a hulking figure emerged from the darkness. It was Talon. He held out his hand, and opened his huge fist. Inside was a tiny white butterfly, pitifully crushed.

"There's your intruder." Talon stated with a smirk. There was nervous laughter and the release of a few held breaths. Again, Pyro had a feeling something was wrong.

"Uh, Talon, can I take a look at that butterfly?"

"Shoor." Talon grunted, and dropped the tiny corpse on the chessboard. Pyro stared at it a while, and then began picking carefully at it with his fingernails. He stopped in dumbfounded silence.

"People," he said, holding up a tiny metallic wafer between he thumb and forefinger, "there was a microchip in that butterfly. It's a cyborg." Then all hell broke loose.

Down in Engineering, Entropy would have smiled as he looked over his new armor, a series of alloyed plates fused to his severely damaged flesh. His lower jaw had been lost, his face now covered by a small cape, but he could see perfectly now thanks to the optical implant and laser eye scope, and the new claws would work perfectly, though it might affect his swordsmanship with only 3 titanium clawed fingers. He looked over to Tala's body, still incubating. Once she was revived, and had her own improvements, there would be no more invaders. He was sure of it.

Zelda frowned as her Crystal throbbed in the little bag she carried. She took it out and stared at it for a few moments, something had happened, but she wasn't quite sure what. At first she had thought that one..or more..of the CFs had died. Their characteristic patterns that she felt constantly (more strongly through the Crystal, it didn't enhance other patterns for her, though she sensed those as well via her own inborn psi powers) had suddenly stopped..or almost stopped..it was impossible to tell, but then something changed and they were back. She couldn't tell if they were different or the same as always. She shrugged, the alerts weren't blaring just yet, everything was probably fine..though she did had a bad feeling tickling the back of her mind. She shook her head, she needed a distraction, that was all, she was just jittery. She hadn't slept well last night, it was just that. She pushed up a smiled for Rupay and Dakey, looking at them questioningly to see what they would choose to do while they waited.

"Zelda?" Tala's voice came from the door of the room. "Are you in there? Please, let me in!"

"Tala?" Zelda said, looking to the door. "What's the matter-" As she unlocked and pulled the door open, Entropy stood before her, a metal faceplate allowing him to speak.

"Me. I am the matter." Zelda gaped, eyes wide, as Entropy stepped into the room, his sword glowing in the darkness, and the light from it glinting a bit off his armor.

"I'm sorry, Tala won't be joining you. I'm afraid you'll be joining us, though." With that, he raised his sword, and Zelda was barely able to regain her composure enough to run for the children and get out of the way as it fell.

"Dakey, Rupay, RUN!"

"But Zel-"

"Just go!!" She yelled, deadly serious. She had to keep this...this thing busy for the moment, long enough for the children to escape and get to the bridge...

"Oh, what's wrong, Zelda? Don't you remember me?" The voice was new now, less mechanical, more...Oh goddess...

"Entropy?!"

"Well, duh." Entropy said before slashing at her again, barely missing her as she dove out of the way.

Zelda mumbled under her breath, the words a quick blur and instantly she changed to her Rydia form.

"Entropy! Why are you doing this?!" she cried out as she fought through the chaos of her mind for something to use against him, without hurting him too much..or rather, something that might at least incapacitate him. Her powers weren't meant to be used alone, only to augment those the others had. To distract an enemy so that someone *else* could prepare their own powers and attack. Though, with her second level transformation she *did* have a few more powerful spells...had they been in preparation for this?

Words rose to her mouth and desperately she shouted them, invoking the Crystal's power in combination with her own magic. She stumbled backwards, partly in surprise, partly to dodge another one of Entropy's blows, and partly from the sudden drain on her energy. During this, the space in between them began to shimmer and sparkle in blue tinged white-silver until the light coalesced into a creature, her Ice Chimaera. It's ice-hard form glistened in the light as well as with it's own inner radiance. The cold features twisted into a snarl and it let out a sharp caw as it prepared to attack and defend.

"Entropy, STOP!!!" she called again, was this even Entropy? It seemed like him...like Tala before...she gasped, it had something to do with what she had felt earlier, she was *sure* of it. But the drain on her resources was just too much for her to concentrate on anything else. Hurriedly she extinguished her light, she was reluctant to loose it while she was in a room with an enemy, but if she didn't she knew she wouldn't be able to cast anything else. Luckily, the Chimaera's radiance was enough to see their immediate surroundings by.

"Impressive," Entropy said, the synthetics of his voice returning as he dodged the Chimaera's claw swipe. "But ultimately, futile." He quickly leapt up onto the creature's back, sheathing his sword and digging now white-hot claws into the ice creature's back, raking them through the beast as it howled in agony. It made one last mewling cry, then collapsed completely, melting into nothing. Taking out his sword, Entropy looked around, his optics allowing him perfect vision. The door was open. She'd run, the pacifistic coward. No matter. They'd all be dealt with soon enough. Entropy ran out, heading back towards engineering. She was ready...

Meanwhile, the people in the Bridge were experiencing their own little suprise.

Moments after Pyro announced that the crushed butterfly was in fact a cyborg, a missile streaked into the room like a wayward firework and destroyed the chess table in a brilliant fireball that left spots on the shocked CFs' eyes. Before they had time to react, let alone recover, a metal-covered humanoid entered the room, its chain-gun arm firing ammunition randomly into the crowd. The Helmsman flew sideways into the wall with a wet thud, while Pyro was launched at the opposite wall. He righted himself in the air, flipped off the wall, and had twin pistols in hand before his feet touched the floor.

"Aieeee-shit!" Talon screamed as he took a bullet in the thigh. Nonetheless, he flipped out a hefty gun with one hand and began firing slugs in the enemy's general direction. One of the 15mm chunks of metal blew a baseball-sized hole in the thing's chest, spattering the room with partially clotted blood and tiny metallic fragments.

The residents of the room instinctively drew various weapons even as they took stock of what had happened.

"Wha? Is there more... What!?" Mouse breathed as he visually searched the room.

He scrambled over to the mess of wires near the generator and adjusted a knob, and suddenly the room was flooded with light. The babble of voices was undecipherable as the group searched the room and extending halls.

"Is everyone okay?" Pyro asked, still searching the entrances.

"Hell no!" Talon yelled, holding his bleeding thigh with his free hand.

"Um.. does anyone here have a medical background?" Pyro asked.

"Sorta." Mouse offered timidly.

"What do you mean?" Pyro asked.

"I took some classes, but..."

"But what?"

"I failed them." Mouse admitted.

"Oh, great." Pyro sighed. Then he gasped. "Oh my God!" Everyone followed his gaze to the corner, where, lying on his back, was The Helmsman, his face pathetically crushed in, nose indented into his skull so far that it was at cheek level.

"Is he alive?" He asked breathlessly.

Mouse scampered over to The Helmsman and touched his fingers to the man's neck.

"No pulse." He announced, confirming what they already knew.

There was no grief, just shock; the tears would come later, when the reality of the situation set in.

Mouse walked over to the fallen cyborg that had attacked them, looked at him, emotionless bewilderment painted on his face.

"It's Coyl." he said. "I knew him; he was my protégé in computer-related manners. Practically slept in the mainframe."

Mouse paused.

"Or, this WAS Coyl."

Mouse blinked several times; his once brilliant mind seemed to have stopped functioning properly. Logic fought emotion, and logic won, for the moment at least.

"This is impossible," Mouse said. "We know he couldn't be from off-ship, since he was a member of the crew. But no human could ... do this to a person in less than two hours. Can't be done."

"What about more than one person?" Pyro asked, struggling to maintain his composure. His eyes started to shine, but he fought it off.

"Wouldn't matter." Mouse said, sounding dazed. "Even if you had a team of engineers and surgeons, it would take days to do the design work. And you couldn't make a template ahead of time because of the natural differences between individuals."

Mouse paused a long time, his inherently logical mind still processing despite his stunned emotional exterior.

"It's an intelligent virus. We were hit by an intelligent virus." he said. "Some sort of th.. program... with the heuristic capabilities of a human, but in code, with the speed of a computer. Yes. Yeah, it makes sense; the intelligent program transmits itself to our computer, right? For a few seconds it lies dormant; that's all it would need to explore its capabilities in our ship. Then it knocks everybody else out of the security loop, kills the power, and takes over the machine shops and medical facilities. It uses them to re-engineer the ship a little bit at a time, and in the process decides to re-engineer some people, make them into cyborgs so it can blow the rest of us to hell. And if the cyborgs kill anyone, they drag 'em back to the machine shop so they can be used to make more cyborgs. It makes sense, in a sick sort of way."

Mouse paused again.

"He was... we'd always..."

Mouse suddenly dropped his head into his knees and began weeping, the entire emotional transformation taking all of ten seconds.

"Ok.. Kay." Pyro said. "So some sick computer program is using our own ship to kill us. Okay." He breathed deeply. "We've got robots and cyborgs killing people. Anyone who gets killed and they drag off, cover with metal, and use to kill more people. Humm..." Pyro considered the situation for a few seconds. "We have to get everyone in the Bridge," he said. "This thing apparently already has a base, so if we are split up it'll be able to kill us in little groups. However, if we get everyone in the ship together, armed and organized, then we can send out a group to go destroy the computer. Mouse, is there any way at ALL you can contact Entropy or anyone else? I know you've tried, try something different this time."

Mouse was still sobbing, but maybe he was considering the situation as well. It was hard to tell. Finally he spoke.

"Ya, you ca *sniff*, can... *sniff* yeah, I can try sending a single directly to Entropy's *sniff* WristCom. It's not connected to the ship's *sob* computer."

"Mouse," Pyro said, "I know it's hard, but could you try doing that? Please?" Mouse nodded assent, pulled tools from his grease suit, and began connecting his own WristCom to the mess of wires by the generator. As he worked, Pyro continued to interview the man. "Mouse, are there any weapons on board that we don't know about?"

"Well, there's a gun stash in the little hideaway under the trap door. And then there's the tank..."

"A TANK?!" Pyro exclaimed.

"Yeah," Mouse said. "It's Entropy's. He picked it up in Silulon Major. Sort of a souvenir."

"We have a tank and no one told me?! Why didn't anyone tell me? Do you have ANY idea how much fun I could have with a weapon like that?!" Talon whined loudly, only interrupted by Pyro’s statement that it would be #@%$#@in’ cool to test drive.

"Well, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone," Mouse said, rubbing his tear-reddened eyes. "but I suppose this is an exception. Its in storage bay C8."

"Well, that could definitely help us... unless the computer or anyone that thing's cyborgized knows about it too. Who knows about it?" Pyro asked.

"Just me and Entropy." Mouse said. "Speaking of whom, this should allow you to speak with him." Mouse handed Pyro a mound of electronics, the most obvious feature being a microphone and a speaker.

"Entropy?" Pyro asked into the microphone. "Entropy, are you there?" There was a long, static-filled pause, and then Entropy's voice came through the speaker.

"Yeah, I'm here." Entropy's voice said.

"Are you okay?" Pyro asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. A bit scared, but fine."

"What took you so long?" Pyro asked. "We were afraid you were dead."

"Every ten steps I had to shoot the either a robot or a freakified version of one of my former crewmates." Entropy said through the speaker. "It doesn't exactly make for a quick trip. Where are you?"

"In the Bridge."

"Is everyone else there?" Entropy asked.

"A lot of us. Most of the crew is still missing, and so are Zelda, Rupay, and Dakay."

"Well, just call them on the intercom. It's working now." As if on cue, the intercom system started buzzing again. It was almost eerie.

"Get everyone in one place," Entropy said.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Are you bringing the tank?"

"Oh, the Tank! I had almost forgotten about that," Entropy said. "I'll be sure to bring it. Just stay put over there, and get the crew. I've already picked up some of the surviving crew and am bringing them there. Tala is with me too. Just wait for me."

The CFs sighed in relief and began to fortify the area.

Entropy looked up into the glass tube that had become Tala's "birthing chamber." Her body was covered with the same type of armor as he, only since she had received so much less damage, hers was more for pure defense than restoration. The new energy core replacing the hole in her stomach provided power to the small but powerful energy cannon on her shoulder, and the optical upgrade in her eye was identical to his. Suddenly, the tube drained, and Tala stood upright, her eyes still shut. As it opened, she walked out, sans emotion of any type. Entropy walked up to her, extending a small cord from behind his ear, and hooked it into a port at the base of her neck.

"Emotional upgrade and vocal restoration commencing." Entropy said before inducing the power flow. Tala's body shuddered for a moment, then suddenly her eyes snapped open and she smiled. Entropy would have as well as he retracted the cable.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, my dear."

Dakey raced down the hall in an unorganized manner, dragging Rupay by the arm right behind them. Neither of them could keep from having tears roll down their faces. All they could think was that Zelda was dead and that the creature of Entropy would soon be after them. The hall lights flickered on and off rhythmically in a way that would keep one off balance even if your vision wasn’t smeared by tears and your breath at a loss from trying to keep from falling into a full out tantrum when your life was on the line.

Dakey stumbled around a corner with Rupay right behind, and the light was suddenly shadowed and they slammed into something solid.

"Watch where your going pip squeaks."

"U..UA?"

"The one of many." EUA growled, "are you two screwing with the systems, its bad enough I'm confined to quarters but you two lil crybabies messing with the lighting controls!!!!!"

"It...it's not us, it's scary." Rupay wailed.

"He got Zellie and he wants to hurt us."

EUA really hated whiny brats and was ready to give them a tongue lashing, at first he thought they were throwing a fit because they had been caught, but he could see it was something more then that, it was fear.

"Ughhh come on." EUA growled, he hated babysitting more then whining.

Back in the hold, Entropy and Tala looked over the tank. It was meant to crawl along on spider-like legs, and the 4 cannons onboard said plenty about firepower. Entropy leapt up, looking inside as Tala folded her arms and grumbled slightly.

"Why don't I get the tank? I want to destroy them as much as you do, and I have the better eyesight." She looked up at Entropy, then instantly grabbed for her neck as a cable from his arm wrapped around it and hoisted her up.

"Do not complain to me. I don't have a nuclear ion cannon on my back, but I don't say anything about it. If you want to take it up with him, go ahead. I follow orders. And this isn't for either of us. You know what to do. Now get to engineering and begin."

"Y...yes...sir." She choked out before Entropy retracted the cable and dropped her. As she left the room, she kept grumbling.

"Why does he get all the weaponry? Every single time, he gets more firepower than everyone?" She whispered as she arrived at the engineering station, hitting her commlink.

"Pyro, you up there still?"

"(crrk) We're (shhkk)ine here. What's up?"

"I need some help. I'm at engineering station 12-B. Can you make it over here?"

"(ckrl)y me?"

"You have the most firepower of all of us, and you have to go alone or these things'll send too many reinforcements. Can you make it?"

"Sur(kllch)e over ASAP."

Tala smiled. It would be fun, dealing with him...

Zelda bit her lip in concentration as she looked down both divisions of the hallway,

~Which way did they go..~

After a few seconds she decided, and heard voices down the hall.

~Drat! EUA is with them!!~ She still got a bad feeling about him that clashed with her instinctive urge to forgive and forget. But then, Entropy was the one that had gone whacko right? EUA was probably just another victim here. She strode down the hall towards them and called out.

"Hey guys...everyone all right?"

After determining this, she planned to go to the bridge, hoping to at least alert the others if not find out about the ships problems.

In the shadows ahead of Zelda two large, shining eyes blinked readjusting the light. Breathing could be heard, anyone listening would have thought it was a rabbit, so rapid was it. The figure in the shadows tensed and the eyes widened in fear as the sound of Zelda's footfalls grew louder, echoing in every direction.

The figure turned, the sound was everywhere and who knew what it belonged to. The stranger laid a hand to the chill metal walls of the ship, not knowing exactly what it was she gasped and removed her hand. She was brought back to reality by the noise which was becoming more urgent. It felt like the world was falling in around her as her fears and doubts grew to looming size. Maybe this had been a mistake. She turned to flee, with no idea of where she was headed or what she was fleeing from and pushed herself into a run and into Zelda.

Both women were flung back to the floor by the force of the impact. Zelda was up immediately, more from fear than reflexes. Zelda was already preparing, if reluctantly, to engage another Crystal Fighter and friend.

The other girl did not rise from her knees, Zelda quickly realized that it was no crew member.

"Who are you?" She asked, understandably started.

"My name is Clopheara Mantahll. Please, you must help me!" The girl had her hands raised pleadingly. Zelda made an exasperated noise. She still had to find the two younger Crystal Fighters and now this?

"Please, you are a Crystal Fighter are you not? I am one too." She held up a glowing orb that rested in her clutched hands long shining silvery white hair glimmered at Zelda.

"Snow, Thunder, and Light. I know you can help."

Zelda felt she needed a nap.

"No time. Get up and run, don't talk just move." She was nervous, had been standing still for too long. Was that another pair of footsteps she heard? This girl had fallen into a strange situation whether she lived to find the help she was asking for depended on how fast they could move. Clopheara peered around with her large golden-chestnut eyes, but her new companion had no patience for dallying right now. Grabbing the girl's arm she resumed her mad dash down the dark, echoing hall.

As they ran, Zelda's Crystal and psi sense homing in on the group, she spoke.

"I'm sorry..you um..caught us at a bad time...just..if you see Entropy...err..a white-haired shape-shifter, RUN. He's one of us..well..sort of..but something happened..maybe something pushed him over the edge..I just don't know...but I think the same thing happened to another of our number, Tala.."

Without even realizing it, she flashed a picture of each CF directly into Clopheara's mind.

"At the moment, I'm looking for Dakey and Rupay..they were with me before, but Entropy attacked us and they escaped...I hope.." she stopped speaking as she was having trouble keeping it up and taking in the breath for running at the same time.

In the meantime, a loud moaning was coming from the Bridge. It was Talon.

"Heyyyy, my leg reeeeally hurts! Can I have some more medicine?"

Mouse clenched his fist, looking rather frustrated.

"Talon," he said, "I realize you're in a lot of pain. But really, three times the maximum painkiller dosage should be enough. Besides, if you consider that one of the techies had his arm amputated at the shoulder by a metallic claw, many of the surviving crew are bleeding profusely, and that the only non-cyborg physician onboard is suffering from third degree burns, your situation doesn't seem so bad."

"But it hurrrrrts!"

Mouse grit his teeth and surveyed the room. Considering how little time they had, they had done remarkably well. Metal plates from the ceiling had been torn down and placed across all but one door, and a wall of additional plates, furniture, and other pieces of the ship made an artificial wall in the middle of the room. The haphazard fortress was topped by several machine guns which had been welded to makeshift tripods, and the small holes in the twelve-foot-high walls all had gun barrels poking out of them. Inside the fortress was a further, roofed structure, serving more as a boundary than actual protection. Inside it was the generator, communication equipment, undistributed guns, the badly wounded, and whatever miscellaneous materials were deemed useful. In that structure, christened The Keep by an anonymous crewman, also was the "brains" of the operation, consisting of the CFs plus Mouse. Though severely lacking in brains, Talon was in The Keep as well, mostly because he might be dangerous if left unsupervised. Through some strange quirk of fate, Pyro's exit had resulted in Mouse being left in charge, a situation no one was very comfortable with.

As Mouse prepared to upbraid Talon once again, a loud, heavy noise issued from the far corridor. The Bridge was immediately silent as people peeked through holes in the fortress' rough armor. Clank, clink. Clank, clink. Creeeek. Clank, clink. Fingers tightened on triggers as the unknown invader turned the corner. Shining metal as the robot moved into view. The humanoid robot stood silently as numerous eyes watched it, each one tensely clutching a weapon. A gatling gun rose up from its back.

"DIIIIEEEE!!!"

The robot virtually exploded as hundreds of rounds of ammunition slammed into it within the course of a second. Its shattered components tinkled to the ground as the echoes of gunfire faded from the room. A loud roar of victory rose up in the room, comrades yelling encouragement to each other as they raised their guns in the air.

"Damn." Mouse swore quietly, frowning.

"What's the problem?" a crewwoman asked. "We won."

"No, that robot wasn't even built to kill us. It was a scout, intentionally disposable. Did you see how it just stood in plain view for about ten seconds? It was uploading every inch of our base into the master computer, I'm sure of it. The only reason it was equipped with a gun at all was to make sure we shot it; when we fired, it photographed how many bullets were in the air. Right now the master computer knows our defenses and how many guns we have, so it can prepare the REAL attack."

Zelda was still running with Clopheara when they heard the screams...of joy!!

"Zellie!!" Rupay and Dakey exclaimed in unison as they raced from the protection of EUA .

The two children ran at Zelda and her unfamiliar friend. They were glad to see Zelda alive and wanted to be back with her where they felt safe, secure, and happy.

"FAAAP" a green light illuminated in Dakey's path and slammed into and rebounded back into Rupay and they both toppled to the floor.

"A force field?" Zelda asked from the other side.

~What is going on?~ she thought.

EUA walked and pressed his hand and felt another force field had activated about five feet from the other, trapping the two children.

"Zelda tell me what the hell is going on here!"

"I don't know, we have to get the others, can you get through this thing?"

EUA slammed a fist against the wall of energy and then shook his head. Suddenly the fire sprinkler above the two children came on dousing them in water.

~They’re going to be drowned~ Zelda suddenly realized.

"Ah Goddess!" Zelda exclaimed in horror, frozen in place for a moment, then desperately she shouted at EUA.

"Can't you teleport through???"

She banged her fists against the force field, but as before they rebounded with a slight pain.

"NO!!" she screamed as the water began to fill the shielded area, "Please!! We have to help them!!" she cried raggedly, oblivious to anything else.

Clopheara watched with a confused sort of dismay as the force shield the children were trapped behind began to fill with water. The woman that had been leading her could do nothing but pound at the glowing wall. That couldn't be, Crystal Fighters couldn't be beaten by anything, right?

The green light of the force shield reflected off of her strange hair in oranges. The two smaller children and the taller figure with them were already knee deep in the water.

~Who would design a ship to flood?~ she thought to herself as she clutched tighter the globe in her palm.

"Why don't you help them?" She asked of the other woman her breezy voice. Her calm, confused inquiry was extremely contrary to the other's panicked concern.

Zelda looked back at her, desperation was scrolled all over her face.

"I can't help them!"

Clopheara glanced back at the three trapped people. Now was as good a time as any to try to work her crystal. She released it from her palm. Instead of falling to the floor the small orb flashed to life and floated from her open hand to her right shoulder. She held it to her palm vertically flat a few inches from it and drew it forward until it floated in front of her. Zelda stood slightly to her side now with only one hand on the shield. She was probably a bit suspicious of the orb.

Clopheara mumbled a few words, what sounded like gibberish to Zelda. The crystal orb between her hands flashed brightly and the water that had been building behind the force shield splashed outward wetting their feet. The spell had worked and the green light dome over them and been dispelled. The taller man, unmoved by the rescue, fired some sort of gun nonchalantly at the sprinkler making all of the rest of the party jump.

Clopheara opened her eyes, the crystal immediately returned to floating over her right shoulder. Weariness washed over her, the crystal dimmed and drooped a little in the air. Both seemed to hunch over with post-spell fatigue. She rested a hand on the wall. The two children ran directly to Zelda. The third figure stood a little apart from them.

Zelda hugged the two younger CFs tightly, tears of relief streaming down her face, "Goddess..thank goodness you're all right!"

"Now," he said somewhat angrily, "Can you tell me what the Hell is going on?"

"My guess is as good as your's UA." Zelda said, "All I know is Entropy has become some psychotic cyber creature and I haven't been able to contact the others."

"Well that’s #&*%ing dandy" UA turns down the hall when three cyborgs step into his path "I imagine your not here to help." UA sighs then attacks.

Entropy's eyes glowed red as EUA tore through the cyborgs. Ah well. Expendable revenants, easily replaced. He leapt down from the ceiling, his sword digging into the floor with a hard –chung-.

"Griever. Come."

The sword leapt up, flying into his hand. He looked to EUA. "You'll have to do better than that, if you want any hope of defeating me."

"Ah, good. Always wanted to kick the crap outta you again." EUA smiled before leaping at Entropy. A second later, he vanished.

"What in-" EUA got out before Entropy hit him with a roundhouse kick in his back, sending him flying into the wall. Entropy looked back to Zelda, Clopheara and the children.

"You I'll deal with later. However, I can't possibly let you interfere." Another moment later, a new force barrier surrounded the area where EUA and Entropy fought.

"All right..." EUA said, slowly rising to his feet and whipping around. His mask was cracked, and blood slowly dripped down from it. "Now you got me angry."

"Believe me-" Entropy said, dodging EUA's charge and grabbing him by the hair, sending a knee into his back so hard you could hear the bones snapping. "-I'll do a lot more than that." EUA dropped to the ground, barely conscious and making a valiant attempt to crawl towards the edge of the barrier, to Zelda and the others.

"Griever. Pike."

The sword suddenly glowed, reforming itself into a long, sharp spear. EUA crawled to his feet, staggering slightly, but up.

"Say goodbye to your erstwhile comrade, Fighters!" Entropy yelled, running straight at EUA and spearing him through the chest, hoisting the broken man up over his head. EUA struggled slightly, twitched once, and fell limp. Entropy's eyes glowed again, the barrier fell, and suddenly the emergency lights went down. When they came back, both he and EUA...or any trace of them...were gone.

Tala glanced around idly, waiting for Pyro to arrive. She still didn't believe it to be fair that Entropy seemed to be the leader, when she.. hmm. Her gaze moved to the door as a sound reached her ears. As the door began to open, she stepped back slightly, hiding the "enchantments" she now wore.

"Tala?"

Pyro.

"Over here.."

Zelda gasped, then hurriedly grabbed a hand of each child, it was getting worse,

"We have to get to the bridge!" she explained as she started off into a run, it seemed like it might be safe haven..if anywhere on the ship was safe..

Clopheara gaped for another moment at the place where she was absolutely sure a violent battle had just taken place. Yet, there was no blood. Not a hair. Had that been a Crystal Fighter? Impossible, no one could beat them. She looked back at the spot that had been their arena. Perhaps she had imagined it?

She shook off her doubts and pushed herself away from the wall she was still a little weak from the spell. The woman she had been running with was rapidly out distancing her with two children in tow, she had forgotten Clopheara in her rush. Her large, dark eyes easily adjusted in the semi-darkness of the ship. She paused to glanced once behind her before lurching into a run. Her crystal floated over her right shoulder as she ran, not quite lighting the way as she followed the others.

Soon, Zelda was panting, the younger CFs getting the better of her for speed, but she did her best to catch up, she almost stopped short when she noticed Clopheara was not with them. She glanced behind and with relief noticed that she was all right.

"Come on Cl--Clo..Clopheara was it? Hurry!" she encouraged, trying not to sound too rushed, but they had to get to the bridge before anything worse happened. A few minutes of fast paced traveling (and one impatient, seemingly eternal, ride in a lift) rewarded them with the sight of the metallic door to the bridge. She clenched her fingers around the hands of the two kids, this was it...either they would meet with more trouble..or with the cavalry. With a sudden sense of reluctance she steeled herself for the moment of truth. She took a deep breath, then knocked on the door.

"I don't think they heard you.." Rupay said, glancing around nervously as she clung to Zelda.

She tried again, louder this time, and then sighed.

"Oy!" she exclaimed, she had forgotten about the other methods.

"Hopefully this is the right button.." she wished aloud as she touched a button on the exterior console to the right of the door. She also hoped that it was working...she had a feeling that some of the equipment was not very..healthy...

This was absurd, her exhausted body was telling her. Clopheara had run farther in this single day than any other in her life. Granted, her people had been slow moving nomads that followed the fading sun's rays. There had been no need to run then across the deep snow on Theremate, it only wore the body out faster and burned valuable energy that came from meager food supplies. Nothing of that life had prepared her frail and thin body for such rigorous activity.

She nearly tripped over the trio in front of her when they abruptly encountered a door. Then they paused, as though they had run just to halt here. She panted behind them.

She managed to get out between breaths, "I still don't know your name."

The woman that had been staring dubiously at the door controls turned, remembering the world outside the terrifying events that had led her thoughts aside.

"Zelda," she mumbled to Clopheara though her eyes were on the children who had been watching her every move.

"Well, Zelda," she was regaining her breath slowly, "can you tell me, please, what is going on here?"

Clopheara's Crystal floated dimly over her shoulder flashing with only a little light occasionally.

"What happened back there? And what lies beyond that door?"

Zelda drew her gaze from the children to the white haired girl.

"I wish I knew." With that she finally decided to risk pressing the button on the keypad to open the bridge door.

Clopheara breathed in deeply and held her breath, the three others unconsciously did the same as the doors suddenly slid open and they were staring down the several barrels of assorted guns.

The four just stood there, then sighs came from behind the guns as they lowered.

"Thank god its you guys, we thought we might have lost you, hurry in." Mouse said.

The four CFs now let out their own sighs of relief and did as he suggested.

Dakey looked around, their were no CF's left here, only four crewmembers.

"Zellie where are the others?"

Zelda looked to Mouse looking for the answer and he just lowered his head and shook it slowly.

"Its only us eight and Pyro left as far as we know, Pyro should be back shortly."

"Hey little guy." One of the crewmembers said to Dakey, Dakey turned to see the little red lizard sitting in the guys palm, "He has been waiting for you."

"Lil Flame you’re okay!" Dakey grabbed the little fire lizard and hugged him.

"So you know what's going on?" Zelda asked hopefully, "All we know is that Entropy..or...something.. attacked us, then he ran off..."

Mouse finished telling Zelda all he knew of the situation, information she would have rather lived without, then he turned command of the bridge over to her as the only adult CF besides Clopherea, who they weren’t even sure what to think about her yet.

"Alright Mouse, command isn't something I can settle into easily, especially under these circumstances, why don't you see if Pyro has gotten the tank yet?"

Mouse nodded and turned on the comm., "Pyro, good news; Zelda, Rupay, and Dakey are okay plus we got a lil help it seems their is a new CF on board."

Mouse waited for a reply but only got static *SKSSSSSSSSSSS*

"Pyro?"

"Sorry," Entropy said over the commline. "He's a little low on free hands right now. He kinda gave me the last one."

"What in-Where's Pyro?!"

"I think you can guess. Even so, that little tank of MINE he was after? Don't worry, it's coming right up. And your little friend EUA wants to say hi, too. We'll be along in a few minutes. Good day."

With that, the commline went dead.

Zelda paced around the bridge nervously, why give command to *her*? She had no idea what to do, she wasn't a leader. She bit her lip and glanced to Clopheara, almost as though seeking comfort. She took a breath and glanced around at the stations.

"Well..umm...what's our...status?"

3 HOURS EARLIER....PROTESS MILITARY HEAD OF OPERATIONS BASE

A month or so ago the main matrix had received the signal informing that Zealen had shut down, but the failsafe installed in his main core system had worked as planned.

For the last month the matrix had searched the cosmos looking for the right signal and finally it was in rage. The satellite system moved into position and shot out the signal back where it belonged.

CURRENTLY

The mechanical robotics system had began dismantling the entire tank and then reassembling it in a new form, a more humanoid form, it placed the last piece back on finally and began the final process.

"Loading Protess File - ZC5846." The robotic voice said and suddenly the tank, in its new form hummed to life.

The door to the cargo bay slid open and Entropy step through the door and looked around shocked, "Where the ^%&$ did that tank go!?!?!"

"Right here." An artificial voice responded, Entropy spun towards it

The figure stood tall and strong, the cannon slid down onto its shoulder and a plasma burst shot out, Entropy was knocked across the room and slammed into the wall, he wouldn’t be getting up for a long while.

"Zealen is back." The tank's new form said.

"YOU?!?!?" Entropy scowled, looking up at Zealen. "You're not part of the plan, I'm afraid." He held out a hand to his side.

"GRIEVER!" The sword immediately responded, snapping into his hand. He pointed it at Zealen.

"Dissect!" The sword flew at Zealen, carving away the arachnid legs and weaponry, all piling at Zealen's feet until only a simple humanoid robot remains.

"I suggest you leave now while I'm in a better mood."

Zealen immediately fell into a fighting stance before Tala entered, with Evil UA behind. EUA was given a long, steel spine down his back, to replace the shattered one, and the huge steel arms he now possesses were a testament to his strength now. A full metal mask covered his face, only his eyes are visible through the smooth steel.

"You're outnumbered." Entropy said as Griever snaps back to his hand, as Tala's shoulder cannon begins to glow with power and EUA slams his fists together.

"Go scurry back to your friends." Zealen slowly backed towards the door, then ran out.

"Wait a minute! Why'd you-" Tala started. Before she can continue, Entropy ran up to her and grabbed her by the neck, holding her up against the wall with Griever pressed against her throat.

"I already had to bail you out against Pyro. You don't deserve an explanation. Remember the only thing that keeps you from HIS class-" He pointed at EUA, "-is my will. Be grateful and start loading. He will be angry if we do not recover the components for our new warrior." He dropped her, then turns to EUA.

"Slave! Get loading! We don't have all chron to do this!" EUA seemed to hesitate for a moment, then suddenly Entropy's eyes glowed, and EUA doubled over in pain, curling up into a ball as his spine glows with energy. He writhed on the floor for a moment, then stopped, crawling to his feet as Entropy turned away.

"Get it done now. I'll continue the hunt in the meantime. Kill anyone who gets in the way, don't bother preservation unless it's another fighter." With that, he turns and walks out.

Zelda was worrying and pacing nervously around the bridge. Occasionally she would remember to be still and act calm for the sake of the children but it never lasted long and she would start moving again.

Clopheara watched her move, it was about the only thing she could do. Her crystal suddenly appeared in front of her right shoulder. She turned to look behind her one of the crew members had reached out to touch it only to find it had dodged his hand. She smiled shyly at the other person.

"It moves at the speed of light. It can move faster then your hand can. Not just anyone can pluck it out of the air."

The crew member retracted his hand and opened his mouth to answer, at the same moment the lights flickered ominously. He closed his mouth in sudden fright and glanced upward at the lights. Zelda had blanched a little and halted her pacing. The small children huddled together not making a sound, watching the lights.

Zelda bit her lip and looked nervously towards the lights with a shudder.

"It's ready." Entropy chuckled as he looked at the chamber. There was a sudden hiss...and the doors slid open, steam pouring out as a single spider-like leg slammed into the ground. Followed by another. And another. And another. 8 legs in total held up a dark metallic frame, four additional arms each holding a large, powerful weapon. A weapon in some type of turret graced the back, while Pyro's torso occupied the front of the beast. His entire body was heavily armored, his body above the waist locked into another turret. His head was barely recognizable as Pyro, encased in an armored helmet with a laser sight firing out of one eye.

"Assault unit 004-9642 Pyromaster. I await instruction."

Entropy's eyes glowed, and he would have grinned had he any lips.

"Prepare for an assault upon the bridge. All units are to converge at the available entrances within the Chron. Execute order."

Pyro nodded.

"Affirmative."

He then stalked out to the lift, and headed up. Entropy soon followed, but stopped for a moment, looking back over his shoulder.

"What a glorious day this shall be, my lord."

"A glorious day, indeed." Said a voice from the shadows. "A glorious day indeed."

"Umm..umm..can we err fortify the bridge or something?" Zelda had felt the completion of the change, and the movement.

"He..it's..coming this way..I uhh..think.."

In the bridge the crew froze as the sound of metallic footsteps grew louder. Too many to be just Entropy, Tala, and Pyro. It sounded like an army. Behind the wall of guns and weapons that sat in the center of the bridge Zelda crouched, worrying at her lip. Dakey and Rupay watched the door wide eyed and definitely not lacking in the imaginations it took to imagine what might come through the door. The crew members that would man the guns (obviously the children couldn't use them, Zelda plain old wouldn't, and Clopheara no one wanted to trust with a gun at this point) looked to each other for comfort.

ELSEWHERE

"My fellow Collectives!" Entropy called from the front of the hallway. "We now stand before the last stronghold of the Fighters. You all know the procedure. Kill indiscriminately and prevent escape, but avoid mutilation of the fighter's bodies for NewForming. Position yourselves."

BRIDGE

"What I wouldn't give to be fighting Vile back in Crystallia." Zelda breathed to herself and did her best to look brave, after all she was leader.

Clopheara watched the door with tears in her eyes.

"That is the most awful sound I have ever heard. In all my winters..."

Dakey and Rupay began to whimper when the noise, which had been getting steadily louder halted just outside the door. Everyone's breath caught in their throats.

Mouse turned to Zelda, the fear of high technology did not have the same hold over him.

"Go, Zelda, get to the supercomputer. Power down the ship maybe they're drawing on it's energy to power themselves. You’re one of the last CFs, you can defend yourself better than any of us." He smiled. "Besides Rupay and Dakey can't reach the controls."

Zelda stared at him for a moment then began to move slowly, keeping close to the ground, towards the main computer terminal room.

Outside energy guns could be heard being charged. A dark and frightening smile crept across Entropy's face.

Zelda looked back, having second thoughts. How could she just leave the others to what was coming? On the other hand..maybe she could stop it before it got there.. She sighed, unlikely. But, she had to try.

She stopped at the bridge exit and then rushed back to Clopheara and gave her a hug, seemingly spontaneously she asked, "Please, take care of them!"

There was a pleading look in her eyes and her words encompassed everyone, CFs and non. She gave the two kids a quick hug and then rushed out, trying to work up the cover of grim determination.

An eerie silence overtook the room, as another loud thump shakes the door. Everyone quickly rushed to their positions, hands gripping their guns with a combination of anticipation and fear. The thumping grew, louder as it continued, more soldiers rush over to the main door...

Mouse suddenly ran over to Zelda, looking worried.

"You and the children should get out of here."

"There's nowhere else to go-"

"There is. I hid an escape pod down near the main computer in engineering. It's cloaked and sealed by a passcode I made independent from the system. If anything happens, I want you to take the pod and get out of here. Ok?"

"A...alright.”

As she turns to go, the children at her side immediately...

"Zelda-"

"What is..." As she turned around, Mouse was bleeding from the mouth, a sword through his gut.

"I think...we have a problem...." With that, Mouse collapsed onto the floor. Entropy, Tala, and EUA stared back at her.

"Hello there Zelda." Tala smiled.

"Did you miss us?" Entropy growled. Another moment later, Pyro suddenly burst through the door, at least a hundred cyborgs suddenly rushing in as Pyro's cannons blazed away at the hunter crewmen, already attempting to stem the flow and fight off their opponents.

"Tala, kill her. The children I don't care about. Slave, join Pyromaster and kill the other meat sacs. I'll have to miss this, I'm afraid. The Master commands, and I must obey. I leave her to your...loving care, Tala."

"Thank you, commander...." Tala smiled as she advanced on Zelda and the children.

"Griever. Pike." Entropy said. The sword changed, then suddenly shifted back. "What...Griever, Pike!"

The sword did nothing.

"Griever, serve your master now! Pike!"

The sword fused onto his hand, charging itself up.

"What...What are you doing! Stop! No! I can't handle this much....AAAAAAAEEEIIIAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" The sword was glowing now, brightly enough to fill the room.

Entropy kept screaming.

"NNNNOOOOOOOAOAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEE-"

Suddenly, there was a flash. The sword floated in the air for a moment.

Entropy's charred faceplate hit the floor.

"Commander!" Tala yelled. She suddenly whipped around, growling at Zelda. "You! You did that! Damn you, I'll kill you a thousand times over! How dare you!!" Her cannon started glowing, a bright reddish-green light charged with shadow.

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

Zelda looked to see the shady distorted image of a familiar face.

"Razis Protection SPHERE!!!" The bubble surrounded Zelda as the energy weapon discharged, the sphere worked effectively.

"Razis...Nity?" Zelda had turned her head to the energy cannon but now turned back to her protector.

"....Dakey" Zelda suddenly felt a wave of confusion, the shady image of Razis had disappeared and Dakey was there, ~Did I imagine it!?!?!~

"Dakey Flame BOMB!!!!" Dakey blasted Tala off her feet and she slammed into the near by wall.

The protection sphere had disappeared from around Zelda and she quickly changed into Rydia and melded an ice cocoon around the Tala cyborg.

Zelda frowned fiercly as she tried to clear the tightness in her throat, for a moment... It couldn't possibly have been, but it had just seemed so real, despite her common sense she had actually believed that one of the deceased CFs had returned.. Clopheara nudged her and she blinked herself back to reality, blinked the unshed tears away. Then she grabbed Rupay and Dakey, she wouldn't let them go, ever.

"Clo, you too." she said with a painfully pleading look in her eyes, if she lost anyone else..

"We've got to stop this."

Zelda jogged along the corridor as she held tightly to the two small hands and urged the children on. Her mind was almost completely blank, except for the white hot urgency that flashed through her head, as loud as a siren.

Meanwhile, Tala broke free of the ice, and knelt to pick up Entropy's face mask. She stood. She was not about to let that little brat get away with what he had done. She was the enemy, and the enemy must be stopped at all costs. Smiling darkly, she seemed to vanish from the spot she was in. She had locked into Zelda's bioprint before Dakey had attacked her, and so now.. could find her anywhere in the ship.

A few seconds later, she reappeared behind the small ragtag group, and remained with the shadows, following them. She would strike when the time was right.

Clopheara ran blindly down the dark passage following the woman named Zelda. She wasn't sure what had been at the huge metallic doors in the bridge, but she was reasonably sure she did not want to be in its path.

Zelda held the children's hands has she ran, they seemed to know where they were going. Clopheara, unused to this much running and tired from the relatively weak spell she had cast was falling behind again. She slowed her pace now, though, not because she was tired but because something told her to stop and listen.

Years of living in the darkness of caves and abandoned stone keeps on Theremate had taught her to watch the shadows. Shadows hid enemies. Every living thing on her home planet preyed on other living beings for warmth. She could sense a predator.

The noise of Zelda's running was fading, the distance between them was growing and Clopheara did not know her way around the ship. She eyed the darkness behind them suspiciously for a moment longer then started after the trio ahead of her again. Something in the darkness made her feel the need to run just a little faster.

In the shadows Tala halted for a moment and glared narrow eyed at the white haired girl. Tala watched her, angry that she had been sensed. Clopheara left running faster this time. Tala followed smiling.

She chuckled to herself softly, she had been sensed.. yes.. but not seen. She was one with the shadows.. able to blend in, or become one.. if need be. The white haired girl would not pose a problem to her. After all, they were running on fear.. and were running out of time. Herself? Cold pure hate. One that could feed someone even after they were down.

She picked up her pace a little, after all, Zelda was her target, not this one. She couldn't kill her, just take her out long enough to allow the collection to be done. Tempted as she was to toy with her, Zelda was more important on her agenda. She must be stopped, at all costs. Tala faded into the shadows once again, then reappeared, a few feet ahead of Zelda. As they come running up, Tala seem to form out the shadows, crouched before them, one hand held cupped, as if she was holding something invisible. The other held her gun. She smiled at Dakey, then lobbed the ball at him, rendering him inert. No more surprise attacks from that one. She then looked at Zelda, as she rose....

Suddenly one of the three sets of footsteps stopped and Zelda's hand was jerked away. She whirled around, about to chastise Dakey for dawdling at such a time when speed was needed. But then she saw him frozen in place as still as Tala had been when Zelda had frozen her...Tala. With the...alteration...it was harder for her to pick those CFs up through the augmentation of her Crystal and suddenly realized that Tala was right there with them.

"Rupay, keep going, I'll catch up." she ordered in a tight voice as her mind spun through options. If Tala could escape her freezing that fast...something else..she would need something else...

Tala slid out of the shadows with a slight smile of self assurance, "You'll never win." she said, advancing in a fighting stance. Zelda ignored the ominous words and moved protectively in front of Dakey.

She lifted her Crystal and began, "Rydia Lunaris Azure Me--" but before she could finish Tala lashed out with a solidified shadow and knocked the Crystal away.

"I don't think so."

"Goddess!" Zelda exclaimed harshly as it skidded across the floor. In the time that she remained disconcerted, Tala pounced, grabbing her shoulders and knocking them both to the floor. Zelda let out an, "oof!" as she hit the hard metal.

"DIE!" Tala commanded as she grabbed Zelda's neck in a vice-like grip. Zelda tried to pull away, but at the same time she knew that Tala was physically stronger.

"Azure..me.." she tried to choke out but in response Tala redoubled her efforts. Zelda put her arms up and pushed her away enough to loosen her grip, "me..melody.." she pushed the words out hoarsely as she tried to mentally pull the power of her Crystal to her, pooling in other aspects of her strength to strengthen it. Desperately, she hoped it would work. It did. The resulting transformation exuded enough force to cast Tala away from Rydia to crash against the bulkhead. Light-headedly, Rydia struggled to get off of the floor, hoping that Tala would be disoriented enough to let her gather her wits..

Rupay didn't run, instead she turned into Deena and stood guard of Dakey. When she got the chance, she shot impulses at Tala to weaken her mind. In Deena's present state it was all she could pull off.

Tala slide to the ground, shaking her head. Although the slam hadn't hurt her physically, she had felt something come loose. Great. She glared up at the now transformed Zelda.

"You think you'll be able to stop this? You'll never win."

She rose fluidly, advancing upon Rydia once again. She felt that the wire to the cannon was loose. But that was alright. She wanted to fight? A fight she would get. Tala tossed aside the gun she was using, and then leapt at Rydia, who was quick enough to react with a kick. Even though she was able to stop Tala from just slamming into her, the force knocked them both back to the ground again, Tala landing atop her. As she rolled off of Rydia's form, she grabbed her wrists, and hoisted her up in the air.

"You should have just let me kill you before. I would have made it quick. Now, however, you're going to suffer."

With that, her eye started glowing...

Zelda cringed involuntarily and tried to kick at Tala, but as she was partially raised from the floor she had very little momentum. Tala just laughed. She tried one of her powers, but Tala knew them well and just brushed the flow of power water aside negligently. She might also know from Entropy about her new power, the summoning of the chimaera.

She watched Tala's glowing red eyes warily as she dug down deep into herself and her Crystal for something to use, then inaudibly she whispered, "Raining Illusion Shine." The air behind Tala wavered for a few seconds as if it was seen through water and then it solidified into the form of Entropy. Zelda prayed that the illusion would work, that Tala would not somehow sense that it was not real.

"Stop." the image commanded, pulling Tala back, "We have more important things to deal with, she'll never make it to the computer core, and even if she does, she won't know what to do next." Zelda winced, the last bit *was* true enough.

Tala frowned, looking at the illusion that was Entropy. But she had seen him burn.. hadn't she? The impulses that Deena were shooting were making her doubt her recall, but that was about it.

"How could we have more important things? She is who we have to stop."

"I told you once already. Who's in charge here?"

She scowled, but set Rydia down. She didn't trust this though. Something wasn't right.. but what? Still scowling, she moved away from them both, noting the look of relief on Rydia's face. Entropy didn't even seem the least worried, unlike how he was acting before, and that tipped the scales. She knocked Rydia aside, charging at Entropy. Instead of knocking into him, she flew through him, and slammed into the wall behind the hologram. By that time, Rydia had already taken off. Growling, Tala rose, ignoring the woman and Dakey. She now had prey to capture.. again.. and this time.. nothing was going to stop her.

~Well..~ Zelda thought as she ran, ~At least it slowed her down..~ she let go of the illusion and instantly it disappeared. She hated to leave the two kids behind, hopefully Deena would stay with Dakey, but it seemed that Tala was ignoring them for the pursuit of her prey. Zelda shuddered at the thought as she tried to control her breathing a bit better, she had been running enough that each breathe of air felt like a knife thrust through her lungs.

Suddenly, she stopped and blasted out a sheet of ice to block the hallway Tala was coming from. Then she looked around for a couple of seconds, there were three ways to go. She thought a moment and then choose, not the shortest way, that would be too obvious, too characteristic. But, she couldn't waste time with the longest one either. She turned to the left, after throwing up another ice block, very thin this time, over the hallway she would have normally chosen.

~There.~ she thought and took off again, hoping that she hadn't lost too much time.

Zelda rushed around another turn into the waiting arms of another cyborg "Noooooooooo!!!!" she screamed and tried to pull away.

"No Zel, its me Zealen."

"Z?"

"Yeah, but it seem like we have time for catch up talk right now it seems your in a hurry."

Zelda looked on astonished, this person in front of her didn't look like Zealen but she could sense his mind, a mind she definitely needed right now.

"Zealen I'm so glad your back, you...you must help me…”

Tala paused before the fore, just as Zelda had. The first ice block had slowed her down, but only slightly. She could phase through anything. Solids, gas, liquids.. (cackles)

She turned to the right, that being the quickest way, then paused. No..she didn't go that way. Too obvious. Besides, her mark wasn’t there. She gazed down the hallway before her, checking it with her enhanced senses. Nope, not there either. Of course, this was buying Zelda time.. not much. Maybe about ten minutes… then she turned towards the left hallway, and smiled. Bingo. She had gone through this way. She want through the entryway phased, just in case any more ice had been thrown up. After the first five feet, and not finding anything, she became solid, and started running down the hall.

Although she could teleport herself to wherever Zelda was right now, she wanted to crush the one last thing she had before she would die... Hope.

~Whew~ Zelda thought to herself, not bothering to check Zealen for that alteration, she was much to relieved to have a familiar mind around, especially when she was pretty sure he could help with this.

"We've got to.." she started to explain, "Umm...do something at the core." she grinned weakly in her own confusion, "I hope you have an idea of what to do to stop these...things?"

Clopheara had missed the fight between Zelda and Tala by the time she reached the former battle site. She jogged up to Deena.

"Where is Zelda?"

"She's going to the core."

"The core?" Clopheara asked more to herself, there were so many words she didn't recognize. "And the other place?"

Deena looked back towards Cloe.

"The bridge? I don't want to go back there."

Children, she reminded herself. They are only children. She needed their help but they were so young.

"I'll go back."

"Why? They'll get you if you go back!"

Even though she did not know Clopheara, any adult would have unknowingly lent some feeling of security to the two youngest crystal fighters.

Cloe smiled not quite reassuringly.

"I'll be back soon." She started back down the hallway she had just run through. Her only thought was to put herself between whatever had been in the bridge and the young ones.

When she was out of earshot.

"She won't make it back will she?" Dakey mumbled.

Deena didn't answer him.

"We should find Zelda."

Zelda felt incredibly guilty about leaving the two younger CFs alone, but then she remembered how Clopheara had been behind them. She frowned....or had she...she bit her lip, she had been thinking so hard about getting to the core that she hadn't even noticed when Clo had dropped behind, she'd have to apologize later and now just hope for the best. She called up her ice chimaera again and sent it back towards Tala, still hoping that the ice blocks had held, yet knowing how unlikely that was.

"Zealen..." she started to suggest, "Maybe you had better go to the core...I'm pretty slow, and I won't be much of a help down there anyway. I can hold Tala off, I know it."

~Though..for how long..~ she wondered mordantly, then shook her head to clear the thought and focus on something more positive.

"Alright Zelda, I'll go." The cyborg spoke. Zelda kissed him on the shoulder thankfully. He then slammed his fist into the wall and emitted an electronic rope. He began to slide down, and finally made it to the core.

"If I do this, I will save the CF's, but If I don't, the Protoss planet could be restored..."

He slapped himself.

"Why am I acting like a human. I'm a Protoss, a god."

There was a large shake and he shoved his other robotic hand into the core and pulled out the Pure Kaladyimite Crystal. His body began to melt, and his body and the crystal disintegrated. Up flew a purple ghost like figure, running through the ceiling.

"Hopefully he did the right thing." Zelda mourned, as a tear went down her cheek.

~We're not going to loose another, we're going to get everyone back to normal.~ Zelda thought to herself in an almost savage chant.

"All right Tala.." she muttered, there HAD to be a safe way to incapacitate her friend until they could set things right. She headed back down the hall, trying to keep a determined look on her face.

Tala grinned slightly, as she melted from the shadows.

"Will save everyone? You've just killed the rest of your..friends."

Before Zelda was able to get the "no!" out that was forming, Tala continued.

"You were the only one that would have been able to stop everything, why do you think we were after you? And now, I'll kill you both. Or well.. perhaps I'll let him live.. since you’re the only one on the agenda."

Her grin grew as she spoke, and walked closer. It also became darker, a mockery of her former easy smile.

"And now.. now that you know that you have damned everyone on this ship, how do you feel? I'd like to know before I remove your head from it's shoulders."

Rydia cringed and stepped backwards as if the words had a physical force, her first instinct had been to trust her friend..or former friend.. Well, if she was going to try and go back with Zealen she'd have to do something about Tala first. At that moment the Ice Chimaera caught up with them, its iced wings outspread in silent flight. It suddenly pulled its wings in close and rammed into Tala with a strange caw-like sound.

~I guess I'm not having *all* the bad luck today..~ Rydia thought working up another spell from her Crystal.

"Maestrom Arise!" she called out, reaching almost in supplication towards the ceiling as if it could replace an open sky. The air around Tala became live with crackling energy like the middle of a lightening storm. The air around her swirled darkly as it gained thickness from the water Rydia called up towards it.

As the Chimaera knocked Tala off balance, tossing her to the floor. Her eye flared red, as she stared at it. Within a few moments, as Rydia's magic grew around her, cracks began appearing in the Chimaera's body. She was breaking it from the inside, and then she looked at Rydia.

"You really think your magic impresses me? I can kill you here and none, without so much as a mark from your lightning. Now, it's your choice.. either call of your little spell.. or this.. thing.. dies right now."

By now, she could notice the marks, Tala waited for her answer.

Rydia took another step backwards with a small cry as she unobtrusively pulled the slight consciousness out of the chimaera and locked it tightly in her Crystal, it would be harder this way but... She controlled the body of the ice chimaera by her own power and moved it to lash out at Tala with gleaming claws.

"Please, Tala."

Tala stopped suddenly, her eyes darting around. She knew that voice..but...

Her thoughts were confirmed as a black shape suddenly leapt from the ceiling, a sudden bright flash, and a pillar of flame shot through the chimaera's midsection, melting it apart. The flames vanished, and suddenly a spark flared, followed by a blade of pure fire sprouting from the darkness, bathing the darkened hallway in dim, reddish lighting.

"Allow me."

Entropy smiled as he walked towards them, his flaming sword casting wicked shadows across the hallway.

"Umm.." Zelda stepped back even further, she might..*might* be able to match Tala, somehow find a way to incapacitate her, but Entropy as well?!

~This is definitely not going well..~ she thought miserably to herself. With a sigh, she prepared a spell.

Tala took a step back, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He was still the leader, and so, she had to follow orders. Zelda would not be hers for the taking this night. She had almost expected this, since her failure with Pyro. But then, her more humane side had still been fighting the process. Now, that voice of reason was gone. In fact, she was tempted to just kill them both, so the glory of killing the savior would go to her. But she'd wait. This way, when they were both weakened, it would be an easy hit. She seemed to melt into the shadows surrounding the little group, even her red eyes not giving her away. However, Zelda could feel those eyes on her, waiting...

With the spell finally wearing off, Dakey could feel his limbs begin to process movement again.

"Dakey no." Rupay pleaded.

"Rupay I have to go help Zellie."

"But...." Rupay was interrupted by the *THUD* sound.

"What was that…?" Rupay asked shakily.

"Let me look." Dakey walked down the hall. Rupay tightly held to his arm as he led them to where the slain body of Mouse lay.

Dakey had to swallow a scream, not wanting to frighten Rupay. He was glad she couldn't see the gory mess.

"They’re having trouble on the bridge." said Dakey. "We should help them first.”

Rupay gave a dazed nod and they rushed back to the bridge, powering the powers as they moved forward.

Entropy would have grinned as he looked at Zelda's fear-struck eyes, his own glowing slightly. He held up the sword, an odd bladeless device that looked more like an oversized lighter than a sword. Even so, it was lethal in the right hands. He triggered it, a spark shot out, and a 4 foot long blade of pure flames shot out, stopping millimeters in front of Zelda's face.

"Look at her, Tala. Weak. Soft. Afraid. She's lost all her real powers. Her friends are all dead. Her power is exhausted. Her life...is forfeit."

He suddenly glared at Tala, as she appeared again in the hallway.

"This is all that we must oppose. The unfit shall suffer. And you would do well to know that the master does not smile upon treachery."

"What?! Why would I-"

"You are nervous, Tala. Your voice is unstable. The only reason you're not a drone like any of the others is by MY will and mine alone. If the master heard of this he would disintegrate you on the spot." As Tala grew quiet, Entropy suddenly looked up, as if listening to something.

"...Tala. Chains."

Tala concentrated for a moment, her green crystal shone, and a pair of max-security restraints appeared in her hands. She passed them over to Entropy, who quickly shut off the flame sword.

"It appears...as if the master has noted her." He said as he grabbed her wrists and clamped on the restraints. Placing a small device on her forehead, he pulled her away from the wall.

"Commander...what are you do-"

"The master has ordered I take her to see him."

"WHAT? HER!?"

"YOU WOULD DO WELL," Cried Entropy, suddenly shoving Zelda to the floor and pinning Tala to the wall, "To control your emotions. We need none of YOUR kind with free thought, if this is truly what you are."

"N...no, commander. I apologize." With that, Entropy pulled up Zelda by her arm and started shoving her down the hallway.

As the three arrived in engineering, Entropy pushed zelda into the main doorway, which promptly closed behind her. He then turned to Tala.

"Tala. Gun."

She promptly tossed over her handgun.

She fell to the ground just as quickly when the bullet shot through her head.

"w...hy?" She asked as her systems failed.

"You are weak. And I...am a purger of weakness."

Tala's form twitched once, then fell limp.

"Goodbye, Tala. You were too gullible from the start."

With that, Entropy started back up towards the bridge.

Zelda gasped, although that same body of Tala had been after her own life just moments ago. Still, it was the face of her friend that lay pressed against the ground, still.

ELSEWHERE

Zealen’s body flew into the wall.

"Youuu...willl...dieee..." The purple ghost said. It was shaped like Zealen...

"I will not die." The half burnt body of the real Zealen said loudly, through it's translater.

"I...have...had...to...put...up...with...your... mortal...bindsss..."

A large purple blast was sent from Reaver Zealen's hand, sending his body backwards to dent the wall.

"Your...body...issss...dessstroyed..." Zealen placed his hands on his head, and the corpse began to deteriorate, leaving the suit falling to the ground. He flew into the suit, and the Kyldinite crystal reacted, and took shape to his new ghostly body.

"Now, to continue on from this obstacle." He flew forward where he was supposed to go, but he fell down lerching.

"This...this is the end?" He got up, trying to keep his suit together, flying towards his goal.

The doors slid open in front of Dakey and Rupay, they could smell ozone and blood. The smell of battle.

There was too much smoke for Dakey to see anything, but Rupay registered the minds of only two remaining crewmembers.

Dakey shot a burst of flame into the smoke trying to light up a line of sight. The two crew members were scrunched up against the main control counsel, fighting off the attacks of the cyborg EUA and Pyro.

"Time to get some attention."

Dakey smiled at Rupay,"Dakey Flame BUBBLE!!!!"

The sphere of fire shot out quickly and accurately, quickly engulfing everything in its path---EUA.

"ARGH, little freaks!!!!!" EUA brushed away the pain and raised his plasma rifle to the two children while the little flesh he had still smoked.

Pyro made a growling noise as his large spidery body turned to join EUA.

"Ssstop!"

A large voice was heard. Suddenly the Reaver Zealen flew into the room, with pieces of his suit falling to the ground.

"Look at where you got usss?" He raised his hands, sending EUA and Pyro into the wall, with purple binds holding them in place, restricting movement.

"We ssshould go thisss way." He led the people into a large room.

"Asss a reaver of sssouls... I can now do thingsss impossssible to me in my physssical body." He flew into the electronics, which were followed by a few sharp blasts of sparks.

ELSEWHERE

Zelda condensed her strength as best she could while, hopefully, Entropy and Tala were distracted by Zealen. Suddenly, she disappeared, leaving the chains, as well as a loud boom as air rushed into the space she had just been occupying, behind her. She appeared at the next hallway intersection and stumbled to her knees. She hadn't been completely sure the trick would work and it had been a bit of a drain on her energy.

~Oy, I think I need some lessons from UA.~ she thought to herself as she collected her wits and stood. Moments later she was running down the corridor, yet again.

Her sprint was short-lived, for around the next corner was a large spider-legged robot. Before she even had time to skid to a stop, she cried out, feeling a sharp pain in her left knee. Looking down, she groped for the dart she saw sticking up from her leg. Trying to stop and grab the dart at once, she tripped, and another dart caught her in the left breast before she slammed into the ground. She tried to raise herself off the floor, but her rubbery-feeling body refused to respond, and she collapsed back onto the floor. As her vision began to blur, Zelda surrendered to the chemicals flowing through her body as stopped struggling. Moments later she was asleep.

Zelda's eyes fluttered open. There was a feeling of time having passed, but not of having slept. All she could see was the ceiling, a tangled mass of sleek black wires that looked unnatural aboard the Omicron. Not particularly surprising; there wasn't much left on the Omicron that DIDN'T seem alien. She tried to turn her head to look at more of her surroundings, but found she was unable. There didn't seem to be any resistance; paralysis seemed a more accurate description. It was as though her muscles refused to obey her. She tried to move the rest of her body, and met with identical results. Zelda's breathing accelerated as it struck her that this condition might be permanent; was this was it was like to be one of the cyborgs, unable to move except to obey her master's bidding?

~NO, AND YOU MAY MOVE NOW,~ A loud, deep, metallic-sounding 'voice' said within her mind, drowning out all other thought. Zelda screamed and scrambled to her feet, looking frantically around her.

~How did--?~ the immediate question sprung to her mind but she dismissed it hastily. Whatever it was, it was obviously telepathic, no need to ask. But..all she could sense of this nebulous presence was that it was..slightly..metallic, as if something..something not quite living was speaking to her.

"Who..what...are you?" she asked with a mix of both fear a curiosity. She almost asked another silly question directly after that...where..but, whether this presence was near or far physically, it didn't matter in the mind. Well, at least she could move now. She glanced around..this was still Omicron..but..at the same time it wasn't.

~I WAS ONCE CALLED ARIAH,~ the mind-voice stated with enough psychic force to bring Zelda semi-paralyzed to her knees. She breathed heavily for a few seconds, her nervous system still resounding with the power of the alien mind.

~O-once called?~ Zelda asked in confusion, ~Could you..speak a little more quietly?~ she immediately pleaded afterwards, her head was still splitting with echoes of the mental voice, ~Who are you...now? What do you want?~ she queried, preparing herself for another blast of mental sound, just in case.

~I was once called Ariah, because I was part of a society,~ a surprisingly quiet but and pleasant telepathic voice answered.

~I now have no need of a name, for I have need no of interaction with beings not in my control. As your organic mind requires a tag for each individual you encounter, you may refer to me as Ariah. I intend to take over the Omicron.~

Zelda waited for a few seconds for 'Ariah' to explain itself further, but it said nothing.

~Take over?!~ Zelda exclaimed, that didn't sound particularly nice.

~But...but we don't *want* to be taken over! And..we have our job! You can't make us abandon people to the Vile--what's left of them--and the..other..things out there..~ She dropped off, wondering exactly what those other things were. People like EUA and McTorn she guessed. And in case anyone came back from apparent death--it had happened before after all.

~Can't?~ The pleasant psychic voice inquired. ~My newly-acquired minions and I seem to be conquering the Omicron and its passengers with considerable ease. Yes, I realize you meant that idiomatically; you meant that there are moral objections to what I'm doing. I don't care. I possess no morality and scant emotions.~ Ariah paused. ~Back from the dead? No, I did not resurrect you friends - not yet at least. Look about you.~

Zelda looked. The entrance to the mainframe was crowded, but not particularly sinister; thick masses of black wire covered everything, meeting in a clump in the computer core's opening. Nothing to suggest robot zombies or unholy resurrection. After about fifteen seconds, Zel began to wonder what the psychic was talking about.

~Wait,~ Ariah mindspoke, and the metal partition to Zelda's left raised itself into the ceiling. The entire wall was crowded with long transparent cylinders. Within the tubes were the bodies of various CFs and important crew members, suspended in a green-tinted liquid. Some were badly mutilated, but all were obviously dead.

~Except for Entropy-1 and Tala-1, all the CFs I sent out were clones,~ Ariah explained. ~Of course, they don't know they're clones: they all think they're the original.~

~Clones...?! The real...dead??~ Zelda staggered over to the cylinders with a broken gait.

"Ah Goddess.. no..." she cried out softly as fresh tears sprung down her face. ~I thought I had done with crying.~ she admonished herself half-heartedly. How many were here? How many of her friends were gone? With a sudden spurt of anger blocking out her grief for the moment she whirled around (more for the dramatics of it than anything else as she still didn't know where he was physically, if he was) angrily, ~HOW COULD YOU!?!?!? What can POSSIBLY be worth this devastation?!~

~Revenge,~ the calm psychic voice answered. ~Revenge is only worth this to me, not to you, of course. I can MAKE you care, however. That's how I keep the clones in control; organic minds are surprisingly pliable. I'll demonstrate: in less than thirty seconds, you'll hate Entropy.~

"What?!" Zelda exclaimed in surprise and anger. ~Why would I hate...?~ She felt a strange dizziness wash over her, interrupting the thought. Then she remembered how Entropy had tried to rape her, and how Ariah's willing servants had saved her. Zelda felt grateful towards Ariah, but her thankfulness was buried with hate and loathing for Entropy. She envisioned herself wrapping her hands around Entropy's neck and slowly squeezing the life from his body.

~That ought to be enough,~ Ariah spoke into her mind. The same slight dizziness came over her, and Zelda was left with her normal memories, including the memory of having incorrectly remembered that Entropy had tried to rape her.

~That's ridiculous!~ Zelda thought angrily. ~Why would I think something so obviously untrue?~

~I made you think so,~ Ariah answered. ~I can edit memories. Now, tell me this; how can you be sure that your CURRENT memories are all of things that really happened? How can you be sure that you aren't a clone, and that I didn't implant the original Zelda's memories into your mind a few minutes ago? Honestly, can you think of any reason why I wouldn't kill the original Zelda? I killed all the other originals.~

For a moment Zelda's world spun and began to collapse around her. She staggered to her knees with the weight of the paradoxical thoughts. Reality was the mind. But if the mind was untrustworthy, what, then, was reality? Nothing. What was real could just as easily be imagined, what was real? But she caught herself with her hands, her whole body tense.

~No. If you had done that, if you had, you wouldn't bother talking to me. Not like this.~ she clung to that one logical string of thought desperately, it was the only hope in a sea of madness. If it was untrue there was nothing left, reality couldn't exist, she would be driven insane. She tried to assimilate what he had said before to keep her mind off these new possibilities.

~Revenge? For what? I know I've never done anything to you.~ She winced. Know. How could she know anything for certain around this one? No, he was doing this for a reason, he was leaving her with her facilities and normal memories otherwise this whole discussion would be pointless. She wouldn't even be thinking these things. For a moment she felt a bit of sympathy for this creature, how could he live with revenge meaning so much? How had it come to mean so much?

~You don't seem to have considered there might be no external reason for this conversation.~ Ariah mindspoke. ~When there were others of my kind I enjoyed speaking with them, and some residue of that emotional attachment seems to have remained even now. Of course, by resetting your memories back to this moment, I can have this conversation as many times as wish.~ Ariah's psychic voice paused. ~Your company amuses me. I think that I shall create several copies of you when I tire of this discussion. Perhaps I won't even kill you first.~

~Thanks.~ Zelda returned ruefully with an adverse look on her face. ~But,~ she reasoned with an air of hopelessness, ~If doesn't work if it's not really me, otherwise you'd just be talking to yourself...a chess match with one player doing both sides..there are no variables..~ She spoke as much for his benefit (to keep herself and the others around at least a little longer) as for her own sanity. If all else failed she could escape. She felt that the power was there, mentally, though, maybe it was a false power of desperation to keep her hope alive. Or another of Ariah's tricks.

~If all else fails.~ a familiar voice echoed in her mind, for once with loving emotion. ~No..it couldn't be..~ she thought to herself, struggling to her feet. She shook her head, no, now she was playing tricks on herself. Zaria was gone and didn't care.

Zelda shook her head and leaned against the wall, it didn't matter. She had probably imagined the voice anyway. Though, that excuse was just a little convenient. She tried not to look at what was left of her friends, but she could still feel it. She shuddered.

~Not again, not again, not again.~ she unwittingly began the intense mental chant in her heart. It grew in strength--a fire--until each word was a deliberate conscious thought. Finally, she broke the burning incantation and sent a spark of a thought towards Ariah,

~Revenge?~ she queried, the colors of meaning that surrounded her thought-word were disdainful of the very idea, contemptuous of such a base impulse.

~For *what*?~ It was an honest question, she really had no idea what this was all about. It made no sense, so far as she knew, they didn't even know him. She scowled darkly at the thought that her friends were being sacrificed to serve such a petty emotion. She clenched her fists in some vague gesture of determination, if nothing else, she had to know *why*, what had caused all this. Besides, a why leads to understanding, and perhaps some solution, though, normally optimistic, she doubted it.

Then the clear tubes around her exploded releasing the bodies of the Crystal Fighters, they fell to the ground with a thump.

~In their death is yours, your dreaded fear of what’s to come, without them you are left unprotected~ Ariah said to Zelda as she gasped when the bodies turned to dust and billowed up in smoke around her.

~Is this an illusion?~ Zelda asked.

~I don't know is it?~

The smoke began to clog her throat and she choked for air.

~Can you survive without the others? Without Zaria? Without someone to hold your hand?~ Ariah asked.

~I...I...~ she thought desperately, falling to her knees and grabbing at her throat as if it would somehow help her as she gagged desperately, then for a second she saw his face and he smiled at her dying helplessly, then bright light flooded her sight.

"Welcome back to the living." came a familiar voice, UA.

"What?" Zelda asked, desperately looking away from the sun and her eyes began to adjust.

"You had some nightmare there, girl." Tala helped her sit up.

"Nightmare?"

UA nodded.

"Yeah, it seems your psychic nightmares trapped you in your own nightmare, you were dying, Kyle tried to break you free but, well, you gave him quite a backlash."

They looked over at Kyle who rubbed his head and nodded as if to confirm it all.

"We didn't think you were ever going to wake up, Zellie." Dakey hugged her tightly.

"Yeah, luckily we found this nice Faian," Tala nodded towards a man who had helped her.

"You?!?"

~Yes me, my name is Ariah, nice to meet you.~

~But you were there in the dream you wanted to hurt me and the others you were killing...~

~Just a nightmare, it's understandable your sub-conscious would have made me into a character of the dream since I had entered your mind~

Zelda nodded unsure, it had so real, so frightening and so overwhelming.

Zelda looked blankly out at the others. Rupay came and hugged her.

"It's okay Zellie, I could feel how bad the dreams were but you’re okay now, they're gone."

Zelda got up and smiled then turned back to Ariah. But, he was gone.

"Where did he go?"

"Who?" Entropy asked. She was back on the Omricron.

Zelda shook her head, more confused then ever.

"I must have fallen asleep." She said.

Entropy nodded and she rose from her chair and walked back towards her quarters where she got into bed for the night.

~Sweet dreams~ his voice, in her head.

"No" Zelda said out loud, was it real she thought, was any of it real, was any of it not? She lay in bed that night wondering if she would ever be sure of herself, or her mind again.

FAIA

The entity which had taken form as Ariah, returned to his natural state and left the planet to go somewhere else and find someone else to play with.

Editors note: Ariah desperately wanted it NOT to end as the cliché ‘just a dream’ thing and had some kind of brilliant idea for the ending, but he got really busy with school and eventually we just had to end it, lest we be waiting forever ^^; However, if he ever gets a chance to write up the ending I’ll be glad to edit it in instead.

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