Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit fan-based piece of fiction. Commander Keen was created by Tom Hall and developed by id Software.


Chapter 1: Keen Hunted?

It was an average day for Billy Blaze; doing homework, keeping his older brother and younger sister under control, undertaking makeshift research and development in his treehouse. Unbeknownst to his entire race, he was secretly Commander Keen, the one who single-handedly saved the Earth from a Vorticon bombardment, freed their race from slavery under the Grand Intellect, and had even saved the entire galaxy from a Shikadi superweapon.

His most recent trip to outer space was to rescue his babysitter, and it was there that he learned his arch nemesis was still alive. With a revived threat of the Grand Intellect, Keen had to be ready for anything. He kept searching deep space radio frequencies for signs of trouble, but always found garbage programming.

The day did take a slight turn for the worst when Mrs Blaze announced that the entire family, save Keen, was invited to football tryouts in the neighboring city. They were leaving that same evening, and Keen was left all alone with his pet alien Spot.

Annoyed, he decided to spend time in the cockpit of his Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket, where he kept scanning the radio frequencies for distress signals. Maneuvering his ship onto the lawn, he looked up at the sky and saw... shooting stars. There were four of them... but they seemed to be getting larger and larger. Keen started seeing flames emitting from each of the stars, and one by one they crashed in his neighborhood.

His ComputerWrist started picking up an alien frequency at a local level. It sounded like there were female voices, saying that they had landed near the target. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and prepared the Bean-and-Bacon for emergency takeoff. A small radar program he invented showed movement of a number of signatures to his position. Soon, he heard his house door crash down, and the signatures came closer and closer. It suddenly hit Keen; the aliens were here for him.

Blasting off into the night sky, Keen suddenly found that four winged humanoid gargoyle-like objects were pursuing him, their black wings glowing an eerie yellow color. Lightning suddenly streaked past his cockpit, but he had no choice; he had to get away from Earth. More lightning shot past his ship, yet he was beginning to suspect it wasn't normal lightning. Higher and higher into the atmosphere he got, but more of those flying gargoyles came towards him. More lightning flashed past him, and Keen realized: if there was still lightning in high orbit, it had to be a form of weapon.

Reaching the freedom of space at last, he saw a large ship not unlike the Vorticon Mothership in size. Unlike the Mothership, it was long, golden and featured a long cannon on its bow. More gargoyles appeared, many of them grabbing the Megarocket, and a radio transmission got beamed through to Keen's ComputerWrist: "Unidentified vessel, this is Captain Oneassa of the Brightfire. You are carrying a wanted criminal amongst the people of Daria, and are therefore advised to surrender or face termination."

"Captain," Keen began, "...can you tell me the name of the fugitive, because I haven't been to your planet."

"You have until the count of three to surrender. One..."

"Fine, I surrender." Keen knew that there were too many gargoyles clinging to his rocket for him to attempt escape, and the Bean-with-Bacon wasn't equipped for an interstellar dogfight.

"Smart move, Grand Intellect."