“What do you mean ‘the system is devoid of any and all enemies’?!” Arkhan shouted through the holocomm at his wife. He was both confused and angered, and quite rightly so. The damnable extragalactic invaders had somehow slipped through Arcadia’s fingers, which was something no one (save for the practically omniscient Asharia) had anticipated.

“I mean exactly what I said. There is no trace of the invaders here in this system, for they all seem to have packed up and left in quite the hurry.”

Asharia’s calm and collected, if not slightly annoying, way of replying ground on her husband’s nerves, but both sides of the marriage knew perfectly well that Arkhan had little recourse for Asharia’s casual flippancy. Arkhan may have a near limitless legion of killer robots at his disposal, but by this point Asharia could take on the whole universe and emerge unscathed. By that logic, Arkhan had no other choice but to try not to rage at his wife too much, lest she decide that he was ‘too much of a hassle’ and ‘remove him from the equation’.

Sometimes, the unstoppable and uncontrollable WMD you have at your disposal has a will of its own, and that will enjoys toying with its ‘wielder’.

“Well then, is there any trace of where they ran off to?”

Asharia looked over the hologram of her husband and smirked a little.

“Are you going to apologize for that outburst, or do I need to start relieving some of the stress that your little release of anger caused in me?”

Arkhan held back a sigh and ‘apologized’ to his wife. This whole song and dance was getting real old real fast.

“Glad you could see that it is a good idea not to poke the dragon.” Asharia joked before continuing to tell her spouse what was going on. “There is evidence that the massive idiots that keep trying to restore the UGN made a way for the invaders to escape. More specifically, they created a ‘relatively’ stable wormhole, and the invaders exploited it to run from us and into the ‘loving’ embrace of The Resistance and their backers.”

Arkhan looked over the documents that had been sent to him on his side of the call and this time he could not hold back the grumbling that had built up in his head over time.

“Why do these people always manage to fuck things up?”

Asharia looked in no particular direction and shrugged.

“Then please, follow the invaders and deal with them.”

Asharia shook her head in response.

“Why not?” Arkhan asked, his temper starting to rise, only being held back by the knowledge that lashing out at Asharia would be a poor choice.

“Because it is not the threat it once was. The invader seems to have had a ‘change of heart’, so to speak, and that is why it ran from us and into the territory controlled by the idiots and fools. From my observations, it seems intent on cleaning up the mess that is the FGR and their backers for us. Therefore, traversing the wormhole and continuing this war is unnecessary, and I will not put more of our people at risk to eradicate a foe that wishes to turn over a new leaf.”

Arkhan shut his eyes and strained to keep the anger inside of himself from leaking out, but it was getting harder and harder to do so.

“Then,” Arkhan nearly growled, “might I ask how are we supposed to tell our people that the monster that took so much from us is no longer our enemy? How do you think they will take it? Do you expect them to just obey and accept this?”

“I expect them to listen and obey, so long as you tell them to.”

Asharia’s words were not what Arkhan wanted to hear.

“And they will just follow my orders without question? You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.” Asharia said with what seemed to be absolute certainty. “At this point these people are effectively locked into a genetically infused cult of personality, with you as the infallible and perfect divine ruler. They do what you want and rationalize it as any cult member would do, and in fact with the way things are going they may very well end up becoming connected to you in the same way that your creations are. Truth be told, you are not so different from the invaders in regards to your gestalt consciousness and your ‘drones’ mindless devotion and will to serve.”

Arkhan wanted to lash out with words, but he knew that what she was saying was true. This fact angered him to no end, but the fact of the matter was that he had no way of stopping what was inevitably coming. All he could hope to do would be to emerge from this ‘Singularity’ with his own will still intact.

“Then, let’s get this show on the road. For all our sakes, I hope what you said is one hundred percent truth.”

Arkhan cut the connection, the only thing he could do to show his frustration, but Asharia didn’t mind. Getting Arkhan riled up was one of the few ways she had of keeping herself entertained, as she had a very, very long time left to be ‘alive’, and she therefore needed something to do to occupy her time. She had not expected that Arkhan would attempt to connect with the Hive Mind of Zeyhris, but the fact that he had indeed done so was just another thing that gave her some enjoyment.

The result of this momentary connection had been intriguing; that the all-consuming horror that is Zeyhris would ever splinter like this was unexpected to say the least, not to mention the fact that even though the Hive Mind had attempted to isolate the problem and ultimately failed to keep itself from becoming something entirely new in the process. Her temporary spouse had thrown a spanner in the works every time he did anything, but she knew why that was. Being what she was, she had the complete understanding of who she was and where she was, not to mention what her role was and why she had to play it.

Using a bit of magic to generate a humanoid skull from seemingly nothing, she held it just so and recited a bit of Shakespeare.

“All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their entrances and their exits, and one man in his time will play many a part.”

She knew her part to play, and she would at least attempt to make sure the show ended as well as possible. After all, how could she disappoint her adoring fans from beyond the universe?