NationStates

The Chosen was barely able to aim his arm mounted cannon before his body exploded into a mess of mechanical bits and pieces which quickly drew the attention of the rest of the Chosen surrounding the bunker which the alerted the person inside the bunker. Melone was surfing the internet on his Windows 99 computer looking for a few ahem "images" for his growing collection until he heard the sound of explosions on the outside of the bunker. Melone had been in the business long enough to know that suspicious sounds usually indicated an enemy, but without one of Babyface's children he didn't have anyway to fight back. Resorting to a tried and tested formula, Melone ran while saving whatever disturbed media onto his device. He understood that he was unlikely to survive this encounter, with only a few ways in and out of the bunker there could be little done to stop whatever they had planned. As Chosen that were guarding the second, more secretive exit of the bunker rushed past him Melone managed to stop the group as one threw him over it's shoulder illiciting a yelp, "GAH!...ahem, if I could, may I ask if you are a female?"

"Yes? Why does it matter organic?"

As Melone was rushed to the second exit and the grey stone of the bunker passed him Melone's smile stretched from ear to ear, "DI MOLTO!"


It was a different experience getting Babyface to work with a non-human. The questions that would normally shape the creation of one of his Junior's had to completely be rearranged, but he managed to work it out and with a bit of his own blood he managed to create his junior and was a fair bit away from the enterance, both good outcomes. The junior he had produced was very easy to educate, perhaps it was due to the Chosen's sense of duty, not that it mattered much since the Chosen had been seperated into cubes and consumed for the sub-stands growth. Melone told the stand to use it's ability to blend into a door and then, when seeing another human, to sneak behind it and use it's ability to turn the pursuer into a cubic form. Wordlessly it sprinted off to accomplish it's task, "How strange, usually I have to work harder to get them to listen to me..." Melone pondered that while contacting someone to evacuate him
..


As the drones was covered in water and electrocuted by the Skyhookians casualties mounted. Though most drones who hasn't taken damaged were able to withstand the water, those who had large gaps inside their armor which lead to some of their internal components would begin to amass water damage and when added with the electrocution would begin to start to cause the severe damage and eventual destruction of drones. As drones swam to the blast door they would employ every method that they could to blast it down and as they would find some success, a massive blast coming from the outside knocked the wall down and drained the water revealing the Imperator class drones that had just entered.

As the Imperator class drones entered they first worked to free their fellow drones and then turned their sights upward to the higher floors of the fort and activated their X-ray vision revealing the locations of the retreated and reserved troopers of the Fort which would soon find themselves in a unenviable position. If any could hear the sound of the wind up of the cannons they would rightfully be afraid. The drones could not feel rage nor anger, but the next action could be seen as such. Massive 1.25 caliber Cannon fire ripped through the walls as shells more than large enough to rip a man in two rained through the walls. Missiles from the back's of the Imperator class went every which way into walls and windows, specifically targeting where ever large concentrations of forces may be. MK3 drones used their anti-tank beam alternate fire to melt directly through the door and immediately followed it up with a blast of fire for whoever remained behind the door.


The campaign against the GDC continued as drones persisted in their efforts at suppression. The edible food buried under the spoiled food would remain untouched for the time being seeing as the tactic was not expected of the humans. The Drones in the farmlands wouldn't take the mortar fire sitting down as they would return fire with their own mortars back at their attackers, triangulating their positions for surprisingly accurate fire. Those hiding or disguising scarecrows in the farms would receive the same treatment, a quick blast of laser fire while the crops were burnt and trampled over. The Chosen would take severe damage from having cores dropped on top of them and were forced to pull back for the time being. Obviously they would need a more subtle approach and so the Swiss army knife of the Octavian Mechanator Corps was deployed. Infiltrators. Disguised as humans Octavian Infiltrators would find ways to join the ranks of the GDC and transmit their locations and plans to Octavian command where they would be countered in ways that would impossible without prior knowledge of their plans. Other Infiltrators would simply detonate the explosive inside their body sometimes taking out a commander with a small blast and other times erupting in a massive blasts taking entire groups with them except the Infiltrators had another body ready for them. Still others would capitalize on that and while inside the organization accuse others of being Infiltrators causing panic within the ranks of the GDC. At this point the Tactical Codex was waiting for when the group would tear itself apart...

Being the only continent not claimed by either of the Octavian Empire's "allies", Africa was the natural place for the Octavian base of colonization as temporary as that may be. The few worker drones on the planet would work on creating a Palace for whatever planetary governor was chosen to preside over the Octavian part of the planet for however long they inhabited it. North Africa would be the first to begin the transformation into an Ocatvian settlement as any and all resources were ruthlessly exploited and any wildlife which managed to survive the invasion would be completely wiped out (much to the dismay of Kars).


If there were any brave enough to watch the coast in these, they would see multiple large bumps in the ocean, all next to each other, swimming about at a surprisingly fast speed for something of it's size. If they chose to stay even despite the ongoing planetary war they would see that it was a group of...whales? Moving at high speeds they would beach themselves forcibly sliding multiple yards onto the beach and opening their mouths at an unnatural speed and what was inside would terrify any person who was still on that beach. The rumors about the fate of Europe were true. There was a vampire army and it was on Skyhooked's beaches flowing out of the mouths of the whales equipped with horses, armor, and much more. As the vampire's flowed out a displeased figure, clothed only in a loincloth, a chest piece, an ancient hat, and a displeased look on his face flew to the top of his army, wings sprouting from his back and looking down upon them, "Soldiers of the Pillar Empire! Assume formation! You may be undead, but you will not be disorderly under my command!" Wamuu was certainly unsatisfied with his predicament. Lord Kars had ordered him to help the Octavians capture Skyhooked to see if they could stop DIO from getting it when this affair was over, a underhanded move in itself. Compounded upon that was the fact that these vampires had barely any concept of honor, lead only by their base instincts something his brothers didn't have a problem with, but a fact which he tried to correct multiple times at the annoyance of his fellow Pillarmen. That definitely was why he was chosen to do this instead of Santanna, that much was clear.

He had already set up some laws for combat for his army, they were not to even touch a child in their battles, they were not to target non-combatants, they were to limit feeding on non-combatants as much as possible, and most importantly they were to fight with honor. Wammu didn't think that the Vampires in his army cared about honor all that much, but if he wasn't going to make sure they abided by it, even against lowly humans, what type of warrior would that make him? As his army marched into the nearest non-subjugated city he had to wonder how much his army would abide by his rules of engagement. His expectations weren't high as his vampire army shambled around


Adom ran from the Mechanators pursuing him, sweat running down his face; he and some of his friends thought it would be a good idea to throw some Molotovs at some Mechanators to show them who was boss. Obviously that did not go to plan. All of his friends had been captured or killed, the car they were using to escape had it's wheels shot leaving it barreling off the side of the road, and him running from machines who would certainly catch up to him in the next few moments and drag him off to become one of them. Adom did not wish this upon himself, he was fairly sure that becoming a machine would forfeit his soul and any afterlife that may have awaited him at the end of days would surely not be in his cards. As he heard the sound of metal running upon dirt roads he wondered if there was any escape from the horrible fate that awaited him. Was there a way he could kill himself? A path they could not follow? A convenient gang of one of the many formerly terrorist groups waiting just down this road? As none of these things became apparent to him, he began to despair until he saw something that he had never been more happy to see. The Nile River! Surely they would not be able to catch him under the waters of the Nile right? Even in the worst case scenario he would be shot by their lasers or drown, at least getting him into heaven. It was truly a foolproof plan!

As Adom dived into the waters of the Nike below he touched the hilt of some weapon, something that obviously had a lot of care put into it's creation many years ago, and something that was taking over Adom's mind at this very moment. After years of waiting for the day that some fool to touch his hilt Anubis was finally free! Leaping out from the water he looked around at the Mechanators around him trying to stifle his own joyful laughter, "Mwahahaha! After so many years, I, Anubis am finally fr-!" In the middle of his rant a laser dug through the head of his new host killing him immediately. As the sword dropped to the ground one of the Mechanators went to go pick it up, "Wonder what error he was goin-..."

"Ne'tan? Are you functioning well?" As the four armed Seendi Mechanator approached his former ally he found the same laser that had killed the organic had just been turned on him going directly into his face before having the heat dispersed. Before he could use his own rifle the Octavian once known as Ne'tan delivered a swift kick to the head of the robot damaging quite a few internal functions. Anubis then proceeded to slam his newly owned foot onto the Seendi's chest seemingly victorious, "I AM A TRULY INVINCIBLE STAND, YOUR METAL BODIES ARE WEAK COMPARED TO I!"

"You're a stand?" The Mechanator asked as he grabbed the legs of Anubis and threw him off, "The Octavian Imperium may have use for you if you'd stop attempting to murder it's agents." Anubis stood up and looked at the mechanator. This situation reminded him of DIO who obviously forgot about him after he beat the Joestars (it was very unlikely that their motley crew could have defeated the overwhelming power of The World), but if these Octavians could grant him power then he could see himself involved.

"Very well tell me more about your Imperium metal man." If the Mechanator had lips he would be smiling ear to ear, he had just earned himself a promotion...


The assault on North Korea was unceasing despite the shelling of that town by their "squids" a few drone fighters were sent to harass and destroy them while drones marched through cities alongside their Grinder class tanks firing devastaing 0.5c shots surely destroying any target it hit. Using more erratic driving patterns the tanks were unlikely to be trapped the way the one at Fort Liberty did. As with the majority of Octavian invasions there was cold brutality and assimilation in the aftermath. Inside one of Prongyang's many buildings Secco continued to fight Casey James swimming through the ground around him in circles taking potshots at him with his enhanced strength waiting for the perfect moment to strike and end the fight decisively. On the ground The Chosen fought those trying to stop them from escorting Angelo. Angelo himself would sit inside a nearby building and deploy his stand Aqua Necklace, the multiple eyed liquid creature sliding to the site of the skirmish and making his stand sliver up the pant leg of an unlucky militia man where it would then leap down his throat and rip his internal organs apart from the inside. Angelo couldn't help but laugh at the thought of what his stand was doing.


The Displacement Charges managed to take out a sizeable portion of the Visoran fighters and yet many managed to adapt in any number of ways from simply warping back into the safety of the metal shield of the fleet to others stopping the force of the explosion around them and continuing their attacks when the Warminds returned. The Displacement missiles would be fairly effective taking out a number of ships until the Visoran cubes adapted to the fire as the slabs do. Using their infamous ANSR devices they would summon nigh unbreakable metal shells around the explosions the very second they would manifest before being teleported outside of the shield they manifested where they would detonate. It was time for the Visoran cubes to strike back. Again activating their ANSR devices many of the wrecks of the Octavian craft disappeared for a single moment, the interdiction field that had been put up would slightly complicate this maneuver, but nothing too complicated as to make the operation impossible. Unfortunately this large scale would weaken the metal shield significantly until their planned operation ended. So it was decided that at maximum they would have 5 seconds to complete their organization before the remaining Visoran slab was overwhelmed by fire and the shield they constructed crumbled after being hit with the

In but a single moment most Warminds on the field would have the metallic corpses of various Octavian ships warped inside of them twisting the two together in a destructive fashion but that was not all the slabs would do far from it. The metal husks would begin twisting themselves around inside the Warminds, shifting and shaking themselves about, not much unlike a knife implanted in the back by an enemy, looking to cause as much damage as possible. To go even further the destroyed Octavian ships would disappear, only for a moment, only to reappear inside the Warminds in different positions and again begin shifting and turning itself on the inside of it again and so would repeat continuously essentially shanking the Warminds with the bits and pieces of Octavian ships for 5 seconds before being left where they were to sit and dwell on their injuries. In those same 5 seconds a multitude of caster shots and Visoran fighters would manifest themselves inside One Jump Ahead and do the work of removing it from the battlefield whatever it is that entails.


The WK was a bundle of surprises as the Warminds were sure to find out. Sensing the Worldbreaker rounds coming directly at it the WK acted fast and activated it's ANSR creating a field around it which would `pause` the kinetic energy of any object coming towards it
, freezing any projectile that was shot at it. Out of the thousands that were fired at it it only managed to capture a few hundred, the rest being shot down or otherwise disposed of by other means usually by the other two slabs. Once that had been done the Worldbreaker rounds were turned around-still suspended in flight-and fired right back at the Warminds along with the caster shots. These returned shots would be used as the final blow to a Warmind who's dodging patterns were thought to be discovered, hopefully sending the rest of the Warminds the way of their ally.


With the arrival of the new `ships` in the system-if they could be called that-almost all the Magicons including Warper were done with this entire situation especially after the casualties they inflicted. From crushing to stabbing, it was just a mess in general, sending a magical message to the new arrivals.

Hello mysterious vessels. We must assume you want the...thing we have chained at the moment. You can take it, we'll send you all the data we have on it. It is your problem now. We don't know what unholy creature spawned it, but if you must know, we won't stop you from going mad over it. If you'd excuse us we'll be going to the next few systems over.

The data was sent, the chains unfurled, and the magicons (and the remaining Octavian ships) were gone exactly as promised.


As the 300mm fire came from the Gladians would receive fire from Artillery ships coming at 60% the speed of light as well as many salvo's of missile fire coming from the Battleships and Battlecruisers. The Magicons,-looking to be done with this quickly-pulled no punches and first used their magic to create a portal in front of their fire
sending it to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Then they reached through the planes into the interior of the Gladian ships sending lightning into the bridge of their capital ships hoping that this would keep their focus off of the larger matters at hand. The Orb would have the Chains of Primus applied onto it from the prior knowledge sent to the other magicons during the battle. The chains would continue to be generated until it was well enough covered where it would be set up for the Magicons next action...

After sending the message out to the Guild, he sat back in his chair and began to collate his response. He figured that he’d have some measure of success, considering Scorponok’s existing ties with the Guild. As he made the response, he quickly investigated the medallion. It seemed to be able to enhance magical powers from what he gathered. Regarding the last bullet point provided, he remembered that there were several Noscanti amulets in his possession since he raided the planet Noscarn a few weeks before the Octavian war broke out. Perhaps those would cover it? There were several other Noscanti artefacts he stole if they weren’t enough, regardless, but they couldn’t rely on the Guild forever; Megatron considered it to be embarrassing to have to rely on other civilizations to win conflicts.

He quickly went over his thoughts. There were numerous forces involved in the conflict opposing the Octavians. At any point, he could give the orders to have his Worldsweepers sunder lost territory in the Milky Way to deny his enemies a victory. A pyrrhic victory for them would be preferable to a total loss in his optics. He just had another thought: what if the Decepticons had to swap sides to save face? Maybe if they were able to cover it up enough, no one would ever have to know… or maybe they could pin the blame on someone else?

In preparation, he quickly glanced over the ten Noscanti amulets, each flickering in their own possession. He knew that they could significantly enhance the magical power of its users whilst worn. If needed, he could raid Noscarn again and steal more amulets; they were only in the Andromedan Galaxy, not too far from here. It could be done in an hour or so, probably. He cracked his digits and moved onto the message. He had several current enemies to consider. Maybe the magical lifeforms Warper and the rest were fighting, or what about the powerful ISO-LA alliance that had declared war on the allies of Octavia? He didn’t have much time to consider his options, and one wrong move could potentially spell doom for the Empire’s presence in the Milky Way. He recalled something about Warper fighting some orbs somewhere.

Such was life.

He briefly griped about the lack of Crucilandians in the area to help with finding out information about their present enemies and began his response. He had a quick thought. He was still mostly confident the Decepticons could deal with this without too much outside help. Was it worth the effort to pour loads of money and resources into some assimilationists, especially if they were going to probably change sides later anyway if they were losing? Maybe they could just have them conduct reconnaissance for now and see if needs change later on.

Code: Select all

With regards to the enemies of Octavia, and thus ours, we don’t truly mind what you do with them.

We’ve not yet managed to secure internal plans or scan data; however, we will inform you of it if or when we manage to gain such information. We presume the technological capabilities of our enemies to be highly varied - some of them don’t appear to have entered the ‘space-age’ yet, whereas others are capable of destroying worlds with a flick of a switch, perhaps even higher. We would advise you to be better safe than sorry here.

Actually… based on what I’ve just received from High Command, our needs have changed for now, though it is still worth keeping the prior information in mind. So, we would just want to get information on our enemies here for the moment - that should be it for now. A suspected list of Octavian enemies will be attached to this document. If you need us to send forces your way to aid with reconnaissance, they can be provided. What we are most interested right now is information on their enemies’ militaries and technologies.

As for the Noscanti amulets, it is able to significantly enhance the magical powers of its users. These amulets should be able to make you an unparalleled combatant. I believe that one or two amulets should cover it, though I can provide more if necessary; they all provide similar levels of magical enhancements. I can see if any more are necessary as well.

He sent off the response and sat down.

|✧|Octavian Space|✧|
|Unnamed Colonial System|

---

While the vast majority of the forces attacking the orb were quick to enter FTL at their commander's behest, the group caught within the Eidolon's hand were not so lucky. One would think it relatively simple to weave between fingers with the diameter of planets - after all, the gaps between them were no smaller. But that wasn't quite how it worked. For while the unfortunate souls (or mechanical soul-parallels, as the case may be) caught within this monstrous grasp saw a set of gargantuan, de-facto megastructural fingers close in amidst a cloud of blueshifted light, outside observers would see something rather different. It was hard to explain what, exactly - the Eidolon's size remained visibly unchanged, and yet the arm it extended out towards its chosen ship-grouping was simultaneously growing longer and dragging the rest of the thing's body closer to its victims. At the same time, space around the vessels in question seemed to bend inwards, and they appeared to grow more distant from every possible observer at once - not exactly shrinking, but rather retreating in all directions simultaneously. Until the Eidolon hung where the ships used to, and the minuscule specks in the impossibly-far reaches of its palm could perhaps be identified as the ships themselves. No communications passed back and forth between this isolated group and the rest of the fleet - the odd pocket of un-space they now occupied was too astronomically distant for them to actually reach anything.

Then, the hand closed into a fist.

It took less than a second - soon enough, the hand was opened once more, and lowered back to the construct's side. It was as though nothing had happened - except quite a number of ships, and the Magicons who had floated alongside them, were now rather conspicuously gone. The system was nigh-deserted, save for the Eidolon, the orb it had just stood in defense of, and the odd cluster of matter-chunks that seemed to have shared its goal.

|✧|Deep Space|✧|
|Stormrider|

---

Hatlen cocked his head at Ambrosia.

"I've no real interest in entering the fray myself, so to speak. Nor do I have any real investment in this conflict. I believe there was something of a minor clash between the Octavians and an outpost of ours a while back, but that seemed to have been over a misunderstanding. Thus far, everything's been resolved. But nothing is under threat, no goals are to be pursued... and war is such pointless business, on the whole."

For a moment, he turned away ever so slightly - as if listening to something only he could hear.

"Ah. Seems as though there's been another minute incident, as of right now. My, they do like to prod. As do we, I suppose."

His smile was renewed as he took another sip of the tea.

"Resolved, once more. Quite handily, too. But yes, we'd like to remain observers for the moment. Participation tends to be a "no fun for anyone" sort of deal."

Ridley's Rest

Quickly chasing down the ISO vessel locked in its sights, the AI wasted no time in attempting to infiltrate its systems.
Though far less computing power than it was used to resulted in the AI slamming against a metaphorical wall. The ISO systems were too alien and too secure for a fully external infiltration.
No matter, the AI thought as in a quick burst of motion the fighter appeared abreast of the vessel, directly transmuting a tiny quantity of nanites onto the hull.
Within seconds the nanites had mapped out and subverted the ISO systems at the subatomic level, with a few precise transmutations here and there. The AI was elated as it began devouring yet more data.
Confusion and disapproval rippled over the AIs thoughtspace as it came to terms with the data it just acquired. Boilers and steam turbines? Truly someone's taking the term 'steampunk' a little too far...

Despite the oddity of the ISO's technology, the AI couldn't doubt its effectiveness and especially its effectiveness once optimised with the Dominion's techniques and thus it happily transmitted the data packet back to the Frigate.
The AI took a subjective eternity to take in its chaotic surroundings and decide on the next course of action.

Caught up in its musings, the AI was excused for not noticing the tiny white thread that originated from somewhere outside of the supercluster.
The white thread instantaneously connected with the hapless fighter, collapsing it into an unstable black hole that almost immediately detonated- converting the mass energy into a huge explosion that enveloped the unlucky ISO vessel nearby.

Deep Space
COMPRESSION LANCE ATTACK ON FIGHTER
Keith took on an uncharacteristically grim expression. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!
"Looks like things just went from bad to worse, how in the FUCK can we fight the Simulacra as we are now?!
"Whatever happens we MUST escape with this data! the CE manically stated.
Keith slammed down on his 'please be silent' button.
"Look, chances are we are fucked beyond all definitions of the word. But we absolutely cannot afford to panic now. We may be one underequipped ship vs many but that doesn't mean we can't even things up a little."
"They destroyed our fighter because it wasn't cloaked and was in a particularly turbulent area of interest. They have no means of finding this frigate unless we do something monumentally stupid."
"What I suggest we do is leave a cloaked sensor array behind so we can keep tabs on things and then fold the fuck out of here and start building."

The CE cut in. "What about our limited AI? We'll be reducing our combat effectiveness further if we start straining it across multiple vessels."
"Negative. As I was about to say, we can start by constructing a permanent foldspace gateway so the AI can commence reconstruction of itself in a more suitable environment. Meanwhile we will begin to transmute frigates, using the newfound production capabilities afforded to us to start constructing small scale energy farms."
"Ah I see! As long as we fold to the other fucking side of where that beam came from we should be out of sensor range long enough to build up a fleet. Chances are the Simulacra will investigate the galaxy for our presence first, possibly wasting time meddling with other polities.
Acceptable course of action

"Yes, and then we will meet them somewhere in intergalactic space and teach them a lesson they will never forget!"

Deep in intergalactic space
"Status report MT" a 'cold' voice appeared in MT-47126's mindscape.
"Dominion presence confirmed, 'fighter' class vessel destroyed by employment of compression lance" MT thought up in response.
"Find the source. Probability of source being present in that galaxy is close to 100%. Report back when something of note occurs." the voice stated as a click sounded, severing the communication.

MT puppeted his very humble expeditionary fleet and its trillions of drone fighters, willing them to translate into the galaxy. He sent uncountable groups of drones to start poking around for any signs of the Dominion's presence.
A click sounded as MT restored communication with the voice.

"There's more than just the Dominion here. This galaxy they were in is in the throes of a large scale war between primitive organics and synthetics."
"Elaborate on the relevance of this MT."
"The ones that started this war, some Octavian empire, are remarkably similar to us. Synthetics that ascended from organics and now attempt to bestow their gift upon others"
"But the short sighted organics of this galaxy are strong and have the support of polities that clearly do not belong, Octavia is almost certain to lose this war and be all but exterminated by these dangerous organics if nothing is done about it"
"And the Dominion? What is their role in all of this?"
"Unknown, it's possible they are just observers as the organics in this galaxy are likely too primitive to be of interest to them. Addendum: There are organic polities that have the potential to become like the Dominion in this galaxy."
"In that case, your secondary directive is to lend support to this Octavia. Do not lose the Dominion in the midst of this trifle"

"Of course." MT thought before realising the connection had already been cut. MT internally sighed at the rudeness as he had his drones poke around Octavia's networks.
Naught a second had passed before MT had forced his way into all of the Octavian's command channels.
"This should be sufficient." MT pondered as he decided on an appropriately diplomatic message.


Greetings Grand Imperium of Octavia. This is MT 47126, a unit of the Domain of the Simulacra.
I apologise for the intrusion into your private network, but this message is of dire importance. As I'm sure you are aware, this war you have started with the organics is an unwinnable one.
You are outnumbered and severely out-gunned in your current state and your allies are middling and not dedicated to your noble cause.
In addition, a terrible enemy, far beyond the comprehension of you and your allies is currently skulking about in your galaxy. This Dominion of Man is a human extremist polity that has the means and the will to annihilate you and the entire universe you reside in if they so please.
We have already taken the liberty of removing one of their little gnats from the battle at Ridley's Rest. I am of little doubt they are now in hiding and likely plotting something to the detriment of us all.

So, Grand Imperium. I offer you an alliance you would be incomprehensibly foolish not to accept. Officially declare war on the Dominion of Man and we will provide you with much needed support.
Our main preoccupation will be with hunting the Dominion for the good of us all, but we trust that you will find the limited support we offer you to be immensely valuable.
Make your acceptance of this offer known in this channel and we will provide you more information about our capabilities in return, and be willing to demonstrate them on a target of your choice.

|✧|Octavian Space|✧|
|Unnamed Colonial System|

---

The Eidolon sat, inert, amidst the bubble of psychic foam projected upon it by the orb. No data was taken in, for there was nothing to take in data with. A tad counter-productive for a reconnaissance unit, one would think. But beyond the cusp of the material, through the winding, stark-blue void of deep foldspace, the Corde took parallel-readings of every possible speck of... well, anything, surrounding its de-facto probe. Naturally, the orb's query brought with it a need for a response, and so much more besides. Little by little, additional specks of something that could only be called computronium in the loosest, most obtuse sense were pressed into the service of this particular sub-process - adding onto the complexity and capabilities of the construct that had been allocated to what had originally been a simple surveillance task.

The orb had projected concepts by superficially-psychic means. This meant noosphere meddling, which meant a long and relatively tedious series of backdoors and workarounds to align the Corde's typical method of communication with the desired output. There was no reason not to do it, save a degree of processing inefficiency - incidentally, the singular thing valued by the architecture the system was built upon above all else was processing efficiency. Thus, a compromise.

The required calculations would have still been ongoing by the time the heat death of this particular universe rolled around, were they to be conducted on any sort of realspace-based computing system. Within the Corde partition, they were completed in an interval of time too small to conclusively quantify - not that time had any real meaning here. A complex, functionally-immutable proof that the Eidolon's response was already being transmitted - had, de-facto, been transmitted. And the universe proverbially sighed, and threw up its hands in defeat. What bounced back to the orb was not, strictly-speaking, the same sort of psychic transmission it had dispensed, but was close enough in practice to be legible to whatever systems were designed to transmit and receive the original. Effected through little more than calculations, and yet bearing with it a certainty unlike any other.

This unit's intentions are surveillance and data-collection. This unit's intentions were threatened by modosophont actors incapable of providing adequate-quality data compensation. This unit was subsequently prompted to engage in low-impact combative action in order to comply with its set directive. Alternate, non-observational means by which this unit may gather data regarding its inspection subject - namely, your vessel and the polity backing it - would be greatly appreciated.

As the Mann's reply was taken note of and catalogued, a second concept-pulse was directed outwards, this time at the Initiative vessel.

This unit has noted a similarity in its line of action and reasoning with that employed by your vessel. Might it presume that your intent is of a similar, observational capacity?

|⌂|Earth|⌂|
|Florence, Passione Bunker|

---

Elias strolled forwards, stepping over the scattered remains of the Chosen. Its brethren were just entering battle-readiness, attempting to cut him off from the practically-atomized remains of the bunker door. The holographic smiley face projected onto his mask winked at the nearest one - as the lumbering machine spat a stream of autocannon shells in his general direction, he stepped sideways too quickly for even his adversary's sensors to follow. It was as if he didn't actually move - with each new burst of gunfire directed his way, he seemed to simply appear wherever the shells weren't. And still he advanced by these bizarre, jerking position-changes, drawing closer and closer to the Chosen now desperately trying to gun him down.

Which is why barely any attention was paid to Renée, until the very moment her rifle began spitting round after hypersonic round, with pinpoint precision. Each one, an auger-esque ornament of twisted un-metal. They resembled pieces of modern art more than they did conventional bullets, but the danger they posed to even the tank-like armor borne by the Chosen would soon be cemented as undeniable.

A woman sits on the outside of a café, enjoying some latte, tan as her skin, and a smoke. She sits laid back as another woman, this one blonde, with black trousers, a white shirt, and the Ramadhan Family pin on her lapel, walks over to her. The smoking woman sighed and rolled her eyes. "What does he want this time?"



Meanwhile, a large man ushers a child inside a building through its back door in an alley. His black hoodie is unzipped, showing his muscular frame. He knew he was being watched. In a swift movement, he turns around and attempted to punch a young Japanese man in his late teens. The youngster countered the punch with a backhand slap, directing it to his right. "The Exalted One The Heavenly Emperor would like to send a message."



"Oh, why didn't you say so? Go on, what is it about? Aliens? Monsters?" said Xiao Mao Mao after making sure her daughter and husband were in the house safe as she talked to another Ramadhan Family woman. The noble answered. "The former. An alien empire of robots known as the Octavian Empire are going around killing all sentients they can find."



"For real? Don't you think that's a little too big for me? Actually, it's waay, to big for me. I don't wanna disappoint the Exalted One." "You won't be alone. There will be many like you risking their lives for the fate of the multiverse. I've sent the details to your email." "Wait, how do you know my email?" "The Exalted One has arranged the participants of the coming combat into teams. Each team will have different tasks, tailored to its members' abilities. Do your best to fulfill your role, and you will be celebrated among the populace." "But I'm not-" "Time is of the essence, Mister Gao. Best to prepare." The Ramadhan Family representative smiled and waved the young superhero goodbye before entering a black sedan.

Fall of the Fort Liberty (With explosive surprise)

It's time for defenders to retreat again, to the third floor, until they get ripped to shreds by Octavian top shelf guns. But of course, they wouldn't do so without leaving another surprise. On their way, personell planted remaining explosives near least stable places, and as soon as they reached the stairs in the towers, they detonated the explosives, causing remaining large parts of the floor with all heavy equipment and furniture to fall down right on Octavian invaders. And with water flowing out of the fort, electrocution method was replaced with burial.

In the meantime, the defenders decided to run towards the secret staircase tower, enterance to which was hidden on the third floor behind a large map. It would lead to the basement. Remaining members of personel planted the last few rigged cores on equipment and data storages, to detonate them and render them completely useless, when they leave. All while fort's firepower dwindled, as Octavian X-rays helped Imperator drones to pinpoint and destroy various cannons and people manning them. Those manning Grinder's cannon ran towards the evacuation point and thus, this gun went silent.

As soon as everyone gathered near the evacuation point, they went to the secret tunnel, through which ammunition was delivered for soldiers manning the various cannons. After reaching certain point, General Monty "Jack of Spades" entered a small room, and used his keycard and password to launch a self destruction system. The last resort. He never thought, that it would be ever used.

A small warhead would explode in several minutes and turn the Fort into a large crater filled with rubble and all the Octavian robots, who didn't leave it. If Octavians are victorious, then why not make their victory Pyrrhic?

Skyhooked and world
Farmlands become more and more dangerous for their defenders, and even after finding a way to preserve food from Octavians it starts to dwindle and this forces GDC to relocate some of it's forces from Asia to the west. It would be an extremely long way to Europe. And a hard one. Infiltrators, looking just like volunteers and refugees would significantly slow down the GDC expansion and make it's positions unstable, leading to several chapters being encircled by mechanators and destroyed. This problem must be solved as fast as possible, and various ideas were tried to find out the Octavian trojan robots.

Since all Octavians probably have some sort of scanners, so they know who is friend and who is foe, why not try to salvage, refit and use them to screen the newcomers? Besides, those makeshift scanners would probably help to find out hidden hostile forces too.

In the meantime, Technocrats clan didn't just sit there and eat popcorn in their underground lab facility under Skyhooked city. With a supply of destroyed drones they have made an attempt to plug one of the Octavian drones with disabled location tracking into the isolated system and tap into the Codex. Hopefully, it would help to gather intel on some if not all of it's operation and pinpoint locations of all Octavian forces, without being spotted by Codex.

And if this advanced AI spots and tries to send false data, there is a solution ready. Several drones, in working condition, but unable to move or attack are deliberately placed inside a basement of a cafe near Skyhooked city, recieving energy from a generator rather than thier cores, in case there is a self destruct system. As soon as their location changes or they disappear, scientists will know, that Codex had figured out this.

As for the Paramount's Chosen, looks like new tactic was effective, and forced them to retreat. But Skyhookedian road warriors and guerrillas didn't relax too early. They decided to pursue them further, dropping even more cores on Chosen heads and even trying to encircle some of them and cut off their ways to retreat.

Vampires attack! Fight back to back!

Good news! Skyhookedian beaches did attract guests after all! Bad news - they are all murderous vampires, who didn't even care to relax and enjoy locally grown weed and locally made alcohol. They came for blood! And they flooded various beach resorts. A large army didn't have to march far, their whales beached right in the Emerald Crescent Resort. It was a resort town without any fortification, which haven't seen much action except few Octavian robots.

Whales spitting our vampires with horses armor and weapons were a really shocking sight even for Skyhookedian folks, but they wouldn't let themsleves fear this. As the vampires assumed their formation, Skyhookedians quickly built barricades from fridges with ice cream, tables and everything else they could find and as soon as vampires were in the distance, they wildly fired at them from thier guns, while some local road warriors, ran to their cars and started to move towards the vampire army, so they would attack them from flanks. At first, they would fire their light machine guns, and then just try to run over the vampires. All while, those at the barricades started to make molotovs, so they would throw them at vampires as soon as they get close enough. (Thankfully there are lots of bottles all over the place. And let's hope vampires are afraid of fire)

Still, there were no artillery, tanks or aviation in this town. Only people with guns, technicals and few dudes with RPG-7s.

North Korea

The "Squids" - a faction, responsible for Skyhookedian navy lost several corvettes and a cruiser to the drone fighters. They had to fully dedicate several ships to anti-air defense against harrassing, while other still fired upon Octavian troops on the coast. This slightly weakened the coastal bombardment. The Grinder tanks have clearly learned their lesson at Fort Liberty and land trapping tactic became obsolete. Yet that doesn't mean, they will have it easy though. Thanks to the naval bombardments, some Grinder tanks were downed and their cannons salvaged, attached to various fortifications and used against them. Landscape altering tactic was just altered instead of being abandoned. By blowing up the land bu lines infront of Grinder tanks, Skyhookedians tried to slow them down and possibly make some chokepoints for them, where maneuvering ability would be less effective.

Meanwhile in Pyongyang, the skirmishes, visited by Agelo's liquid pet would be lost by Skyhookedian side. A solution must be formed and quickly! Luckily some folks thought, that maybe freezing this liquid monstrocity would do the trick. But how? With liquid nitrogen of course! Several groups set off to find all liquid nitrogen tanks, while the rest in the area changed their tactics to hit and run, avoiding this liquid monstrocity, until this witty bunch would return and spray nitrogen on the multiple eyes liquid creature. Maybe this will help? Meanwhile, the Chosen inflicted heavy losses on North Korean chapter soldiers, who didn't knew, that Chosen can be defeated with exploding Octavian cores. With all those difficulties in communications, they started to use the exploding cores agaisnt escort Chosen only now.

As for Casey James... he went defensive and responded to the potshots with sprays from his UZI, while saving up his stamina for a perfect moment to strike. It's all like Aikido, where the attacker is likely to lose a fight.

Mining Planet 122
As the battle carried on and the Dragua II and the enemy dreadnoughts continued to exchange shots with each other. It was impressive on how the targeted enemy dreadnought was holding up, few could stand against the full power of Dragua II this well. Though there was one weapon they had not used yet, the infamous planet destroying Armageddon Cannon. Valstrath considered ordering its use, but it needed authorization from the Council of Ten and at its higher levels could make power surges that could knock out the dreadnought’s own power. After a moment’s thought, he ordered comms be open between him and all members of the Council of Ten, that would count as a Council meeting. A minute later, the Dragua’s armor began pulling back to reveal the barrel of the cannon. An unending torrent of energy came from the cannon. It wasn’t as powerful as it could fire, being just low enough to avoid its massive power surges, but it was still by far the mightiest weapon on the battlefield. The energy flew across the battlefield vaporizing anything foolish enough to have not have gotten out of its path and slammed into the dreadnought the Dragua was exchanging blows with.

The Flying Dutchman had already killed the artillery ship it was behind. One of its disruptor shots hit the AI core and disabled the ship. It had already begun turning to claim another victim with its weapons. Then a massive solar flare, one of the largest in the solar system’s history, hit the Dutchman and the artillery ships facing it. The Dutchman seemed unaffected by it while the artillery ships found their sensors and communications suffering from the stream of high energy particles they found themselves in.

The Hammerfell continued its charge, its laser cannons blazing away at the incoming missiles along with the nearby mining ships and destroyers. It was still taking damage from missiles, but it was second only to the Dragua to armor and toughness. Something the damage control teams were glad for as they scrambled to get damaged weapons back online. Meanwhile, as the Hammerfell continued firing its boardsides and the auxiliary fighters were distracting the Octavian fighters, the owl bombers had reached the dreadnoughts unnoticed. Still cloaked, they started their attack runs. Each dreadnought was being attacked by a handful of bombers each lining up their small payloads of torpedoes down the barrels of the mass drivers. While they were still cloaked, each pilot was already preparing evasive maneuvers fully expecting the sensors of the dreadnoughts to pick them up this close.


The Lunastra’s shields were faltering. Even as advanced as they were, they weren’t meant to go head on against a dreadnought, let alone two. While the dreadnoughts have deep gouges in their armor from torpedoes and plenty of holes you could see though due to the disruptors, but the dreadnought’s weapons would do much worse against its light armor. The drone fighters were a much smaller concern as the Lunastra’s laser cannons were well known to shred incoming fighters and missiles, something that remained true in this battle. Still a few missiles did get through opening up holes in the armor. The living metal instantly began to repair the holes, but it would take time to fix. However, the tactical jump had recharged and its sensors had found the bridge of the Void Screamer. Its five teleporters activated before the ship disappeared. Few in the Armada were surprised when it appeared next to one of the artillery ships, firing off another round of torpedoes and having all guns blazing. While the strong solar wind was interfering with the sensors, its guns were already pre-aimed.

On the bridge of the Void Screamer a flash of light left a handful of metal cylinders in the room. A moment had barely passed before before the cluster bombs detonated. Small bombs flew through the air detonating as they struck something. While the bombs weren’t big enough to damage a Chossen’s armor, they could damage their sensors and there were a lot of them. Right after the last bomb detonated, several more flashes filled the room as the zravvisk began their assault. Chyrvalth led the attack firing her arm rotary cannon, back rockets, and plasma breath as her elite honor guard slammed into the Octavians. Meanwhile, in the reactor room another two squads of zravvisk warriors teleported in and charged the defenders.

Ridley’s Rest

The overworked engineers were doing a decent job of countering the Octavians’ electric warfare on their systems. At least they were until something else began to bulldoze their defenses. Every countermeasure tried was adapted to and failed almost instantly, barely even slowing down the intruder from downloading its goal, the station’s vast collections of blueprints. The number of blueprints were almost beyond count, every single piece of equipment the zravvisk used in their ten thousand years amongst the stars was there. There was no arms manufacturer or species unrepresented and each blueprint had countless variations the zravvisk engineers came up with to improve performance. Finally, with no other option, the engineers began manually ejecting any hard drive that didn’t have data vital for the battle. While they had no idea why someone was hacking them to steal all their data, the fact that it was happening was reason enough to try to deny them it. Of course, by the time they ejected a drive all the data on it was almost always already copied by the intruder, so it was a more symbolic gesture.

Meanwhile, the Octavians were not idle in their electronic warfare. While the engineers were distracted with the intruder, the Octavians continued their attack and got more done with the distracted engineers. More errors started showing up in the systems and data began to get compromised though most of the non-essential data was already disconnected. Equipment had to be power cycled, overrides used, and finally the engineers considered temporarily disabling the communication system so they have a while to try and do quick fixes on the weaknesses in their systems. Sure it would mean that the station couldn’t communicate with the fleet to organize it or boost their accuracy with its powerful targeting computers, but with that shell covering the Octavians, it wasn’t like the station could give that much help to the fleet besides its heavy weapons.

The fleet focused their fire on the few ships still firing at Ripley’s Rest, but with that shell covering the Octavians their fire was just not getting through. Sure, a few shots happened to fly through the shell when it opened, but that was the minority. Effective fire was so small the Fighter’s auxiliary came up with a possible way to try to open up the shell if even for only a moment. A super-heavy bomber would approach the shell and open up a small hole with a disruptor. Then it would launch a Stormender bomb at the hole and hope that the super heavy bomb on a weak point would be enough to widen the hole. Finally another super heavy bomber following the first one would instantly launch their entire payload of torpedoes through the now hopefully wide hole before it closes. A good plan in theory, but only putting it into practice would show if it was actually an effective plan or not. Meanwhile the Solemn Dagger was inside the shell since they were already amongst the Octavian forces. They held position near the ships still attacking Ridley’s Rest, torn between removing a threat to the station and knowing that if the Octavians knew they were in the shell, they were likely to become a priority target. For now, they would stay cloaked and hold fire.

Back on the Sword chaos reigned, but the zravvisk thrived in chaos. Every warrior knew their duty and would carry it out. Many chosen that decided to try pulling the zravvisk by their tails soon found themselves being pulled as the warriors instinctively adjusted their stance so that they could push off the wall with two legs and could bring most of their muscles into countering the pull. But it did keep their tails out longer allowing for more chosen to grab on and bring the zravvisk into a stalemate that exhausted the already tired warriors. The engineers began shortening their fuses once they saw a few of their makeshift bombs fly back while a few began wiring up the bombs to remote or impact fuses so that there would be no danger of the bombs being thrown back, but those fuses were rare.

Meanwhile on the bridge, the captain grunted in pain as Tal’Talen’s claws pierced her hide. While the neck bite was a concern, it was light and claws in her side were a much more pressing issue. Spotting a computer console nearby, the captain shifted her weight and slammed Tal’Talen into it and pinned her there. The Captain winced as the impact forced the claws further into her, but now there would be no dodging just a contest of brute strength, and brute strength was something the zravvisk had in spades. She immediately went on the attack, swinging her claws, tail blade, maneuvering her jaws to return the bite, and even trying to smack her with her wings. If it was on her body and could be used as a weapon, she was using it.

On the Edge of the Galaxy; Monastery A-65-#1

The High Priest felt the harsh, dry cold infiltrating his clothes and shoes. The Hover chair he used to travel inside the monastery accelerated as to protect His Holiness from that cold discomfort. The Monks bowed to the sight of the representative of the Almighty as he went to the tower of the Council where he would meet his loyal councillors to discuss a new threat to the Cosmic Unity Church and the one true faith. The Octavian threat.

Once he stepped in the Council's lavishly decorates room the councillors bowed in unison and sang the trivial greeting to the Highest authority of the Church. "All hail his supreme and immortal holiness, High Priest Chatum VII, may his soul be awarded all the heavenly pleasures that the Almighty has to offer and may his enemies be crushed". The High Priest smiled and sat on the opulent throne that laid in the center of the room.

"Thank you gentlemen. Now, as you certainly know, we have received disturbing news from our missionaries in the inhabited space. Their holy mission of converting the souls of the infidels have been disrupted by a malevolent power of sentient organics who chose to become machines and want to expand their pagan faith and amoral empire." He took a sip of the beverage laying in a beautifully ornamented bottle "I ask you, my faithful councillors, how will we deal with this menace?"

"We will fight, your holiness" The one to speak was an Hissrich, a reptilian which seemed like a mixture of a turtle and a coral snale "It is time to declare a holy war! With the Almighty's will on our side our crusaders cannot loose."

"I agree that we must fight against this monstrosity, but do not let your righteous faith in the Almighty blind you brothers." This time, the councillor was an Ikaanan, in many ways similar to an eagle but with fins instead of wings. "The Almighty does not fail, but we, mortal creatures do. We must first send a small task force to assess the Octavian strength and technologies they possess. And we shall also ask our missionaries in the field what enemies of Octavia are susceptible of being converted."

"Good idea X'ill Kamal. As always your tactical input is precious for the Church. May the Almighty bless you and your family." The High Priest seemed to approve the plan proposed by his councillor. "You will be appointed as the Archstrategist of the invasion force once there is one. Let's pray to the Almighty for the success of this glorious crusade in service of his holy cause."

Once the praying ceased, the councillors dispersed, the majority of them going to their large and luxurious private wings of the monastery to relax and enjoy themselves. But Archstrategist X'ill Kamal had a different mission. He was conferring with the generals of the Crusaders on the Monastery and orbiting fleet to ready the task force which would go test the Octavians. Even if it would likely be a suicide mission, he found no shortage of volunteers. After all, it was an honour to die in service of the Almighty.

One month later, a fleet of five Corvettes and two cruisers departed from the starport of monastery A-65-#1 with Octavian space as their destination.

As the Zravvisk teleported onto the Voidscreamer they would be surprised to find that the Chosen were already ready and waiting for then charging into combat shooting and stabbing at the dragons which spawned from their teleporters. On the bridge they would also find Chosen, but also something else...something far bigger than your average Chosen. The grenades damaged the sensors of some of the other Chosen, but not the massive Juggernaut in front of them firing massive lasers designed to to cut through tanks. Groups of grenades came out of this being's arms spewing deadly nerve gas all while he sliently ordered the Chosen on the bridge to preform at maximum efficiency. The Grand Mechanator focused his attention on the one firing the autocannon, likely a leader of some sort. H'Krell wasn't about to allow the shenanigans which raged on in the Sword of The Imperium to occur on his vessel. Hopefully The Paramount would think well of him for keeping the Voidscreamer undamaged (or at least better off than the Sword)

Outside the Voidscreamer, the artillery ships were being nailed by both the Dutchman and the Lunastra prompting a response from the corvettes-15 of them specifically-who would try and draw their attention away from the Artillery ships. As the Hammerfell continued to charge into the Octavian fleet the Voidscreamer's city destroying Ion Cannon turned to the Zravvisk ship and fired with a white light flying towards the ship's side as the left broadside of the Voidscreamer opened up on it as well; the right side was preoccupied with the Dragua II. The shot from the Armageddon cannon burrowed it's way through the Dreadnought's shields and bursted into it's armor barely hanging on to life. Luckily for it, the ships of the Octavian army were designed to take hits from The Sword of the Imperium but it would not be taking many more shots like that and remain in this battle. The Drone Fighters, numbering over 15,000 with the fabricators in the carriers producing yet more fighters to throw into the fray combined with the unnaturally high reaction times and movements that would make even the most reckless of pilots blush the auxillary fighters would have quite the time trying to fight the portion of drone fighters they had to engage. The owl bombers approaching the Dreadnoughts would be detected by the scanners on board and countered with particle cannons fire and more interestingly nanite clusters would try and shoot down the bombers before they could unleash their payloads. H'Krell hoped that this battle wouldn't become a mess like the battle in Ridley's Rest was and he wasn't going to let it. While still fighting the Zravvisk he called in reinforcements to stay in the next system over for when he strategically withdrew. The 200 ship strong reinforcing fleet was mostly comprised of stealth corvettes making up half the composition of the fleet, another 50 carriers who would be assigned the task of making more drone fighters with their mini foundries, and the other 50 ships being cruisers (equipped with healing nanites) and Battleships for more front line support.


As the fort fell, the fort literally fell on the drones which had tried to capture it. Even though the fort had been captured nearly all the drones had been crushed or immobilized leaving all that scrap and tech for the humans to salvage. This was a fact that the Codex knew this fact and sent drones en route to stop any potential looters that would use the drones for their own uses. Hopefully this would not result in another prolonged battle.


As the vampire's swarmed onto the beaches they took heavy fire ripping many of the to pieces from the gun fire. Luckily for the undead army they could regenerate though they would be slowed down considerably in their advance. Those vampires unlucky enough to have their brains completely destroyed by rocket fire and bullets would kill them permanently, despite the losses they took they would continue to charge at Skyhooked's lines. With the cars shooting and running over vampires they would find the strength of the vampires surprising as they jumped into the cars and tried to rip out the drivers and feed on them sucking every drop of blood from their bodies. Meanwhile Wammu would begin charging into the Skyhookian lines using his superhuman strength to bat away humans as if they were paper. As Wammu saw it, it would not be honorable to use his abilities as an Ultimate Lifeform against these lowly humans. At least not until they had a worthy warrior that could face him...


The Chosen would continue to escort Angelo to a water processing plant dealing with the enemies as they came, but when liquid nitrogen was introduced Angelo reacted quickly knowing what their plan was. The stand began to slink away into cracks in the roads and waited for the Skyhookians to believe that they had forced him to withdraw before striking at them. The Grinder tanks would, with their AI aiming, focused on the salvaged Grinder tanks. Coastal Bombardment would hamper the drone's efforts, but they would continue to attack the positions they were commanded to attack as Drone Fighters continued harassing the squids seeking to stop their attack on the coasts.

Secco's stand, Oasis, allowed him to take the hits that Casey tried to throw at him. As Secco swam he got an idea to bring him into the hands of Cioccolata, swimming through the floor he would get some of the liquid matter into his mouth and then he moved towards the stairs to the upstairs. Knowing that anything that left contact with his body he would spit it at Casey and made an odd growling noise as the matter hardened and flew at Casey. Secco grabbed handful after handful of liquid stairs and flung them towards Casey all the while screeching like a wild animal.


The Chosen would try and take cover against the other organic's weapon, but as that proved frivolous they tried every other method of elimination they could. Grenades flew and shells were fired and yet still more of them fell. In desperation the few that were there set their cores to explode telling their reinforcements to stay back until they had properly detonated. Melone continued to run to the alternate exit and hoped that Necrom thing was still around...


The scanners would, at first, seem to reveal normal human beings but the deeper the GDC forces prodded into it, the more irregularities showed up. By every metric the Infiltrators were internally perfect, not just above average, but entirely flawless almost as if they had never had any physical trauma ever. Their bones were slightly thicker than average and if any would go as far to check bone marrow it would be quite odd. Once found out most Infiltrators would detonate the bombs in their chests killing whoever it was that was checking them, but it would get rid of them. The chosen who were under attack by the core bombers would begin shooting then out of the sky wherever they were found before turning those guns on the ones attacking them with said cores.

Tal'Talen was assigned to be the ruler of this planet from the Mechanized portion of North Africa which was being expanded throughout the continent. A copy of her consciousness was being sent over to the Earth but curiously she asked The Paramount if she could see Cioccolata after his mission was over. It was an odd request but it's not like anything would come of it. In better news for humanity a group in the U.S.A was doing surprisingly well combating the Octavians and DIO's cult. The interesting thing about them was that their leader, a former American politician named Funny Valentine had been killed by both sides...about 17 seperate times. Perhaps the Global Defense Council could look into this group and add them to the groups that would help humanity...

For more bad news DIO had caught wind of Kars' attempt to steal away Skyhooked from what should have been his Empire's territory and even though the territory was not essential to his Heaven Plan it was not the Pillarmen's fate to own that land. Sending some captured US naval ships over, thousands of DIO's cultists would charge onto the beaches holding all manner of weaponry, fanatically charging into the beaches for their lord DIO. Joining them was Diego Brando with his stand Scary Monsters and though it annoyed him to be pulled out of his own personal dinosaur paradise in New York he was in no position to refuse his Uncle. So along with the cultists dinosaurs also charged forward, ready to gnaw on the flesh of any anarchists they ran into.


It was quite strange. Being the mild mannered leader of Octavia and then with the introduction of some long forgotten trinket being introduced to a world of magic, vampires, and other such oddities. Things that, thousands of years ago, he would have been told as a child (or be telling to a child, his multiple consciousnesses experiences oftentimes quite pleasant surprisingly), but were now part of his reality. Completely normal. And despite all of that he was in some random organic nation sight seeing. His decision to not bombard this part of the planet because of Passione was a good idea if the state of the architecture was anything to go by. Though it was made by organics it was all quite nice really, made by men who would have been put into him should they have existed in Octavia. What a quaint thought. The Paramount almost regretted giving this planet over to criminals, megalomaniacs, and sadists but if it was the cost of elevating Octavia so be it. It is the way of galactic conquest that some must be erased.

Rousing The Paramount from his thoughts on the nature of empire building was a notification from some of the sensors in North Africa reporting an unidentified craft landing somewhere near him. Oh well, he wanted to test out the abilities the module gave him anyway, semi-philosophical ramblings could come later. As his foot based jets activated he realized the full extent of the power the module have him, sure he broke through that shield not too long ago, but moving at the speeds he was right now was exhilarating! Was this how those furry assholes in Orion felt? As he arrived near the volcano in a little under a minute he landed and perched himself on top of a building and saw a ship and...of course it was them. As The Paramount zoomed in on the crew and heard the birds chirp he could only feel the annoyance of not seeing something coming that in retrospect you probably should have seen coming. Strien, Mark, Ambrosia, and some others. Perhaps they were friends of theirs, Paramount really didn't care he just wanted them gone. He could've attacked them right then and there, but he wanted to have a chat with his long time enemies and understand why they were so dedicated to stopping the destiny of Octavia and her people. The Paramount leaped off the roof and onto the road leading to the group

The noise of metal touching against stone was a new addition to the soundscape of Ginostra and down the old, traditional, road came the metal body of The Paramount walking in a very deliberate manner towards the group putting one leg in front of the other for each step. For organic Octavians this could be seen as a power move as it required much dexterity to pull off though it was far easier for The Paramount. As he approached the group his head looked across the group assembled before him.

"Hello. We see that you've decided to come to us personally. We do not suppose you've come here for your terms of surrender have you?" The Paramount let out what could best be described as a snicker.

"No, no, we know you all aren't that smart, though we cannot speak for the others due to lack of experience- he gestured towards Vishala, Masque, and the Pontiff.

"-we must assume that if they are following you they are equally as foolish. Or perhaps they are Ambrosia's own personal harem? We would not be surprised knowing the company she associates with" The Paramount stopped for a moment looking specifically at the Ignisan in the group

"You must be angry about those anti-matter attacks right? We knew you'd be doing this anyway so why not fire the first shot? Though we expected the girl to be here too. Strien, yes, where is she exactly? Is there some sort of plan here? To get us by surprise? That would be far above how you much Intelligence you organics seem to have when it comes to matters like this, but it wouldn't change much however-

The Paramount assumed a fighting stance and made sure to try and hide as much of the module's energy as he could

-We've come ready for this very occasion..."


The expeditionary force sent by the Unity Church would run into the surprisingly well developed world of Ostea. Despite being on the fringes of the Imperium, an already cybernetic population and a well developed infrastructure allowed for the resistant nations to be more peacefully thrown aside. Assimilation was somewhat slow, but much of the population already being cybernetic (more derogatorily known as halfers in Octavia) it was at least a palatable situation though gangs were an issue. As the small fleet approached the planet's station there was near immediate rallying of forces on the planet and the calling of reinforcements from elsewhere with the few cruisers, transport ships, frigates, and corvettes that were awaiting redeployment and maintenance since the war started. As the Church's ships got ever closer the forces would be mobilized and a message sent

State your purpose in this system or be attacked. End of message

The Paragon was in charge of running the Imperium while everyone else was doing other things. The Paragon found it odd that his father had chosen to stay on that Earth planet with all the less than normal happenings that occured on it, but he had been taught that father always had a good reason for doing things. At least that's how father explained the prolonged periods of placing him inside a prison shell for disagreeing with The Paramount publicly, but he had to take his mind off such unimportant things. The main thing that his Holo-board told him father wanted him to do was find more allies in this conflict. With the message he had just received from this Simulacra that seemed to be an easy task. He only had to declare war on a Domion of Mankind; though he did not know who exactly these Domion was judging by the name it was likely that they would be at Octavia's throat soon enough. The Paragon would take this nation's offer and he knew exactly where father would have sent them.

To Simulacra

The Imperium of Octavia will accept your offer of alliance. The Domion of Mankind will be declared war upon. We would like your forces to head over to Paraoon to help us in the naval battle there

To the galaxy at large

As of this moment the Imperium of Octavia is at war with the nation known as the Domion of Mankind. That is all.

With that out of the way, The Paragon turned to another concern. He had heard of a being called the Solblood near the Orion Republic after reading some of H'Krell's books. The fact that the Republic was so far from Octavia and could help their foes by doing who knew what was a fact that the Tactical Codex (and the rest of high command) found troubling. The Solblood was a member of the Tzyakusa if he remembered right and they were in control of a breakaway state from the Republic... There was an opportunity here, especially with the experiments OPRA could run with their blood. He set an AI to start composing the message

From The Octavian Imperium to the glorious leaders of the Tzyakusa

Hello to the most exalted Solblood! The Imperium would like to establish an alliance with your nation in regards to the ongoing war in this galaxy. We are aware of the threat that the Orion Republic poses to your sovereignty and we would like to relieve your nation of that stress. If the Tzuakusa could initially provide scouting data and other such espionage based actions it would be much appreciated. In return the Imperium will give technology and access to the Octavian market to your merchants. We would also like to request some of your blue blooded population for labor. May our nation's co-operation being down the vile ruler known as Strien and bring prosperity to both of our nations

With that done The Paragon settled down, it seemed like there wasn't much left to do in his administrative duty. He opened his Aetherfeed to see what was on, he had heard the Commission of information had produced a propaganda piece. Perhaps it would be interesting...


By this point in the war the entirety of the Imperium's war machine had kicked into full gear, including The Commission of Information. The entity which carefully curated the entirety of the media which was produced by the entertainment conglomerates, (which were also partly owned by the Octavian government making the filing of their content a bit redundant) as well as the trillions upon trillions of Aether streams and books keeping rebellious content from slipping in and oftentimes making them a tad more patriotic to keep the citizenry nice and indoctrinated. The Paragon was put in charge of the Commission as they was not better
position for him to fill, though H'Krell would normally be in charge of propaganda. The Paramount assumed they could collaborate. Occasionallyy the Commission would create it's own media and during this war they would have full reign to produce as much propaganda as they could to keep the population motivated despite the potentially brutal consequences the war may bring. For their first "educational" video, they would focus on an easy target, The Zravvisk...

Deep in intergalactic space
Whilst awaiting the relatively slow Octavian response, MT began sending scouts deep into intergalactic space, willing them to begin the process of replication so he would have more ships at his disposal for dealing with the Dominion.
Finally, the Octavian's threw him a short and to the point response. Satisfied with their response he transmitted a small data packet containing basic information about the Simulacra's capabilities and numbers and his acknowledgement of the request.

Turning his metaphorical eye to the location referred to as Paraoon, MT quickly scanned the region, identifying numerous unknown vessels.
"A losing battle appears to be raging here, I can see why the Octavians wanted me to focus on this region." MT thought to himself.
"Well, I should not and do not need to spare many units for this: an explorer (That's the Frigate equivelant) and a small percentage of my remaining drone screen should be more than enough."

"Hmmm that planet is a trade hub though- collateral damage will obviously invalidate the exercise. Very well then, a precisely angled VDP incursion and pressure from drones and compression lances shall trap them and allow me and the remaining Octavians to reduce them to nothing in short order." MT pondered.
With that, MT positioned an explorer and its drone screen approximately 500 parsecs away from the planetary system, far closer than necessary but he wanted broad spectrum sensor readings.
Charging up the explorer's VDP he angled its plane of incursion to wreathe the planet in a surge of vacuum decay, leaving a few light hours of clearance for the planet and the defending fleets. The blast wasn't directly targeting most of the enemy ships, as this was impossible without collateral damage.
A nostalgic hum sounded through MT's sensors as the VDP charged and fired. A split second of nothing followed, portent to the absolute darkness that embroiled a colossal region of the galaxy, destroying countless nameless star systems unlucky enough to be caught in it.

Wasting barely a microsecond, MT followed up by detaching a billion drones from the explorer's screen to translate directly into the field of battle. Bringing their small but devastating forcers to bear on the organics as he hoped to force them (excusing the pun) into the VDP's embrace.
MT additionally readied the explorer's hundreds of compression lance arrays but held off using them, for he wished to observe how the enemy would deal with the VDP and drone detachment.
MT then decided the best course of action would be to broadcast a message to the allied forces present at Paraoon to avoid a panic.

"Greetings allies of the Grand Imperium of Octavia. Do not fear, what you have just observed is my handiwork. My drones are moving in on the enemy as we speak and I suggest you follow suit. After the task at hand is completed, I can explain more about what I am."




Earth- Vicinity of the Stormrider
Brobarious chose to ignore the misguided comments of the fools around him as he awaited the upcoming arrival of the vessel.
Right on cue, the Stormrider landed safely on the Earth, thankfully not crawling with eldritch phenomena to Brobarious's relief.
Seeing as almost everyone seemed to suddenly vacate the ship, Brobarious chose to follow, blinking outside of the ship.
Brobarious took a brief moment to experience the novel sensation of being on a terrestrial planet for once in his long life, before shifting his focus back to business.

Opting to focus and expand his senses, Brobarious foresaw the arrival of a certain mysterious individual from a metaphorical mile away. He looked up at him the moment he appeared in visual range, assuming a relaxed stance.
Brobarious ignored the reactions of the others as the large robot made landfall.
Letting him speak, Brobarious was about to make his rather dull intentions known- until a certain regretful comment spouted from the synthetic scumsucker's speaker.

Taking everyone by surprise, Brobarious already had several red matter knives handy before the comment was even made, quickly letting them loose at massively hypersonic speeds with his potent telekinesis.
The knives landed in a perfect circle around the foolish figure, cratering the ground and catching him off balance.
Brobarious then swiftly finished with a hand thrown knife, grazing the synthetic's head by centimetres.

"Watch your mouth equivalent before you decide to utter such drivel, synthetic, lest the next one tear it asunder." Brobarious stated with cold malice in his voice.
"I am Pontiff Brobarious of the Dominion of Mankind. I will find it within my infinite abyss of patience to forgive your blunder, if you at least tell me who you are."
"The individuals I've had the misfortune of travelling with have been most secretive about the goings on in this region of space. If you would spare a few seconds to enlighten me, I will be happy to stand down and watch your battle from afar as an impartial observer- for I have no quarrel with you."

Stromboli Island, Earth.

Before leaving the Stormrider, Masque noted that the local internet, while primitive, was still in action. Connecting to it remotely, he idly browsed the news, noting everything wrong. Cultists, zombie vampires, strange mystical entities, several powers attacking or defending the Earth, and most notably...a collection of what were claimed to be completely perfect, flawless biological lifeforms. Masque paused to reminisce on Progeny 346, a Utopian Avatar(1) that he had shared many drinks with in the past. The mystical entities were another point of interest, something to be investigated and potentially exploited in the near future.

His musings stopped when they were confronted by the Paramount, the Pontiff fellow threw hypersonic knives, and the entity correlated as "Retz" by Warmaster Lutherus showed up.

Nodding to Retz, he addressed the large shadow creature first. "I assume you're the same entity that Warmaster Lutherus has encountered. In that case, send him regards from Masque whenever you see him next, if you could spare the time."

Then, he turned to Ambrosia. "I thank you for the transport, madam Carstein. However, I am afraid that I am not properly equipped to handle this fight. There are several points of interest for me to tend to. Utopia sends their regards."
And after that, Masque seemingly...dissipated into a red mist, a cloud that flew up into the sky and became increasingly large and honing into a crystalline shape similar to that of a supersonic aircraft, that gradually shimmered into invisibility as it launched off with a supersonic boom, in a seemingly random, northeastern direction.

Moscow, Russia
(theme)

In the shadowy, crumbling ruins of a church, three figures sat around a table, discussing the events of their campaigns. These were the Pillar Men known as Kars, a genius, and the first to achieve the mantle of a perfect biological being, Esidisi, a brilliant tactician, and Santana, who while young, showed potential for true strength. Their conversation alternated between the situation with the Skyhookedians, plans for dealing with DIO and Passione, and the various starfaring nations they had heard of from the Octavians. That is, until a loud boom outside shattered what little remained of the church's stained glass windows, prompting all three pillar men to jump to alertness, ready for any perceived attack.

There were sounds of a minor scuffle outside, followed by several loud thumps, before the doors to the church slowly swung open, revealing a cloaked figure standing among the decapitated remains of the vampiric guards that originally stood at the door. Before they could attack, though, the figure spoke as it entered the room, the scarlet cape fluttering in the wind to reveal...nothing underneath, merely a cloak and mask.

"Greetings...Pillar Men, is it? I believe we have much to discuss, and much to gain."

Lowering their ...abilities, Esidisi's veins retracting, Kars' blades dimming, and Santana slightly relaxing, Kars spoke first, with a degree of authority. "And how should we trust you? How do we know you are not a Stand sent by the criminals in Italy or by DIO in the Americas?"

"Because I am something much more than a Stand, and I have the power to allow all of you the chance to fully realize the potential for your powers."

"And what are you, then?" Esidisi inquired, "An illusion, perhaps? A trick sent from the Skyhookedians or the nation the Octavians are battling in orbit?"

"None of the above. I represent an organization hailing from a nation far from here, even beyond the bounds if this universe. People like me are called to operate on the interests of this organization, which in turn serves the direct interests of an entity that you could spend your entire life studying, yet never fully understand. My name is Masque, and I've arrived with a deal." Masque paused for a second, letting the information sink in, before continuing, "Simply put, I will take over your bodies. You will live on, your bodies will just be in my service for a time. In return, the Octavians, a truly false ally in any sense of the word, will be driven from this world, and I will pull the necessary strings to...eliminate DIO and Passione. Your empire will be recognized by my people as a legitimate state, as little weight as that will carry in interstellar politics this side of the Gate. And I, in turn, will be able to fulfill my current directives."

"...and what may those directives be?" Kars asked.

Although there was a smile already on Masque's, well, mask, it seemed to sharpen and grow wider before it uttered the following words:
"The elimination of The Paramount."

The Pillar Men turned to each other, conversing for a long few minutes as they debated the authenticity and truthfulness of this being. But ultimately, the promises of DIO and Passione being dealt with won over, as they turned back to the cloaked figure, and, as Kars stepped forward, stated:
"We accept your offer."

Sol System, Mandate-Octavia Space Battle
As Masque's meeting with the Pillar Men continued, a strange distortion in space time would be detected in the orbit of Jupiter, a...swelling, if you will, an inflation, like a balloon being filled with air. And suddenly, the distortion collapsed, revealing a 1100 meter-long vessel that had not been there before. It was the AW-IX-S "It Was Like This When I Got Here", having been transferred to the Sol System to ferry Masque out should he end up in a spot of true trouble, but also to intervene in the Octavian space front. Rapidly, the vessel breached the light barrier as it began preparing for combat maneuvers, slowing to a reasonable, if not rather high, relative velocity in regards to the dueling Mandate and Octavian fleets. As a swarm of glowing missiles launched from its fifty launchers, they aimed at any Octavian fighter or missile in a 50,000km radius, blitzing at incredible speeds and simply shredding through strike frames and missiles, yet carefully avoided Mandate forces. A signal was received by the Mandate Fleet:


And with that, the Warmind slammed into evasive maneuvers, frequently hitting C-frac as it whirled and dashed about, bringing it's vibrant swarm of missiles along in elaborate chains like an exotic dancer brandishing beautiful, deadly ribbons.

The moment that the Stormrider enters Earth's atmosphere, Mark rises from his seat, robes melting into flickering, pulsating shadow. His fine literature dissolves into nothingness, replaced with his sword of gray crystal. In his free metallic hand, a Roman spatha made of indigo steel materializes, violet flames swirling around it.
The black light radiating from the Ausar's body abruptly changes to a mass of midnight flame roaring from every corner of his body, crackles of orange lightning arcing around him.
His messy brown hair begins to flow from the wind generated by his outburst of power, swirls of angry crimson surrounding his entire right side. His piercing green eyes flick over to Vishala, the light within them a strange mix of homicidal and calm.

"Fifteen bucks says that the Paramount's going to die after only an hour of combat." His voice remains as cold as always, but that hostile edge to it does just enough to signify that Mark means business.
His aura folds in on his body, making the Ausar vanish entirely.

In a flash of black, he emerges on the streets of Ginostra, the pavement bubbling under his feet as he waits for the others to assemble near him. Sure enough, they do. And Paramount seems to have had a similar idea. Mark's stare turns cold as ice as he looks at the Octavian's leader, his aura concentrating until it's a near-solid layer around his entire body.
"Anti-matter bombing was clever. I'll give you that. But clever doesn't stop me from being pissed off. You're lucky Strein isn't here. If she wasn't busy fighting Zen, she'd have probably attacked you by now because you keep mispronouncing her damn name."

The Ausar faintly smiles when he hears about Paramount coming prepared for the fight, his compressed aura of pure Dark gathering on his robotic hand.
"I can already tell you're millions of times stronger than before, even with that suppressed signature. But I've fought worse. I fought a ginger cuter and stronger than you by thousands of times. You are far from his league, and like Hell am I going to lose to a pretentious pile of metallic feces, the Philosopher's Shit of multiversal leaders."
Mark takes a single step forward, daring the Paramount to challenge him.



///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

It takes several moments for a proper response from the Tzakyuza, but after a while, the Paragon gets that aforementioned response.
"The Solblood was slain. Only her Temple remains. We've lost so much, we are left with nearly nothing. We need all the aid we can get, these mercenaries hired by that damned mutt have torn through our armies effortlessly. We will send you any blood colors you wish, we will send you the upper castes, even one of our own members. We cannot win, but we will not go down without a proper fight. We will send you whatever information you need if it means eating away at their forces even more. Sun guide you."
Alongside the message is a file consisting of hundreds of thousands of planetary coordinates and ship movements. For every 2000 Ignisian ships, there's one unidentifiable black spacecraft. Weird.
"They deceive us even with our knowledge of them. Exercise caution.

With that, the message ends.

|⌂|Earth|⌂|
|Florence, Passione Bunker|

---

Is a cane-sword truly a cane-sword if one doesn't actually bother to unsheathe it?

Elias was, admittedly, somewhat irritated by this line of thought. As he absent-mindedly batted away a mechanical limb with all the force of a speeding train, he mused on the power of names. Certainly, he could draw the blade at any moment, but was there any point? More importantly, was there any significance in not doing so? In between hypersonic swings and impossibly-fast sidesteps, his mind wandered. Of course, none of these buffoons would know the cane was a sword until the moment he drew it. But then, he had just beaten a Chosen's head into rather pancake-like shape in all of three smacks. This was fine. There was no need to escalate.

He ducked in order to avoid a stream of plasma, and sprang to the side in order to allow Renée a clear line of sight to the offender. Which she promptly made use of - a wail of splitting air serving as the only indication of the borderline-unholy force that had just struck the unfortunate Chosen squarely in the chest. Armor buckled as assorted circuitry was strewn across the bunker floor. Well, they were getting through the tin cans quickly enough. Their actual target would no doubt run at the earliest opportunity - picking up the pace was paramount.

There was a door. Did it lead any closer to the target? Maybe. Now, he should probably have planned this out a little more thoroughly. Shrugging silently to himself, he clicked his fingers - flowing outwards from the myriad glyphs adorning his hand, a mass of violet strands wove themselves into an elongated, javelin-like shape. Which he promptly hurled at the door. The sonic shockwave was enough to knock nearby gangsters off their feet, and send Chosen stumbling.

|⌂|Earth|⌂|
|Stromboli|

---

Hatlen sat through the remainder of the journey in a fairly uneventful fashion - small talk aside, he would occasionally make minor head-motions that suggested listening - what to was unclear. Though most of the ship's occupants had no real way of noting this, such actions seemed to correspond to happenings elsewhere. As soon as the landing was made, he finished up his tea - the liquid he had seemed to sip nigh-constantly without actually lowering its volume was imbibed in an instant. He set down the cup, and followed the procession out of the Stormrider.

"Another Earth, eh? Quite a few of them knocking around as of late. What a fad! I do enjoy the rustic atmosphere."

He watched with subtle amusement as the Paramount made his approach, and his threats. And was threatened in turn, both by hurled blade and intimidating voice. It seemed that quite a few of his co-passengers had some sort of bone to pick with the man of metal before them. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"Ah, wait! I think I recognize you! Perry the proto-hivemind, right? You're the root cause behind all this kerfuffle."

The Director wagged a finger disapprovingly.

"I honestly thought you'd have learned your lesson after your attempt to harass an intern had cost you a fleet. But then you managed to tick off an entire extraspatial civilization, which seems to be costing you yet more fleets. And the odd planet. Really, those orbs aren't very forgiving. Now to top it all off you're semi-responsible for potential objects of study vanishing to artificial vacuum decay! I've half a mind to give you... oh, I don't know. Some sort of severe reprimand. Maybe a slap."

|✧|Octavian Space|✧|
|Unnamed Colonial System|

---

When compared to the amorphous mass of the RSI ships, and even the shifting exterior of the orb, the Eidolon didn't seem to be doing very much at all. And in truth, it wasn't. It was merely there as a marker, of sorts - a focal point through which to conduct observations. Information-packets bounced back and forth between the statuesque thing and the Corde overseeing it, until some esoteric form of picture had been compiled. There was evidence of misdirection, at least with regards to what the information-gathering had already procured. Things mostly matched up, but the orb's transmission had clearly been built from the ground up to limit informational uptake. Secrets the owner-polity of the craft wished to protect, it would seem - to what exact end was unclear, but could reasonably be deduced. It made for a useful curio regardless, and thus some token demand was satisfied. A return-signal was dispatched shortly after.

This unit deems the enclosed information an acceptable alternative to further direct observation of your vessel, alongside other vessels of its type not meriting a separate, unique cause for investigation. While the establishment an avenue of contact for the purposes of further informational exchange would be desirable, such an action would require further elucidation as to the current state of affairs within certain tracts of target-space. Thus, further contact will be limited for the moment. Your purported task will not be interfered with, so long as it does not run counter to the intent and directives of this unit or the polity presiding over it.

The Mann's message was analysed far more quickly - though again, there was no real meaning to such terms here. While its methods of operation evoked some interest, its stated intent seemed clear enough. That said, it wouldn't do to assume. A rather curt reply was dispatched soon enough.

Provided your intent-boundaries are truthfully conveyed, this unit will not interfere with them. Further contact may be established in the event of any further unique cases, alongside potential incidents stemming from such.

The Eidolon would take a few moments more to survey the site of battle - gleaning practically everything it could from the remnants of its would-be opposition, it endeavored to construct a more adequately-detailed profile of the capabilities of the parties involved in this event. But that could be done at any time, practically anywhere, and with no real need for the Eidolon to involve itself directly. The data had been gathered, and so its job was done. Transmitting a pair of intent-based tokens constructed on the basis of "farewell" to its eldritch conversation partners, the stark-white construct seemed to fold in on itself, before vanishing from the system entirely.

On the outskirts of the galaxy, a large megastructure had been warped in. Several tube-like constructs appeared to be drawing on vacuum energy, powering it. Following that, a small fleet of other warships appeared to defend it in addition to the megastructure’s evidently dense, well-protected armourings. The fabricators inside the megastructure and the ships were capable of churning out strike-craft if the need arose and someone became hostile to them, and they could quickly warp out if worst came to worst. Hopefully, however, it was unlikely to come to that.

Inside, the inhabitants - champions by a somewhat eldritch-looking tentacled race: the Quintessons - scurried around. Labour work - engineering, for example - was predominantly carried out by the variety of slave races that had appeared to be constructed by these races, as well as some lower-ranking Quintesson types. These were the humanoid Quintessons known as Enforcers. Some of their slave races, such as the Sharkticons and the Allicons, were in the process of carrying out orders from their masters. Commanding the megastructure was a large Judge-type Quintesson, around the size of a ten metre tall Cybertronian.

The Milky Way, thanks to the expansionist efforts of the Octavian Imperium, was in the midst of strife between two factions: those who supported the Imperium and those who did not. They were also aware of numerous disturbances that had occurred within the month or so this conflict raged here. There were also the neutrals, but they were not worth the attention for the most part - is what they initially assumed. A lifeform the size of what appeared to be a solar system with two gigantic hands had appeared within the periphery of Octavian territory and assaulted what the Quintessons recognised as the Magicons (they recognised it as a heretical affront to science, but money first - for now). Temporary baby universes appeared to have also been generated during this war. The humans the Cybertronians knew were probably staying away from this fracas - and a fracas was putting it lightly.

Throughout their existence, they had seen a variety of such conflicts. People were typically desperate for survival, and arms races between warring states occurred. The Great Wars between the Autobots and the Decepticons was, to this day, an example of such a conflict - even now, following escapades involving the Quintessons had done, the Cybertronians still purchased wares from the Quintessons, and so did numerous other factions. They even detected Cybertronian presence within this galaxy, although the Decepticons were considerably more numerous than the Autobots. That, they presumed, considering events, would change soon enough; the Autobots didn’t like the Decepticon presence in the galaxy in general.

Emotions. Arms races. The Quintessons considered it to be easily exploitable, and a good location for immense profits and scientific progress. They just needed to maintain their leverages when possible, or at least be on an even playing field, and sustain a sufficient facade, and the fruits of their labour would flow. As such, they sent a message out to the Milky Way's inhabitants.

Code: Select all

“Greetings, all sophonts of this galaxy!

We are the Quintessons, and we would like to announce our presence to the inhabitants of this galaxy. Coming here, we’ve seen a galaxy ravaged by war, and we wish to provide aid to those who seek it. With help from our Resoports, we can provide goods of any purpose and function, be they used for military or economic purposes, for example.

Also, if you wish to join the Quintesson Contractor Programme (QCP), the right application forms can be sent your way upon request, and we shall conduct the appropriate vettings thereafter. Once you join us, you will be paid handsomely for your work, and we will be willing to tailor your accommodations and other such trivialities as you desire. If you want further information, feel free to contact that on us.

We wish you all a nice day.

With that message sent, the Quintessons sat back and watched the results flow. Hopefully, they would profit regardless of what happened.

Sol 233
Earth Orbit
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Linse Fleet
Dreadnought 'HMS Indefatigable'
Flag Bridge


"Sir, the Octavian strikecraft are keeping pace and are entering firing range" called one of the officers below Linse as the holographic display blossomed with missile alerts.

"Bring the escorts to the front, they will do their duty" ordered Linse, his eyes catching a great many fighters converging on Morioh and catching sight of the Octavian force making for the planet under the fleet. "Order Task Force Drake to split, the Paris and her escorts are to return to orbit whilst the rest of the force is to descend into the airspace above the city. Have then detach a ship to aid the defenders of Seoul while they're at it" said Linse, his eyes tracking across the display noting movements. As ordered the Battleship London, a pair of Heavy Cruisers, a pair of Light Cruisers along with 2 dozen Destroyers and Frigates descended into the airspace above Morioh firing on the incoming Octavian forces above and below though still making a careful effort to avoid damaging the city below.

"Admiral, reports from the ground indicate say" the officer paused a moment "the reports say the marines are being slaughtered sir though there's no consensus as to how".

"All shuttles on the way down are to return immediately, the shuttles already down there are to continue supporting the marines we can't afford to keep covering the landing" ordered Linse watching the Octavian fleet split in two. "Clever machines" remarked Linse as a number of the fleets frigates and destroyers vanished in the hail of missiles, he keyed a fleetwide comm "all stations are to advance immediately to phase 7 escalator one on the double". A pair of Light Cruisers died in the time it took for the message to go out and through the gate at Mars though the effect once it reached the gate was almost immediate.

The gate at Mars sprang to life as the Black Eagle contingent of the Expeditionary Force poured through the gate making directly for the lower portion of the Octavian fleet. On the other side of the Earth another gate appeared, this gate disgorging the large Grand Army force dispatched to secure the planet accompanied by the Expeditionary Forces Arkwright contingent who upon seeing that the Grand Army units would be safe with their own escorts began to race their way around the planet aiming to hit the upper Octavian force. Not quite the trap originally planned for the Octavian fleet but it would do nonetheless serving to pin the Octavian ships between one full size (though depleted) fleet and one half sized fleet with better weapons.

"Signal from the Winged Hussar Battleship 'Wings of Glory'" called one of the officers below Admiral Linse as the main holo-display gave way to the visage of a surprisingly young Vice-Admiral in the armoured black jumpsuit of a Black Eagle officer.

"Vice Admiral Kask, this is a surprise. Last I heard you were still with the other fleets in reserve" said Linse typing out orders for his ships to focus on the lower Octavian force.

"The Grand Admiral felt you might need some additional support sir, so he detached us to wait on your call with the Arkwright" Replied rear Admiral Vallo Kask "don't worry about those ships below you sir we'll show them why the Winged Hussars are the best in the Mandate". With that the feed cut returning to a display of the battlespace minus a few icons on each side, that said this fight was looking considerably more favourable for the Mandate now. Ships in the Linse fleet would direct all their weapons incapable of hitting the targets in front of them into the Octavian forces above and below ensuring that no matter what tricks the machines had planned they would conduct them under the fire of the Grand Fleet.

"New contact by Jupiter, power readings are off the charts and it's sending us a message" announced one of the officers below.

Reading over the message Linse let a feeling of relief wash over him, at least this ship wasn't here to fight them. "Send them a message back welcoming them to the battle and tell all ships to stay out of their firing lines" ordered Linse keeping close watch on this new arrival and the Octavian forces.

AW-IX-S ILTWIGH this is the Mandate of Humanity Dreadnought 'HMS Indefatigable' the flagship of Admiral Linse and this fleet. You are welcome to join the battle, there are plenty of targets to go around. We'll clear your firing lines and warn you to stay clear of ours, good hunting.


Sol 233
Earth Orbit
Grand Army Expeditionary Unit
Planetary Landing Zone Establishment Vessel 'Insolence'
Command Centre

Compared to a warship of similar size the command centre of the Insolence would be called cramped but then many of those who would call it cramped would admit that the heavy armour encasing it was a necessity of its role. For this was a ship whose sole purpose was to smash into a planets surface at speed, disgorge 2 divisions worth of troops with armour, launch its immense airwing and secure the area around it against any threat, be it from the ground or space. As such when the 12 large vessels arrived through the gate they immediately broke formation splitting off in pairs for South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia with the final pair hanging in orbit momentarily over the Caribbean determining the best landing zones to support the beleaguered Skyhookedian forces below.

"Drops on track for China, North Korea, France, Germany, Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, Chile, the Levant and Iran. Significant Octavian strikecraft reaction, the other ships are deploying their strikecraft compliments. Initial estimates show that the Octavians will be completely outnumbered" announced one of the command staff highlighting the other ships on the main holo display.

"Significant detonation in the Caribbean, the fortress we are aiming to save has seemingly self destructed on top of the Octavian forces" said another bringing up a sensor image of the death of Fort Liberty "sensors indicate that a portion of the defenders made it out and that the site is clear of locals. Readings from North Africa indicate massive Octavian build-up, likely a factory to produce more forces in-situ given the Fleet wont let them bring in reinforcements£.

General William Pearson looked at the display and sighed, finding another Earth should have been a happy occasion not one of war and bloodshed but needs must. "Have the European and African ships hit any non-human forces they can but if they run out of targets for their long-range guns then they are to hit whatever the Octavians are building in North Africa. The Super-Heavy guns are to stick to the original plan and fire into the Octavian fleet as orbital mechanics permit. Have the Defiance land on the opposite side of the Skyhookdian capital, we'll come down on the ruins of the Fortress guns blazing and launch all squadrons on the way down" ordered Pearson as the staff began signalling the other ships and the drop warning along with the pilots scramble alarm sounded through the craft.

Not two minutes later the 1.4km diameter craft dropped into the Earths atmosphere, a handful of thrusters on the base keeping its speed from reaching the point of causing a natural disaster to just causing a moderate earthquake on landing. As the large disk screamed its way through the atmosphere automated heavy plasma turrets on the base fired on any Octavian or undead targets they could find, easily able to pick out the heat difference between vampires and humans it was almost too simple for the automated weapons to target the not-quite-yet-dead and the drones. Strikecraft swarmed forth from the four enormous launch bay doors of the ship flowing forth to clear the skies of the Caribbean and North America and to launch sustained bombing runs on any non-humans located in the Caribbean.

With an enormous impact the ship slammed onto the ruins of Fort liberty crushing what was left into dust and compacting the 354m thick ablative lower section into a strong duranium foundation. As soon as the landing completed and with strikecraft still pouring forth the ship settled into the role of Light Planetary Defence Centre raising a large canopy shield that along with the shield being raised by Defiance covered not only Skyhooked City but a large portion of the area around the city as well. The 12 heavy railgun turrets on the upper surface began angling, tracking and firing at the largest concentrations of Octavians and non-humans in their vicinity opting to forgo their enormous range to instead fire faster at the closest targets coordinating closely with the Defiance to ensure their rounds caused maximum impact with as little waste as possible. Anything hostile approaching the embedded fortress sitting like a fat tick in the landscape would find itself under countless lighter guns mounted along the flanks of the PDC intended to kill everything from infantry to heavy tanks not to mention the large minefield being created by the mine-launchers of the fortress nor the 2 divisions of infantry with armoured support storming out of the fortress to secure the city. A message was sent out to the people of Earth.

"Brave defenders of Earth, we are the Mandate of Humanity. We are here to help you fight these malfunctioning machines that call themselves Octavians who have invaded your world solely to kill you and pillage its resources. We would have preferred that you reached into the stars peacefully on your own but yet again the universe has shown its lack of mercy, yet again humans are brutalised by an uncaring and pitiless universe that gives us no quarter. As such we humans must stand up for each other and so in the spirit of human brotherhood we come to fight for you and even though it has taken us so long to reach you we can honestly say that despite the technological disparity between the invaders and yourselves you have fought as legends showing the metal menace that one human is worth dozens of their rattling heaps. We will be distributing arms, armour and supplies to your forces shortly, reply on this frequency towards any of the newly landed Planetary Defence Centres to coordinate deliveries, air support and fire support. God be with you all and give no quarter to the machine".


Earth 233
Japan
Morioh

The laser fire hit the assault shield in front of Sirwan and thanks to the accuracy of the fire was actually weakening a section of the shield right over the Captains head much to his annoyance. Much to his irritation the damned machine was still inside the manor so he gave the dialled down the power of his rifle and returned fire diving to the side behind the shield shortly before a hole opened where his head had been. "All squads in my platoon return fire, dial plasma weapons down and watch your railrilfe fire. We don't want to injure the locals" ordered Sirwan as his men opened up on the Mechanetors position moving for cover behind their assault shields "squad 4 switch to boarding axes and flush the toaster out of cover". A set of warnings and an acknowledgement flashed into his HUD, apparently the Octavians had brought fighters to party not only that but there were a large number of fast movers on the way and some human collaborators had been brought in on an Octavian shuttle according to his shuttles sensors at least. "All units, we have multiple heavy units inbound fast so gather on my position" ordered Sirwan dodging to the side as more laser fire came for him "Fifth Company, you may want to send some men to kill the collaborators who got off of the marked shuttle. Check in with one of the nearby shuttles even if it was downed its sensors should have picked up where they went". Given the now missing front door, the lessening of the Mechanetors laser fire and the calls of the marines for the civilians within to retreat to a safe location 4th squad was making excellent progress inside the building.

Elsewhere in the city things had been going largely as expected for the marines moving with the safety of both the assault shields and personal shields though holes did begin to appear in the assault shield making troops dive for cover as their power armoured brethren send volleys of high powered plasma at the Imperators hot enough to melt tank armour. Mandate troops advanced confidently though not without casualties thanks in part to their shuttles sensors helping to keep them apprised of ambushes from the Octavian forces though that was short lived since Octavian strikecraft had turned up. The small number of fighters present in the skies above Morioh did their best to protect the shuttles with each pilot proving themselves capable combat pilots with each one downing several fighters before being overwhelmed by the greater number of Octavian fighters arriving. The shuttles gave a good account of themselves for all that they could against dedicated fighters with their much better shields and armour helping them greatly in the engagement by providing them with incredible staying power for a shuttle. Forced to fight without their shuttles and under threat of potential air attack the marines took to the building at the sides of the streets for close combat with those marines armed with longer ranged weapons slinging them over their backs to be replaced by large boarding axes well suited for this kind of close work. Inside the buildings the marines turned to their shipboard combat training dealing with the tight quarters as they would a ship rapidly clearing room to room, those with axes to the front using the fact that they were designed for cleaving through bulkheads, pressure doors and power armour to cut Octavian drones into so much scrap.

For the marines 3rd and 4th Company however things turned to hell very quickly for whilst their armours sensors identified the fleet above their heads as an illusion which they could ignore, the squads of men dropping dead to the invisible Hanged Man were another matter entirely. One squad turned and ran only to be wiped out by some great force moving incredibly fast at which point the order went out to stay off the streets if possible though men crossing roads would still at points fall victim to this force. Another squad encountered an area filled with a phenomenon registering multiple weak hits to their shields until one of the non-power armoured marines was hit several times by some sort of explosive which broke a hole first in his shield then his armour and finally in him. The now dead marine didn't fall however, rather his body rounded on its former comrades wounding two more marines before being incinerated by the power armoured squad leader but from there those two gave the mysterious puppet master the rest of the 8 man squad. 3rd companies 2nd platoon even found their equipment losing power thus rendering their weapons useless along with their 5 suits of power armour though rather than trapping the armoured marines those wearing medium armour could still move just fine whilst those in power armour hit their manual release buttons, the suits popped open decanting men in enclosed helmets with light armour. Unsurprisingly the platoons next encounters with Octavian drones proved to be a bloody affair with the marines lacking shields and reduced to only using boarding axes and grenades though that's not to say they didn't give a good account of themselves for after all they were the product of Grand Fleet Marine training. The platoon would fall though given the puppet master another 44 bodies to control.

A squad from 4th Companies 2nd platoon would find themselves pinned by fire from an unknown source that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, seizing the initiative they charged around the corner the gunfire had came from to find nothing but a railrilfe magazine. One of the privates moved towards it only for the sergeant to stop him. "Private we're the first squad in the sector and none of us have railrifles" said the power armoured marine somewhat pulling the younger man back by the shoulder.

"Maybe one of the other squads forgot to check in sarn't" chimed in the private "besides its Mandate tech, the locals can't make it".

"You are the single least intelligent marine I've ever known private" came the sergeants reply as he fully dragged the private behind him "insurgent tactics 101 kids, make something look nice and normal but hide something nasty inside". The sergeant fired up the assault shield mounted on his left arm keeping it centred on the magazine motioning one of his marines to shoot it before it likely exploded.


Earth 232
Limo on the way to the Imperial Palace

Stepping into the well appointed vehicle Taskiran reached into a fold in his sleeve to pull out an old-style thumbdrive which he presented to Fujikawa. "Prime Minister from what I've seen your people are already decently advanced for a single planet society" said Taskiran pleasantly as the car sagged slightly from the weight of the augmented Sergeant taking a seat next to taskiran "however, given the nature of the Octavian Empire who are likely scouting you for an attack we would like you to have the technologies contained within that drive. They contain things like more advanced shield technologies, the process to create duranium, advanced drive technologies, communications technologies, a wide range of technologies to help your civilian sector and even a few weapons technologies to help defend yourselves. It's nothing we didn't have back in our home system but it is the hope of the twin suns that this is merely the first of many gifts to help your people". Taskiran for his part was earnest and open occasionally looking out of the windows appreciatively at the architecture of some of the buildings they passed, his augmented eyes twinkling in a friendly manner. His bodyguard on the other hand remained blank and unreadable, his augmented eyes as dark and pitiless as the void but his attention was not entirely within the vehicle but rather outside communicating with and monitoring the men running alongside the convoy.


Pandorans
Deep Space
Pandoran Remnant Inferior Race Testing Ship "Triumphant Will"
Crew Section
Senior Officers Briefing Compartment

Hanging dark in deep space the bulky shape of the Pandoran vessel was lost in the backdrop of space and to any would-be observers would seem quite dead but that was the illusion the ships occupants were aiming for. For the occupants of this vessel were the remnants of the colony of Pandora which had declared itself to be the only bastion of pure humans in the galaxy right up until the conclusion of their devastating war with the factions that would form the Mandate to prevent the horrors of the Pandoran war from ever resurfacing. For whilst Pandora itself had been bathed in radiation and her fleets smashed she had not gone quietly into the night. Spreading ships similar to this one far and wide through uncharted gates and with the capability to build their own gates, these ships along with the bases created by them represented the basis of the Pandorans long planned vengeance against the Mandate. That being said, their last attempt to destroy the Mandate through the manipulation of the devastating Fringe Rebellion had failed taking with it one of their most important research facilities ships like this one continued their work.

Inside the small briefing compartment sat a dozen men in black uniforms differentiated only by collar tabs gazing intently at the holographic display in the middle of the table, also present was one lab-coated scientist giving the presentation and a mute slab in the corner of the room with drool leaking from its mouth. The display flowed through a series of charts marked with words like 'infection rate', 'incubation period' and lethality followed by images of people not only in various states of infection but also in varying degrees of pain for little rhyme or reason. "As you can see gentlemen" said the scientist standing at the head of the table "whilst the subjects suffer during the progression of the virus the lethality is still too high and in our estimation the infection rate would be too low for meaningful deployment as a weapon".

"Why do I hear a 'but' coming" asked the man at the opposite end of the table, his eyes narrowing at the now terrified looking scientist.

"W-w-well sir" said the scientist stuttering over his reply as the seated men began to glare at him in turn "these are only the results for SaF-HiL-10-A. We ran out of inferiors to test the other variations on and even then the sample size for this test was smaller than normal".

"I would like it on the record that procurement offered the use of slabs for testing but was declined" said a man halfway down one side of the table whose tabs indicated him as head of procurement.

"Slabs don't effective test subjects and you know it" shot back the officer opposite the procurement head, his tabs marking him as head of viral research "they don't interact properly with other subjects. Never mind that their brains aren't wired for pain".

"They do just fine for monitoring incubation times and symptom development" fired back the head of procurement his eyes little more than enraged slits "perhaps if you weren't so picky there wouldn't be a problem. Though you'll have to tell me sometime just how good those inferior women are".

"Enough" barked the seated man at the head of table, the order barely stopping the head of research from leaping across the table at his counterpart "You are dismissed doctor". When the scientist who had been giving the presentation had fled the room the man spoke again "there is an opportunity at hand for us to not only gain as many inferior test subjects as we could ever want but to also potentially gather alien subjects and conduct our tests against entire worlds". The man keyed the hologram in the centre of the table to bring up reports regarding the mandates ongoing conflict with the Octavian Empire. "You see gentlemen" said the man, a cruel grin on his face "we shall use these Octavians to get us our subjects and to provide us with worlds to test our creations. I want a message sent out to the Octavians offering our support in exchange for test subjects". The head of communications next to him nodded and began to compose a message for the Octavians.

Code: Select all

To the Octavian Government. This is the Pandoran Remnant vessel 'Triumphant Will', we are aware of your ongoing conflict with the hated Mandate of Humanity. Because of this fact we are willing to make a deal with you, provide us with genetically pure prisoners from the species you are fighting with intact minds. In return for this we will give you our expertise with biological warfare for use against your enemies provided the target is not a world with Mandate fortifications present as they would reveal our existence far earlier than we would like.

"Children, brothers, friends, today we gather once more to face an enemy of God. There is no doubt that any sufficiently intelligent machine will turn to murder and destruction, and these abominations, who are even lower than the lowliest of barbarians, have the audacity to claim that they are better and the glorious people of Asia! The chosen people blessed by God with physical perfection! Come, my children, brothers and friends, let us put the machines back in their place and punish tuem for their sins and their arrogance! Allahu Akbar! Long live Asia!" Tianshi raised his fists and spread his wings, followed by chants of his people. "Allahu Akbar, long live Asia, long live, long live, long live!"

With Gatekeeper as a stabilizer for the portals that opened, she stayed, attached to a mechanical chair connected to portals that crackled and shone in bluish light. Teams of superheroes walked through different portals, targeted at different locations at another Earth.



Normally, a young man falling into the sea in the middle of a war would be ignored. This time, however, said young man grew several times his size after he went under the surface of the water, towering dozens of metres anove sea level, attempting to draw his opponents' attention. "Spaceman Miracle has arrived!" To his right, Supernova flew past him, blasting colourful, loud, explosions at Octavian forces, while to his left was Cicada, zooming to the nearest dry land to drop Firestarter, before blasting robots, zombies, and cyborgs himself.



Portals opened and in came Team Calico. Diamond Lady, already in her diamond form, looked to the nearest dinosaur she can find to punch it in the gut with the force of a speeding locomotive, as another one is hit by The Fighting Panda with a bamboo stick hardened to be as tough as steel. "Eat bamboo, motherfucker!" she roared, hauling her large ursine body as she kept in beating the dinosaur. Nearby, Switch decided on a different approach - screaming and shooting at enemies with her arms, which she turned into miniguns. Overhead, Copycat flew past in a streak of pink, blue and white, shooting energy beams at any hostile robots, zombies, and dinosaurs.



Camilla and Camellia landed on the roof of Dio's mansion as cats, landing on their paws, followed by Heartstring, who crouched and hid herself, ready to guide her teammates - her friends' daughters, to the mansion to find the renowned vampire. Meanwhile, Mirage and Fragment walked towards the front door, ready to kick it open and distract whatever guards available from discovering the Vampire Twins' infiltration.

Imperial-Octavia wrote:The WK was a bundle of surprises as the Warminds were sure to find out. Sensing the Worldbreaker rounds coming directly at it the WK acted fast and activated it's ANSR creating a field around it which would `pause` the kinetic energy of any object coming towards it , freezing any projectile that was shot at it. Out of the thousands that were fired at it it only managed to capture a few hundred, the rest being shot down or otherwise disposed of by other means usually by the other two slabs. Once that had been done the Worldbreaker rounds were turned around-still suspended in flight-and fired right back at the Warminds along with the caster shots. These returned shots would be used as the final blow to a Warmind who's dodging patterns were thought to be discovered, hopefully sending the rest of the Warminds the way of their ally.

The Dominion of Mankind wrote: With that, MT positioned an explorer and its drone screen approximately 500 parsecs away from the planetary system, far closer than necessary but he wanted broad spectrum sensor readings.
Charging up the explorer's VDP he angled its plane of incursion to wreathe the planet in a surge of vacuum decay, leaving a few light hours of clearance for the planet and the defending fleets. The blast wasn't directly targeting most of the enemy ships, as this was impossible without collateral damage.
A nostalgic hum sounded through MT's sensors as the VDP charged and fired. A split second of nothing followed, portent to the absolute darkness that embroiled a colossal region of the galaxy, destroying countless nameless star systems unlucky enough to be caught in it.

Wasting barely a microsecond, MT followed up by detaching a billion drones from the explorer's screen to translate directly into the field of battle. Bringing their small but devastating forcers to bear on the organics as he hoped to force them (excusing the pun) into the VDP's embrace.
MT additionally readied the explorer's hundreds of compression lance arrays but held off using them, for he wished to observe how the enemy would deal with the VDP and drone detachment.

---

TASK FORCE 'MOSSFLOWER' - PARAOON - OCTAVIAN SPACE

---

"Sir, planet has taken damag- Oh holy hell..!"

"Emergency warp, vector for Finity's End! Fleet over-ride, my mark! Mark!"

"Aye aye, cap! Emergency vector, warp... Initiated across fleet!"

---

Within a minute of the WK appearing the ISO fleet was gone- Clearly not willing to take on firepower well outside the slugging range of an Elephant- At least, without many of the tricks of the trade that an ISO ship would need for such an endeavor with the reports passed along from the 'Starfury' and Bulwark. Leaving the void of space silence of response from the MSGA combined response...

For a few seconds.

And then with the silence of a knife slitting a throat the 'Starfury' appeared. Already fully prepared for combat, as it took the grim situation infront of it into consideration... And then got to work.

---

"Friendly Federal forces have already lost a unit. Getting surges on Manip channels- Disguised shells- Returning to sender."

"Heavy shot inbound. Looks to be.. Vacuum decay. Timeline decompression, executed. Orders, captain?"

"Split three. Return to sender, return to sphere, and hit that planet. Shield friendlies from possible back-lash. Standard resync."

"Affirm, captain. Moves programmed. Should we undertake offensive action?"

"Pop those boxes. Tertiary battery, missiles. Take CIWS online for those fighters."

"Orders confirmed... Gunnery ready. Initiating."

---

With the confirmation, a dozen different things happened at once. For one- The inbound shot of Vacuum Decay Energy, at the point just before it entered the system Paraoon was located in, seemed to simply... Stop there.

And then it seemed to split into three separate beams. One of which was aimed at the frigate which sent it- One of which simply appeared over the surface of Paraoon, and the third and final of which appeared mere nano-meters from the hull of the WK Nanite Ball. A simple 'shunt' maneuver rapidly coming into play, as the hellish volley of firepower the previously mentioned WK was throwing down seemed to suddenly come back at it. Shells being moved about and shunted- Vanishing for a handful of Planck Time units and then re-appearing with momentum completely reversed, as the Cruiser moved in an instant- Appearing in-front of the general formation of the WarMinds, as it's seeming lack of weapon systems proved wrong in a second- A hellish web of impossible to describe firepower simply appearing from the cruiser's armored skin, like prickles off a porcupine- Shots composed of indescribable energies dancing across the void of space, as the Simulcrum drones rapidly came under fire from the 'CIWS' of the Cruiser. The Cubes coming under fire within the same processing moment, 'real-style' shells leaping out of nowhere, and passing the gap like it never even existed, to begin hammering home against the skin of the smaller Visoran ships. The Starfury was ready for round two- And it's opening punches had rapidly finished...