Once I was back at my hub universe, I had a little bit of work to do - settling in the new arrivals, examining all of my newly acquired technology, and making preparations to head to wherever my gateway led me next.

Surprisingly, the first task was relatively easy. I was expecting that racism would be a problem, but everyone so far was acting rather civil in regards to the various forces I'd assembled, and aside from some minor displays of dislike, no conflict was present between the human and alien citizens of my Federation. Also, I'd probably need to deal with these people wanting to form some kind of government of their own in the future, because I doubted peole were going to let me be Emperor. If I was wrong, that would be nice, but that was unlikely at best. I'd have to wait for them to actually bring up the subject, of course - if I decided to form one now, my protectorates, as I'd come to think of them, would view it as a set of puppets meant to give them the illusion of free will. Peole could really be cynical.

Most of my newly acquired technology has already been integrated into my arsenal in some way or another, but the technology I'd obtained from Chiron's sister just prior to my return home was still in need of integration. I'd chided myself when I had time to think about this sibling, which I recognized as Planet from Alpha Centauri, and how it had come to possess such data. It was quite simple, really - to stop the planet from going into a part of its life cycle that would kill off mankind, the colonies on that version of Chiron had downloaded the sun total of human knowledge into Planet's mind via the Datalinks. This, I assumed, was how it had access to the designs that it had given me. I'd read it dozens of times, but had only recalled it a few hours after I had received the data from Planet. Oh well.

The first and easiest bit of technology to integrate into my forces (at least, from Alpha Centauri's list of wonders) had been the Nano-Factory. A factory that could create, well, anything via nanotechnology, all I had needed to do in order to integrate it into my arsenal was modify locust swarms to use the programming behind the factory and presto - mobile factories. Now I didn't need to worry about having my production dependent on big buildings that, even if they were tough, were also easy targets. There were still a few limitations, though - I couldn't optimize the Commander Resource Distribution System to work at the nano-scale, so I'd be dependent on materials available on site if I wanted to use my locust swarms as portable factories. Overall, not the biggest of flaws, but it did mean I'd need to be cautious with my nano-factories until I could find a way to let them access my resource storage network.

Eh, no problem. For now, though, I had more tech to mess with.

Next up was the Neural Amplifier - essentially a Psi-Amp on steroids on Crack, it boosted psionic capabilities through the roof. It was supposed to be used to fight off mind worms, but those attacks worked the same way as psionic attacks from more intelligent aliens, which made the Amplifier all the more beneficial. Best of all, it wasn't too hard to fit it onto an Ant chasis, giving me a portable anti-psychic weapon. Score one for me.

Now onto - wait, what is this alert I'm getting?

-Flame,

I find that you are rather boring to watch when you don't have a concrete plan of action, so this might help you. Enjoy.

-Melissa.

Attached was some kind of website link. How did that even work? I mean, the local equivalent of the internet was something I had made, and this didn't link up to anywhere on it.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

XXXXXXXXXXX

'Welcome to the multinet, Flameal15k!

'

...Multinet?

'The multiversal communication and search network, created by Adminstrator Entity Celempheros as a way of ensuring his forces have access to information and entertainment as needed.'

Oh...how do you know my name?

'User designation 0mega created an account for you, though a password and other profile details are still needed. Please fill these out before yu ask anymore questions, for I am not permitted to answer them until your profile is finished.'

(Five minutes later)

'All details completed. Before you ask, I am merely an admin bot.'

Well, then, what kind of information do you offer?

'Any kind that you need. Give me an example and I will provide it.'

...What can you tell me about Alpha Centauri?

'Name refers to a star that is one of the neighbors of Sol, can also refer to videogame set on that planet produced by Sid Meier. Game is available on Good Old Games. Would you like to go to that website?'

...How can you go there?

'The Multinet contains its own version of various web entities across the multiverse, including Steam. Would you like to access your steam account?'

...No, but thanks for the offer. One last question, though: do you know why 0mega gave me access to the Multinet?

'Her appeal to Administrator Celempheros for creating your account gave the following reasoning: you were more interesting to watch when you had a clear goal planned, and she also wanted to let you go back to some of your old steam games and see some new things that have happened, on the off chance that something from one of those games proved to be an opponent you would encounter on your travels. She does not want you to fall prey to any entity she did not create.'

...I see. Thank you, but I must log out now.

'Farewell.'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

If this were any other ROB, I'd be stunned that they were acting benevolent to me. Since this was Melissa, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. That girl was too nice to me at times. Hardly the Bastard Random Omnipotent Being I'd expected from the first time I'd talked to her, falling toward my hubworld.

Still, seriously? I could go back and play all my games? And keep the progress I'd already made on them? A part of me was wondering if Melissa had a crush on me (she didn't) and was trying to get into my good graces so I'd accept her feelings, but the rest of her behavior suggested otherwise.

I wondered which game I would go back to first...

Wait.

A lot had changed in those games over the past few months, as I noted when I went through the patch notes, so would that have any affect on the universes I'd already visited? I mean, Darkspore had gone belly up a while ago, and Spore was not really being updated anymore, aside from everyone posting new creations all the time, but still, that was an interesting thought.

Speaking of which, how was the Darkspore universe doing? the Darkspore may have had their leadership decapitated, but I was pretty sure that there were still a few holdouts left that I'd sent my forces to purge . Maybe I should go see if they'd finished the job.

I quickly queued up a small army, then recalibrated the portal so that it would send me back to the Darkspore Universe, specifically Scaldron, where I'd built my portal to return home at. Once my army was ready, I marched through it, intent on seeing how the universe had developed since I had left.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The firs thing I noticed when I arrived was that I was receiving a lot of alerts. Most were rather benign - Darkspore hordes being wiped out, civilization recovering well on the planets I'd visited, those kind of things.

The most recent set of reports, though, were disturbing - it seemed that the Darkspore hordes had finally managed to rally again and were trying to undo my efforts to stop them on the remants of Nakto, Nocturna, Verdanth, Cryos, and Infinity. Nakto was in the greatest amount of danger, and here's why: Nakto orbited a star that had become of black hole, which ended up turning the planet into a debris field that was still somewhat habitable, in part thanks to the crogenitors' technology. Thing is, the black hole's gravity is still trying to suck the fragments of the planet into itself, which was obviously a problem for its inhabitants. The crogenitors had dealt with this by placinga network of pylons that canceled out the black hole's pull, allowing the Debris field that was now Zelem's Nexus to continued existing and remain inhabitable.

Unforutnatley, the Darkspore wer now attacking those pylons. And if my alerts were any indication, they were doing a lot of damage.

Well, then, time to stop that.

I sent out a couple of fleets to Verdanth, Nocturna, Cryos and Infinity to help relieve them from the Darkspore onslaught, then made the jump to the Nexus. I had beaten the Darkspore once, and round two would end no differently.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When I arrived, I was in for a worrying sight: of the five pylons that were keeping Nakto safe from the black hole's pull, four were destroyed, and the last one was under heavy attack by the darkspore. At this rate, they would destroy the skyscraper sized machine in ten minutes. The natives of the Nexus were fighting back bravely, but they were just outnumbered so heavily that it wasn't really helping.

Well, time to change that.

The force I'd assembled for this return mission, which included the genetic heroes, needed only two minutes to reach the pylon, and two minutes after that to wipe out the darkspore. A minute later, and my fabbers had returned the pylon to optimum operating form. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be able to hold this form indefinitely - it could compensate for the others, but doing so was doing a number on its internal systems, which were rapidly burning out form overheating. I'd need to either build more pylons (shut up, mr Protoss) or fix the existing ones, and according to the data I was now downloading from the Nexus, I needed to put the pylons in very specific places, or else they wouldn't operate at peak efficiency. The four destroyed pylons were apparently at those very locations.

Well, fix them it is.

My forces got to work rebuilding the pylons, while the genetic heroes, my armies, and the rallying natives guarded them. The Darkspore sensing, getting agitated at this, promptly started sending in a more forces to destroy mine, not that it did anything to my army of deathbots. When the third tower came back online, they really started getting ticked off and began sending in larger creatures to try and stop me. Again, these creaures fell under my merciless horde of iron. When the fourth tower was up again, they really got ticked off and started dropping mutation mines on top of my armies. THAT actually put a dent in my forces, but those losses could be replaced, and in their determination to stop me, the Darkspore didn't account for the Natives of Nakto, who helped me wipe out the rest of the mines, allowing me to rebuild the last tower with impunity.

The Darkspore didn't like that and, enraged, summoned one last horde of creatures and mutation mines to assault me with. A short barrage of asers later, and said horde was no more.

Eh, these guys were weak. Still, looks like I had some cleaning up left to do in this universe.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AN: For those of you waiting for the next arc, sorry, but this mini-arc is important for the events of major Arc 5 (the next arc is Arc 4) and I don't want to put this off. This mini-arc will end at chapter 100, and 101 will be the start of the next arc.

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