The fall of summerien

Chapter 1 contemplation
                  
Quietly, in the region of  summerien's highest mountain range, a sole figure
sat on the highest peak in total silence. It was in deep contemplation
amongst a absolute quiet that covered the entire planet. A quiet that had
not been heard since before beings colonized the planet, ran their
groundcars and talked happily amongst themselves and sang songs of
content. Nothing was right at all though it was silent, this sole
squatter thought, but did not move. It needed not to move or to eat or
to sleep as things like that were rendered unnecessary many months ago.
But it needed to think.

And think it did, perhaps on its own for the first time since it had
sided with EVIL.

Somehow, It kept looking for an enemy, and despaired when it sensed
none. It was a evil somewhere between anarchy and plain annoyance, and
it lived for revenge, but was finding none to be brought about over
quietness for miles around. It knew however it had been denied its enemy
by betrayal of a promise from something far worse than it itself, and
for that some price should be paid. Any price at all...

A lone Grasshawk, known for gliding over wheat fields and tearing up
whole stalks with its beak to devour at its distant nest, broke the
silence... then an unearthly scream came from the hawk. Silence
ensued again, but now the figure was chewing up something cooked
to perfection within its own mouth. Then silence ensued once more
as it thought of the last thing it did that was satisfying...

It had encountered authority throughout its existence, and right
now authority was pretty much quiet. it sensed people above and animals
below, but all were in hiding from the chaos it saw. It never realized
much of it had been missing for a while, but in quiet contemplation it
knew something was missing. Maybe, not just its soul. Maybe, something
it loved. And now it thought of its enemies, in an attempt to not think
of what it lost. It though could not stop thinking of the being it lost
anymore, anywhere. Even though it had faint feelings of things borne
anew, Its focus would not waver and It would not be freed until It found
what it needed, what it lost.

It knew well the incorporateds would come at any time. Surely the
explosion that unleashed a techno-trashing virus upon the world could
not have gone unnoticed. Surely someone would notice a planet no longer
reachable by ultra-light communications, seen an explosion from afar
while orbiting.

It did not want the Incorporateds on the world desperately, because it
had found a new purpose since the explosion let the virus free to evolve
and cause chaos. For the first time, it thought of things long sealed
off, needs long supressed, and it would not waste any time once the
feeling it had craved so long to have was its again. It never realized
it was also watching itself, in the shadows, plotting its downfall as
other forces came in to see Summerien theirs despite the massive
devastation technology had. And it sensed deja vu was afoot as well, and
would not be easily put away.

It was pretty undead too, but that was besides...

Suddenly, it felt something else.. something plenty disturbing....
f despair in its mind. It was the sound of something who worried and
fretted, who was changing from moment to
moment. It heard this and stood straight up, a thunderous crack was
heard all over the planet, then it vanished and silence ensued again.
Save for many a innocent animal, each one changed by the clouded sky
on both bizarre and subtle levels, whom was relieved to see
the mountain's silent guardian leave. Not only were their animal spirits
free to roam. But now, they had the planet back as their own...or so
they thought.

A few goats who wandered into the area screamed their last all of a
sudden, and all the animals were suddenly chirping nervously... as if
they knew they were in deep trouble.

Chapter 2 Dreams

So many broken dreams.

How nice.

Cornball, the legendary 'clown jester' of the SCE, stood in an open field
miles outside summerien's capital city, now in total dissrepair. His
thoughts were a lot darker and unfunny than unusual and he'd been
looking since the disaster for something funny. He made funny faces to a
lot of people heading for the hills who ran past a few days ago but he
hadn't seen many. Mostly the insulting ones.

Whenever he would look at the sky, he felt a shiver. There were rumors
that those mutant bald shadow-irised humans who sent half their newly
formed assassin tribe called ebes had begun striking at the SCE's all
over this part of the galaxy, and he feared many of his SCE compatriots
would be visiting the regen chambers at yeocan-qutato too early and
without the right to kick back at all. Had they messed with his bomb
that would have brought Highbrow to the other side so it would break
tools, and frighten everyone? He could not tell but he would make sure
the SCE's tyrant, Kingston, turn his attention towards the ebe problem
even if it allowed the tiny yet shockingly powerful Incorporateds to
gain an upper hand and a pernament one.

Where were those Incorporateds? Why weren't they there?

Cornball had no idea and noone would tell him, not even when he'd thrown
his last acid-cream pie at a wall threatening a family who was taking
its clothing and themselves out to the country where they felt
themselves saft. And he wanted an idea. He didn't want to have heard
that rumor Kingston was bringing his own brother back from beyond to
destroy the incorporateds while their place was trashed on Gazell. He
didn't want the rumor to come true. Cornball had lots of scores to
settle. But he had to get off, and to get off, he had to make a call
using technology that would not work for the cloud sent a viral stream
to wreck it on a molecular level so it could never work.

Someone was going to answer Cornball.

Someday, anyway, maybe when Cornball passed on and was reborn... but
someone would someday answer him. In the meantime there was a world,
and... somehow words escaped him for a moment. He stood perfectly still,
almost dazed.. then resumed his walking...

Then, Cornball felt a twig snap behind him. And he, cornily as possible,
turned around quickly wondering if an EBE had come to laugh at Cornball
for not being careful. For not checking everything out. But it was no
Ebe. Cornball saw nothing but knew something was there.

"Come!", Cornball shouted, as loud as he could, as loud as mortal lungs
could. He knew that cry got HIS attention when Renegade, his UNmortal enemy
now and forever, called him to terze lxerkes a year ago. He yelled it
again. "COME!" He thought it might work in reverse.... though he was
questioning the reasoning that needing the HELP of a dead enemy wishing
the same for you was a good thing....

Cornball felt something snap again. He was about to call out, cupping
his mandrill hands to his face when he noticed one finger was broken on
one hand and his thumb on the other hand hung limp.
Then he heard another snap and now both thumbs were limp. Cornball
then tried to call again but then he heard 3 more snaps and his entire
hand was now broken. Cornball gasped as he saw something in the distance
now. It was a light so bright Cornball was blinded, A light which made
Cornball feel as timid as the smallest mouse. Cornball muttered
something then he turned heel and began running as he felt a blinding
pain in the broken hand he somehow knew he wasn't allowed to feel
before.

Cornball ran 5 steps before the noise of a falling tree was heard and
Cornball fell down in agony. He felt his whole leg was broken now. He
saw the ..thing glowing as bright as the sun approach him and he tried
to shield himself with his arm. Another snap and it fell useless to the
ground. Cornball tried to kick with his good leg but another snap later
it was paralyzed and Cornball was in utter agony. Then It began floating
closer and closer as Cornball heard one more snap, felt himself totally
paralyzed, and began losing consciousness....

Suddenly, Cornball blinked his eyes and the pain was gone. And Renegade
was there, holding a bizarre monster in his grasp. A monster with
dreadlocks, wearing street clothes and seemingly surrounded with a
fading light. And Renegade grinned without humor ...SNAP.  as he grabbed
the beast by the throat.

"you damn earthling", chuckled Renegade as he grabbed the most alien
creature. And Cornball looked at Renegade, the creature, and gasped.
"Whatever you've taken on roaming about here, I've turned it OFF.
PERNAMENTLY. Now go back to earth before I turn you into a GUINEA PIG."

Cornball, shakingly, approached Renegade.

"Earthling? Excuse me, Cornball, but if that's someone from earth, im a
... ah..."

"Choose what you become CAREFULLY, CORNBALL!", Renegade grinned.

"Um, never mind.", Cornball said. "who am i to argue with a walking can
of DOG FOOD?"

Renegade sniffed at his mortal Enemy.

"Anyway", Renegade said as he turned back to the creature, "That is
ENOUGH out of you, earthling scum. Next time I see you I'll throw you to
HELL!"

The creature then tapped Renegade with a free hand. And Cornball was
surprised to see Renegade let go his grip, and moan in pain. The
creature then made itself a gateway to elsewhere, barely visible, and
left through it as Renegade moaned and doubled over. Renegade's arm grew
bright red where the creature touched him.

The horse-cow had never really been this much in pain before, no, not
even when Cornball's device had erased all of Renegade's physicality
from the ground up because Renegade tried to escape from the ground
DOWN. Then Renegade grabbed Cornball.

"Come.", Renegade said. "Please."

Renegade stammered off towards a direction, almost unsure of his
bearings, and Cornball, not sure why anything so apparently alien could
have been considered a being from earth, not sure why he'd been mentally
broken by psionics, and certainly not sure what being could channel such
pain into Renegade. He was sure though, he wanted questions, and maybe
Renegade could answer them.

Suddenly, a skyship rocketed down from the skies, passing through the cloud
cover that seemed to be pervasive more than Cornball would have liked,
and flew overhead. Cornball, even as he walked forwards, turned to see
the skyship ram into the ground, plowing up trees and dirt as it ground
to a stop. And Cornball couldn't help notice how similar the craft
looked to the ones the hero-intensive Incorporateds flew about so
much...

"Renegade, um... I think the Incorporateds have landed."

"CORNBALL, later. I have more important things on my mind."

"But... "

"NEVER mind THEM", Renegade said in a bass Cornball almost felt would
shatter his nerves.

Renegade walked on his way.

Cornball shrugged, and followed, now curious as to what had Renegade so
interested he'd ignore the Incorporateds, and help his most mortal
enemy. Extremely curious....

"You should have not bothered to save my life", said Cornball. "I could
still find some way to kill you...."

"If i had a BEATING heart, and you had a sharp enough weapon, you
might. Just be thankful you're still physically YOU. Just don't make me
think it was a MISTAKE letting that chupacabra not finish his soul break
on you and end up having you pass on. "

"Chupacabra?", Cornball said. "What in creation is that?"

Renegade did not answer Cornball's question right away.

Chapter 3 Woes

Cornball rested near a mountain stream on a hill, while Renegade stared
at the city below. It was so quiet that you could hear proverbial
bowling pins break, but nothing was breaking at all. The wind blew
quietly in Renegade's hair. Cornball wondered what was on Renegade's
mind that was so disturbing.

Again, Renegade talked rather normally, though it still was pretty deep
and perhaps now naturally so.

"You don't deserve an explanation of why I spared your life from that
potential threat. A threat of what I believe will become prevalent in
the years to come that shall come forth from that chaos of past days.."

"I know that, Renegade. Wonder if there's any loose Rocks...."

"You needn't worry about me becoming less of an evil. Believe me it
would have been a GOOD thing for you to die. But I sense among other
things something I need right now very badly. Something until now I
never saw before. I need that. I need it to be bad and I need it bad."

"Hmmm... sharpened twigs... Nah..."

"You should come with me to find it. I can only sense its edges and need
to be near it to be sure it is really what I truly need. Then I will
bury the hatchet...."

"In my head? PSHAW! nah, i'd get it first and..."

"And end my part of our feud with you. Of course you won't. But I would
end mine if you'd help. Do you remember we once were allies, or at least
rivals, Cornball?"

"Yes. OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!", Cornball screamed as he
fainted.

"Cornball?"

Cornball grinned as he got up with hate in his eyes. "Don't remind me of
that again you wormbait! I've had enough psionic garbage for ONE
lifetime this day, thank YOU!"

"You should help me then. Maybe I might even give you a reason why you
should be my ally in the future."

"What reason would that be?"

Renegade looked into Cornball's very soul for a moment. Now, it was not
bass but THUNDER which distorted renegade's voice...

SNAP. said Renegade.

Then he turned and walked off.

"Um.. Snap? Renegade! Hey, you could at least not walk off like that!
RENEGADE!"

Renegade turned back. "Would you like your soul broken like a twig
again? No. No, that chupacabra had something familiar to me. Just
familiar, not instantly recognizable, that did not belong to him but
belonged to someone else, long floating on this planet, that had given
the chupacabra GREATER powers than he'd normally have. I was lucky to
be able to detach the familiarity from the chupacabra, but not before it
used its normal strength to do me some grave damage with his 'soul snap'
garbage, as you call it. I still feel great pain, for his attacks affect
the soul and cause pain to it.. and no thanks to you, I'm pretty much
all soul."

"Hmm... does this settle whether you're dead or reborn?", Cornball said
as he tried to pick up a rock on the ground , but found it too deeply
buried to pull up without, in his estimation, a jackhammer and a
bulldozer.

"I could be unliving or alive very much by choice and by mood. And right
now, I feel pretty much DEAD. "

"Um... might i ask a question, of what a Chupacabra IS?"

Renegade thought of it for a moment.

"In english, I believe it's called the goat-sucker."

"And may I ask another question of you?", Cornball sighed.

"yes?"

"What exactly does a goat-sucker do?"

Renegade resisted all temptation to show Cornball what one was.
For about 3 seconds.

Chapter 4 Flight

The monster that called its own people goat suckers flew high with a
thought over forests and streams. Never had it the power to fly before,
though. It would wonder why the familiarity it'd grabbed and taken on
had fled when the dead horse had come, but the knowlege of how its
psionics could negate gravity to the point it could actually fly like
one of those 'heros' earth cartoons ranted lots about through a combo
of psionics and willpower and thought. Sharing this would help its
people greatly in the days to come, and it would be a change from
having to wear rocket-packs if airborne targets needed sabotage.

Never for one moment had cornball realized that its life would be
spared, but at the loss of a little lifeforce and the sharing of knowledge
that Cornball had about his part of the universe, how people could
travel to distant worlds without the mind and with seemingly ordinary
machines. Machines the chupacabra knew were wrecked wholesale as the
virus reworked above anything it felt it hadn't wrecked yet.

At midnight, it flew right over the crash site, and noticed one of its
own from afar. And it wasn't alone in noticing it, for Wilson had
finally stirred after his own virus had reknitted his bones, restored
him from a brief bout of coma and healed very grave injuries he'd
recieved from the sheer g's of the impact. And his first look outside
was straight down...

------

"No.", Wilson said, as he crawled out of the ruined cockpit, sans a
cyborg arm that had been too heavily damaged (via sabotage, Wilson
pondered) to see if the monster was alive below. And Wilson saw as he
stepped on the ground and walked beside the creature that it was, and
also glowered at him with redly luminescent eyes.

"You should watch where you're driving, you old fool!", the creature
said, apparently unaffected by tons of skycraft resting on him. "You've
given me pernament scars on my back I'll remember you unfondly by!"

"It.. wasn't my fault.. I don't think i could have saw you.. hmmm.",
Wilson said, wondering what kind of creature could have survived a
skycraft having CRASHED upon him.

"Excuses", it said. "Hey Origami, what are you doing just floating
THERE?", the creature said to the open night air, and Wilson saw nothing
as he looked to where the creature looked.

"Hmmm, you're not dead yet", the chupacabra in the sky said as he came
closer to wilson, and Wilson could see with his keen vision the
chupacabra float down. "Shame. I'd have loved to taken your spot at.."

"Oh... YOU can fly now. Big deal. LIFT this thing off of me, Origami,
before I fall asleep and be most uncomforatble not turning in my daytime
dreams! "

Wilson gaped at the two monsters. He felt somehow they were related.

"Ok, Kanji, but i'd rather let you just sit underneath that 'thing' and
SULK." Then the chupacabra, apparently helping another chupacabra for
Wilson could now see the similarity as they were close to each other
now, simply walked to the nose of the skyship and shoved, pushing the
skyship back some of the way it came so the chupacabra referred to as
'kanji' could get up. Apparenly unharmed but its shirt was torn in the
back and burned utterly from the heat of the reentering neverrest. And
the chupacabra called 'Origami' was flying as he was pushing.

Both chupacabras glared at Wilson as they stood, and the Kanji
chupacabra, limping a little, stood aside Origami.

"Nice try, sicko, but no cigar. If you EVER attempt roadkill like that,
we will EAT your license AND get your goat UTTERLY. ", Kanji said. "And
furthermore," Origami said, "I hope you have insurance, we know some
insurance companies on earth that'd LOVE to tear into your wallet once
their influence reaches YOUR part of the universe. Don't make us CALL
them."

"Hmmm, you can fly, Origami", said Kanji.

"You wanna learn how?"

"Nahh, I'd rather WALK!", said Kanji as he opened a portal away and
walked right through it, stomping each step into elsewhere. And then
Origami stared at Wilson. "You're to blame, you know. None of this would
have happened if you hadn't cared for your damn stepdaughter, you
ingrated toenail. Watch your self whoever you are."

Origami flew off into the dark and quickly became indistiguishable in
the darkness.

Wilson had plenty of questions, and one of the most surprising came most
quickly from the depths of Wilson's slightly stunned mind.

"How did they know i had a step daughter when they didn't even know my name",
he wondered as he began looking for the rest of the Incorporateds.
Hopefully they wouldn't be hard to find. Or, for that matter, would his
cyborg arm be easily replaced. It wasn't all that hard to fight on a
handicap, Wilson knew from experience, but still it was a sentimental
thing to wear the cyborg arm as defiance against the greatest enemy he'd
ever known. Wilson began towards the nearest escape hatch and found it
ajar, which could have been taken either way, again from Wilson's
centuries-long experience.....

The matter that the monsters came from earth, or could survive such
disasters as being run down by a crashing skyship, or could even MOVE
with their bare hands a starship and especially one's ability to fly and
teleport bothered Wilson some, but Wilson, for the time being, settled
for more pressing priorities still...

Chapter 5 Enter the Machines

Somewhere hundreds of miles away from the crash site of the neverrest, a
machine stamped about after drinking 30 gallons or so a mountain
waterfall that , coincidentally and eventually, would run by where
Cornball questioned Renegade about chupacabras and paid the price. A
machine that had a living, emotional soul contained within, AI that
could detect the souls' feelings and make the machine act on them, a
synthetic brain who ran on emotions more than logic and could realize
once you started figuring out ALL of pi you ought to stop at least before the
universe dies, and a bad temper towards its maker that destined it as a
atagonist for all its existence, and craved its maker's jailing as a
prime directive. Making friends and being a good guy was the 2nd.

Getting its power from drinking water and converting it to steam and
thus power, the machine noted that as the day rose, the clouds remained
cloudy. This pretty much matched its attitude towards its maker. And it
was much aware its existence (formerly that of a living, talkative, and barely
setinent, parrot) was probably to satisfy it's makers craving for being
abused by heros which was preprogrammed by an outside force of great
evil. Something that didn't make the entity that called itself Parro
sleep well, or at least, go into backup mode and send its batch of
daily memories onto the ethinet for safe keeping, and remix them as
pleasant diversions while it checked on itself and did maintainance.

Parro, when not drinking water to power itself, or learning how to fly
better than it apparently was designed and preprogrammed to do, wondered
often if the sky wasn't affected somewhat by something its maker, or at
least, a rival of it's makers, had created out of spite. It hadn't been
affected at all despite multiple attacks from the sky, but Parro wasn't
thankful. Just annoyed. Parro knew something had to be done about that.

Parro chose the sunrise to fly from the mountains, and became quickly
aware much of the planet's populace had scattered to the hills, to the
forests, and pererably away from a city that was busted technologically,
probably mutated slightly before the explosion. Parro sensed its maker
might be in the capital city, despairng how technological devices everywhere
were broken wholesale and perhaps beyond repair. And Parro went to his
maker , slowly but surely rocketing on the wind when sated ,
gliding when thirsty and stopping once in a while to gorge on water.

Parro thought it could use allies in its program to put its maker in
jail, realizing its maker might realize Parro was still active, and get
allies itself. Not to be too careful, thought Parro.

======

Somewhere below, a 2nd machine, more and more an ex-machine these days,
wandered, moaning... so much in pain from being granted part of a body
back it wouldn't have noticed a fellow in arms above wanting the same
thing it wanted out of life. Aware, maybe, of things more, not enough
though to notice Parro scanning miles ahead of him on the quest of a
brief lifetime....

The machine, or cyborg now more and more, thought of itself as AxeEater.
Or at least ,before, it was Axeeater. It had been on the ship on the
lower deck during the crash, and probably had the least rough time of
them all. But AxeEater had made a mistake in judgement to try to leave
the ship, and a tornado from above that smelled of virus cultures and
foul fungi had grabbed him, whipped him high in the air and tossed him
about far from the ship.

And in a daze, Axeeater, his servos messed up from the crash,
wandered during the night almost unaware at times of who it was. Not
once did Axeeater. notice its brain chip had ripped out of its enclosure,
sprouted a spine and tore through the cybernetics of Axeeater in a
attempt to grow a body thanks to the manipulations of the scarlet
tornado from above. Nor did Axeeater, while wandering, notice his own
mind tore apart the chip in surrounding itself with a skull, ripping his
head off when the skull gained flesh on it, or feel anything when a
body grew from the spine and shoved aside the mechanics that was
Axeeater's lower body. Axeeater just wandered much during that night as
his living mind grew a body that ripped and shoved aside his cyborg one
from within, until a stream of broken parts trailed behind Axeeater and
Axeeater's body had grown enough to get him walking on hind legs rather
than crawling on all fours.

And during this transformation, not once had Axeeater's thoughts been
downgraded by the fact the chip allowing Axeeater a form of setinent
speech had been destroyed from the first growth of Axeeater's brain into
a full body, a body that was humanoid rather than canine. Apparently the
tornado had seen that the brain would be able to rationalize without
technical stimulus in rendering Axeeater a living, as opposed to a
techanical, being.

In short, Axeeater was no longer a machine, but a living being, though
some signs remained of 'his' former cybernetic self, like metal ears,
and the shorts Axeeater had come to wore more during the months he'd
lived with the Incorporateds keeping Cornball in check. His mind was
pretty much a blur through all this, not even noting the brief while he
was blind as he gained living eyes and discarded his electronic ones. He
was also unaware he had a voice or anything really drastic had happened
to him, until about noon when Axeeater, sensing thirst for some strange
reason, saw a river and began drinking on instinct.

The scream that pervaded the newly borne throat of Axeeater when he saw
he wasn't a machine anymore (or at least, a body similar to the canine
one he had before was restored to 'him') broke a lot of records for things
that made noise on summerien decibel-wise.

Perhaps noting that Axeeater's scream was soprano would be a good thing
to mention, before we proceed.

Chapter 6

Wilson had searched most of the Neverrest for his companions, but did
not find any of them within, even though Wilson could see pretty good in
the darkness of the wrecked Neverrest. Wilson noted the ship hadn't
taken as much damage as it did last time it crashed, but wondered also
why the ship hadn't kicked in its update-repair nanotech systems yet. Or
why none of the lights had been offline.

He did find the RustBucket, the personal air van of the Incorporateds,
working though, and was surprised to find it still in working condition
despite looking like the years-old outer wreck it always did, especially
when he turned on its lights from without and they were the only thing
lighting up the garage of the Neverrest. Wilson, not about to overlook
such good fortune, was able to powerup the Rustbucket just as light
shone from outside, dim. Wilson thanked the eagle god that the garage
door had been broken from without during the night, and not at all
concerned vandals might have tried to break in, Wilson began flying the
Rustbucket shakily out of the sky. Although a tornado went after it
immediately upon departure, strangely it wrecked NOTHING once it
surrounded Wilson's van, and Wilson cussed boldly at the tornado as he
flew off free, and the tornado quickly disappated.

"Ok, Now let's see if I can find some of the Incorporateds now.." he
said as he flew over the landscape. Why the tornado didn't wreck the
Rustbucket wasn't concerning Wilson too much, his friends mattered now.

Origami, flying overhead on another sweep of the area as demanded on
schedule by its leader known as Rod Rigues, Saw the Rustbucket fly by
and gaped at the familiarity of Wilson's sky van. And slowly began to
pursue.

Wilson was too elated to see something working, to notice the shadows
there.. were the only things not working as usual... and it would cost
him, as USUAL.

-----

Cornball and Renegade both looked up at a lightpost near the center of
town, having travelled much to get there. A single lightpost where a
poster Highbrow had pasted, that had a photo of Highbrow pointing out
accusingly at the outside world. The letters were torn on the top and
the bottom, and Cornball signed.

"Have you dragged me through this seeming ghost town just to show me
this, Renegade?", Cornball said, much changed by Renegade's will.
Cornball felt the change was pernament, and couldn't be undone by
megaportation, cloning or any means. Still, Cornball was pretty
defiant... just not towards Renegade, not right now, anyway.

"Just wanted to show you who's to blame for this, as I sense, before you
continue on MY journey.", Renegade said with a grim smile.

"I know HIGHBROW'S to blame for this, Renegade.", said Cornball, most
uncomfortable having to look up now.

INDEED. Renegade turned his gaze away and started walking down the
street, gazing in a very odd direction... seemingly diverted from ALL
shadows anywhere on the streets, towards its end.

Soon, Renegade was a block away from Cornball, And Cornball, bereft of
little other direction in his life since Kingston's mysticism no longer
controlled him, followed Renegade on a exact parallel course that had to
stop very abruptly for Cornball nearly walked over, and fell, into a
manhole that Renegade simply walked over without falling in.

"Whoo, what a neat trick that would be", Cornball mused as he peered in.
Suddenly, Speedster emerged from its depths, practically jumping over
Cornball and landing behind him. Cornball turned and saw Speedster very
changed.

"Take this, you vile chupacabra!", Speedster said and took
his plunger, now plexiglass instead of wood, and batted Cornball in the
stomach, causing Cornball to fall into the hole. Cornball was uninjured
as he hit bottom, save for his calmness. His calmness suffered a fatal
, if temporary, blow.

Cornball let out inhuman, human and mandrill screams as he hit the
bottom, then climbed back up to try to confront Speedster. Only when
Cornball's head stuck out, Cornball saw Speedster's head. And he
suddenly went quiet as Cornball studied Speedster, and began moaning.

"Renegade, do you remember reading about when Speedster got infected
with a virus that made him a lizard or something? Renegade? Renegade?"

"hmm, does this chupacabra want some more?", Speedster muttered.

Renegade turned and saw from a block away. "No, i Dyaaaaaaarghhhhhh...",
Renegade said as he saw Speedster as well.

"i'm sure he hasn't got the point yet", Speedster muttered again. "damn
chupacabras won't mess with summerien like they messed up earth..."

Both Cornball and Renegade saw Speedster was pretty much bald all over,
had lizardly spikes for hair, and was a bright peachy tone. They saw he
still had hair on the sides of his face like a poodle mustache. They
didn't notice the fact he now wielded a plexiglass plunger that was
shining brighter than the wooden one he carried about on occasion. They
just realized that Speedster had been mutated by something, and both had
a feeling it was beyond their control. And that's why they were
screaming.

"You want to wake up the dead like Renegade over there, Chupacabra?",
said Speedster and he konked Cornball lightly on the head, making
Cornball fall right back into the darkness."

Speedster then saw Renegade, who stopped screaming and just quietly
gazed at Renegade.

"Excuse NOTHING, Renegade.. would YOU mind explaining what is going on
here? Why I've been running around Summerien's capital city, finding it
worse for wear like when Halifax was here last and YOU used your empathy
to wreck it? Why the skies are cloudy and my friends seem scattered? And
why you are SCREAMING at me, you DEAD jerk?"

"Have you looked at yourself in the MIRROR?", said Renegade as he began
backing off when Speedster jumped over the open manhole, and began
walking slowly towards him. "Have you seen the SKY? I'd like to say it's
MY fault the love of Halifax's home world is a Disaster AGAIN! I can't!
I also would LOVE to apologize for Bandsaw boarding your craft, fighting
Wilson for the controls of your skycraft, and crashing the same,
but I can't! And I'd love to admit i'm here for another purpose
entirely other than seeing you go through a repeat of what i
put you through last year... But... I CAN NOT!".

"Because you lie?"

"Because.. I SUDDENLY DON'T FEEL LIKE LYING!", Renegade said. "Something
STRONGER than me's seems to be interfering with my life lately, and Im
going to find it before YOU, you reptile/mammal scum, DO! Now you leave
me alone before I MESS your Genes like i did CORNBALLS.. ON my own
WILL!" And with that, Renegade began bounding off.

It was then Speedster, only mildly disappointed his reversion to a
reptilian state wasn't complete, that he noticed the poster.

He saw the poster had words ripped out of it, and he also noticed a
nearby garbage can with pieces torn within, untouched despite all the
chaos Speedster knew must have happened to make Summerien a ghost town
once again.

He saw the poster pieces match the missing pieces of the poster on the
lamppost.

Four words laid in the rubbish within, And Speedster put two and two
together, and his reward was that some of the worry about being on
a devastated summerien was pushed far from his mind, plus a free key to
part of the frightening reality why Renegade might be so obsessed about
ANYTHING asides the Incorporateds, to more or less paraphrase Longneck
who at the time had been on vacation when the neverrest crashed to
summerien.

The words were , "renegade, your" , followed by, "daughter's HERE."

Speedster was almost to tears and near screaming when he looked at the
house behind the lamppost. And he saw a girl stare from within at
Speedster, whos path to understanding on crushed glass about the mystery
surrounding Summerien's fall... had just begun.

-----

Cornball sat in the darkness of the sewer below the manhole. Even if he
had some sort of power now to confront his enemies, it was probably the
worst day of his multiple lives.. and soon, Cornball knew, it would be
the worst week if given time.

He dug in his backpack for something to eat. He almost got sick  when he
realized a thick tube of cream pie he sucked on when hungry now tasted like
goat tripe thanks to Renegade's transformation of Cornball, down to his
'props' as well. Despite that, Cornball 'sucked' on it, plotting revenge
as he always dreamed every night of his lives.

Surely, Cornball thought, nothing sucks more than living the rest of
THIS life as a 'chupacabra' .. or WHATEVER he was now.

The clear, soft energy bars (looking like chrystals but chewable as
gumdrops) smelled of goat cheese when Cornball reached for those
as dessert. Not enough to disguise the smell of wild lions wandering
about, with manes like palm fronds and body forms now similar to t-rexes
that Cornball saw in the dark begin to approach.. palm lions..
approaching.. roaring.. and .. coming.. right..up to.. him.. and ready..
to.. pounce. A Palm lion, such as Cornball could realize it could be,
ROARED in Cornball's face and began to reach down.

Cornball began flying off very suddenly. Might as well, he could now
and he certainly did not want to be mistaken for gazelles or whatever
primate mutant lions ate....

Chapter 7

Axeeater's new, humanoid and mostly organic body would have been spotted
many hundreds of miles away, wandering back over a trail it'd had
wandered at high speeds back to the neverrest. Axeeater had no idea what
it'd had felt to have a living body, for Axe had forgotten it since
its mind had been transplanted from the body of a living dog to the
powerful form of a cybernetic, setinent-enhanced robot dog. It was
still unnerving and frightening to Axe to feel sensations Axe had never
felt before.

Axe was pretty certain, though for a while, Axe was without gender in
its previous existence as Axe had reasoned. Being a Robot dog was more
or less without anything to prove gender , to prove it lightly, and Axe
wasn't sure knowing it was really a FEMALE dog from birth and quite
regenerated as such, abliet humanoid and sentinent now, was going to be
helpful. At least Axe was alert now.

Axe began traversing the long way back, finding its new body pretty
efficient at running, beginning to rediscover what being alive was
about. Axe began running at a pace that would let him be back near the
neverrest by sundown that day, because Axe also remembered, without
prompting by cybernetics, that Axe was still loyal to the Incorporateds.
They'd probably get over Axe being living and female in time, but only
if they were still alive to do so. And certainly making it back ASAP
would ensure that, Axeeater knew with renewed emotion.

-----

Parro's flight continued on its pace when he (because Parro had been
given awareness of his gender when his maker created him) noticed the
neverrest below, broken in a few places from a wreck. Parro, to take
greater notice of this, dived in to scan it more closely and landed
softly aside its garage door, torn off by some strong force. Parro,
sensing life within, entered after it reconfigured its eyes to also
throw light in front so he could detect better without crashing blindly.

Parro felt cold as he realized the ship was pretty much powerless, and
utterly so. Using his electron microscopic vision, Parro looked hard at
the panels on the walls, xrayed the wiring, scanned the circuits and
subatomic distorters, and realized sabotage had been effected, and most
small saboteurs had been at work at this wrecked place that had
attracted his notice. Parro could see with EM vision something organic
had been left behind on a celluar level, and once said something noticed
Parro, it reformed itself as an annoyed guesture. Thousands others
joined in the guesture as Parro zoomed back his EM vision, then they all
formed a violet gust of wind that passed by parro and exited outside
while punching another hole in the wall on the neverrest on their way
out.

Parro began analyzing the creatures with one part of his mind, and then
began to detect for the life he found within the wrecked ship. Parro
ignored the fact he did not detect heartbeats and footsteps and smells
and concentrated on where the life was coming from, after discounting
the amoeba creatures as the source of the life he detected. Searching
with his heart Parro made his way to the upstairs grand hall, where he
sensed life was strongest.

Parro saw the main hall, still quite clean, and he noted the glass roof
above was not damaged.. just the panels, similar to the way the amoebas
had gnawed on them. Parro sighed and walked up to a part of the hall
where a glass surface had been placed into the wall, along with a very
dark panel sensitive to touch. Parro turned his curiousity drivers to
the wall's glass surface and stared into its bleakness with a gaze that
would have burned classic paintings. Then parro looked besides the panel
with the apparent dark mirror, and saw a 2nd panel. its purpose would
not have been obvious save for 'Self-Repair' marked on it by someone's
deranged scribbling, so Parro pretended to take a deep breath and
touched it. FOr a moment, nothing seemed to happen.

THen, suddenly, Parro's cybernetic eyes rolled up as he channeled some
of his internal power supply into the self-repair unit, and kept it
there for about a minute, groaning so loud it could be heard from the
outside. Parro began to feel parched throughout his whole frame as the
panel sputtered to life, then glowed bright as the sun, almost breaking
the dreariness of the clouded outside.. but only almost. Then Parro
looked as it, and it alone, began glowing and something appeared on the
monitor. "No set Update recievable via ethinet. Please input update
manually to effect global repairs."

Parro looked in consternation, and finally said the first words of his
existence.

"Hmm... If this ship needs an MANUAL update to repair it, I'd better
give it one. Hmm... How do I, as is , make a Starship updated from what
i See alone and sense alone.. and would like to protect from the amoebic
attacks i am not prone to myself.. Oh.. THERE."

And Parro slapped his clawed hand against the panel, and ignoring his
sudden thirst for a while, gave the Neverrest the one upgrade it
NEVER could have counted on... 
It would have seemed to be a  long, busy task to make an upgrade for the Neverest, being
recently put together. But in the time it took Axeeater to run back to
the Neverrest, Parro alone was responsible for the reconstruction of the
Neverrest. Sadly though, Axeeater didn't realize what had happened....or realize some barely visible strangers had come out of nowhere in a smaller ship.. to give help where help was due. 

Chapter 8

Wilson kept scanning the planet, and found no scans of his friends via
airborne dna checks as he knew the best procedure was over those three
hours. He knew sooner or later he was going to have to pick up
something, after all it wasn't that long since the Neverrest crashed in
the first place. He was getting worried though, for the Neverrest's
homing pattern detectable by the Rustbucket as programmed had begun to
fade away as if it was vanishing. He kept the search up, though, hoping
for the best in finding his friends.

Then all of a sudden he instinctively took a whiff, and realized one of
his worst enemies was spying on him. And had been.

"Renegade? Oh.. Hawkod, NO!", Wilson almost cried.

"Not that HOLY, old idiot.", said Renegade, or at least, part of him.
Wilson sensed Renegade might have left some residue of himself after all
those intrusions Renegade put the Incorporateds through, and perhaps
enough of Renegade had been left to emass enough to make its OWN
Renegade. Upsetting thoughts, but likely. "Thought you'd finally notice
ME here." Wilson looked and saw his shadow, sitting beside him. And
looking most annoyed despite being 2-d.

"Go away , Renegade, rejoin yourself. Bad enough we know you're nuts,
but now you're SCHIZO! you twisted little..."

"Schizo, am I", said the shadowy part that was Renegade. "Do you know
how long it's taken ME to reform after Long-neck made me leave my BETTER
half through that cursed PEPPER he found? After your Daughter, holed up
somewhere in this reality, blasted me silly with PSI and whatnot? No, I
don't think SCHIZO's quite adequate to describe what I've gone through."

"I don't think even HALF of you is welcome."

"SO? Wilson, who cares? Pay me, maybe, I MIGHT care. Right now, The
physical aspect of me's been led astray and I've been through hell
watching him bumble with his heart and his anger more than his cunning.
Using physical change rather than mental anguish to get his POINT
across. Hiring idiots to do his work like Senyl and Rorsach instead of
getting his OWN hands dirty. Well, Im going to derail his pretend
world."

"Renegade.. what the?" , Wilson said, thouroughly disturbed by this new
relevation.

"I know for certain I'm gonna Enjoy this, Wilson, screwing MY own
existence over as well as I've done yours in the past. Im going to wreck
MYSELF utterly when I find MY daughter and disrupt HER existence
utterly! And At last, I truly will be free to wreck havoc on things that
MATTER! Things that are REALLY bogus! Why, would you like a parting gift
of losing control again, just to remember me by?"

And Renegade, not letting Wilson get one word inside, Started to possess
the Rustbucket, but Wilson thought quick and stomped on a special pedal
he'd recently installed, releasing pepper spray into the air on
Renegade's side. Immediately Renegade began to twitch, and Wilson
growled.

"Renegade, let me put it to you this way. You might have one arm on me
right now, but surely I VOW I'll always have more of a MIND than you,
you sad soul. You leave, I turn off the pepper... You stay, Well, JUST
SUFFER for a change!", Wilson said.

"Hmmmph, said Renegade, trying to disguise the pain, "I'll say this, I'd
LOVE to see you try to stop me from DESTROYING MYSELF like I wrecked you
and Carolina and Kannel's life. It would be the MOST FUN i'd have."

"Go to perdition. Hawkod knows you've deserved it."

"At last.. now you've got the name of the place RIGHT, mortal senile
poster boy. Rot slow, if you ever figure out HOW."

And with that, Renegade's shadows teleported away from the regular
shadows draping the unlit portions of the Rustbucket. Wilson sighed as
he pushed ahead, to continue his sweep of the surrounding area.

"To think, I almost GOT over HIM, " Wilson said just as he felt a sudden
shake of his craft. Wilson turned towards the window besides him and
stared out.

"Do you know if I hadn't paid my boss and his hired help one payment I'd
still have ownership of that VAN you're joyriding in now.. AND wouldn't
have bothered stapling on that awful metal outer shell?", said Origami.

Wilson doubled the speed of the van out of protest. "Not now, Im busy.",
and left Origami the chupacabra in the wake.

"the truth is right in front of their face...", muttered Origami as he
tumbled to meet the ground head-on, opening his arms as if to embrace
the earth his head would soon meet.

Chapter 9

Speedster , under the gaze of a stare-intensive sierra, put the poster
back together and rolled it up. He was still unsure what the hell that
chupacabra was doing on this world, so far from earth. He'd met lots of
them in his home town years ago, and knew secretly they'd had corrupted
his former owner to be the evil commander he was today. He also knew his
life's greatest love was snuffed by their machinations, and somewhere in
his dreams, he felt the ones about his lost love would show her upset
again, and Speedster would not rest well. Speedster wondered why he
should be upset about someone in his dreams that had died, but he just
did deep down and his involvement with the great menace of the SCE never
truly sated his need to comfort that dream-image of her in his own
dreams... even if he felt sometimes that dream was merely so.

He wondered as he got the nerve to knock on the door, to go in and find
out what Sierra was doing staring out at the world. He wondered if
Sierra must have felt some sort of shock seeing the world go boom in
front of her, and Halifax could not have been there to see it. He always
believed deep down, at least in his dreams where Zephyr reminded him
often, that Sierra and Halifax were destined for each other despite all.

Speedster wondered if Halifax ever mentioned 'that poodle guy who
watches soaps all day when he's not hitting people a hundred times a
minute', after all, Halifax often was open about a lot of things.
Certainly Halifax probably was upset having to reveal to Sierra, who'd
just met him after 40 years of being deliberately seperated, "Im not
only out of cryo-stasis slumber, im running around with a bunch of heros
who have aversions to totally being covered in spandex, and work
transporting cargo and supplies when they're not fighting misguided
souls who would probably be nice guys." Speedster was smart enough to
think of such a contrived, but honest representation of Halifax's most
recent fate. Speedster still worried about the current one of Halifax,
though, and knocked on the door.

As Speedster knocked on the door, Cornball, now a chupacabra, began
sneaking up behind him. Speedster pretended not to notice and knocked
again, and just as soon as Cornball began to grab Speedster, Speedster
whipped out his plexiglass plunger and konked Cornball on the head,
forcing Cornball to be dazed for a while. Then Speedster turned to
Cornball, not realizing who he was.

"Ok, what the heck do you MEAN by that? Isn't it enough you'd taken a
life, destroyed another, torment me after so many years, now you wanna
take me from behind?"

"Hmmm, I'd love to take a life right now.. YOURS.", Cornball mentioned.

"You chupacabras.. born to be evil.. You don't get it that life don't
NEED evil in it to continue on, DO you? Well let me tell you.."

"But im not a Chupacabra. I'm Cornball. I've just been..."

"You're not Cornball. You're just a big fat homicidal liar."

"Hmmm.. well, that too, Speedster. Would you like your soul Broken."

"Not again. ", Said Speedster as he handled his plunger like a golf
club. "FORE!"

And with that, he batted Cornball right back away, close to the edge of
the manhole.

Cornball sat up and moved aside from the manhole. "You don't get it Im
cursed to be a CHUPACABRA, NOW? Well, If i take one of these tubes of
tripe cream pie.. i think so, anyways... And splurt it all over your
face until you PASS out from suffocation, you'll realize i'm the REAL
CORNBALL, won't you?" And with that, Cornball pulled out one of his
always-refilling, maybe mystical tubes of Cream Goat Tripe Pie (they used to
be just Cream pie before Renegade cursed them as well, if you've skipped some
paragraphs) to squirt more gallons of tubes than they seemed to hold all
over Speedster. "oh y...", muttered Cornball.

And suddenly, something from below yanked Cornball underneath. Something
full of spirit, but much nicer than Renegade. Cornball soon was yanked
through the manhole back into the darkness.

"Yeah, right, you LYING Chupacabra.", Speedster said as he heard the
yelling , and he turned back toward the door.

Speedster would have loved to believe Cornball was now one of the
extra-evil chupacabras, born to be evil from birth, not even given one
chance for redemption or good in their lives thanks to leadership so
disturbing the mystical dictator known as Kingston could have gotten
good lessons from. But not even Cornball deserved a fate of
semi-vampirism on both a physical AND a spiritual level. Cornball was
just an idiot who made people's lives better by screwing up their genes,
and was addicted to making things better, sadly by force.

He soon dismissed Cornball the chupacabra and began knocking on the door
again.

Sierra stayed oblivious to the knocking, and attended to doc muryl's
injuries she'd sustained from rolling down a mountain when the groundcar
broke down as usual. So far, Sierra knew, at least doc muryl was able to
talk and moan where it hurt and ask for things. That meant the coma was
over for her, too. Unfortunately, the broken bones and hurt pride and
slight shock of having missed storms and global power outages and
monsters in the skies were still left to deal with... as well as
wondering where Halifax might be.

Chapter 10

Axe saw the Neverrest, rebuilding itself like crazy when she finally saw
it come into view. She was actually enjoying being out of breath instead
of being low on power, but that enjoyment was shattered when she saw the
ship repair itself WITHOUT any call from her. She knew pretty much it
would be hard for outsiders to get the ship repaired and such, so Axe
ran down the hill with the speed of a gazelle. She was pretty thankful
she still wore as a vest her former chest cavity armor, and the shorts
she wore when still cybernetic fit well, she'd hate to be embarassed at
a time like this. Her ears which were still mechanic allowed her to hear
a slurping sound from within, despite the ship's hull silencing the
noise within. And she was most annoyed.

She came right up to the garage door which she saw as open, amd which
regenerated itself shut right behind her anew. She thought this most
rude, and made her way to the main hall, far changed from when she began
her journey nearly a day or more ago. And saw the hall of the Neverrest
much improved, from being a 80's motif to about a 90's motif in design.
She then looked at a fountain-pool near where the kitchen, the storage and
the cabin would be on the left, and saw Parro, drinking large gulps of
water.

"hmm... i feel i might be able to speak so he could understand now.. but
what would I say? Usually I've got a decode program that would make me
understood and vice versa.. "

Parro turned. "Hmm, are you an intruder or the owner of this vessel?"

Axe glared back. "Oh, well... Whichever you might be, WOULD you explain
yourself? I still got the duty of checking on people despite all the
changes i've been through!"

"Explain Myself? I'd need a seminar to explan the basics. Know me as
parro. Excuse me, I thirst. " And with that ,Parro kept drinking and
even synthesized gargling sounds.

"Hmm.. Ok, Parro.." , said Axe, which knew already dealing with her new
form would be trouble as is, "Exactly how did you get on board, How did
you access the repair systems here, and DO yOU kNOW WHERE THE
iNCORPORATEDS ARE?!?!"

"You want a SEMINAR on that? I heard they cost PLENTY. Well, first I
went through a door. Then, I pretty much TOUCHED them, and finally ...
excuse me... I don't think I'm up to theorizing what an Incorporateds
are. Maybe if you tell me whom they know It would ring a bell. Excuse
me, still need some more power before I tackle one more task I feel
necessary." and with that, Parro went back to drink, and drink plenty.

"You're going to be a pain are you,.. Parro? Hmm... somehow you look
familiar, Parro. Were you designed by Cornball, by any chance? Despite
current appearances I know what cornball's designs are like..."

"BLURPRRHRPRPRPRRHRH!", said Parro who glared at Axe and stopped
drinking to stare right in Axe's face.

"Hmm, why do I feel uncomfortable?", said Axe.

"I do not condone the freedom of said individual named Cornball. His
making me from parrot to Mechanic being is obviously quite illegal as
he's programmed into me, and I can only fathom he wants me to ensure he
jails me. It is a program that drives me such as my subprogram to exist
afterwards seeking justice and live a life of grungesque philosophys
that don't always look on the brighter side of life but does its best to
protect it. Im sure you don't know programs, but you dress a lot like me
though you're 92% organic and 100% setinent. Inversely on the organic
side for me and genderwise also reversed of your femaleness, though.
Are you something Cornball whipped to derail my quest, or are you
better than him?"

"Hmm.. well, I was made by Cornball, and altered a lot by cornball.
I kinda used to be a machine like yourself, a day or so ago. Only
I think you're pretty much improved on my former design." probably not
for the best, axe thought pleasantly.

"Well. Unfortunately Im not attracted.", said Parro, "So do you belong
to anyone WHOM might fight Cornball? I figure he might be getting allies
in his travails of illegality. Otherwise I have business bringing back
what may be dead already in virtuality. And first though I need to
drink."

As Parro kept drinking again, Axe replied. "No, I'm 'not' owned by
anybody, Parro. I am though loyal to a group of heroes for they do not
like the ideals of Cornball. I believe they are known as Incorporateds
by others, but what they call the group within each other they've yet to
reveal."

With that, Parro lifted his head.

"All I needed was to make a connotation. I wouldn't want to ally myself
blindly with strangers unless I know what they stand for. Perhaps it
will be easier in the next few years of functionality to judge
character on action. Are the Incorporateds owners of this 'ship'?"

"I believe so.", said Axe, sighing. Somehow, that sensation was a
experience Axe was not pleased to go through.

"And do they live here?"

"Yes, when they go to fight Cornball...among others.."

"Well, I don't know where they are, but I was going to find some within
that VR chamber, recently updated to 4+ level specifications who'd been
stranded in a cold subdimension for maybe too many hours. Perhaps if I
figure out the final codes to dump..."

"Hmmm.. I remember. You just stay there and drink and drink and whatever
the else you do, Ok Parro. Drink. gooood. Parro.", said Axe, backing off
and running to open the door. She slammed her hand against the access
panel to open the AR chamber, which was more or less the correct
description of the chamber, And nearly broke it out of speed.
Fortunately, she was physically still subvulnerable * enough for it to
be severly hurt.

"I am not gonna really get used to feeling pain", Axe thought.

WARNING: said the ar chamber: Access not relevant to Incorporateds.
Please get handprint of INcorporated member to access AR chamber and
release Occupants..."

"Hmm... now that's gonna be... hmm", Then Axe looked at her hands. She
noticed the hand she had put against the panel was still organic. Almost
sighning, she then looked at her other hand. Some of her fingers and her
palm were metal, at least skinwise.

"Ok.. let's see if THIS works", Axe said as she slapped hard the panel.

INCORPORATEDS ACCESS GRANTED. said the ar chamber. Axe didn't wonder
much that it said things now, not just displayed them.

"Well, thank YOU!"

VOICE print does not match INCORPORATEDS. ARE yOU SURE you want to
proceed with dump of AR chamber?

Axe growled at this. "Yes, for crying out loud and so many other
classless epithets!"

YOUR FUNERAL, said the AR chamber's oddly familiar voice.

Then the mirror of the AR chamber began splashing. Immediately, Axe saw
within a most distorted scenery, half melted and chaotic. And she saw
two characters, huddled as if cold and sick, suddenly see the exit, and
running out. She realized they were about to emerge and ducked back
before they got out, running, seemingly more clearer as they ran to the
exit and jumped out into reality, tumbling over to where Parro was.

Axe stared at the two, remembering who they were.

VOICE PATTERN , DNA PATTERN AND PHYSICALITY pATTERN UPDATED for
AXE EATER, said the AR chamber, deliberately adding a space now for some
strange reason. OLD +1 AR reality has NOW ceased to exist from downpower
state, It then added. THANK you for using the AR chamber.

It was Parro who looked down at the two. "Hmm, so you're the living
beings whom were trapped in there, weren't you? Hmm, are you two related
on a genetic level?"

It was Halifax who then replied after looking at his ally, who fainted
just there and then, "Polly want a hand grenade". Halifax, most nobly,
just then collapsed without the strength to even gate a proper fist at
seemingly an utter stranger.

"Hmm, these sound threatening, are they Incorporateds perhaps who fight
Cornball and also the rest of evil perhaps?", said Parro whos gaze might
have been at the time a lot closer than most beings would have considered.
Microscopic, to be sure.

Axe looked at Ann and Halifax, who both looked like hell had
happened to them, and more than likely, it was far from their fault.

"What do you think, if you can", said Axe.

"Oh.", said Parro, who went back to drinking, leaving Axe to drag
Halifax and Ann over her shoulders to get them medical attention asap.
"I hope you two appreciate this and who's helping you", Axe said quietly
as Parro drank on and on....

* subvulnerable. Somewhere between vulnerable and invulnerable, not
quite invulnerable but surely NOT totally vulnerable. rtcm. ^_^


Chapter 11

One of Cornballs' greatest thrills was to put an enemy through some sort
of running gag, a joke full of deja vu to the point it might be funny.
Somehow, Cornball had never intended to be the focus of a running gag
but this fall-through the manhole business was smacking of it. And this
was getting most annoying, falling into a manhole. He might as well not
crawl out of it.

He, however, did see Casey. Casey, whos tail was the only other
illuminescence in the place, who looked kinda thin and having red hair
now, but still same old casey who got in people's faces that spouted
humor. Always talking the big talk.

"Hmm.. you're pretty strange, aren't you?, " Casey said. " Somehow I
think physics put you through the wringer, because for some strange
reason you've been damned to look like the so called 'god of joking'
Cornball. What sad treachery he must be putting on poor creatures now
that he makes them look like himself.

"Um.. Casey..."

"I mean it, He's pretty psycho. Dumping cream pies on innocent civilians
made of Acid and Sleep and Poison and Gas, I mean that's got to be
something deeply troubling if one uses that kind of weapons on another.
I'd emailed the Ahancauyo Convention about outlawing contaminated
slapstick as a weapon, but no, they shrugged me off. It pretty much
satisfies me that I can deal with psychos like Cornball on a personal
level. "

"But.."

"Now don't go saying stuff like that. It's not pretty funny. I know how
happy my life might have been if I'd remained an ordinary cat just
surviving in alleys. But no, I can't find pleasure in merely chasing
rodentia, I just have to listen to heavy metal Speedster complains about
all the time, go to concerts whos air is not of the highest quality to
seek my pleasure now in this life I find myself living from day to day. I
should be thankful I am this way, but still I'll always remember I never
asked Cornball to be this way when Highbrow spread his self-developed
toxins through me and made me REALLY FAT as well..."

"Um..Casey, You're holding Cornball Right now. And you should DIE a
FUNNY DEATH. SNAP. "

Suddenly, Casey grabbed his head as if having a headache, and Cornball
once again slipped his grasp, and barely got out of the manhole before
Casey grabbed Cornball again and yanked him down, leaving Cornball to
cry , "Not again." before gravity regained its grip on Cornball and
Cornball was thrown to the ground.

"You realize how much that hurt.", Casey said as he dragged the
Cornball CHupacabra close. "And don't YOU start thinking YOU'RE
cornball now. You know how horrid it is alone Cornballs' been CLONED
himself already? Or how the world would be with TWO cornballs, TWO
caseys, heaven forbid TWO Renegades." Casey nearly snarled as he stared
right in Cornball's transformed face. "Now if I were you I'd take your
'snap' whatever you call it and do it on someone else, perferably your
size and intellect, thimbesized as it is. In the meantime, I am going to
go up there, tell Speedster to look for the rest of the Incorporateds in
another direction, And see what the heck he means by these 'Chupacabra'
things."

"Im also a Chupacabra.", Cornball sighed.

"Likely story. I hear that played in the top 20 ALL TOO OFTEN.", And
with that, Casey, determined as ever, climbed up the ladder to a fading
light of the day, and the cold dark of night. Cornball was again left in
the darkness.

But the Darkness in the sewers seemed to be comforting as the palm lions
settled down for the night, and the people hiding there, far off in the
distance, settled down as well to plan their survival for another day.

HELLO, CORNBALL, said the voice. Haven't seen you "in a while. May I
Undo that for you?"

Cornball stuck his head in his hands and cried. After having the
roughness grate his skin a little he just cried as shadows sat next to
him, giggling madly.

Chapter 12 "Cameos"

As Wilson landed on the outskirts of Summerien's now deserted capital
city, his thoughts of Renegade's existence became quite unnerving. He'd
never expected Renegade to have somehow still existed in two places at
once all this time, and certainly not so close to where he'd been. It
unnerved Wilson that Renegade was haunting the place, had been privy to
so much chatter from his friends, and had not chosen yet to reveal
himself being close to the incorporateds all this time. Especially when
Renegade had also been physically plotting against them much,
infiltrating them whenever he thougth needed, and made the bills from
the pepper grocer really go skyhigh. And that was most unnerving of all,
two Renegades perhaps coexisting in the universe, one mostly spirit and
one mostly body, and neither maybe not fond of the other.

Wilson drove quietly down the streets, noting that the buildings rebuilt
after the last time Summerien was put through chaos were just as wrecked
and broken as the buildings they replaced. And as he stared, he felt
this could not be Renegade's work at all. Strangely enough.

"Is anyone here?", he shouted as he pulled off a onramp into the
residential district, not far from where Renegade was defeated in the
park. The voice almost echoed in the quiet sky for a while.

Wilson parked the car and got out. He heard the patter of footsteps
starting up and running from afar, and wondered what it was. He turned
towards the noise of the feet and they stopped. When he turned away, the
patter returned and got closer, then stopped again as soon as Wilson
looked behind him. Wilson got nervous, wondering if Renegade was coming
to annoy him again, and simply just turned in circles with anticipation
and worry. The footsteps faded on and off for a while and during a third
turn, Wilson saw someone approach him out of the corner of his eye. He
was stopped from turning around 4 times when something prodded him in
the ribs.

Wilson looked forward. Then, he looked down. And what was there was
someone ELSE he wasn't too keen on meeting, and Wilson was not at all
relieved not to see Renegade near him threating his sanity or his
friends.

The little pug went like mad, Blam, Blam, BLAM! as he tried to fire a
small weapon that didn't even make so much as a flurp of noise or a zerp
of energy.

Wilson looked down. "Lawrence?", he said.

The pug looked straight up into Wilson's face. Wilson had expected
Lawrence, or Law Render as he preferred to be called, to have most
psychotically given him a look of rage, of anger, of sheer paranoia and
madness that probably came from not only being a mad scientist, but also
being a kidnapper and a patron of the arts as well.^

^ (patron of the artistry of mad scientists, that is. it is rare in the
universe the incorporateds live in that the mad scientists union
(supported by SCE plunder in secret ) that mad scientists paint or
play opera songs to fellow inmates while not devising bizzare
weaponry or items of mass madness. Unfortunately they'd admit under
interrogation by the authorities of many a free and noble world that, in fact,
it's only to pass the time while being incarcerated for their
unlawful and unsane devices until they plot their brilliant escape with
items they find in their cells and alarms ripped off the walls.
At least, their shrinks say, it is a little redeeming that they have a
interest in music as well as painting. Unfortunately, their favorite paintings
are gothic nightmares with cut-out eyes to look out of upon unwilling
victims, and they prefer their opera music played back on
pipe organs that were deliberately built to chill the soul. Go figure.)

"Wilson?", said Lawrence in return. "Um, what are you... doing here?
I... didn't mean to get out.. honest! Really!"

"Lawrence, it's NOT a relief to see YOU right now, sadly. What the hay
are you doing outside your room at the mental home?"

Lawrence gasped. "Um... Foraging?" Lawrence then tried to fire his gun
again into Wilson, voicing little bang noises each more pathetic than
the next.

"You MUST have an explanation why you're loose. Or why you're here, you
madbeing."

Lawrence looked most angrily. "You have an explanation why THIS doesn't
WORK?", he said as he stuck the gun right in Wilson's scarred and
ancient face. "Then you can explain how I was able to walk straight out
of my cell, wander for many miles and wind up here looking for my shrink
who bailed when this world went crazier than ME!"

Wilson was silent as Lawrence then went quiet, and talked most calmly
for a while.

"Oh, well, didn't think you'd see such HORRIBLE things like this world
go through its end AGAIN like they told me it did, way before I was
committed there and Halifax's girlfriend was walking out the door as
sane as a tuna sandwich with rye, hold the garlic stems. But I did. As
soon as she stepped outside the sky darkened, the wind picked up, and a
whole bunch of chaos happened, both weatherwise and mystical. People
were running like mad up the mountain road leading to the asylum, as
well as driving off. And when the cars just .. stopped, when something
came down from the skies and interfered with them... Then things went
mad. Madder than me, anyways, All i've ever wanted was the destruction
of JUST my enemies and the shrinking of the same, Not sheer chaos and
worldwide ruin."

After hearing Lawrence say all that, Wilson thought for a moment.

"Really, Lawrence", said Wilson as he looked into Lawrence's panicked
eyes. "Is that all?"

"Well, there were horrendous creatures that flew about too, scaring
people into the hills."

"And?"

"A lot of the wildlife mutated bizarrely."

"AND?"

Lawrence smacked Wilson hard with his little gun, barely able to reach
WIlson from his height but just enough to do so. "Hey, you think i am
Insane or something? Like USUAL? Ranting about things I have no Control
over?"

"No.", Wilson said as he heard a roar off in the distance while the last
of the daylight failed to illuminate the world through the cloud cover,
and darkness began ruling again without any stars to interfere from
afar. And Wilson then walked off, rubbing his chin and staggering a
little.

"Hey , Wilson, what are you Implying? That I was SANE? How DARE you,
Wilson, imply I have any Sanity! STOP! Hey, don't make me keep trying to
Shrink you down to the size of a can of packed salmon! HEY! WILSON!"

Waiting for Lawrence to wander off into the city on his own mad (or
sane, perhaps, but not any good either way) quest, Wilson then turned
and stepped back to the car and kept driving around the city.

Wilson was fraught with worry. He always wondered, when dealing with
Lawrence on those sparse occasions security was laxed and Lawrence was
free, if ANYTHING could have made Lawrence even have the remotest
feelings of sanity. And if the world was any better with a sane, or
semi-sane Lawrence, running about. Now he knew. And it made him feel
slightly worse about the state of affairs he existed in.

It was a shock to see Halifax materialize behind him in the Rustbucket
just before Wilson was within a few blocks of where Sierra was living
now, ignoring Renegade and thinking of how to respond when she stopped.

Chapter 13 "No luck whatsoever"


Cornball woke to find himself in utter blackness and finding he'd gotten
a black eye. He could feel them both hurt and he could also feel
deep worry. He knew he had something to worry about, for one it wasn't
his birthday when he'd expected to be dragged into the darkness and be
harrased by partygoers.

"Lights", Cornball said. Still darkness.

Then Cornball clapped his clawed hands, clawed only so because he hadn't
though to tap within his given instincts of chupacabras to bite their
naills until they were short and not at all sharp and most unhygenically
embarrasing to show off. They were free so he heard an audible
clap, and clapped twice. Still no light.

He waited for a moment.

"Hello?", Cornball said as he tried to get up. He found out he couldn't
since his legs were tied to a chair in the darkness, and he fell over
still tied with hands flailing.

A meter-wide, hair-thin sliver of light suddenly came into to illuminate
the room, allowing  Cornball to now see that he was in the sewers
and it was lit. And of course, it confirmed he was tied to a chair
though it was laying horizontal on the ground. Cornball tried to
reach to untie the knots binding his legs as the light came closer.

A foot or two from him something began appearing out of the top and
bottom of the portal. Two hands came out, and both were the hands of
a mandrill long involved in very bright, but also very evil plots and
conspiracies. Cornball just gaped quietly as the high-headed creature
in front of him grabbed the arms of the chair, and slammed Cornball into
the ground hard, breaking the chair and bruising Cornball deep down.
Cornball growled even as he darted briefly into the land of the
unconscious dreamer.

"You...." Cornball said to his captor.

His captor looked back at him and glared. "Well, sir, I think that's an
odd form for you to possess, but it DOES quantify you as the slime I
oppose a lot. Have you come to gird both the SCE and this world's legal
authorities against my noble painting of viral hypernature across this
formerly fine planet like the rest of them?"

"The rest of whom?"

"Those horrible monsters, such as yourself.... Cornball. Funny you
should join their side after becoming one of them. I'd expect that from
you, all those years of competing with me and siding with ANYTHING
willing or gullible enough to let you HELP or HELP them."

"I wasn't made this way by FATE.", said Cornball. "It was by Renegade's
will im like this NOW!"

Cornballs' captor looked upon Cornball. "Come now, stop believing in
those rumors of your friend Renegade existing. All us know Renegade's
only a myth supported by fanatics jealous of our most stable position in
the SCE. I've never seen any proof of Renegade's work anywhere or
anyhow. And if there was proof, I wouldn't concern myself, All the
legends say Renegade isn't all that hot as hyped when those spreading
rumors about him paint their bleak pictures of his 'horrid' acts.
Really, Cornball, stop this infantile behavior and give me a good war
this time."

"A war?"

"A war. On a planet i've made horrible by a virus that was given the
mass sentinence of a mad god, given the mystic power within its genetic
structure to cause chaos at whim and will and even childish tantrumesque
emotion, where intruders come at whims to save or take over, where it is
a lovely painting of nature gone foul. A war, between you and me, one
last time. Where you admit at the last you stole my ideas for the
ingredients of the blend of toxic chemical waste and biogenetic
hazardous dna that makes men of mere animals and animals of mere men.
And I prevail over you as everything around us comes crashing down
hard."

"Your wars arent' funny, Highbrow.", spat Cornball. "I like FUNNY wars
with pies and horrible guns that impale your victim then spit out flags going
'bang' on the other side of the same. You just love seeing people suffer
without anything HUMOROUS perhaps happing to them in the act."

"Tough, Cornball", said Highbrow, most notedly so not for purported
intellect but a really high brow at least a foot above where his actual
face was. "But It's a war I want to win anew. And I will win it, because
I feel I've instigated one where the random factors make it challenging
enough for me to WANT to win. Monsters flying overhead, the
Incorporateds stranded and isolated thanks to my getting Kingston's
BROTHER to send the Incorporateds to their doom at the proper hour, the
virus striking down any tech it finds is TOO modern for it to let exist,
and you, here, to run like the coward you think yourself to be, until
you act like the brave little PSYCHO you are and try to plot my
downfall. And still LOSE horribly. So Cornball, when shall the war
begin anew between us?"

Cornball sighed. "Are you through NOW?", he said as he heard the pipes
quiver suddenly inside the sewers.

"Hmmm, should I really continue?", Highbrow said.

The pipes burst and something blue ripped through them , but it wasn't
water. It was the soul of someone not at all happy with Highbrow either.
There was a lot of pipes clanging as they fell aside , ruptured , and a
horrid blue light streak untangled itself and went whole behind Highbrow.
Highbrow turned as the light streak darted behind a wall, and Casey
stepped forth.

"Oh, no , no...", Casey said, as the streak of light was revealed to be
merely Casey's own tail. "Not you. HOW? HOW?", he said , as the streak
grabbed Highbrow and held him tight. Then Casey turned to the
Chupacabra. "As strange and disturbing as... you might be, chupacabra..
RUN. While you can. This brain-swelled jerk is stronger than you might
imagine!"

Cornball, the Chupacabra, lifted himself off the floor and smirked.
"Even though this is a nice gesture, I still owe you a horribly SILLY
death, Casey." And with that , Cornball slipped down the dark tunnels
towards the surface.

"Ungrateful, isn't HE", said Casey just as Highbrow concentrated and
yanked free of Casey's grasp.

"Don't you get INVOLVED!", said Highbrow as he dug into his side pockets
of his shorts, and pulled out a small piece of bamboo. A piece that
suddenly quadrupled in length with just a squint of Highbrow's eyes,
that pierced through the energy that was Casey's tail and maybe his soul
as well. Casey crumpled as his tail retreated into the core of his
being, and Highbrow smirked. "Writhe in pain for a while. I'd simply
fight you and loose like last time, like I crave to fight, but my war's
under way. And no imagined companion of Cornball will save him now.. or
even an enemy who is most definitively REAL.. much to my discomfort,",
said Highbrow as he walked on Casey and walked in the direction away
from the one Cornball took.

"How", Casey moaned as he shook off the pain and began anew looking for
the exit of the sewer system, at least, the one closest to him.

-----

It was to Cornball's surprise that when he left the sewer system,
Renegade was standing right in front of him, awaiting something.

"Renegade.. I'm going to be violently SICK over mentioning this.. ugh..
thank you for being with me back there, and offering to undo this state
im in for finding your daughter and making her bow to you. But why didn't
you help me when Highbrow came back, in the sewers down there,
and just run off to your regular haunts wherever they may be?"

Renegade gasped with a look of worry. "I was NEVER in the sewers, and
who is this HIGHBROW you mentioned? Never heard of anyone remotely named
that that Kingston or anyone else told me of."

A fainting time was had by Cornball just then.

"And why would I even think to restore you just to make my daugh... NO."

Now worry infected Renegade.

And from afar, Highbrow climbed out and glared at the being named
Renegade who began the long, harrowing process of putting two and two
together.

"What an awful illusion", said Highbrow as he stealthily snuck towards
the suburbs and his distant base. "No imagination whatsoever."


Chapter 14 "Taunted"

In the distance the chupacabra perched on top of the building, looking
down on Renegade as he came to knock on the door himself, and Speedster
as he just stood there, trying to asorb some of the sights he was
seeing, and perhaps something more. It was quite different than Cornball
in some aspects, as Cornball the chupacabra had hair, and Kanji the
chupacabra had absolutely none on his head.

"Going to pass through the walls", it said as Renegade knocked again,
carefully because Renegade knew all too well his very prescence would
probably collapse the building, as ruined on the outside as it was. "You
don't have to be polite because, you, fiend, are EVIL. The cardinal,
blue jay, osprey, mad owl AND ostrich of EVIL."

"What are YOU?", Renegade said in a most normal voice. "OH."

"Not your friend. Certainly not. Have you tried leaving.. through the
SKY?"

"I don't try. I have business here the next couple of days. Don't ask me
why. You can ask my enemy Cornball, I've messed with his genes so you
and him might seem like brothers, and scrambled karma about him so those
Incorporateds wont' sense on feelings he's Cornball. Or you can tell me
why I seemed to be in two places as far as Cornball has ranted, and be
useful."

"And you don't know yourSELF!", laughed the chupacabra. "As dead to the
WORLD we've heard you been when the SCE contacted us and informed us you
were STRANDED here. A spirit who could apport or teleport anywhere and
it can't even make a way out through a planet covered by very sick
clouds! HAR!"

"I don't follow Kingston anymore, willingly or not, forced or of my free
will.", Renegade said as he put his ponderous head to the door, trying
to get his ears as close as possible though his horns blocked the way.
"And I assured Cornball he wasn't under Kingston's control anymore
EITHER."

"Not a bad job you did back there.."

"Stuff it."

"I mean, I'm impressed you can shift OTHER'S shapes as well as your
own."

"Stuff it."

"You could do much better on a smaller scale, like with the monarch
butterflies becoming yummy goats with wings and all..."

STUFF IT.

And Renegades' own innate darkness lauched from behind him, dark as ebon
, in an attempt to harm the chupacabra. But the Chupacabra, alert as
usual, slapped the shadow aside as it roared back to the earth.

"And you give out free hair cuts too....", the Chupacabra said as it
pointed and a portal opened that Renegade wondered was probably FAR more
powerful than any of Halifax's. "Don't follow me. Earth's very stinky
right now with poison a little more virulent.. than the winds above."

Renegade saw it step in and vanish as another Chupacabra stepped out.
"Tough union, eh, hombre", it said. Then it sat and grinned as it looked
up at the sky, the portal vanished, and Renegade saw the chupacabra
stare down at him from below.

All it did was stare.

And then, Sierra chose to answer the door, causing Renegade to almost
fall in before he corrected himself.

Renegade, not caring much about the monster above looking down, came to
hug the woman in rags, suddenly gripped by a bizarre need to do so.
"You poor soul", said Renegade, his tiniest of good most touched
by this sight, as he grabbed the woman and gave her a fond embrace.

Renegade heard nothing but laughter from the chupacabra as he was thusly
beat up for no good reason, simply because even with a free will
Renegade did nothing for ANY good reason. He did everything for bad
reasons, though.... And being too close to Sierra Lanhill, who'd more
than realized through her long road to sanity Renegade wasn't anything
close as far as her love Halifax was concerned, was part of the reason
why he was beat up so badly.

======

At that exact moment, Wilson was slowly driving down the street, when he saw
Casey stagger down, and thankfully from Wilson's judgement, only from a
bruised ego.. literally.

"And what happened to you, Wilson?", Casey said.

"My world is falling apart." Wilson said without emotion.

"Funny you should mention that, Wilson..... i've been feeling like my own life has been falling apart for more years than i could count!" 

======

As Renegade pulled himself off the ground, he saw the form of Sierra
Lanhill, one of the former patients of Summeriens' mental institute, 14
days ago released and allowed to return to society. And she was not
happy. Renegade was utterly dismayed, but deep down pleased, that Sierra
could fight him to a standstill. Renegade didn't notice his own shadows
were dark as the sky grew alight with the promise of another cloudy day.

"I don't think this is my doing", Renegade said. "And don't touch me
like that again. It brings back lots of memories of... before."

There was a great wellspring of hostility in Sierra and it burst.

"You have a lot of nerve showing up HERE, don't you? Especially after
you tried to kill my lifefriend HALIFAX in a hospital while BOTH of you
were off your feet! You DIRT.", Sierra said. "You're lucky you ARE
half-zombie, half-living now. I wouldn't have lived with myself if I had
the opportunity to hurt you while you were FULLY alive."

"Well, " DEATH DOES HAVE " it's advantages, Sierra. And don't get me to
show you ANY of them."

"Get out of"... Sierra said as they were both interrupted. The
Chupacabra looked down and coughed.

"YES", Renegade said as the creature stood up.

"Nice Performance. Too bad I was rooting for the big one. Well, can't
win anything you bet on unless fate decrees it , don't you
half-and-half. Maybe a sawmill would do you wonders. As for your next-
of --- naaaah, too easy. " the Chupacabra said.

"What in the....", Renegade said as he himself stood up, planning and
plotting the cancellation of this one' extraneous powers as well.

The Chupacabra said ... "Oh, did I mention the dead can of dog food over
there has a daughter just now? NO? Well good thing I just did. I think
since us 'goat-suckers' as some people on Earth would call us in ANY
language have taken a vested interest in the survival of the SCE, We've
been doing a lot of roadwork on beings just like you. No, not HER, YOU.
We've been trying to get background on the whole of the SCE and you're a
pretty BIG hole as far as they're concerned, and that's something I feel
everyone in the SCE, mind controlled or not, would feel. You have
family, don't you, Renegade? Is that what gave you impetus to FREE
yourself? Is that what gave you impetus to remove from Origami that
ADVANTAGE he STOLE?.... "

Renegade growled as he looked into the face of the Chupacabra.

"How could you know THAT?"

"You're not part of the SCE. Im not telling noone outside the SCE food
chain. Unless that food chain includes horsemeat."

"YOU " shut "UP!", Renegade said as he began sinking into despair. He
looked with now pleading eyes into Sierra's. "That's a private insult
Cornball has reserved for himself, and bad as it is HE has rights to it,
you are worse in STEALING that phrase he has reserved for me and ME
alone."

"Me, and me alone. You're not entirely sure that pertains to your
current position as mean thing of the entire world.", said the
Chupacabra known as kanji. "But I figured it out that it is EXACTLY your
state of affairs. And you're still so unsure."

Sierra looked back. "Something I actually know may be worse than EVEN
you." And spitting at Renegade, she marched inside. "ANN, bolt the door
until my HALIFAX comes home." And the door was thusly shut, and Locked.

Renegade gazed at the Chupacabra.

"How shall I tell this to you? Ok.. here... One month ago the world was
in total chaos because the skies deactivated everything. 2 weeks ago it
all calmed down and everyone sighed thinking your enemies were dead and
probably you, too. A week ago, they accepted the fact nothing could
work, there was no escape at least for THEM, and they actually began
living rather decent lives without machinery and in quiet harmony with
the world . A few days ago, well.. WE showed UP. And if the quiet was
broken, we just then sit on houses, wreck stuff, steal livestock and
have fun while we make this now technologically inaccessible our home
away from HOME. Or sit IN houses performing simple housekeeping chores
like Arrest and Detain and Harass. And it is probably the most fun
we've had since we've messed around in the 1940's on earth causing
chaos just as they humans learned how to make a simple thing they can
yell at each other with from MILES away."

"You can ROT.", Renegade said. "So where is my daughter?"

Renegade turned around, wondering where that VOICE came from.... but saw
nothing.

"half and half.... um, time to leave. Bye...", and it vanished through a
portal like the other one, a little earlier than expected. The one that
came out, a huge giant monster with spikes all over and wearing only
shorts, looked down.

"I could repeat what he said or you could just lEAVE", it said in a
voice that frightened Renegade, that shook mountains ever so slightly
for just existing anywhere on the world, that thuddered builidings on
the tiniest level and made flowers wilt. A voice that put fear somehow
in Renegade for somehow Renegade knew it wasn't amused by ANY aspect of
his existence, nor did it respect it.

"Um, BYE", Renegade said, resuming his mysterious quest in a very
different direction, at a most quick rate. Some of his own internal
darkness was left behind, recovering still from the pepper overdoses of
the past few months but almost as powerful, and free willed themselves,
than before.

The giant monster, a good eight feet tall, began staring at the shadows
as they slowly departed looking for some better horror to bring about.
noting that the shadows crawling behind renegade were in fact as bright
as stars, not as dark as anything that sure wasn't the stars though it
was so, so much bigger...

Sierra went inside to resume healing Muryl as best as she could,
glancing back whenever Renegade ran right through a building... 

And wondering.. why the heck is that cow so interested in me? why, i'd like to personally tell him a thing or two, indeed!

Though it was like a moment in time.. sierra felt like years had passed in a blink of an eye.. and she wondered indeed..

"...did i come from that cow or something?"

=====

And so the story continues as the team regrouped while renegade went on a maddening rampage.. as many of the chupacabras continued their wild partying.. 

Casey, indeed, didn't really understand his new abilities very much, but started getting like the strangest visions just then.. of a unusual future.. and with speedster near by him, Casey just yelled out at the top of his lungs, "OH NO", and he fell to the ground....

As he motioned to speedster to come back to the house.. and Wilson, who suddenly seemed very lifeless as he laid by his car, looked up to the sky.. and saw strange visions in the clouds.. and screamed while Sierra suddenly tried to get on top of the truck for some reason.. as if some vision of some vile, twisted future had somehow 

"What the heck", said Speedster as strange beams of light appeared through the sky, seeming to look for someone in particular... apparently trying to locate someone.. and Casey said, "Bad enough we've been in such a bad state.. but i have a worse feeling about some of the things we're seeing.. It's like this whole world is in pain for some reason!!"

"you kidding me?", speedster said, "i've had that feeling for a long time". And suddenly, Sierra glared at the beams of light.. and she said something in a very unusual voice to the crisscrossing beams of light which glowed orange, that had a chilling effect to Speedster and Casey .. as if they were witness to a transformation indeed. 

"like, uh.. Come?"

Immediately, as if there was something within said beams that had been looking for access.. the lights became one with her, and it was if she glowed with a light that seemed to brighten things around her.. though it really didn't do much for the like, truck she was standing on...

As she floated gently to the ground, Casey almost panicked.. as Sierra yelled suddenly..

"Ohhh great, i know who i am! I'm LIGHTWAVE!!", in a voice that shattered nearby buildings  as she , like, shouted at the top of her lungs. And somehow, her clothes reknitted themselves at will, becoming bright and pink, causing the incorporateds to panic as they were thrown aside.. as technology suddenly came on in a shockwave from the epicenter of a strangely relit soul for miles around her.. 

Stunning many of the incorporateds nearby... 

Save for halifax. Who like keeled over and fainted.. and really shook his head, "Man , that was a nice van". And Casey said in unison..

"uhh... do you think anyone, like heard that"? 

All wilson could say as he laid there nearby was... "Ohhh, I heard it."

Speedster worried. What if renegade heard it, like, too? 

Ann more than likely did as the house had mostly fell on her from the voice.. and indeed, there were a lot of screams in the city..

Mostly from the chupacabras though.. as other beams of light kept falling, like, down from the sky... enmasse..

As if something was breaking through..and was trying to get to the incorporateds for some reason...

And they all looked up as apparently.. as something was trying to get to them from the skies...and said to them as beams of light kept trying to detain the chupacabras..

"You're gonna have to get out of here.." said a voice as a more advanced version of their ship seemed to float down from the skies...breaking through the fog.. "Because you've been here long enough".

"And why should we go with you", casey said, as apparently the planet was being saved for some reason..

The voice said.. "Because I, scatter, fixed your ship.. and if you don't get outta here you're going to be in worse trouble...especially your friend, wilson, whom we've detected is being.. cursed somehow for something he'll do one day... and my own team might be just about the only thing delaying Wilson's inevitable change into something.. humiliating." 

Casey looked up, as his friends gathered by, and Lightwave carried Wilson who was somehow beginning to slowly glow.. as the ship opened up.. and the group came in as a bunch of strange heros went throughout the city... attacking everything evil, especially renegade... and said as the rest of the heros, hoping everything, like these 'newbies' could be trusted.. boarded the ship... and took off, with Lightwave still shaken by many realizations about herself..

And the incorporateds getting the heck out of the hole they felt like they'd been in with some help from a strange team that managed to help them .. that somehow seemed familiar and yet so.. many years ahead of them all.. it almost wasnt' funny.. 

And renegade, seeing them depart.. took to the air briefly to go after his daughter, but the chupacabras leaped up to drag him back to the ground.. as well as multiple cats coming out of nowhere... and an innate darkness laughing at him from within, almost sounding female now... making renegade feel alone again... even more so than ever before. 
------

Parting ways, a very different team that had called itself  merely'I2',  allowed the rest of the Incorporateds to part, as a strange and different team that speedster could barely percieve due to some strange cloaking technology, vowed to engage the chupacabras and the SCE still there... as Casey just stared at summerien.

"What the heck was that about", Casey said, as Lightwave just stood there shaking a bit.. unsure what'd been triggered within her as she floated there a foot above the ground.

"I'm not sure myself, save for that strange scatter dude who said someone was out to get us for things we're yet to even do with our lives", said Lightwave, as they prepared to depart.... "But that scatter dude who got us out of there said we had a good reason to get out of there.. Apparently they had a problem with someone who wasn't among us when we crashed who'd been on vacation."

"What kind of problem", Casey said as he saw a old friend of his.. a pretty old one, appear in a vision in the window.

"Apparently..", Lightwave said.. "our uh.. friend, Longneck.. has a ... REALLY wierd girlfriend he picked up on vacation.. who like really disrupted things.. 
does anyone know a girl named windbreaker?"

Casey watched as many of the sangurians and their enemies also flew to the planet as things heated up... "Ohh, I hope not", he sighed as he watched the planet vanish... wondering if indeed, if even in another lifetime.. he'd ever come back to settle some scores..And if it really was worth it keeping Parro around in the years to come. 

While Axe and Muryl , taken off the planet.. and mindninja, who was talking to them about some other events concerning Gazlennia and her contemplation about returing to her planet for a while to settle down.. wondered about their own futures, as indeed ... what awaited them in the stars?

Hopefully not cornball, whom they left behind.. and a dark fate for Wilson, as like longneck did.. was changing into something.. very, very different...
and more bothering from a pest like lawrence.
---

When peace was restored to summerien, though much polluted and destroyed in the battle.. and a strange new team had chased off the sangurians....

Quietly, in the region of  summerien's second most highest mountain range, a sole figure
sat on the highest peak in total silence. It was in deep contemplation
amongst a absolute miasma that covered the entire planet. A quiet that had
not been heard since before beings colonized the planet, ran their
groundcars and talked happily amongst themselves and sang songs of
content. Even more nothings was really wrong at all though it was noisy with reconstruction, this strange  squatter thought, but still, it did not move as it contemplated leaving. It needed not to move or to eat or
to sleep as things like that were rendered unnecessary many months ago, but mostly It needed to get a lot more rest considering it wasn't so 'alone' anymore..

And think it did, perhaps on its own for the second time since it had
sided with GOOD.. and found out it had a seemingly lost ex-wife.. 

That it did not want the 'Incorporateds' to the 2nd power that stopped by and tried to warn him about crossing some yet to come who had abilities to the 3rd power.... to bug it. 

Or for the matter, a handful who'd stopped by as Renegade prepared to rejoin the SCE, mostly trying to regather itself as new crises falling out from Long-glory's return and the incorporated's reborn quest for justice in the universe against the seemingly countless SCE out there.. had abilities to the 3rd power looking for 'someone to talk to' about some crisises yet to come.. namely involving one of Caseys's many kids yet to come...

whom renegade probably would come to hate for many years to come.

====

The end. for now.. maybe?