"NOBODY... HURTS... MILLA!"

The furious cry echoed through the walls of the great dreadnought, ringing down several levels into a young Chaser's ears.

What the? Torque thought, looking up and around in surprise. What was that? It sounded like Lilac.

He ducked behind a steel crate as another volley of glowing blue lasers erupted from the advancing wall of Shade Troopers. Shoot! He thought as the shots whizzed past him. These things are relentless!

With the press of a button, he pulled up the crude, holographic map that had been being generated throughout the ship. I need to get up there. If Brevon has found the girls, they're going to need my help. He was terrified of what kind of horrors that monster would do to them, if he didn't simply kill them first. Torque needed to do whatever it took to save them.

When the barrage subsided, Torque slipped a Fire Orb into the slot on the side of his blaster, stepped out from behind the crate, and let loose a fireball that flew towards the advancing mutants. It struck the chest of one of the Troopers in the middle, and then burst outwards in a massive, fiery explosion, driving a hole straight through the Troopers' ranks. With the press of a button on his wrist, Torque activated his jump jets and made a mad dash through the opening he had made.

When he reached the wall at the end of the room, he quickly pressed the button on the panel and, knowing he only had less than a second left, jumped into the glowing green orb that the projector had created.

Torque felt his stomach churn as he shot through the network of connecting transponders. He had never been too fond of teleportation, but unfortunately, it was the easiest and fastest way to traverse the Dreadnought's halls. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

As soon as his ride ended and he had landed safely, he jumped off of the receiver pad, raised his weapon, and gave it a few good blasts. He didn't know if that actually deactivated the machine, or if the Shade Troopers just weren't smart enough to try and follow him through, but it had seemed to work well so far.

Quickly turning away from the sputtering device, he started to run again. However, he was stopped in his tracks as he suddenly hit something very large and very hard. Falling back onto his rear, his eyes shot up to see what he had run into.

Standing on two massive legs was a blue, crab-like creature with thick, chitin plating; sharp, bony spikes; and cold eyes that were locked directly on Torque. Raising one of its legs up high, it prepared to crush the Chaser underneath its flat foot.

As quickly as he could, Torque scurried backwards, dodging the creature's leg as it smashed into the ground. Jumping back to his feet, Torque raised his blaster and fired a flurry of shots. However, the blasts pinged harmlessly off of the mutant's thick armor, leaving little more than a mark.

"Dang it!" He muttered as the creature raised its leg for another attack. He activated his jets and, with a quick burst of speed, dodged the beast's ground-shaking attack.

I don't have time for this, he thought.

As the mutant raised its foot again to try to crush him, he suddenly dove forward, sliding underneath the creature's spiked body and jumping back to his feet. He started to sprint towards the exit on the opposite side of the large room, in an attempt to escape the beast. However, as the mutant stomped around to face him again, it crouched down low and suddenly sprung up high into the air. Barreling down like a meteor, it crashed into the ground directly in front of Torque's path. The Chaser was barely able to dodge out of the way as the creature again raised its legs and attempted to crush him into the ground.

Fine then, he thought. If this is what you want to do.

He raised his blaster again and launched a vicious assault against the blue behemoth. However, the shots did little more than annoy the creature, as they again bounced off of its armor. Uttering a low, guttural growl, the creature began to attack more aggressively, pounding its flat feet into the steel floor in an attempt to turn its prey into a pile of green Chaser-goo. Using his jets for quick bursts of speed, Torque was barely able to avoid the massive crushers, still trying to pepper the beast with scattered blaster shots.

"Come on…" Torque muttered, as he managed to get a few good shots into the creature's face. But the beast simply shook the attack off, continuing its own assault.

Torque growled in frustration. He needed more firepower.

Jumping back to put some distance between him and the mutant, he quickly pulled out a Metal Orb and slipped it into his blaster. Then, as the creature stomped towards him, he suddenly activated his jets, dashed forward, and then dove down, sliding under the creature's stomach again. Rolling around and raising his blaster, he fired a volley of piercing steel shots into the creature's underbelly, then quickly scrambled away as the creature let out a roar of pain.

Swaying back and forth on its two legs, the blue behemoth slowly stumbled around in pain, until it eventually collapsed with a boom onto the ground. Torque watched the motionless body until he saw what he was looking for: A small, black, winged creature with one large eye wiggling its way out of the larger blue creature. After the Shade orbited around the Chaser twice, it fluttered away as though it was unaware of all else around it.

Torque smiled and spun his blaster around in triumph. "That's why you don't mess with a Commander!"

After a moment of celebration, he spun around and, activating his jets again, dashed through the hall towards the room that his map was telling him was the warp core. That was no doubt where Brevon had hooked the Stone up.

The steel door ahead of him opened and he found himself in the warp core. His eyes and his blaster quickly scanned the room for more of Brevon's soldiers, but they instead stopped at a sight that froze his blood.

The room appeared to have housed a fierce battle. Consoles were smashed, the walls and floors were scorched and dented, and a small, white body was sprawled motionless on the floor in the middle of the room.

No, no, no, no! He dashed over to Milla's body and tenderly turned her over to her back. The poor hound was bruised, broken, and bleeding, but Torque couldn't see any signs of blast marks. Instead, she looked as though she had been hit by a truck.

He closed his eyes and ground his teeth, breathing heavily in an attempt to control his anger. He knew how Brevon did things. He had tormented and tortured her before he had killed her.

The rage boiled over. "Blast it all!" He screamed and hurled his gun against the wall. He should have known this would happen. He had lost his last crew to Brevon's madness, Torque should have known what that sadistic freak would do to this one.

Defeated, he collapsed in a heap onto the ground next to Milla's body, looking at her sadly. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve this. I should have been faster. I should have been… I should have… I…

He put his head in his hands. "Blast it all…" He murmured. He stared at her crippled form, starting to lose hope, until an idea suddenly flashed in his head.

Wait... He put his hand into his belt and pulled out what he was looking for: A batch of Red Petals that he had gathered before their assault on the Dreadnought. He had very few left, as he had been injured more than he would care to admit during the battles, but he hoped they would be enough to help Milla.

Do they even work if she's…

"No." He said firmly. "They've got to work. They have to."

Quickly, he crushed the petals in the palm of his hand, raised Milla's head and gently opened her mouth, placing the flower petals on her tongue. After tilting her head back and helping her swallow the life-giving petals, he watched Milla's face attentively, looking for any signs of life. At first, nothing seemed to happen, however, after a few moments, he thought he noticed a subtle twitch at the end of her nose.

"Please…" He muttered. He put his ear to her chest. Thinking he heard a faint beat of her heart, he put his hand to her nose. It was weak, but he could definitely feel a slow, slight breath as her lungs began to suck in air once more.

"Oh thank you. Thank you so much." She was still badly hurt, but she was definitely alive again.

Torque didn't know what to do without more of the life petals. He knew the basics of medical aid from his training, but he'd always relied on Pivot to handle any serious injuries. Besides, he doubted anything he could do would help Milla. Even still, he had to do something.

He stood up and took one more look at Milla's broken body, before turning around and making for the console in the middle of the room. The only thing he could do was to complete his mission as soon as possible. He plugged his hacking device into the UCDR slot and got to work.

He only hoped that he could find Lilac and Carol before Brevon did.

"Lilac!"

Carol the Wildcat pounced in through the door, her feline eyes searching intently for her friend.

In the center of the room, sitting in a great glass cylinder she saw it: The Kingdom Stone, shimmering and sparkling like the morning sun. Under any other circumstances, she would have been itching to swipe a treasure like that.

But her gaze was instead drawn past that, to the wall on the opposite side of the Stone. As she dashed past the imprisoned gem, she saw that a great, dark hole had been drilled straight through the metal wall.

"Lilac? You… are you here?" She cautiously crept towards the hole, hearing what sounded like a soft sobbing coming from within.

"Lilac?" She said again and stepped to the mouth of the crater.

Slowly, Lilac the Dragon Girl came limping out with her head hanging down. Carol looked past her friend to see Lord Brevon's body crushed against the wall. With his armor cracked, his body and face bloody, and his cape torn to shreds, he looked as though he had been in a fight with an army of wolves. And a wrecking ball.

"Wow." Carol said smiling feebly. "You really did a number on him."

Lilac looked up at her and Carol saw tears in her eyes. She decided that her quips weren't the best thing right now.

"Hey, Lilac, it's alright now. We did it, right? We stopped him. We're all okay."

Lilac suddenly slumped to the floor and a frightened Carol rushed down to catch her.

"Carol..." Lilac whispered softly. She was kneeling, her clenched fists shaking as if she were about to fall apart, her eyes staring blankly at the ground.

Carol had no idea what to do. She had never seen her friend, her hero, so broken before. "Lilac, I..."

"What was the point of this?" Lilac asked with a quivering voice. "Why did all this happen to us?"

"I don't… I… I mean we..." Carol felt tears creeping into her eyes. She quickly wiped them away. "Come on Lilac, we have to go. Do you want... I mean, can you stand?"

She put Lilac's arm around her shoulder and slowly lifted her shaking body to her feet. "Come on girl, get up." She said, trying to sound confident. "It's time to go home."

They began to slowly limp away, the desolate dragon being supported by her deeply concerned friend. Step by step, they hobbled away from the body of the man who had caused them so much pain, taking away so much in their lives and plunging their world into darkness. But he wasn't what was on their minds. Carol was only concerned for her heroic lifelong friend who was now slumped limply on her shoulder, while Lilac was almost separated from reality; plagued with guilt, and the thoughts of another friend.

It wasn't until the two were almost out of the large room that the dragon remembered what their mission was.

"Carol, wait." Lilac said weakly, putting a stopping hand on the wildcat's shoulder. "The Stone."

"Oh!" She smiled sheepishly. "Wow, I can't believe I almost forgot."

"You… you can set me down." Lilac tried to stand a bit straighter. "I think I can walk."

Carol took her arms off of Lilac and the two girls made for the Kingdom Stone's glass container. Carol watched the dragon uneasily. She still seemed shaken, and her eyes still had a glassy, detached shine in them, but she was trying hard to stay strong. Carol always loved that about her friend.

"Lilac, um... what exactly happened in there? Last thing I remember is Brevon's big robot thing knocking me out."

"I..." She paused. "I don't know. I mean, I fought with Brevon. I guess I won. I… I don't know."

Carol nodded and bit her lip, deciding not to ask any more of her. They slowly came up to the Kingdom Stone and its glass prison.

"How do we get it out?" Lilac asked.

"Don't worry, I got this." Carol said with a small smile. She walked up and gave the glass a solid kick. The cylindrical case vibrated harshly, but otherwise, nothing happened.

"Uh… hold on." She tried to clawing at the glass in an attempt to weaken it. Nothing happened.

With a slight growl, she stood back a bit, ran forward, pounced up and gave the glass a massive beating: Punching, kicking, and scratching. But again, nothing happened.

"Dang it!" She said, rubbing her sore leg, "That stuff is harder than steel!"

"It's probably bulletproof." Lilac murmured.

"Right. Didn't think about that." She stood up. "Think you can boost through it?"

"Maybe. Let me..." She stepped forward, but suddenly stumbled again before she could finish.

"Lilac!" Carol cried and jumped forward to catch her friend.

Lilac caught herself. The dragon was silent for a second, holding herself with her hands and staring at the cold, metal floor, until Carol heard a quivering voice come from her lips.

"I'm sorry." Her head dropped down, the long, purple tendrils of her hair falling about her face.

"I'm sorry." She said again, tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm so sorry." And she began a series of long, deep sobs.

Carol knew who her friend was really apologizing to. She sat down next to the defeated dragon with a sigh. "How… how 'bout we just rest here... for a bit?"

And so the two friends sat under the glow of the shining gem, on a massive cruiser far away from their home, neither sure what to do next.

Then the ship exploded.

Author's Note: Well, if you haven't noticed, I've rewritten this chapter to be a little better. I feel like I've gotten a bit better since I first started all of this, so I decided to try and polish up the first few chapters to be not quite as rough and well... you know.

So anyway, my plan is to rewrite the first five chapters at least, so if you happen to catch this, check back occasionally, and I'll have them up soon. (I kind of wish FanFiction would send out alerts when I update the chapters as well as post new ones. Ah well.)

Anyways, thank you all so much for viewing and reviewing, and I'll see you soon.

Yours Truly, Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman.