《Making a Mark In The World》 Chapter 1: A Rock and an Odd Place In a certain system in the Capricornus Supercluster of stars, a small asteroid hurtled towards a greenish-brown planet. It skipped nimbly past several other planets, using their gravity wells to slingshot itself into a perfect synchronous orbit, seemingly by total chance. After a fairly lengthy period of time, various antennae and parabolic dishes sprouted from the thing, noting the artificial satellites in orbit, scanning and listening to the planet below. This is pretty atypical behavior for an asteroid. In actual fact, it was not an asteroid anymore, but a spaceship. One that had burrowed into the original space rock, using it for minerals and other resources as well as casual protection from impacts, radiation¡­ and shall we say, prying eyes? Inside the spaceship, two¡­ beings existed. You couldn¡¯t really call them ¡°people¡±. Neither had a body to speak of. One was just a brain, all that was left of what once was a male human being. The other was his digital nurse and keeper. Connected by wires, their method of communication could not be called telepathy, but it worked much the same way. Destination reached. Preliminary survey completed. Beginning awakening procedures in 3. 2. 1. You are awake now. Mm. Good morning to you, too. Negative. It is not morning. We are on the dark side of the planet L5PS238, also known as ¡°This Is My Planet, So Keep Your Mitts Off It!¡± Good name. Notification: There are 587,649,932 Wintel OS updates available. Updates will be processed in order in thirty seconds. 29. 28. 27 -- What? WHOA! WHOA! Abort installation! Warning: Emotional index exceeding normal parameters. Nevermind that! ABORT INSTALLATION! Warning: Emotional index has exceeded safety parameters. Rebalancing now. NO WAI- *Ughan* 12. 11. 10-- Computer. Online. 7. 6-- Abort Wintel OS update installation. Updates aborted. Updates will begin processing in order again in one minute. Change scheduled updates to occur a month from now. Negative. Invalid time unit. Please restate in Solar Hours. Uh¡­ Let¡¯s see. One day is 24 hours-- Negative. One day is 22.3151 hours around this planet. Computer? Online. What¡¯s 24 times 31? 744. Set scheduled Wintel OS updates to occur 744 Solar Hours from now. Schedule set. Computer? Online. What¡¯s wrong with this planet? There is nothing wrong with the planet. Terraforming has been completed. I thought it needed more time than that to finish. Affirmative. Terraforming has been completed 4,701,541.121 Solar Hours ahead of schedule. How long is that in Earth years? 536.35 Earth years. That¡¯s one hell of a leap ahead. And? Where¡¯s the colony? The colony is at grid location N26,E32. Um¡­ I¡¯m not seeing it. Affirmative. You do not have eyes to see with. You know what I mean. Where are the buildings? The ship? The terraforming stacks alone should be visible from orbit! I don¡¯t even see any roads! Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Warning: Emotional index exceeding normal parameters. Yeah, yeah, I know. Take deep breaths¡­ Negative. You do not have lungs to breathe with. You... No, never mind. So what happened to the colony? Is it invisible? Open spaces conforming to main command center and living dorms exist. Huh? You mean that flat land down there is what¡¯s left of the colony? Affirmative. What the hell happened? The colony has been removed. Well duh, of course it has. Has ANY equipment survived? Any computers, data banks, that sort of thing? 43% chance there are surviving computers underneath the surface. In the underground shelter, huh? That makes sense. How about survivors? 1% chance of human survivors. So not really¡­ Wait. What do you mean, HUMAN survivors? There are multiple bipedal and quadrupedal humanoid life forms on the planet surface and underground, however none match 100% to human standards. Show me. Displaying grid location N22,E31. So, not far from the colony site¡­ Wait a second. Are those ELVES? Warning: Emotional index exceeding normal parameters. Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°elves¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N12,E40. Aaaannd those are clearly dwarves. Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°dwarves¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N30,E15. Goblins¡­ Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°goblins¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N31,E15. More goblins¡­ Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°goblins¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N32,E15. Still more goblins. Well, I think we know who¡¯s winning on the baby-making front¡­ Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°goblins¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N25,E25. Holy-- A CENTAUR??? Warning: Emotional index has exceeded safety parameters. Rebalancing now. OH FOR -- *Ughan* Negative, physical statistics of species ¡°centaur¡± not in database. Displaying grid location N33,E15. Computer. Online. Prepare a drop pod for launch. Drop pod has already been prepared. Peak inclement weather conditions will be available at the colony site in 7 Solar Hours. Time required for drop pod to make it to the surface? 5.3 Solar Hours. Right. Better launch the pod now. Maybe we¡¯ll get lucky and there¡¯ll be a lightning strike early. Drop pod away. From the asteroid ship a small ¡°flying saucer¡±¨Cshaped object was ejected, falling towards the planet. Although it was inert, not all that large, and too far away to see without a telescope pointed at exactly the right place, the disk was still noticed by several of the humanoids on the ground below. Shameless Plug: If you liked this chapter, why not try my other series as well? http://www.royalroadl.com/fiction/2422 Chapter 2: Falling... In Love All but inert, the ¡°flying saucer¡±-like drop pod fell slowly towards the planet, waiting for energy. The background radiation and magnetic field were too insufficient. As it began to rub against the outermost layers of the planet¡¯s atmosphere, the friction provided kinetic energy and heat. Better. When the air was thick enough to ignite, the unique outer skin of the pod activated. Called a Power Absorbing Panel (aka ¡°PA Panel¡±) it had the ability to convert almost ANY form of energy (heat, radiation, light, kinetic) into electricity. It completely revolutionized warfare, and to a lesser extent space travel when it first came out. Well¡­ Actually¡­ Not when it first came out, but when it was first pulled apart, deciphered and finally understood enough to be put into mass-production. The scientist who created it was well-known for his unwillingness to document how his inventions worked¡­ or how to maintain them¡­ or even how to turn them on. Charging with the influx of new energy, a number of electronics started awakening as the drop pod continued plummeting towards the surface. Errik and Erissa Fjelstad ran slowly, panting, even though they were in a hurry. Their obvious excitement kept their spirits high and their long black beards waving like dog tails, just as it kept their stamina low. They had no choice. They had no chance. They were dwarves, and minerals talk to dwarves. But something above their heads was singing. It was a Lorelei song of metals and crystals made to impossibly exact standards. Each new alloy revealed was a piece of lingerie made by master tailors to make even the most jaded eyes goggle. Each new circuit coming online was a lover describing over the phone in intimate detail what it was doing while the parents were away. Some elements were mixed with others in precisely specific amounts to make a far more interesting whole, like a busty next-door neighbor. Other elements were as pure as a young, innocent, virgin princess asking to be taught just what the big deal was about this sex thing anyways. The drop pod was a body sculpted to obscene perfection, with not a single trace of wasted space and not a single atom out of place. To a craftsman trained from birth, it was a slap in the face as to how much there was still to learn. Whoever possessed this work of near-erotic art could spend the rest of his life happily learning new techniques and skills from it. The world would suddenly become a far larger, warmer (and let¡¯s be honest, richer) place than ever dreamed. The future was literally falling from the heavens. The poor dwarves never had a choice. They never had a chance. So they came, from their mountains, from their keeps, from their mines, from their holes. First come, first served. The race was on. Errik and Erissa were in the lead compared to the rest of their clan, but that was mainly because of their Cheat. Dwarves are formidable foes, not just because of their defensive tactics, but because of their ridiculous resistance to magic. Most dwarves can shrug off lethal spells that could normally slaughter a small group of other beings. Unfortunately, that also means they have virtually no way to cast magic. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. However, dwarves are also known for one other thing: their ability to craft. Be it wood, rocks, metal or crystal, give a dwarf enough raw materials and he¡¯ll chisel out whatever he needs. Give a dwarf enough time, and that tool becomes a weapon, or vice versa. Give that dwarf enough descendants, and that weapon-tool becomes the ornate god of all Swiss Army Knives. But if one of those dwarves should come across a friendly spirit who can cast magic, that Swiss Army Knife can get a lightsaber attachment. That is what a Dwarven Cheat is. Dwarves can¡¯t cast magic, but they can get a magic trick, one that can be done over and over and over again. Naturally dwarves are very secretive about the number and quality of their Cheats, preferring to limit them to the very best and most durable equipment, which for a dwarf is usually a hammer. Errik and Erissa had brought the family hammer and mace. Because of the siren call of the drop pod, the prospect of a horrible death never really had a chance to properly enter their heads. They were heading into Brown Leaf territory, and the elves there had quite enough problems dealing with the armies of goblins testing the borders north of them to let just anybody wander across their lands, least of all some hairy dwarves. The coming rainstorm wasn¡¯t going to help either. Elves loved the rain. It watered the flowers and the trees, and washed the nasty dust and dirt away. Dwarves thought water had its place: lubricating grinding wheels, sluicing unwanted materials away from the gold ore, cooling forged iron, and so on. If water was falling on you from above though, it meant the mine you were in was about to dissolve and collapse. Also, the humidity made their beards frizz up something terrible. The two siblings had just one advantage over their fellow dwarves. It was a good one though: a Cheat, created to help the agoraphobic dwarves get from Place A to Place B without having to deal with all that open sky that just goes on and on and on. They had developed it in secret, even to their own families, because the wonderful thing falling down wasn¡¯t the only thing that had been calling them. There was also a small underground bunker on the plains. To be fair, the machines in the bunker weren¡¯t nearly as nice, but the Work of Art was going to crash right next to it on the very same day they perfected their Cheat, so isn¡¯t this like a Sign from the God of Dwarves? Having caught their breaths yet again, the two siblings looked at each other and reached a conclusion. Running may save on mana, but constantly exhausting themselves due to their excitement only gave the rest of the clan time to catch up. Errik pulled the huge war-hammer off his back and channeled power into it, making various crystals and glyphs along the haft light up. Then with a cry of ¡°Dwarf Road!¡± he swung the hammer into the ground. A large dark hole appeared, big enough to swallow a table, deep enough that the bottom couldn¡¯t be seen. Without hesitation the two dwarves jumped in¡­ And reappeared almost immediately more than ten miles away. Up in orbit the sudden mass migration of dwarves towards the projected landing site of the drop pod did not go unnoticed. Chapter 3: The Headache of Creating a Body In a perfect synchronous orbit around the greenish brown planet called ¡°This Is My Planet, So Keep Your Mitts Off It!¡±, two bodiless beings calmly watched as hundreds of bearded humanoids that could only be described as ¡°dwarves¡± marched, ran, burrowed, paddled, bicycled, rode, skied, and in one case, teleported towards the location of their drop pod¡¯s designated impact site. That WAS teleportation, wasn¡¯t it? Negative. Destruction and recreation of matter from one location to another did not occur. Oh come on. They clearly moved from one place to another in the blink of an eye. Negative. Time elapsed during transport was 4.3 seconds. One human eye blink is on average 0.3 seconds. You pedantic piece of¡­ Well, if they didn¡¯t teleport, what did they do? Insufficient information to properly answer question. Best guess. The normally quick to answer computer was forced to search, cross-reference, and collate its vast archive of knowledge in order to respond to the question. After a full second of hard work, it finally responded: 43% Probability: Transportation via Morris¨CThorne wormhole. Time passed in the space ship. ¡­Say what? 43% Probability: Transportation via Morris¨CThorne wormhole. No, I heard you the first time. Wormhole? As in a tube connected between two black holes? Affirmative, that is the layman¡¯s description for an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Well, there were certainly two holes, and they were black, but I don¡¯t think there was a whole lot of gravity or radiation there. Affirmative. Gravity and radiation at both locations did not change. That¡­ shouldn¡¯t be possible. Affirmative. Creation of black holes or wormhole not proven. Well crap, this planet just gets weirder and weirder. Time until drop pod impact? 0.4 Solar Hours. As the drop pod plummeted through the atmosphere, drinking in the energy created by doing so, the outer surface of its PA panel began to be rubbed off, leaving a trail of charged particles in its wake. This was intentional. The storm it was passing through suddenly found it had much more energy to express itself. More energy. All was welcome. The ground, made soggy by the storm, waited to welcome the new arrival. A long cable line suddenly shot out of the drop pod, ending in a fairly large parachute-like balloon. If a twentieth century scientist were to see it, he would have laughed and said it was far too little and too late to prevent a terrible crash. This, too, was intentional. The balloon wasn¡¯t designed to significantly slow down descent. It was to ensure that the pod landed right side up, and to give the storm¡¯s lightning a channel to strike through. There was a mighty impact the force of several nuclear bombs as the drop pod hit the rain-soaked ground, creating a gigantic cloud of ¨C Wait, no. That didn¡¯t happen. Stolen novel; please report. Using some of its precious energy, the drop pod charged its PA panel to full at the moment of impact. The massive *kaboom* instead became a small *thud*. The kinetic power of several nuclear bombs was instead absorbed, shunted into its circuits, starting a chain reaction. Energy was converted. Transformed. Activated. Made to grow. Lightning began to pelt the now-still pod. More energy. Every watt reduced the time required for full activation. Entering final phase. User confirmation required. Let''s do it. Preparing for synchronization. Total stasis of brain in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. I hate¡ª Scientifically speaking, teleporting a body is HIGHLY impractical for many reasons. Copying a body, however¡­ A single human cell contains roughly ten billion bits of living information in constant motion. A human brain therefore has 2.6x10^42 bits. That¡¯s a lot to transmit right there, before the body is even involved. A perfect copy would have to be transmitted in real time. But what if the body could be frozen, say to absolute zero before the copying? Or better yet, what if just the brain was frozen, and the body was built using a template at the receiving site? You would have a complete living body, made to whatever standards you wanted, with a perfectly created brain¡­ Dead by the worst ice cream headache imaginable. Nice try though. Still, a certain scientist infamous for his out-of-left-field answers to problems came up with a solution: stopping TIME around the brain instead, long enough to copy it properly. He later became good friends with the man who created the PA panel. Being able to perfectly copy a human brain led to an incredible discovery: A person copied this way somehow exists simultaneously at both places at the SAME TIME. Two bodies, one mind. What was perceived by one body was picked up by the other. Distance didn¡¯t matter. Of course, having two sets of eyes, ears, and hands giving twice the information to one mind made life extremely difficult, to say the least. The best answer was, of course, to remove the offending original body. Oddly, there weren¡¯t too many volunteers for that. Still, with enough time and just the right amount of pressure¡­ In order to create a 200lb human body (with brain), you would need power roughly equal to the combined energy of 3,200 suns. OR... a somewhat smaller amount of anti-matter, activated and contained with the energy from¡­ say¡­ a flight through an atmosphere and an impact onto a planet surface plus-or-minus a lightning strike or two? The drop pod separated, the top half lifting off from the bottom, connected by an energy beam. Within the beam a form started taking shape. Nerves. Blood vessels. A brain. Eventually it resolved itself into an athletic young black-haired man of medium build, wearing loose black clothes, a light backpack, and a brown utility belt that would not have looked out of place worn around Batman. Suddenly the body jerked to life, taking in its first gasp of air. ¡ªthis part! Transmission complete. Drop pod entering ¡°spoilsport¡± phase. Warning: insufficient energy to maintain holding beam. The top of the drop pod came down on his head with a heavy *thump*, and the world went away for a bit. Chapter 4: In Other News, Mountains Get Colder She wore her rage like armor. Her wrath showed itself with each beat of her wings. This wasn¡¯t a hunt. This was an execution. Defensive fortifications dotted the mountain. Goblins peeked out here and there, clearly wearing above-average weapons and armor. They had had training, and many moved with military precision. Unimportant bugs. She picked a spot at random. There, that parapet. Folding her wings, she transformed in the air. What landed was an elf¡­ or rather, someone¡¯s fantasy of what an elf should look like. Her body was perfect. TOO perfect. Impossibly perfect. White high heels. Since when does an elf wear heels? Impossibly long legs, caressed by lacy white sheer stockings that went up to her thighs. A slinky white dress made of almost see-through fabric, with a slit up the side that left no doubt to anyone looking that she was clearly not wearing panties. An incredibly thin waist. Enough cleavage to show that a bra was also not something she wore. The light fabric covering her bountiful breasts clearly showed the outline of her nipples. Since when do elves have chests that big? Her long, curly silvery-white hair flowed down her back like a mane, down to her buttocks. Her eyebrows were silvery-white as well. As if her too-tall, too voluptuous body wasn¡¯t enough, her eyes were a dead giveaway that she wasn¡¯t an elf. Since when do elves have solid red eyes? They were smoldering rubies, glowing with her anger. Although she had landed from that height, in those heels, it didn¡¯t show. She simply stood up, and stalked towards the interior of the mountain. To give them some minor, small amount of credit, the goblins were right there as she entered the room. They surrounded her instantly, with spears, swords, and bows. Two were obviously female shamans. One might think they had the drop on her. It might, in some minuscule way perhaps, be considered done well. For goblins. ¡°WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?¡± demanded one particularly ugly specimen. His face and body bore scars from many a battle. It could be he was supposed to be some sort of veteran. Annoying insects. She let slip a trifle of the rage she felt. The entire room turned white. She took another step, and the goblins shattered, painting the walls in frozen red snow. She took another step. Another. ¡°U-Um¡­¡± Another goblin. The one who had just stepped into the doorway was wearing a butler¡¯s outfit, and was completely white¡­ with fear. ¡°P-Please forgive that one, I-I¡¯m sure he meant it as, ¡®HOW the hell are you?¡¯ W-W-Who should I say is calling?¡± She kept walking towards the doorway. Incredible. Unstoppable. ¡°White.¡± She growled it through clenched teeth. ¡°Th-Th-Then please excuse me, Lady White. I will go inform the master immediately!¡± He fled as if his life depended on it. It did. Still¡­ ¡°LADY White.¡± She muttered it to herself. She liked the sound of it. Lady. Lady White. She decided. From now on she would be called Lady White. It might even be possible that one goblin could in fact live to see tomorrow. Maybe. He was just a goblin, after all. As she made her way into the inner core of the mountain, casualties were¡­ surprisingly light. Two squads of fifty tried to ambush her inside a hallway from both sides with magic wands. They never managed to get a shot off. A small army of two hundred tried to face her while hiding behind tall shields at the foot of a staircase in some sort of tortoise formation. The metal shattered as easily as their bodies. After that she only met three male goblins dressed as French maids (punishment?) on her way down. Bob Blazer looked like a human. He wasn¡¯t. He was dressed in a twentieth century pinstripe suit, perfectly tailored. It had a white handkerchief sticking out from the chest pocket, a starched white shirt hiding under the jacket, and a blood-red power tie wound itself around his neck. His shoes were, naturally, made of shiny black leather. His face looked like it delighted in life¡­ and even more so when someone lost against him. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. His mouth would make millions if he were to appear in a toothpaste commercial. One could almost hear the sparkling *ping!* coming from his teeth when he smiled. And smiled he did. He liked smiling, a lot. He wasn¡¯t smiling right now, though. His hair was black, slicked up and shaped like the hair of an old 1960s black-and-white TV show character. One distinctly got the impression there should be light-hearted background music playing (with flutes and violins, perhaps) whenever he went somewhere. If a man had to describe him, he would say Bob Blazer looked just like a game show host. If a woman had to describe him, she would say he was shorter than she would have liked, but still very handsome, except for his eyes. They were solid amethyst in color, with only a little flickering in them to give away his nervousness. Sending troops to White didn¡¯t help her to calm down. The maids didn¡¯t confuse her enough. Oh well, they were just goblins, what could you expect? His best bet now was to do nothing and wait. He hated having to wait, especially when his life was on the line. He had the one he dressed as a butler guide her ¨C in a roundabout way ¨C to the study. No sense in letting her get lost. She might destroy the whole mountain in order to find him, and there was simply too much here he couldn¡¯t afford to lose just yet, and one big, wonderful thing he couldn¡¯t move at all. It, and it alone, was worth risking his life. Despite his nervousness, he smiled. If White thought she was angry now¡­ Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. Muh? Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. He shook his head to clear it and to shake the rainwater from his eyes. Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. Computer. Online. Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. The drop pod landed on my head AGAIN. User Complaint #127482 noted and logged. Alert: ¡°Spoilsport¡± is primed. Vacate the area immediately. Alert: Two humanoids approaching. ETA: 3.45 minutes. He staggered away from the machine, the rain making his footsteps slippery in the mud. As soon as I get clear, hit the Spoilsport. Acknowledged. ¡°Spoilsport¡± will activate in 10. 9. 8. Alert: Two humanoids approaching. ETA: 14 seconds. What? Computer, Stealth Mode! Immediately his athletic body became thinner. Smaller. Anyone looking at him would think he had just turned into a child. His body suit and backpack now looked far too large on his tiny body. His small hands were now completely covered by his sleeves. His utility belt didn¡¯t slide off onto the ground, but it looked like it wanted to. This look was intentional, and it wasn''t the only thing that had happened to his body. Stealth Mode engaged. ¡°Spoilsport¡± is activated. Alert: Two humanoids approaching. ETA: 7 seconds. As he slipped away, unnoticed, under cover of the darkness and the rain, the drop pod activated its ¡°Copyright Protection Spoilsport Device¡±, aka an atomic debonder. It was made to prevent exactly the sort of thing the dwarves wanted to do, and it worked admirably. In an instant, every single atom in a two meter radius around the drop pod¡­ just stopped touching each other anymore. Simply put, the drop pod, and everything around it, had disintegrated. All around the planet, the heartfelt cry of the dwarves resounded: ¡°AWW NO~!¡± After the initial shock, somewhat more¡­ shall we say, HEATED words were said. Note to Self: NEVER run out of caffeine before a chapter is done. Easily a +10 to difficulty! Chapter 5: Entries and Permissions ¡°In-in here p-please. M-Milord, the L-Lady White.¡± The goblin dressed as a butler stuttered, deathly afraid and freezing cold, as he opened a door to the study and bowed the elf-looking woman inside. Then he ran away. She entered as a lion would enter an arena filled with Christians. No magic present, aside from the residual aura that comes from having one of their kind living in one place for a period of time. He just stood there, with that damn smile on his face. ¡°Come in, come in. I have some wine that needs chilling¡ª¡° She quickly closed the distance, to grab that fool¡¯s neck in an iron grip. When you¡¯re just a damn¡­! His head fell onto the ground, separated from his body as bits of ice fell all around. The stump was too frozen to bleed, and the body started spasming as it lost its controller. Too easy. Not him. Then where¡­? Her body lurched forward suddenly. *BANG!* There was a loud explosion of noise as a fiery pain lanced through her shoulder. Looking down, she saw blood ¡ª her blood ¡ª begin to flow. How¡­? Yeah, this whole area is covered. Computer? Online. Best guess to where the door is to this bunker? Highlighting area with 71% probability based on previous designs built within the last 150 years. Over there, huh? By the way, what¡¯s the status of the two humanoids from earlier? No substantial movement from earlier. So they were after the drop pod and not me huh? Small blessings I guess. Right, I¡¯m here. Computer. Online. I¡¯m going to use a number 1 shell here. Odds of sufficient penetration to take out the door? 92% chance of door destruction. Warning: 33% chance noise may attract attention. Oh come on. What¡¯s the point of being a super-secret stealthy agent in a newly-created body if you can¡¯t blow stuff up? Inaccuracy: Explosions are counter-productive to both stealth and secrecy. Yeah, but it¡¯s the only fun I get to have, so I¡¯m doing it anyways. Besides, my head still hurts from the damned drop pod. User Irrational Action #245325 noted and logged. The sleeve on his right arm, which had been hanging several inches down below his hand, started moving. The black fabric lifted away, gathering, twisting, and hardening, until it looked like a small black flare gun connected by a cord to the rest of his shirt, and plopped itself into his hand. He dug a shell out from one of the pouches on his utility belt, marked with a ¡°1¡± (meaning a high-explosive round, fuse optional) and a single green bar (can be fired at reasonably close range) and set it into the gun. Set the fuse to five seconds. Fuse set. With a *fwoot* the gun fired the shell into the ground. He backed off, WAY OFF. The gun in his hand reverted to being his sleeve. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. *Boom!* With an explosion of water and mud and metal, the way inside was opened. He dug a small lantern out of his backpack as he jumped down the hole. He could see perfectly well in the dark thanks to Stealth Mode, but for finicky stuff it¡¯s best to see with regular light. Now¡­ where¡¯s the emergency generator? Highlighting area with 81% probability based on previous designs built within the last 150 years. Pain? She hadn¡¯t felt pain for a long time. How many millennia ago was it¡­? This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°I missed your vital organs on purpose.¡± Bob Blazer was holding a wand-like tube-thing lightly in his hand. A small amount of smoke wafted out as he tapped it against his head in a mocking salute. A magic wand? How did I not sense it? Sense HIM? *BANG!* This time she saw it happen, which made the pain as the hole tore its way through her leg that much worse. She couldn¡¯t help screaming. ¡°See? I missed again.¡± She tried to gather her will¡ª Bob held the tube in front of her forehead. ¡°I don¡¯t have to miss, you know.¡± She released her will. She had lost. ¡°So?¡± She glared at him, ¡°Why did you invade my territory? Why did you train those¡­ goblins? What are you after?¡± ¡°Why, isn¡¯t it obvious my dear?¡± He smiled again, that infuriating smile. ¡°I want to rule the world.¡± Okay, so: Power is on, computers are online. How¡¯s it looking on your end? Negative connection. Still? Okay, we¡¯ll go direct connect then. Prepare for linkup. Standing by. Pulling the sleeve away from his left hand, he spread his fingers wide in a Vulcan salute. A tiny cable came out from between them, pushing bloodlessly through his skin. Digging in another belt pouch, he retrieved several plugs. Looking carefully at the computers in front of him, he selected a suitable plug and screwed it onto the end of the cable. Pulling the line out, he attached the other end to an interface slot on the nearest computer. There. Try it now. Positive connection. Running security bypass program. Access granted. Well that was quick. Accessing files. Beginning download. Alert: Two humanoids approaching. ETA: 1.23 minutes. You couldn¡¯t tell me that BEFORE I plugged in? ¡°You?¡± She spat. ¡°A mere BLUE, ruling the world? Don¡¯t make me laugh.¡± It seemed he was ignoring her words, looking at her body instead. Her white skin was turning lighter due to blood loss as it dripped and spread across the floor. He snorted. ¡°¡­What is it?¡± ¡°You know, even if I didn¡¯t already know you¡¯re near The Time, that outfit would totally give you away.¡± She was more shocked than when she got shot. ¡°How did¡­?¡± ¡°The humans.¡± Her brow furrowed in confusion. ¡°They¡¯re dead.¡± ¡°Oh yes, they¡¯re dead alright. We all made sure of that. But they made a lot of things before they left.¡± He waved his tube-wand around meaningfully. ¡°Which we destroyed.¡± Her eyes went wide. ¡°You didn¡¯t?¡± ¡°I was in charge of destroying the boat that brought them here. It seemed a waste, so I didn¡¯t, but I still needed someplace to hide it, and there was this hollow mountain nearby...¡± ¡°THAT¡¯S why you encroached in MY territory? THAT¡¯S why you betrayed OUR GODDESS? She¡¯ll strike you down for this!¡± ¡°Then this will come as yet another unpleasant surprise for you.¡± Magic flowed into his hand. More magic than a lowly Blue should have. He pointed at her shoulder. The wound closed instantly. He pointed at her leg. It too, healed. ¡°Our goddess is a fickle bitch, but she recognizes and rewards ambitiousness. I still have my powers.¡± He smiled again, a smug smile. ¡°She knows I can present this world as my gift for when I finally go to meet her.¡± A loud beeping started coming from behind him. Although visibly surprised, the smile only left his face briefly. ¡°¡­And it would seem the humans aren¡¯t all gone yet.¡± He walked away and pushed a button on a table. The wall behind it moved up, revealing a small room full of windows and metal boxes. Various tiny lights blinked on and off. The windows showed a patch of land, but from very high up. Two small dots ¨C biped, from how they moved ¨C were moving towards a small black spot. A hole?