“Agh no way! How can a scaly dick like you keep this up!” Hans exclaimed after losing yet another game of dice to Jakaab.

Jakaab laughed jovially after taking his share of anaesthetics from the pot.

“Pure dumb luck, and you know it you scaly fiend.” Hans was sour in the face of defeat.

“Aha! Off world scum! Prepare to meet your doom!” Gerad burst out of the fungal forest surrounding the crash site and ostentatiously announced himself.

“Behold it is I! Gerad the brave! In the midst of a vicious attack from a titan on our village, I was able to escape. I vowed to find where the alien and his monster came from, go to their den and smite them with all of my might! You are no titan nor a dark skinned devil but you are off world scum! I shall rid our good planet of your filth now and for all!” Hans tolerated Gerad’s monologue for his own amusement.

Gerad dramatically unsheathed his little rapier causing Hans to smirk and Jakaab to flee around in a wild panic screaming.

“Yes! Fear me as you should evil doers!” Gerad screamed as he launched himself at the two offworlders.

Hans dodged the rapier jabs with nonchalant ease before tripping the furious fungi and slamming his face into the mushy soil below and holding him down as he struggled vehemently.

“You need to calm down fella, that goes for you lizard wizard, quit it!” Hans yelled at the two overreacting alien phenotypes.

Jakaab eventually ran out of gas on his newly grown legs and fell into a gasping state of exhaustion and Gerad stopped struggling but continued to mumble through the mud.

“I’ll hear you out but promise not to swing that toothpick around?” Hans offered speaking in the native language with a drunken slur.

Gerad slumped into the mud and nodded as far as he could manage.

Hans let go and went to slap Jakaab back into a state of calm.

They all reconvened in a circle.

Hans took the lead of the tribunal after skulling a bottle of disinfectant.

“Okay, now that we are all settled, what’s your deal guy? And try to keep it short and sharp, I’m not in a long listening mood.” Hans asked with a manner that indicated he only cared as much as his boredom pushed him to.

Oblivious to any sort of tone Hans put forth, Gerad answered in his usual over the top way.

He stood abruptly and faced an imaginary audience before beginning his louder than necessary monologue.

“I good sir! Have been unjustly punished by my good king and have been once again incarcerated and stripped of all of my honour! Viciously separated from my beloved! The fair lady Puella!” He began with an outrageous amount of zeal in his manner.

Both Hans and Jakaab rolled their eyes in unison as the creature went on.

“I tried to warn the king when the alien invader and his evil little beast entered our kingdom but alas he would not listen… but fate has shone its mighty warm light upon me with rays of opportunity! For now the little red beast has morphed into a terrifyingly giant beast and has run amok through the town before tearing through into the forest! Regaining its strength to come and destroy us wholly, and in this dark canopy is where I shall fight the beast and regain my honour, my fair lady and my livelihood!” He increased in volume as he went through the speech, without taking a breath once and then slumped back down, somewhat exhausted from the effort.

He still had mud all over his face and torso from Hans’ assault earlier.

“Now the evil invader is bewitching our king with alien magic, distracting him whilst his great red beast runs amok on our planet! Destroying everything in its path!” He continued.

“Okay that’s quite enough Lancelot.” Hans abruptly stopped him before he had the chance to continue.

Just gone to get fuel huh? You have cocked this one up big time old boy. Hans thought of Bob as he formulated his next move.

After a moment of silent thought, Hans lazily stood.

“Okay, looks like fuzzy's gotten himself into a bind. Scales you stay here and mind the craft, you, fun guy fungi, we’re gonna go monkey hunting, I’ll get him down to size you get the credit and your gal, we get some fuel and off we pop, savvy?” Hans stated as resolutely as he could through his veil of inebriation.

Jakaab opened his snout to detest but hans snapped it shut before he could utter anything.

Gerad sprung to his feet in dramatic enthusiasm.

Hans shook his head and held up a slapping hand in warning.

Gerad decided silence was the best option and merely nodded.

The two set off into the forest in search of the rampaging hynx.

War. It was all that was on his mind, all that needed to be anyway. A worthy excuse any great man ever needed to neglect his family.

General Gladius Lyanus was sitting on the end of his bed in the captain's chambers of the Blitz Nought.

His Centurion prime battle armour stood opposite him.

It was erect on a stand looking down at him from the cybernetic red glass slits that were its eye holes.

He felt the rigorously violent spirit of the armour look down upon him in judgement as he looked at a photograph of his wife, daughter and himself on the interactive screen he held in his lap.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He looked up at the armour with a steely grimace that turned into a smile.

Then back down at the family portrait with a vicious grin that turned into an ashamed frown.

He hated war and conquest in so far as he loved it but found it to be a painful pill to swallow when considering the strain it pulled on his family life.

He had met his wife on the final days of the unification wars.

After playing a major role in establishing the conglomerate as the ruling power of the galaxy after centuries of galactic turmoil. He was touted as the leading spirit, representing the best of the conglomerate as he led the conquest from the front.

His wife at the time was a war refugee from a fringe planet, far away from the galactic centre.

Displaced by aeons of feudal warfare across the galaxy as different factions rose and fell.

She had a rich heritage but nothing to remember it other than an old religious book and archaic photographs and that was all she had on her person when Gladius had met her.

He was a righteous warrior, fueled with absolute conviction and godly skill, he stood strong on a burning world, fighting off hordes of marauders and desperate extremists as the conglomerate descended upon their world and squashed their civil conflicts, folding their planet into the greater galactic faction.

He instantly fell in love with her as soon as he set his eyes upon her.

Fiery burning bright brown eyes filled with protective zeal as she stood in front of a pack of frightened children that she was ferrying from battle ground to battleground, attempting to find a safe haven.

Gladius helped her and the children escape the planet before he returned to conquer it, but never forgetting her.

Her fierce, resolute and strong personality as well as her olive skin, strong slender figure and deep brown eyes drew him to call upon all of his available resources to find her after the fighting was done.

They began their affair in the most idealistic way, both falling in love with each other as they travelled the now calm and ordered Conglomerate galaxy before settling in the galactic centre, marrying and birthing a beautiful baby girl.

He certainly loved his family but hated that he loved them for he was a dutiful man and his general’s mind often put his beloved wife and daughter into the category of distractions that tore at his innards every time he thought of the two.

This is where he lived, in a dark abyss of shame and self pity between his two loves.

Where in which the only comfort he found was in domination and raw violence.

He enjoyed donning the armour.

The devilishly sleek piece of tech in front of him that when combined with his cybernetic enhancements and already terrifying natural ability, turned him into the ultimate conqueror.

He was a one man army of terror and dread whenever he wore that suit and he loved every single minute of it.

That murderous junkie was an issue though.

He represented a seed of doubt in Gladius’ ability.

A doubt in his ability that he never once held before in his life.

He must be killed…

Gladius had decided that after their first altercation back in the capitol.

He had tracked the group of outlaws for millions of miles across the galaxy before reaching Jubembo I.

Tracking the movements of the cult of vol drung over the last few standard weeks had led the blitz nought there as a potential point of ambush.

As luck would have it, the two interlopers and their pet monkey had also crash landed on the mushroom planet.

Gladius found a sense of excitement in the near miraculous synchronicity that would deliver him both his whims, wishes and duty all in the same place.

He stood with a sense of zest that he would not usually show unless behind closed doors.

Spurred into action by thoughts of action that distracted him from the doldrums of his depression.

He looked into the Centurion Primes eyes.

“Soon my friend… very soon.” He muttered with a grin before marching out of the room.

He rejoined his second in command with a salute at the bridge of the battleship.

Out through the transparent window they could see a giant sphere ship in the distance against the backdrop of the sun exposed side of the planet

“They just warped in General, just as you had presumed.”

Lyanuss lips curled up slightly as his piercing eyes sharpened.

“And the outlaws?” He asked.

“We have tracked their ship to the second largest continent on the southern hemisphere of Jubembo, presumably they have crashed due to the ship's prolonged inactivity.

Gladius now wore a predatory grin.

“Perfect,” He said coldly before reclining back into his captain's chair.

“Oh the heavens have truly blessed us! I cannot believe it! Is this real? Do my eyes deceive me?” The king of the mushrooms exclaimed in awe as Timus levitated through the great hall up to the toad stool throne.

“Oh how many generations? How many aeons ago? The angel has returned. Does this mean our lord is nigh? Is our God's resurrection at hand?” The king trembled as he prostrated himself, bowing before Timus.

Timus smiled mercifully as he lorded over the little sentient fungi.

“Our lord’s return is inevitable, in fact as we speak he approaches. He has regained enough of his strength to leave the holy shrine and travel through the cosmos. Jubembo will be his first port of call, just as it was his last before he was unjustly put to slumber.” Timus said, an octave lower than his usual register in order to convey a divine gravitas.

The little mushroom king, all of his fungal court as well as the servants and guards murmured and trembled in excitement and anticipation.

It had been spoken of in myth and legend throughout the aeons that their lord Vol Drung would return to collect the final piece of his beloved Dar Gul in order to regain his former power.

The mushroom King froze in angst.

“The-the- final piece of dar gul?” He muttered up to Timus in wide eyed terror.

Timus grinned and nodded slowly as a giant shadow swept over the castley, shrouding it in a cold grey cowl.

“What do you mean… it isn’t here…”Vol Drung’s low growl made the great hall shake. He sat on the ridiculously undersized toad stool throne, looking down upon the mortals that worshipped him.

He held a nearly complete Dar Gul in his left hand. His figure was now enormous, ballooned by the power he had managed to absorb from hundreds and thousands of living souls.

The mushroom king could not speak. His voice halted by terror and awe.

Vol drung’s smelting eyes smouldered with more intensity than ever from behind his horned helm.

“Speak mortal.” The tone of his voice was calm, but the mood it presented was menacing and filled the air with dread.

The mushroom king conjured up as much of a theatrical aura as he could before delving into his explanation.

“A great big alien beast has come to pillage my land! I sent after him a champion hero, not of this world! A noodle haired dark man, it is he who has the final piece of my lord's beloved hammer.” The king played out a drama as if he were a jester in order to further enunciate his story.

“Gave it to a noodle haired man?” Timus encroached over the cowering king threateningly.

“Leave his Timus. It’s somewhat amusing. You are such a pathetic little welp aren’t you? Your predecessors were fathoms mightier than you.” Vol drung stood and walked over to the king.

His tone was somewhat playful in a terrifying way.

“No matter, as I am your merciful and true lord, I am therefore automatically your champion hero and saviour. I myself shall go and smite this so-called beast as well as the noodle head.” He said with a hint of glee at being able to showcase his unimaginable power.

“Oh yes my lord, smite away! Take your throne as our lord, lord of anyone as meek and pitiful as I.” The drama king grovelled as Vol Drung and his entourage strutted to the exit of the great hall.