A voice mumbled in the darkness.

"Likolo..."

It repeated that name about 3 times.

"Yes?" Likolo answered curiously.

"Why are you hiding from me?" the voice asked, sounding as if it were getting closer, "I just want you to learn our ways."

At this, Likolo screamed inside his head, Because our ways are wrong. And that makes you just as wrong. But his heart wouldn't let him say it, for he knew it to be a lie. He had always known not to judge others because of the actions of their race, and his teacher was no exception. The system was corrupt, not her.

"Because I'm scared," he whispered almost inaudibly.

His teacher, on that first day of his Indoctrination, smiled as she suddenly found him and said one thing he would remember forever.

"Of what, dear boy? That this might change you? What would it do? Change you into a monster with no compassion? A worker that follows the same routine for all of his life? Or are you scared of what we do? Nothing, Likolo. Nothing at all. For all our power, we do nothing."

Likolo awoke with a start. He then realized why. In dreaming, he had squirmed and writhed his way off of his bed. The feelings rushing to his hands and feet. His head hurt, as if cats and dogs were fighting in his brain. He looked to see that his leg had a pen embedded inside it. Not a problem, considering that he was a light chao. The fluid slowly refilled the area that the pen had left.

Next, he inspected his head. Being one of the few weak points in the anatomy of his race, he probably should have done this first, but as he realized that there was no harm done from the fall except for being slightly rattled, he had let a sigh of relief escape his "mouth". Invisible though it was, it was still there. And his stomach told him it needed filling.

So, naturally, he headed to his kitchen and prepared himself a bowl of fruit and poured a cup of drive fluid. The fruit was good, but he had eaten generally the same species of fruit for as long as he could remember. The drive, however, still carried that spark of flavor that it had from the very first time he had tried it all those long years ago. The fluids from the prism glass flooded his palette quickly and evenly. This one tasted like apples. Not that he protested, because it soothed his head's pain almost immediately. But it was odd, since apples were usually more expensive that the other fruits grown on Xeros.

And that made him think about his home.

Xeros, capital of the Order of Chaos's vast empire (though it is not empirical), was the home of the Chaos Council, a high order of Chaos Chao that, it is said, have studied and meditated to the point that they can see beyond the physical plane. The whole planet was basically a city built inside a global forest ecosystem. Great oaken towers make the forest floor nearly invisible from the shy over most of the civilian sector of Xeros. Among the more famous landmarks are The Hall of Zjarr, where the Council live and convene for meetings, The Great Library, where records are kept from even before Chao evolved, and maybe, it is rumored, back to the days of creatures named humans. A few less noteworthy, but still well-known places were Prince Kiban's school for Exceptionally Talented Magi, the Guardians of The Order Recruiting Facility (which wasn't as crowded as it usually was these days), and, of course, the Residential District, a large section of the county of Xeros he lived in, where the majority of the population lived.

But today wasn't a day to be thinking about the main places of interest tourists usually asked to be directed to, because he was on leave for another 4 hours before he resumed his duty strategizing with the higher-class Guard. The war was still going on, Likolo remembered, no matter how peaceful it seemed here, where they would never dare step foot.

The war had been going on for several years now. Ever since the Empire (yes, they are empirical) of The Indigo Chao evolved into the level of awareness that, until then, only Chaos Chao had grown accustomed to. And when the Indigo Chao saw that we had greater knowledge of... well, everything, they decided that they wanted it.

And we aren't entirely in the right here either, Likolo thought to himself. If we had only let them have access to our records, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

The war hadn't officially started until 6 years ago, When Nimbus III, a colony in the Foxtail System, went silent after reporting that supplies had arrived from the Indigo Chao.

3 Million. Burned in their homes.

And thus the war had started, over the ashes o selfishness and lust for knowledge that had been brewing for around 10 years.

And That's what Likolo has to go back to in a few hours.

The bloodied remains of two species of Chao that had failed to share in Omnisentience.