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Another four ships were lost at the battle where the Queen was killed, but the bulk of the fleet retreated. They have lost a total of a nearly a third of their fleet, several hundred capital ships, since the Creepers caught up with them and nearly cost the Guardians their moon-sized vessel.

Nishant's return, along with the strange affliction that had morphed his body was of great concern. After he nearly destroyed a portion of the Guardian Moon, while trying to eradicate the Creeper infection, he didn't prove hostile though. In fact, Calvin Redding vouched for him and said that he was still Nishant. So the mutated springhare was granted access on board with the fleets, where they rushed him back to the orbital platform in the Huli system, known as P.A.W. while the rest of the fleet stayed as escorts to the Guardian Moon.

There he waited in some large chambers, the red scales that had afflicted his body shining bright in the illuminations. The scaly wings that have grown on his back fluttered lightly, and the scales moved seamlessly with his fur. He had full control over the mutations on his body.

Nishant watched as a few dozen aliens walked into the room, sitting in bleachers around him. He could even recognize some of them, the red wolf he used to pilot around on secret missions, the black panther who commanded those missions, the red fox who commanded all of the fleets. The aliens he didn not recognize, some even by their species. There were several Guardians, a few Stealths and Beasts, but also one or two furred or feathered aliens that he has never seen before.

"A lot has changed in a month," said Nishant staring at the aliens and his kin as they settled. One of his eyes had changed to a dark red color, almost the color of blood.

"Pilot Nishant Gerbo," Lead General Vale said after the room had quieted. He looked down at the springhare in the middle of the room, the affliction being a disturbance. "We have brought you in to debrief you on where you have been, and what has happened to your body. Are you saying that you think only a month has passed since you went missing?"

"I know only a month has passed, sir," replied Pilot Gerbo.

"Your ship was found empty on a large planetoid in an adjacent system of Velmaria almost three years ago," General Vale corrected him. "We have been at war ever since, fighting the Creeper infection. You destroyed a creature that in the reports of few officers and civilians have called the 'Perfected Infection' based on some ancient documents we have found. Only Yukiomaru Alexander has claimed to kill one of them before a few years ago."

"Yukiomaru Alexander?" questioned Nishant. It was his mission to find him. "He's alive?"

"He is," replied the General. "He's finishing off the Creeper infection on Canidera now. He'll be up to join this debriefing momentarily. Can you please tell us what happened to you after you crashed your ship near Velmaria."

Nishant stared back up at the General, and the aliens around the room. The Guardians have returned, the Stealths seemed to have joined us, and other alien races are even here. "I must have travelled faster than light without space-bending technology that'd keep time consistent."

"How were you able to travel without a ship?"

"After I crashed on the small moon, the Creepers had sent a few scouts to finish me off," started Nishant, speaking loudly to the room. "I fled with what I could over the rough and barren terrain. The Creepers landed a few infected Stealth aliens near the crash site and started searching for me. There was no way I could salvage the ship after the damage it received, so my only hope was for rescue. All I thought to do was to evade the enemy and survive. I climbed over mountains, ran across the bottom of craters rounded massive canyons. I was starting to grow concerned about the oxygen in my suit, since it'd only last for a few more days. I didn't know if a rescue would come before then so I looked for a place to rest, so that I'd use less oxygen."

"My suit time said approximately a day has passed since I crashed," continued the springhare. "I could see the Creepers still pursuing me. I was reckless and decided to hide in a canyon. I tried to find a way down but the Creepers were getting closer as I could see them on the horizon. So I found a place to slide down the canyon wall. It was stupid, and rough as I hit several rocks on the way down that nearly breached my suit. At the bottom, I had also sprained my high ankle. That's when I saw a cave nearby but it wasn't natural. It almost looked as if it had a frame supporting the entrance. I was desperate for a place to rest so I limped my way to the cave.

"It turned out not to be a cave at all but some ruins of another civilization. Right here, behind the Black Line. Much of the territory is still unexplored, let alone each planetary body but I was still surprised to see the ruins. Ancient computers, weapons, planetary armors, equipment, small ships, machines that I didn't even know what they were. I stayed hiding in the cave for about another day and the Creepers never found it so I started to explore the ruins. The armors were ancient, decayed but they looked to fit our anatomy surprisingly well. Anyway, I accidentally discovered that the ruins still had a power source when I activated one of the computers. The language was the same as the one found on the document about Creeper classifications that CoHeart had found.

"I couldn't read it though so I fiddled with more controls until a map came up. It was of our entire galaxy, and three nearby galaxies. There was a line that connected our galaxy, the very rock I stood on then, to another galaxy. One of the small ships started to power up and moved on a track toward another machine that also gained power. No rescue had answered my distress call, so I thought it was an opportunity to escape. I went in the vessel that sealed itself once I was in, and it moved toward the machine. Next thing I know is the ship is wrapped around in some bright light. After about an hour of being trapped in that ship, it opened. I didn't even feel it accelerate or decelerate, but it had landed on another planet. This one green with natural vegetation instead of the Creeper's filth. I had no idea where I was so I explored, and found similar ruins built as big as a mountainside. The things I have learned there!"

Nishant looked at the Guardians who occupied the room as well. "The Creepers came to your planet by an asteroid, did they not?"

"It is true," replied one of the brightly colored aliens. "An asteroid crashed into our ocean and Creepers started to appear form the sea. We have never found them originating from any other planet than our own."

"Because the Creepers are not from our galaxy," Nishant declared. He obviously knew something, and the Guardians' expressions showed their surprise and desire to learn what he knew. "The planet I had landed on was not in our galaxy. The ruins there were active as well, still had some source powering them. The ship I had took travelled faster than we can even imagine of doing with our ships. The maps I saw had showed that it had taken to me to the spherical galaxy adjacent to our own. For a week I studied the maps and ancient texts, and slowly I started to understand them; as if the text was created to be understood by me. It detailed of a war far worse than our own. A war that covered the entire galaxy, and had left it completely barren. Even the world I was on was barren, with no animals, just vegetation. Do you know it feels to be not only the only one on a planet, but the only being in an entire galaxy? I have never felt so alone. It cannot even be described.

"The galaxy was barren because the Creepers have waged war with those who left the ruins. I read their history. It was fascinating. The theory is the Creepers were created on a planet run by a dangerous and self-destructive race. They were trying to create crops that didn't have weed or bug infestations, as the result their planet developed plants to resist those infections. That civilization countered by creating another pesticide. This continued for a thousand years, while that civilization overpopulated and destroyed the natural vegetation. The balance of nature was thrown off heavily and the civilization would have killed themselves, if their planet didn't do it first. Plants started to grow nerves and the ability to control their limps the way the Creepers do. The civilization was taken by such surprise that they did not even fight back as their planet was overrun with the first Creepers. They had limited technology to travel in space, so the Creepers took that technology and adapted it until they were able to travel to another system.

"By the time they reached the planet I was standing on, they had already grown what you call Klienestov's and were a significant threat. They had consumed countless civilizations but the ones who built those ruins were defiant, and thus the war started. For five thousand years they fought, the last civilization retreated across the entire galaxy several times until they started to burn every planet they came across. It was costly, and has left the galaxy barren over three hundred million years later. Or the years of that planet, according to the records. I don't know how long it really was. The war wasn't going well still so they not only burned the planets, but completely annihilated them. One planet near the rim of the galaxy was destroyed, send its earthen rocks in every direction. One of which, I assume, travelled for those millions of years between our galaxies. That is until it crashed on the Guardian's home world."

There was a murmur through the aliens.

"Also, there was a creature on that planet they called the last of its kind. The descriptions told it to be a Klienestov. One that we are all familiar with. The one we have called Aggressor. A creature that had survived for longer than we have ever thought. It nearly died on the asteroid but when it crashed on the Guardian's home world, it slowly woke from its slumber and regained its strength. Their war has become ours. All of this I had learned through their record, but it was incomplete. There were no Creepers on the planet I had landed on so they must have been defeated."

"Wait, Nishant," General Vale interrupted. "You say that Aggressor, that Yukiomaru Alexander destroyed was the oldest surviving Creeper?"

"Yes, that is what I am saying," Nishant answered.

"How do you know?"

"Well, as I said, the Creepers were defeated in the galaxy near us. I found this out by running into a holographic A.I. Badly damaged but it was an intelligence. It told me about what was incomplete in the records. The war had continued, and had cost the galaxy significant harm, and the surviving civilization. They had developed new weapons. Biological ships that could fight on their own, and a biological parasite that they could infect themselves with that'd give them the strength to defeat the most powerful Creeper forms, the Perfected Infections. Infecting themselves however came at a great cost, because they could not let this infection they created go rampant so they sterilized themselves. Unable to reproduce, their numbers dropped to near extinction levels. The A.I. told me that some samples still survived, and advised that I use it. That is how I have become this abomination."

Nishant turned to show the room the scales that have infected his body.

"It is an aggressive infection. It can only be transmitted through direct contact which is why I suggest everyone to stay clear from me."

"Why did the A.I. suggest you infect yourself?"

"It knew we were at war," Nishant said. "The civilization had won the war in their galaxy with their new weapons but the damage was done and there was no way they could rebuild a civilization. And they were used to war, five thousand years of it. They knew that the nearby galaxies could have been infected by the destruction of the thousands of plants they destroyed. So they started to track the trajectory of the planets they had destroyed with technology we are not even close to achieving yet. They followed Creeper infected planet debris to the nearby galaxies and built these gateways, that I travelled through for quick transportation. The Creepers would set off a self-destruct sequence that'd deny them access to this technology. Let us be thankful for that.

"They searched and searched for the Creepers and where they have landed, but their civilization was dying. They could not survive living off their ships, and by the time they had finished building their outpost, there was only a few hundred left. They could not continue the war, their biological weapons have died and they dared not infect themselves and sterilize themselves. Slowly, they faded away until they were no more. The A.I. told me all this, and instructed they I go back to help us win the war before it leaves our galaxy barren as well. The A.I. had another ship linked to the gateway back on the rock I had crash-landed about a month ago. Sorry, about three years ago. Thus I had returned, and this affliction on my body grants me similar abilities as the Perfected Infections, so I don't need to use a ship to travel faster than light.

"That is where I have been, and how I came to be," Nishant said. "But one more thing, that civilization that fought the Creepers to their extinction was a covenant of different races. After living together and fighting together for so long they became capable of breeding with each other. They kept their DNA stored in a ship that was lost in our galaxy. The A.I. had taken the form of its original mind, a bipedal cougar that looks just like us. We are not from this galaxy either."

Nishant watched all those around the room as they absorbed all this information that he had learned. Not only was his race foreign to the galaxy, but it also had been fighting the Creepers for millions of years. The Guardians now know why their planet was first infected as well.

"That is why Aggressor attacked you so recklessly," claimed one of the Guardians. "He recognized your race."

Nishant nodded. "They originally found the Velmarians beyond the Black Line. After that, Aggressor, who was weakened after a battle with the Guardians, charged straight for us. He ran into the Stealths first though, where he regained his strength again before he started to search for us. Yukiomaru Alexander found him first though and was able to cripple him long enough for us to retreat and regroup."

All the aliens in the room were still digesting the information, even the ones that Nishant didn't recognize. The origin of their true enemy was a lot to think on, and also that they have been given a weapon capable of destroying them.

What fur remained on the springhare's body bristled at an earthy scent. It was the scent of a Creeper. Turning toward the entrance of the room, he saw one standing there unnoticed by all the others.

The white fur showed no sign of infection, but the golden eyes did have a green tint to them. The fox was staring back at Nishant with the same surprise that everyone had when they first saw him. Nishant sprung forward, exposed his afflicted claws and charged straight at Yukiomaru.