Impaticence is a sign of fondness of the coming of an object.



Hurry up already!

Oh.

Kazoo is going to throw something at you, Kovey..

`Duckary

Ahhhh!*gets klonked in the head*

bad Kazzo!

I'll copy Kaz if you don't hurry up!

But I just posted one yesterday *sniff*

what do you people want from me???

Chapters!

Chapter Five: A Single Day And Night Of Misfortune



"MRWAAAAAA!"

The bancka underneath Tymen screamed as he bucked up in the air.

"Whoa, Timmer, calm down!" Tymen cooed, stroking the lizard's jade and gold scales. Hot air puffed out of Timmer's nostrils, but she was soothed. All of them, except for BlackSheep, were dreading through the desert on the reptilian beasts. The former was, ofcourse, above in her fighter. They had wanted to travel in it, but she insisted there wasn't enough room. Tyio sighed, his head falling back, onto his velvetish bancka.

"What is the name of that infernal city we're going to again?" Tyio asked.

"Arean Daroth."

"Ah, yes......and why are we going there, again?"

"It's the nearest city. We need a place to stay, that blaster totalled my house. We were also going to sell that computer. Oh, and you wanted to track down that assasin." Tymen said in a most ordinary manner.

"Oh, right." The demon couldn't speak in a more exasperated tone. Silence passed between them, beside the

humm of the fighters engines and the occasional grunt from the banckas. Everyone was absorbed in something else, or atleast trying to appear to be, not wanting the company of the others.

"You know, the--" Tymen began what would appear to be a informative information nugget.

"Shut up." Tyio sighed.

"But it--"

"I SAID shut up." Tymen was about to swear out the pompus demon, but thought better of it.

"Well...you don't have to be rude."

"La de da, excuse me, but today hasn't exactly been happy fun time for me...first I have to escape from that station, and then I fly through a maelstrom of sand and rock, and then I have to eat thease nasty roots, and that person attacks us..."

"Well, excuse me, but would you rather have rotted in that prison? Not even that, the blast would have incinerated you." Ducky quipped, from her aqua bancka across from Tyio.

"You know what? I would, better than having to listen to you people."

"Ungrateful....why'd I even bother...." Ducky grumbled under her breath, then subsided. Tyio too subsided, to the churning of his own mind.

"Oh...I can't wait to return to Akael." He wishpered.



"Oh, what, what am I doing here?" Asari thought to herself, as she hid in the shadows of a bush, the bright sun warming all in the lush, royal garden, filled with plants from a thousand worlds.

"I stalking that boy, that's what I'm doing." She sounded frusterated, at herself. But then, the insane part of her brain overtook the rational part of her brain, by reasoning with it.

"T-that's not it...I've got a good form, right? I mean...it's not REALLY stealing if I just...distract him while I take a little change, is it? I mean, it's not like he is going to miss it, right?" He mind waged war over the body, over which impulse would control which.

Tymen stood over the perfectly smooth waters of the pond. It's blankness was a window into his own, turmoiled soul. He knew his father had made arrangements to overthrow the throne...but was he really going to go through it. Now? Right now?? A coup d'etat could be especially dangerous now. The whole planet was a powder keg waiting to be set off. As long as things remained normal, it was like the emperor said, they don't bother us, we don't bother them.

A sound drew Tymen's attention. A rustle in the bushes.

"Curse it! He heard me." Asari again mentally slapped herself. Then she noticed a glint of steel. A sword, tucked neatly in the waistband of Tymen's morningrobe, one which Tymen now drew.

"Hmm, maybe it's not all a loss, I bet I could get a couple hundred credits for that piece of work." She thought.

"Who's there, show yourself!" Tymen shouted, waiving his sword infront of him, using a technique his mother had taught him for detecting things.

"Curses! There's no guards in here...I'm all on my own..."

Asari scanned the garden, rationing her precious time before Tymen spotted her. To her luck, there were no guards.

"Yes, this must be the boy's private garden, no guards! Brilliant." She waited, until Tymen was just in the middle of a breath. And then she sprung from the bushes.

"Ya!" Tymen slashed his sword down, but Asari kneed him in the stomach, then slapped the sword out of his hand and into her own.

"Thanks, be seeing you." Reaffirming her grip on the blade, she began her get away. It only took a moment for Tymen to recover, and then he gave chase.

Plants of miraculous colors sped past Asari, her only focus being the stone wall, the way out. After lopping a few branches of her and there, she made the leap, standing at the threshold, the way out.

"Move, and die." A soothing voice whispered in her ear, and she felt cold steel touch her throat. All she could see was a glint of metal, a knife obviously.

"Even try it and I'll...i'll...i'll scream." Asari thought through her barganing chips.

"Oh really. Hmm, let's see. You, a commoner," He well emphasised that word,"in the hier to the House's private garden. Holding his sword, about to jump to the way out. Who, honestly, looks like the guilty party here?" Tymen could not help but chuckle.

"Now, be a doll and drop the sword." With a gulp, she did, and Tymen caught it as it fell. Satisfied, he removed the blade from her throat and led her down, as he turned and sat on a white marble bench.

"You're...not going to call you're guards?" Asari stammered. Tymen whiped out his sword and pointed it just an inch from Asari's face.

"No."

"Are you...going to kill me?"

"No, ofcourse not."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Have a little fun." Tymen smiled, whilst Asari's eyes went wide with fear.

"No," he chortled," not like that. I'm lonely, and bored, and you happen to have a sword stuck at you're face. Let's talk."

"Uhm...*gulp* o-okay, what should we talk about?"



The sun was setting over the barren deserts of Carrotous, giving the sand a haunting orange glow. The moons were up, but they weren't refracting there unquie glows yet.

"Ah! How much longer to this Arean Daroth place, eh Tymen?" Ducky asked, exhausted from her day's long exploits.

"Hmm, about twelve more hours." Tymen replied.

"Twelve hours! I mean, shouldn't we set up camp, aren't there some hideous beasts that prowl the sands that we should worry about and find shelter to hide from??"

"No, not really."

"Oh, well...okay then."

"But if you're tired, we can set down camp."

"No, I'm fine."

"I think you're tired, we should set down camp."

"No, we need to get going to arrive in time."

"But we also need our rest."

"We can rest when we get there."

"Alright...I suppose."

...

"But it will get rather cold." Ducky said.

"We have to keep going to get there in time!"

"But we'll be exhausted and won't be able to do anything until atleast nightfall tomarrow."

"But...we might have a better chance of selling the computer tonight."

"You're right, we should keep going."

"But then again...there are mites that go out at night."

"We need to get there as soon as possible."

"I'm not sure, the mites--"

"WOULD YOU TWO JUST PUT A SOCK IN IT AND SET DOWN THE CURSED CAMP!!!!" Tyio screamed, irriated beyond belief.

"F-fine, will do..." Tymen seemed rather frightened by the demon.



Asari sat in the comfrot of her lair, hidden in a cozy pocket in subspace. The medical droid had long finished it's work, and went about to other duties. Asari merely sat in the emergency chamber chair, eyes closed, half asleep, remembering every vivid detail of that week so long ago...



The meetings had continued as such for five days, except no more were held at swordpoint. Asari would sneak in, around midnight, and Tymen would be there, in the garden. Tymen had found he had sympathy for Asari's hard life, and Asari had sympathy for Tymen's terrible burden.

The night was cool, this time, and sharply blue. The forward two guardposts Asari passed easily, and now

all that was left to do was scale the final barrier into the garden with a jump. As she did so, she savored the way the long, trailing cape in back of her fluttered in the wind, and her sword rocked back and forth. A new costume, gift from Tymen. Upon landing, she immediatley felt the soft moistness of the ground, and the cool, damp breeze of the garden. Artificially generated ofcourse, but that didn't matter. And she could see the multitudes of nightfaires out, and the low whhhhhsss, of the tiny waterfall. But her companion was no where to be found. She dared not to shout his name, that would alert the guards, so she began prowling around the lush place. After trodding around a minute or two, she spotted a silhoutted figure, sitting on a bench by the pond, staring into it's waters.

"Tymen." She wishpered, as she ran up to Tymen and sat beside him.

"Dehmali." That caused a twang of pain in Asari, how she lied to him about her name.

Asari knew Tymen was never this glum, something must have happened.

"What's wron--"

"My mother has been killed. With a knife in the back." Silence.

"Oh my God...I'm so terribly sorry." She embraced him strongly, trying to absorb atleast a little pain.

"Who..."

"My father killed her, I saw him at the scene, just after she screamed. And everyone else knows it two. But no one dare arrest him, for his legions are loyal only to him, and would have is captors slaughtered within a day."

"But...why would he kill his own wife?" Now Asari dipped her head further in, sad and intrested in the going ons.

"Because she was going to warn the Emperor about the coup d'etat. She knew how violently it could upset this world." Again, silence.

"Tymen...." She found it hard to stare in his face, and, as such, his soul, twisted with pain. But yet, she found it harder still to look away.

"Tymen...her death may not have been in vain. Now the Emperor knows to send his forces to intercept you're fathers. The coup may yet be avoided." Without pause, Tymen kissed Asari then, for a long while, only after a minute or so was it broken. No passion, just saddness. Sadness from Tymen. They had not known each other very long, but they were kindred souls. Indeed...then there was another long, awkward pause.

"Get out of here, Dehmali, get out of here as fast as you can." Tymen said grimly.

"Why?"

"If you don't, you'll die." The low breeze in the garden was turning into a roar like wind, and this was not artificially generated. Two large, sword shaped ships passed through the air. Knn Deahtflies. Large blast poured from there tips, all crashing through the city with terrible destructive might. And in the streets were running hordes of Daroth soldiers and Knn warriors, working in tandem, killing all.

I wanted to have thr first reply, but I have no idea what to say. There fore: (Insert compliment on chapter here)

I am awed.



*Black

Brilliant, Kovey.

*cries*

`Ducky

YaY!

Wehe! Replies, replies good for Kove

Thankie, all



Chapter Six: No Hope



Three more bodies fell in the castle walls, warm blood dribbling to the once pristine marble floor.

"There everywhere!" A captian shouted into a comm. as he fired his repeater rifle, seeking the enemy.

"There like ghosts, comming out of--" He too, fell to the red ground, and a reddish Knn removed his knife from the captians back. Then a explosion ressonated through the castle. Several more of thease green blasts

quaked the ancient city. Konitar moth bombs.

Asari lept in the air, a rapid blaster flaring as waves of Darothian warriors fell. Still, the Emperor's forces were so gravely outnumbered, it was mad. Asari slunk through the bodies she had just rended, clinging to a chipped stone wall.

"I've taken the southern gate, Tymen, now what? Over." She spoke into a microphone that twisted from her ear down to her cheek.

"Good. I'm --strrrkpt-- making my way up the gran --ssp-- aircase. See if you can get the crane opera

--zzkkkpt--use it to hit those tanks near the main pass --spkkkapa--"

"Roger." Asari nodded, and began to run in the way of the cargo cranes.

"And Dehmali--ssk--"

"Yea?"

"You don't have to do th--skkam-- you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."



A fledgling flame raged in the wind, fueled by the meager sticks found in the deep desert. Tymen and BlackSheep slept contently. There sleeping bags were cozy, and there's nothing like food cubes slow roasted over an open flame...

...right.

The sun was long set, and the reddish Matak and the furious blue Muar moons hung in the sky, giving the desert a sureal tint. But none were awake to experience it, except Tyio and Ducky.

Sadly, there was a wall of awkardness inbetween them, so no words passed. Until Tyio broke that, just as a westward wind took hold, sending his pitch hair into streams.

"So tell me, why did you rescue me?"

"I...didn't I already awnser this question?" Ducky pointed a finger at him, her mouth slightly open.

"Yeah," he took a bite out of a now stale, but still very chocolate, food cube, "but it was a rather sad excuse for a awnser. I want a real one." Ducky paused for a moment, gathering her feelings, then awnsered,

"What you did, at Otomayim, I thought that was very brave," Tyio had, was was just a month past to him, but nearly two decades to everyone else, traversed to the city of Otomayim to speak out aginst the pain being caused to his people, the demons, by the Carrotians. He was arrested, ofcourse, and brutalized.

"and...when they interviewed you...you sounded so...."

"Hm?" Tyio interjected.

"I don't know...I've never heard anyone sound so helpless, but you kept you're pride through it all, and never surrendered you're cause..."......

"Go on." Tyio urged.

"I tryed to ignore it, deciding it was just something on the holo-emitter I could do nothing about. But one day, two weeks ago, I got a vision...a dream. There were turtles. Blue turtles. On a perfect beach."

A pause.

"They were crying... thousands, mourning. The next day I found out they were going to execute you."

"I was certain I had to rescue you, there was something about you. And that dream.... My friends...they told me I was being a idealistic fool, and that the orbital station was so very far away. But I wouldn't listen."

Tyio smiled. This was not at all what he expected. She wasn't in it for some bounty or something. She did it because she genuinley cared, and that was a rare thing nowadays.



"Ahhh!" A Darothian died, and his body hurdled down the massive staircase. Manuevering was difficult on the thin slits of wood, and more and more Darothian and Knn soldiers were comming up, trying to stem Tymen's progress. He fired random shots down, while his true focous remained getting to the top of the insane staircase. It played even more carnage on his mind, knowing he was killing people from his very house, some, probably related to him.

His oppositon was quickly gaining, luckily he was now scrambling at the top of the flight of the stairs, and rushing into the Emperor's throne room. It was ornatley clother with sashes and ropes and gold, and stones from a thousand worlds, collected before the dark. But now all of this was scarred by battle, destroyed.

"Come any closer, and he dies!" The Emperor shouted to Tymen, having a knife pressed aginst the Duke's neck.

"Listen to him...Tymen." The Duke gasped, fearing for his life.

"I don't take any more orders from you, scum, you killed mother!" Tymen hissed, pointing his knife in the Duke's face.

"I did not!"

"You lie!"

"It doesn't matter, soon I'll be the ruler of this planet, no one will stop me!"

"And that's what you think?" The Emperor began, his accent notably sharp.

"You're force sure won't stop me."

"No, but the entire clan of Konitar can." The Duke's eyes began to widen, and his knuckles whiten with rage.

"That's right, I've had the clan wrapped around my finger. And you know what? I gave to order to have them kill you're parents!"



"Why am I here?" Tymen's thoughts echoed. He was in a strange place now. He felt a stick in his hand, a staff. But not it's texture. He was wearing gloves. And he could feel the wind tugging at his back, a cape.

The air was devoid of pollutants, a rare thing in the dark times. He could hear a gentle crashing.

The opening of his eyes came with pain. Before him he saw a great, outstreched ocean.

The waves were crashing gently, and the sand was pure white.

"Where am I?" Thinking came with pain, also.

Then he saw disturbances in the clear blue water. Out of it's serentiy popped heads. Reptilian heads on long necks. They carried hard shells, and there color was the deepest, purest blue. Thousands of them, in the perfect waters. He watched them to seven minutes. Then they opened there mouths in unison, and a great, mournful song came from them. It ate away at Tymens soul. Then, after seven more minutes, it ended, but the turtles remained, staring at Tymen.

"It is time to shed this naivety."

Tymen's head bobbed up, just as the dream faded. The fire was just a smoking ember, the other three were asleep, and the banckas lay on there sides. But the red and blue glow was gone. Training his eyes to the horizon, he saw a sliver of the sun, peaking out over a distant dune. From the shambles of cloth in his pack he pulled out a deep green, leather shirt, some brown pants and black boots, and a long, blue cloak. He had decided he would walk the desert a bit, while the others awoke. The desert stood long before him, dunes like a angry ocean frozen in time. He began walking, and after about ten minutes and traveling about a kilo, he began to hear faint disturbances in the silence. Quiet explosions, battle cries, the thumping of feet.

All faint, all distant, but all apparent. Tymen had the foresight to pack a pair of paragoggles, which he unholstiered from a compartment at his belt. After unfolding them, he pressed them to his eyes, seeing the world as percieved magnified a thousand times. Now he could see a battle being vividly told between three...no, four Knn Deathflies and there troops and a horde of warriors from some clan, he was uncertian which. He cursed under his breath as he put away the paragoggles. And then began his mad dash back to camp.



"You monster!" The Duke lost all sense of control, and lashed out madly at the Emperor. This attempt didn't last long, and the knife which the Emperor had been holding near the Duke quickly sunk into the aforementioned's neck. A eternity passed between the Emperor and the Duke, and blood marched down his neck.

"Y-you h-have nttt, defeated m-me." The Duke managed his last words, until he feel in a heap to the ground. Once he was decidedly dead, the Emperor looked up to Tymen, who had just been standing there through the whole thing.

"One would think you would like to save you're father." Tymen was silent for a moment, as the grim waters of cruelty began to flow through his for the first time.

"No...he's a traitor, and he's cursed this world by doing this..."

"You are wiser than they say, boy." Then Tymen, in a fluid motion, raised his blaster to the Emperor's head.

"But you could be accused of the same."

"Nonooo, boy, I have done nothing but help Carrotous." The Emperor shyed into a corner, now speaking like a defensless child.

"Right." Tymen said, as he cocked his blaster.

However, just before he could deliver a fatal blow to the Emperor, a explosion of blue flame rocked the Castle, sending a surprised Tymen hurtling through the Emperor's window. The Emperor was shocked, but then began to laugh at his fortune.

"Need you any more proof, of what heaven's choice is? Haahahha!"



A grim faced, ivory colored rabbit stood in the seat of his clan, the Konitar. He watched as his forces laid waste to the oncoming Knn and Daroth waves.

"Konitus, our two forward Treijem have bombed the castle, we have a path in." A squeaky voice in the dark back of the hovercraft spoke forward.

"Proceed there." The ivory furred rabbit exacted, his lips moving in careful precision.

"Yes, sir."

"Come, daughter, see what you will inherit one day." Konitus, the ivory rabbit, said, still staring onto the battlegrounds from the viewport. Out of the shadows strode a white furred rabbit, about thirteen. She wore silver armor and a red cape, with a long sword at her side.

"This, this will be your's once I am dead." He made a grand sweeping motion to the battlefield below.

The girl cringed. She hated war, and she hated this clan, she never wanted to be part of it.

"Yes, father..."



Tymen's life flashed through his eyes in a instant longer by compare than all others. He was falling...falling...falling...but then he stopped.

"Huh?" He pondered his existence, why he wasn't dead. Looking down, he found himself in Asari's arms.

"Dehmali." He sighed, smiling broadly, never before had he been happier to see her.

"Tymen." The world was lightyears away. For a moment. But then Tymen, still in Asari's arms, drew a sword.

"Tymen...?" With some dark glee, Tymen lept from Asari, and then using his sword, slashed across her face. He then tried to gut her, but Asari nimbly ducked and snatched the blade. She turned and saw Tymen, a slash across his chest, blood slowly seeping out. Where'd that come from? Weapons lost, a maddening struggle began, between them, and then it all faded away.



Rage was pent up fully in Asari. Rage at Tymen. The only person she could trust. Betrayed her, like everyone else...

sniff.

nooo, I wasn't supposed to throw something at you...



sniff.

sniff. Oh, I said that already, didn't I?

Yes you did.

Hmm, oh well, 'tis alright, Kazoo, would it

make you feel better if we threw things at

you

*throws stuff*

Anyway...



Chapter Seven: The Clan Konitar



Tymen's life flashed through his eyes in a instant longer by compare than all others. He was falling...falling...falling...but then he stopped.

"Huh?" He pondered his existence, why he wasn't dead. Looking down, he found himself in Dehmali's arms.

"Dehmali." He sighed, smiling broadly, never before had he been happier to see her.

"Tymen." The world was lightyears away. For a moment. But then Asari dropped Tymen to the ground and unseathed a sword.

"Dehmali...?" She wield the sword high above her head, then slashed it across Tymen's chest. Staggering backwards, Tymen's mind filled with the infinites of betrayal. She then tried then to finish him, but Tymen bobbed to safety, removing her weapon. He turned and saw Dehmali, cut across her face, fur matted by blood. Where'd that come from? Weapons lost, a maddening struggle began, between them, and then it all faded away.



That vissage passed through Tymen's mind as he neared the camp. Sparked for some unknown reason.

"Hey! Hey you guys! Wake up! There's a battle!" And probably a storm, consiquently, as hallow winds whistled through the desolate crags and blew across the empty plains.

"B-battle?" They asked groggily, as they arose from there sacks, wind whipping across there fur.

"Yea, and a storm!"

"Storm? Rain, in the desert?" Tyio asked, gathering his things.

"No, sand storm!" Tymen had to shout to outspeak the winds, as he stradled his bancka.

"Myhhhaa!" Ducky's bancka cried, last to awaken and be ridden on, as BlackSheep's fighter hopped from it's home in the sands and into it's niche in the sky.

"C'mon, let's move, let's move!" Tymen shouted, as the banckas ran as fast as they could and the fighter held at half speed. They dared to look back, at the swirling maelstrom of the sands, eveloping everything in the torrent.

"Buggers!" BlackSheep shouted through the comm. Buggers, the common name for the Knn small fighter craft, where shaped like a triangle, flat, with two inward pointing spikes leading off from the borders. They could move pretty fast, but were ill equiped with weapons, just two medium blasters. The peticular three BlackSheep was focousing on were patrols, probably ordered to pick of any Konitar trying to flee the battle.

But they had spotted our hapless heros, and were making a great sweeping motion torwards them.

"Blast it!" The pilot uttered as the fighters lined up behind her, feeding blaster fire straight into her engine core.



The finally clad Konitus and his entorauge strode through the now bloodied courts of the Imperial palace.

"Kill all resistance," he ordered his soldiers, "but leave the Emperor to me." The soldiers broke up, scowring the halls, only Konitus' daughter remained by his side, as they climbed the wrecked grand staircase.

"What will you do with him, father?"

"I will bring justice, to him." Konitus replied as he forced open the door. What he found was the body of the Duke of Daroth, and the Emperor, hiding in a corner.

"K-konitus? I'm so glad to have found you." Konitus smiled.

"Most regret finding me." He drew a long, brightly shining rapier.

"Konitus...?"

"For crimes aginst the people of Carrotous, I will execture you!"

"No, I have been nothing but loyal..." Deja vu, eh? With that, Konitus drove his sword deep into the Emperor's body.

"E-et t-tu?" The Emperor's body fell to the already stained floor.

"Come, Seraph, we must leave." Konitus said to his daughter.



Tymen awoke to sand in his mouth, which he spat out upon regaining consioucness.

"Wh-ere am I?" All he could see was the empty sands and the scorching sun.

"They left me here to die!" Question was, who? It couldn't have been the emperor, be had no power

(he didn't know the Konitar were there) so he decided it must have been the Knn, who his father hired, who left him out here. Turing to his back, he saw a familiar city, Arean Daroth, his father's capital. But it was a blaze, with blaster fired delieverd by the Deahtflies and Buggers that hovered above.

"Daroth...Daroth!" He ran, ran as fast as he could with what little energy he had left.

"Nooo! Stop! Stop all of you!" By the time he arrived, they were gone, back into the atmosphere, into the saftety of there enormous warfleet. What he found was streets, paved with blood, lined with bodies.

"Nooo..." Tears fell long down his face. He walked into a ruined store, took some nessecities, a cloak, some food, some clay. He found a bancka and a carriage. With this he walked into the deep abyss of the desert, hoping he would be never found again. He could make a living, maybe, of documenting the species and weather of the desert, and selling the information to the desert people. Maybe...and hopefully, he would never tread this dark hall in his mind again.



The incident at the Imperial Palace, now three months in the past, had erupted Asari's already explosive psyche. Cloaked in black, adopting the 'dark assasin' into her name, she became a assasin for hire, killing for a living. It was all that was left, away in the dark recesses of her destroyed mind.



BlackSheep rotated the guns at the end of her wings backwards, firing a massive blast into the fighter at the head of the three. It tore off the top of the fighter, which lost control and exploded on the sands, the fire twisting in the ever closing torrent. The other to still presented a problem, and her ship couldn't take much more damage. Then, as one ship tried to get above her, she wheeled the ship around, firing it's main lasers and leaving searing holes through the doomed fighter as it crashed into the storm. BlackSheep attempted to pull the same trick on the last one, but it mimiced her manuevers and stayed tightly to the engines, still pounding them with blaster power. Then, from below, atop the scrambling banckas, Tymen pulled out a blaster and fired it into the point of the fighter, causing it to bob up and giving BlackSheep a chance to rotate the heavy blasters, then firing there bolts of red energy. They scoured massive, molten holes in the fighters hull, it's systems failing, sparks flying as it too fell into the madness of the storm.



Wave after wave of Knn forces fell apoun the clans defense. Plasma energy flared, smoke bellowed, and blood poured through the maddening battle.

"My Lady, the Knn are showing signs of retreating, the fourth Deatflie is flying away at top speed and the second it backing up." A purple rabbit on bancka said, as he ran up to a pure white one on just as similair a creature.

"Are there buggers back in there hangers?" The white rabbit questioned.

"Nay, milady, all Knn fighters are still in the sky."

"Then they aren't retreating, there preparing to redouble there efforts...have the askatas with Banglu cannons on the back fire the first rounds." She commanded.

"Yes, milady Seraphine." The purple rabbit rode off, amid the charging horde of rabbits on foot, to large, elephant like furred creatures standing in the middle of the battlefield.

"Damn those Knn, we have to stop them before the over run Arean..." Seraph thought, then spyed the three banckas and the fighter belonging to our hero's charging the Knn forces from the side.

"Who...are they?" She consider breifly, before running back into the throng of Knn.

From the great furry askatas, large, smoking balls of Banglu, a modified version of plasma, energy hurtled torward the massive Knn Deathflies. They powered straight through the shields and erupting huge chunks of there hulls.

"Hapouy!" Seraph spat a command loudly in near-Gerenpfpssh, as she lopped off Knn heads. Her troops replied, gaining new resolve and attacking the Knn with all there might. The askatas fired again, and the ten simultanious explosions ripped there target, the second Knn Deatflie. It's hoverpads inoperative, it sank into the sands, and then exploded in a blue fury, molten heaps hurtling through the atmosphere, then sucked in by the ever approaching storm.

As the storms winds increased, sending howling fury across the sands, the askatas fired a third slavo torward the first Deatfile, and it too, fell in a massive, sparkling explosion. Not able to fight in the middle of a storm, the remaining to Deatfiles took of into the safe harbor of the Knn warfleet above, and the Konitar forces could do nothing to escape the storm but...

"Run!" Seraph shouted, waiving her blood stained sword in the air. The Knn on land were trapped in the storm, as were the buggers. Luckily, the Konitar forces, further from the storm, were able to just barely outrun it. Seraph was impressed by those three banckas riders and that fighter that flew in. It was pitch black, now that the storm had overtook the landscape, but the destructive rear of it was moving up slower than the rest. In that blackness, Seraph was easily able to pick out the dull light of the fighters engines, as the Konitar clan was poorly stocked with them.

"Syea!" Seraph slapped the reigns of the bancka into the back of it's neck, speeding it up torward the fighter.



It was a good day in Arean Daroth, when the clan Konitar came to visit. They needed repair, places to sleep and food, and it aided the large cities economy. After the city was sacked and nearly leveled by the Knn nearly ten year before, everyone thought that would be the end of the once proud city. But, the Konitar

clan had made it it's quasi base of operations, and when the 'Proffesor' as he was known around there, Tymen, set up the small biology school(it went under cover as a infirmary when Imperials were 'round) had brought even more money and people to the city. As it was now, it was the third largest city on Carrotous, a place with few cities. Yes, it was always a good day in Arean Daroth.



A large, silver room at the base of a hotel at which the Konitar rested, served as a breifing room, in which Seraph met our wayward heros, Tymen, Tyio, Ducky and BlackSheep.

"You've been in a sort of...hyper-regulated type sleep for fiveteen years...since the Knn attack?" Seraph asked.

"Yes." Tyio and Ducky said in unison. Tymen had analyized the ruler of the Konitar clan previously. She was white all over, it neatly trimmed and combed white fur, long, white hair, purple eyes. And she was tall, for a female especially and for a rabbit period. She wore a scowl, but was not all that unpleasant to be about. Little did Tymen know how very much she was like her late father.

"So, what are you all going to do?" Seraph asked, trotting infront of them.

"Well...we don't know...we were kinda thinking about joining a clan, battle the Knn, y'know, fight the good fight...not much else left, eh?" Tyio stated. Seraph contimplated, studying the two a moment before awnsering.

"How'd you like to go straight for the Knn?"

"But...how?"

"I know a guy, who's invented a way to breach the radiation barrier, get of the dusty rock."

"Okay...so, what's the plan?" Tyio was intrested.

"Somewhere, at a distant edge of the galaxy, there is a planet, on that planet is a artifact known as Symballen's Archon. It can turn back the pages of time."

Seraph is a BAD guy?

*gasp*

Brilliant, Kovey.

I REALLY need a new word. :P

Yay.



`Ducky

What makes you think she's a bad guy?

Mwaha, thankie

wOw. Excellent, Kovie. It's...may I use CT's word?



Sniff.



*Black

Yes you may, Blackie. *hands Blackie a hankie*

Anyhow, Awesome part, Kove! *Slightly confused* How can Seraph be the bad guy, she's not yet, is she? I think Asari's the bad guy

Yes, Seraph is already, y'know, she was Konitus daughter that accompanyied him to

slaughter the Emperor. And in the future

you see her leading the clan Konitar.

I lost track of what was going on a few days ago.

*blinks* Oh. Cool. More?

Yup, I got a nice big chunk of chappie right

here. A BIG CHUNK! Infact, chapter eight

is so massive, I'm gonna break it into

three parts, so here's the first...



Chapter Eight: Three Days Away



"You mean...a time machine?" Ducky's lower jaw was dropped.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Seraph nodded. The room was silent for a moment.

"What do you want to use it for?" Tyio inquired.

"Two reasons, one, we could use it to crush the Knn before they lay the field of radiation across Carrotous," she paused to se how they reacted to that, "and two, someone by the name of Asari wants

it, for reasons I can only assume, are evil."

"Asari?" Tymen nearly lept out of his chair.

"Yea...why?"

' "That was the person who tried to kill me!"

A field of energy emenated on the sword where it was about to meet the staff, keeping it at bay. Both combatants pushed there weapons forward, resulting in a titanic struggle.

"Who are you?"

"I am one they named the dark assasin, Asari. And you, you are from another time."

....

"Ahh-ah!" Tymen was distressed by his loss of a weapon.

"And so our paths intertwine again, eh?"

"What...what do yo mean, we've never met before..." She chortled, and pressed the end of the sword aginst his throat.

"How quickly you're mind has slipped away." She was about to kill the poor fellow when a double blaster blast from above blew her feet away from a scared Tymen. ' Memories from the day before flipped through

Tymen's mind.

"That...that's the person who tried to kill me yesterday!" Seraph's expression twisted in befuddlement.

"Why would she want to kill you?" Then a sinister realization dawned on her.

"Prehaps...in the future, she knew you were going to get the Archon...and with it went back in time to

prevent you from using it..."

"It's...plausable." Ducky scratched her chin.

"But...why do that?"

"Suppose...in the future you do something that terribly hinders her...in some way. Using the Archon she went back in time to stop you from...getting the archon before her?" Seraph drew her edgy hypothesis.

Tymen nodded.

"So...what do we do?" Tyio fell back in his chair, the weight of this ordeal finally impressing itself upon him.

"What do we do? We get to the Archon first and kill this...Asari along the way!"

"Alright...I'm in." Tymen stood up, sounding as defiant as he could.

"I guess I could give a hand." Ducky too stood. All eyes fell on Tymen.

"Oh...why not?"

"Excellent...we leave in three days, three days, I don't care if its on fire in the ice caps and hell's frozen over."



The fighter's engines flared up a moment, and a stack of smoke bellowed out. It hovered up in the air for a moment, before clanging down, uncerimoniously.

"Piece 'a junk!" BlackSheep threw a wrench at it, frustrated to tears with her damaged craft.

"Problems?" Ducky asked, standing on the other side of the rusted hanger

"It's...there problems with the fuel cells." BlackSheep explained meekly, lightly tossing a bolt. Ducky approaced BlackSheep, to the point were they were about three feet apart.

"I've got a proposition for you...but you'll end up facing awful torture, gruesome risk...and possible horrible death."

"And?"

"You'd get a shot at getting thease stinking Knn off our planet and kissing that radiation barrier good bye."

"You're...not serious, really?"

"Uh-huh."

"That's incredible! Sure, what do I have to do?!"

"Seraph is going..."

"Who?"

"The leader of the clan."

"Oh, okay."

"Seraph is going to get a ship that can breach the atmosphere, then we go and find this device that can take us back in time, and we can stop the Knn before they scour the sky."

"Time machine? So...travel known space, avoid a gigantic army of aliens, find a ancient artifact, blow up stuff, save the world?"

"Pretty much." A large grin grew across BlackSheep's face.

"Bring it on."

"Great...we leave in three days...and something about the ice caps and fire and ****and things."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Okay." BlackSheep went back to trying to repair her ragged and torn fighter.



"Oh, how a loath you, Tymen." Asari muttered, plotting a date into the Cage. It chirrped and hummed and glowed, and after charging a moment, light exploded from it. In the beggining, it was just raw, unrefined light, but then it destilled into finer shapes and shades. It lay out the labryinth of history.

"Poor fool, you believe you'll smoothly exit the atmosphere, and blast away into the vastness of the void.

Unfortunatley, that wing of Buggers will attempt to usurp your plans, as they did before. And, if memory doth serve, that...wretched, arrogant boy will blow them into dust."

"This time, the Knn will have a little help." Asari trained her cold eyes to the rush of information that floated and bobbed above the Cage. After scanning a bit, she finally located the the proper time, spinning in it's endless path through infinity.

"Here we go." Having selected the time, she stepped into the swirling patterns.



All orders of buisness finished, our heros retreated to there collective room, as they didn't have enough credits to afford individual rooms, and Seraph wasn't going to pay the bill, as she slept in her lush, noble quarters.

"And in other news, the granola report today was somewhere over oatmea--" Tyio dropped the remote as the t.v. flickered off.

"Nothing good on, and thease two dimensional view screens are pratically antique!" He complained.

"It's called a t.v." Tymen noted.

"What ever the infernal thing is called." Tyio crawled further back on the bed he had claimed.

"Temper now." BlackSheep called up to Tyio, as she set up her sleeping bag.

"Never you mind me."

"I was only trying to help!"

"Settle down." Tymen began, "you're only angry because you got the floor tonight, BlackSheep, and Tyio...you're always angry...but..."

"Shut up!" Tyio cast there way.

"Shut up all of you, just listen to the storm guys." Ducky said in a serene, listening to the the sand swirling outside, ramming into the building.

"It is rather nice." Tymen said. And, for a while, amongst the group, there was peace. After about twenty minutes, the storm died down so much that listening it would be listening to the sounds of silence.

Tymen rose to use the restroom, while the others still sat, zoned out. After hearing water noisily swirling down the drain, Tymen made a bit of a squeak and said,

"Now wasn't that nice of Seraph."

"What?" BlackSheep asked.

"She sent us four bottles of radish beer." Tymen walked in, brandishing the four bottles and the four accompaning glasses.

"Woohoo! Go what's-her-face!" Tyio cheered.

And then the madness began.



"Kill....hubbie..." BlackSheep snored something that sounded rather like a morbid statment, but none payed mind to it. Probably because, everyone else had fallen asleep due to the radish beer. Except for Tyio, that is.

"Eeeeh, Teeoo, yer awake." Mumbled a very drunk Tymen.

"And you're intoxicated." Tymen, lying in a rather confused way on the floor, stared at a empty bottle for a moment, then turned back to Tyio.

"Yu-huh."

"That's very bad for you, y'know, kills braincells." Tymen climbed up to sit beside Tyio.

"You're one 't talkee...y' drunk mor'n me..."

"I'm a demon, I've refined my digestive control to the point at which I can decide what gets absorbed and what just...passes through."

"Wasat demon stuff about, anyway? *hic*"

"You don't read much into history, do you? My breed of demons are ones that separated from the main horde twenty thosand years ago. We've been living on Carrotous."

"Then why aren't you trying 't eat my soul or drink my blood or something like that?"

"We're not like that..."

"Y'knowww what I thinkin?"

"What?"

"That you guys aren't really demons a' all, you just pretend to be, to make yerselves more fierce."

"You liar! You don't know what you're talking about!" Tyio stood to strike Tymen, but he had fell asleep straight away. After a second, he slumped back down on the bed.

"I've got to get out of here."

Favorable Story Kovu.

Favorable? What does favorable mean?



DAY 2



The desert was shaped diffrently that morn. Familiar landmarks, swept away into the swirling sands. Whole villages swallowed up, mountains smashed. Such was the might of a sandstorm.



"Meet species #3433: Knn." Seraph spoke loudly to the students of the clan. She paced near a holo-emmiter, one of the few on Carrotous. It showed a green tinted image of a standard, male Knn. The Knn were quite rabbit like, they stood three feet taller, however, at eight feet, they had larger muscles, no ears. They only had three toes on each foor and four fingers, all ending in spikes. And there eyes, though not consistent throught the species, were always a single color.

"We have limited information about them, but we have been able to salvage some from downed Deahtflies...and keep it hidden from the Imperials." The image switched from the scowling Knn to a red, dry planet.

"They hail from Knnryshaa, a desolate, rocky, desert like, high iron content planet. They lived peaceful lives, at a mid tech level, for thousands of years, until a leader, named The Demon, came to them from off world. He united them as a militaristic nation, and began construction of the massive warfleets. Those who did not follow him, were put to death..." The screen switched to an image of the Bloody Hills, a place on Knnryshaa where insubordinates were executed by tying limbs too far apart on 'T' shaped structures...so that the diaphram would rip. Thousands like this, lined up on the hills.

"Our mission, as a clan, while primarily to wage a succesionatory war aginst the other clans, it could also be stated that it is our charge to free Carrotous from the Knn by killing The Demon...and consiquentally, free the Knn, aswell. Such is our responsibility as the single greatest military force on Carrotous."

Seraph's eyes drifted behind her students, to see Tymen standing outside, making the 'come' motion.

"Ah...well that's all for today, you're assignment for next week is give me a full bioanalaysis of the Knn cell structure." With a good deal of noise, they all filtered out of the defunct classroom. Once they were all gone, Tymen strode in.

"You teach?"

"Only what's nesecary for a succesful clan." Tymen nodded, as he came closer to Seraph.

"So...what do you need, Tymen?"

"I want to meet this person who is going to give us thease...anti-radiation ships."

"You don't trust me do you?" Seraph chuckled.

"Not as far as I can through you." They both laughed, but then Seraph stopped dead in the middle, with a grim expression.

"You're gonna start to trust me if you want to have a chance to survive on my ship."

"Uh, yes sir, uh, ma'm." Tymen nearly jumped a foot back, he was so frightened.

"That's better, now follow me, I'll show you the guy."



As they walked amid the streets of Arean Daroth, they both reveled in the beautiful, beige tint everything now had, blasted by sand to above a milimeter of the true surface. They walked for about ten minutes in the city, as people on banckas and carrigaes, even a few wealthy on hovercraft, mingled about in the large city.

They came apoun a small shop, totally exposed to the open, so anyone could just walk in, only protection from the sun was a sandy cloth that was extended out by two sticks. There were two fighters and a big ship in the hanger like place. A lot of workers were on the small, inside of the building, and one was outside, energy melding something. Strangely enough, this is the one Seraph approached.

"Eh, Seraph, how's it hanging?" The rabbit dropped his plasma welder and pulled up his face sheild.

"Good, Kazooie, real good." This, 'Kazooie' was not a rabbit at all, but rather a bird, a red bird.

"Come to take you're ship early? It's not ready yet."

"No...I just have someone here who didn't believe there was a ship like this." Tymen walked up and weakly waved.

"Hi."

"Heya there, m'names Kazooie, you?"

"I'm Tymen." He replied weakly.

"Ah." Kazooie nodded.

"So...you have a ship that can get us off this planet?" Tymen pondered, his eyes exploring the hangar.

"Yea, this is her, right here." We walked up to the largest ship, that was the length of the entire hanger, with the smaller fighters tucked under it. It had a pointed cockpit, with a long sleek back and swept back wings, and multipule kidney shaped engines all in a clump in the back. It had the word 'Penultimate' on the side.

"So...how does it work?" Tymen waved his hand in the air as he questioned.

"It creates a pocket of subspace energy at the front and then shoots it out. The anti-energy will distrupt the radiation long enough for the ship to escape. It's a relatively simple technology, I even equipped a smaller one on the fighter in it's bay." Kazooie stroked it's hull with his wing, absorbing the beauty of his own creation.

"So, how long till it's ready?" Seraph questioned

"Ah, another day."

"What do you need to do?"

"There are some, how shall I say, quirks with the Hyper-Drive, it's a very old one we salvaged at the beggining of the war from a Knn Frogship."

"Wait...what's a Frogship?" Tymen asked, still very new to this world.

"It's one of the specialized fighters, it can maneuver better, fly faster, and shoot with more power than a standard fighter, plus it can jump to Hyper-Space."

"Ah ha...so there is there... any more Knn technology on the ship?"

"You bet, it's about 25% Imperial technology, 25% Konitar technology, and 50% Knn technology." The bird tallied off.

"That much..." Tymen backed off a bit.

"Don't worry, I'm sure there no bugs in it."

"Hm, well, that ship better be ready, Kazooie." Seraph said, as she began to walk away.

"Don't you worry." They both departed the hanger, and began walking back down the sand laiden city, the sun about a quarter away from noon.

"So, uh, Seraph...why'd you wait around for people like us to get of this planet and get that ah...Symballen's Archon...I mean, couldn't you have sent a troop of you're officers as soon as you found out about it?" Tymen broke the silence, turning to Seraph.

"My officers? I can't trust them any farther than I can throw them." Seraph stated coldly, but with a small smile, mimicing Tymen's earlier words.

"And...why choose us?"

"Because...I don't know...it just seemed like the right decision." Her voice trailed off, falling into the noise of the city.

"Seems a lot of this mission is riding on faith."

"So it would seem." They continued down, now within a few feet of the hotel.

"You feeling alright?" Seraph asked Tymen, as he rubbed his temples.

"I've just got a headache."

"From what?"

"Bit of a hangover."

"So you did get my gift."

"I'll just do without it next time, eh?" Tymen walked off into the building.

....

"You could atleast say thank you!"



"And...what do you call this again?" Tyio asked with a edge, sneering.

"Being street urchins." BlackSheep stated.

"Ah yes...joy..." Tyio was near exasperation. Not intrested in the slightest, he changed his intrest to the waning light, as the sun refracted across the clouds in the most perfect shade of orange. He noticed, then also, how the light lined up perfectly in a tiny slit between two buildings as compared to where he was standing. And then the light, his something quite shiny, and shone a beam of light straight into his eye...for a split second.

"Well if that isn't singular." Tyio pondered, deciding to go check it out...nothing better to do besides this 'street urchin' thing. From his pockets he pulled out steel climbing claws, relics from his Akael, before the dark. Quickly fitting them over his hands, he lept to the side of the building he was near, scampered up, and then lept across the street.

"Hey...where'd Tyio go?" Ducky pondered.



The Demon was quite annoyed. His first officer had pulled him away from his... duties...just to meet someone who had come aboard. He shouldn't have do deal with such trivial matters. But then he insisted and what not. He had spent the last fiveteen years focousing his physical and spiritual energies for the ultimate battle he knew would come soon. He hadn't come out of his chambers in nearly a month, and his subordinate Knn were frightened of his sever expression, someone was going to die.

"My lord, I'm so glad you came." The first officer Knn said, noting that the Demon was adorned in his finest, a steel mask across his mouth and nose, showing his pure yellow eyes, with silvery hair, and large blocks of black metal armor covering most of the rest of his body.

"This had better be very important!" The Demon hissed.

"It is my lord."

"You shouldn't have called me from my chambers!"

"It won't happen again, my lord."

"I'll be sure of that," he turned around, "guards, kill him!" The first officers eyes grew wide, and he was about to flee in terror, when two bolts of energy seared through his chest, and he slumped to the floor, leaving a buring hole straight through him. The Demon, smiling grimly(though none could tell, since his face was hidden) turned to see what was so very important.

"You! What are you doing here again!" The Demon hissed.

"I"m trying to help you." Asari chuckled, looking with contempt at The Demon.

"Oh really...how could you help me?"

"I know where the first piece of the map is hidden...and where the people who are going to take it are." The Demon's eyebrows raised at this.

"Indeed...where at?"

"Not that easy, I want a ship, a fast ship, with losts of firepower and enough supplies to last me a month." The Demon contemplated for a moment.

"Fair enough, I'll see to it." Asari nodded, and they replied,

"It's in Arean Daroth, and there hiding with the clan Konitar."

"Excellent."



Tyio lept through the glass city, swining on poles and leaping off walls.

"Haha!" He shouted with joy, as he kicked of the side of a building, then scampered up another, the left building that housed the slit.

"Okay...time to find that...thing." Using the multiple ledges and outcroppings on the tall building he navigated up and down the slit. He prowled it for near ten minutes, until he finally found it, wedged tightly between the two buildings.

"There you are." He attempted to grab it, but it emenated an explosion, destroying his metal claws. The shock caused him to loose his footing, and he teetered of the side of the building, until he snatched a gargoyle, and pulled himself back, hugging the side of the building. After reaffirming his grip, he edged closer to it, using but one hand to grab it, the other wrapped around and outcropping.

This time, it came without any resistance, and Tyio was finally able to inspect what it was. Felt like a heavy rock, but all he could see was the note pinned to it, which read,

In lands of yore, in better days

before time was welded before away

a place was hidden in a center of gray



Fired by God and forged by angel

was a place that could save us all from hell

where the water people dwell



To arive there upon, by raft or ship

ye must take to heart what comes from my lip



Travel all that made from clay

to the four worlds, before time is welded away

that hidden in a center of gray

is a place that could save us all from hell

where the water people dwell



That certainly stirred something unwanted and grim inside Tyio, so he ripped the note off, dropping it hundreds of feet below, deep into the city. It was attached to something that looked like a piece of pie, with the lower part being rounded and the two, jagged sides leading to a point. It could very well fit in his palm. It was largely forged of crystal(so that's what made the light...but how if the note was covering it) but the far left side was partially a deep, red rock. Etched into it was A sphere at the tip, and then a grid, and about fourty of the squares away was a concave sphere, with a circle around it. On one side of the sphere at the tip were three triangles, all tight together.

"Well what does this mean?" He pondered it a moment, then stuck it into his pocket. Maybe Tymen, or Seraph would have some insight into it. Then he realized the depth of his plight.

"How do I get down from here?!"



"Today...the granola took a sudden downturn, with large quantites of wheat all over the Great Plateau."

Ducky flipped through the channels.

"Not the blinking weather, turn it to something more intresting." BlackSheep hissed, sitting down, sipping some carrot juice.

"But the granola report is always intresting..." Ducky made the sad puppy face.

"Gah, give me that!" Tymen snatch the remote, and changed the channel.

"Now, isn't she gorgeous! Look at 'er tail! Anyway, this is the REALLY dangerous part!" A blonde haired rabbit in a beige safari outfit said to the screen, looking at a deadly deep swamp Garngresk. About that time Tyio barged in, looking rather frazzled.

"Hey...what happened to you?" Ducky asked.

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" He shouted, before charging into the bathroom.

"What's eating him?" BlackSheep wondered.

"Krikey, he's got me arm!" The rabbit on t.v. screamed.

Kovey, you are the most amazing person. I am...in awe.

Indeed favorable ;P

`Duckay

*Melts*

Awww, many thanks, Ducky.

Ahh...

uh..anyway, there's still one more part of

Chap 8, it'll be up at 'round Tuesday, or

late monday, sometime about that...



or just MAYBE noon tomarrow...

Yea, I let in, I'll post it early

CALL ME A SOFTIE AND DIE









DAY 3



Today was the day, Seraph thought, as she stood in the hallway of the hotel, dressed in the finest silver Konitar attire. As she tapped her foot waiting for her crew to get ready for the runaround of the Penultimate before the launch. She tapped, and waited, looking out the balcony over the desert sands, bathed in the early morning light. She stayed in this serene for going on twenty minutes, until the foursome burst out of the door.

"It's well about time!" Seraph shouted, as soon as they were out. All of them were now like her, dressed in the silvery clothing with purple capes held only for the highest officials of the Konitar clan.

"Eheh, sorry...let's just go." Tymen stammered, as they all filed out of the room.

The five of them walked down the streets. The sand from the yester-yesternight's storm had been baked in the previous days suns, and now was beggining to crack and chip in clumps. It was a good deal more ugly looking of a city now, because of it. Rabbits that walked about at this early time of the morn stopped and gawked at the lot of them, striding through the streets. It was not often something like this happened.



Finally, they arrived at the hanger, and Kaz had been so gracious as to set the Penultimate out on the street so they would not have to trifle with the cramped quarters inside.

"You're all quite late!" Kazooie shouted from a distance, flying up to greet them.

"Don't look at me." Seraph hissed, staring daggars into the others. Kazooie sized them up for a moment, with a rather severe look, before saying,

"Well, we better get going, they say a storm is coming." He hurried them aboard.



"This, is the heart of the Penultimate, the cockpit." Kazooie made a sweeping motion over the cockpit. There was fine, tough window, set up in two bubble like shapes, with a metal line bordering the two.

"Thease are the displays." Kazooie hopped up to the panel just below the windows. There were four or five small, kathode ray screens (standard t.v.s) and one holo-emitter off to the left side, which currently displayed a rotating image of the Penultimate.

"This one displays damage, this one weapons, this one scientific data for inside and out, this one shows any incoming messages, this one radar, and the holo-emmiter can show just about anything, but it usually remains a star map. He backed away from the panel, stroking the two flight sticks, which were spheres on poles with two joysticks with buttons attached at either side.

"Thease are the flight sticks, and thease..." He fell into a chair, "are fine, Chinkallian leather seats, with heating, automatic massage, and the ability to lie back..." He began to drool over the seats.

"Gee, musta cost a bundle." Tyio noted.

"It did, but the Konitar clan is flipping the bill, so I don't have to worry about it." Kaz laughed, but Seraph's scowl silenced him.

"Hehe.... moving on." He scuttled back down the main hall way.

"Thease are the quarters." He pointed with his winds to two doors on each side of him.

"There...only two?" Ducky sounded a little nervous.

"Yea... I was going to make more but Seraph insisted I kept the price down..." Seraph scowled again, harder this time,

"scowl, scowl, scowl, bleah *ahem* one is rather larger and rather nicer, I guess you'll be taking shifts."

Kaz postulated, and then led them deeper into the bowels of the ship. The came across four cylingers hanging from the ceiling about a foot from the ground, with a seat in the middle.

"Thease are the seats to the retractable gun turrets on top." Kaz stated, while lifting up a door in the grating

"And this leads to the one on bottom."

"What sort are they?" BlackSheep asked, who'd been rather quiet for most of the tour.

"The bottom one is four repeater heavy blasters, and the ones on top have two repeater medium blasters." Kaz said, wings on his hips, looking rather proud.



They continued on, down the sizable ship, until they arrived at a junction of ten large cylindars, filled with a slowly moving, black liquid.

"Thease are the power cells, they run off a fusion/fission reaction that can keep this baby running for near a thousand years, Knn technology, y'know, neseccary for those long space flights." Kaz labeled them,

"Eight of them, the smaller ones on either side, fuel the ships functions during normal flight, and the big two in the middle fuel Hyper-Space flight." At the far end of the power cell room, there were a great number of bombs and missles.

"Thease are the bombs and missles and thease," He pointed two protruding tubes, "are the launchers." He turned to Seraph, "you said you wanted a lot of firepower, right?" He smiled broadly at his accomplisment,

whilst Seraph was giddy like a little school girl,

"Oh, it's quite enough indeed, Kaz."

"Heh, one last thing to see." He located a ladder and began climbing down it, into a lower level, the others deciding to follow.

Eventually, they arrived in a large, open room, with lots of gadgets in it.

"This is the repair bay and hangar, here is everything you could possible need to repair the ship, the EVA suits, and the ships personal fighter, the Albatross." Kazz patted the fighter, which looked like a 'T' in a way, it had a back with a sort of fin, which increasingly got wider, and had a small little window on front, and abruptly stopped, where the guns and subspace escape device was. On it's bottom were long, broad wings.

"Well...that's it."

"You certainly have outdone you'rself, Kaz." Seraph shook his wing, abit to hard I might add.

"Thanks...when do you launch?" Kaz asked, nursing his damaged wing.

"Tonight, midnight, sharp." Seraph said back to him, as they all began climbing back up the ladder.

"Don't worry, it'll be ready!"



They all climbed out of the Penultimate rather uneventfully, begging the trek back to the hotel. Silence passed between them, until a boom of thunder was heard, and a dark cloud began to pass above the city.

"What the...what's that?" Tyio pondered.

"Kazooie said a storm would be coming." Tymen replied nonchalantly.

"But...I thought he ment a sand storm."

"Nope...a thunder storm." Tymen began to get excited, he always liked thunderstorms.

"But I mean...in a desert, wouldn't it like...not be a desert anymore?"

"We get rainstorms often, but thanks to the radiation, there's hardly and cloud cover, it all evaporates."

They continued back silently, until raindrops began to fall.

"Crap! It's starting to rain, we've got to run!" Seraph exclaimed, and took of running.

"Why is raining bad?" Ducky asked, as they all took of after Seraph."

"Rain will turn all this sand to mud, and we'll get stuck in it!" BlackSheep responded.

...

"Crap! Run!"



Luckily the troop had returned to the hotel just before the streets transformed into the foaming, muddy river they now were, as the whole desert now was. Lightning crackled and whipped above in the sky, as water fell in torrents.

"Who'da thought it would rain this hard in a desert?" Tyio commented, listening as the rain banged itself aginst the door and windows. The only other noise in the tiny room was the t.v. drawling on.

"When do you think it will stop?" Ducky asked Tymen.

"In about five hours." Tymen guessed.

"FIVE HOURS! Egads!" Ducky fell back onto the bed.

"When it rains, it rains long and hard." BlackSheep noted.

Time passed slowly, as the rain continued to fall, for the next few hours. Not many words were spoken, everyone was either zoned out, asleep, or watching the t.v.(I'll just let you guess who was doing what.)



Then, after a long time, the rain finally stopped.

"Hey...it finally stopped!" Ducky exclaimed. Soon, they all ran out to the balcony to see how the landscape had been affected.

The desert, once made up of slopes and rocks and dunes, was now just a flat, wet plain. But that was not the only thing to see out that balcony, there were atleast twenty lines, being sillhoueted by the setting sun, which set the sky and sand entirely orange.

"Oh no...those are...Knn ships!" Tymen ran inside, snatching up the intercon Seraph gave them.

"Seraph, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Tymen grabbed the intercom tightly.

"Oh yea," Tymen could hear some rustling, then a flip of a switch.

"Kazooie's fighter hanger, you bust 'em, we fix 'em, how may I help you?" Tymen could hear, obviously coming from a seperate comm.

"Kaz, cut the chit-chat, looks like we'll be having some guests."

"Are we...in good company?" Kaz sounded quite nervous.

"That's a negative, I'd say we fell in with a very bad crowd.

"Roger that, what will we do?"

"That ship better be ready by the time I get over there, Kaz, 'cause we're launching now! Tymen, I''ll be there in a minute, and YOU better be ready to go straight away!"

(I blackmailed him) No seriously. Um...never mind.

Ya big softie, Kovu! I'm eternally grateful. Brilliant

`Duckay

DIE! :P

(But she did Blackmail me)

lol

This story roOlz, hands down

Thankfullness, Copper.

Hmm, more stuffness to come tomorrow.





(P.S. Kaz, if you're reading this, CHECK YOU PRIVATE MESSAGES NOOOOOOWWW! Tis imporante!)

You're vacuum, er, welcome, Kove.

Sorry, I don't, ask FQuist, he must have it.

Crud, I thought you backed all that thar

up? Oh well...



vacumm, yes...



Chapter Nine: A Test of Will



The crew of the Penultimate ran through the now reborn, sandless streets of Arean Daroth. It was easy to hear the whir of the approaching fighters engines next to the near silence of the after-storm. They took a few swords, a few blasters, some paragoggles and a paracompass, the rest they prayed Kaz had the foresight to load into the cargo hold.



They had barely gotten a hundred meters from the hotel, when the veritable squadron strafed over the tops of the building and dove down to street level.

"There...gonna try and squash us!" Tymen screamed, looking back behind them at the fighters that were descending rapidly upon them.

"Everyone...JUMP!" Seraph ordered just as the fighters dove in, and now they all stoof atop the various fighters. Then, like the madmen Knn are, they, banked sharply to the right and left, trying to ram the rabbits atop them into the sides of buildings, while still powering down the street. The one Tyio was atop was near about to crush him into the side of a building, but he lept up atop the buildings roof and then jumped back to the street as the fighter smashed into the glass sided building, exploding brilliantly. Using all his energy, Tyio was just barely able to keep up on foot, but then a black fighter with strange, purple engines and purple cockpit, a heavy assault type, began raining blaster and missiles down on him!

Explosions shattered aginst the metal street through the city, as Tyio jumped and ducked and spun out of the way, leaving a trail of blast holes down the street.

"He can't keep that up much longer, we have to do something!" Ducky shouted to BlackSheep from a adjuctant fighter that was doing all sorts of arobatic manuevers to shake her off.

"I know, I know! I've got a plan!" BlackSheep shouted aginst the roar of the engines. As she stood atop the

black fighter, she pressed a number of things into her wrist watch, and a green glow began to eminate from it.

"Augh!" A blast seared across Tyio's right arm and he staggered for a moment, then tripped into the sand.

Still trying to blow him into nothing but a ugly red mass, the black fighter bucked and headed around to kill him.

When the assault fighter bucked and turned direction, BlackSheep lost her footing, and began sliding down and down, until in order to stay atop the fighter she grabbed the last protruding bar.

The assault fighter rained blaster fire upon Tyio, who just barely rolled away each time, and getting hit just a little bit each time.

"Die you Knn!" He hissed, his body covered in gashes, as he pulled out a sizeable blaster and fired it straight at the black glass of the viewscreen. Though no actual harm was done, it shocked the pilot, who turned his attention from Tyio, heading up.

As BlackSheep despratley hung to the bar, the fighter changed direction, swinging her straight into the thrust blast.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" She wailed in pain, as the flame destroyed her body, and then she fell to the sands in a smoking heap. Her body was completely covered in a massive burn, but with the last energy she had, she pressed her watch again.

The instant BlackSheep did this, a explosion blew out the entire lower level of the hotel, and out flew BlackSheeps coveted fighter, and began firing all it's weapons at the fighters.

The fighter Ducky was atop became pierced and fell in two shards to a nearby building, exploding on surface. She lept from the sinking fighter and began running along the side of the building, as the glass warped and distorted, preparing to explode. Just as the exploding wave of glass neared her, she lept from the side of the building, and continued running torward the hangar.

Tymen wasn't having much sucess either, as he clutched some apparatus atop one of the many remaining fighters that bobbed through the sea of weapons fire radiating from BlackSheep's ship. Daring to look back for just a second, he saw a streak of red energy speeding torward the fighter he was atop.

"It's gonna hit me!" Tymen noted, looking at the trajectory of the blast. Then, using all his strength be hit the fighter so that it was like a shield, and the blast hit the underside, propelling Tymen through the air.

Looking back, he saw three more squadrons of fighters converging torward the city, and a single large ship.



The clean, brand new enterior of the Beagle was a wonder to Asari, next to the barely spaceworthy ship she used last week (from her prospective) to assault the Valkireye. It was black on the top, which was basically a fat cylindar with long, triangle wings, and in the back was a long, spiked beam that held all the engine and hover equipment. The underside was spotted white, with six exhaust ports, and the front had a line like cockpit, and a hole just below it that housed the Beagle's massive collection of weaponry.

A pleasant flourescent green lit the interior of the cockpit, from there Asari commanded the whole of massive ship. With a flick of a switch, the afterburners churned into life, and the ship went barreling down through the streets, locking her cannons onto Tymen.

"Fire."

A CLIFF HANGER?! YOU LEAVE US WITH A CLIFF HANGER?!!!! AUGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Btw, check your mail.

Yup, that's what I did, Kazoo.

(and yes, I got it)

Did you just kill Blacksheep? (Long pause) Ummmm... Well, it was a good chapter.

Oh yeah, it was a very good Chappie.