While I have certainly seen quite a few amazing sights as a commander, I'll still admit that the meteor shower I witnessed on Chiron was one of the greatest. True, I'd seen meteors before I became a Commander, and I'd seen plenty of meteor showers after this one, but my first was the most significant.

Maybe it was because this was the first big event that I shared with my son. Oh, how happy he looked at the sight of stars shooting across the night sky. His eyes shined at the beautiful vision, his awe impossible to conceal. That sight, in turn, filled me with warmth: it was nice to get to spend time with him, free of any reason for stress.

Rory wasn't alone in his awe: the children I'd adopted were also taking in the celestial event, and they were definitely enjoying it. Alongside them were the genetic heroes, whose appearance they'd taken rather well. I mean, sure, there was the initial reaction of fear to some of the more intimidating heroes, but that had soon faded. I'd asked my heroic companions to be on their best behavior around the children, but even then, this was above my expectations, especially in regards to some of the more amoral ones, like Arakna and Revenant. Arakna, though, had a reason to be so caring: she was a mother, and I think she was just allowing her instincts to take over.

"My, how happy you are."

I went stiff for a moment, before turning toward its source.

Leaning against a pillar only a few meters away from me was Melissa, a smirk covering her face.

"What are you doing here?" I questioned, struggling to keep the shock out of my voice.

"The same thing you are, watching the meteor shower. Isn't that why you built this structure? To get the best seats in the house, or planet, as it were."

"...You are correct about why I built this place, but I doubt that your motives are true."

"Well, I might be withholding a fact or two."

"Like what?"

"Well, I don't really want to see the meteor shower. But Cassidy does." Melissa followed that with a glance toward the edge of the viewing area I'd made. Sure enough, Cassidy was there, gazing on in silence at the magnificent phenomenon of nature. Quite a bit like Rory, now that I thought about it.

"...Ok, I believe you. Though, may I ask you a question?"

"...I don't see why not."

"Well then, why are you so willing to...interact with me?"

"Oh. Your were expecting a 'sponsor' that just dumped you into a commander, told you what they expected of you, and then just disappeared?"

"...well, yes. Though, I'll admit that view may have been colored by reading a lot of fanfiction."

"I hardly find that a surprise. Though, I will admit that I am an exception to the norm among Random Omnipotent Beings. Others on my level of power prefer to take a hands off approach to dealing with their pawns."

"So, I'm a pawn to you?"

"Indeed. Though, I will admit I have ulterior reasons for being more active."

"And those would be?"

"Well, you have been...rather lucky in your travels. You have yet to face any foes who have forced you to use excessive force on just a planetary scale. True, the war against the Darkspore saw your armies deployed without restraint, but you did that out of paranoia and fear, not out of necessity. The issues you have faced are, well, rather dull."

"So you think I'm boring?"

"No, but you are rather slow going in trying to fix the issues in this universe. Though that could probably be attributed to the fact that most of them aren't things superior firepower could fix."

"hmm..."

Now that I thought about it, I was rather slow going in helping the natives. But I still had one question to ask.

"May I ask another question?"

"OF course."

"Why are you so...friendly, with me?"

To my surprise, Melissa seemed to deflate at the question, losing any signs of arrogance she'd had when telling me how boring I'd been.

"...Eh, boredom, I suppose."

"You're being friendly with me because you're bored?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps?!"

She seemed to be lost for a moment, but then a hint of smugness returned to her. "Do you really expect a straight answer from me?"

"...ergh. Fine, be like that. Just don't overstay your welcome."

"Oh, I won't."

She finally got up off of the pillar she'd been leaning against. Now that she was standing straight, I was able to learn a fact that I'd missed in our first meeting: Melissa was taller than me. As in, I was looking at her chin when she stood up tall. A glance downward told me she wasn't adjusting her height with heeled shoes - she really was that tall. Well, her avatar was, anyways.

"Enjoy the rest of the meteor shower," she said. Then, she began to head inside. Probably wanted to enjoy some of the refreshments I'd arranged for this occasion.

"Commander, an anomaly has been detected," spoke a feminine voice. Idly, I noted that it was the voice that notified you of all alerts in Planetary Annihilation. I really should ask if it has a name.

"Elaborate."

"Strange signals have been detected from the area where the meteorites that survive atmospheric entry are landing."

"Oh. Well, are there any details you can provide on those signals?" Really, I didn't want to leave this little spectacle. Moments like these were too few for my liking.

"Only that one of them matches one we have on our records."

"And that would be?"

"The one that came from the Progenitor City you just visited."

Oh.

Yeah, that was important.

I quickly sent an air scout toward the signal. True, it would probably experience glitches, but anything I could learn about the source of this signal was important. It would also bring me one step closer to figuring out what the boxes were trying to tell me.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I soon found out that, whatever signal the artifac I'd found in that city had done to make my units glitch out, that was a toned down version of this one.

As in, my air scout didn't glitch our when it got close enough to the signal. It shut down. Well, mostly. It still retained enough functionality to tell me when it crashed.

How the hell could this signal shut down my aircraft? Progenitor stuff had absolutely broken amounts of anti-hacking software. This should be impossible.

Well, it had happened, so I guess it was possible now.

Okay. well, onto plan B: Use the Genetic Heroes to take the artifact. I'd commanded them before, so it wouldn't really be difficult.

"So, my quiet pawn, what's got your attention? You don't seem to be enjoying the meteor shower, an I know that you'd only be this silent if you're attention was focused elsewhere."

Ugh, not now.

"Something came up. An unexpected discovery relating to tonight's lightshow."

"That's rather vague."

"Well, if you must know, it involves some kind of alien artifact that I've found on my travels." She probably didn't even know what I was talking about.

"Oh...Wait, you mean like the one you found on the Grox Homeworld?"

Or not.

"Um, yes..."

I was rather surprised by her reaction to my confirmation, as it was the very first time I'd ever seen an entity comparable to a god lose its temper, or at least come close. Melissa managed to restrain herself to just looking really pissed off and crushing a drink cup in her hand, but considering that said drink cup was made of metal, this was still rather intimidating. This also had the effect of alerting everyone watching the light show to Melissa's presence.

"...um, what's wrong."

"Those guys need to know when to stay out of the business of others."

"What?"

"That schematic that you got from the first artifact? The one that built a scanner attached to your multiversal gateway? Well, as you might have guessed, it scans universes, and seems to decide which ones you'll arrive at. As you may have also. Priced, every universe you've arrived at so far has an artifact in it. I don't think that's a coincidence, do you?"

...She had a good point.

"Okay, but why are you telling me this."

"Because as far as I am concerned, I am the only one allowed to determine which universes you go to."

Wow, you are so possessive.

"I see. I'm not sure how to take that..."

"Commander," began the female voice, "it appears forces belong to Franco-Iveria are moving to examine the impact sight. I'm latching you into their armor cameras."

Soon, I was inside a transport that was rolling up to the edge of where the signal was boradcasting, which a quick change of focus revealed to be interfering with all of my equipment, creating a dead zone around the Artifact. Before it got too close, the vehicle stopped, and the soldiers, including the one whose armor camera I was piggy backing off of, disembarked.

"Alright," began the leader, "command wants us to see what's causing all of our satellites watching this area to screw up. Keep together, and be careful. No hostiles are expected, but you never-"

That was all he said before somethinglarge rammed into him and began mauling him. Fortunately, his men managed to wound his assailant, which retreated, allowing the man to get back up. Soon, though, the beast returned.

Apparently, it was a Raptor Bug, but something was off. The animal looked... sick? Angry? Maddened? Maddened! It looked maddened. It began to assault another man, only to once again feel the power of guns. This time, it didn't get away.

As the soldiers celebrated their victory, though, more of the bugs appeared and began attacking them. Casualties soon began to mount, until the vastly depleted squad tried to run. Unfortunately, something green hit their transport, destroying it. From there, they were whittled down until the man I wa observing was the only one left. I saw him try to run, only to trip. As he got back up, a Wolf-Beetle leaped at him. The footage stopped a second later.

Good thing, too. I was starting to shake in my shoes.

Before I could get the uneasiness, though, new alerts popped up: apparently, what I had witnessed was not an isolated incident. All around the impact sight, teams has been sent to investigate by the colonists, only to be attacked by crazed wildlife. Just when it looked bad enough, an orbital view revealed that, outside of the signal area, lots of creatures were on the move. It looked like a big war was about to begin.

"Why are you so quiet now?" questioned Melissa.

"...thing seem to be getting interesting right now."

"Hmph. I'll be judge of that."

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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!