The traitor smmed the door, angrily throwing the coat away. So close, damn it! They stormed down the hall to the kit. Decades of pnning and preag, years of waiting for an opportunity! They ’t let it go down the drain. Not now, not ever.

  With trembling fingers, they flung the fridge open, snatg a of cold beer. It did little to calm their nerves, but stronger alight ruin their tration. And they o be posed! Already one of their circle had ged his mind, and they had to silehe man i. When one decided to turn his ba the old promise, it was only a matter of time…

  The traitor had never expected the Wolf Tribe to be so successful or the Gilded Horde to be so i. The damned Wolfkins swarmed over the overstretched forces of the invaders, murdering raiders, reuniting with the rest of the Provincial Army, and resg citizens. Partial relief washed over the traitor because of this turn of events. Despite the burning hatred in their hearts, they had protected the people here for a long time. Some… familiarity was to be expected.

  They steeled themselves. Ashbringer captured prisoners? No matter; they knew nothing of them. Losses? Irrelevant. The horde was too vast, and those who were annihited were just expendable greenhorn fools; cusacks sent forth to be sughtered. True veterans were kept in reserve; all the deaths so far hadn’t weakeheir new allies o. Everything roceedily as pnned.

  Brood Lord thought of them as a simple opportunist, a power-hungry mania a sense, he was right. The traitor was a maniac, but power? They couldn’t care less about it; rank, respect, and authority were means to an end. And what a sad end they were aiming for…

  The traitor picked up an old photo from a table in the living room, sitting alone in a spacious apartment. Loneliness g them. Year after year after year after year… Aire life ahead without ever hearing voices of their family or friends ever again. This murderous serpent did it. The tyrannical Recmation Army had stomped on their freedom. Those bastards had taken something that no one had the right to take, and the traitor will see them burn for it, their works corrupted, their dreams shattered, and their nds ravaged. They were happy once. But their happiness was cruelly and mercilessly torn down. Now it was their turn to do the same.

  The photo depicted sixteen people. Five were the traitor’s family; others were close friends. When Devourer came, they perished in fmes, and the traitor remained, dragged into a reeducation camp alongside everyone else. They remembered that day well, those coils of pale silver t over the voy, those iructible scales immuo any ons, and the inprehensible eyes that judged them, while Devourer spouted his usual bullshit about a greater good.

  Greater good, heh… The screams of their dying sister, as the traitor had frantically tried to pull her from uhe burning rubble, echoed in their skull to this day. Her arm came off, and that was the instant when their mind unraveled, taking in every soul that demanded just vengeance.

  The traitor refused to surrehey were a gnat pared to Devourer, but over the years they found others who had suffered as they had. The ones who had lost everything and in whose souls hatred burned brightly. With the aid of their newfound rades, the traitor had poured everything into strug a pn t suffering to Devourer, to give the bastard a taste of ashes and despair.

  Ironic. To hurt the bastard who took away the people they loved and cared for, they would o kill the people they came to care about. But justice merged with retribution had to be done!

  “Bravo!” They jumped at the sound of the voice, hand on pistol. “Five no slight; let go of ne. Let your bones be grio dust; suffer your skiing if needed; but bring down those whed you. It’s not over until it’s over. Show these mutant freaks the strength of humanity!”

  A man sat in the opposite armchair, g enthusiastically. The newer was dressed in a white b coat and had a good-natured, weling smile on his face. But ohing immediately caught the traitor’s attention. The eyes. The man’s sclera were two small pools of darkness, with two green stars floating in them. A New Breed! Was he sent by Brood Lord or had the Iigation Bureau figured…

  They aimed the pistol at the man’s head, and the newer moved as fast as quicksilver, spping the on aside before the traitor could pull the trigger. They fell from the chair and crawled toward the entraopping at the rustle of something against the carpet. Metal tendrils slipped from uhe intruder’s coat and ed around the traitor, taking them up in a half-formed co.

  “No need for panic!” The green-eyed intruder fshed a smile, showing perfect teeth. “I am a big fan of yours. That sughter you cook up is right up my alley. Using inhumans to carry out your revenge against mutants. A of all, they do it of their own free will! Man, I am ecstatic. Kudos to you. Love that touch!”

  “Who… I have no idea what you are talking about.” The traitor licked their suddenly dry lips. How did he get in here? No! Not after they had gotten so close!

  “Call me Academi, my dear new friend. And there is o be coy.” One of the meical tendrils moved, tightening around the traitor’s throat. “I am not without eyes. The way the Gilded Horde struck at the various objects iy, plus the strange unications you had weeks ago, along with the fact that these brutes seemed to have a perfect location and instruments in the area to push Tancred’s buttons... one could be a ce, but together? No. That was enough of a clue for me to iigate your past and ect the dots.”

  The traitor reassured themselves. If the man wao kill them, he would’ve done so already. No, there was another reason for this visit. Most importantly, the man did not know…

  “That you are responsible for the murder of the police chief?” Academi asked, loosening the grip around the neck. The man tilted his head, smiling at the sho the traitor’s eyes. “As I was saying, worry not. Take a deep breath and calm down. I really am a fan. oals are aligned. What does that make us?”

  “spirators?”

  “Indeed! In fact, I added a little touio the wonderful tapestry of death you weave.”

  “It was you!” The traitrabbed the edges of the metallic vise and used them as a support to kick Academi into the stomach. The bsted man simply took the ko the palm of his hand, and his smile never wavered. “You are the one who messed up our unication systems!”

  “Guilty as charged! Repg the subhuman virus was trivial. Did you enjoy my handiwork? Because I have plenty mifts to give!” Academi ughed, pced the traitor ba the chair, and dusted off their clothes. Then he grabbed an almost empty beer and, frowning, drais tents in one gulp. “What a piss. Just so we are on the same page, you do uand that the horde is bound to fail? Mad Hatter, strong as she is, will die in the end.”

  “She’ll do her part.” The traitor had no illusions about Academi’s words. But that woman was a cog in their vengeance. “And I will scar the Recmation Army forever.”

  Academi stepped closer, holding himself by the jaw. The traitor wondered what this man wanted. It mattered little in the end. Be it tokens, favors, or servitude, they would do anything. All they needed was a little more time. The Gilded Horde will arrive in Houstad. Devourer and Outsider will be too te, and the crazy bitch Ravager will hopefully fall to Mad Hatter’s bdes. Or not. Irrelevant in the end. They just needed a distra, and then Devourer will curse the day he ruiheir home!

  Academi’s lips moved, saying the words, expining iail what they had intended, and the traitor’s heart nearly jumped out of their chest. No! How could it be?! They old anyone; no one could be aware of…

  A cold tendril wiped the sweat off their fad put a syringe e liquid on their p.

  “Anift,” Academi expined. “When the chips fall down and your ps ruin, i yourself with this and asd, my friend. This power is a…”

  “I have no need for your power,” the traitor stated.

  Academi sighed, exhaling a sickly green mist into their face. Panig, the traitor tried to escape and sucked in a breath, feeling every muscle and vein in their body heat. The legs gave out, and they fell to their knees, vomiting a thick yellow substance. Blistering pimples and gangrenous growths bulged beh their uniform, tearing at the fabric. A sudden lump of dried bile in the lungs made it nearly impossible to breathe. Fiurned into oversized sausages, bones screamed in pain, threatening to be crushed by the swelling flesh.

  They were rotting alive. Their jowls swelled to the point of toug the chest; their eyes could barely see; and the tongue now filled the entire mouth. Nails had fallen from their fingers, and veins pushed up to the surface, looking like writhing bs.

  “Never interrupt me ever again,” Academi said coldly, and the traitor nodded helplessly, g at their ne a desperate effort to get some oxygen in. A needle hit their body, bringing immediate relief. The swelling disappeared, liquid was flushed from the lungs through every orifice, and they took a single wheezing breath and experienced a maddening inch as their body healed back. “What you just experienced is mortality. I know that feeling well. When I was a little older than you, I too thought I was invincible and omnist. In my deluded mind, I believed myself capable of calg every iability... Then fangs liquidated my skull. In a snap, in a breath, my dreams and hopes were dashed. I died.” Academi went to the kit and began pilging the fridge. “But death had no hold ohrough my craft and skills, my older self had transded the limitations of a single body. This is my intellect, a power far strohan anything the Glow grant.

  “You, my friend, have no mind worth speaking of, and your skills are mediocre at best. You think that you have pnned out every siail and tered every oute, but look at you now, trembling in fear after a sihing going out of pce has unraveled your pn. No-no.” Academi waved a finger. “Meticulously pnning every detail in advand thinking everything will go your way is shhtedness. They will find out. A siap snap your neck, ensuring the demise of all your dreams.

  “Learn from my mistakes, adapt and incorporate new elements into a pn, accept the gifts that fate has seen fit to vish upon you, and be prepared to retreat. For what is defeat but an opportunity to learn? You want to get back at Devourer, and you have the right to do so. So let me help you get us both what we want.”

  The traitor only whimpered their agreement, too afraid to do anything else. Just a few more days. Just a few more days, and the endgame would be upohey had to hold out. Devourer will pay, if not with his life, then with his dreams.

  ****

  Humming a tune, Academi stepped out of a portal, finding himself in what a ruined mall. A few lights still flickered, illuminating a se of chaos and floors covered in dark stains. He lowered himself to check the pulse of a lying body and shrugged when he heard stomping below. Curiously, his tendrils plucked a bag of chips from the floor. He tasted oepping past the ter, Academi threw a few tokens at the register, ign the dead cashier’s body.

  Mhhmm chy. Took a little over a hundred years, but hey, chips are back. He thought sourly, stuffing himself. So much had been lost iin. He could never fet the sheer horror of seeing geous cities fall and the utter humiliation of receiving news of orbital ptforms taining his precious boratories being smashed into the side of the moon or falling into the sun.

  Academi had never been a good man in the ordinary sense of the word. He had long since lost t of the number of lives he had ruined and the atrocities he had itted. Young, old, frail, strong... They all broke on his operating table, either to be rebuilt stronger or, more often than not, to be thrown into an ior after he had had his fun. But he loved humanity as a whole. The death of billions had stirred a long-fotten feeling even in him, aoiled restlessly to save whoever he could. Worst of all, he had lost his colleagues.

  Oh, he never cared for any of those losers personally. They grumbled about the ‘cruelty’ of his experiments and tried to stop him from disseg ‘se beings’. Often by force. Idiots. How could one be cruel to a scalpel un? His creations were just that—tools, nothing more. Just because they gained sentience hardly equalized them with humans. And only humans mattered. In the end, Academi had to join a private corporation to tinue his resear peace.

  But being one of the few surviving stists was no game. It meant that he had woheoretical debate by default. Instead of seeing his creations crush their so-called ‘properly raised sons and daughters’ and having the buffoons bow to his genius, Academi was left all alone, without petition. And… it saddened him. For true miracles were born iruggle of petitioween rivals.

  He touched a small earpie his ear and said, “Purple Valkyrie, report. How is our ‘pain in the ass’ doing?” Academi approached the broken windows on the mall’s sed floor and looked down.

  What barbarians these mutants were. fake gold and real steel, several marauders dragged stragglers from their underground shelters.

  Mad Hatter and her horde had long since moved on and were besieging a proper town, but Academi could almost feel the woman’s presence even without the many biological satellites currently trag her from orbit. Beings like Mad Hatter had their own way of imprinting their mark on the world, and not always through destru. They were like a storm front looming over the horizon; just by seeing one once, you instinctively knew when that dread was near.

  He admired the potential in her and grew increasingly frustrated at Secretary’s refusal to aid him in capturing the woman. What marvels Academi could have pried during the evisceration! He could test his most potent viruses, keeping her barely alive and perfeg his deadly craft. Or, alternatively, simply e her and kill her over and over, learning the secret behind the density of her boo grow near impregural armor, coating his bioons in shells tougher than most power armor. Sensory ans, brain matter, reflexes... A mere thought of losing this trove of knowledge quied his heartbeat. Unfortunately, the anization’s resources were spread dangerously thin, in part because of all the setbacks they had suffered in their quest to acquire Apocalypse csses.

  And because of their sworn enemy. Now there was another mystery to solve.

  Mad Hatter’s servants, well, they were another matter. Ugly, fat, b, and mostly cruel, failed copies shaped after their mistress’ image. Academi passionless eyes had found a group of three downstairs, drunk oolen liquor. No doubt their Khan, or whoever was in charge of this rabble, would hang them ter for abandoning their posts. They poiheir ons at the trembling civilians, clearly pnning to finish them off.

  Why? What was the point of it? Sves were useful, and the dead served no goal. No wonder Secretary wao scour this world of mutated oppressors. This filth embodied the worst traits of humanity: brutish, uive, never doing anything more than the lowest dreg of humanity if he happeo be endowed with their abilities. Even Mad Hatter was fasating thanks to the vagaries of her biology rather than any character quirks. Or that Teo Queen. Even his daughter didn’t use even a tenth of her talents.

  But he! He was fun. Academi’s lips parted in a smile, and his tendrils released a host of ed fleas. Small creatures scurried out of the window and crept through the cracks. On their own, these creatures were useless. But when the uransmutation fluids stored in their bodies mixed... The is followed his will, leaping at the trembling civilians and biting them, soft enough not to cause irritation and be discovered.

  “He is raging. Literally,” Purple said in a strained voice over the . “Remember Site Number Six-O-Five? The one in the Ice O?”

  “A testing ground for bio-soldiers?” Academi scratched his . “Dull pce. What about it?”

  “It no longer exists. There is a crater twenty kilometers wide in the ice, and the water is still boiling and widening it. Elder, you have really pissed off Spaniad this time, sir. He has already requested the right to eliminate you, and Pharaoh has supported him. Other elders are also petitioniary tn you in. And…” She sighed. “We’ve just lost another of our facilities; the ste units on the border with the Desotion have just gohe way of the Old War, sir,” she said with distress.

  “They’ll e around. And stop w; it’s not like we lost anything of value.” He had half fotten of these abandoned facilities.

  “Apart from our creatures,” Purple Valkyries replied dryly.

  “Oh please, I will make you new minions. Rex, Purple; loss is a natural part of life; embrace it and learn from it rather tha over it. Bring up the video feed. I am curious to see what we glean from Spaniad’s power this time.” Academi waved his hand. “I take it Spaniad has left the Core Lands?”

  “No, sir.” That answer raised Academi’s eyebrows. “He is still pying his role.”

  “Well, shit.” He quickly activated cloaking devices stored in his meical harness, ensuring that he would remain hidden from any spy satellites or attempts to locate him through mental sg. To be in the same nd as the angry Spaniad was to py with doom. Creatures like Ravager were bad enough. The walking apocalypse was far worse.

  The fleas released the co developed in his bs into the bloodstreams of four sy humans. Unbeknownst to them, their DNA had been temporarily altered. Painkillers produced by their altered bodies had masked the fact that new ans had sprouted ihe hosts’ bodies, as the mass for the transformation was drawn from the air. No one had noticed a thing.

  Shots ripped through the people’s bodies, sileng their whimpering. A child’s forehead and brain spttered against a wall behind him. Two more bullets liquefied his lungs. Another burst severed a woman’s legs, throwing her face down into the ing projectiles. An elderly man was fully bisected; his viscera and guts spilled.

  Academi pressed his fiips together, trembling in anticipation. What he was using now was expensive, even for him. But he had to experiment if he was ever to solve the puzzle of creating a on capable of taking der. His daughter’s blood debt was long overdue.

  The raiders’ ughter was silenced as the first of the corpses vulsed. From the wall, the ruined brain flowed, gathering bone fragments, and then vanished into the boy. The exposed guts slurped bato the split body. Even lost limbs grew back. Academi giggled like the purple-haired girl he had dated in college at the sight of cadavers ing back to life, their memories preserved, their emotions undamped. This marvelous result was not a ‘gift’ bestowed by a Glow’s mutation, but the result of a carefully executed marvel of bioengineering! Success! Not just in carefully curated boratory ditions, but in the open field!

  Ravager uzzle, and a tedious o that. The demise of his older self left… empty holes in Academi’s personality. For one, he could no longer remember his parents. He resurrected them, of course, but seeing two es without memories didn’t help and didn’t touch his soul. Well, at least he now knew what they looked like.

  Another such gap was his preference for surrounding himself with female operatives. Clearly, the inal Academi could not possibly be a sexual deviant, so what was the reason for su urge?

  These holes in his memory hindered him greatly. By all ats, Ravager was his greatest project to date. Yet he couldn’t remember how to replicate it! He had stolen Wolfkins’ cubs, opehem up, and admired the craftsmanship of his older self. Several he had molded into monsters, mentally breaking them trying to replicate Ravager’s evolution. No luck. Furious, Academi eliminated his toys, then ed them and explored alternative ventures. For over fifty years, he had broken, killed, and ed these cubs, finding new mutations in their bodies to this day. His older self had truly been a master.

  He had even captured a skinwalker and brought the creature to his b. It... backfired. There was a reason his older self had deemed them failures. All of them possessed genius minds, eclipsing even his own without a hint of purpose or morality, doing stuff on a whim. The spe had found a way to hato the mainframe and escaped, blowing up valuable experiments just for the hell of it. To this day, the woman was hiding iwork of tunnels beh his primary base, daring Academi to e a her. He refused to oblige out of spite, leaving them at an impasse. The skinwalker couldn’t hurt him, and he used her to test promising products. None succeeded.

  Academi shook his head and turned his attention back to the se below.

  Fools that they were, the brutes stopped ughing a firing, trying to finish off the humans. Academi almost decided to do nothing ahe test subjects die, rec the number of times the self-healing and mass gathering could offset the ining damage. After all, the regeion was only temporary; in a matter of hours, the newly formed ans would shrink and wither, returning their hosts to their inal bodies. But…

  These were the mutants, a useless deviation from the magnifice that was a human form. There was also a o obtain fresh material for his work sihe meraries hired by him had proven their inadequa that matter. And no mutant, no matter hant, should dare to raise a hand against their betters. So fine, he’ll py the role of the Good Samaritan today. His tendrils struck, removing the broken gss, and Academi jumped out.

  “Have no fear; a dashing hero is here!” Academi shouted, gliding through the air, shards of gss glinting in the sunlight all around him. “Upon my word, none of you will die here!” He chuckled slightly, enjoying the role a little too much.

  The raiders’ thoughts, crude as they were, were exposed to his superior mind, ented by the Glow. Academi’s tendrils dug into the ground, and his body weaved in the air, dodging shots aimed at his head with ease.

  Academi boots nded on a raider’s foot, shattering the pavement, but surprisingly, he heard her a craor a shot of pain in his oppo’s brain. He dodged a wide swing of the rifle by leaning bad spinning around, carried by his tendrils to another oppo. Academi walked straight into a knife ssh, dodging it at the st sed to pnt his elbow into the fat bastard’s throat, hard enough to crumple metal and lift a body off its feet.

  “Of course, I ’t promise the same about the vilins’ lives…” Academi sahen darted away, saved from a wound by a thought that fshed through his mind.

  The bastard wasn’t dead! There was no satisfying ch of a broken bone, and now he had to retreat as the three oppos closed in on him, wielding knives and firing at cle.

  As amusing as this empirical discovery was, Academi found himself uo smile as he dodged two bursts of mae-gun fire that nearly tore the idiotic civilians to shreds. He had promised to save them, and his word was iron, but would it kill those idiots to hide from a battle? He wasn’t averse to a fine old-fashioned brawl, and finding vulnerable spots to take apart enemies impervious to normal blows with his bare hands was a worthwhile pastime. But it would be a poor decision; his sensors warned him of the premature end eion.

  He brought the tendrils to bear, raising them like a forest around him and pierg the raiders’ bodies with the sharp bdes. They never had a ce; his metal limbs extended from the harness on his back, tossing debris and broken cars skyward. Hooks grabbed mae guns, ripping them from the mutants’ hands, and tendrils dug into flesh, peeling away armor, piece by bloody piece, as the raiders screamed. He killed tumped sedatives into the st.

  Academi turned and bowed graciously to the audience, who had chosen that moment to scurry away, taking the child with them. His shoulders slumped in disappoi. Poopie. And here I nning to take them to Houstad. He meant it. A ride in a stolen car across enemy lines, sneaking into a besieged city, avoiding a meeting with Spaniad or Pharaoh... What a wonderful adve could’ve been! Almost as if he were a simple field agent.

  “Academi.” Sweat broke out on his face, aood at attention, not daring to move, ign even the spillirails of a dead hordeman dripping on his forehead. “Why do you crave death?”

  A figure stepped out of the darkness of the ruined mall, reloading an uzi, and Academi wao squeal as he received reports of Special Forces appearing in his boratory and taking over. His personal office ehe hidden chamber immediately found, and the body iube—his backup e—secured. In a heartbeat, in a fsh, every hiding pce that mattered was turned over to the anizatioe enforcers, and the link that sent his test brainwaves into the data banks for ste was severed. Even the locations he had kept secret from Purple Valkyrie were found and captured.

  No! I don’t want any more holes in my personality!

  Not Saurolich. General Secretary had e to judge him. The man appeared to be a simple Normie. Of all of them, he had ged the least sihe Extin. But at his and was every ceivable resource of the anization, a force capable of destroying the entire world and the teologies of the past.

  “Greetings, sir,” Academi said in a steady voice. His e to the satellites was gone, his clearances revoked. Everything he had owned and worked tirelessly for had been taken from him. “Pray tell me the reason for your visit.”

  “I have e to assess your value to the anization, Academi.” General Secretary heaved his uzi and aimed between the stist’s eyes. “We give ents a certain amount of freedom to carry out their duties, true. But to viote another Elder’s area of operation? Assisting in an invasion of civilized nds that will iably result in humahs? That goes far beyond any accepted boundaries. Breaks the roof, I’ll say.”

  “I was ag in the anization's best i, sir.” Academi tried to kneel.

  “Stand. I prefer not to force a potentially dead man to grovel,” General Secretary ordered. “Make your case.”

  “The growing peaent within the Recmation Army is a problem for our tinued existence, sir,” Academi began talking quickly, calming himself. Yes, that visit was ued. But he was safe. “The freedom of our operations is directly depe on the ongoing rivalry betweehree Great Nations. As long as their intelligence services do not cooperate, the risk of us being discovered is minimal. If the Dynast backs down on his growing expansion, if his mutant freaks start taking over Iterna instead of sg it, if the Recmation Army is seen as a safe try for tourism, it will lead directly to a future truce. And the prolonged existence of the Gilded Horde has disrupted our operations in more than one area, resulting in the deaths of ents. Undoubtedly, Pharaoh and Spaniad had their own ways of solving this vexing problem, but I decided to assist them to the best of my humble ability. By bining the two factors, I have effectively eliminated both problems, boosting the popurity of the pro-expansion party and feeding the Dynast’s delusions without us having to lift a finger.”

  “And hurt Ravager,” General Secretary said bluntly.

  “That es off as a bonus.” Academi grinned. “When she kills Mad Hatter…”

  “If she kills her. I reviewed the simutions.” General Secretary still didn’t lower his on. “They are tied up. Ravager’s death could lead to the imband future destru of the Recmation Army at the hands of the Oathtakers. Have you sidered how difficult it will be for us to maneuver in that situation?”

  “It won’t occur. Wyrm Lord is capable of repg her; there will be no imbance. Just a little thinning out to get the Recimers ba track. And my daughter will not lose!” Academi snapped. “She is an absolute, a perfect bioon whose destru awaits my hands. I will surpass her and…”

  “You give her too much thought.” The on’s barrel ressed against his forehead, and Academi shut up, frightened for his future. He couldn’t sense General Secretary’s thoughts; the operation he had performed on the man’s brain was turning against him, and this time it wasn’t a pleasant thrill. “I find your line of reasoning sound. tinue your mission, Elder. But the ime you cause this much chaos without my approval, it will be your st.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Academi breathed a sigh of relief as he regained his usual trol. The e to the b was restored; Purple Valkyrie gave him updates in a disappoione. His es were unharmed, and the data flow from the satellites was unobstructed. He was alive! He had won that gamble! “May I ask you where you are heading, sir?”

  “Where humans are in dahere you will find me.” General Secretary checked his on. “I’ll lead those in this pce to safety. Away with you, Elder.”

  Disappointed and relieved, Academi moved the tendril that held his captive down.

  “Yoing to tell me everything you know about God.” He patted the rge face. “And then you, me, and the bodies of your friends will go on a wondrous journey of discovery. Agent Purple! Open a portal, please.”

  As a spatial anomaly ruptured the fabric of reality before him, Academi felt eted. For years, the anization’s agents had been battling not only the three major powers but also unknown abnormals, mutated humans with rare and powerful abilities. If this God was who Secretary General thought he was, then they might be oep closer to ridding the world of the bastard who had caused the Extin.

  When their mission was aplished and the mutant freaks were bader humanity’s heel, Academi will see all those who would manipute or threaten humanity brought dowers and lies will be exposed and removed; the freedom of mankind will once again reign supreme in this world and beyond as their spaceships sail to the stars. And most pleasing of all, Ravager’s back will be broken at his knee, her spawerminated, and Zero subjugated.