Black Alien

Alex transferred the knowledge of the Elven language into Finn and Astrid's brains.

"There. They should be able to talk now," Alex said.

"Hi! I'm Astrid," Astrid said as she put out her hand to shake with Nondar.

"A pleasure. I am Nondar," Nondar said, awkwardly shaking Astrid's hand.

"Greetings, my lord. I am known by the name Finn," Finn said as he bowed.

"Rise. Please just call me Nondar," Nondar said. "Now what is this about a competition and the fate of the multiverse?"

"Well, aliens have invaded our planet, and they want to fuse the dimensions of our universe into one so that they can conquer more habitable planets and spread their influence. Fate said she fears this could damage the entire multiverse and even cause her to cease to exist," Alex said.

"That is dire indeed, but it doesn't answer my question about the competition," Nondar said.

"Well, many of the gods of our planet don't want to help fight the aliens. So I organized a race across the Nine Worlds that, if I won, would force them to provide soldiers for the cause. Without the extra troops, we have no chance of winning," Alex said.

"Interesting. That is very clever. I assume that one of the dimensions in danger of merging is our own?" Nondar said.

"I believe so," Alex said.

"What if we helped provide extra troops?" Nondar said.

"That would be greatly appreciated, but your village is small. If you were to provide us with the troops we needed, there would hardly be anyone left in your village," Alex said.

"This village is one of many, Alex. If I could get in contact with the other villages, we might be able to get you troops numbering in the thousands without thinning out any of our individual villages much," Nondar said.

"That would be great!" Alex said. "Can you do that?"

"I would if I could, but recently we haven't been able to contact the other villages through our scrying pool. There seems to be some form of interference blocking our messages," Nondar said.

"And to send word by mail would take far too long to be of any help. It could take months before all the other Elders would agree to anything that way."

"What if we helped resolve the interference issue?" Alex said.

"If you could do that, we should be able to organize troops in about four days," Nondar said.

"Do you have any idea of what it could be? Has anything changed recently in the environment of the forest or somewhere nearby?" Alex said.

"Not that I know of," Nondar said.

"What about patrols going missing in a specific area? Anything out of the ordinary," Alex said.

"Well yes, actually, when I send people to the village of the Shrouded Nebula, they don't come back." Nondar said.

"Ok, then that's where we'll go. What's the name of this village?" Alex said.

"The village of the Neutron Star," Nondar said.

"Ok. I'll let them know that's who sent us. Can we bring Aldeena and the letter so they know we're legitimate?" Alex said.

"Yes, of course. Whatever you need." Nondar said.

"I will need you to send troops to stall my race competitors if I am to complete my mission," Alex said.

"I can do better than that," Nondar said. "I can make this entire area of the forest a time dilation zone so it slows them down by at least a day. If you carry these amulets, you will be unaffected by the time dilation."

Nondar handed out amulets that looked like stylized neutron stars. They all put them on.

"Thank you," Alex said, putting his amulet around his neck. "Now let's head out. Aldeena, lead the way."

"Yes, sir," Aldeena said. She had fallen into the subordinate position under Alex immediately. It was the sign of a true soldier, which Alex had yet to learn.

They headed out of the village and off into the forest. Aldeena picked up her pace, and Alex, Finn, and Astrid sped up to match.

After an hour of light jogging, Aldeena stopped them. "Something is wrong," she said.

"What's wrong?" Alex said.

"We should've seen patrols by this point," Aldeena said. "I don't see many animals around either."

"I noticed that," Finn said. "This forest should be teeming with life, but as far as I've seen it, it seems to be empty."

"Which direction is the village's tree and how far out?" Alex said.

"It should be about a thousand feet straight ahead of us," Aldeena said.

"Ok. I'm going to use an ability I have to scout ahead of us to look at the tree. See if anything's wrong," Alex said.

Alex concentrated on sending his vision ahead of him using remote viewing. His vision headed out ahead of him until he reached the tree.

He recognized it immediately. Not just because it was the largest tree for miles around, but because there were patrols standing outside. And not Elven ones.

There were aliens of multiple different colors standing guard outside the tree, with those giant slime monsters patrolling farther out. He could see an orange alien, a green one, a purple one, and several blue ones.

As he was viewing the tree, something sharp cut his arm, pulling him back to his physical body. Alex put up his forcefield just as something resembling a needle hit the forcefield over his neck, cracking the surface.

It repaired itself almost immediately, but if he hadn't had that up, he would be bleeding out right now. He looked up to see a black alien hanging from a tree. It threw out several more of those large needles that resembled throwing knives of a sort.

Alex dodged as best he could, but a few still hit his forcefield. The alien looked frustrated at this. It got down out of the tree and pulled a blade seemingly made of light.

As it got closer, Alex's psionic powers began to falter and short out, like they were being suppressed somehow. Alex quickly pulled two daggers from his dimensional pocket and threw them up in front of him just in time to block the alien's blade.

With the alien this close, Alex's forcefield dropped completely, and he couldn't summon any of his powers. Combat prowess would decide the fight from here on out.