Once I broke through the Darkspore's orbital defenses, things quickly fell into line with how they had been on the other four worlds I had previously visited and conquered: my forces quickly managed to overwhelm the Darkspore and set up a beachhead, from which I tapped into Infinity's inexhaustible core to begin building up my army. My arrival forced the Darkspore to concentrate on dealing with me, giving the people of Infinity time to recuperate: the Darkspore had been attacking them nonstop for the last few weeks, and their current estimates had indicated they would fall within the next week if no help had arrived. Because of this, they were grateful for my arrival.

Not wanting them to suffer too much, I sent a few fabbers to help them reassemble some of the city's architecture: mostly the defenses, but also things like life support, power, and infrastructure, and any hospital they could find, because I thought that they had suffered enough.

Of course, that meant just a little more work for me.

See, several cybergenesis darkspore were actually just machines that somehow gained cybernetic bits, which meant they could be mass produced from factories. Since there were huge factory sectors all over Infinity, this meant that the Darkspore here could reasonably match my numbers, which meant I was in for a long battle.

Or rather, I would've, but that wasn't exactly what happened: while they had the numbers to match me, the Darkspore lacked orbital control, meaning that I could just use satellites to slowly whittle down their army into nothingness. Suck it, fools.

Soon I overtook heir numbers and began clearing paths toward the factories. While destroying them would cut down on the Darkspore numbers, I also knew that the factories to assist in the restoration of Infinity was the Darkspore were purged, so I had reservations against demolishing them. Fortunately, the Infini had a solution to this: they'd managed to recover the shutdown codes for all of the factory sectors, so all I needed to do was set up a radar tower in range of each factory and deliver the shutdown codes. THese would shut them down for a few hours, after which point they could be reactivated manually (that is, from inside the factory). Plenty of time to rid Infinity of the Darkspore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malak knew not of the origins of the giant war machine, only that it served the Crogenitor resistance. Yet, despite this, he had quickly grown to trust the machine after it had worked tirelessly to help his people. It had sent smaller machines to fix Infinity Prime's defenses, roads and hospitals, allowing the exhausted resistance to begin recuperating its losses, which was very helpful for moral. Now, it seemed that the machine was moving to face the great metal one that lead the Darkspore here.

While he did not doubt the machine's power, he was still worried about its course of action: the metal one had been moving great amounts of alloys and circuitry toward his base, for reasons Malak could not follow. He knew, however, that they likely had something to do with the great machine that was destroying the Darkspore and was probably some kind of counter measure against it.

Thus, Malak had gathered the few among his friends in the resistance who could still fight and taken one of the remaining mag-rails that functioned toward the metal one's abode, ready to help the machine that had saved his people.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When I finally arrived at Arcturus' base, I was surprised by how quickly my opponent introduced himself.

"So, you are the one who has caused us so much trouble, am I correct?"

"Yes, that's me. Your kind has been ruining the lives of all the creatures in this galaxy, and I cannot stand by and let this happen."

"Hmph, words spoken by a true hero," replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "though I must ponder, are you really so heroic, hiding behind this metal giant of yours?"

"Says the being who sits in a giant hover-chair."

"Touché. Well, now, I suppose it is time we battle."

"Yeah, it is."

"Well then,TREMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF ARCTURUS THE CYBERNETIC COLLOSSUS!"

With that, Arcturus' chair finally floated into view and started blasting me with missiles. He then followed that up with a slam into the ground, forcing me and the genetic heroes to evade. After landing, he fire several lasers and things that looked like chainsaws at me.

Overall, though, it was a rather boring fight. My army was able to inflict a lot of damage on his chair, and he wasn't able to b=put too much of a dent in them before reinforcements arrived to replenish my forces. Additionally, the genetic heroes were able to put the hurt on him, forcing him to evade or get pounded. Eventually, he tried summoning his own minions, robotic bombs called exploder scarabs, which homed in on my army and, well, exploded. While they did put a few dents in my army, my numbers soon overwhelmed his, and after that, it wasn't long before he was on his last legs.

So why did he seem to be happy about this.

"Well, this has been a long, hard battle, my metallic foe, and you've indeed inflicted quite a few grievous wounds on me. But, in the end, I think you efforts were meaningless."

"Why's that?"

Just then, he hit a button on his throne. The minute he did, gigantic turrets popped up, along with a trio of pylons that generated a shield around Arcturus. The turrets quickly began to lay waste to my army, and were actually strong enough to shrug off my return fire.

"That's why. Did you really think I would not be able to adapt to your strategy of using overwhelming numbers to defeat our own? Your numbers are impressive, but unless you have something else up your sleeve, numbers will only go so far. And now, your luck has run out."

Then the turrets focused on me.

My computers indicated that I would be able to escap before they destroyed me, but that would give Arcturus time to adapt to my strategy and troops, which was something I did not want to happen. Reviewing my options, I noticed that my ship was relatively close by... and it was fully armed, as always.

I quickly lined it up for a bombing run. I doubted Arcturus would be able to deal with a mega-bomb on his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Malak and his friends had traveled for some time when they finally caught up with the machine, which was engaged in battle with the metal one. Arcturus, it called itself. The destructor was seated on a chair, which he used to bombard the machine with a variety of attacks. Still, the machine was clearly winning.

Malak wished to help, but he knew that he would only get in the way if he intervened directly. His attention, however, to a series of large power cables littered around the battlefield. Their purpose eluded him, but I was likely something to do with the Darkspore.

Then the Destructor pressed a button on his chair. Instantly, turrets sprung up, while a trio of pylons emerged around the Destructor, generating a mighty shield that spared him from all harm.

And as the shield came online, the pylons surged with power.

In that moment, Malak knew what to do: he ordered his more digitally skilled comrades to hack into the turrets, while he got to work setting up explosives on the cables. When the last set was deployed, he made it out of the blast radius, then hit the detonator.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

To say the explosions were a surprise was putting things lightly. However, shortly after they happened, Arcturus' shields fell offline, as did his turrets.

"What the-?! GET BACK ONLINE!"

To my surprise, they did come back online...

Then they pointed at Arcturus... just as my ship arrived.

The resulting explosion was spectacular.

The only thing more spectacular was that Arcturus WAS STILL ALIVE. However, he knew he was wounded and quickly began to retreat. Not that that was going to happen.

I quickly took aim at his chair and charged up the overcharge.

"Time to fall from heaven, you metal weakling."

Then the attack went off and hit Arcturus, knocking him off of his chair as it exploded. The defeated destructor crawled around feebly for a moment before going up in an explosion that left the ground stained with oil. Somehow, his mask survived this.

I quickly got a transport to take the mask back up to my ship, before contacting the Infinity Resistance to inform them of Arcturus fall. It was about that time that I learned that a resistance team had set off to help me some time ago, but that the main resistance had lost track of them. I guess that they were the guys who caused the explosion that shutdown Arcturus' shiled. I informed the reistance of this, asked them to thank the members who had done this, then set a course for Scaldron.

Now, Corruptor, your end has come.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Scaldron, primary base of the Darkspore.

Xylem sighed. The last of the Destructors was dead, leaving only him to lead the Darkspore. While he was fine with this, the fact that they had been annihilated due to the actions of one being was worrisome. It was clear that the Darkspore were up against a foe unlike any they had ever met before. Clearly, the Crogenitors had found new allies.

Then, he turned to one of the many Darkspore that accompanied him wherever he went.

"Go to the fleet and inform them to take up defensive positions. The machine will soon be upon us."

The creature moved to carry out his orders with haste, with the rest following.

When he was, at last, alone, Xylem activated a holoprojector near him and found himself facing a diminutive cybernetic creature, which, on its own, would seem rather assuming to most, if perhaps a little menacing.

"So," began the Darkspore, "are you sure this is the same one that you have... dealt with before."

"Indeed," replied the cybernetic being, "and we will provide our assistance to you once more in exchange for allowing us to purge this foe."

"Well then, lets not waste any more time talking. I've already sent one of my servants to get your fleet ready for battle. Please make sure that they make our mutual foe pay dearly for his transgressions."

"Of course. Long live the Corruptor."

With that, the conversation was terminated, and Xylem chuckled and let a small smile creep onto his face.

"The Crogeitors may indeed have new allies... but so do we."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXCC

AN: Well, only two more chapters left until the Darkspore universe is over.

Just a heads up, the technology obtained from this universe will be discussed after those two chapters, since I want to get to the next arc soon.

Also, most of the genetic heroes on Infinity share a mythological theme naming pattern (Titan, Goliath and Seraph), which is why the resistance member that showed up in this chapter is named Malak (which is both the name of a Sith Lord from KOTOR and the Hebrew word for angel.

So, Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off!