That was the Atreknas' biggest mistake. Thinking eliminating the Mad Lemurs was the key to victory.

The Elder races who had fought them and survived to become their friends and allies knew the secret. The Younger races who had heard the words "Do you need assistance?" and accepted could feel it all around them.

The Mad Lemurs changed you as a people. Their attitude and behavior was more infectious than any illness. In their presence even the most beaten down and hopeless would find themselves standing straight, casting defiance in the teeth of overwhelming odds.

It went beyond forging the weapons and ships. The Mad Lemurs forged whole races.

They took the raw materials and forged them into the best version of themselves they could hope to be. It was a lesson well learned by the ones who had been through the process.

And a lesson they were more than willing to pass on. - Scholar Bergusia, Rigellian University of Applied Knowledge, "Lessons of the Second Precursor War"

He had fought the lemurs before.

He hadn't liked it then.

He found he was enjoying it now.

True, he was injured. His opposing thumb on his left hand was gone, a bullet had snapped it off but the thin bone hadn't provided enough mass to cause the shell to crack and the antimatter to be exposed. Rather, the bullet had detonated on a tree behind him. He had shrapnel peppered across his back but the tiny wounds had sealed closed from coagulated blood.

There was only two of the lemurs left.

He could see them, from where he was crouched up in the tree, watching them.

He had learned, through the night and early into the day, that using phasic powers directly against the lemurs exposed him somehow, triggered some kind of reactive defensive system in the lemur's primitive brains that struck back with a primal scream of rage and indignation at being touched by another's phasic ability.

He had learned not to fight as he had been taught, as he had learned in the Old Universe. He had to follow the rules of the New Universe, the glorious, violent, malevolent universe that hated its own creation with enough hatred that it caused suns to burn.

He had realized that basic truth as he had made noises of distress and put mud on his arm to quench the two small snowflakes of spooky particle white phosphorus that had eaten their way into his flesh. His arm was swollen, hot to the touch, caked with mud and wrapped with leaves that he had secured with thin vines.

This universe hated and hated fiercely. Not just the Atrekna, but everyone and everything.

This universe, the New Universe, was a malevolent universe.

He had learned his lessons through the night.

Not to come directly at them, but to stay hidden, strike from ambush and quickly withdraw. Even a wounding blow counted.

To be patient.

Stalking other Atrekna through the millennia was an exercise in watching plots slowly unfold, to carefully manipulate things to get the desired outcome.

Here, in this wondrous malevolent universe, patience involved simply waiting, being alert but ready to react or take action to provoke a reaction.

It was...

...it was...

...exhilarating.

They were crossing a river. One was injured in the leg, limping along, a bandage of OD cloth wound such a way as to hide the pale interior soaking pad. The other had lost her rifle and held a pistol in one hand as they hustled across the fallen log.

They were heading for their own lines, attempting to break contact.

He could let them go, let them flee. Break contact and return to his fellow Atrekna, see how the war was going against the lemurs, see who was closest to taking possession of the planet. Return to the Conclaves and Quorums and Consensus as well as the Communal Mind. To put his efforts toward taking the planet.

That was the logical course of action.

But he found, strangely, that he didn't want to.

The one with the injured leg suddenly stopped on the log. The lemur in the lead said something but the other shook her head, handing her rifle to the one in the lead.

As he watched, as the other lemur hurried across the log, the wounded one turned to face him. She raised her face to the sky as she pulled off her battered armor and tossed it away, letting it fall into the river. She removed her shirt and her undergarment then drew a large knife. She sang as she dragged the tip of the blade across the top of her breasts, cutting her flesh, letting the blood flow down her mammaries.

Before, he would not have understood the lemur's actions.

But that was then and this was now.

He jumped from tree to tree, using his phasic powers smoothly, easily, the clumsiness of yesterday gone after long practice in the dark.

The leap from the tree to the ground at the near end of the fallen log was a long arc. He landed, one knee down, one curled fist into the ground, using his psychic powers to bleed off the kinetic energy and inertia from the jump.

He slowly raised up, keeping his prismactic camouflage field up, and faced her.

She set her feet and hefted the blade in one hand, her other hand open and down by her waist. Her face was determined, her nose swollen with cut across the bridge that had closed with gummy coagulated blood.

The lemur chattered.

He answered.

"Free... can-dy," he whispered out the sounds, unsure of what they were, just knowing that he had heard the lemurs say it.

He let the camouflage field drop enough for her to see the end of his phasonium and warsteel staff. See the sharp point and the bladed end that had only been decorative before. Just something to impress the other Atrekna with.

She wiggled the knife. Her eyes went from cold blue to amber.

He let the field drop.

She gasped, seeing him in all of his naked glory. He had used his empowered and phasically enhanced robe to set a trap just before dawn and now he wore nothing on his purple flesh. He stared at her with all three red eyes.

"Free... can-dy?" he trilled.

Her eyes went burning red.

"Does it... hurt?" he trilled.

She snarled and rushed forward.

He gave an undulating screech and rushed at her, thrusting with the staff.

For the next fifteen seconds it took everything he had to keep her from gutting him right there. Her knife flashed in the waning daylight, her teeth were bared in a snarl, and she kept slamming her fist into his flesh.

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Before the night the blows themselves would have hurt him, crippled him, left him keening in agony and fleeing.

Now, his flesh was hardened by his phasic abilities. It hurt, but the pain was far away as he focused on keeping her from killing him.

He saw an opening, just a slight one, with his third eye.

He thrust the staff forward.

It punched through her stomach, the iron hard muscles of her abdomen resisting for a moment. He felt the blade grate on her spine he drove it clear through her.

She spit blood in his face, grabbing the staff with her free hand, and pulled herself forward.

He twisted the staff.

She sliced him down the side of his head, narrowly missing his eye.

He lifted her up off the ground, her boots kicking.

She drove the knife into his shoulder, just an inch of the blade.

He whooped out a war cry and lifted her higher.

She slammed her open palm against the pommel of the knife and it suddenly punched through his phasically hardened skin and muscle to sink deep into his skin.

With a roar of effort he turned and threw her away from him, her body flying off the staff.

Her arms and legs flailed as she fell into the ravine.

He turned away.

Even if she survived the fall, she was out of the fight.

He had won.

He walked, slowly, across the log, feeling the mist of the waterfall coat his skin, cooling him down more than his purplish thick sweat had been able to. He reached the far side and took a moment to clean the edge of the blade with one thumb and a finger, squeegeeing it clean.

He have a roar of triumph, throwing his head back and vocalizing his victory.

He wrapped himself back up in the cloaking field and jumped for the trees, crouching down.

His injuries pained him. It was tearing agony to remove the blade from the soft tissues of his shoulder, but he managed it. He heated the tip of his staff with phasic energy and seared shut the wound. He then slowly closed the wound on the side of his head with the heated edge of the blade, roaring with pain when he was done.

He closed all three eyes for a moment, reaching out and grabbing a branch to steady himself.

He felt...

...felt

...alive.

Gone were the endless years and decades of patient waiting for a plot that, at the most, would eliminate a rival or shift his standing slightly. No longer did he perform experiment after experiment and get the same results, trying to find some way to change what had already happened and what would be no matter what he did.

The New Universe was malevolent but bountiful.

The other lemur had given him the slip, moving into the brush. He moved around slowly, using his eyes, the same eyes that had allowed his people to see any foes before they had come to rely so much on phasic powers, to disdain physical effort. He listened closely with his ears, the same ears that had warned his people of ambushes and helped locate prey before his people had set aside that gift from the Old Universe to use only phasic power.

His tentacles wiggled in an equivalent of a sneer.

How short sighted. How pathetic.

The Old Universe had given his people the tools to rise to primacy and his people had thrown them away to pursue phasic power only. To put meager logic patterns against the chaos of a hateful universe.

This wasn't the Old Universe.

This was the New Universe.

And here, it was eat or be eaten.

The manipulations, the plots, the plans, the carefully orchestrated complex interweave of alliance and betrayal of the Old Universe was useless here.

There was only those who banded together to increase their killing power.

And those who died.

He knew that know.

He turned from the thick forest.

She wouldn't leave. She wouldn't run.

Any more than he would.

It was down to the two of them.

The laws of the New Universe, the Malevolent One and All, would forbid them from fleeing from one another.

While one still lived, the other was in danger.

The can be only one, he whispered to himself as he glided across the tree, heading back into the forest where the night and day had been spent in a brutal stalking hunt.

-----

He had a split second warning, almost too little to do anything. He got his phasic shield around and stepped to the side just in time. Still, the swinging log hit his shield and sent him stumbling back, the phasic disk shattering in an explosion of sparks.

She came at him fast, sticks in her hands whose ends had been carved into sharp points and hardened with fire.

She was shirtless, mud and chlorophyll covering her skin in daubed patterns. Her blue eyes were a cold amber as she swung twice then dove into the brush as he swiped the staff around and almost got her, just slicing away part of the heel of her boot.

He jumped up into the trees and looked around.

Nothing but forest. Where the female lemur had gone he did not know.

He held still, his feeding tentacles tightly curled, as he surveyed the ground.

There!

She was moving fast, dodging around trees, a long sharp stick in her hand.

He jumped from tree to tree, following her.

She ducked underneath a log but didn't come out the other side.

He jumped down to the ground, looking around.

The tree had fallen and split when it had hit the ground, creating an arch.

He moved forward, squatting down to look into the arch.

The female lemur jumped off the top of the arch where she had been crouched behind a handful of ferns.

And drove the spear into his back.

He roared, stepped back, and used his phasic power to rip the spear free.

It had narrowly missed his lung.

The female lemur grabbed another spear.

He let the camouflage field drop and she took a half step forward and stopped.

Hanging from a vine around his torso were four skulls, their helmets buckled onto the bone, the strap keeping the lower jawbone in place. The vine went in one eye and out the other. He had carved phasic runes of power onto the jawbones.

She braced herself and spat gibberish in her language.

He repeated it back to her slowly and carefully.

"Come. Get some... then..." he said.

She snarled and he brought up the level of phasic energy through his skin and muscle as far as he could.

He moved forward, stabbing with the staff, slicing along her hip. She stabbed him in the leg with the spear. Then they were past each other, both turning around to face their opponent. Another clash, and another, and another.

She had a cut on her forehead. A long gash along the side of one mammary. A cut on her hip.

He had a stab wound to his arm. One to his hip. A broken finger.

He dropped the staff, pulled the lemur knife from where he had stored it between the teeth of a skull, and spread his arms out in a dominance pose.

She screeched and shook her broken spear over her head.

They charged at one another.

The spear had a crackling feeling as it penetrated his chest, pushed through his body, and exited his back.

The knife ground on the ribs of the lemur as he stabbed deep.

They both collapsed on the ground.

For a long time nothing moved.

The female lemur stood up slowly, reaching out and steadying herself on the log. She stood there for a long moment, just breathing heavily.

Finally, she turned and limped away, vanishing into the ferns.

Time passed.

Fingers curled.

There was pain. So much pain. A roaring river of pain. An avalanche of pain.

The Atrekna opened his eyes, staring up at the sky.

Every instinct, every experience, told him to lay on the ground and wait to die.

He gave a low growl, repeating what one of the lemurs had screeched at him as it had gotten to its feet.

"Didn't... hear... no... bell..."

He got up slowly. He slowly pulled the spear from his body. It was sharp enough to penetrate his skin, penetrate phasically enhanced muscle.

But dull enough to push everything out of the way instead of tearing it apart.

He looked around. The lemur was gone.

She had been victorious as the stars of the Malevolent Universe had watched.

The prize was hers.

He understood that now.

But he too had earned prizes. Prizes the bountiful but hateful universe bestowed on those who tasted and drank deep of its wisdom.

He picked up the knife and heated it before pressing it to his wounds, sealing them shut with a flare of agony and the stench of scorched flesh and blood. He sat and rested for a long moment before he got back up, using his phasic power to sustain him.

He tied the knife to the spear that had been driven through his body with strips of cloth he tore from the discarded top of the lemur's uniform.

He jumped up into the trees, wrapping himself in the phasic camouflage field, the spear in one hand.

-----

The Conclave had been forced to retreat by the Mad Lemurs of Terra. The Dwellerspawn were all dead, ripped apart by the fury of the lemur's martial might.

They had a bare dozen members left as they carefully reached through time and space to locate what they were after.

A jumpship.

Concentrating, they brought it forward.

It was damaged. The armor dented and dinged. Many of the precious crystals were cracked. It was scuffed and battered.

But intact enough to be spaceworthy and capable of making FTL jumps.

The effort of moving it through had killed half the Atrekna, leaving a pair of each caste staring at one another. Two Young, two Old, two Ancient.

The ship wasn't large. There would be no privacy, no seclusion. Each would be at the mercy of the others.

All of them eyed one another as they slowly moved to the ship. The door opened with a squeal, revealing cool red light inside.

They tensed as they gathered near the door.

**In what order should we determine possession of the ship** an Ancient One asked.

There was a thump on top of the ship.

As one they looked up.

Standing on top of the ship was an Atrekna, but not like any Atrekna they had ever seen.

It was taller, broader, its limbs thick with muscle. Its purple skin was covered in scars and brands.

Its eyes were burning red.

It wore a crude vine around its torso, from which lemur and Atrekna skulls hung, the lemur skulls all buckled into helmets.

In one hand it held a staff of phasonium and warsteel that all the Atrekna present could feel the power of.

In the other it held a spear made of crude wood with a knife tied to the end. All of the Atrekna could feel the cold malevolence rolling off of the spear.

It stared down at them with cold burning red eyes.

**I believe you have my property** the strange nude Atrekna whispered into the communal mind, its thoughts a sibilant whisper that invaded the communal mind and twisted around the other's thoughts.

"Free... can-dy..." it whispered aloud.

One of the Ancient Ones let loose with a blast of psychic power, almost contemptuously, confident that its power would seriously injure if not destroy the obviously defective one.

The blast rippled the air but had no other effect.

The Atrekna standing on the top of the hull of the craft threw its head back and gave an undulating cry that made the others draw back.

Before they could do much more than exclaim over the communal mind in shock, the strange one dropped down into them.

It was over in moments.

The sole Atrekna closed the door behind him as he moved to the cockpit.

As he left the planet, the stealth engaged, he thought about it.

He had fought the lemurs before.

He hadn't liked it then.

He liked it now.