SETTLER
Unfortunately, even though he wasn't injured by his own attack, Sponby was still pretty weak. The battle had pretty much destroyed everything on this planet, and his home had been pretty much wrecked by Neutro. Sponby activated his portal device and stepped into it, hoping to appear in a place where he could recuperate.
Sponby appeared on a dark purple landmass of some sort. Almost immediately, a pack of large insect-like creatures attacked him. Sponby absorbed them all, using them to restore some of his energy.
Sponby expanded his shadow form, taking the form of a basic house. Once it was fully formed, Sponby seperated himself from the house, which solidified into metal. It was basic, but it would do. Sponby wasn't sure how he knew he could form houses of his shadow form, but hey, it worked.
For the first time in over a year, Sponby slept. His scent attracted more insects, but none of them were able to get into his house. Sponby slept soundly... until one particular insect ripped the door off of the house.
"Huh? What the-" Sponby said as a cockroach-like being stood above him. He was taller than the other members of his species, his exoskeleton had a lustrous shine, and he was wearing an ornate crown and red cape.
"So, you are the legendary Sponby! Allow me to greet you. I am Damocles, King of the Equinox." The insect king bowed to Sponby.
"Okay, is this a dream or hallucination or something?" Sponby wondered.
"No. We are the Equinox, the species native to this world. Your defeat of the Exodus that supressed us has allowed us to grow, and we have you to thank for that." Damocles snapped his fingers, and three insects wielding swords ran forward and bowed in front of Sponby.
"Seriously man, this is fucking weird." Sponby said.
"Yes, I understand. You must be extremely tired. Allow my royal guards to protect you from the barbarian tribes as you recuperate."
"Well, you're a king, don't you have a palace or something?"
"I am afraid not. The barbarian attacks are constant, and we are unable to settle down and build dwellings for ourselves." Despite not having anything remotely looking like a human shape, Sponby could tell that Damocles was sad.
"Well that sucks. Let me guess, once I've recovered, you want me to kill all of the barbarians, right?"
"Oh!" Damocles looked surprised. "No, I would not wish unjust death upon my brethren. But if you would be willing to protect us for a short time, we would be eternally grateful." Damocles himself bowed to Sponby.
A tribe of loyal insect people? That might come in handy some day.
"Okay, sure." Sponby said. "Just let me sleep this off."
"Yes, of course. We will protect you with our lives." The rest of the insects left Sponby's house; all together, there was probably only about 100 of them. Damocles drew a scepter from a gash in his body, waved it around and created a barrier around Sponby's house, while the other insects set up a simple camp around the house.
BARBARIAN
Some time later, Sponby woke up. He felt much better, though still not at full power. But if those barbarians were all as weak as the ones he absorbed, it shouldn't be a problem to defend Damocles and his ilk for a few weeks or whatever.
"Ah, Great-Lord Sponby!" Damocles said. "How do you feel?"
"Pretty good." Sponby said. Great-Lord? Now that was a title. "So, do you have a place picked out for your castle or something?"
"There is a hill to the northeast of here, controlled by barbarians. We wish to make our castle there."
"Can do. Let's go." Sponby got up and reabsorbed his house. The rest of the insects cheered as he and Damocles led the charge to Fevrier Hill.
Almost immediately, they were set upon by a group of barbarians. Unlike the predominately red and gold colouring of Damocles' people, these barbarians were green with blue and cyan highlights. Sponby shifted into his shadow form, but Damocles stopped him.
"Please, Great-Lord Sponby! Allow me to try and reason with them." Damocles stepped up to the leader of the barbarians, who was bigger than the rest.
"Ah, the so-called 'King' Damocles." the barbarian leader mocked. "No kingdom, and barely a hundred Equinoxes as subjects."
"I am working on building my kingdom. If you lead me pass now, I will reward you by allowing you to settle within my borders."
"Hah!" The barbarian leader spat some sort of acid at Damocles' feet. "An empty promise. I will take your crown and become the true King!"
"No, you will not." Damocles' royal guards stepped up, but Sponby absorbed half of them in one shot.
"What? What abberation is that?" the barbarian asked. The rest of his warriors either backed away, or simply ran.
"This is the Great-Lord Sponby that freed us!" Damocles boasted.
"What? The legendary Sponby would team with such a weak force. Then he does not deserve his title!" The barbarian charged at Damocles, but Sponby absorbed him.
"...King Damocles! All hail the King of the Equinox!" The rest of the barbarians bowed to Sponby and Damocles.
"Thank you, my brothers. We will all work for a better future!" The insects all cheered.
DIASPORA
"So what's with the different colours?" Sponby asked as they marched toward Fevrier Hill.
"It is not unlike your uniforms." one of the former barbarians said. "We wear the colours of our leaders to show alleigance." Before his eyes, the green-and-blue barbarians all switched their colours to match the rest of Damocles' subjects, though they kept the cyan highlights at some points.
"Long in the past, all Equinoxes were of one colour." Damocles said. "But the coming of the Exodus split us into many warring factions. Leaders rose up among them, and their subjects took their colours."
"Well that sounds vaguely racist." Sponby said.
"Our values and virtues are different than yours." Damocles said.
"Whatever. So did you just decide to name yourself King of the whatevers?"
"Yes. With the end of the Exodus' reign, we had the opportunity to reunite our peoples. I will admit that my King title is self-appointed, but everyone has chosen to call me by that title."
"King Damocles!" A scout ran up to the King. "Sir, we have just spotted a massive force seated upon Fevrier Hill!"
"I see. Prepare for battle!" The insects all cheered as they all drew weapons, even the common folk.
"You know, I could just go ahead and kill them all." Sponby suggested.
"Yes, but it is important to my people that they are directly involved in the battle." Damocles said. "And, if it is not too presumptuous, could I possibly ask that you hold back until my people are in need of help?"
"Sure, I guess."
BATTLE
The forces of King Damocles charged up Fevrier Hill, facing heavy resistance all the way. But King Damocles' kingly magic protected and powered-up his people, making them almost unstoppable.
But the leader of the barbarians, named Diomedes, had tricks up his sleeve as well. His own kingly power weakened Damocles', while his presence swayed some of the more weak-willed Equinoxes to his side.
That's where Sponby stepped in. He created a sword from his shadow form and engaged Diomedes in direct combat.
"Not shabby!" Diomedes said. "You truly are the legendary Sponby. But I am no mere tool of the God! My will is my own, and I cannot be defeated!"
"Yeah, you can." Sponby's sword turned into a chainsaw, which he used to cut Diomedes in half. Upon his death, the barbarians immediately swayed to King Damocles' side, ending the battle.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Castle Fevrier was complete. It had only taken three weeks to build; the Equinoxes secreted a substance that was harder than steel when dry, which they used to construct a magnificent castle.
"So, you are going?" King Damocles asked. Though only a few barbarian tribes had attacked in the intervening weeks, Sponby's presence and reputation had demoralized and driven away all but one of them; the one tribe that was foolish enough to attack were quickly defeated.
"Yes. I have to find someone." Sponby said.
"I see. Well, you are always welcome here; we have built a room for you, and it will always be open."
"Thanks." Sponby pulled out his portal device and set his "home" button to open here. Then he opened a portal, but before he could once again wander the multiverse, another being stepped through it: the Avatar.
"What? You!" Sponby shouted.
"We meet again, Sponby. I am the Avatar." The Avatar drew his sword and shield.
"No, you're not. You're being possessed by something, I can see it. So, why don't you just give up the facade and show me what you really are?"
"So you have grown powerful enough to see through my glamour. Very well, I will show you what I truly am."
The Avatar shifted into a form reminiscent of Sponby's own shadow form, but instead of Sponby's inky blackness, this being was made of dazzling light. Sponby recognized it as the same as the aura that had surrounded the Avatar when they fought before.
"My name is Spoont." the being said. "You are my shadow, my dark counterpart."
SPOONT
"Oh, of course you're an alternate version of me." Sponby said. "Let me guess, you're powered by light and love and kittens and all that good stuff."
"Correct." Spoont said. "Professor Madeness took me, a dying soldier, and transformed me into a beacon against the darkness of my world. Though she died against that same darkness, I persevered, eventually ridding my world of darkness and returning it to the light. Since then, I've wandered the multiverse, liberating worlds that need a hero..."
"Thanks for the exposition." Sponby said.
"I've been watching you ever since we met in Britannia. You're growing more and more powerful... too powerful. I'm here to eliminate you before you become a threat to the multiverse."
"Well, someone read the Evil Overlord List."
"Yes, your snarkiness is present as usual. Now, you have two choices: I can remove your powers and you can go back to your normal life, or I can reduce you to quantum strings right here and now."
"Ha! Go ahead and try." Sponby started to power up, but to his surprise, Spoont was doing the same; his power sources were different, but he too had absorbed people and artifacts from throughout the multiverse.
Sponby started off by firing a Broken Magnum, but Spoont's light tendrils shot it down. Sponby raised a barrier, deflecting Spoont's tendrils, but Spoont broke the barrier with a burst of energy.
Sponby engaged the GS-Ride and Jewel Generator, kicking him into overdrive; he outspeeded Spoont, assaulting him from all sides with all sorts of melee weapons. As he suspected, Spoont was weak to Sponby's darkness abilities, just as Sponby was weak to Spoont's light. Now that they were more evenly matched, he could use that to his advantage.
But Spoont wasn't finished powering up either. With a flash of orange light, he started running circles around Sponby, firing missiles and lasers and the like at Sponby. Sponby responded by shooting shadow tendrils at Spoont, who countered with light tendrils; the two tendrils burned each other, but neither of them gave up.
"Ha! I'll show you who's more powerful." King Damocles, witnessing the epic battle in his throne room, decided to step in. He used his kingly magic to give a huge power boost to Sponby, though it was barely enough to match Spoont.
"Got any more power?" Sponby asked.
"There is another option. I know a special technique that should match well with your own natural abilities..." Damocles grabbed his scepter, chanted words in an alien language and transformed into pure energy.
The former Damocles entered Sponby's body, and a miraculous transformation took place: Sponby transformed into a giant dark dragon, which ate Spoont whole. Spoont unleashed all of his light power within Sponby's stomach, but Sponby's more considerable dark power neutralized all of it. Sponby then finished with...
"I HEARD THAT TECHNIQUE LEVEL 2: PHANTASMAGORIC BREATH!" Sponby threw up the weakened Spoont, then blasted him with a burst of multicoloured energy breath. The sheer power of the breath ripped a hole in Castle Fevrier's roof, and sending whatever remained of Spoont into the atmosphere.
Damocles seperated from Sponby's body, returning Sponby to his normal human form. That breath technique, while not as strong as the Stellar Flashbang, still took a lot out of him.
"Thanks." Sponby said.
"Of course!" Damocles said. "But I have to warn you, don't rely on me being able to use that technique again. I can only perform it once in a lifetime."
"Yeah, okay."
"Do you think that that... Spoont character will return?"
"Knowing his type... probably." Sponby said. "I killed him dead, but I've seen resurrections from less."
"I see. I wish you luck in your journey, Sponby."
Sponby opened another portal and stepped through it.
GUNSMOKE
Sponby woke up in a dusty desert. A man on a horse rode past him.
"Hey, stranger. Need a lift?" he asked.
"Yeah." Sponby climbed onto the horse.
"So what're you doing all the way out here, stranger?"
"Long story." Sponby said. "Where are we headed?"
"Goldstown. Little mining settlement. They'll be able to fix you up."
They rode for about two hours. The cowboy's name was Jeff Bridges, but despite some amateur theatre work in his youth, he wasn't an actor. Sponby wasn't sure if he was on Earth or not, though he knew that, despite what he'd seen in countless sci-fi movies, the evolution of identical beings with identical languages on different planets was extremely unlikely.
Hell, he wasn't even sure if Jeff was speaking English or not; his universal translator seemed to be permanently on regardless of his form, and he couldn't tell if he was speaking a different language or not. Not that he minded, but he'd definitely have to research this later on.
"Okay, we're here." Jeff and Sponby dismounted from the horse (it had no name), and entered the small town of Goldstown. It was built almost right next to a mountain, and several well-used mine entrances were carved into the mountain face. Sponby wasn't sure if that was such a good idea, but whatever.
"You've gotta be thirsty. Come on, we'll hit up the tavern for a drink." Jeff and Sponby walked into the tavern. Sponby didn't have any money on him, but he figured he could put it on Jeff's tab and pay him back later.
"Hey there, burly folks. How're you doing today?" the bartender asked. The tavern looked pretty shady; everyone was quietly playing games of chance and smoking up a storm.
"Not bad. Get me and my friend the strongest swill you got." Jeff said, slapping a small gold nugget on the counter.
"Aye, here you go." The bartender gave them two beers. Sponby took a sip and almost spit it out; it was warm. But then again, why was he expecting a cold beer? Refrigerators hadn't been invented yet.
"Not bad, mate." Jeff said, draining the last of his beer. "Gimme another one!"
"Aye." Sponby sipped his beer thoughtfully. This was... really odd, to say the least.
BARLW
One of the rough cowboys, along with a wench, got up and walked over to them.
"Haven't seen your faces before. You two queer?" he asked with the tact expected of a cowboy.
"And if we are?" Jeff asked.
"Dude, I'm totally not." Sponby said.
"Oh really?" the wench said. "Look at 'im! He's scrawny and white! He's probably one of those city folk who spends all their time readin and gettin screwed in the backside!"
"I AM NOT GAY!" Sponby leapt up and socked the wench in the face. "Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but I'm not about to put up with your shit!"
"Ey, you hit my sister!" The cowboy grabbed a chair and bashed it over Sponby's head.
"Bitch please!" Sponby grabbed the cowboy and piledriver'd him, knocking him out. This riled up the rest of the cowboys, starting an all-out barroom blitz.
Sponby and Jeff quietly escaped the chaos.
"Damn, I didn't even get to finish my beer." Jeff looked a bit disappointed.
"Uh, sorry. I didn't expect that to happen."
"S'alright. I've been involved in plenty of brawls in my time." Jeff flipped up his eyepatch, and Sponby stared into the empty eye socket. "Lost my eye to a bastard in Jules. Course, I killed him right after and tried putting one of his eyes in here, but it didn't work."
"No kidding. So, what now?"
"Well, I came here to get some more gold. I make a pretty tidy profit findin gold in exhausted mines. Wanna come with?"
"Sure."
CREEP
Jeff stole some pickaxes and torches from the local goods-n-trades shop, and he and Sponby descended into the dark mines. He lit a torch, but seemingly only for Sponby's benefit; he could navigate through the darkness just as easily as in the light.
Sponby knew that his shadow form was all but useless in the dark, though he had plenty of other weapons, and it's not like he expected to meet any monsters down here. Then again...
"Ssssssss~"
Of course, he just jinxed it. Sponby held up his torch, coming face to face with a green monster with a hideous face.
"GET DOWN!" Jeff and Sponby hit the dirt, and the green creature exploded, leaving a crater in the rock. Fortunately, Sponby wasn't hurt too badly: unfortunately, Jeff was close to death.
"Damn it!" Sponby cursed. He tried picking up Jeff, but he spat blood all over his body as soon as Sponby kneeled down.
"Ah... sorry, Sponby. I wish... we could... have been friends..." Jeff passed on to that great Game Over screen in the sky.
Oddly, the mineshaft was illuminated. Sponby looked down the crater and saw a wooden treasure chest, protected by a cage of some sort; as soon as Sponby looked at it, zombies started magically spawning around the cage.
"Wonderful. I don't even fucking like Minecraft." Sponby complained. He threw a lit torch into the hole, burning the zombies; he followed shortly after, destroying the cage with a photon-power beam.
DUH NUH NUH NUH DUH NUH NUH NUH DUH NUH NUH NUH DUH NUH NUH NUH DA NA NA NA DA NA NA NA DA NA NA NA DA NA NA NA ...
You got a golden apple, three strings, some cocoa beans, a bushel of wheat and three smelted bars of iron!
"What? Whatever, this shit is useless." But he absorbed it anyways. He absorbed the chest, too, as well as the last flaming zombie.
Sponby leapt out of the dungeon and returned to the entrance of the mine... where an angry mob was waiting.
ANGRY MOB
"He's the one!" one of them cried.
"Yeah, he's the one that hit me!" the wench from before said. Rather than torches and pitchforks, this mob was mostly equipped with guns. Sponby considered running back into the mines, but then he realized that he was pretty much invincible.
"Your weapons can't harm me. Just let me go and I won't bug you again." Sponby shouted.
"Shoot him!" They all shot him, and just as he suspected, the bullets had no effect.
"He's a witch! Kill him!" The mob charged him. He leapt over them and kept running; he didn't particularly want to open a portal and have these fools follow him through it. The mob chased after him, but the ground started to shake; cracks formed all across the mountain, and a gigantic Creeper burst from the mountain. Immediately, it exploded, scattering the pieces of the mountain across a huge area.
GIGA CREEPER
Sponby survived, naturally, though he had to slip through cracks in several layers of rocks. The Giga Creeper still stood, preparing another explosion.
Sponby whipped out a BFG and fired a plasma shot at the Creeper, ripping a hole in it. Its hiss deafened him, and it exploded again, scattering more debris and sending Sponby flying.
Sponby got up again, healing himself. He ran towards the Giga Creeper, but his approach was blocked by more regular-sized Creepers. Sponby grabbed them with shadow tendrils and whipped them at the Giga Creeper, but most of its spawn exploded in midair, dealing little damage.
Sponby fired another BFG shot, but he missed. The Giga Creeper exploded again, but Sponby shielded himself this time, negating the brunt of the boom. Sponby fired several tendrils at the Giga Creeper, latching on to it and pulling himself toward it; but several smaller-than-average Creepers appeared from the Giga Creeper's skin and started destroying the tendrils.
To compensate, Sponby fired even more tendrils, only to be greeted by even more small Creepers. The Giga Creeper exploded once again, knocking Sponby to the ground and stunning him.
Okay, so this approach isn't working. Sponby needed to be... bigger. He transformed into his Mecha Sponby form, taking traits from the many giant robots he'd absorbed. The Creeper kaiju started spitting blocks of TNT at Sponby, which detonated on impact; the sheer amount of explosions did damage Sponby a bit.
"Hell! And! Heaven!" Sponby clasped his fists together, creating a tunnel of electromagnetic energy around both of them; the Giga Creeper struggled, but it was stuck. Sponby flew at the Giga Creeper, ripping out or outright disintegrating several of its explosive sacs; but, since it was big, it had a lot more than that.
The Giga Creeper tried to explode again, but the EM energy was still screwing it up. Sponby raised his arms and hit the Giga Creeper with a Breast Fire (snicker), killing it for good. Sponby absorbed the remains, gaining its explosive powers.
Well, this world was done. Sponby somehow knew that there's more of those things out there, just waiting to rise up and destroy everything... too bad for them. Sponby returned to normal size and opened a portal, heading into parts unknown.
"See ya later, Jeff Bridges."
WISHES
Sponby sat perfectly still on a flat, rocky plain. Surrounding him were six grapefruit-sized, perfectly round stones; a seventh, unshaped one was in his hands. He carefully shaved atoms off of the stone in his hand, shaping it into a perfect sphere as well.
He'd learned this technique from a race of green slug men he'd run into. Only a few of them knew the specific technique, but Sponby... liberated the knowledge from them.
The seventh stone was done. Sponby infused some of his power in each stone, then chanted the spell that turned them into glassy orange balls. But even that wasn't enough; he'd need a lot of energy to actually give birth to the being that would eventually inhabit these balls.
The planet Sponby was on was much like Earth in its early days: a tumultuous place with little atmosphere to speak of. But, like Earth, it possessed the intrinsic ability to produce life. At this point in its development, the only life on this planet was simple chains of self-replicating molecules.
Perhaps someday, this planet would produce a species that would bring peace to life everywhere...
...but it would have to be in another universe.
Sponby chanted another set of words, drawing the entire planet's intrinsic life energy into himself. Even with his abilities, the sheer amount of power was overwhelming; he barely had enough time to infuse the glassy spheres with as much of the energy as he could.
He shaped the rest of the energy into a gigantic draconic being. He used the energy in the glassy spheres to give life and intelligence to the dragon, binding the dragon to the balls, and the balls to the dragon.
"I HAVE AWAKENED." the dragon announced.
"I am your master, Dragon." Sponby said. "You will use your power to grant the wishes of anyone who collects these seven spheres and invokes your name."
"I WILL OBEY." The dragon's eyes flashed red. "WHAT IS YOUR WISH, MASTER?"
Sponby could wish for a lot of things. He could bring Doctor Insano to this place, to exact his revenge... he could wish for invincibility, ultimate power, an ultimate weapon. The dragon's power did have limits, but given the huge amount of power that had gone into its creation, its limits were quite high indeed.
ARCHETYPE
While he was thinking about his wish, a massive laser tore a huge hole in the earth behind him. Sponby looked up and saw a huge spaceship hovering in the sky, with several smaller ones flying around it.
"What the hell?" Sponby wondered. He was about to fly up to see what was going on, but a bunch of people materialized on the surface in front of him.
The group, numbering around 50 or so, appeared to be generic mechanical grunts. They started firing lasers at Sponby, but he shrugged off the blasts. He absorbed a few of them and blasted the others with his various powers.
"Stop!" a female voice ordered. The robots all beamed up, leaving a single person behind: a ten-foot-tall cyborg woman with four arms and bright pink hair, dressed in some sort of glowing power armour.
"...Anime Borg?" Sponby guessed.
"I am Archetype, general of the Great Machine Force, Jetscrand division. You are the entity known as Sponby, correct?"
"Yeah, I am. And why are you here?"
"I have come for that." She pointed at the dragon. "Hey, dragon! I wish for Sponby to be confined in an impenetrable cage!"
"YOUR WISH IS GRANTED." A black cage appeared around Sponby. The dragon disappeared, and the seven balls flew off in random directions.
"Bridge! This is Archetype." the woman spoke into her wrist. "I have captured the quarry. Beam us both up, and while you're at it, find and capture those balls."
IMPRISONED
Archetype and several soldiers were standing guard around Sponby's cage, which was in the cargo hold of a ship. The cage negated all of Sponby's shadow-form-based powers.
"Hmm." Archetype looked into the cage. "You're a human, huh? Can't say I've ever seen one."
"Well, you look pretty human to me. Except for the four arms, and the hair, and the height."
"Oh, do I?" She laughed. "It's skin-deep at best. Believe me, we're completely different biologically."
"Whatever. So, why the hell did you capture me?"
"Oh, orders." Archetype pressed a button on her wrist, and a hologram of a starship appeared. "See this? This is the Super Exadian, one of the most powerful ships in the entire Great Machine Force. The captain who brings you to the Heart of Machines gets this ship. It's nothing personal."
"Okay, and what's the Great Machine Force?"
"You're kind of dumb, aren't you? I'll say it slowly for you: it's a force of machines that's great. We exist to stop hotshot little people like you from declaring yourselves gods and subjugating everything you can. We're a pretty big deal to everyone who isn't from a backwater little planet like Humanville."
"Wh- Humanville, what? My home planet's called Earth."
"That's a dumb name. Anyways, I got no idea what they want with you, but it's not my job to know." Archetype walked over to the transporter pad. "Keep an eye on him. If he escapes, let me know." She teleported away, leaving the mechanical footsoldiers standing silently around the cage.
Sponby tried reaching through the cage, but an invisible field stopped him. He tried shifting into his shadow form again, but he got zapped by lightning. And none of the gadgets in his pocket worked at all.
But at the same time, he didn't think letting himself get to this 'Heart of Machines' place was a good idea. Hmm... Ah! Sponby used his oft-forgotten psychic powers, the only actual power he had in his normal form, to tap into the footsoldiers. They had organic brains, which Sponby took control of. There was no door in the cage, but the footsoldiers' lasers cut through the bars, allowing Sponby to slip through.
RAMPAGE
Sponby switched to his shadow form, absorbing the footsoldiers. He also tried absorbing the cage, but his shadow tendrils wouldn't stick to the cage, so he gave up.
Sponby stepped onto the transporter pad.
"Take me to the bridge." he said. He felt himself being ripped apart at the subatomic level, and rearranged atom by atom somewhere else on the ship. It wasn't painful, but it certainly wasn't pleasant.
"You!" More footsoldiers fired lasers at him, but he shrugged them off as always. Feeling a bit creative, he conjured up a minigun with effectively infinite ammo and let it rip. The robots were ripped apart, but fortunately the starship's hull was thick enough to resist it.
Sponby ran forward into the bridge, a massive glass dome with floating consoles all over the place. Most of the various crewmen were distinctly non-human; there were some robots, an amorphous blob thing, a couple of plant-like beings, and more. The most human was Archetype herself, but she didn't look happy.
"Damn it, he escaped!" She grabbed a bunch of grenade-like devices and threw them at Sponby; on detonation, the grenades created a force field around Sponby, but he broke through them easily. The crewmen drew various weapons.
"No, stop you idiots!" Archetype screamed. "We need him alive!"
"Okay, listen up." Sponby said. "Now, I could leave here at any time, but I don't like being insulted. So, what you're all going to do, is let me absorb her, and I'll leave the rest of you alone. Okay?"
The crewmen looked at each other, muttering in various alien languages.
"You idiots!" Archetype screamed. "Throw your incap grenades at him! Stop him at all costs!" A few of them tried non-lethally stopping Sponby, but he broke through everything they threw at him. He power-walked toward her.
Sponby fired a single shadow tendril at Archetype, but she blocked it by drawing a lightsaber and burning it. She followed up by drawing three more lightsabers.
"Lightsabers. Pfff." Sponby fired more shadow tendrils, but Archetype managed to block almost all of them, to Sponby's great surprise. A brave plant-man rushed Sponby from behind, but he only ended up being absorbed into Sponby's body.
Archetype rushed at Sponby, apparently trying to cleave him into little pieces, but he collapsed into a puddle of black goo. She tried stabbing it with her lightsabers, but the puddle jumped and attached to her legs, engulfing her in an instant.
"No! No, Emergency Teleport!" Archetype disappeared from within Sponby's body. He returned to humanoid shape, only to realize that the rest of the crew was gone as well. He looked outside; apparently, he was in one of the smaller ships, as he was looking straight at the huge ship he saw before. He couldn't tell exactly how big it was, except that it was... well, big.
Sponby floated up to one of the consoles, but he had no idea how to pilot this thing. A massive laser fired from the main ship hit Sponby's ship; the shields held, but based on the reaction of the console, it couldn't take another hit.
STARSHIP
Sponby had no choice. He remembered the piece of the Z-Crystal within him; he drew on its power, increasing his absorption abilities exponentially. He jammed his hand into the console, and tendrils of darkness and organic wires spewed from it shortly after.
It only took a minute for Sponby to absorb the entire ship. Even the small ship was at least the size of a city; that big ship was at least twenty or thirty times as large as just one of the small ships, but Sponby didn't think he'd be able to absorb it right now.
The main ship fired another barrage of lasers at the Sponbyship, but he raised the shields, enhanced by his various powers, and redirected the laser. He started firing weapons of all kinds at the main ship, but its shields were just as strong as Sponby's.
"...Who the hell are you?" Sponby received a transmission from the main ship. He recognized the voice as...
"Exodus?" Spondy asked.
"I am Captain Exodus of the flagship Midgigard. Who are you?"
"But I killed you!" Sponby shouted.
"Ah! You're Sponby, aren't you? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Yes, you killed an Exodus... but there is more than one of us throughout the wide, wide multiverse!" Exodus laughed. "Now, surrender yourself to us before we direct our full power upon you!"
"Yeah, good luck with that." Sponby started up the rest of his power sources, reaching his full potential. He reconfigured the ship's shape into a gigantic cannon.
"What? Stop this at once!" Exodus commanded.
"YAMATO TECHNIQUE LEVEL 4: WAVE MOTION BUSTER!" Sponby funneled all of his power into the cannon, firing an absolutely massive beam of white energy at the flagship. The Midgigard's shields did manage to absorb most of the blast, but what it didn't absorb resulted in massive structural damage. Most of the other smaller ships were caught in the blast, utterly annihilating all but one of them.
"Damn it! Retreat! Be warned, Sponby: the Great Machine Force will not forget this!" The remaining ships teleported away.
POWER
Sponby sit, alone, hovering over a dead planet. He had made a powerful enemy; he had put all of his power into that attack, and it didn't even destroy that flagship. And there were more powerful flagships, and likely a lot more.
Sponby had to become more powerful. Or he could, you know, just hand himself over to the Heart of Machines, but fuck that. No, he had to get more powerful.
Sponby opened a portal and headed through it.