ADVENTURES IN TIME, SPACE AND TRANSDIMENSIONALITY

[Maharg67]

STORY DIRECTIONS

STORY POINTS

 

Graharg and Grazarg are travelling to Dizzyland in Cyborg City to gain more valuable data and perhaps something more. AlphaThirteen is with them.

 

Gramarg and Gravarg are busy in SanctuaryHubplex as they now work with the newly reformed and fully reawaken SanctuaryMind.

Gragarg is busy in SanctuaryHubplex doing service support work for the others of the Second Nine.

Grac(h)arg has arisen as a four armed woman, a healer of extraordinary knowledge and abilities. She is based in a special hospital in SanctuaryHubplex.

Grawarg, the great gragoyle, is guarding SanctuaryHubplex with an army of gragoyles. Human like flesh elemental gralytes were joining his forces, they coming in varied roles and with varied technologies including power armour, robots and various armoured transports.

 

Grajarg as appeared as three specialised biomechanical warriors and is helping to guard SanctuaryHub.

 

Graaarg, Graearg, Graiarg, Graoarg and Grauarg are with the Karmatta Triplets and their neobabies. They are now with the Karmatta Family in the large central SanctuaryClave settlement of Hopeville.

 

Gratarg, Grafarg and Gradarg travel to one of the false Shangrilas in the vast, deep labyrinth of the Deeplight Caverns. BetaThirteen were assisting them.

 

Grabarg, Grakarg, Grararg and Grayarg are fighting in the big battle above and on the Grand Necrotron.

Granarg, Graparg, Grasarg are joining the Battle of the Grand Necrotron.

 

Grax(u)arg is the ‘traitor’ on the Grand Necrotron.

 

Gralarg is yet to appear as a great kraken shapeform (giant squid).

 

GRAQ(U)ARG is yet to appear as special role and shapeform

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

A SURPRISING MESSAGE FROM A ‘TRAITOR’

 

When Gramarg and Gravarg were empath-telepathed a message from Grax(e)arg, at first they were highly suspicious and careful, throwing up psychic walls. Then an odd truth came to them and they knew that they could trust this so called ‘traitor’.

 

Grax(e)arg: “It will soon be time to reveal by true nature as a double-agent pretending to be a traitor. Serving Retirawa was bad enough but he never did trust me fully. Then again Retirawa is insanely paranoid to an amazing degree and does not even trust the Mr Smithdom that he created as an extension of himself. Thus he left me in his base much of the time, assuming that I could never get to his secret databanks, if one could call them that. I have spent much time and energy seeding doubts in the Mr Smiths about their future with Retirawa for they are as paranoid as he is, being an expression of his true nature.”

 

She went on. “Retirawa has managed to control so far any elements of the Great Shadow and Great Undeath that have come relatively close to it but now that control is shrinking, is fragmenting. Retirawa knows it must act soon in a very drastic fashion so as to survive from being shredded and absorbed by the two powerful forces.”

 

After a pause she went on. “There may be another dark force to deal with being one that might have been behind the creation of Retirawa, which may have not been a mistake at all. Retirawa has sensed this other presence at least once in a subtle and frustrating manner but has identified its nature as strong possibility of greater daedric energies.”

 

Greater daedric energies meant one of the Daedric Gods or Goddesses who were strange demonic entities found in many Alternates of the Multiverse. They all had at least a core of darkness but some were more fallen than others. On some worlds they were known as the Daedric Princesses but most declared them to be the Daedric God-Goddesses. Not all of the Grand Daedra were known on all worlds and the same could be said of the uncommon greater daedra, the common middling daedra and the numerous lesser daedra.

 

Of the Grand Daedra, only a handful would be knowledgeable, cunning and powerful enough to create something like the Retirawa. A good question was why they would do so but with the Daedraza one could never truly be sure for they had their own peculiar form of thinking. Daedraza was a name for all daedric lifeforms but also for other aspects of the daedra including Oblivionaedra, also known as the Realms of Oblivion. Daedra were tightly tuned to their realms in general and even more so to their own home realms.

 

Gramarg and Gravarg did not have the time or energy to seek out any hidden daedric presence for they had to focus on the immediate concerns. SanctuaryMind was not so constrained.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

TRIPLECITY DIZZYLAND

American Dizzyland Corporate Theme Park with theme rides, special super virtual reality facilities, robotic cartoon characters, amusing androids, places to eat, gardens, special areas for adults, crèches and many other facilities. Dark whispers of disappearing children, of strange robots and other stories.

 

CITY OF CYBORGS

TRIPLECITY DIZZYLAND

 

Grazarg and Graharg drifted in multicoloured robes, in disguise, amongst those people called Visitorees. Their function was to come from the poor fringe farms where they dwelt bringing food and other goods in exchange for yet other goods and good-times. The Visitorees gained trade-coins and bought cheap but durable, useful or just pleasurable goods from large, chunky vending-machines. They ate fast-food and drank sweet sodas or sweetened fruit juices. They rode strange entertainment rides and sipped large cups of tea at semi-open cafes.

 

It seemed very good at first glance but the people were not happy though they tried hard to pretend they were.

 

The Employees were brutal supermutant Guards, nasty sarcastic human Servers and some others including the grinning Docs and Nurses that dragged unlucky people away to never be seen again.

 

Except now there was the noise of battle coming from the distance as SanctuaryClave military forces invaded the theme park gone horrorville. It was only the drugs in the cheap food and drink that kept the Visitorees from truly panicking. Groups of Guards rushed past along with grinning mascot-robots of famous Dizzy Corporation cartoon characters like Mickey Moose, Danny Duck, the 101 Dobermans and Kim Possible. There were many copies of each character and all had guns or launchers of various kinds. It was a very strange sight.

 

Necrotron was there in Dizzyland in the form of an experimental effects processing line like some bizarre production line that took humans and converted them into something very nasty. That is into standard mindless zombies and zombers, lesser undead, that had been sent to various battles to serve the Necrotron. Except, that is, some who were turned into supermutants.

 

The two of them darted around some dead supermutants that were different from those normally met for these had metallic grey skin and wild sharp frizzy hair growing from their scalps. The greyamoths were quite dangerous having heavy armour and powerful weapons but they tended to be stupid. The common stupid ones had grey hair, the less common smarter ones had yellowish hair and the few smart ones had black hair. The grey hairs were privates, the yellow hairs were NCOs and the black hairs were officers.

 

What had killed the supermutants? Not invaders but something with terrible strength that made even these monsters seem puny in comparison. They both tracked traces that normal tracking methods could not have picked up.

 

Between a big Haunted House that often scared people to death, and a Wild Spiral Whip Ride that sometimes flung folks to their death, was a dark laneway. Down that they went, slower now and more careful.

The Shadowthing lashed out at them with great whip-tentacles and hurled Graharg backwards. Grazarg avoided the tentacles and leapt upwards to unleash powerful energy and solid projectile blasts from his special revolver-pistols. The Shadowthing screamed out in agony and perished, vanishing away in the process.

 

A Mr Smith stood there but he held up his hands empty handed fashion. “I am here to assist you. Retirawa is going insane, yes, but is also the unknowing puppet of an even more insane Grand Daedric force that would destroy everything so that it can feed on the unleashed energies of that death and destruction. You need to follow me and perhaps we will all learn its true identity but perhaps we will not be so pleased at the nature of the discovery.”

 

The two of the Second Nine were wary but ‘something’ told them that it would be wise to go along with the Mr Smith.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

BELOW TRIPLECITY DIZZYLAND

 

They made their way through long abandoned utility tunnels passing deactivated robots, piles of the remains of long dead people, large banks of semiactive machinery and open armoured doors showing many kinds of chambers. Graharg reprogrammed and activated some sentrybots that wheeled after them with miniguns, shortlong missile launchers and gattling-pulselasers.

 

What ever had taken over Dizzyland, on Doomsday, had invaded the theme park, had killed the employees and had enslaved the visitors. Where had the invaders come from? From information they had gathered before reaching Triplecity Dizzyland, they had learned that dark whispers had spoken of children vanishing, of the brief sightings of strange robots, of people stumbling into underground areas of the theme park that officially did not exist and of brief disturbing sounds, smells and even ‘psychic’ sensations.

 

They heard the chanting even as Mr Smith led them to the big grey metallic temple chamber. Mr Smith attacked the monk-warriors guarding the main doorway in rancid blood soaked robes. They fell before they could use their autocarbines, screaming with mouths open to expose sharp, long fangs. Mr Smith smothered their noises.

 

Then inside they found the great pale lit temple with at the centre a Necrotron machine of undeathly energies, of bizarre shape for it was formed like a seminaked woman with six arms and two legs. Each hand held an exotic weapon, tool or other device that all looked distorted and horrific. Yet the woman figure was amazingly beautiful and yet ‘seemed’ dreadful at the same time in some subtle fashion. She was slimly voluptuous.

 

Heaped around the base of this statue were hundreds of decaying remains of humans and animals that had been drained of blood, some flesh and their life energies. The bodies had been looted of everything for nothing else was there such as clothing or devices.

 

Mr Smith cursed in some ancient demonic language and then spoke in Alternate Earth #0123456789 type English. “The answer is there for we face no less than the Unspoken One herself, the Goddess of Antilife, the Mother of Vampires, who should not be mistake for Master Death, Mother Death or the God or Goddess of Death. She is also known as Vampirezza, the Drinker of Worlds, the Undeathly Goddess and by numerous other names. Many do not know her true nature or do not know of her at all.”

 

Graharg and Grazarg both nodded almost at once. They raised their powerful weapons but did not fire. The statue opened her eyes and turned her head towards them. Then her voice spoke. “The creation of Retirawa was accidental. I, the Goddess of True Life, I was fighting both the Great Shadow and the Great Undeath in the Swirling Star Waste Spirals of Time-Space when unfortunate combinations of powerful energies gave birth to Retirawa. Part of myself is in Retirawa but I would not destroy it but have it as my pet-child. I will leave this horrid little artificial world of yours if you assist me to take with me Retirawa, to control it. I will not hurt Retirawa for I would have the ‘pleasure’ of its company.”

 

She laughed. “Retirawa absorbed the First Nines and created the Undeath Nine that it then released. Retirawa hid behind the process of undeathly absorption that it had begun. Then again things are rarely so clear cut and even then the Undeath Nine were being undermined from within by the First Nine of Alternate Earth #0123456789. I came to find Retirawa but so have outreaches of the Great Shadow and Great Undeath which means conflict. Then I found Mr Smithdom and the Undeath Nine. To my chagrin I found that I am weakened here, extended her away from my true home in the Mirrored Multiverse.”

 

The great statue head nodded. “I will remove myself from this tiresome place and you will know that I also wish to deal with Retirawa but not to destroy it. I will disable the Necrotron here and Retirawa will become weaker and the Undeath Nine will be more able to free itself from its undeathly curse. I will claim Retirawa and return to my home realms to continue my war with the Great Shadow and the Great Undeath. These puny, inadequate mortal realms will be but a bad memory to me.”

 

There was a sparkling shimmer and then the great statue was gone. The monks collapsed to the floor moaning or just stood in place in shock. Then those that could began to tear off their rancid blood soaked robes with expressions of joy and relief. Clearly they were no longer under the terrible psychic-spiritual control of Vampirezza.

 

Grazarg spoke. “I do not trust her.”

 

Graharg nodded. “Neither do I but that does not mean is was telling falsehoods. I fear more that she was not telling the whole true.”

 

They began to help the peoples of Dizzyland. Mr Smith had vanished away.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

SHANGRILA LA VEGAS

 

Neon lights flashed of casinos as street walkers, prostitutes, strutted along the poorly cleaned streets. Shangrila La Vegas was clearly not the real Shangrila. Situated inside a huge glowcrystal cavern, it consisted of skyscraper type buildings carved out of the northern rock wall but also out of the rock floor close to that wall. Random prize vending-machines and other gambling-machines were common including death-or-glory booths.

 

It was a bizarre place full of exotically dangerous people and almost mindless gamblers, mostly half starved and in rags. A Necrotron was there also, a smaller and less powerful one, Gratarg and his companions could sense it.

 

Grafarg moved alone through the big sewer tunnels carved from the rock. Brown liquid, with lumps, flowed down a channel carved away from where she ran. Large black rats scurried away from her, sensing she was too much from them. Grafarg, the Tomb Raider, passed dead bodies and skeletal remains of the dead now and then. It was clear that they had not been killed by the rats that fed upon dead flesh.

 

There were no sewerage workers in Shangrila La Vegas because they would soon have been killed.

 

Gratarg and Gratarg led an attack against Shangrila La Vegas’ corrupted administrators and their dreaded soldiers in power armour and both security and combat robots. This was done partly to decoy local forces away from Grafarg’s efforts to infiltrate deeper into the strange city.

 

She could sense the fighting and observe it indirectly through the others, including BetaThirteen, but otherwise it was not obvious where she was.

 

Something grey flickered across a tunnel intersection before her and then she was giving chase, was moving with amazing speed. She sensed the horror of the thing that she was pursuing, the undeathly power of it, but this did not slow her or daunt her.

 

It was not too long before she realized blue elemental warriors were also chasing it, each being armed with blue crystallic phase-spears that they threw and which were replaced out of mid air. The decision to work together with them was unconscious and instant.

 

The blue thing struck her and hurled her through the air but she bounced back and fired her large pistols at it. Each struck it with punch-flamer projectiles, dozens of them, even as the blue humanoid thing, metallic and ungainly looking, was struck by two phase-spears.

 

It exploded imploded at the same moment and left behind was a disturbing blue sphere of pale lit flickering crystallic material of a very different nature from the crystallic material that made up phase-spears or phase-armour.

 

Grafarg examined the 1.1 metre wide sphere carefully, with much caution, and learned with surprise a new terrible secret to go along with all the other knowledge the Second Nine were gaining.

 

The Necrotron had been created by the Daedric Goddess of Undeath, by Vampirezza herself, and she was using it to control Retirawa and the Mr Smithdom. In creating the Necrotron, somehow she had lost full control of the process of creation and the Necrotron had become scattered and its power had been lessened. A side effect of that faulty creative effort was the forming of Retirawa itself. The creation of Retirawa was tied more closely to Vampirezza than she had previously had admitted.

 

The Grand Daedra had been and was playing dangerous games with the fate of worlds and their peoples. Yet she had been telling the truth when she spoke of the creation of Retirawa as being accidental for she had lost control of the process of creation; it was only a half truth and in some ways more dangerous than an outright lie.

 

The Necrotron sphere vanished with a strange shimmering effect.

 

Shangrila Le Vegas was falling.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

BACKGROUND

WOZFOLK

 

All Wozfolk share a secondary mentality. All are sleekly furred with surprising strength and speed. Quite intelligent as tool designers, makers and users. Prefer to dwell in wilderness or rich green semiwilderness areas.

 

Matriarch centred societies with patriarch chieftains.

 

Wazzles: war like cousins of the wozzles with some natural armouring and spinedarters.

 

Wezzles: amphibious cousins of the wozzles. Great swimmers but less able on land. Prefer shorelines.

 

Wizzles: flying cousins of the wozzles. Great lower level flyers, do not go often very far above tree canopies. Bat like wings and smaller lighter bodies.

 

Wozzles: the mainstream of wozfolk who are fast, agile and prefer tree country. Wozzles are good swimmers but not great swimmers as are the wezzles.

 

Wuzzles: big thumping cousins to the wozzles, prefer existing on the ground though they can climb with less agility than the wozzles.

 

OTHER WOZFOLK, EXTENDED COUSINS

 

Wazkias: even more warlike extended cousins that are slower than wazzles but wrapped in natural armour and have many natural deadly weapons. Berserkers that need to be controlled by wazzles.

 

Waztoas: extended cousins that sleeker, deadly carnivore form of wozfolk; cousins that cooperate in hunting, scouting and guarding duties. Fine climbers, swimmers and runners.

 

Wezmers: extended cousins aquatics that never come out of the water willingly; limited amphibious ability and clumsy on land but excellent swimmers.

 

Wizhias: extended cousins, high fliers that reach far greater heights than the wizzles.

 

Wozlars: extended cousins deeper digging and living creatures who come out only at night. Also adapted to nocturnal existence.

 

Wuzthors: extended cousins like wozzles but even larger, more powerful and slower.

 

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

TRIPLECITY ORBITAL RAILGUN LAUNCHER CENTRE

The centre holding three large and six medium railgun launchers designed and built to send special capsules of goods, air and water into space. Also had secretive secondary military uses.

 

CITY OF CYBORGS

TRIPLECITY ORBITAL RAILGUN LAUNCHER CENTRE

 

Graharg and Grazarg, along with a growing force that included AlphaThirteen, now knew of the roles of Vampirezza, of Retirawa, of Mr Smithdom, the Undeath Nine and the First Nines in the strange history of thirteen Alternate Earths. Yet it was also becoming clear that because of all of the amazing and conflicting forces behind the historical events, that the whole truth, the truth and nothing but the truth might never be known.

 

Retirawa was a powerful enemy.

 

Vampirezza, the Daedric Goddess of Undeath, was an even more powerful foe who might be persuaded to stay out of future events.

 

The Undeath Nine appeared to be struggling against the undeathly forces binding them.

 

Mr Smithdom was a dark riddle, paranoid and dangerous, that had a secret agenda of its own. Yet it seemed to be assisting against enemy forces.

 

Except that something did not quite seem right.

 

The expeditionary force was moving in combat hovercars towards the great railgun launcher centre, a great disk shaped hub with a dome in its centre from which huge semi-covered railguns projected in all eight compass directions.

 

They had been told that the railguns were maintained by robots and roboremotes but had not been used in a very long time. That part of Cyborg City was not in Melbourne but in the outreaches of the city of Sydney. Auzilanders had dwelt there in settlements but had abandoned them to move to other parts of SanctuaryClave, to established or new settlements. Many were moving to what was named the SanctuaryAuzilands.

 

With a powerful blast of cooling gases, one of the huge railguns fired off. The special gases cooled the projectiles even as they were launched to help protect what was inside but the railgun capsules had other forms of protection.

 

The launched railgun-capsule shot at high velocity through the air, flying upwards towards the sky and vanished through a cloud bank. Inside it was a small Necrotron device meant to spread undeathliness across the Wastelands but of course this was not the Wastelands. Antigravity defence skyplatforms blasted the railgun capsule, disintegrating it in a hot flash of flames and force.

 

Graharg scowled. “The whole way that Necrotron was set up makes no real sense unless… unless Necrotron is either partly or fully a decoy from the real threat.”

 

Grazarg, the First Regulator, responded. “Retirawa is hardly the sanest of enemies; it created Necrotron, did it not, so what Necrotron does would reflect that lack of sanity.”

 

Graharg nodded as if more to himself than in response to Grazarg. “Vampirezza creates Retirawa and exploits the madness of Retirawa to create a confusion pattern of use with the Greater Necrotron of all Necrotrons. Vampirezza then claims she wishes only to capture Retirawa and pretends that the creation of Retirawa was accidental, that she had nothing to do with it. Vampirezza is creating a story, a screen, to disguise her real reasons for being here, for her being linked to both Retirawa and to the Greater Necrotron.”

 

Grazarg nodded. “What is she but a monstrous vampire deity, a thirster of life energies, so what would she desire and need to increase her power so she can fight the Great Shadow and Great Undeath? A mass of sentient life energies, the richest of life energies. Yet Vampirezza has made no efforts to feed on but smaller populations of victims, a crime that she must pay for.”

 

Suddenly Graharg snorted. “All those who vanished on the Doomsdays of many worlds, what happened to them? Flora, fauna and humans along with other lifeforms, it all vanished. Perhaps it was somehow gathered into one place, was stored away for some purpose. Perhaps it was to protect that life but where would it be hidden?”

 

After a pause he cursed softly and then spoke again. “What of the ancient zetan super sized mothership way below Cyborg City? It was brought to SanctuaryClave along with the rest of the Triplecity. It has been protected by Earthnet and attacked by the Necrotic units created by the Greater Necrotron. What is all along Earthnet has been protecting a vast storage of sentient life.”

 

Yet both of them knew that only a theory had been formed that even if true begged many questions.

 

The great railguns ceased to fire as infiltration forces took over its AI-supercomputer network of network-systems. The last Necrotic unit had been fired off and destroyed before any of them could be captured.

 

Graharg focused on thinking, calling upon the assistance of the strengthening secondary mentality shared by all of the Second Nine in a way he had never done before.

 

Suddenly he knew where they had to go next.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

WAYS OF THE ETERNAL CHAMPION (LONE WANDERER)

SOME DISTURBANCE IN THE HEXAGON

 

Catherine Ashblaze lay in bed, still recovering from her birth ordeal, and held her daughter Jasmine. Yet she was watching her husband, James, the father of Catherine. He was pacing up and down, was dressed in scientific gear of a special kind of light power armour. It was used while doing dangerous experiments or working in dangerous environments of the huge underground base. Yes he had been working with a dangerous experiment but he kept wearing the power armour because of the new, tense situation that had arisen.

 

James spoke with a voice full of tension and puzzlement. “According to the low orbital satellites that are still functioning, that we are linked to, the whole of the Triplecity just vanished. Just like that, it went. The Brotherhood of Steel here in DC very much want to know what is going on and are trying to contact their people in California or in the Mid West. The Brotherhood of Steel’s High Elder Council has come to suspect that the mysterious man, the one they call the First Brother of Steel, created other branches of the brotherhood around the world. There may even be one in Australia who might know more about what happened to the Triplecity.”

 

He turned to face his wife. “The Brotherhood of Steel is thinking of reducing their support for we at the Hexagon at least by half. Not only are they shaken by the vanishing of Cyborg City but they are concerned about the increasing appearance of supermutants, pack-raiders and Enclaven eyebots in the DC Wastelands. Pack-raiders, true raiders, not those damn fools who try to copy them. The damned Sages and Scribes of theirs can not see the merit of Project Purity, which they say is nowhere near proving to be successful. They are interested in large scale water purification, hydroponics and such lesser projects. Their minds are too narrow, too short sighted.”

 

Part of Project Purity was the purifying of water but that was only one aspect of it.

 

Catherine looked at the big flowering bush that was under a UV-flatlight and knew that her husband wanted the world to have such fertile plants as the norm. He had brought the potted bush to the room himself much to the annoyance of the greenhouse scientists. They had let her have it because she was special for she had given birth to a healthy baby when too many women were sterile and too many births were not so healthy.

 

James kissed her almost absent mindedly on the forehead and then he bustled out, probably to give somebody a good tongue lashing. Catherine sighed deeply and, as much as she loved her husband, was glad that he had left. Jasmine was sleeping peacefully and, tired as she was, Catherine soon joined her.

 

A trio of big old cats, a male and two females, paced quietly into the room and leapt lightly up onto the bed. They took up positions beside the two humans and at her feet, comfortable but quietly alert as if on sentry duty.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

AT THE SITE OF THE GRAND NECROTRON

 

The fighting had ended even as the Undeath Nine had sunk ghost like down through the hull of the Grand Necrotron and vanished from sight. The Shadow entities and undeathly things had departed or simply dissipated.

 

Mr Smith numbered now thirteen but one was Lord Smith, three were Lady Smiths and nine were Mr Smiths. A strange change but quite fitting for a very strange mentality. This was not the whole Mr Smithdom for the entity as a whole was too cunning to bring into the open its whole self.

 

Grax(e)arg fell to her knees and shimmered in solar, life, phase and other energies as she fell away from any link with Retirawa. As she did so, she was weakened. Then she vanished with a sparkling shimmer as she was sent to be healed by Grac(h)arg in her special SanctuaryHubplex hospital.

 

A large fighting force was there now, including seven of the Second Nine. Yet there was nothing that they could do. They had no way to enter the Grand Necrotron. Retirawa had failed to make an appearance as had Vampirezza. The Undeath Nine were gone down into the Grand Necrotron and were beyond reach.

 

Then the Mr Smithdom Thirteen simply vanished away with a shadowy shimmer.

 

It appeared to be a great anticlimax.

 

Orders came for all of them to return to SanctuaryHub except those who belonged to the area or other places. Soon they were leaving and then they were gone.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

TRIPLECITY FUSION TRIPLEGLOBE POWER STATION

 

The Triplecity Fusion Tripleglobe Power Station was huge and oddly graceful with three immense metallic globes of dull, dark silvery colour fused into each other as a roughly triangular pattern. Gradarg, Grafarg, Gratarg, BetaThirteen and the others of their growing force, were being shot at by zigzagging hover-turrets armed with a wide range of weapons.

 

A hover-turret exploded with a flash blast. A True Blue Ocker Mutant collapsed in her special power armour. Plasma pulses shot through the air along with pulselaser and pulseblaster pulsebeams. With out even thinking about it, Gratarg shot an enemy launched shortlong missile out of the air.

 

The city area around the great power station was broken, was messy, with all buildings reduced to little more than heaps of rubble. Nothing lived there but apart from the hover-turrets, other things moved there. Lesser undead creatures were coming out as the light grew darker.

 

Cyborgia had been growing in size and power but had also been becoming more sophisticated. Smaller, weaker animal cyborgs were now often employed as companions to people. There were more units, more classes and new kinds of cyborgs. Many of the cyborgs now used specialised power armours of different kinds. Cyborgia had managed to integrate deathclaws, molerats, muttbears and other such creatures with some difficulty. More impressively, perhaps, they had integrated zhouls and supermutants.

 

There were rhouls in the area, like zhouls but only defensive-aggressive in nature. These rhouls, like all ghoulified and supermutants, were enhanced in their immunity to the undead. The rhouls could use basic tools and weapons but now a few of them were cyborgs, a state they had willingly become to serve their people.

 

CyborgiaMind was arising stronger, more sophisticated, and out of the ruins of that part of the city of Sydney, of part of the Triplecity, rose a great hulking humanoid robot. It was about the size and build of a Patriot Prime or Liberty Prime but it looked sleeker and was much more advanced and powerful.

 

It was Graq(u)arg, the last of the Second Nine to appear, having been long hidden away inside Cyborgia. Graq(u)arg had been unaware of its own nature but had directed Cyborgia to support the Second Nine and other peoples.

 

Now it led Cyborgia forces against the hover-turrets and the rising lesser undead coming up out of the rubble. Advanced UV-lasers swept across zombies, zombers and skeltors (animated skeletons inside shimmering fields of undeathly energies, burning them to nothingness.

 

With the rise of Graq(u)arg came clear to the Second Nine a final piece of data that set clear what had really happened and also the deep, dark irony of those events that had led to the Doomsday Sequence across many Alternate Earths.

 

Yet they had to process the truth and to overcome their surprise and their resistance to the truth.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67