"What are you?" The dark and powerful voice boomed across the bridge, shattering dozens of the crimson, crystalline growths in a cascade of shards and red blotches. The entirety of the vessel shook. And Thragg's eyes narrowed. This... this presence wasn't something he could take easily. There was no weakness in it, no cowardice. It was the magnitude borne of eons of existence, the sort of entities that were often worshiped as gods by lesser races or became gods themselves. Very dangerous. Very strong. The Viltrumite Empire encountered many such entities across many worlds; the weaker of his kind died to them, but the strongest were heralded as the slayers of gods.
Conquest was one such Viltrumite, having killed his share of would-be gods.
And Thragg was the strongest of his kind, designed to be the greatest Viltrumite of his generation and the generations that would come later. And he'd faced his share of gods, beings who were so ancient as to have seen the first stars and the first worlds. Their age and power did not save them, for they all suffered the same fate. It felt nice, in retrospect, to watch these entities realize the reality of their own mortality, that they were living creatures all the same and that, for all their power, there was nothing stopping a Viltrumite from crashing a moon over their heads. Thragg himself had paraded the ruined corpses of defeated gods over the people who'd once worshiped them as such. At the time, it was cathartic and, admittedly, more than a little amusing and satisfying to see the horror on the faces of the conquered.
This entity, this voice, was one such entity – a presence that only gods could possess. One thing he'd never forgotten whenever he battled against deities was that they often held or possessed weapons and abilities that could very easily kill even one of his kind. So, Thragg knew to be careful and calculating. If necessary, he could easily fly out of the ship. But, for now, his senses and instincts, honed through thousands and thousands of years of wars and battles, told him that there was no immediate danger to himself –for now, at least.
"What's it to you?" Thragg asked, raising his voice as he spoke and glanced around. He couldn't find the source of the voice. When it'd spoken, it seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, indicating some form of psychic ability. Annoying, but nothing he hadn't faced before. Viltrumites were trained, from a very early age, to face and resist and a variety of foes; the most dangerous foes, as every single one of his kin agreed, was a Magic-User, but right after them were Psychics, individuals who could influence the minds of others. They were extremely dangerous as well. There were plenty of records, after all, of entire squads of Viltrumite warriors slaughtering each other at the command of a physically inferior opponent. And so, every warrior, since then, was given training to strengthen their mind, to keep themselves focused, and to channel their thoughts into a singular goal.
It certainly wasn't perfect, but it worked most of the time, long enough to incapacitate a Psychic, who was daring enough to attempt to control a Viltrumite.
"You've brought ruin to my plans. You live among the humans. But you are not human. Too strong. Too fast. Too powerful." The voice replied, once again shattering dozens of the crimson crystalline things as it spoke. And then, Thragg felt the subtle vibrations in the air, the discharge of invisible waves of power and energy; he would've already died if he was human, his brain liquefied and turned to mush. "What are you?"
"Not human." Thragg smirked. Yeah, no. This being wasn't getting any information from him. One of the worst things one can do against Psychics was to share anything with them, because some where able to extrapolate extreme amounts of information from very random bits of knowledge, such as what they last ate or drank. So, no. If he could, then Thragg wasn't going to give this entity anything about himself or about the world below. "What about you? Are you the leader of the Rangdan? Are you their king?"
"I am Rangdan! I am all of them and all of them are me! I am a god, not merely a king." The voice boomed and, this time, Thragg noted all the cracks that suddenly appeared and spread across the walls around him, accompanied by hundreds of the crimson crystalline things breaking and shattering into pieces, letting loose blood-red fluids onto the floor. "But you. Yes... I can sense it in you – power, presence, and magnitude. You're a god... not quite, but close enough that it no longer matters. What an interesting creature you are."
"That's great. Now, maybe you can tell me where you are so that we can meet, face to face." Thragg challenged. It was a long shot, but he needed to know as quickly as possible. It seemed like the crimson, crystalline growths were, in fact, tools that allowed this entity, the Rangdan Prime, to relay its thoughts and commands to its lesser selves. Kind of like a hivemind, then, but also different. This entity clearly possessed some manner of pride and ego, something that most hiveminds did not possess or had simply eschewed in their drive to evolve into greater and more efficient forms. So, it was entirely possible to aggravate, frustrate, and, perhaps, provoke it somehow. Thragg raised his fist, a challenging gesture. "If you dare. But, if you're afraid, then keep on hiding. No matter where you are or how many servants and slaves you surround yourself with, I will find you. I will drag you out of whatever hole you've hidden yourself and then I will make you know pain before I rip you to shreds. So, what will it be? Do you wish to die as quickly as possible or should we prolong this little conflict of ours?"
"Insolence!" The entity roared, shaking the vessel even more. The frequency that was present in the air would've now been powerful enough to grind bones to dust and flesh to ribbons, organs to mush. Still, Thragg was unmoved. As long as this entity did not stray in that specific frequency, which was already rare enough to begin with, then there was very little it could do to actually hurt him. More of the crimson crystalline things burst into shattered shards, falling apart around him. "I am a God! I am deathless! You are nothing more than a worm that grew too large for its little cage!"
"Oh?" Thragg almost chuckled as he crossed his arms over his chest. Yes, there it was, the typical pride and ego held by creatures that thought of themselves as gods. It was almost laughable if it wasn't also pitiful. At the end of the day, everything that existed could be destroyed; and everything that lived could die. And he'd killed many gods before."I hope you retain that confidence when I drop a moon on your head, puny god."
Of course, he had to be careful with this one. The Rangdan Prime was psychic in nature, which meant it could potentially turn his own mind against him or, worse, enslave him through some psychic means. Unlikely, however, as Thragg had withstood mental dominion attempts by psychic enemies who'd enslaved entire worlds to their bidding, binding billions of minds into their service and forming empires that spanned numerous stars. True, resisting mental domination was incredibly difficult, but Thragg had do so many times and he had little reason to believe that this one would be any different. He'd maintain the same level of care he'd taken with all the others.
However, this one could split its mind seemingly infinitely; after all, to create a star-spanning Empire with such weak warriors, the Rangdan Prime would need, at the very least, a trillion drones just to maintain it. And that implied a great amount of power.
"Now, tell me where you are so that we may fight face to face – a duel between us higher beings, between gods." Thragg finished, almost snarling – an act, of course. The entity thought him insolent; well, it would be easier to provoke it if he played right into its belief. But, he was just guessing. There was no way to truly and properly perceive or measure the emotional temperament of a disembodied voice. "Or are you too much of a coward to face me?"
"Insolent little insect... very well. I will humor you." The entity spoke and every single crimson shard began to float around him, creating a swirling vortex of sharpened shards, which then rapidly coalesced and condensed, forming a foot-long blood-red crystal that emitted a baleful glow. "Follow the coordinates on the crystal, little godling. I will be waiting."
The vessel shook and, with a very loud crack, the walls around him snapped apart, revealing the darkness of space beyond. Thragg could not help but grin as he raised the crystal up to his eyes. There was information here that could be translated – not by him, of course, but maybe Argall could create a machine to read and decipher the data held within. Still, he'd learned incredibly valuable information about their alien enemy, information that might be useful for the people of the planet – or, perhaps not. If he slew their enemy, tore it apart, and tossed its godly corpse into a nearby star, then every single Rangdan drone should die with it.
But, that was just the theory. The opposite was also true. Thragg could kill its main body and the being would simply disperse its consciousness across its uncountable number of drone bodies, allowing it to continue its existence in a now lesser but more annoying manner; by then, trying to kill it permanently would be akin to dealing with a nest of cockroaches. No matter what was done, there would always be a few who'd escape and multiply, which meant the Rangdan Prime would take far too much effort to actually kill. In that manner, then, Thragg figured, he'd have to find a way to separate its mind from its backup bodies, before he actually killed the damn thing by tossing it into a nearby star.
Tsk, what a delicate situation. Perhaps, the best course of action was to capture and imprison the god-entity or put it to sleep somehow. Whatever the case, knowing that his target was technically only a singular entity did put his mind at east, somewhat; it meant he wouldn't have to ponder the weight of destroying an entire world's population. Instead, he'd just be killing the brain of a hivemind, its central self, without harming any other life form. The slaves didn't count, Thragg figured. Such was the torment and humiliation they endured that death was the greatest possible alternative; there was no way to save them, otherwise. The worm-faced things were... well... Thragg had no idea what to think about them, but it seemed like they were just drones and nothing more.
The damn things were still manning the consoles, even when the whole ship was more or less dead. He wasn't even sure if they were technically alive or merely biological machines, created to perform a singular purpose with no ability to evolve or change or improve.
It didn't matter. Whatever they were, they'd die alongside the ship.
For now, he'd dealt with the most immediate threat, which was the mother ship – or, the super carrier, seeing as it couldn't be the mother ship, given it didn't contain the actual leadership, but merely a means of constant control and communication, essentially a gargantuan signal extender if nothing else. Thragg turned his gaze to the monolith at the center of the ruined bridge, its walls crumbled away to reveal the emptiness of space. Unlike everything else, the monolith stood firm, unmoved. Looking at it now, its make was different from the rest of the vessel. Clearly, the Rangdan Prime had designed and created technological marvels for the use of its drones, but this thing seemed... different, like it'd simply been plundered by the Rangdan Prime from a much greater civilization and used for its own ends.
He should probably take it as well. Perhaps, his son could find some use for it.
With that in mind, Thragg ripped the monolith from where it'd stood, before flying out of the ruined vessel. Alka awaited. And there was much to be done.