The Grox War

Palanosh charged down at a Grox standing by a door labelled "Biological Research" at the end of the hallway, ramming a fist clear through his skull in full-fledged rage. Palanosh struggled to pry the door open but managed to get in, killing a Grox with his rifle with more rounds than necessary. He quickly ran up to a console, hooked up a data storage unit, and began downloading the entirety of the lab's database's contents.

Fravini turned on the communicator. "Paloanosh, wherever you are, you have to hurry!"

Just as Fravini's message got through to Palanosh, an arm whipped out -- impossibly fast -- and tore his communicator away, sending it whirling towards the ground in two clean-cut pieces.

"I'm afraid not."

A throwing dagger embedded itself in the data storage unit. Sparks cascaded across the console in a blinding arc. The entire unit shut down, but not before the words "DOWNLOAD INTERRUPTED" had time to flash across the monitors.

"You have failed, Admiral Palanosh." The visored figure of Jadrim Av'Arees stood in the doorway. He was not visibly armed.

"Hello? Hello? Palonosh? Broccoli head... Guess I have to go find him!"

"You ... you bastard!" Palanosh said. "You have doomed an entire species to extinction! Tens of billions of innocent people ..."

Palanosh back-flipped up, kicking at Jadrim as he flipped to land on his feet with the skill of a true Tegotian warrior, bred through his whole life to fight.

Fravini ran down to "Biological Research" and got her sword out. "Broccoli head, it seems that we have an Eggplant face." Fravini said, trying to hide that she knew Jadrim.

"Your willingness to deal with the Grox doomed them long ago."

The kick was perfectly executed, but it met nothing but air. Jadrim was a Silent One. Spode only knew what the Temple had done to enhance his reaction-time.

"...And even after your betrayal inevitably backfired, you still thought you could redeem yourself? You wretched creature." His voice remained low and sombre -- he seemed almost amused.

Jadrim feigned left and lunged at Palanosh from the right, reaching out to grab him in a choke-hold with improbable speed.

Palanosh, though somewhat surprised by the speed of his opponent, grabbed at Jadrim's wrist, able to crush it almost instantly using the inherent strength of the Tegotian species. "When I must save not only my civilization but my species, I will do anything necessary!" Palanosh roared.

"Really? We could have just helped you in the first place!" Fravini shouted from the hallway.

"She is more right than you know... Can you guess what the best part is?"

The damage to his wrist had evoked no visible shock or pain in Jadrim. There was a blur of silver as he swung a blade -- seemingly summoned from nowhere -- with his free hand. The curved knife slashed open Palanosh's arm, releasing Jadrim, who stepped back out of reach.

He took up a defensive stance with his dagger: a long, vicious weapon designed for cutting both flesh and armour to ribbons.

"The best part is that I'm going to let you live... The best part is that as your entire species dies out, you will survive to watch it happen."

"Okay, that's a little cruel..." Fravini said walking in.

"You damned ..." Palanosh replied. "No matter. The Tegotian species will survive, even if the empire falls. Perhaps that may even be a welcome change. Unfortunately, without the help of the great Tegotian fleets distracting that of the Grox, it will become exponentially more difficult to defeat them."

"You hide your anger well for one bred to do battle," Jadrim replied, blade still held purposefully, "But none of you have yet to grasp the greater scheme of things... For now, I suggest you leave this place -- the guards will not stay distracted for much longer. Goodbye Admiral Palanosh."

With these last words, the entire room lit up, as if a star had ignited in the middle of it, blinding both the Admiral and Fravini for a few moments.

When the glow of his flash grenade faded away, Jadrim Av'Arees was nowhere to be seen.

"He will die by my blade," Palanosh muttered. Palanosh looked at his data device, it was completely destroyed. He decided to take the next best thing, picking up and carefully pocketing a small sample of pure virus. Although not the cure itself, such a sample would likely prove invaluable if one was ever to be found.

Palanosh turned to Fravini, "We need to get moving, the Grox will swarm this position any second now."

"Okay, broccoli." Fravini said.

"What is broccoli?" asked Palanosh as he started running down the hallways towards the nearest escape route.

"A brainless vegetable." Fravini replied regretting it.

"Be silent, or soon you shall be one," Palanosh whispered as he peeked beyond a corner. "A dozen Grox troopers; and this is where we must go to escape."

"Good, let's go!"

"Wait, we have to kill them, right?"

"If you wish to make such an attempt, it shall be your own death," Palanosh replied. "No, we need to think of something else."

"Hm.. Maybe a distraction?" Fravini threw a piece of paper on the ground at the Grox. They swarmed it and started reading it.

"You've won 10 million sporebucks, you will get your prize if you open all the doors on the spaceship." one of them read aloud.

One of the Grox pressed the button on the wall and the doors unlocked.

"WHERE'S MY MONEY?!" They screamed, then giant bags of money each weighing 100 pounds fell on them.

Fravini opened her communicator. "Thanks bud, I appreciate it." She said.

((lolwut?))

Palanosh moved quickly down the hallway towards the elevator that would bring them to the surface.

((I was running out of ideas. xD))

"Yay, we're getting out of this stupid base.."

Ink's voice broke in through the comms: "Palanosh? Fravini? I lost contact for a minute there -- you need to watch your step once you get up onto the surface. I've taken out anyone foolish enough to wander into the engine room, but there's still a Grox Overlord and at least two Conqrix bodyguards at large somewhere around here. Watch yourselves."