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| <font size="3">'''Multheru'''</font> | | <font size="3">'''Multheru'''</font> |
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| Telemachus stared out of the shuttle's window, into the void where far-off stars twinkled like errant pixels, and remembered.
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| <br><br>
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| "You know why they're called TALOS? It stands for The Alliance of Lambda Omicron Systems. That's what their part of space used to be called. But you know why else they picked that name? Because there used to be this big bronze robot called Talos, back on Earth. That was a long time ago... A hundred years, or something. Maybe two hundred. And TALOS make robots. Did I tell you that TALOS made my mech? I'm going to get them to make me a new one, with rockets and stuff."
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| The prince grimaced. Had he really been like that? It seemed a lifetime ago. The memories belonged to a foolish little boy, a stranger who didn't know what waited for him out in the galaxy: Horror. Loss. Sorrow. And friends who were worth more than all the mechs there'd ever be.
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| He thought about opening a com channel. Of reaching out to [Player Name], Lu Bu, Ragnar, and Talia -- who'd all be flying to their targets, just as he was. Hearing their voices, sharing warm words... It would bring a smile to his face. Maybe laughter from his lips. It would banish the quietness, the empty darkness ahead. But he couldn't. Because if he needed that comfort, he'd be that silly little boy again. And that boy wasn't going to win a battle. He was a warrior now. Just like the others. When he saw them again, it'd be with cultists' blood and brains splattered all over his mech. They'd all talk about their share of the fighting. About the big victory they'd won. Maybe he'd even thrash [Player Name] at more videogames to celebrate...
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| That thought was enough. It brought the smile he needed.
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| The communication console flashed to life in the same instant, and for a second he expected to see their faces -- Talia's smirk, Ragnar's grin, Lu Bu's impassive but somehow jovial features, and [Player Name]'s look of bemused satisfaction; all of them, sharing his amusement. But Bermund Pelar appeared there instead.
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| <br><br>
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| "Your Highness!"
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| The seneschal's expression wiped away the prince's smile.
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| <br><br>
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| "What's wrong?"
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| "The UHW has Gallea locked down. No one's allowed to leave."
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| "They can't do that! Call Dupont. Tell him I'll blow his house up!"
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| "It's an anti-contagion protocol."
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| "Huh? Disease?"
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| "Passengers at all our major spaceports have tested positive for a highly infectious-"
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| "All of them?"
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| "Yes. Incoming passengers, on every continent. And all of them arrived from different planets or stations."
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| "It's an attack!"
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| "That's the only explanation. And the UHW came before we'd even sent out the alert. Someone told them we were infected before it happened!"
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| "How bad is it?"
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| "Our medical teams are treating everyone, and Dupont's people are helping. We're lucky. The disease they chose causes more panic than physical harm, and it usually takes a while to become fatal. Only a handful have died so far -- all elderly, or with existing health problems. Sending the UHW here so early saved lives. We'll be okay, but the guards..."
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| "They're stuck there. That's why the Kalaxians did it this way, so we couldn't send Gallean troops at them."
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| "I'm sorry, Highness. You'll have to call for support from elsewhere."
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| Telemachus glanced at the display on one of the monitors.
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| "There isn't time. I need to attack when the others do. If I don't, they might get away."
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| "But-"
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| "Make sure we look after everyone who's ill."
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| "Your Highness! You can't-"
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| The prince closed the connection. His young eyes smoldered, and flooded his face with a fury well beyond his years.
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| <br><br>
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| ***
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| <br><br>
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| Multheru's eyes glittered, penetrating the darkness which had engulfed his chamber. Kalaxia's eyes glittered too. The statue was an ancient relic, the sole survivor of all the idols and ornaments his ancestors had fashioned from this rare stone before Huk-Kral bombs blasted it from existence. That had always seemed so very appropriate. And now, as many times before, the outspread, membranous wings and gleaming cyan eyes sharpened his thoughts with the wyrm-mother's wisdom.
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| "A dangerous attacker," the statue said.
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| "Yes." The Quiskerian's oral tentacles caressed her stone face. "Our power supply was well shielded from intrusion."
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| "Your era relies too much on such things. When your wondrous magic..."
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| <br><br>
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| "Technology."
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| <br><br>
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| "...fails, your defenses break open. Look. See who comes."
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| Her eyes flashed. So did Multheru's. His room was gone, and so were his tentacles -- as though merciless blades had hacked away at his face and limbs, sundering flesh, leaving a mutilated mess in their wake. But the horrendous sensation vanished as it always did. It was the price of wandering through one of the doorways which led into a brother or sister's mind.
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| "Multheru..."
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| Ljubica Durovic's voice was close. The two of them might've been standing side by side on a spaceship's bridge, gazing through a window instead of her eyes. But the blackness before them in that subterranean chamber was deeper and thicker, unsoftened by the cosmic lamps which studded the void. It thwarted the Quiskerian's borrowed sight.
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| "What do you sense?" he said.
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| "Nothing!" she said.
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| "Shielding... Where's-"
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| Ljubica's gasp tightened her throat and his own. Brilliant blue light flashed, throwing an electric glow over metal plates. There was a whooshing hiss, a sizzle, and a scream. Then darkness swallowed them all.
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| <br><br>
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| "Kalaxia!"
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| <br><br>
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| "KALAXIA!"
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| Her cry rippled against the tentacles in front of Multheru's mouth, and made them dart like striking snakes. The other cultists' shouts echoed around him. More lights flashed and blinked, crisscrossing the blackness. And a hulking metal shape lumbered through the plinking, fizzing shots -- a multicolored monstrosity painted in their glow.
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| More blue. This time it whirred around the mech's arm in a blinding surge of illumination and grating, churning noise.
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| "Kalax-"
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| The blueness slashed. Ljubica screamed. So did the Quiskerian, as oblivion swallowed him.
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| <br><br>
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| Multheru staggered. The tentacles writhing around his left hand brushed against something hard and cold. Its familiarity centered him, and deposited him back in his chamber.
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| The room brightened. His appendages thrashed -- but the sudden illumination wasn't a blazing weapon this time. The lighting had come back to life, bathing everything around him.
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| "The emergency power systems..."
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| That thought appeared in his head, uttered by several minds. Then there were screams.
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| <br><br>
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| "Stop him!" the statue said.
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| <br><br>
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| Its stone was hot under his flesh, and sent waves of warmth undulating through his body.
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| "Yes..." he said.
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| <br><br>
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| Multheru whirled round, tentacles sweeping and slashing. He grabbed the bulbous purple object that rested beside the idol. Another relic. A decrepit, irreplaceable treasure from a lost world, empire, and people.
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| "You'll have a new empire," the statue said, "if you destroy the betrayer's minions."
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| Multheru dashed for the exit, his movement halfway between a run and a slither. His hands and the serpentine appendages surrounding them all slotted into the bulky weapon's casing -- finding their individual berths.
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| "Destroy the betrayer's minions..."
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| The words echoed in the twitching of his tentacles.
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| <br><br>
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| ***
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| <br><br>
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| Telemachus' mech stormed through the big vaulted chamber, beneath a smooth rock dome. A dragon glared at him on the right. He almost blasted it before he realized it was just a statue, carved from the same stone as the rest of the sculpted cavern. He fired the shot at a cultist's chest instead. The man's innards drifted from a gaping hole in a puff of red vapor.
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| "Kalaxia!"
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| <br><br>
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| A Snuuth leapt at him, swinging a crackling energy blade. The prince's chainsaw caught it in a blaze of sparks. A second later, the alien fell. In messy halves.
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| He turned round, looking for fresh worlds to conquer. Or at least fresh enemies whose gore could decorate this world's floor.
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| Then everything vanished in a magenta explosion.
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| <br><br>
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| ***
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| Multheru tossed the spent weapon aside, and consigned another fragment of his species' legacy to history. It had done its work. Tendrils of violet smoke crept along the stone floor and snaked through the air, around the orange mass of wrecked metal. A shattered cockpit canopy lay atop the heap -- the shell of a broken black egg.
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| "Ugh..."
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| The groan came from beyond the mangled corpse. It made the Quiskerian's oral tentacles flutter. His mind reached out, probing.
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| <br><br>
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| "There you are..." His words and thoughts insinuated themselves into the boy's head, winding their way among clouds of pain and disorientation. "The silly little prince. Yes, I know of you... A stupid boy who rules a world, but lives life as a game. Who lets his friends drag him into absurd exploits so he can shirk his responsibilities. The galaxy laughs at you, child. They all laugh at the chainsaw-prince who never wants to grow up. And now never will..."
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| Multheru's mental appendages plunged for the kill.
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| -------------------------------------
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| Telemachus screamed. Agony, unimaginable anguish... A billion barbed blades scouring the surface of his brain... And through it all, amid endless oceans of pain, loomed a squid-like face. Its tentacles undulated with malice and laughter.
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| He was a fool. A stupid little boy.
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| "Yes." The alien's bizarre voice slithered and thundered. "A prince who killed his father, and failed an entire planet. Die knowing this, child. And know that your world belongs to Kalaxia."
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| Die... Yes. He was going to die. Die. Die. Die. Die like his father. Die like Illaria. Die like Wu Tenchu. Die like Talia, and Ragnar, and [Player Name], and-
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| "Come on, Tel!"
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| <br><br>
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| "Huh?"
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| The voice was soft; almost silent. Just a whisper. But it pierced the pain like a blaster shot.
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| "Come on, Tel!"
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| "Talia? Talia! Help! I-"
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| "Yes," the tentacled face said. "Die crying for friends who aren't here. Die screaming for help that will never come. Beg those phantoms, those memories-"
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| Memories... Memories! A spark glimmered in the prince's brain.
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| "Win!"
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| This was his brain. His mind. And he'd fought for it once before...
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| The universe shifted.
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| "Die alone. Die far from..."
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| Surprise rippled along the alien's tentacles like an electric shock. His body shuddered beneath the fabric of his azure and cyan robes -- twitching tangles of writhing, wriggling serpents. His head snapped one way and then the other. Oral appendages flailed and grasped. He stared at his surroundings and then down at his own hands, eyes widening into big black pools.
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| "What?" Telemachus said. "Didn't your crappy species ever invent 16-bit graphics?"
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| "Then your mind isn't so weak..."
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| "No."
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| The prince clicked his fingers. A stream of orange pixels descended, and swirled around his body like a swarm of insects. They settled into the shape of a battlesuit. A chainsaw arrived on his right arm with a happy whir.
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| "I'll enjoy destroying you," the alien said.
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| His head snapped forward. A row of tentacles shot at the prince, flying across the room -- stretching till each was dozens of feet long.
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| Telemachus somersaulted high above them. They retracted with a thwarted wet slapping sound.
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| The Quiskerian looked up at the airborne prince. His appendages lashed out again, soaring upwards to skewer him. But Telemachus dropped down under their attack and landed on his feet. He grinned. Even [Player Name] could've dodged that one...
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| Tentacles snapped back against the alien's face. He glowered at the prince for a split-second. Then Telemachus launched himself into a flying uppercut.
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| His chainsaw whirred and grinded. The alien screamed. Red pixels splashed all over the place.
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| "You win, Tel," Talia's voice said. "Perfect."
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| The 16-bit world disintegrated, and the real universe's superior graphics rushed in to replace it.
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| Telemachus grabbed his communicator.
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| That stupid alien had been right about one thing...
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| "Bermund?" he said.
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| "Your Highness, are you-"
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| "I'm fine. But I need you to do something. After they get rid of that disease, and lift the quarantine, start arranging the coronation. Gallea needs a king."
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| <br><br>
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| It was time to stop playing games.
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