He watched through the glass for a few minutes, as he had every day for the past few months. On the other side, technicians worked tirelessly to create the ultimate weapon. They attempted to integrate the World Machine into Angar-Ryllan armour, specifically, his. It was not an easy process. The machine seemed to resist the attempts to pervert its purpose, to tear it asunder and remake it as a willing slave to the empire. In a way, it was like mastering the elements, and the excitement on the other side of the glass drew him there like a moth to flame. This was the weapon with which he would achieve his goals, and it took only the sacrifice of a single man.

The Fireen’s energy scarred face looked back at him in the glass and he noticed it, tracing the familiar lines of his very human appearance, marred by the devastation he was caught up in and the entity trapped within his soul. He turned away, finished with watching his designs for one day. There were other things that required his attention, and he had to play the good little soldier for just a while longer. Just a short while. 

“One of our scouts hasn’t returned.” The officer told him as he walked into the briefing room. Around him stood the blue faced Angar-Ryllan warriors who had for whatever reason made it to high rank. He was the odd one out, as per usual, as he sat down and regarded them with his usual irritated frown. Usually he wouldn’t have sat, but they were all sitting and to stand would only further alienate himself and probably make him look weak. The thought of how the Angar-Ryllans regarded him caused a flash of anger to flood his system with adrenaline, which he clamped down on. He had to resist the urge to take a deep breath as the briefing continued.

“Why am I supposed to care?” He asked, finally, wondering why he had been invited to talk about such a trivial matter. They didn’t need his skills for something like this.

“Well, ahem, Fury, we expected you to be interested because the scout’s last report had detected technology of a similar make to that of the Machine you recovered.” 

“What?” 

“The Machine in tech-”

“I heard you, take me to the scout’s last location.” 

“The ship is already outfitted, you can leave within the hour.”

“Ten minutes.”

In took less than half a day to find the last known location of the missing scout ship, in a solar system with only one habitable planet. It was as they closed on that planet that Fury felt a familiar feeling indeed. An energy signature, one that he remembered well. Not that of his greatest enemy, fortunately for the scouts, for they would have been lucky to survive his departure. Rather, the more subtle presence of one he had thought was gone, killed in Fury’s pursuit of revenge like so many others. It was impossible though, it must have been some similar piece of technology, carried by another of his people perhaps? But Fury’s power had only led him astray once before, and this time he was almost certain it couldn’t be carry over like the Nexus incident. It could surely only be one man.

[i]Kanitah.[/i]