Part I: Bright Shadow of Death

Chapter 1:

Collapsion

Mortimer McMire looked beyond the clouds at the great dome, built around a small area of the surface of a yellowish green planet no one ever heard about called Chupe VII.  It had high quantities of different magnetic minerals in its atmosphere, and so detection of the base would be somewhat difficult, though, of course, no one would bother to come here.  The system was in complete chaos; its sun had novad about 30 years ago and there was darkness everywhere.  Mortimer’s sole life source came from his suit, as he watched the construction of his new base from about 10 kilometers off.  As he was looking at the site with increasing boredom, he suddenly noticed it…again.  He walked over to a nearby guard.

“Whats wrong”? he said to him.

The guard immediately stood up straight and saluted him.  Mortimer looked at his body structure; barely a head, a pretty large, non-humanoid body.  He had rescued a race of them from a devastated planet, once his computer had shown that they had intelligence and physical potential, and extremely great ones at that.  For some reason, no one remembered why the planet was blown (actually that’s not a good description, only the surface was blown, we’ve seen worse come of planets) but it didn’t matter.  Within a week they were working for him.  But now he had noticed something weird about them: once in a while, not often mind you, once every few hours, they would stop working suddenly for five or ten minutes in total synchronization, didn’t matter if they saw the other workers stop or not, they would stop too.  This wasn’t good, Mortimer thought, he would have to find the source of this disease.

“Nothing”, said the guard.  “Why do you ask?”

“Well, because suddenly everyone has stopped working, and if I ask someone what’s happening they respond as if nothing happened.”

“Aaa yes, I was sensing something, that I had something missing to do.  That…I don’t know, it just wanted to make me think and meditate.

“Hmmm”, Mortimer said, looking at the nearby people, all frozen in place, “Do you suppose this is a signal coming from somewhere else?”

“Aaaaa, possible, very possible, it seemed to be now that I think about it, orders from somewhere else…yes.”

“Well, we’ll need an auto-buzzer to wake them up.  We can’t stand any more delays, with a lot of the galaxy after us.  I would use the shikadi, but they’ve got more important things to do for me.  Owell.”

“What things?”, the alien asked.

Mortimer sighed.  Normally he would look on such questioning with suspicion, but he knew that this race liked to ask such questions after three weeks with them, and that nothing could change that without destroying their mental potentiality.  “It’s a secret”, he sighed out again.

“Okay then, looks like everyone’s back to work.”

“Aaa I’ll be back at my ship to organize the buzzers.”

But Mortimer did not get far.

He had walked only two paces when suddenly he noticed there seemed to be static electricity in the air, even penetrating his suit.  He looked again and realized that there air had gone slightly white, which was impossible, he thought…unless…technology.  But no one could have found us….no one would bother to look here…or would they?

And in a flash of brightness, the entire dome vaporized and collapsed.

There was only one sound, it was low-pitched, and it said: “Twooo Eight Years….one like me…one against me…..Earth….and they shall pay as I revenge them…they shhhal paaay….aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  ARRG”  Moaning and finally silence.

Forty Thousand light years away, Billy Blaze stopped freezing and woke up with a start.

Chapter 2:

Sensory Data

“Billy!  Billy!”  It was Spot, Billy’s pet Yorp.  “Billy! WTF happened!”  Spot was shaking him as he woke up.

“Whaaat?  What happened?”  He knew what had happened, and yet it was faint.

“You fainted.  Buut..that was the weirdest faint ever.  You were standing in the air, staying still, but you were unconscious.”

Billy thought for a minute.  “Yep, now I remember.  Hmm these periods used to happen to me, but not as often as the last few days.  Not good.  Lets see the result of my automatic wristwatch check for the last few minutes.”

The results: throughout the check body metabolism was normal throughout the whole period, however, the brain cerebral cortex had operated at least five times as much data.

“Hurrumpth.”, Billy said.  “No indication why.  Maybe I should make a stronger sensor for signal traces.”

“Hmmm but…do you remember anything?”

And suddenly it started coming.  “Hurry Spot!  Get my Brain Scan and Truth Machine!  I think I’m beginning to remember!”

Once it started, though, he didn’t think any brain scan would reveal anything more.  There was a whole upload of information, sensory data of a kind he didn’t know….It must’ve been enough for…

“Two days.” Spot said.  “Two days of information in five minutes.  According to this scanner you won’t understand much of it….the scanner doesn’t understand either.”

“But I had a very big feeling…hatred.”

“Think again…for whom?”

“Its very powerful, very dark…I don’t think I can localize it….wait…hatred…for me.”

“Very high self-esteem here.”

“Get serious, Spot.  What do you think is involved here.”

“Welllll….erm, probably some guy who hates you…”

“I would never have figured that out.”

“…and who could transmit it by his own means without technology, unconsciously.”

“Wwhat?  What makes you think that?”

“Well, no ones gonna bother to send a signal of hatred to you, they would just come and blow you away…or die trying.  Not a signal that powerful anyway.”

“Goood point.”

“BEILLLLLLLLLLLIEEEEEEEEEEEE”, said an unintroduced voice that everyone knows who it belongs to.

“Yes, mom?”

“ITS TEIM FOR SCHOOL!!  THE BUS IS ALMOST HERE!!”

Billy looked out the window and saw nothing.  He took binoculars and still saw nothing.  He took a space telescope and finally saw a very dim outline of a school bus on the very, very edge of the horizon.  “Geeze, Mom”.

“Owell, I better get my bag to go to school anyway.”

Spot: “you’re not going there, with this guy who really hates you after you!”

“I’ve got no choice”, Billy replied.  “I’ll bring a stun gun with me, but he can’t really harm me at the school.”

“That’s what you think!”, a very ugly, croak voice suddenly said.

Billy looked down at the ground, and gave a guess.  “Mortimer McMire?”  He looked back up.  “Aaa I knew it.  So, finally ready for a duel?”

“Cummon Keen, listen to me!”

It was the first time he had called him Keen, and not “Commander Clown” or something like that (the very best name was “Billy”).  Something must be troubling this guy, he thought.  “Yes?  I’m listening.”

“Dude, theres this super being who can destroy planets.  He’s after us both, I need your help.”

Billy thought for a moment, then pulled out his gun, setting it on “kill”.  “I don’t believe you.  Its even more likely that you sent that emotion signal to me in an attempt to trick me now.”

Mortimer smiled at his own intellect, then suddenly realized the situation he was in and frowned again.  “Dude, I’m a hologram.  Try touching me.”

Keen didn’t touch him.  He pulled some grass out and threw it at the figure.  It went through him. 

“Well, ok, but that still doesn’t convince me that you aren’t tricking me.”

Mortimer sighed.  “Well then, I have no other way of convincing you.  Since I am smarter, anything that would be regarded as proof could be forgery.  If you will not believe me I will have to go directly to the Shikadi to have them protect me.  Hopefully it will delay my death long enough until they can find a way to destroy the creature.  But I warn you, we will not find out before he destroys the Earth…and you!  We’ve had many chances to work together.  Us two, the most intelligent in the universe…we would be ruling god by now!”

Keen looked up with a frowning face.  “With that statement, you have just made all the religious people who are reading this very pissed.”

“Well, maybe not god…but the whole damn universe is enough to rule!”

“You’ve gone very off-track from destroying this creature to ruling the universe, Mortimer.  More evidence that you do not care, and therefore that it is a fraud.”

“Well, fine then.  Be that way.  My spaceship will be by Earth for ten more hours, call me if you change your mind.”

Around the corner, the bus was finally arriving.  Keen packed his bag.  “CYA MOM!!”

Chapter 3:

The Controlled

All his classes were a sinch.

Physical Education he was not so strong at (though he could still excel at jumping).  Billy used to get beaten up once in a while (discounting Mortimer), but those occurrences were very rare, and had become non-existent now that he had developed forms of weapons and hand-to-hand shielding that proved opponents no match for him.  PE was pretty okay, he didn’t cheat with technology very much except when they had to run the mile.  He also drank a glass of Vitalin before PE.   Today, soccer in the mud of last night’s rain.  He put a little mud-repelling field generator in his shoes and shirt (incase he fell) that was about all he could think about.  He adjusted the field so that it would not be so strong that people’s mud tore from their clothes…now it could only be useful against light areas of mud.  Oh well, that was the world. 

As he entered the PE locker, Azat, an Asian joker-of-the-class, started shouting to him “Hey!  Gonna use the space alien stuff to blow PE away again?”

In the locker room he looked at Tommy Foulkns and felt a little weird about the way he was staring at him.  Must be the vitalin and the feelings, he thought.

Once they entered PE, he found out they only needed to run half a lap around the field, instead of the usual one.  Must be looking forward to looking at us mess in the mud, that teacher, he thought.

Ten minutes later they finished choosing teams and were two minutes in the game, at one to zero.  Billy was feeling a spurt of energy (thanks to the vitalin) and ran across the 50-yard field three times in an attempt to get the ball.  He almost got tackled once, and almost fell into the mud twice, but in five more minutes he had scored 4 goals.  Within a minute he was running…running….

And suddenly he was tackled from behind.

His defense systems automatically activated it, but they did not seem to be any use.

He turned around…

…And saw Azat punching him.  Yes, punching him.  The shield seemed to be flexible rubber as he hit it, and his legs vibrated like hell with each punch.

Gasping for breath, he pulled his ray gun, set it on super tranq, and shot him.  Nothing happened.  “MoRTimER?”, he gasped.

That had an effect.

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGG!!!  DON’T SAY THATA FUCIN NAME!??!?!/ I H8 HIM H8 HIM H8 HATE HATE HATE.”  He was punching even more now.

“MORTIMER!  MORTIMER!  MORTIMER!”

“ARRRRRRRRGGGG!!”  He jumped up and jumped all over the place, and this means ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Up trees, up the school building, it didn’t matter.  Keen opened his sensor and trained it at him.

“Holy god.”  The field in Azat’s brain was unlike anything ever known before.  Super string, super static electricity…it must be overwhelming.  As he was thinking this, some green stuff came down from the sky and hit Azat, who disappeared within a second.  A voice sounded in Keen’s head.  “Now do you believe me?”

Keen started running, not away from the school or the voice, but toward his home.  This was a new evil power, and not even school could stop him from investigating it.  He took out his flask of Vitalin and drained it with a gulp.  He ran 3 kilometers in three minutes.  He ran into his house, past his mom with astonishing speed,  and donned his brother’s football helmet.

“SPOT SPOT!!!”  They ran toward each other in what seemed to be slow motion.  “We have to get outta here!  He’ll destroy the E—”

A bright cloud of brightness; a bright show of death descended upon them.  They ran in the BwB megarocket, and launched off as viewers all over the neighborhood were staring at the static in shock and darkness.

Immediately they ran into Mortimer McMire…

Part II: The Starting Point

Chapter 4:

The Run to the Starting Point

Mortimer McMire’s ship was about three times as large as the Bean with Bacon Megarocket, and they docked.  Mortimer quickly came to meet them.  Both spoke at once.

“Where to?”

Then both said “You choose.”

“Cummon”, McMire said.

“You have any clues that will unravel this mystery?  At least while that thing hasn’t noticed that we aren’t down there.”

“No.”

“Did you experience any weaknesses?  Like a signal and freezing in mid-air?”

Mortimer snapped “Freezing in mid air?  Holy howd you know?”

“Well, I’ve been frozen by a signal that’s coming from him.”

“Well…all my workers that I saved from planet Roesineta II were frozen for five minutes once every few hours, but they awoke like nothing happens when I ask them.  I was about to make a buzzer that would wake them up when suddenly that….thing attacked and destroyed my base.”

“Hmm he destroyed it?”

“Well, one of them anyway.  But should we got to Roesineta?”

“By all means….”

“Gannalech”, a voice said.

“Shikadi here?”, Keen inquired.

“Why, yes, General Aquisa volunteered to help me in this mission.”  The Shikadi Master stepped in and Keen saw it was the same as the rogue one who had helped him with his mission to save the universe from blowing up.  The Shikadi winked at him and said “Gannalech, the creature is coming for us now.”

“Maximum speed, then set a probability for Roesineta II.”

“Probability?”, Keen inquired.

“We use Infinite Improbability Drive here, just as in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…it’s a bit more complex though.  You have to control the Brownian Molecules, instead of just creating them.  Oh well, its tricky stuff.”

In the back viewscreen, the fog of white had risen past the Earth.  The stars were moving very rapidly, but the fog seemed to be getting brighter…and closer.

“Can’t we go any faster?”, Keen inquired.

“This is maximum speed.”

Keen looked at the controls, and said “WTF your maximum is 99.99% the speed of light?  That’s fuccin slow.”

“Never thought we’d need faster with the Drive”, Mortimer snarled.

“Probability calculation in two minutes.”, the computer said.

“And when will the creature intercept us?”, Mortimer asked.

“One minute, fifty-nine seconds.”

“I knew it.”

“By the way”, the computer added, “The creature can probably inhibit our using the Infinite Improbability Drive when it gets close enough, since it is composed of energy in this matter.”

“Oh boy.”

“Say”, Keen said.

“Yes?”, Mort replied.

“You don’t suppose that creature is what became of the Shikadinvinible when King Lonelitaire defeated it?  It can blame you for not protecting it and blame me for helping to destroy it.”

“Nonsense, it would blame the King, of course.  Besides, the spawn of the Shikadinvincible is in my Shikadi base.  It’s a Shikadi Superbeing now, with the power to suck energy from hyperspace itself.”

Keen shuddered.  THAT was something he would not want to fight.

“Warning.  Creature interception in 20 seconds, probability drive in 21 seconds.”

“You don’t suppose you can turn the switch of the Drive and turn the creature into a whale or something.”

Sigh.  “It doesn’t work that way.  According to our sensors, that creature IS probability, you can’t dictate it.”

“Warning, Anti-Probability field emitted by the creature confirmed.  Creature interception in 10 seconds.”

And what can Keen do except turn the switch?

Chapter 5:

The Clueless Planet

“Why… Roesineta II”, Mortimer said.

“Of course.  The computer can’t just search all probabilities from 1:1 to infinity:infinity to try to find the probability that we’re at Roesineta.  I’ll have to narrow it down, and within the last ten seconds the probability calculations would almost be completed, and we could only be a little bit off.”

“Why…hmm that IS right.  For once you’ve thought of something I didn’t.”

“Well”, the Shikadi Master said.  “We must hurry, the creature could come here within who knows.  A few hours maybe.”

“Absolutely, lets go find some clues to what this thing is.”

“We are also detecting a power source down there.”, Aquisa continued.

“Really?  Our team didn’t detect it last time when we were searching for potential workers.  Lets go check it out.”

“Landing in two minutes”, the computer announced. 

As they went down, they saw ground…and then still ground…and finally they landed on…ground.

“Theres nothing here”, Mortimer commented.

“Hmm maybe the computer mistaken it…wait no ground blasters are being activated.  Its underground.”

Vibration and then a great hole underneath.  The place was hollow, hundreds of feet separated them and the next level.  And down there was a small city…

“A hidden city?”, Keen asked.

“No,” Aquisa replied.  “Sensors indicate that it was constructed above ground and then moved here.”

“Sooo…these are the remains of an ancient culture…”

“Most likely yeah.

“Any life forms?”, Mortimer quickly asked.

“None intelligent.”

“Well, lets go check it out then!”  The ship was landing anyway.

They opened the door, and found a weird sight.

“This can’t be a city”, Keen said.  “It only has a few small buildings and a single giant one.”

“Well, some races do have cities made of hives, even on your planet.”, the Shikadi said.

But when they opened the door it didn’t seem like a hive at all.

It was pulsating inside, but it was only machinery.  There was no space to house anyone, and barely enough space to walk.

“There’s teleport disruptors here too”, Aquisa said, frowning.  “I can’t do $h!t in exploring it”.

“We better not stay here long, then, much less the creature corners us.”

It turned out that the whole building was a mess of computer equipment.  “That would explain it, if they wanted to protect it, but strange that they do not use it or anything.”, Mort said.

The smaller buildings looked like guardhouses for robots, and some still had a few inactive robots in them.  They had burned out positronic brains, though, so no information could be extracted from them.

Keen sighed.  Mortimer replied [to nothing], “If there’s nothing here, and nothing else, then there’s nothing on the surface too, my team has checked that.  No buildings or anything… NOTHING!!!”

The last phrase echoed throughout the whole underground, and suddenly, before them, a great cavern opened up.

“Nothing?”, Mortimer said again.  “Who would think of such a password.”

They went in.

Chapter 6:

The Disembrained Mind

And yes, like the chapter name suggested, it was a brain.  A giant positronic brain, about 400 meters into the cavern that just opened up.  Sensors indicated wires to be connecting it to the giant computer building at some point, but that they were now cut off.  Mortimer, Keen, and Aquisa approached it cautiously.

“It’s dead.”, Keen said, staring at his sensor.  “Information is still stored in there, however.”

Mortimer searched his pack for the appropriate equipment, then stuck it on the brain to copy the info.

“Three hours”, he said.  “Much of the brain is shielded, and it’ll take time.”

“Wait a minute”, Keen said.  “The brain’s not really dead, like the robots back there.  It’s just dormant, without energy.  If we jump-start it, we can get a lot more information faster.”

“How?  This thing is BIG.”

“I should have more than enough energy to jump it”, Aquisa said.  “Still, it is a risk.  Who knows what will happen when we do so.”

“Well”, Keen said.  “The creature is probably gonna be here in 3 hours anyway, we have to take risks.”

“Hmm”, Mortimer said.  “I suppose you’re right.”

“Okkkkay then….”

The Shikadi Master touched the brain, cautiously then hugged it.  As he did so it began to glow, steadily brighter.  The Master became slightly more transparent, but no enough to make it look like he was in danger.  And finally, the brain was started again.

And as suddenly, it stopped.

For the energy had been put somewhere else.

And that somewhere was obvious, as whiteness started pouring out the brain, and materialized into the creature.

“Ooooh shet.”

“AAAaaa, refreshening”, the creature said.  “Thanks for giving me a faster mode of transport.  If left to my own devices, I would’ve took 3 hours, one minute to get here.”

“The irony”, Mortimer said.

“No kidding.  Anyway, I suppose you came to this planet to attempt to find out about me.  Well, nothing here, not even the info in that brain would give you many clues.  But I will tell you, just before I kill you guys.  Well, here’s the story.”:

Once upon a time, far, far away, well, in this planet, a long time ago, there was a race of very intelelgent beings, with a big culture, big cities, that is why they had so much potential while knowing nothing, you see.  Well anyway with the story, one day they found out how to create artificial intelligence, and eventually, after a century, AI evolved into a wave of energy containing all the information of the mind.  They put this energy into the brain that you are standing right next to right now.  It was above the ground then, and so was the small city.  That energy was me.  I was the mind of this robot.  But I was smarter.  I started to take over, and controlled several robots to build a giant brain to suck in the knowledge and minds of all the people on this planet.  And eventually I did do that.  I absorbed all their knowledge, and I was the all-knowledgeful.  It took my half a melennium, 500 years, but I did that.  Now I had a planet…and eventually it would be a universe.  So us robots, using our creators as slaves, built spaceships.  But suddenly, when I was being shipped to absorb the minds of others, we encountered a vaccum, and I was sucked from my body, my brain actually.  I myself was self-sustaining, but I did not know so, so I just implanted all the knowledge of the race into the solid part of my brain, and when I tried to retrieve it it accidently charged upon me and all the energy blew to a planet 3000 light years away.  All the ships were brought back, I destroyed all that this world had accomplished, and buried this place, a place of nothing.  And now I shall have my revenge.. You get it now?

“Erm, no.”, Mortimer and Keen said in union.

“Man…well fine.  Do you know what world the knowledge blew to?”

“Dude, we didn’t even know about this before you told us.”

“Well, fine then hmm this knowledge blew, in the form of light, to Earth.  Much of it was lost, but some of it got implanted into two babies, still in their mothers’ wombs.  And you know who those two are.”

Mortimer and Keen looked at the creature in disbelief.  They said in union again “We’ve checked for any possible sources of our intelligence.  It did not come from any signal.”

“Really?  Haven’t you experienced any periods of joining back with the mind that I am?”

“Well, I have but Mortimer hasn’t.”

“Well…fine.  If you don’t believe me I’ll just have to kill you.”

“Say…one more thing.”, Mortimer said.

“What?”

“Whats your name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“So that we can insult you personally.”

“Aaaaa, ok then, call me Abobecineratiotehdncialeneildncikalksneic”

“Anything pronounceable?”

“No, but you can call me Abob I suppose”

“Well Bob, you are a sucky, gay loser.  Even Mortimer could beat you.”

“NOOOOOOOOOO DON’T SAY THAT NAME!!!”

But it seemed like he was learning to control his emotions.  It wasn’t half as bad as the time on Earth.

Aquisa whispered: “Run away, and keep insulting him.  I will distract him.”

“No!”, Keen replied in such a way that it made Mortimer think about his sister again.

“Relax, if he beats me I become a Shikadi Elite.”

“…and if he drains your energy you become a nothing.”

“So what do we do?”

“We all run and shout insults by microphone.  Ready?  RUNNNN!!!!”

Well you can guess what happened next.  Once they entered the ship, though, Bob started persuing them.  “No crap”, Aquisa said.  “We cant calculate the probability of getting to the Shikadi galaxy in time.”

Bob’s energy was coming very close now.

“ABANDON SHIP!!”, Keen said.  “Get to my ship.  It can go a lot faster.”

They got into Keen’s docked ship and found Norp.  “Awww you forgot about me”. 

“Sorry Spo-Norp.”

“Well its that writer’s fault.”

Anyway, the ship detatched and started going faster than the energy realm of Bob.  Then it went into hyperspace, and landed in the coordinates of the Shikadi galaxy.

Part III: The Shikadi Galaxy

Chapter 7:

The Coming

A massive Shikadi battlefleet was before them, as well as an impressive planet that looked like it was being constantly bombarded by energy.  “Well”, Mortimer McMire said.  “This is the site for the newest weapon the Shikadi are building: The Infinite Spank Generator.  It has the power to adjust the laws of physics in any particular part of the universe, or the entire universe itself, since it can also adjust the infinite-size law.  With it, dominating all the universes will be EZ$$.”

Mortimer was definitely being just a little too nice to Keen.

“Well, anyway, I brought you here so that we can attempt to find a solution to this problem.  Hang on, we’re docking in the main station.”

Brighness engulfed the BwB Megarocket as it landed into one of the many hangar bays.

“Well first we’ll meet the Shikadi SuperBeing.”  After a bunch of doorways and elevators (man I’ll never find a way outta this if they become traitorous, Keen thought) they came upon a giant door, then him himself.  Easily four times the size of the Shikadinvincible, Keen had the feeling that this guy wasn’t transparent anymore, but rather translucent.  Now he really didn’t want to fight him.

Fortunately, he would not have to.

“GRRRR KEEN FAG BIATCH”.

“Now now”, Mortimer said.  “We’ve had a long discussion about this, you agred.”

“ARRGARRG Fine, controlled again.”

“Gee, these Skikadis do swear a lot more than last time”.  Mortimer shrugged.

“Well anyway”, Mortimer said, trying to break the silence, “We’ve comehere to try to blow up this guy whos following us.  We need a way.”

“Well…we know that our knowledge definitely didn’t come from him…how about geometric proof?”

“Well…what kind of proof?”

“Dunno…”

“Well, we’ll skip that idea then.”

“Black hole?”

“We know he can travel faster than light.  A black hole wouldn’t do S—”

“Hurrumpth.  Do YOU have any ideas?”

“Well…once the Infinite Spank Generator is finished he’ll be screwed once we find out his coordinates.  An hour….”

“*Beep*Beep.  Warning, Incoming energy field.  Ten minutes to interception.”

“You ready for battle?”, Keen said to the Shikadi SuperBeing.

Chapter 8:

The Fight

Once upon a time, in a galaxy somewhere in a universe, a giant ball of energy suddenly exploded and aligned themselves into the pattern of the enzymes which it exploded onto.  As suddenly as it exploded, life formed in the universe, a very fat pig was born, but most of the energy went into a giant being of, um, energy.  This was what would be called the Shikadi All-Powerful.  A giant planet of life-energy, the Shikadi All-Powerful gave birth to the race of Shikadis, and to make sure they would not match her she kept transferring all her energy to make Shikadis more powerful, and because of that lay dormant somewhere in the Shikadi Galaxy.  Easily the Second Most powerful creature in the Universe (well, if someone bothered to investigate they would find that she was actually the third most powerful, but as of yet no one has done so), no one has dared to fight her, and very few indeed have seen her.  And yet, in their journey to escape the wrath of the mysterious energy field that was a giant mind, Commander Keen and Mortimer McMire would meet her, and find the truth about her.  The end.

“*Beep*Beep, field interception in 2 minutes.”

“Hurry!  Into this door!”, Mortimer said.

The hangar bay shot open.

“WHER IZ CEPTEIN KENN”, a devastating voice said.  It was becoming even more, with each meeting (and had worse spelling).

Mortimer strained to keep Keen from smashing the door open to shout a stupid insult in this kind of situation.

“TO FACE HIM AND MORTIMER MCMIRE YOU’LL HAVE TO FACE ME FIRST”, the Shikadi SuperBeing towered and put out in a great voice.

“J00 SHEL DEI!!!”

“…BUT I WARN YOU, I AM THE MOST POWERFUL CREATURE IN THE UNIVERSE!!”

“Is he really?”, Keen asked Mortimer.

“No.  The actual title belongs to the Bossy Man of Chulung-Chumpe.”

“The who?”

But giant lightning sparks already lept out from the field.  The Shikadi countered with some giant diamonds which exploded into bouncy Shikadi Elite electrospheres, which then sparked the energy field.  The inside of the SuperBeing’s body was beginning to get transparent, but a sudden charge of energy (probably from hyperspace) brought it back to normal again.  But it seemed as if the SuperBeing’s actions were slightly slower now.  Bob, of course, did not show any difference.  He striked again, this time with ball lightning (for those who don’t know that’s lightning that travels at walking speed in what looks like a ball, one of the phenomenons of nature).  The SuperBeing emminated some clouds, which kept striking with lightning.  The Shikadi SuperBeing’s colour kept fluctuating.  The energy bar specifying the amount of health kept going down with each Bob attack then fluxing up again.  Finally, Bob found this weakness, and, when the Shikadi just attacked, striked with all his might.

The health bar was down to barely 10%, it recharged a little, but Bob kept attacking, and the Shikadi SuperBeing was helplessly trying to quickly regain his energy.  Suddenly, Mortimer got a call…

“Spank Generator is ready, sir.  What do you want to do with it.”

“ST00PID.  Inhibit energy field that is not Shikadi.”  He quickly gave the coordinates of the room.

And then Bob struck down the Shikadi Superbeing.

“Nooooo.  Beaten by a suxx00r.  I will have my revenge on you!”

“AHA”, Bob said.  “NWO WHER IZ TAT KENN N MCMEIR.”  He spotted the small door leading to the room they were hiding in.

“Ready!”, McMire’s communicator said.

“ACTIVATE!”

Bob started to use lightning to blow down the shielding of the small door, and suddenly he was plagued with a red light.

“AERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGG!!!”  Then suddenly, he ran right out of the room.

“KEEP YOUR SPANK ON HIM!!!”

“Acknow---BOOOM BOOOOOOOM  OH NO WHAT THE HELL ARRRGGG SPLASH ZOOM CRACK”, said the communicator.

“Oooh crap.”, Keen and Mortimer both said.  Outside of the window the towering Omegamatic-like station was sparking and exploding all over.

“Hangar bay”,  They both said.

A few minutes run and they were teleporting to the flagship of the fleet.  “GET us outta here.”, Mortimer panted.

Outside the Giant Omegamatic cracked into two pieces, which both blew up.

“Activate Faster-Than-Light”, the Captain commanded.

“Accelerating….point three c…point 4 c….”

Meanwhile the creature, noting their sudden disappearence, came after them.

“Point eight c……………….point nine c…………………………………….”.  Nearly 30 seconds passed before the next announcement: “……Point nine nine c.  Enabling F-T-L”

The laws of the universe collapsed around the ship as it started going at light speed…then “one point 1 c…one point 2 c”

“The creature’s gaining on us!”, the Captain observed.  As so he was.  Emminating from the creature was lightning, almost streaks of probability, shooting at the ship.

“Two point two c….two point three…”

“We’re losing him now!”, as the ship started going faster than Bob.  But Bob wasn’t one to give up so easily this time.  In a sudden spurt of energy he increased his speed…

“He’s at three c!”

“two point nine c….three…three point one”

Another spurt of energy.  “OMG FOUR NOW!!!!”

“Hyper…hyperspace…”, Mortimer said.

“Wherto?”

“Who is more powerful than the SuperBeing…who is willing to help us…”

“Well…that rings the bell…more powerful….the All-Powerful?”

“Whos he?”, said Keen.

“SHE, is the planet who started the Shikadi race.  A living one.”

“She’s the most powerful creature in universe?”

“No.  The bossy man can beat her up.  Anyway she’ll help us.  HYPERNOW!!!”

And a few seconds later the ship entered hyperspace, and came out in the center of the galaxy.

Part IV: The Giving Planet

Chapter 8:

Bob’s Last Fight

“Land this ship.”, Mortimer ordered.

“We cant.”

“Are you becoming traitorous now….guards…”

The guards said.  “He’s right.  The All-Powerful will not appreciate it.  Besides, no one has been on her for the last…six billion years.”

“Well…fine.  Can me and Keen at least teleport onto her?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Goodie.  Make it so.”

A minute later they were walking on the surface of the All-Powerful.

“Hmmm, quiet here?”, Keen said.

“She’s been dormant for, uh, six billion years now.  According to that legend, to wake her up you touch that rock over there.”

“Well…should I or should you?”

“Well…I’m respected as the boss…so um…no bad feelings…”

“None felt.  Go ahead.”

He touched the rock and suddenly there was a voice coming from the planet.

“WHO WAKES ME U—Oh Mortimer, what do you want now.  No wait…I already know.  Yes…the wrath of Abobecineratiotehdncialeneildncikalksneic will desend upon you in…uh…four minutes.”

“Can you do nuthin to prevent it?”

“Well, of course I can….YAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNN.  Buuuutt yyou know.  Well, I’ll just release some ancient Skikadi ghosts to protect you.”

Some of what looked like vapour came out of the planet.  They turned into clouds, which hung around the two.

“Aaaa time to go back to sleep.  He’s coming in one minute.”

Keen looked at Mortimer.  Mortimer looked at Keen.

“Never knew there were Shikadi ghosts.”, Keen said.

“Must’ve came in ancient times…wait.”

Indeed, the energy field that was Bob came into the planet.

He came closer.

“Should we run?”  Both of them thought the other said that.

“Nahh.”  This time both thought they said that.

And he struck.

Only to be defected by an invisible shield protecting the two.

“ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!’, and struck again.  Still no result.

The clouds of vapour came up, and struck him.  He struck back.  They struck…well lets just say they fought for what seemed like hours, but was actually only twenty minutes.  Then the ghosts, no one knows if they were tired or not, receeded back into the body of the Shikadi All-Powerful.

Bob tested.  The shield was also gone.

“BwaHwaHwaHwaHwaHwaHwaHwaBWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHW…BUAH HUWA HUWA HUWA HUWA HUWA BWAHWaHwaHwaHwa Ha hahahahhhhhahhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa ACK cough cough.  Now you finally run out of luck, you two.  ACK CHOKE.  YuurroeoffACKACKACK”  He finally gave up in desperation.  “ACK Shouldn’t have aaack luaghed…anyway you first.”, pointed at Mortimer.

A burst of lightning struck him.  “TORTUER!!’, he said, and Mortimer stayed there, alive but jumping up and down in great pain.

“Now for you…”

“NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT!!”, Keen said, pulling out his gun.

“ENOUGH IS NUFF!!!”, the planet said.

“Oh great, you really think you can stop me now.”, Bob replied.

“Man you’re so boring.  Don’t you realize what you want and why you’re trying to kill these two?!?!?!”

“Erm, revenge?”

“ST00PID, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE”

“Well…erm…”

“Nooo…you don’t want all that knowledge back…you want a body…instead of that puny energy that’s you.  You want to be able to stand up to your creators….You NEED a body.”

“Erm..” This was definitely going too fast for him. “I guess so…”

“Fine.”  What looked like an energy drink popped up.  “That is one of the most powerful ingredients of life, in that bottle.  It will give you a body without making you lose any of your brain power.”

Keen looked down, then looked up… “YO ALL THIS TIME J00R STUPID OR SOMETHIN”

BOOM!!!

Bob, a grown adult, was standing right next to him.  “HAHAHAHAHAH Now that I have a body, you shall now both be 0wned!!”  He raised his fists… “Ok Keen lets do it.  You wanted a fight you got a fight.” He was jumping now…

Keen got his gun out…

And stopped suddenly, dropping it.  He sighed.

“I’m not fighting you.”

“Wwwhat?”

“Dude, that bottle gave you a body, but it took away all our powers.  You’re helpless now, don’t you see.  Beauty for power.  Yep, be careful what you wish for.

Bob stood up, ready to assault Keen, then sighed too.  “Well, you’re right I guess.”

“You know…I wonder…how could you have escaped this…and everything.  Your odds were always real low and yet you pulled through.”

“That is because of two driving forces: hate and love.  Well you know hate I guess but love is a way different one.  Hate, you see, gives you enormous power, drives you with a higher initiative.  But it also makes YOU suffer, to hate someone so much.  And power also makes you overconfident.

“Love, on the other hand, you have to struggle through, butit makes you grow.  You barely make it through, and yet it works, there when you need it, gone when you don’t, no side effects.  That’s the lesson many don’t learn, why the light side 0wns the dark side.  Owell, I wish you good luck.  I gotta get back to dinner!”

“Yeah, whatever, good bye…hopefully I won’t meet you again.”

Conclusion:

Commander Keen walked in the flagship toward the hangar bay, where his BwB Megarocket had been moved to.  He didn’t know where Mortimer McMire went.  Then suddenly he saw a door with his name on it.  He opened it.

One Mortimer saw him, he seemed to be struggling to say something.  Keen looked at the description of his illness “Severe damage to several parts of brain and vocal cords.”

He answered the question that he knew Mortimer was asking with a nod.

And suddenly Mortimer struggled like hell.

“Now Mortimer”, a Shikadi doctor said.  “Don’t struggle.  Treatment will be over soon.”

And still he was struggling, pointing at him.

Keen wondered what question he might be asking, then snickered, turning his laugh into a cough.  Of course!  Mortimer was only evil, he couldn’t help it.  Once he got out of the room and shut the door he was laughing his head off, though.  Better to be gone when treatment was done, though, he thought.

And he resumed walked toward the hangar bay.

Epilogue:

The night sky shown through the clouds with incredible clearness, Billy Blaze stared at it in wonder.  Trouble was undoubtedly stirring somewhere else in the galaxy, and even now the stars were beckoning him to escape the pull of the Earth that was his home and come to them. 

It had been a week since the end of the incident with the essence of thought.  Billy wondered what its origins were, and if there could be another one.  Through a few days of searching, he had created a diagram: a simple geometric proof that all the energies created by the creature would have been worn out by the fabric of the universe, barely 10,000 miles away from the atmosphere.

Bob had done all this for nothing.

And Keen still did not know what his true origin was, where he came from, and how he got here, if indeed he did.  Maybe he was just a freak, imposed on this watery rock called the Earth.

He had to find out.  And either way, he would have to accept it.  But where should he start?

There was a catalog for FamBam Intergalactic Books Inc. of Reasen II.  He picked up his intergalactic cell phone and called the number.