Rise of Gamma: Part 2

Rise of Gamma: Part 2 is the sixth episode of Tech 10: Rebooted's second season, and the eighteenth episode overall.

Episode
Falling down a trash chute, for whatever reason, is not one of the better experiences to be had in this life. You would probably be better off just about anywhere else in the universe, and you know it.

Thus, Tech, Moranna, and Napoleon were not having a good time of things at the moment.

“About how long do you think it’ll take us to hit the ground?” Napoleon asked.

“About ten seconds.” Tech replied. “Speaking of which...”

Tech quickly transformed into Gravitar and slowed their descent, eventually allowing them to land softly on the ground below. They found themselves in a surprisingly large chamber, empty save for a thin layer of ashes on the ground. Alpha’s Data Crystal had rolled into a corner, next to a large hole in the wall covered by a charred grill.

“Looks like an incineration system.” Moranna said. “We’ll have to move fast.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a hissing noise started up, followed shortly by clicking.

“I don’t think we can move fast enough!” Tech yelled. “Get behind me!”

Moranna and Napoleon swiftly ran behind Tech, barely getting out of the way of a massive wave of fire. The sudden heat smashed into their bodies like a load of bricks, but was unable to burn them. The fire eventually died down, the smoke produced by it being sucked away into a ventilation system. The two looked up to find Tech holding up a wall of boiling water in front of them, having transformed into a now somewhat melted Overtide.

“Well, that was unpleasant.” Tech remarked, detransforming. “Funny thing, that’s actually my second time using Overtide to stop from getting fried by a trash incinerator.”

“Yeah, are you going to explain that or what?” Napoleon asked.

“You will get nothing and like it!”

Moranna walked over to Alpha’s Data Crystal, which, though hot to the touch, was still fully intact.

“Well, we have the crystal, what do we do now?” She asked, picking it up.

“Now we teleport out of here and pretend this never happened!” Tech replied, tapping a few buttons on the SpecTrix. “And away we go!”

Nothing happened.

“I said, away we go!” Tech pressed the SpecTrix again.

Nothing happened.

“Okay, what?”

“You know, since pretty much the entire planet must know we’re here by now, they’ve probably activated some sort of teleportation jamming device.” Moranna pointed out.

“Why wouldn’t they just have that on all the time?!”

“Given the way teleportation works, trying to stop the process takes a lot of power, so I doubt they’d just keep it up twenty four-seven.”

“They have literally cloaked their entire planet!” Tech snapped.

“Which has to take a lot power, meaning it can’t be used on other things.” Moranna rebutted. “Try to think, if you would.”

“Well, great! What do we do now?!”

“I’m all for getting out of the trash incinerator.” Napoleon volunteered.

“I mean beyond that! We can’t just fight off an entire planet of highly trained militia!”

“We were doing pretty well before.”

“We were trying to run through the troops before, not fight each and every one of them!”

“Well, what about the synthetic Magisters?”

“Look, they’re good, but probably not ‘take down an entire planet’ good. We need something either a lot more powerful, or a lot better at planning. Preferably both. Something like...”

“Something like her?” Moranna asked, holding up Alpha’s Data Crystal.

Tech gave her a staunch glare.

“How about something that isn’t bent on killing me?”

“She may want you dead, but she’s at least reasonable.” Moranna pointed out. “We should at least be able to work together until we’re off this planet.”

“Yeah, besides, you’ve got backup this time around!” Napoleon said.

Tech paused for a moment to think.

“That’s all well and good, but how are we supposed to get her out of stasis?” He asked. “It’s not like we have some sort of ‘de-stasis’ machine.”

“Since when do you need a machine to deactivate stasis?” Moranna replied. “I can just do it myself.”

“...You’re saying you can deactivate stasis.”

“Yep.”

“By yourself.”

“Exactly.”

“Without any machines.”

“Indeed.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Like this.”

Moranna placed the fingertips of her left hand on the Data Crystal, forming visible distortions in the stasis field. She then quickly rotated her hand and pulled it away from the crystal, causing the stasis field to flow into her fingers like electricity, then quickly dissolve.

“Already I’m confused.” Tech remarked.

“Stasis fields like this are generally electricity-based, so species within a specific range of conductivity, such as humans, can manually disperse them by using-”

“And already I don’t care.”

Before Moranna could reply, the Data Crystal began glowing, then lifted itself into the air. Moranna stepped back, the glow beginning to grow into a solid shape. Said shape initially took the form of a skeletal structure, which was quickly covered by ‘muscle’ and ‘skin’ layers, turning the glow into a humanoid, mannequin-esque form. Synthetic fibers similar in shape to hair flowed from the form’s head, as the form itself took on a more detailed shape. The glow eventually faded for the most part, leaving a fully-formed Alpha to fall gracefully to the ground, landing on her feet. She opened her eyes and looked around, stopping upon catching sight of Tech, Moranna, and Napoleon.

“Well, then.” She began. “It appears that I’ve missed a good few events.”

“Hello to you too, Alpha.” Tech remarked dryly. “I’d say it’s good to see you again, but I’d be lying through my teeth.”

“The feeling is somewhat mutual.” Alpha replied. “Why did you release me from stasis?”

“Technically, she did that.” Tech gestured to Moranna. “Can’t say I was particularly fond of the idea, but we’re kinda stuck at the moment.”

“I’m assuming you know about the Obsidian Death?” Moranna asked.

“As much as the rest of the galaxy, yes.”

“Well, at the moment, we’re stuck in the bottom of a trash incinerator on their home planet.”

“...How would you even manage that?” Alpha asked quizzically.

“We had a tracking device!” Napoleon declared.

“For what?”

“For you.” Tech replied. “Your Data Crystal went missing, and so we thought we should probably do something about that before you came back and tried to wreak vengeance or whatever. Turns out that you were taken by the Obsidian Death, so that point has become somewhat moot.”

“For the record, I do not ‘wreak vengeance’.” Alpha said. “At any rate, what would the Obsidian Death need with my Data Crystal?”

“No idea, but it looked like they were draining some sort of energy from it.”

“And beyond that, the Obsidian Death is a lot freakier than you’d think.” Napoleon interjected. “They’re not just any old gang at this point, they’re an entire military group!”

“Who are you?” Alpha asked.

“Napoleon Eldridge, wielder of nanobots and an overall tank!”

“...I see. This is certainly an interesting situation.”

Alpha began slowly pacing.

“We’re stranded on a planet ruled by the Obsidian Death, who have apparently become a militia.” She recanted. “And I’m assuming you want my help leaving, which would explain why you brought me out of stasis.”

“That’s the gist of it.” Tech said.

“And how would it benefit me to not simply kill you right now and leave myself, having that over and done with?”

“Simple.” Tech tsked. “We have information on the Anti-Life Entity that you don’t.”

Napoleon and Moranna gave Tech a quick glance of confusion.

“What information would that be?” Alpha asked.

“If I told you, that would more or less end my usefulness at the moment.”

“And how am I supposed to trust that you would give me this information?”

“Would I lie?”

“Yes.” Alpha firmly stated. “All research on you indicates yes, you would lie, and possibly sell out your own grandmother in the process.”

“Look, as much fun as a granny-trafficking business sounds, I’m running out of options at the moment.” Tech rebutted, rolling his eyes. “Here, let me rephrase this: would I ever, in a million years, ask someone like you for help if I didn’t absolutely need to?”

“The fact that you’re working with Ceres should tell me all I need to know about that.”

“And I need her help.” Tech replied, using a series of arm gestures to accentuate his point. “You see where I’m going with this?”

“That you have a bad track record with women?” Napoleon suggested.

“Not helping, Napoleon!”

“...Alright.” Alpha interjected. “I’ll work with you on getting off-planet, on the condition you share what you know about the entity.”

“Deal.”

Alpha turned away from the three and raised her right hand, aiming it diagonally upwards.

“Cover yourselves.” She advised. “This may result in some debris.”

Up on the surface, Omega wasn’t doing very well.

Wave after wave of troops had arrived, attacked, and been defeated, but more an more just kept coming, some of the first troops even having time to get back up and keep fighting. At this point, is was like trying to fight off a swarm of killer ants.

“Omega Beam!” Omega yelled, trying to charge up its signature weapon.

A small orb of energy flickered to life momentarily, then quickly faded away.

“Not enough power for that, huh?” It sighed. “Looks like I might be having to separate soon.”

More troops flooded in, firing at Omega. Before they could land any proper hits, however, a patch of ground near the building exploded upwards, creating a cloud of dirt and debris. Seconds later, wires of solid light suddenly shot out of the cloud, bouncing off the ground and various armor until they hit their target. Once they stopped moving, their position became clear; they had threaded themselves through practically every gun in the area. There was a quick yank on the wires from their original point, tensing them up and slicing right through the guns, destroying them.

Omega turned towards the source of the wires, finding that the dust had cleared, revealing Tech, Moranna, Napoleon, and more significantly, Alpha, who had a firm grip on said wires.

“Well, well, it has been a while!” Omega exclaimed. “If I didn’t have the Magisters’ memories of you trying to kill them, I’d be positively ecstatic!”

“Circumstances have changed, unfortunately.” Alpha replied. “I see, however, that you have not.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“It’s a statement of fact.”

“Fair enough.”

“Hey, this reunion is nice and all, but you think you could hurry it up?” Tech interrupted. “We sort of have a situation here!”

“Why don’t you just teleport us out?” Omega asked. “That’s something you can do, right?”

“Normally, yeah, but these guys are blocking the teleportation signal!”

“What about your Kanipoto transformation?”

“You have a Kanipoto transformation?!” Moranna snapped.

“Yeah, Temportal.” Tech replied. “Why does it matter?”

There were a few moments of awkward silence as everyone in the area, including the Obsidian Death troops still conscious, gave him a disbelieving look.

“...Kanipoto don’t teleport using teleportation signals, Tech.” Moranna explained frustratedly, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Their abilities are spacetime-based.”

“Oh yeah, I guess that would make sense.”

“You never thought about this?!”

“Hey, I have like thirty transformations to keep track of, cut me some slack!”

“...You have THIRTY TRANSFORMATIONS?! I’ve only ever seen you use half of that!”

“Calm down, Ceres.” Alpha interrupted. “As aggravating as incompetence is, I hardly believe anger will accomplish anything beyond clouding your judgment.”

“As much as I enjoy being receiving criticism from two people who’ve tried to kill me,” Tech said dryly. “I think we should get a move on before more troops arrive.”

“Uh, hey, aren’t we forgetting something?” Napoleon asked. “Why did the Obsidian Death take off with Alpha’s Data Crystal in the first place?”

“That...is a good point.” Tech replied. “It looked like they were draining some sort of energy from the crystal. Any ideas on that?”

“Well, the Data Crystals were constructed with the galaxy’s first Infinite Energy generators.” Omega said. “That probably has something to do with it.”

“If they wanted infinite energy from it, wouldn’t they have needed to keep the crystal?”

“No, no, no, I’m talking about Infinite Energy, capitalized. It’s a special sort of energy that, once you place it into a proper structure, will continuously generate using stray matter and other energies in the area.”

“...That sounds both exceedingly useful and dangerous at the same time.”

“Right. Production was unanimously banned after the Magistrate passed away, due to fear of it being weaponized.”

“I feel like the threat of weaponization wouldn’t be enough for most governments to ban something that useful.”

“Well, there’s also the fact that if it builds up for too long without use, it will violently implode, creating a microscopic black hole that exists just long enough to rip apart half a planet.”

“And you’re telling me that the Obsidian Death just got their hands on as much of this stuff as they want?”

“Technically, any amount of this stuff past the stability point is as much as you want, but basically, yeah.”

Tech sighed in frustration.

“So now we have to get that stuff back somehow.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Energy readings for the area indicate an increasing amount of Infinite Energy headed for the large fort on the horizon.” Alpha interjected. “You should be able to get there before them and grab whatever they’re using to carry the energy.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to run through entire hordes of enemies and still get there in time?”

“...You can’t be serious.”

“Temportal, Tech.” Moranna groaned. “Just. Use. Temportal.”

“Oh, right.”

Tech pulled up the SpecTrix and transformed into Temportal, using the surrounding debris to create a portal.

“Moranna, Napoleon, you’re with me.” He said. “Alpha, I don’t trust you in the slightest, so you should probably stay here with Omega.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable.”

Tech, Moranna, and Napoleon stepped through the portal, which disappeared a few seconds after.

“What do you think’s in that fortress anyway?” Omega asked.

“If I had to guess?” Alpha replied. “One hell of a fight.”

The three stepped out of the portal in front of a large, thick metal door in the middle of a massive, long hallway. Tech detransformed, closing off the portal, and moved in for a closer look.

“What the heck are they keeping in there that needs a door like this?” He wondered aloud.

“Weapons, loot, various valuable items, take your pick.” Moranna suggested.

“Don’t they have energy shield technology for stuff like that?”

“Eh, I’m sure there’s some sort of trick to the door.” Napoleon said, walking over to it. “Maybe it’s Taydenite coated or some-”

Napoleon cut off his own sentence in surprise as he leaned against the door, unintentionally opening it and falling onto the ground.

“-thing.” He finished, getting to his feet.

“Holy crap, is it dark in there.” Tech remarked, squinting into the room. “I can’t see a thing.”

“Neither can-hold on a second, what are those?” Moranna asked, pointing into the room.

“What are what?” Napoleon replied, squinting his eyes. “Wait, hold on, now I see it. Those kinda look like-”

“Eyes.” A gravelly voice sounded from deep in the room.

Tech, Moranna, and Napoleon froze at the sound, still staring at the faintly glowing red lights in the back of the room.

“I admit, I wasn’t expecting you to make it this far.” The voice continued, sounding almost bored. “You pay the wages of an entire militia, and they can’t even kill a few humans? At some point, you have to wonder if they’re even trying.”

“To be fair, we tend not to be human when we’re fighting them.” Napoleon interjected.

“I am well aware of that, child. But your minds are still human, no matter the form you take. Your ideals, personalities, and all else that makes up the cores of your beings do not change.”

There was a shifting noise as the eyes in the back of the room began to move higher.

“You are still only human, and human ability will always be limited. Our creators knew that truth above all.”

“Sorry, what?” Napoleon said. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of pretentiousness in the room.”

“Pretentiousness is putting up a front to appear better than you are.” The figure the eyes belonged to began moving closer to the door, each step shaking the ground. “I hold no such misconceptions.”

As the figure made its way closer to the entrance, light started to outline its features, revealing a massive, bulky humanoid shape with a horn.

“I was created to be superior!”

The large figure finally stepped into the light, revealing its earthen form. It had a short head with no apparent mouth, large, hooked blades on its arms, and four eyes, two on its head, and two on its chest. Its torso appeared to have a maw built into it, and its overall shape was somewhat jagged. Despite this odd appearance, however, it was still all too clear what this person was.

“What the...” Tech said, taking a step backwards. “You’re...an Animam Creari?!”

“I am the first Animam Creari.” The figure clarified. “I have existed since the beginning, and will be the only being to survive the end. My initial title is far too removed from your universe’s concept of language, so for now, I am known by the name of Prelude.”

“Hold on a second, an Animam Creari is the leader of the Obsidian Death?” Napoleon interrupted. “I thought your guys’s deal was collecting data or whatever.”

“For most of my species, that assertion holds true.” Prelude confirmed. “However, I was created with a different purpose.”

“What are you talking about?” Tech asked. “What purpose? Who created you?”

“I have shared all that I am willing to. Besides, it hardly matters at this point.”

Prelude raised his right hand into the air, upon which it began glowing with Dark Mana. Tech swiftly transformed into Golurth, hoping to counter, but was too late. As soon as his transformation finished, a pulse resounded from Prelude’s hand, knocking Napoleon and Moranna unconscious.

“Fast little ant, you are.” Prelude remarked, lowering his hand. “Of course, it won’t help you. You and your companions are still going to die here.”

“Like hell we will!” Tech snapped, throwing a punch at Prelude’s face.

Prelude dodged the blow and grabbed Tech by the face, slamming him into the wall.

“I don’t think you fully comprehend your situation here.” Prelude remarked, maintaining a firm grip. “Allow me to explain it in a way someone like you can understand.”

Prelude let go of Tech’s head, but quickly grabbed onto his right arm and snapped it forwards, ripping it off and crushing it in his fist. The crumbled earth made its way back to Tech’s body as quickly as possible, reforming the arm. Before he could react, Prelude did the same to his other arm, forcing him to focus on reforming that one as well.

“I could do this all day.” Prelude said. “How long do you think you can keep regenerating limbs?”

“No idea.” Tech replied. “But I don’t feel particularly inclined to test it!”

Tech swiftly slammed on the SpecTrix dial. There was a blinding flash of green as four metal clamps came from the SpecTrix symbol and fixed themselves to Golurth. Dark Mana began flowing heavily from various points on Tech’s body, pooling on the ground in a fog-like form. The mana suddenly flashed green and became teal, then began growing and suddenly erupted into teal flames, consuming Tech in another blinding light.

The flames grew larger, and suddenly, a huge form started rising out of them, covered in energy. The form grew to about forty feet in height and suddenly stopped, the energy surrounding it and the teal flames being absorbed into its body, revealing a huge being mostly made of energy and covered in faces.

“Let’s see how great and powerful you feel fighting this thing, sucker!” Tech boasted.

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard reports of this ability of yours. Unfortunately for you, thanks to the research of Zetium and the Mana Division...”

Prelude suddenly began glowing with a bright red energy.

“That ability isn’t quite so exclusive anymore!”

There was a blinding flash of red as Dark Mana began flowing heavily from various points on Prelude’s body, pooling on the ground in a fog-like form. The mana suddenly flashed red again, then began growing and suddenly erupted into flames, consuming him in another blinding light.

The flames grew larger, and suddenly, a huge form started rising out of them, covered in energy. The form grew to about fifty feet in height and suddenly stopped, the energy surrounding it and the blood-red flames being absorbed into its body, revealing a huge being mostly made of energy and covered in several faces.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Tech groaned.

“To be frank, they’re the only division that actually seems to do their job.” Prelude spoke.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m taking you out right now!”

Tech began charging a massive ball of energy in front of the mouth on his torso.

“You really are pathetic.” Prelude sighed.

With that, he lunged forward and slammed into Tech, knocking him off balance. Prelude quickly grabbed the dazed Tech and spun, hurling him through the far wall and into the fort’s courtyard, where he landed with a massive crash. He quickly jumped out after Tech, and before he could react, tossed his massive form up into the air as hard as he could.

“Time to end this.”

Prelude held up his right arm, Dark Mana swirling around it into the shape of a drill. The newly-formed energy drill began spinning at high speeds, aimed directly towards Tech’s falling body. Right before the two forces made impact, however, a bright flow exploded from the distance, followed instantaneously by a massive figure of light apparating behind Prelude and punching him aside, allowing Tech to land on the ground with relative safety.

“What is this?!” Prelude turned to face the apparition, only to find that it had disappeared. “What?!”

Before he could react, a sudden blur of light exploded through the fort’s wall and slammed into him, sending him scraping across the ground. The thing that slammed into him paused momentarily, revealing a tall, thin, white robotic figure about his size. He quickly reared back for a punch, but was interrupted by a blow from the figure that made direct impact with his face, sending parts of it flying off in chunks, and sending him flying across the fort’s courtyard.

Tech, who had been dazed by the beatdown earlier, finally stabilized enough to reach the SpecTrix dial and detransform. He dizzily pulled himself up off the ground, eventually noticing the large robotic figure in front of him.

“Either this is the mother of all luck, or I’m so dizzy that I’m hallucinating.” Tech remarked.

“If only I were so lucky.” The figure replied. “Get the others. We’re getting out of here.”

“Uh, who are you?”

“Questions later, escaping now. GO!”

Tech paused for a moment, then transformed into Terminano and raced off towards the fortress. Meanwhile, Prelude had recovered from the robotic figure’s blow.

“I admit, this is something that’s never happened before.” He remarked. “I suppose one of the less likely possibilities for this timeline had to emerge somewhere, though.”

“You speak as if you’ve lived through a similar series of events.” The figure replied. “Am I correct in assuming that you’re from an alternate timeline?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Who are you, anyways?”

“I am Prelude, ruler of the Obsidian Death.” Prelude moved himself into a battle stance. “Of course, I must ask you the same.”

“Call me Gamma.” The figure replied, moving into a similar stance.

“Thank you. I prefer to know who I’m killing before the fact.”

Tech raced back to where they had exited the portal, finding Napoleon and Moranna still lying unconscious on the ground. He quickly ran over and started shaking them awake.

“Ugh...what just happened?” Napoleon groggily asked, standing up. “I feel like I just got hit by a train!”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to get hit by a lot worse if we stick around!”

“I take it the fight with Prelude isn’t going well?” Moranna asked, having stood up as well.

“No idea. I’m not the one fighting him at the moment.” Tech replied. “Seriously, we need to move!”

“But what about the Light Drive?” Napoleon asked. “We can’t just let them have something like that!”

“Sure we can, if it means living to fight another day! I may not be able to die, but you two sure as hell can!”

Napoleon opened his mouth to make a rebuttal, but was interrupted by a gunshot. He and Tech turned towards Moranna, who was holstering her pistol. Near the end of the hallway was a small, scrawny alien lying unconscious on the floor, holding what appeared to be a metal case.

“Moranna!” Tech snapped.

“Oh hush up, I’m using non-lethal rounds.” Moranna replied. “Besides, if what he’s carrying what I think he’s carrying, I may have just gift-wrapped a solution for you.”

Meanwhile, outside, Gamma and Prelude had been stuck in a deadlock of sorts, countering each other's attacks with unbelievable precision.

“This is interesting.” Prelude remarked, throwing another punch. “I’ve never been matched in a fight before.”

“I didn’t exist until a few minutes ago, so that might have something to do with it.” Gamma replied, blocking the attack.

Before either of them could launch another attack, Tech, Moranna, and Napoleon came running out of the building, Moranna holding the metal case from before.

“Hey, giant robot thing!” Tech yelled. “Get ready to move!”

Tech transformed into Temportal, telekinetically ripping up chunks of earth and forming them into a massive ring-shaped portal.

“Everyone through! I don’t know how long I can keep something like this stable!”

Moranna and Napoleon ran through the portal. Gamma fired a light beam at Prelude’s head, distracting him enough for it to race into the portal. Tech jumped through as quickly as possible, the earthen structure crumbling behind him and destroying the portal.

Prelude swiftly recovered and prepared to deliver another attack, only to find that his opponent was already gone. He narrowed his eyes and, after a few moments, began expelling energy, shrinking down into his normal form. The small, scrawny alien from before raced out of the building shortly after, running to him as fast as possible.

“Sir, the Light Drive was stolen!” He reported. “I was on my way to deliver it to you, but one of the humans caught me off guard and shot me! What are your orders, sir?!”

“Regarding the Light Drive?” Prelude replied. “Nothing.”

“Right awa-wait, nothing? But, but, but sir-!”

“I undertook the construction of the machine we used to create the Light Drive myself, did I not?”

“Well, I mean, yes sir, but-”

“But nothing. We may not have the energy we desired, but that was hardly the main point in all of this.”

“I don’t understand!”

“Alpha had far too much knowledge of things imperative to our organization.” Prelude began walking back towards the building, hastily tailed by his scrawny assistant. “I took the liberty of locking that data away where she could never recover it.”

Tech, Moranna, Napoleon, and Gamma had jumped out of the portal, arriving on Earth near Tech’s base. Tech quickly detransformed, closing off the portal.

“That was...close.” He remarked, brushing himself off.

“I don’t even know what happened!” Napoleon exclaimed.

“Right, well, after you and Moranna got knocked out, I tried fighting Prelude. It did not work. Then whoever this is” Tech gestured to Gamma. “showed up, and I was able to come get you guys.”

“My name is Gamma.” Gamma replied. “You should be able to figure the rest out from there.”

“Hmm...” Tech examined the massive figure. “Robotic appearance...conveniently themed name...white color scheme...I’m going to take a wild guess and say...Alpha somehow fused with the Magisters.”

“Bingo.” Gamma replied. “Let me tell you, opposing parties in one body like this are really difficult to keep stable.”

“Why not just unfuse, then?” Napoleon asked.

“Trust me, I was getting to that.”

Gamma began glowing a bright white, then suddenly split apart into four glowing orbs, which fell to the ground and took on a normal humanoid shape. The light faded, revealing the Magisters and Alpha, who all picked themselves off the ground as soon as possible.

“So, how did that happen?” Tech inquired.

“We caught sight of the demonic-looking earth titan and decided that you may have needed some help.” Magister Red explained. “Apparently, we were correct.”

“And you agreed to this...why?” Tech asked Alpha.

“I hold a rather negative disposition towards the Obsidian Death, for obvious reasons.” Alpha explained. “This seemed an ample opportunity to actively express that.”

“So you do wreak vengeance!”

“...I have no proper rebuttal for that. Touche.”

“Hey, uh, quick question: what now?” Napoleon interrupted. “I mean, we have the Light Drive, and aside from figuring out what to do with that, last time I checked, Alpha tried to kill four of the people here.”

“Well, the Light Drive is easy to deal with.” Magister Blue replied. “We’ll just place it in Plumber Quarantine along with all the other stuff we don’t really know much about.”

“I will hopefully be returning to my residence.” Alpha said. “I believe our best course of action is to establish a truce.”

“Well, best course of action for you.” Tech pointed out. “At this point, I could probably take you in a fight no problem!”

“With your lack of technique? You’d have better luck playing Russian Roulette.”

“What lack of technique? My technique is fine!”

“Your ‘technique’ just about got you killed. Your lack of experience with most of your abilities is plain as day.”

“She’s kinda got a point.” Napoleon said.

“And you could do better?” Tech asked.

“Of course.” Alpha summoned a light projection of Terminano. “For instance, this maintenance android you transformed into can easily run with about twice the speed and accuracy of what you pulled off.”

“...What?”

“By applying the Eletatis Charge you generate to your movement, it increases your thrust and traction, giving you much better speed and precision.”

“...Oh.”

“Well, incompetence aside, we made a deal.” Alpha dispelled the light projection. “What is this information you have on the Anti-Life Entity?”

“Right, that.” Tech shrugged. “Not sure how useful it’ll be to you, but to sum up, the Anti-Life Entity seems to ‘corrupt souls’ or whatever. Also, Napoleon can apparently cure it by transforming into an extinct species.”

“Which were all wiped out by one person that went crazy.” Napoleon piped up. “...Come to think of it, a lot of things about that whole situation suddenly make a whole lot more sense.”

“Interesting.” Alpha replied. “I suppose it’s somewhat valuable information.”

“Look Alpha, this is all very nice conjecture, but considering the wealth of laws you’ve broken,” Magister Red interrupted. “we’re going to need to arrest you.”

“...I suppose that was inevitable.”

“Hey, question.” Tech said. “Exactly what kind of sentence is she looking at here?”

“Well, depending on how the court system decides to interpret her killing you but you coming back anyway, could be anywhere from one hundred to life.”

“One problem with that. Considering the fact that we sorta have an eldritch creature breathing down our necks that could strike at any moment, being in prison for ‘life’ would probably translate to about a month. Then everything dies.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, considering that she probably knows more about this thing than any of us, wouldn’t it be more expedient to keep her around and call it ‘community service’ or whatever?”

Magister Red paused for a moment to think.

“...Perhaps. We’ll look into it and see what we can do.”

“Good enough for me.”

Magister Red turned and pulled up a screen, pressing a few buttons.

“Just give me a second to uncloak the ship, and we’ll be on our way to Earth’s Plumber HQ.”

“Uh, Red? Didn’t we leave the ship back on the Obsidian Death planet?” Magister Yellow pointed out.

“...”

“...”

“...SON OF A BI-”

Protagonists

 * Tech
 * Moranna Ceres
 * Napoleon Eldridge
 * Magister Blue
 * Magister Red
 * Magister Yellow
 * Omega
 * Gamma

Antagonists

 * Obsidian Death
 * Prelude

Neutral

 * Alpha

SpecTrix Aliens

 * Overtide
 * Temportal (x2)
 * Golurth (Evolved)
 * Ultimate Golurth
 * Terminano