You know, even though ROB eventually turned out to be MUCH nicer than I expected (and I'll leave it at that for now), it still took me a long time to forgive ROB for abducting and trapping me in a commander, even if it turned out to give me a lot of cool powers.

The biggest one was the time I got abducted.

There's six big reasons for that:

1. It was Winter Break, and I wanted to enjoy that time while it lasted.

2. It was a few days before Christmas, which should always be spent with family.

3. I missed spending New Year's Day with my family.

4. I missed the chance to go Javelina hunting with my dad.

5. I missed out on running a marathon I paid quite a bit to run in.

6. Well...

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I looked at the cake before me. It was vanilla, with a little chocolate on the inside and some ice cream on the outside. Nineteen candles adorned it, unlit at the moment. A few seconds and a lighter later, and they were burning bright.

I sighed.

"Happy Birthday to me."

"Happy Birthday to me."

"Happy Birthday, dear ****."

"Happy Birthday to me..."

Then I blew out the candles. I'd already thought of my wish, but it was one unlikely to come true unless I worked toward it.

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Yeah.

Because of ROB, I missed my own birthday.

I opened up all of the presents, but most were hardly of any use. About the only one I had any use for was a Game of Thrones Shirt. Winter is Coming, all hail the king in the North. I'd really liked that show, but I wasn't in the mood to think about it now.

Of course, as much as I wanted to wallow in my own self pity, I decided against it. It was childish, and anyways, if I didn't act, I'd never get home.

I wasn't in the mood to try and go anywhere else, though, so instead I decided to see what I could do with the incredibly broken Spore technology I had.

First task: populating my hub system.

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Besides my home planet, there were roughly a dozen planets in orbit of the star that acted as the center of my hub world, which were all somehow capable of sustain life. Go figure.

The five main ones each one biome that dominated their surfaces: crystalline mountains with springs, which appeared mostly blue to me; dusky forests and swamplands; Tundra with the occasional steppe plains caused by volcanoes; verdant fields and rainforest; and deserts that, oddly, seemed to be highly metallic in composition.

Somehow, I knew this would be important later.

The problem was, unlike my hub planet, these didn't have any living things on them, barring a few plants. It was a miracle that they were still functioning without suffering ecosystem collapse.

Probably ROB's doing.

Anyways, I set about rectifying this immediately.

First, I designed creatures for crystalline world. Surprisingly, it hard large oceans, with most of the inhabitable land masses being islands and mountain ranges. Fittingly, I decided most creatures their would have fins and gills, as well as other adaptations gilled towards aquatic life.

Now, normally, you'd need a very good understanding of life to understand how to artificially create organisms that can survive in any given environment without dying horribly from things like genetic degradation. Spore tech eliminated that problem.

Next was the planet of swamps and dark forests: Here, I mostly focused on insectoid creatures, with the occasional mammalian or reptilian beast to round them out. After all, bugs are the best at hiding in dark places, aren't they?

Then came the planet of jungles and plains. More bug creatures here, but also more reptiles, and a crapload of mammals. After all, mammal do quite well in jungles, don't they?

Then came the planet of tundra. Here, I added in mostly mammals, but there were also a few reptilian beasts. Needed to keep people guessing if they invaded, right?

Finally, on to the planet of metallic deserts and peaks. Here, I went wild and designed whatever I wanted. The creatures here were extremely varied, to the point their wasn't really any theme among them. Oh well.

Finally, I designed a few creatures for my hub world. These would be my vanguard against any foes I faced, at least until I could come up with better machines to supplant them. Until then, they would guard my home world.

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I also took the time to examine the cultures of my followers. They were a lot more detailed than I'd thought, but I'll save you the details and just give the overview.

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First off were the Naverosaurs: dinosaur like creatures, they were ecologists and treasured life above all else.

Next were the Croge. Warriors exemplar, these beings had formed the backbone of the armies by followers had created for their alliance.

Then came the Draconians: A race of draconic beings, they were, ironically, knights who fought to uphold the concepts of chivalry, but understood when their oaths must be disregarded to do what was right.

Fourth were the Calneerians: a civilization of shamans, they would slumber until they felt it was time to act. They'd been in hibernation for 20 years when the Naverosaurs found them.

Fifth were the Ixli: a group of scientists, these insectoids had a biologically defined cate system, but their was room to switch between castes, albeit with much difficulty.

Sixth were the Lumar: A race of weasel like creatures, they were concerned with making themselves as wealthy as possible. When people they cared about were in harm's way, though, wealth would be ignored to do what was right.

Seventh were the T'shana: A race of diplomats, theseavians had learned to unite together to solve their problems, and preferred peace if possible.

Eighth were the Altheema: These simian creatures spent their days amusing others, trying to have fun more than wrok. They still did very well when they did actually do work, though.

Ninth were Zelmite: religious beings to the core, they fought fiercely in the name of their gods, myself and spode (Who the claimed had created other, lesser gods to carry out his will. Whatever).

There were a lot more than those nine, but they made up the biggest portion of my followers.

And I was proud of how far they'd come one their own. Sure, I'd designed all of them, but these guys were able to, without my guidance, unify together with one goal in mind: find me, their creator. In a universe where any two civilizations would fight over some trivial things, these civilizations unified to find the one who made them, and ultimately succeeded.

And, for me, that was a better birthday gift than anything money could buy.

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You know, I'm actually surprised that ROB never took the chance to ruin my birthday more than it already was.

Maybe it was personal standards?

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AN: This version of the story is really out of date. So sorry for mentions of birthdays and holidays that aren't accurate.

Any ways, please Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off.