One of the age old questions in computer customization is what looks good?

This is a skin I've been using. Yea, it has gigantic borders and it's not nearly as usable as many other skins. But for me...It's fun. It's neat. It's different.

In the old days, a skin like this would slow my computer way down. But as software such as WindowBlinds gets better and hardware gets faster, there's really no penalty anymore. You really have the freedom to do some weird stuff with your computer.

I also wonder how many WindowBlinds users remember to take advantage of the fact that you can change the color and gamma of a skin so that even if the original author makes a skin too light or too dark or just a strange color that you can change it.

Now if only I could find a matching ObjectDock skin.

The Reluctant

A Graphic Novel Outline

Brad Wardell, July 2006

Chapter 5: Monsters & Eternity
Chapter 4: My dad isn’t a hero
Chapter 3: You will do what we tell you to do…
Chapter 2: We're from the government...
Chapter 1: They're coming for you Ha Ha.

Mr. Miller, Amanda Miller’s father and DL Bradley’s father-in-law has arrived at DL Bradley’s house.  The Millers were very close to their only daughter, Amanda. They spent a lot of time at the Bradley house after Amanda died to help DL adjust.

But DL never did adjust. Frank Miller had known DL for 15 years and always thought the young man to be solid if perhaps a bit cynical.  But DL was constant. He had not changed since he met the man.  Frank Miller was certain of one thing, if anything were to happen to Ethan Miller, DL Bradley would be gone never to be seen again he was sure of it.  That DL Bradley loved his son was without a doubt. And now he was here to take Ethan away from DL for his safety.

DL Bradley had already managed to kill 3 of the other-worldly powerful “Intruders”.  In the decades the vile Intruders had been on this world killing millions of people, only 1 of them had ever died.  Now, in the past 72 hours, 3 more had died at the hands of one seemingly ordinary man.

Frank Miller had served in World War II and in Korea. He had seen war at its worst. DL never mentioned any service but he could see in DL’s eyes that he had seen a lot more than he let on. DL now had that look of foreboding. The grim determination of a soldier as he prepares himself for battle. And he did not want his only child to see it. And for that reason, Frank Miller was here to take Ethan away from that war.

Frank: DL, don’t you think it would be wiser to go into hiding? You’re a heck of an engineer and a great lad but these Intruders will be coming for you. There’s supposedly only around a dozen – now less than a dozen – all over the world.

DL had known Frank even before he met Amanda. He was perhaps the only man on this world that DL fully trusted.  It was now or never.

DL: I am going to kill any who come here.

Frank was about to chuckle when he realized that DL wasn’t kidding.

Frank: How can you possible hope to do that? The government give you some new secret weapon?

DL: No. I don’t need any weapons. In all the years you’ve known me, you’ve never asked me much about my past.

Frank: None of my business, I suppose.

DL: Maybe. When Amanda died, I…was reminded why I didn’t get close to people. Sooner or later, they die.

Frank: Everyone dies, son, sooner or later.

DL: Not everyone.

Frank: What do you mean by that?

DL: I have been alive a very long time, Frank. A very long time. And the longer I live, the more I can do.

# # #

Meanwhile, in Shanghai China, the primary base for the Intruders, 9 Intruders have gathered to discuss what happened to Tendath.

Tendath, an “Intruder”, faced DL Bradley and him and Kanath were defeated and Kanath died. Tendath was injured but escaped.

Tendath: My lord, this human defeated the two of us in exactly the way he said.

Tendath was speaking to Lord Vagath, and while Vegath looked like Tendath in that he looked like a human, he absolutely reeked power and malevolence. Tendath could potentially walk down the street and blend in as a normal human. Vagath could not. He had an otherworldly quality about him that made him menacing from afar.

The race that the Intruders belonged to were not of this Earth. But more than that, they were far more varied from one to the next than human beings are. One Intruder could be, literally, hundreds of times more powerful than another. Vagath was one of them.

The Intruders, as a race, had a problem. Each subsequent generation was less than the previous in terms of might and potency. Vagath was literally eons older than Tendath who himself was thousands of years old. Their mission to Earth involved trying to solve the problem that their race was experiencing.  And part of that solution involved harvesting the life energy of these mortal humans while they still contained as much life energy as possible.

Vagath: Are you certain it was not just by luck? He had one of your weapons.

Tendath: No human should be able to hurt us, not even with one of our weapons.

Vagath: Truth. You are certain he is not a renegade?

Tendath: I am positive. He is definitely not one of us.

Vagath: I do not want to have to report to the emperor this set back without having first dealt with the problem.  I will deal with him myself.

…back at the Bradley house…

Frank: I don’t understand you then. If you believe you could deal with these Intruders, why haven’t you?

DL: Because…I don’t care.

Frank: How can you not care? Are you that cynical? They’ve murdered millions of people.

DL: It’s not that black and white. It’s easy to say that but for me, I’ve done this hundreds and hundreds of times. 

Let me use an analogy that probably won’t improve your opinion of me but might grant some understanding. 

Imagine if you were on a world in which everyone lived exactly one hour while you lived a normal lifespan.  Let’s say you had the power to save people from an untimely death, which in their case would be deaths that occurred before their hour was up.

Would you do it? Would you give up spending time with your family and those you cared about to continually go and help people?

Frank: I think I would.

DL: Let’s be specific – let’s say you did decide to help. You have the power, you should help right? And let’s say you do that for a thousand years – knowing just how many generations of these people have gone. You have no personal connection to them. And they have no personal connection to you. They can’t even begin to relate to you. And as soon as you get to know some, their hour has passed and there is always – an endless – number of things threatening them.

Frank: I think I understand what you’re saying but still, I don’t know.

DL: You would know. Believe me. It’s just a matter of time. Because in the end, only one thing matters.

Frank: What’s that?

DL: Living each moment. Trying to get as much out of the tiny slice of time that we’re given.  I don’t care about people in general. I care about individuals. I care about Ethan. I care about you and Mrs. Miller. I cared about Amanda – and even with her, with all that I can do, I could not keep her hour from ending early.

If you live long enough and have the power to go…to places…different planes of time. You will eventually realize that there’s always an Intruder or a Dread Lord or a plague or megalomaniac or menace of some sort in which people would be greatly aided if someone with the ability to make a difference stepped in. 

But eventually, it is all for nothing, because in the end, their hour will end no matter what you do.

Next: Retribution…

Over the next few weeks you're likely going to notice some changes in how wallpapers are being moderated.

Previously, only a very small percentage of wallpapers were let through based on the views of our volunteer moderators who have years of experience in skinning.

Starting today, Zoomba, myself, and Karmagirl have taken over moderation directly in order to broaden the wallpaper selection.

This will mean a lot more wallpapers will come through.  Not everyone will be happy of course because a lot of wallpapers that are plain or not terribly creative will come through.  But we are looking to have more wallpapers that appeal to a wider audience of user.

We will still be moderating wallpapers. So people who load up Bryce and start rendering flying unicorns or take a picture of The Simpsons and paste it on a picture of your backyard are still out of luck. 

Firing Squad has a pretty detailed interview of some of the things going into Dark Avatar.

The expansion pack for Galactic Civilizations II is due out this Fall and can be pre-ordered directly (with a $5 discount too!).

Check out Firing Squad (it's one of our favorite sites!).

The Reluctant

A Graphic Novel Outline

Brad Wardell, July 2006

Chapter 4: My dad isn’t a hero
Chapter 3: You will do what we tell you to do…
Chapter 2: We're from the government...
Chapter 1: They're coming for you Ha Ha.

Inside a bunker. Inside a conference room. Around a long table men are meeting including agent Bill Gerard who is being interviewed by a general in dress uniform.

General: You say he threatened you.

Agent Gerard: He did more than that. He hurt my daughter.

General: How is that possible? Your daughter was 45 miles away.

Agent Gerard: You would have had to been there. It was the way he said it. He knew she had fallen and broken her leg. He caused it.

General: Our recordings show nothing. They just have him and you staring and each other and then you ordering the guard to take him home.

Agent Gerard: I can’t speak to that. But this man is dangerous. He may not be an intruder but he is definitely  not on our side either.

General: We have analyzed the footage of his encounter with the two Intruders. There is a 26% possibility that there is something unusual with him.  But his blood test was conclusive. Compare that to the two Intruders we’ve recovered – we can’t even take their blood. Their “skin” is completely invulnerable.  This DL Bradley can bleed, therefore he can die.

Agent Gerard: He may be human but he is a lot more than that. What if he can choose his level of invulnerability at a given time, make it so that we can take a blood sample?

General: Doctor, were there any anomalies in the blood tests?

A tall, thin doctor stands up.

Doctor: No. The only odd thing was that his DNA had a minor abnormality in protein 48.

General: What does that mean?

Doctor: Protein 48 is often used, crudely, in forensics to get a rough age of a suspect if we have a sample of their DNA.  As we grow older, the protein strand shrinks in size. Typically when someone dies of old age, nearly half of it is gone.

General: And what of DL Bradley’s protein?

Doctor: That’s the thing, he has no protein 48. Which means either he was born with an unusual genetic defect where he doesn’t have it or he’s so old that that protein has long since disappeared.

# # #

DL and Ethan head towards their house in the truck. The house is completely surrounded by reporters. The slowly make their way into the drive and rush into the house to avoid reporters who are now camping on the outskirts of their house.

DL: The fools. Don’t they realize that it’s only a matter of time before the Intruders come here and they’re killed?

Ethan: They think you’ll protect them, dad.

DL: That’s insane. The Intruders have killed millions of people. What do they think I’m going to do?

Ethan: You killed 3 of them already dad. I mean, no one has ever even hurt one and you killed three today! They think you are some sort of, I dunno, super hero.

DL: I’m no superhero.

Ethan: How did you really do it dad? You can tell me. The world needs a Superman. A superhero to protect them.

DL: This is the real world, Ethan. It doesn’t work that way.

Ethan: Well why not? Are you saying that if you had super powers you wouldn’t go save the world?

DL gets quiet for a moment and looks down, then looks at his son.

DL: No. I would not.

Ethan: How can you say that?

DL: How? Okay, let’s put Superman in the real world.

First off, he would have no life at all. His Clark Kent gig would fall apart instantly in the real world. Oh look, it’s Superman with glasses.  So his life would be over.

Secondly, the Superman comics wisely start with him in his twenties. But let’s assume that Superman stops aging when he is fully grown. How enthused would Superman be constantly saving the world after 50 years? 100 years? 5,000 years?

Ethan: I dunno, he’s Superman.

DL: Exactly. He’s a mythical being. But in the real world, a Superman would have a hard time being able to connect to other people outside those he cared for after awhile. The longer he lived, the more he’d realize how transient life really is. He would realize how futile it is to keep his never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Ethan: But these Intruders are bad people. They’re not some bank robbers, they’re aliens who steal people’s kids. They’re monsters.

DL: And I won’t let them hurt you, Ethan. I promise you that.  I’ve called your Papa here to pick you up and take you to his farm with Grandma.  You’ll be safe there.

Ethan: What about you?

DL: Sooner or later, the Intruders will come here and it won’t be safe for you. I will face the consequences of my actions but you will be safe.

Ethan: Someone’s at the door…

Next: Monsters & Eternity

As some people know, the back story to Galactic Civilizations is based on a series of story manuscripts I wrote back many years ago (circa 1988 to 1992).

The Dread Lords and the Arnor are the same race. Just different sides in a war.

But what were they?  Bits and pieces have floated around.  The handle I use on JoeUser.com and elsewhere "Draginol" is a character from this back story.  And he was one of the Mithrilar. 

So any discussion of the Arnor and Dread Lords starts out with the Mithrilar who were the beings of power who were assigned to be guardians of the universe.  One of the Mithrilar, Draginol, misused an artifact of the original creation called the Telenanth to create the Arnor.

Draginol (the character) is an anti-hero.  He did not start out as a villain.  And that story will go into a lot of detail in future installments of the game. And it will tie up the physical similarities between the Arnor, humans and Altarians.

But the question is, where did the Dread Lords go bad?

The answer is - time.  Draginol the Mithrilar created the Arnor in two groups. One group, the first group he put the most effort into and they are most like him. The second group he put less time into and they are less like him.  The key ingredient that makes the difference is that one group feels the passage of time while the other lacks that capability.

Could you imagine living 150 years? How about 500 years? How about 10,000 years? How about 1 billion years?  Who do you think would be best equipped to handle that? The beings who marked the passage of time or the beings who had no concept of time that we can relate to?

The Arnor were one race for a long while. Millions of years.  But over time -- literally -- the passage of time changed one group while the others remained the same.  When other life forms began to evolve, the Arnor cared little about it but the Dread Lords saw these life forms as play things. What is a lifespan of 100 years if you've lived 10 million years? What kind of understanding or comprehension could something that dies almost as soon as it's born have? Are they even really sentient?

But to the Arnor, the amount of time they lived didn't prove they had any more or less value. They looked to guide them and help them.  By contrast, the Dread Lords saw them as nothing but things for amusement and any sense of mercy of kindness had long since gone away. 

The Dread Lords were the ones most like their creator who, upon nearly wiping out the other Mithrilar, was finally thrown down on a planet that eventually came to be called Altaria.  His mere presence on that world altered the evolution of that planet and gave rise to a second sentient species that look like the fallen Mithrilar who in turn looks human.  This second sentient species eventually outcompeted the first who became known as the Drath and the Drath were left on the brink of extinction until they eventually found ways off the planet in ways that aren't discussed here.

One of the driving cores that leads to downfall in the mythology is the unrelenting power of time to wear down even the noblest of creations. That minds that have been evolved to exist for only so long are not well suited to exist thousands, even millions of times longer. And that time can lead to madness and worse.

In the end, the Arnor were able to defeat the Dread Lords and banish them to a pocket dimension. They won, despite being weaker, because they had, literally, infinite patience while the Dread Lords were always looking for a final confrontation and hence were more prone to be led to their doom by the temptation for a definitive ending.

Of course, no one knows what then happened to the Arnor.  Most have assumed that they disappeared.  But that is, of course, an unwise assumption. The Arnor, unlike their brethren, were never interested in conquest or even overt interaction in the galaxy. The galaxy, indeed the universe, is a big place. No one has ever found Arnoria after all.

The other big unanswered question that we will eventually have to get to is why humans? Did humans, or at the very least an individual human, become so powerful as to be able to create a race of super beings and destroy god-like beings? And how could humans, who hadn't even evolved, manage to be present at the dawn of creation in order to exert this influence?  It's not, as if a fleet of human ships has managed to escape to a pocket dimension in which beings of incredible power lived and full of devices of immense function are just laying around...

So you want to make a DVD eh? Well good luck. Because no matter what you do, no matter your expertise, it's going to take up time. A lot of time. Whether it be a Mac or a PC, video editing, from the moment you hook up a cam corder to your PC to the actual burning of the final DVD seems destined to suck your life force out.

Why is that anyway? I've talked to a lot of people on this and it's the same story -- the software that manipulates video in any way shape or form seems intentionally slow and unresponsive.  It's ridiculous.

I have spent the better part of 2 days (off an on) trying to get TIVO movies onto DVD.  There are cheap/free ways of doing it that look even more painful but for $50 I decided to just pick up Roxio's MyDVD.  I've managed to get several blue screens, weird crashes, and when it does work, it's incredibly slow and unresponsive to the point where I could be waiting several minutes for it to open a given directory.  Not that the Mac is any better. I originally got a new Mac for a similar purpose and its software was just as unresponsive (though much better designed -- yes, that's iDVD 6 and iMovie though in their favor they're not nearly as flakey but they can't do Tivo recordings or yet handle the new camcorders that use mini-DVDs). 

It's just maddening how much time is wasted on this stuff.  It shouldn't be this slow and inefficient to simply make a DVD of movies.

The Reluctant

A Graphic Novel Outline

Brad Wardell, July 2006

Chapter 3: You will do what we tell you to do…
Chapter 2: We're from the government...
Chapter 1: They're coming for you Ha Ha.

DL sits across a table from a man in a black suit inside what appears to be a bunker. Cement surrounds them both. Behind DL is a door that is closed.

Agent: The blood test confirms you are human. You are not one of them.

DL: I’ve been trying to tell you that for the past two days.

Agent: You will have to forgive our skepticism. In the 65 years that these beings have been here only one has been killed and that involved the United States air force dropping a multi-megaton nuclear bomb on him.

They look like us. For all we knew, you were just a renegade intruder.

DL: Well, I’m not. Can I go now?

Agent: Oh, we’re just getting started.  You may not be one of them and you may be human but you are not telling me everything.  You will stay here until you tell me everything.

DL: And why do you say that?

Agent: Because of this…

The agent presses the button on a machine in front of him on the table. The tape is full of noise and crackling but faintly, but quite audibly the words come floating out…

“Very well. This is what is going to happen. I am going to disable you now and kill your friend here. You can deliver my message – leave me and my son alone or you will regret it.”

Agent: What is your response to that?

DL: I was getting frustrated.

Agent: You knew you could kill him. Your tone is that of utter confidence. You knew you could wound him and kill the other and that is exactly what you did.

DL: If you’ve been watching the news, which I have been since I’ve had a lot of free time these past two days, you can see that it was sheer luck.

Agent: Yes yes, you appeared to fall and turn over. You are good, very good. But not perfect. The news hasn’t been showing the part before where you were able to deflect the blade of the Intruder. We’ve analyzed it even if the media hasn’t, no normal person should have been able to match blows with an Intruder.

DL: Fencing was a hobby.

Agent: Uh-huh. Sort of a ‘civil engineer’ hobby?

DL: What do you want?

Agent: I want to know who you really are.  You don’t exist. I checked. You appeared 15 years ago out of nowhere in the records.  You have no birth certificate, no childhood records, nothing.

DL: Well, after the Intruders came, I would imagine those kinds of things get lost. I haven’t been back home in years. My parents died in the battle of Austin. 

Agent: ..Right.  Or at least, you are right about one thing. We are in a war. And it is a war of survival. I will do anything if I think it helps the human race survive. I think you have knowledge to help in that. You will tell me what I need to know.

DL: Or else what?

Agent: It would be a shame if something were to happen to your son.

There is silence in the room.

DL: You would harm my son? (DL asks with deadly seriousness).

Agent: I would do anything to save the human race. I would make any sacrifice. It is a shame you do not appear to feel the same way.

The room feels still. It is almost unnaturally quiet now.  DL looks down for a moment and then looks at the agent. DL inhales deeply and holds it for a moment. He then says in a voice that is so quiet that it would not be able to be heard if it weren’t for the room being so..quiet.  In fact, it’s so quiet that the cameras in the room can’t even pick up what DL says next.

DL:  Bill, may I call you Bill?  You have a daughter Casey don’t you?  I see by your face that you do.  Right now, even as we speak, she is playing on the playground with your wife Emily. That’s a pretty name, Emily.  Your daughter..oh, no… she has just fallen off the slide and broken her leg.  Good thing she turned, there was a rock just a few centimeters away from where she fell that could have broken her neck. It would be..a shame if that had happened.  I think it’s time you let me go to my son and I go home.

Without another word, DL is taken to his son and a convoy takes DL and Ethan back to the outskirts of Plainwell PA.

Bill Gerard, special agent of the US government, rushes home to see his wife Emily who has just returned from the hospital with their daughter Casey who had an unfortunate accident at the playground and broke her leg.

Next…My dad isn’t a hero.

Got some bad news, our internal network ISP has been down all day today which has restricted our ability to upload files to the servers.

As a result, the 1.3 beta is going to be delayed a few days. Sorry about that. Stay tuned.

In a make shift army tent outside Ethan’s school we see DL and a military officer. Beyond the tent it is a hive of activity as news crews pull in to learn more about what has just occurred in Plainwell, PA…

Officer: Name?

DL: DL.

Officer: Your full name.

DL: DL Bradley.

Officer: That’s not a name, that’s initials.

DL: It’s the name I was given.  DL Bradley.

Officer: Fine.  Place of birth?

DL: Austin Texas.

Officer: Age?

DL: 45.

Officer: Current residence?

DL: Plainwell, Pennsylvania.

Officer: Occupation.

DL: Civil Engineer.

Officer: How did you manage to kill one of the intruders?

DL: As has already been told, it wasn’t me so much their weapon. Their swords apparently are quite lethal.

Officer: Apparently.  We have flown in an expert martial swordsman from…a nearby base to examine it.

DL: That’s nice. I would like to get back to my son now if you don’t mind.

Officer: Very well. Thank you for your cooperation…and service to your country.

DL: Thanks.

There is a commotion. Even as DL reaches his son, the truck near him evaporates and soldiers are scattered everywhere.  Dozens of soldiers react quickly and begin firing at the source of destruction – an intruder.

Intruder: What has happened here? We have sensed the life force of one of our own has been extinguished. You will pay for this. All here and this entire town will suffer the consequences. But we may show mercy if you tell us who is responsible.

DL at first remains silent but his son looks up and tugs on his sleeve. DL sighs and begins to move forward when a soldier holding the sword that was confiscated from the dead Intruder moves forward.

Soldier: It was I. And I challenge you to a duel of honor here and now.

Intruder: I think not. No human could cause us the slightest harm. Not even with that sword.

Soldier: Then how do you explain your dead friend?

Intruder: I do not. Very well, let me demonstrate the error of your ways.

The Soldier maneuvers the katana-like sword with expert agility and skill and strides confidently towards the Intruder. The Intruder makes no move. The Soldier finally makes it to the Intruder and in a display of skill lunges the sword towards the Intruder. The Intruder makes only the slightest move with his own sword to parry and with only the slightest effort impales the soldier. 

The intruder removes the sword and the soldier stands stunned and falls to the ground. The sword makes a loud clacking sound as it hits the pavement.  The fallen soldier’s comrades open fire with everything they have to no effect.

A mortar falls next to the intruder with the only affect being that the sword (and soldier) are blasted in different directions. The Intruder makes no notice of it but instead makes gestures towards the soldiers which results in the evaporation of those soldiers and their equipment.

Intruder: I shall make an example of this town.

The news crews, who were previously fleeing recognize their impending fate resign themselves to going out as true journalists. They video the conflagration to the live satellite feeds. The world is watching in horror as this small town is systematically wiped out along with its people.

Ethan: Dad, what are we going to do?

DL says nothing. He looks down and the dead Intruder’s sword has managed to get blown within steps of DL. 

Time seems frozen. DL and Ethan exist as if they are in a bubble of calm as destruction rains all about them.  DL sighs, picks up the sword and turns to Ethan.

DL: Stay back and stay down. This won’t take long.

It is at this moment that a second Intruder arrives to help begin the extermination of Plainwell PA.  At this moment, he is still relatively far away from the primary Intruder. He calls out to him.

Intruder #2: Tendath, did you learn the fate of Imith?

Tendath: No, the one who claims to have been responsible is now dead. He claimed that he did it with his own weapon.

Intruder #2: Nonsense.  Very well, if we will not know the cause, the secret will die here.  Tendath, a human approaches you.

DL is casually walking up to Tendath the Intruder, sword in hand.  He walks with the same manner that we might be walking with a rake to perform some unwanted chores. His head is down and his walk is unhurried.

Tendath: Human, you are brave to approach. The few remaining fighting men fire their useless weapons that are certainly not useless to you and yet you still approach with the sword of our comrade.  Tell us what happened here and we will spare your life.

DL continues walking, not even looking up, but speaks in a quiet voice half to himself.

DL: I didn’t want to get involved. I really don’t care what you…people do as long as you left me and my family alone. I tried to explain that to your friend but he didn’t listen.

Tendath: What do you mean? 

DL: Your friend left me no choice. But you still have a choice. Leave this place. Leave me and my son alone.  Heck, in time, I won’t even be here anymore and you are, if memory serves, essentially immortal.

Tendath: You..dared kill…a lord?

DL: He left me no choice.

Enraged, Tendath takes out his sword and briskly approaches DL. He makes a motion to the other Intruder to come as well.

Tendath: You will die.  I will cut you in two and lay waste to your city.

The television cameras haven’t been able to pick up the conversation but clearly see a single human being approached by both Intruders. One intruder has his sword out, the other is walking in a hurry towards the human and the Intruder.

They expect to see a repeat of what happened with the soldier. But instead they see DL effortlessly blocking every move that the Intruder makes. It appears that DL is still trying to say something to the Intruder but the Intruder merely seems more agitated. 

The second intruder gestures towards DL and the now familiar shimmering in the air as energy can be seen going seemingly instantly towards DL.  Yet it misses due to what appears to be an almost coincidental move by DL to the side. The blast evaporates a nearby building.

DL: Very well. This is what is going to happen. I am going to disable you now and kill your friend here. You can deliver my message – leave me and my son alone or you will regret it.

And with that, DL steps back and seems to trip and falls on his back. Tendath doesn’t hesitate and jumps to end DL’s life but instead finds himself on his knees as DL appears to blindly roll over with one arm covering his face as if in fear and the other arm swings the sword and cuts Tendath across the legs making him fall to the ground.

With a shriek, Tendath reaches towards DL with his hand and just as the shimmering of energy begins, DL falls onto his back and the energy blast strikes the second intruder instead squarely in the chest knocking him to the ground.

Tendath howls in rage and looks at DL with naked hatred.

Tendath: You will regret this, human. I shall deliver your message and it will be your ruin.

Tendath limps away, concentrates and seemingly disappears.

Soldiers rush up on the fallen Intruder who begins to rise with menace. Bullets continue to bounce harmlessly off of him.  DL strides over and with a quick thrust ends any threat the second Intruder may have represented.

The scene of carnage is now complete. The little downtown of Plainwell PA is in ruins. Army trucks and other vehicles are smoldering.  The sound of a lot of clicking sounds interrupts the silence as dozens of soldiers surround DL who in turn are surrounded by camera crews who have filmed what has just happened to the world.

Next…You will do what we tell you to do…