Greetings, everyone. I was going to wait a while to post my story, but then I had the good idea to post it in chapters to build the suspense a bit. Just so no one asks about this, the people who asked to be in the story will be appearing later. Anyway, here it is in all its glory: Chapter 1.
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The year is 32xx AD. There is war in the air – a conflict is building up but no one is willing to fire the first shot. There are two main factions in this war: the foos, led by Fooruman; and the unfoos, led by Unfooruman.

Chapter 1: The foo who lived

“Master, master, come quickly,” cried Black Ninja. Fooruman quickly turned away from the window he was looking out and faced his assistant. “What is it?” he asked. “Sir, I don’t really feel like installing that phpBB mod you gave me. The instructions are unclear and the .txt file is over 11 pages of unformatted nonsense,” BN replied. Fooruman looked at him like he was stupid. “Get Sonyk to do it for you,” he said. Black Ninja didn’t hesitate to go get his personal servant, Sonyk, to do the work for him – and why would he? Sonyk had been a faithful servant for years, and had never questioned any order given him.

Two hours after giving Sonyk this massive amount of work, Black Ninja returned to check on his progress. “That mod better be installed flawlessly, minion,” BN said, a little too loudly. “The master is upset with the fact that you can’t seem to follow orders in a timely manner. What are you going to do about that?”

“Forgive me, sir. This mod IS made for a much older version of phpBB, and-“

“Excuse me? Are you questioning the master’s judgment? I should cut off your remaining thumb for such impudence!”

“Please, please! I forgot my place…sir.”

“Of course you did,” Black Ninja paused for a moment, then continued, “If it happens again, you’re going to be out of here faster than you can turn your head around. I’m going to bed – I expect that mod to be installed tomorrow morning when I wake up. If it isn’t, you’ll be going without dinner. Is that understood?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Get to work then,” Black Ninja replied. He then turned around sharply and headed through the small door in the back of the room. Sonyk watched him walk out the door, and quickly returned to the daunting task ahead of him.

Five long hours later, Sonyk clicked the fateful “install” button on the ever-popular EasyMod control panel. As the mod installation program began working for him, he got up shakily and looked at his surroundings. He was in a small room with no natural light – the windows were boarded up, and his only light came from the old 12” CRT monitor that was in the center of the room. The dim light of the dieing monitor cast an eerie glow on the room around him. In the corner, there was a small spring mattress – his bed. As he looked around the room, he was struck with the fact that it had been 7 years to the date that he’d been assisting Black Ninja. He was then struck with an even more shocking realization – during the time he’d been Black Ninja’s assistant, he’d never once heard the word “thank you”. He glanced back at the dusty old monitor to check on the progress of the mod installation – it looked like this one would take quite a while. He allowed himself to crawl onto his hard old mattress and fall asleep.

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“Wake up, you worthless slave,” Black Ninja screamed. “The master is not very happy with your little ‘joke,’ so I hope you have a good explanation for it,” he continued.

“Forgive me, sir, but I don’t really know what you mean…” Sonyk stumbled on his own words as he forced himself to wake up.

“Direct your attention to your workstation, fool,” Black Ninja said angrily.

Sonyk turned around and looked at the monitor. The Foo Products forum was onscreen, but something was horribly wrong. All the posts were gone, and the database looked like it must be corrupted. Sonyk tried to come up with a response, or perhaps a way to justify this terrible error, but when he opened his mouth to speak, words eluded him.

“I’ve already talked to the master about your punishment, and you’ll be happy to know that he’s decided to be extremely lenient. If I were in charge of your fate, you’d already be dead. However, the master believes that killing you would only make you a hero in the eyes of our enemy.” Black Ninja spoke with an unmistakable rage in his voice; Sonyk knew that his punishment would be severe. “Your punishment is simple, Sonyk. You’re fired. Get out my sight.”

Sonyk stood still, dumbfounded. He continued to search for the right words to say, but was unable to speak. He knew that he’d have no place in society after working for the foos for so long – the commoners would fear him, and the unfoos would hate him. He’d be an outcast. Sonyk’s thoughts were interrupted by Black Ninja.

“You have 5 minutes to gather your possessions. If I see you in this castle EVER again after that point, you’re as good as dead. Now get out.” Black Ninja grinned an evil grin and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

It was at that point that Sonyk had a shocking realization: the commoners were not pledged to either faction, and lacked a true leader. As Sonyk gathered his few belongings and prepared to leave what had been his home for many years, he was comforted by the thought that vengeance might be his.