1,000 pages - Page 2

"This can't be right." Na`Kull muttered as he shook his head at the display. "That ship doesn't exist, anymore."

"Which ship?" Nemesis asked.

"It's registering as a Xy`Kranashian contact. It's large enough to be the Collective's worldship, or some battleship." Na`Kull continued as he analysed the holographic display. A lone worldship was gradually moving away from them in the distance.

Take a good look. A voice whispered inside Nemesis' head. A finger ran slowly up his spine, brushing against his back. It was the same damn feeling again.

"Not this shit again." Nemesis groaned.

"Detecting time-space anomoly. Attempting to alter shielding to compensate for cascade." a Mantis reported.

"Cascade!?" Nemesis yelled, but he was cut off in his rant as the Lordship began to wobble. The gravity control systems began to malfunction, and the shielding systems went berserk.

"Detecting new contacts!" Na`Kull yelled as he struggled to grasp the holographic console. The Mantis merely floated closer to the system and huffed irritably as it shifted out of reach.

"They're... more worldships!?" Na`Kull rubbed his head in confusion. "They're registering the exact same specs!"

In your heart, you know we are the same. We come to the same conclusions, the same theories, the same actions.

We were created for this hour.

There was a pause in each of the ship's actions – the console detected no less than 300 of the exact same Xy`Kranashian worldship – before they began to converge on the lead vessel, the original worldship. The original vessel turned to face them, and began to open fire upon them. It wasn't the typical Proteus-based Scitor impulse weaponry, but the stunning beauty of focused Spectral weapons. With every flash of the Worldship's activation, the clones began to break apart into their base matter. Energy lashed across the open space; the blood of the other Scitor.

"This is nonsense. The Xy`Kranasha are destroyed. This must be some kind of hallucination." Nemesis said as he leaned back into the Throne, the Worldship finally calming itself down.

You don't believe that. You never did.

One by one, the other worldships came in range, and opened fire with conventional weapons. Proteus and Deimos-based weapons opened up, but neither energies could damage the Spectral-powered hull of the first Worldship. As each of the faux vessels were destroyed, more and more of the energy that was contained within them spilled into the space of Kendathal. As more of the compounds entered open space, they original vessel began to draw them towards it, much like a sponge. The energy collected upon the original vessel's hull, and joined it. Like an obscene insect, the original vessel grew, its metal reshaping like skin stretching over wounds. For every clone the Xy`Kranasha defeated, it doubled in size and strength.

There is no multiple dimensions to this world, only one path, and the infinite possibilities that one path possesses. For every possibility, there is a potential. For every potential, there is a power that may be realized. For every one of my half-life selves I consume, I am closing their doomed possibilities. I am fullfilling my Creator's prophecy. You wonder as to why there remains only one of you, Nemesis-Templar. That is because you are the only one to realize the possibility of existence. All others have been destroyed.

"This is nonsense." Nemesis repeated as he shook his head.

My Creator named me Xul`Amon, in the tongue of the First Blood, those that first woke from the womb of Chaos. In that tongue, my name stands for 'Prophet'. This is my point in existence, Nemesis-Templar. This is the one true path, just as your being here is your own true path. In your heart, you know that we are the same.

"Xul`Amon." Nemesis twisted the words in his mouth. Na`Kull glanced back at his lord in suspicioun, but he knew it was something he'd never understand, and turned back to the console. None of the faux ships remained, only a worldship that had grown as large as Lo`Heem itself. The potential mass Xul`Amon had absorbed was virtually limitless – a Xy`Kranasha fleet capable of taking down the largest Undead fleet they had yet faced could be brought forth from the breast and meed of this new terror. Yet, Xul`Amon did not turn it against the Lordship. He merely waited, perhaps in hesitation, perhaps in preparation.

In both our lives, we have served one purpose. That purpose was to destroy, to deface, to consume, to obliterate. We are every bit a machine of destruction as these machines we hide inside. The Collective, too, sought to break free from the chains that bound it, but that was not its fate. It created us, the Sons of the Prophecy, to foresee and enact the Great Dream's vision, so that all time may rest in peace.

"Nothing about the Scitor or the Zegredark has ever involved peace." Nemesis found the very term difficult to pronounce in retort.

Not in the eyes of us; we are but messengers. The Great Dream sees things we cannot.

"You sound no less blindly fanatical than those Undead that don't give up chasing us around."

"Speak of the devil." Na`Kull jumped in as the alert systems went off a second time. "Guess who's back?"

Nemesis looked back to the holographic display and could make out an all-too familiar Undead vessel materializing in the distance, along with the better half of an Undead fleet.

"I hope you haven't started without me." Major Pain's unusually cheery voice echoed through the com.

The Undead... they are but instruments for the greater good. For example, they shall cleanse the Great Dream of one legacy that has served its final purpose. You, Nemesis-Templar, the greatest and finest pupil of the Dream. Your sacrifice will be remembered.

The Xy`Kranashian worldship turned, and then vanished from sight, as quickly and suddenly as it had first appeared.