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Description
     On the ground, watching all this unfold, the leader of the cult lay, bleeding profoundly from the mouth. However, he grinned, the fool had done all the irkens work for him.
     He needed blood for the sacrifice to bring forth his dark lord, and now he had it, more then enough in fact.
     The cult leader began to mutter out words in a strange, unknown, dark language. The gunfire and shouting was covering him. Those non-believing fools, they’d doomed themselves.
     Sideos was trying to wade out into the crowd, slashing away and laughing and generally having a good time. Sirra, Tika, Meg and Cello had joined him, each building up small piles of dead or dying opponents.
     The masses of followers where starting to fall back. They may have had the numbers, but they weren’t true born warriors like the small group. Their moral was breaking swiftly at the sight of the small slaughter. However, the group of psychopaths were simply getting more and more excited at the sight.
     Blood, screams, violence and death, for the crew of killers, this was like a party. The only thing missing was a cake.
     “THIS IS FANTASTIC!” Sideos yelled as he sliced another fleeing irken’s back open, “I could do this all day!”
     “Heh, up until the strike team get here,” Cello yelled as she tore someone’s throat out.
     Soon, the whole room was completely deserted apart from the group of psychopathic irken’s in the middle.
     Meg jumped up onto the shoulders of Tika, her skin dripping with blood and a vicious smile on her small face, “WE’VE WON!”
     The irkens all gave a great cheer of joy, even Neep.
     Sideos turned and jumped onto a pile of dead bodies, holding a fist up into the air. “We’re the greatest! The best! The most vicious ever! We ROCK!”
     Sirra smiled up at Sideos, “Thank you for saving me Siddy, I wish there was some way to repay you…”
     Sideos smiled back, “Just acknowledge me as your glorious leader and we’ll call it evens.”
     “Excuse me?” the group turned to look at the irken they had saved. She wore an asylum shirt with torn off sleeves and a pair of black pants with boots. Her eyes where an odd maroon red and her mouth was filled with very sharp teeth, her claws covered in blood and a gun held in one hand. She was tall, probably the same height as Tika, and was well built. Her eyes narrowed, “But who are you?”
     “Indeed,” Another irken spoke up, the second one saved. She had rather insane looking purple eyes and was short, almost as short as Meg. She had oddly yellow-tinged skin and she too wore the usual asylum uniform, but her clothes looked kind of baggy on her and she held a knife in her hand. Her face was covered in scars and she was missing the thumbs of her hands. “Thank you for saving us, but please tell me who you are.”
     Sideos eyes narrowed, “Identify yourselves first.”
     The taller, red eyed irken spoke first. “My name is Katz, and this is Slert”
     Sideos bowed, “I am Sideos, Lord of Seven and leader of this tribe of psychos.”
     “You? Leader?” Kaiser suddenly barked out a laugh from where he was standing near the centre of the room, causing everyone to suddenly look to him. He growled, “You’re not the leader of me.”
     A sudden odd silence descended on the room, shadows seemed to have gotten darker and the lights flickered, causing everyone but Kaiser and Sideos too look around.
     Sideos eyes narrowed dangerously, “Excuse me? Come again? Speak up there Kainen, I thought you said something?”
     A sort of electricity was generating in the room, and the lights flickered again. Everyone but the two irkens glairing at each other seemed to be able to tell that something dark was coming… something powerful. Something inherently evil was about to happen, one could feel it in the air, on their tongues, creeping on their skin.
     If Sideos or Kaiser could feel this, they certainly didn’t show it. Instead, their silent battle continued, each seemed to be waiting for the other to break away… or attack.
     It was only when Sirra took Kaisers arm that he finally snapped away from his glairing. He looked to the female, who was looking surprisingly worried. “Come on, let’s get going, I don’t want to be here anymore.”
     As if on cue, the very building began to shake around them. But that wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention, no, what caught everyone’s attention was when the lake of blood that they where all standing in began to rain upwards towards the ceiling.
     And if that didn’t get their attention, then perhaps it was the shadows encircling them, rushing around them like a hurricane, which did.
     “What the…” Vagnur looked around him in shock, his hand gripping Kunst’s as brought her knife up defensively, but also sharing the same expression and gripping Vagnur’s hand just as much.
     Tika cowered in fear, whimpering like an animal, as did Meg as they watched the blood slowly collect onto the ceiling.
     “This… isn’t possible…” Neep announce slowly, his eyes locked onto the chaos around him.
     “Tell that to the blood and shadows,” Scintille answered back, standing next to Neep, his hands gripping his gun.
     “WHATS HAPPENING!” Tamy snapped loudly, “THIS IS INSANE!”
     “No, we’re insane,” Cello corrected, her eyes watching as the shadows began to slow down, “This is a phenomenon, there’s a difference.” Her eyes widened, “This has to be the work of Kellums! It couldn’t be anything else!”
     “There HAS to be a scientific explanation!” Slert shouted as the blood began to move towards the centre of the room, slowing forming a tendril that was reaching downwards. The shadows also began to move to the centre of the room and began to form a second upwards reaching tendril, one that seemed to be reaching towards the blood.
     “Sideos!” Sirra yelped as a tall, slim blob-thing formed from the blood, “You’re the leader what do you think we should do?”
     Sideos didn’t respond, he was just staring wide eyed at the whole phenomenon like he’d only just noticed what was happening. He seemed frozen to the spot, his skin paling even more then it usually did. His mouth was falling open and he seemed to be shaking.
     He was scared stiff.
     Upon seeing their apparent ‘leader’ completely frozen by the horribly unnerving sight of the blood-shadow monster beginning to grow arms and legs and even a head, the group began to panic. Those holding guns fired at the thing, but the bullets only passed though its body.
     A terrifying laugher erupted from the being, and many of the irken’s backed away, including Sideos who scrambled down from his pile of bodies to collapse onto his knees and cover his head with his arms, his eyes shutting tight in pure frozen terror.
     Kaiser however, suddenly began looking around for the source of whatever was causing this impossible event. His eyes fell on the painted irken, the one who had been leading the delusionals when they’d first arrived in the hall. The irken’s eyes were closed, his body pale and limp, but his lips were still moving, chanting.
     Kaiser took a millisecond to put two and two together, before raising his gun and aiming at the head of the painted irken.
     He shot, and the irkens brains where now splattered across the floor.
     Instantly, the still forming irken-blob-thing rippled, then the blood began to drip down, the shadows began to crawl back.
     An unirkly, unnatural roar exploded around the hall, causing almost every irken to cover their antennae.
     The blood and shadows finally seemed to snap and everything whooshed back into place, the blood dropping down from the ceiling in one big SPLASH, drenching everyone in gore.
     Neep glared at his now blood-covered self, “I was TRYING to stay CLEAN!”
     Some of the irkens began to try to wring the blood from their clothes, while others tried to wipe themselves clean with any dry clothes they could find.
     Sirra however, ran and practically jumped onto Kaiser, instantly locking her lips onto his. Kunst and Vagnur did the same. The rest of the group tried not to watch.
     Tamy tapped Sideos on the head and smirked, “You can stop crying now.”
     Sideos jumped up so fast Tamy’s eyes couldn’t follow, and his claw grabbed the neck of her shirt as his eyes glared into hers. “I was NOT crying!”
     Tika giggled, “Sharp-hands was spookeded.”
     Sideos dropped a rather annoyed Tamy and turned on Tika. “I was NOT spookeded!”
     Meg quickly jumped up on Tika’s shoulder again, “Yes you where! I saw you!”
     Sideos quickly realised everyone, apart from the busy couples, where laughing at him. His face was the very essence of panicking anger. “I WAS NOT!”
     Gar laughed, “Then why where you cowering like a smeet?!”
     Kaiser and Sirra finally separated, but Sirra kept her arms tight around Kaisers waist, and Kaiser smirked, “Yea Sideos, oh Lord of Seven, what are you? Afraid of ghosts?”
     Sideos bit his lip and his eyes twitched then he suddenly growled and exploded, “YES! YES OK! I’M FUCKING AFRAID OF FUCKING GHOSTS! IT’S A FUCKING PHOBIA!”
     The whole room exploded with laugher while Sideos stood there, so angry he could slaughter a bus full of smeets, yet knowing that he couldn’t do anything but take their mocking.
     Kaiser was the one laughing the hardest. “What kind of leader is afraid of ghosts!?”
     “One that can still tear you in two,” Sideos threatened, his voice dead with rage.
     The room quietened down, they could sense the inevitable fight brewing.
     Kaiser growled back at Sideos, “You’re not fit to lead us out of here. You can’t form a plan to save your own life and you risk the rest of ours with you stupid rash decisions.”
     “And you think you can do better?” Sideos sneered back, “You don’t have the guts to lead us out of here, not to mention you’re obviously far too distracted most of the time.”
     Neep suddenly stepped out between the two, “GENTLEIRKS! We don’t have time to fight between us; we need to work together if we’re going to get out of this alive.”
     Sideos pointed one knife-blade finger to Kaiser and narrowed his gaze. “As soon as we’re off this planet, I’m going to kill you.” He then turned and walked towards the other end of the hall, “COME ON EVERYONE! We need to get moving!”
     The others began to follow, gathering up whatever weapons and ammo they could find.
     Kaiser and Sirra however, lagged to the back. Sirra nudged Kaiser and smiled sweetly, “Are you really going to fight him?”
     “Absolutely,” Kaiser quickly replied, his eyes locked forward. “Even if it takes me to the end of my life, I’ll make sure that Sideos will die a horribly painful death.”
     Sirra giggled, “I love it when you say ‘painful’ like that.”
     Back up at the front of the group, Sideos was still furious about Kaiser’s open rebellion against his leadership. How dare anyone defy Sideos! He was Lord of Seven! His eyes narrowed as he turned a corner, he swore, that even if it took him to the end of his life, he’d make sure Kaiser died a painfully horrible death.
     Within the rest of the group, the events of the hall were still being discussed.
     “I can’t believe Sideos failed us like that,” Gar growled out, “Kaiser should be leader. At least he won’t collapse at the sound of someone wailing in the dark.”
     “I didn’t see you run up and slice at it,” Neep sharply commented back, “And besides, we were all scared. It wasn’t like anyone us had ever seen anything like that before.”
     “Tika has!” Tika grinned, “Big scary went BOO! Tika barked at it so it wented away!”
     They all looked at Tika with raised antennae for a moment before turning back to one another.
     “I don’t think we should be so hard on him,” Tamy mused out loud, “A phobia is a phobia, nothing anyone can do to really cure it. He couldn’t help being so scared.”
     Cello shook her had, “I don’t care. He’s supposed to be an invader and not just that, a vicious killer. He’s meant to be past cowering like a child.”
     Scintille smiled slightly, “Well I’m with Neep. We all got scared at that… whatever it was, and besides it’s not like it’s going to happen again, so as long as there are no more blood-shadow things, we’re fine with Sideos being our leader.”
     Kunst chuckled. “Well, I think we shouldn’t even rely on leaders so much, not in such a chaotic situation like this.”
     “They’re not all that important are they?” Vagnur added, “We can all basically look out for ourselves if needed.”
     Kunst placed an arm around her lovers waist, “Of course, we should always protect our loved ones.”
     “Of course,” Vagnur replied, placing an arm around Kunst and smiling.
     Katz rolled her eyes, “I don’t even know what most of you are all talking about, isn’t getting out of this place the most important thing?”
     Slert nodded, “Yes, escaping is the number one priority here, not who’s ordering who around.”
     “You gotta understand,” Meg squeaked from where she was walking beside Tika, “These guys have always thought of themselves as the best of all of us here, so it’s natural they’d want to take immediate command.”
     “What are you guys talking about?” The group looked down the corridor to see Sideos had already walked ahead of them, obviously too caught up in his own thoughts to notice everyone else falling behind. “You need to HURRY! It won’t be long until the armada get here!”
     He turned and looked back down the corridor. “Ok, Vaggy? Kunsty? Which way?”
     The couple soon pointed the way, and the group continued onward. However, at one point they got lost and after a moment of wandering through the many identical looking corridors, with everyone trying to give directions, Sideos finally snapped. “Where the fuck did you come up with these directions?”
     “I believe you’re the one who said to go down this way,” Tamy replied, completely unamused.
     “I ask again, why are we following this guy?” Kaiser grumbled.
     “Shut up!” Sideos barked out, “I need time to think.”
     “There seems to be a doctor or drone or whatever in here, bleeding to death,” Neep pointed to a cell they happened to be standing in front of. The others turned to see a rather brutal looking sight. Blood was smeared everywhere, and the rather destroyed body of one irken was lying on the floor while another, equally gore covered irken, sat at the back of the room. He was bleeding quite profusely, especially from his empty eye sockets.
     “Oh and a dead inmate… damn this second floor just gets creepier and creepier…” Sideos mused out loud. He shrugged and turned to the others, “Still, Logic says he may know a way out.”
     The irkens looked to each other, before Sirra decided to address the dying irken drone. “Excuse me!” She called softly, trying to sound polite, “Might you be so kind to point us out?”
     Kaiser chuckled, “Darling, you have such a way with drones. Allow me.” He coughed into a fist and then yelled, “Hey DRONE! Where’s the damn exit?”
     The drone didn’t answer. Sideos shook his head, “This is stupid, let’s just keep moving.”
     “I’m in far too much physical anguish to think clearly,” The group all turned to look at the dying drone, his voice was a hoarse whisper, one had to strain one’s antennae to hear him, “But keep going down the hall. There are less delusionals down that way…they’ll help you.” He then smiled in an odd, satisfied way before he slid down the wall, splashing into a small pool of his own blood, completely unconscious.
     Sideos frowned. “I dunno if we should trust a drone.”
     Neep shrugged, “Why not? It wasn’t like he had anything to lose by lying to us.”
     Katz nodded, “Yea, I say we follow his advice.”
     Sideos frowned. “I’m the leader; I say we don’t follow his advice.”
     Suddenly, Meg appeared from behind the legs of Kunst. “I say we vote on it!” The group immediately erupted into a collective agreement.
     Sideos frowned then suddenly collected himself. “As leader, I say we vote on the matter!” He coughed to clear his throat as the group all rolled their eyes at once. “Right, who votes for not following his advice?” Sideos stuck his hand up. No one else did.
     Kaiser suddenly shouted, “Who votes for following his advice!” Everyone quickly stuck their hands up. Kaiser blinked in mock surprise as Sideos glared at him with gritted teeth.
     “Well,” Kaiser smirked at his rival, “That settles that, doesn’t it!”
     The group began to walk past Sideos, who was still fuming at Kaiser. It was then he decided that Kaiser was clearly becoming too popular in his tribe and as leader he needed to do something to regain his authority and respect.
     He needed to form some kind of plan to humiliate and or kill Kaiser.
     His eyes narrowed as he walked, but how? Sideos didn’t mind admitting that Kaiser was one hell of a fighter and any one-on-one combat would be victorious, obviously, for Sidoes himself, but he’d be weakened by the fight. No, this needed brains, not brawns. He just needed a way to show him up, to expose his weaknesses…
     His eyes drifted to the irken hanging on Kaiser’s arm, and a sly grin came onto Sideos’s face. He could use Sirra against him. But how?

Description
     On the ground, watching all this unfold, the leader of the cult lay, bleeding profoundly from the mouth. However, he grinned, the fool had done all the irkens work for him.
     He needed blood for the sacrifice to bring forth his dark lord, and now he had it, more then enough in fact.
     The cult leader began to mutter out words in a strange, unknown, dark language. The gunfire and shouting was covering him. Those non-believing fools, they’d doomed themselves.
     Sideos was trying to wade out into the crowd, slashing away and laughing and generally having a good time. Sirra, Tika, Meg and Cello had joined him, each building up small piles of dead or dying opponents.
     The masses of followers where starting to fall back. They may have had the numbers, but they weren’t true born warriors like the small group. Their moral was breaking swiftly at the sight of the small slaughter. However, the group of psychopaths were simply getting more and more excited at the sight.
     Blood, screams, violence and death, for the crew of killers, this was like a party. The only thing missing was a cake.
     “THIS IS FANTASTIC!” Sideos yelled as he sliced another fleeing irken’s back open, “I could do this all day!”
     “Heh, up until the strike team get here,” Cello yelled as she tore someone’s throat out.
     Soon, the whole room was completely deserted apart from the group of psychopathic irken’s in the middle.
     Meg jumped up onto the shoulders of Tika, her skin dripping with blood and a vicious smile on her small face, “WE’VE WON!”
     The irkens all gave a great cheer of joy, even Neep.
     Sideos turned and jumped onto a pile of dead bodies, holding a fist up into the air. “We’re the greatest! The best! The most vicious ever! We ROCK!”
     Sirra smiled up at Sideos, “Thank you for saving me Siddy, I wish there was some way to repay you…”
     Sideos smiled back, “Just acknowledge me as your glorious leader and we’ll call it evens.”
     “Excuse me?” the group turned to look at the irken they had saved. She wore an asylum shirt with torn off sleeves and a pair of black pants with boots. Her eyes where an odd maroon red and her mouth was filled with very sharp teeth, her claws covered in blood and a gun held in one hand. She was tall, probably the same height as Tika, and was well built. Her eyes narrowed, “But who are you?”
     “Indeed,” Another irken spoke up, the second one saved. She had rather insane looking purple eyes and was short, almost as short as Meg. She had oddly yellow-tinged skin and she too wore the usual asylum uniform, but her clothes looked kind of baggy on her and she held a knife in her hand. Her face was covered in scars and she was missing the thumbs of her hands. “Thank you for saving us, but please tell me who you are.”
     Sideos eyes narrowed, “Identify yourselves first.”
     The taller, red eyed irken spoke first. “My name is Katz, and this is Slert”
     Sideos bowed, “I am Sideos, Lord of Seven and leader of this tribe of psychos.”
     “You? Leader?” Kaiser suddenly barked out a laugh from where he was standing near the centre of the room, causing everyone to suddenly look to him. He growled, “You’re not the leader of me.”
     A sudden odd silence descended on the room, shadows seemed to have gotten darker and the lights flickered, causing everyone but Kaiser and Sideos too look around.
     Sideos eyes narrowed dangerously, “Excuse me? Come again? Speak up there Kainen, I thought you said something?”
     A sort of electricity was generating in the room, and the lights flickered again. Everyone but the two irkens glairing at each other seemed to be able to tell that something dark was coming… something powerful. Something inherently evil was about to happen, one could feel it in the air, on their tongues, creeping on their skin.
     If Sideos or Kaiser could feel this, they certainly didn’t show it. Instead, their silent battle continued, each seemed to be waiting for the other to break away… or attack.
     It was only when Sirra took Kaisers arm that he finally snapped away from his glairing. He looked to the female, who was looking surprisingly worried. “Come on, let’s get going, I don’t want to be here anymore.”
     As if on cue, the very building began to shake around them. But that wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention, no, what caught everyone’s attention was when the lake of blood that they where all standing in began to rain upwards towards the ceiling.
     And if that didn’t get their attention, then perhaps it was the shadows encircling them, rushing around them like a hurricane, which did.
     “What the…” Vagnur looked around him in shock, his hand gripping Kunst’s as brought her knife up defensively, but also sharing the same expression and gripping Vagnur’s hand just as much.
     Tika cowered in fear, whimpering like an animal, as did Meg as they watched the blood slowly collect onto the ceiling.
     “This… isn’t possible…” Neep announce slowly, his eyes locked onto the chaos around him.
     “Tell that to the blood and shadows,” Scintille answered back, standing next to Neep, his hands gripping his gun.
     “WHATS HAPPENING!” Tamy snapped loudly, “THIS IS INSANE!”
     “No, we’re insane,” Cello corrected, her eyes watching as the shadows began to slow down, “This is a phenomenon, there’s a difference.” Her eyes widened, “This has to be the work of Kellums! It couldn’t be anything else!”
     “There HAS to be a scientific explanation!” Slert shouted as the blood began to move towards the centre of the room, slowing forming a tendril that was reaching downwards. The shadows also began to move to the centre of the room and began to form a second upwards reaching tendril, one that seemed to be reaching towards the blood.
     “Sideos!” Sirra yelped as a tall, slim blob-thing formed from the blood, “You’re the leader what do you think we should do?”
     Sideos didn’t respond, he was just staring wide eyed at the whole phenomenon like he’d only just noticed what was happening. He seemed frozen to the spot, his skin paling even more then it usually did. His mouth was falling open and he seemed to be shaking.
     He was scared stiff.
     Upon seeing their apparent ‘leader’ completely frozen by the horribly unnerving sight of the blood-shadow monster beginning to grow arms and legs and even a head, the group began to panic. Those holding guns fired at the thing, but the bullets only passed though its body.
     A terrifying laugher erupted from the being, and many of the irken’s backed away, including Sideos who scrambled down from his pile of bodies to collapse onto his knees and cover his head with his arms, his eyes shutting tight in pure frozen terror.
     Kaiser however, suddenly began looking around for the source of whatever was causing this impossible event. His eyes fell on the painted irken, the one who had been leading the delusionals when they’d first arrived in the hall. The irken’s eyes were closed, his body pale and limp, but his lips were still moving, chanting.
     Kaiser took a millisecond to put two and two together, before raising his gun and aiming at the head of the painted irken.
     He shot, and the irkens brains where now splattered across the floor.
     Instantly, the still forming irken-blob-thing rippled, then the blood began to drip down, the shadows began to crawl back.
     An unirkly, unnatural roar exploded around the hall, causing almost every irken to cover their antennae.
     The blood and shadows finally seemed to snap and everything whooshed back into place, the blood dropping down from the ceiling in one big SPLASH, drenching everyone in gore.
     Neep glared at his now blood-covered self, “I was TRYING to stay CLEAN!”
     Some of the irkens began to try to wring the blood from their clothes, while others tried to wipe themselves clean with any dry clothes they could find.
     Sirra however, ran and practically jumped onto Kaiser, instantly locking her lips onto his. Kunst and Vagnur did the same. The rest of the group tried not to watch.
     Tamy tapped Sideos on the head and smirked, “You can stop crying now.”
     Sideos jumped up so fast Tamy’s eyes couldn’t follow, and his claw grabbed the neck of her shirt as his eyes glared into hers. “I was NOT crying!”
     Tika giggled, “Sharp-hands was spookeded.”
     Sideos dropped a rather annoyed Tamy and turned on Tika. “I was NOT spookeded!”
     Meg quickly jumped up on Tika’s shoulder again, “Yes you where! I saw you!”
     Sideos quickly realised everyone, apart from the busy couples, where laughing at him. His face was the very essence of panicking anger. “I WAS NOT!”
     Gar laughed, “Then why where you cowering like a smeet?!”
     Kaiser and Sirra finally separated, but Sirra kept her arms tight around Kaisers waist, and Kaiser smirked, “Yea Sideos, oh Lord of Seven, what are you? Afraid of ghosts?”
     Sideos bit his lip and his eyes twitched then he suddenly growled and exploded, “YES! YES OK! I’M FUCKING AFRAID OF FUCKING GHOSTS! IT’S A FUCKING PHOBIA!”
     The whole room exploded with laugher while Sideos stood there, so angry he could slaughter a bus full of smeets, yet knowing that he couldn’t do anything but take their mocking.
     Kaiser was the one laughing the hardest. “What kind of leader is afraid of ghosts!?”
     “One that can still tear you in two,” Sideos threatened, his voice dead with rage.
     The room quietened down, they could sense the inevitable fight brewing.
     Kaiser growled back at Sideos, “You’re not fit to lead us out of here. You can’t form a plan to save your own life and you risk the rest of ours with you stupid rash decisions.”
     “And you think you can do better?” Sideos sneered back, “You don’t have the guts to lead us out of here, not to mention you’re obviously far too distracted most of the time.”
     Neep suddenly stepped out between the two, “GENTLEIRKS! We don’t have time to fight between us; we need to work together if we’re going to get out of this alive.”
     Sideos pointed one knife-blade finger to Kaiser and narrowed his gaze. “As soon as we’re off this planet, I’m going to kill you.” He then turned and walked towards the other end of the hall, “COME ON EVERYONE! We need to get moving!”
     The others began to follow, gathering up whatever weapons and ammo they could find.
     Kaiser and Sirra however, lagged to the back. Sirra nudged Kaiser and smiled sweetly, “Are you really going to fight him?”
     “Absolutely,” Kaiser quickly replied, his eyes locked forward. “Even if it takes me to the end of my life, I’ll make sure that Sideos will die a horribly painful death.”
     Sirra giggled, “I love it when you say ‘painful’ like that.”
     Back up at the front of the group, Sideos was still furious about Kaiser’s open rebellion against his leadership. How dare anyone defy Sideos! He was Lord of Seven! His eyes narrowed as he turned a corner, he swore, that even if it took him to the end of his life, he’d make sure Kaiser died a painfully horrible death.
     Within the rest of the group, the events of the hall were still being discussed.
     “I can’t believe Sideos failed us like that,” Gar growled out, “Kaiser should be leader. At least he won’t collapse at the sound of someone wailing in the dark.”
     “I didn’t see you run up and slice at it,” Neep sharply commented back, “And besides, we were all scared. It wasn’t like anyone us had ever seen anything like that before.”
     “Tika has!” Tika grinned, “Big scary went BOO! Tika barked at it so it wented away!”
     They all looked at Tika with raised antennae for a moment before turning back to one another.
     “I don’t think we should be so hard on him,” Tamy mused out loud, “A phobia is a phobia, nothing anyone can do to really cure it. He couldn’t help being so scared.”
     Cello shook her had, “I don’t care. He’s supposed to be an invader and not just that, a vicious killer. He’s meant to be past cowering like a child.”
     Scintille smiled slightly, “Well I’m with Neep. We all got scared at that… whatever it was, and besides it’s not like it’s going to happen again, so as long as there are no more blood-shadow things, we’re fine with Sideos being our leader.”
     Kunst chuckled. “Well, I think we shouldn’t even rely on leaders so much, not in such a chaotic situation like this.”
     “They’re not all that important are they?” Vagnur added, “We can all basically look out for ourselves if needed.”
     Kunst placed an arm around her lovers waist, “Of course, we should always protect our loved ones.”
     “Of course,” Vagnur replied, placing an arm around Kunst and smiling.
     Katz rolled her eyes, “I don’t even know what most of you are all talking about, isn’t getting out of this place the most important thing?”
     Slert nodded, “Yes, escaping is the number one priority here, not who’s ordering who around.”
     “You gotta understand,” Meg squeaked from where she was walking beside Tika, “These guys have always thought of themselves as the best of all of us here, so it’s natural they’d want to take immediate command.”
     “What are you guys talking about?” The group looked down the corridor to see Sideos had already walked ahead of them, obviously too caught up in his own thoughts to notice everyone else falling behind. “You need to HURRY! It won’t be long until the armada get here!”
     He turned and looked back down the corridor. “Ok, Vaggy? Kunsty? Which way?”
     The couple soon pointed the way, and the group continued onward. However, at one point they got lost and after a moment of wandering through the many identical looking corridors, with everyone trying to give directions, Sideos finally snapped. “Where the fuck did you come up with these directions?”
     “I believe you’re the one who said to go down this way,” Tamy replied, completely unamused.
     “I ask again, why are we following this guy?” Kaiser grumbled.
     “Shut up!” Sideos barked out, “I need time to think.”
     “There seems to be a doctor or drone or whatever in here, bleeding to death,” Neep pointed to a cell they happened to be standing in front of. The others turned to see a rather brutal looking sight. Blood was smeared everywhere, and the rather destroyed body of one irken was lying on the floor while another, equally gore covered irken, sat at the back of the room. He was bleeding quite profusely, especially from his empty eye sockets.
     “Oh and a dead inmate… damn this second floor just gets creepier and creepier…” Sideos mused out loud. He shrugged and turned to the others, “Still, Logic says he may know a way out.”
     The irkens looked to each other, before Sirra decided to address the dying irken drone. “Excuse me!” She called softly, trying to sound polite, “Might you be so kind to point us out?”
     Kaiser chuckled, “Darling, you have such a way with drones. Allow me.” He coughed into a fist and then yelled, “Hey DRONE! Where’s the damn exit?”
     The drone didn’t answer. Sideos shook his head, “This is stupid, let’s just keep moving.”
     “I’m in far too much physical anguish to think clearly,” The group all turned to look at the dying drone, his voice was a hoarse whisper, one had to strain one’s antennae to hear him, “But keep going down the hall. There are less delusionals down that way…they’ll help you.” He then smiled in an odd, satisfied way before he slid down the wall, splashing into a small pool of his own blood, completely unconscious.
     Sideos frowned. “I dunno if we should trust a drone.”
     Neep shrugged, “Why not? It wasn’t like he had anything to lose by lying to us.”
     Katz nodded, “Yea, I say we follow his advice.”
     Sideos frowned. “I’m the leader; I say we don’t follow his advice.”
     Suddenly, Meg appeared from behind the legs of Kunst. “I say we vote on it!” The group immediately erupted into a collective agreement.
     Sideos frowned then suddenly collected himself. “As leader, I say we vote on the matter!” He coughed to clear his throat as the group all rolled their eyes at once. “Right, who votes for not following his advice?” Sideos stuck his hand up. No one else did.
     Kaiser suddenly shouted, “Who votes for following his advice!” Everyone quickly stuck their hands up. Kaiser blinked in mock surprise as Sideos glared at him with gritted teeth.
     “Well,” Kaiser smirked at his rival, “That settles that, doesn’t it!”
     The group began to walk past Sideos, who was still fuming at Kaiser. It was then he decided that Kaiser was clearly becoming too popular in his tribe and as leader he needed to do something to regain his authority and respect.
     He needed to form some kind of plan to humiliate and or kill Kaiser.
     His eyes narrowed as he walked, but how? Sideos didn’t mind admitting that Kaiser was one hell of a fighter and any one-on-one combat would be victorious, obviously, for Sidoes himself, but he’d be weakened by the fight. No, this needed brains, not brawns. He just needed a way to show him up, to expose his weaknesses…
     His eyes drifted to the irken hanging on Kaiser’s arm, and a sly grin came onto Sideos’s face. He could use Sirra against him. But how?