AN: Yeah, I know it's been a while, but I will finish this. Promise. From here on, there is a plot. Also, anyone who remembers the Council of Colours, they're back, new and improved, many with differing names and concepts. Oh, and now there's eight of them. I also apologise if my spellcheck managed to insert some American spellings. I don't know why, but I'm apologising anyway.

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Things hadn't been going well for the new Ace Rimmer.

He's adventuring, just getting into the swing of things, when this has to happen. Planet Al Thalmain 3, Universe 994, basic damsel-in-distress idea and the Bad Guys happen to have a few tricks up their sleeves Ace hadn't bargained for. An old Ace would've, but this guy, the hologram, is new. White-hot noise screams in his simulated ears, light threatens to blind him - would have of he were human. Flying debris to the head - it hurts a hell of a lot, but it's not going to kill him. What does the damage is the smoke. Thick, choking smoke, creeping into the joins of his light bee and playing merry hell with the delicate machinery contained.

Things flash through Ace's mind as he realizes he's had it. First thing that happens is that all semblance of Ace-ness goes out of the window. Arnold is the one lying there malfunctioning; Arnold is the one who curses, in his mind, the pretty blonde princess type that led him to this point. Arnold thinks of Lister. He thinks of Gazpacho soup. He hopes Random is safe. He thinks of life, liberty and the pursuit of cheese straws, not in any particular order. He thinks, 'Smeg. Why me?'

Then he thinks nothing. Then he stops thinking. In a horrendously beautiful effect, parts of his body, his eyes, mouth, chest, open and white light pours from them, out of control. More and more light pours out, until it seems like all the light that made up him has been expelled into the air, a competition with the setting sun. But, of course, Rimmer's time is running out. The sun has at least another forty-five billion years to go. Light expelled, his dim outline cracks, fractures, breaks into a thousand thousand pieces, and is gone like the ghost of an illusion. Maybe that's all he was in the first place.

On the stained-black ground amongst the smoking wreckage of the villains' hide-out, who's going to notice another useless rounded cylinder of scrap metal?

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What had happened was this: the activation of the Infinite Improbability Drive had, for reasons as yet unclear, created a rift in the space-time continuum into which the sole occupant of the doomed spaceship Red Dwarf (one Arnold J Rimmer) had fallen. In another universe, the latest addition to the legacy of Ace Rimmer, a hard-light hologram whom the chronicler likes to refer to as Our Rimmer, had met up with one of this universe's last remaining humans, a teenage girl called Random Frequent Flyer Dent. While all this was going on, the anthropomorphic personification of Death was hanging out with the alien Immortal, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, hoping to gain his aid in a revenge quest against the first Rimmer mentioned.

In the words of an A.J. Rimmer involved in another, possibly related space-time continuum crisis, "Now, from this point on, things get a little bit confusing..."

The Council of Colours was in session. This was a select group of beings whose thankless and impossible task was to create some sense of order in the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash we call a Multiverse. It consisted of a Hoovaloo, a super-intelligent shade of blue who you may have heard of before, and a few of its relatives. These were:
the Rronkaril, an ultra-commanding shade of red,
the Monoobra, a highly ambitious shade of orange,
the Yazzabamba, a distressingly cheerful shade of yellow,
the Amalanga, a soothingly peaceful shade of green,
the Zerribi, a time-travelling shade of indigo,
the Kayanell, a psychic, telapathic shade of purple
and the Xanandru, an implausibly improbable shade of pink.

Currently the Rronkaril, who was obviously the leader, was floating in an irregular but distinctly crimson cloud back and forth in front of the others' incorporeal forms. The others often guessed correctly (except for the Kayanell, who knew) that the Rronkaril would have much liked a human form, simply in order to pace.

"This won't do," it communicated to the others in a way humans have never needed to have words for, so for the sake of the chronicler's sanity she will continue as if the Colours firstly had genders and secondly spoke like people, but it needs to be empathized that they haven't and they don't.

"No, you're right," chirped in the Monoobra, a right ectoplasm-kisser, "It won't do at all."

The Monoobra believed that it could gain sonority through appearing to be wise by agreeing with people in charge and rephrasing what they sad to make it sound like his idea. He got the idea from Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel. It was, however, destined to fail as the Kayanell knew his thoughts, and much as she didn't like the Rronkaril, she liked him better than the Monoobra.

"Let it be," said the Amalanga, the least humanized of the Council, in fact her only humanistic trait was liking the Beatles. "We must not act rashly. All will be well in the end."

"I agree," said the Yazzabamba, "let's just hope for the best, right guys?"

"Well," said the Zerribi tentatively, "I could..."

"No you couldn't." Interrupted the Hoovaloo. "You saw what happened last time."

"I saw what happened next time." said the Kayanell. "It isn't not have won't been pretty." The tenses the Kayanell used to describe things she had foreseen but could change were wholly unsuitable for translation into a language originally developed by hairy ape-people who lived in caves and called each other 'Ugg'.

"There's no other option." said the Rronkaril, demanding attention and obedience the way only he could, "we must speak with... The Chosen One."

With utter scorn, the Hoovaloo did the non-corporeal equivalent of rolling his eyes and snapped, "We all know you just pick names out of a hat, Rronkaril. I don't know why we even listen to you. Chosen One my non-existent arse."

There was a long silence. There had never been a challenge to the Rronkaril's leadership before, not even from the Monoobra.

"I mean, come on!" said the Hoovaloo, aware that he'd overstepped the line but not about to give in, not now. "I'm the smart one. Why should you be in charge? You're surplus to requirements, really. All this Council needs is my intellect, the Kayanell and Zerribi's powers, and maybe Amalanga to give us something to work towards. And Xanandru. Just because. But you? What do you, your crony Monoobra, and that irritating Yazzabamba have that's useful?"

The words hung in the air, emitting like a gas a stifling, chilling silence. It could only have lasted a few minutes, but every second was like torture.

Then finally, like a godsend, the Xanandru said,

"Meep."

As if someone had flipped a switch, people could speak again. "It is as I suspected," said the Rronkaril. "Contact with humans is affecting us. We're growing emotions of our own. Personalities. It will lead to no good. I will have people look into it."

"How can you be sure that's a bad thing? Maybe -"

"Silence, Hoovaloo. You have said enough. I was planning on sending you to speak with the Chosen One, but in light of the situation, I think the Kayanell had better go in your stead."

As the Kayanell floated down towards the Hall of Humans, where she could take corporeal form, she met with the Hoovaloo. Sensing his melancholy mood, one that rather matched his colour, she sympathised with him, and, in her insubstantial way, she patted his arm soothingly.

"If it helps," she said, "I think you were right."

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