Hello Everyone, and thanks for waiting. I'm really tired of writing because this chapter is 3,000 words, so enjoy and happy new year.

The ship was a worthless piece of filthy scrap metal, but it kept them alive. The journey through the Warp took a few hours, and for Alexander it was two hours too long. The Warp looked…different to Alexander. More sinister. He could feel the screams of thousands of souls who were lost to its incredible power. Fools who tried to harness the might of demons for their personal gain. Alexander looked at that monitor and did not feel disgust but shame. They lived in a world of oppression and tyranny, and their own government was not able to provide for them. He turned away and sat down. His leg muscles were hurting him so badly that any other man would have collapsed in pain. But he was a Spartan. The last remnant of Greece in this corrupt Roman world. He was born in suffering and baptized in war. And yet, there was a fear in the back of his mind that he was no longer the pinnacle of warfare anymore. From Persia to North Korea, he had always been the best fighter out there. But now, these Space Marines, these arrogant super soldiers, could easily overpower him. He was lucky on Terra, and he felt as if Trythos…let him win, as if he wanted him to escape…

That's when the Gellar shields went. Suddenly, the room began to flash red, and the ear-piercing shriek of a siren sounded. As exhausted as his legs were, Alexander painfully stood up and drew his pistol. He still wanted to fix his old weapons; they were the last link to his homeland that he had. Still, he had no time. If only they could get out of the Warp before anything invaded…

Luck decided to be a jerk at that moment. Alexander heard a loud thud beneath his feet and a loud roar, almost as if a T-Rex had entered the ship. The alarms stopped. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the door. A clicking sound was coming from the hallway.

"You guys stay here," he said. I'll check the ship.

"No way," said Mary. "We have no idea what may be down there."

"I have the most battle experience out of anyone here, and you can keep an eye on me via view screen. Try to get this ship out of the Warp." Mary and the twins nodded. As he walked out, he stopped and turned around. "And seal the room."

With that, he quietly slipped out of the bridge.

The long hallways were very dark, with the only light generated by the eerie shade of red from the muted sirens. He began to walk through the corridors, a never-ending maze. At first, he tried to remember, right, left, left, right, screw it! The hallways were way too confusing. After ten minutes of wandering, he heard a scuttling noise from around the corner. Ahead of him was an intersection corridor, with all three other paths leading into darkness. Alexander heard the scuttling again, this time slightly closer and louder. He took a step towards the intersection. The sound came again. It was coming from the path straight ahead of him. The intersection was about twenty feet away, but he could barely see it.

"Sir, life form 20 meters away and closing." The scuttling came again, this time it sounded as if an entire spider hoard had entered the ship.

"10 meters."

Alexander raised his pistol and pulled back the hammer.

"5 meters."

He could see nothing. The clicking became louder and louder, but there was nothing there! Maybe it was an invisible demon.

"2 meters."

He realized that he had only bullets. He used his plasma rounds on Terra. The scuttling became deafeningly loud.

"0 meters."

Gun raised, he looked around. There was nobody in sight. The scuttling noise had stopped, but the silence felt artificial, as if a hunter was quietly waiting in the bushes to strike his prey.

"Sir, it's right on top of us."

"I know, computer," replied Alexander, looking around frantically. "But he's not here."

"No, I mean it's literally…"

The ceiling gave way with a deafening crash. Metal fell all around, and Alexander jumped back, the debris barely missing his feet, which at this point were cramped beyond use with that last leap. On the ground, clenching his teeth to avoid crying out from the excruciating pain in his legs, Alexander looked at the most hideous creature he had ever seen.

It was a massive spider, almost twice as big as Alexander. It was black, but it was covered in huge amounts of blood and pus, and the smell almost made him throw up. The spider had eight beady eyes, as black as hell, and all were fixed on Alexander.

Trying to crawl away only using his arms was incredibly difficult, and the spider was much faster. After trying for two seconds to flee, Alexander realized he would have to fight it like this. He rolled over to see where it was; turns out it had jumped in the air and was going to land on him. Alexander instinctively raised his revolver and blindly fired at the monster. The shot had enough stopping power to knock the spider back and make it roar with pain. He could see that he had destroyed a few of its eyes, and that gave Alexander an idea. Raising his gun again, he fired five more times, destroying all eight eyes, completely binding the monster from the Warp. The spider was definitely in agony and totally blind, but it could still hear him. It began to move on Alexander again, and its mouth opened. Wait, he thought. Spiders don't have huge mouths! Or razor sharp teeth! It attempted to take a bite out of Alexander, but he put out his left hand to shield himself. One of the spider's teeth impaled Alexander's arm, but he did not cry out. He was just pissed. However, he still couldn't do anything with his mind, so he was forced to watch as his arm was being torn apart. He looked around for anything to use as a weapon and noticed his revolver a few feet away.. The spider now was gaining ground and was close to biting his face off, so he reached for it was hard as it was and fired into its mouth. Unfortunately, the bullet did not kill the spider. Fortunately, the gun shot the tooth that had impaled Alexander's arm out of the spider's mouth. It retreated, once again roaring in pain.

"Shut up, you wimp! I'll show you how a real man deals with pain!" The spider stopped screaming and looked at Alexander, its bloody eye sockets full of fury. Slowly, he brought his hand to grip the tooth still in his arm and pulled. The tooth had micro barbs on it, and it was extremely painful. Blood gushed from the huge hole in his now-useless arm, and Alexander quickly took his shirt and applied a tourniquet to the wound, even though he knew it was futile. Already the shirt was soaked and dripping with blood. He quickly stood up, and the pain almost made him pass out, but he focused his mind and maintained his consciousness, barely. Once again the spider jumped into the air to pounce Alexander, but he raised the tooth. Its head landed on it; the brain was destroyed and it died instantly, and the room returned to its eerie silence. Alexander slumped back against the wall and prepared to die. He was already hallucinating, because he was starting to see space elves coming towards him. They approached quickly. By the time they reached Alexander, only a slit of reality still existed, and he heard their beautiful language being spoken. His exhausted brain only recognized one word: rest. Then he let himself slip into unconsciousness.

Alexander woke up in a purplish room; it looked exactly like the cell back on the Eldar planet he crash-landed on. Was the battle on that planet and the escape from Terra just a dream? He wondered. However, there was something different. He slowly began to rise from the floor and tentatively stood up. His legs were able to take his weight now. Alexander examined himself, but everything looked alright, until he saw the scar. A huge circle of raw flesh was on his left arm. Surprisingly, the skin was still there, and his arm didn't hurt him. Some sort of Eldar magic, maybe? He looked around. Wait a minute. If everything happened, and the Eldar were able to board my ship, then where am I…oh God. That was the moment when he saw the window. The entire wall opposite of the cell door was transparent. He was looking into space.

It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Sure, he had looked at pictures of space and saw it in the Ravenous Spirit's viewscreens, but this was different. It was almost as if he could reach out and touch it. Stars shone in the distance; there were more than he could ever count. In the foreground was a massive red gas giant, with rings of transparent blue ice and rocks. On the planet's equator, there was a massive electric-blue storm, like the great red spot on Jupiter. It reminded Alexander of his home solar system, of earth before this twisted empire. When humanity looked up to the stars and saw hope.

The sound of the doors opening woke him up out of his daydream and one Eldar entered. He looked familiar to Alexander…

"Wait," he said, having an epiphany. "Legolas? Is that you?"

Lorand looked like a mess. Granted, his home world was recently destroyed; he looked like he aged fifty years. His spirit was broken too. He tried to get angry, but all he could manage was a sad smile. "It's Lorand. And yes, it's me."

"How did you escape?"

"Thanks to your distraction, we were able to evacuate much of the city, including the royal family." Lorand looked out the window, his gaze transfixed on the massive planet in the foreground. "But many have died. So many have died. Only 5 percent of the planet's population survived."

Alexander felt sorry for him, but he didn't believe that Lorand was here for a grief group. "What's going to happen now?"

"I am here to take you and your friends before the council of the craftworld Biel-Tan"

"Craftworld?"

"Long ago, huge planet-sized ships were built by great Eldar leaders to escape the corruption of the old empire. Biel-Tan is one of the greatest."

"Cool." Alexander began to look around nervously. "So…are we going now? I want to get this over with."

"Don't be too eager to meet the council," Lorand warned. "Most members are tolerant, but one exarch, which is a major warrior/military leader, has a certain hatred for your species. His name is Uldreth. Don't cross him, because he wants nothing more than to kill you."

"Avoid angering racist space elf. Check"

Lorand nodded and stepped into the hallway, and Alexander noticed his friends were already there. "Follow me."

The council of some of the greatest Eldar exarchs in existence readied to sentence the mon'keigh to death. Uldreth, of course, was leading the prosecution.

"Five more minutes before the mon'keigh arrive," he said. "As if we actually need to try them. Mon'keigh don't respect our superior culture! We should just throw them out into space."

"I wouldn't be so sure about these mon'keigh," replied Macha. "I saw this group's leader, and he isn't like others. He can speak our language!"

"Bah!" Uldreth began to laugh. "Many mon'keigh can speak our language, but it sounds like they're deliberately pronouncing everything wrong. They're all amateurs, and this one will be no different."

"Well, you can't argue about his bravery. Outnumbered and outclassed, they took on the mon'keigh warriors, oh, what do they call themselves… Space Marines."

"They got on to their ship!" Yelled Uldreth. "Clearly they were working with the mon'keigh to infiltrate and kill the king."

Another exarch, Draconir, joined in. "Uldreth, you are too rash. Let us see if these mon'keigh are different, and if they're not, you can kill them yourself."

Uldreth almost snorted, as a spoiled brat does when forced to make a compromise, and dramatically slumped into his chair. "Fine."

At that moment, the doors opened. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing to see these strange new beings. To the Eldar, they did look a bit different. Their faces were not full of fear or hate when they looked at the room, but instead they were awed, as if they were studying the place for learning purposes. They stopped in the middle of the room, surrounded by the council.

"This is where we see if you're right about the language," said Draconir.

"As I've been saying, mon'keigh are stupid cattle. There's no way."

One of the mon'keigh stepped forward and smiled. "You must be Uldreth." He gave an overtly flamboyant bow. "I've heard so many good things about you." His tone was so deferential it was bordering on sarcasm. Of course, most Eldar were still stunned that a mon'keigh could actually speak their language. The pronunciation was flawless. Uldreth, however, was not impressed and took Alexander's sarcasm with great offense. He was about to yell at the mon'keigh for his insolence, but Macha spoke first.

"How did you learn to speak our language so quickly? I saw you go from not knowing anything about our language and culture to being a fluent speaker in under a minute."

"I built a small computer a long time ago with advanced operating systems and artificial intelligence. It was able to record your verbal signatures, scan the writing on the walls of the palace, and construct the Eldar language and translate it into English. Then, it inputted the electrical signals for the language into my brain, and after a few seconds of warming up, I became a fluent speaker."

The Eldar were awed. Draconir asked, "When did your kind get this type of technology?"

The moment of truth. Alexander took a deep breath. "Well, we had this technology. Are you aware of the workings of our current calendar?" The Eldar nodded. "Then you know according to us, the year is around 38,000. We are from the year 2,075."

Everyone looked stunned. They began to whisper to themselves, and only Uldreth didn't look surprised. "Liars!" He yelled.

The room became silent immediately. "I beg your pardon?" asked Alexander.

"You left with the mon'keigh and they took you back to their home world. You were working with the warriors from the very beginning."

"I can assure you that wasn't the case. We surrendered because they beat us, so they forced us to come back to Terra." Uldreth looked skeptical. "Actually, I have a question for you. If Eldar hate humans so much, why did you save me from bleeding to death?"

Macha answered this. "Because if you die, a second eye of terror may form because of your powerful connection to the warp."

"So you saved me from a powerful demon because you think I can cause a massive tear in space?"

Uldreth scoffed. "That spider creature was a mere baby. You were almost killed by one of the weakest warp creatures the demon gods could throw at you! They were testing you."

"But if you want me dead, Uldreth, then you want to create an eye of terror?"

"Macha is the most unreliable farseer. She is too close to your mon'keigh species and believes that we can teach them to be civilized! As if that could ever happen."

Alexander was offended, but didn't show it. Instead, an idea began to form. "Then teach us to be civilized. And while you're at it, also how to use our psychic abilities."

"Wait a second," interrupted Fred. "What do you mean our psychic abilities."

"I've been wanting to tell you this, but we were too busy fighting for our lives. All of you," he gestured to the group, "All of you are incredibly powerful psykers. You saw what Mary did when she became angry. Besides shooting warpfire, you are also immortal, or very close. That's the reason why only we survived the cryo system failure." Alexander turned to Draconir. "I request that you teach us how to use our abilities. Even I can't fully control my powers."

"Preposterous!" shouted Uldreth. "Why should we take our time with insignificant mon'keigh?"

"Because if Macha's theory is correct, then we're all living hazards to everyone around us. We need to learn how to defend ourselves; the fate of the universe depends on it!"

The council began to quietly discuss this new idea. Teach mon'keigh the sacred ways of the Eldar? Definitely unorthodox, but the leader did have a point.

"I say yes," Draconir said to Uldreth. "Most of the council agrees."

"What made you a mon'keigh lover all of a sudden? These beasts have killed hundreds of us, and they are inferior. I still don't trust them!"

"Well, if the leader is right, and they all could potentially create Eyes of Terror upon death, they need training."

Uldreth shook his head. "I still don't like it." Suddenly, a great idea emerged. "I think we need to test them to make sure they are trustworthy. This could be a trick, after all, to gain the secrets of our power."

"What do you have in mind?"

"A test of humility. If they accept our offer and work hard, then we may teach them. But if they refuse, we throw them off this craftworld."

Draconir leaned in close. "I'm listening."

A few minutes later, the discussions stopped. Draconir spoke up. "The council has made a decision. We will teach you the ways of the Eldar." The group began to celebrate. "Starting with the path of the Artisan." The celebrating stopped.

"How is this supposed to teach us self-defense?" asked Fred.

"Yeah, I'm not sure playing a symphony can kill a space marine," George added.

"You will accept the offer and leave or be ejected into space!" ordered Uldreth.

Alexander thought for a long time. They're obviously testing us. He thought. They probably want to see if we can be grateful for menial tasks before teaching us how to fight. "We accept your offer."

Draconir nodded. "Good. Your training will begin tomorrow. In the meantime, Lorand will escort you back to your cells."

Alexander nodded. "Very well." He turned to Uldreth. "I'll see you soon." With that, he and his followers walked towards the exit.

And now to respond to comments.

SciFiFan96: I appreciate your criticism, and I do think you're right about that last chapter. However, note that this story is supposed to be an action/comedy fan fiction, so some chapters will be cheesy and others won't be.

Thanks again everyone, and happy new year.