Voyage Through the Multiverse (Ended) [IC]

[Menschenfleisch]

Shadows of the Empire | Avarice and Tone

Two steps in, and the bullets were already flying. Valerian's immediate reaction was to fling himself at the core of the terrorists, entirely focused on eliminating all extant threats. The more attention he ate up, the fewer guns there would be pointed at the hostages. He couldn't possibly make it there in time, after all. He slid under tables, dismembering the inexperienced fighting force with this brutal, almost methodical precision. He simply threw himself through two men, turning their cadavers to ash as he did so. He flicked his sword through a man's heart, and through sheer pressure, his blade sent an arc of air spinning away, rending the skin from another soldier's face. The rose in his pocket snaked out all that time, rapidly engulfing all aspects of the environment. Vines fell from the roof and picked up tables, barricades, whatever meagre cover the terrorists had made for themselves.

Devana snapped his fingers a few times, each short click followed up by a man's body bursting with frost, or someone simply slumping over, having inexplicably died. All that while there was a disconcerting auditory drone, an ultrasound wave that made it nearly impossible to think. His opponents saw dark spots and vivid hallucinations, and their lungs seemed to be always full to bursting. They couldn't balance, couldn't breathe; most simply fell over, and decided not to get back up. Avarice, though, she did nothing. She watched, and thought. Even as blaster bolts fell upon her, tearing chunks out of her chest and head, she continued to wonder how to interpret this. Everyone was throwing themselves into the fight, some with different objectives than others. Very few of the terrorists worked out of anything besides self preservation. Her apparent tutor was exclusively targeting enemies, rather than attempting to save anyone. And the others... they were somewhere in the middle.

Bang. The sound brought the world back into focus. Valerian rolled up into the line of hostages just in time to see the last one fall. He'd gotten there too late. Frankly, he couldn't care less about the mission now. If there was no time limit, finishing off the rest of the gang would be easy. Green limbs burst from the walls and roof, entangling and strangling men. It was over. The job was well and truly finished.

Avarice knelt over the few injured people from the battle, mostly a smattering of AEGIS operatives. No terrorists had survived. The attackers' efficiency and the defenders' fanaticism had ensured that not one of them remained standing by the end. "That wasn't very educational," she muttered, laying a hand on September's wound. "The hell are you doing?" she asked, squirming away. Devana sat down next to the two, giving Ava this confused, almost incomprehensive look. "Why didn't you do anything? I thought you were following me." "I am," she responded curtly. "I'm following your orders until I come to a conclusion, or I find someone who I trust more." she locked eyes with him, unflinching. "You hate me more than anything else in the world, so I know you'll try to make me as good as you can possibly imagine. Anyone else would try to weaponize, or trick me. But not the man who despises me most. So... next time, give me some orders." he nodded silently, laying fingers upon September's heart- ("god, why does it have to be there?") ("Shut up. I'm trying to help.") and filled her up with liveliness. Caitlin felt an overwhelming surge of energy, like sparks dancing in her bloodstream. The sensation quickly faded as all that excess went into healing her wounds, weaving together broken skin and regenerating lost flesh. A few old scars faded too, bleeding away their colour. "Stay down for a little while. You won't know your own strength, so don't clench your fist or anything. Might break a finger." "Thanks, Val. Not like I had modesty to protect, or anything." "Shut up, you thirty year old virgin."

Then, there was the matter of Hex and the boy. True to Arawn progenitor form, she was taking the mission personally, and doing what she saw as being in the interests of future battles. He reminded her of someone. Jonathan, right? Him and his band of fifty supersoldiers, traipsing through time and space. Valerian had spent some good times with them. He laid a hand upon the relatively young reaver's shoulder, flinching as she whirled around, mere inches from his face. "Hex, don't jeopardise the mission. You're talking to a pubescent kid." she pushed him away, stepping back. "Does it matter? This imbecile got our men killed. Do you understand?! Innocent lives, wasted!" "You've killed more people today." Avarice stated. "And our enemies will mourn them. We have an obligation to mourn our own, and to give the people responsible what they deserve." "And maybe, they deserve a second chance. This time, at least." she looked at Ben for a moment before tearing her gaze away. "Fuck you. Fine. But if any of you jeopardise AEGIS again, I'll be first in line to kick your asses."

Dead Man's Party | Avenoir and Mnemosyne

"No!" Polly threw herself at Katya, knocking her gun aside before she could shoot the other unconscious hunters. The valet was well and truly terminated, his brains scattered across the floor, and painted upon the plaster. "You- why would you do that!?" Marcus spoke from the other end of the hall, wiping blood from his brow with this look of utter apathy, or exhaustion. "She doesn't care about what you're saying. Kat listens to pragmatics." Delilah stepped back, letting out a deep breath, and unclenching her fists. "Look, can we not risk leaving them alive for two seconds? The chances of the other hunters getting help is miniscule. And, need I remind you, we still have no proof that these were the actual sins. We need information, and these are our only leads right now."

Mark approached, kneeling over the dead man, examining the hole in his head. "We might want to fake their deaths, as well. If we make it look like an accident of some sort, we can plausibly deny the role we had in their deaths." "How are you so calm about this? We just executed an innocent man-" "A hostile agent working for the man who would've shot Miria!" "Does that flipping matter?! We can't go around dispensing justice as we see fit. The battle is over. We should take the survivors to the front desk and hand them in!" both Marcus and Polly responded; "No!" "They're going to cast suspicion on us!" "What if one of them gets out gets out, or manages to talk to their compatriots who might be posing as guards, or guests?" "Then at least lock them up, instead of killing two potentially innocent, but paranoid people!" Polly sighed, shaking her head as if chastising a child. "We might need them dead to get out of here. Just... hold both of them down and wait until they wake up, alright? Is everyone fine with that idea? We can even go with Mark's suggestion and change up the crime scene a little, make it look like we didn't shoot them. I'm pretty sure there aren't any forensic experts in here, after all."

L-Fel | Cassia

The cashew in the detective's hand broke apart, revealing the rather chipper looking face of a young man, with fiery red hair and a suit of tailored black. "Oh, I understand what you're after," he smirked. "I can provide, as long as you give me something to work off of."

[Slenderman The CreepyPasta King]

Shadows of the Empire
Jedi Temple

Before anyone can try to reason with the terrorist a blue moth man would appear and freeze two of the terrorists before a strange mechincal beeping can be heard coming from the mothman before a red flash appeared and a teen age human now stood before the group.

The terrorists at first stood dumbfounded by what happened, many trying to comprehend what just happened and what sorcery the human that just appear done. "Die Jedi!" One terrorist wearing clone trooper shouted before he shot Ben at the abdomen with his blaster.

The other terrorist broke it of their stupor as the apparent leader shouted. "Kill the hostages and the pawns of the Republic!" The hostages screamed in horror as blaster bolts went off and began to hit their bodies. September fired off her gaius rifle, the bright flash going off as well as a sonic boom as the ferrous round flew through the chest of the leader and a few other terrorists behind him before it broke through the glass to continue flying away.

September tried to go invisible but was hit by a few blaster bolts on her left shoulder and hips, follow by her right knee and finally her chest. The woman went down screaming as her thermo-optic camo began to flicker on and off repeatedly. The woman was now lying prone on the ground, her suits healing system was still functioning as it began to inject various medical chemicals and remedies into her body to stabilize her body and increase her chances of being treated by a doctor.

Hex had her camo active just as she jumped and rolled away from several blaster bolts. The reaver open fire with her rifle and the armor piercing rounds tore through the plastoid armor plates and tore through the flash of the terrorists. The terrorists began to fire their blasters wildly to try and hit the invisible Reaver. Deimos was hit repeatedly by blaster bolts, far more than the others due to the wild spray the terrorists were firing at. Blaster bolts flew to Valerian and Avarice. Jeremoch, the Coruscant guard, manage to get one shot from his blaster pistol before he two went down due to a few blaster hits.

Hex used one of the chairs as cover as she waited for the bolts to cease. But as she saw a few troopers approaching her location she was forced to open fire on them and give away her position. As the terrorists began to move to her location the other soldiers who were invisible threw flashbangs and just as Hex ran out of her location, firing and taking put a few terrorists while also being hit by a few bolts from her opponents a bright flash would engulf the room.

The unseen soldiers rushed in and not only did their visors protect them from the flash bangs but their HUD help picked up the best spots to hit, making the soldiers quickly dispatched the terrorists quickly before they can kill anymore people. "Area clear of all hostiles. Our mission was a failure." One of the soldiers said as they report their mission to Archer. The combat medics of the teams rushed to everyone in the room to treat those injuries before they can be moved to the gunships for medical evacuation.

Hex was having the same issue with her camo system flickering due to malfunction. While he fabric of the chameleon cloak was lighter and stronger than kevlar and can repeat itself if torn or cut did not do so when burn, a the material was never made to deal with thermal based weapons like direct energy weapons. Several patches of the suit was burnt and Hex can feel her body was burnt to but the Reaver's enchanted endurance made it that she can still operate despite the pain.

The Reaver looked at the hostages, most of whom were killed by the terrorist with only a handful surviving but in critical condition. She look over at September, medics appealing medigel and medical nanites as they tried to gently remove the exosuit as it fulfilled its finally duty of stabilizing her. The Reaver walked to where Ben was as one medical was treating his wounds with the same tools as the others. Hex put away her rifle and took out her pistol. When she was next to Ben and aim the gun down at Ben.

"Do you have any idea what you have done?" The woman's face may be hidden behind her mask but the rage in her voice made it clear how she felt. "We had the situation under control before you screwed everything up! We could have saved these people on our own but instead you decided to play the role of a hero." She pointed at the dead hostages with her pistol. "Look at what playing hero got us."

After Hex gave Ben some time to think over what he did she would cock her gun, aiming it at his head. "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't put you in the morgue like everyone else who died in this room." The Reaver threaten. The medic was still, too petrified of the Reaver's rage to perform his duty. The other soldiers looked at Hex, unsure whether to get in the way of a pissed off Reaver or avoid getting caught in the crossfire and letting Ben suffer through Hex's judgement.

When Ben was shot in the abdomen he could only think, “what in Azmuth’s name is a Jedi?” When the reaver asked why she shouldn’t kill Ben the teen just stared her right in the eyes and said, “because I was trying to help, no matter what you say, I couldn’t just stand by and let innocents be in trouble. Now am I sorry that I got them killed? Yes, but you do not tell me to stand down when people are in trouble. Because I won’t.”

[Parcia]

Shadows of the Empire
Jedi Temple

The ODSTs rode the turbo lift in up the long spine in silence until Lily spoke up. "Sarge...are we really in another Galaxy, on another planet?" He would nod, his visor turning translucent. "It appears so and before you ask, no, I don't know how we are getting home...just focus on the mission at hand corporal." With a sigh, she nodded, "Aye Sarge ."

With a whoose the doors opened and the team found them selves in a stand off of sorts, what they assumed to be allied operative holding and injured teen at gunpoint. Jim spoke up, "Hey boss, that thing on his wrist looks like the symbol on the Mothman, same guy?" The Good Sergeant was more occupied with the women. Taking a few steps forward, he clipped his smg on this rear maglock mount and removed his helmet, revealing his gruff, battle scared late 30s face. "Hey, miss, look, I know you likely have your reasons to keep the kid at the business end of your gun there, but what these...Aegis guys are telling me, he's on our side." Taking a few more steps forward, he kept his hands up and extended outward in a non threatening posture.

"Now, the kid did Fumble a counter insurgency opp, and for that I do agree he deserved a swift and utter ass kicking that I do wish I will be the one to execute." He shot the injured teen a stern look of a man coldly holding back an alarming amount of rage. "But at any rate, he needs medical attention before we can deliver that ass kicking, so, if you willy kindly lower that fire arm I think we would all appreciate it. For all ours sake, don't make this worse then it is miss."

Lilly would wait off behind the kid, trauma kit at the ready, the rest of the squad would slowly circle the situation, weapons lowered yet held at the ready.

[Slenderman The CreepyPasta King]

Shadows of the Empire
Jedi Temple

The ODSTs rode the turbo lift in up the long spine in silence until Lily spoke up. "Sarge...are we really in another Galaxy, on another planet?" He would nod, his visor turning translucent. "It appears so and before you ask, no, I don't know how we are getting home...just focus on the mission at hand corporal." With a sigh, she nodded, "Aye Sarge ."

With a whoose the doors opened and the team found them selves in a stand off of sorts, what they assumed to be allied operative holding and injured teen at gunpoint. Jim spoke up, "Hey boss, that thing on his wrist looks like the symbol on the Mothman, same guy?" The Good Sergeant was more occupied with the women. Taking a few steps forward, he clipped his smg on this rear maglock mount and removed his helmet, revealing his gruff, battle scared late 30s face. "Hey, miss, look, I know you likely have your reasons to keep the kid at the business end of your gun there, but what these...Aegis guys are telling me, he's on our side." Taking a few more steps forward, he kept his hands up and extended outward in a non threatening posture.

"Now, the kid did Fumble a counter insurgency opp, and for that I do agree he deserved a swift and utter ass kicking that I do wish I will be the one to execute." He shot the injured teen a stern look of a man coldly holding back an alarming amount of rage. "But at any rate, he needs medical attention before we can deliver that ass kicking, so, if you willy kindly lower that fire arm I think we would all appreciate it. For all ours sake, don't make this worse then it is miss."

Lilly would wait off behind the kid, trauma kit at the ready, the rest of the squad would slowly circle the situation, weapons lowered yet held at the ready.

“Please, I’ve been through worse. All I have to do is wait until I can transform again and I’ll be fine.” Ben said to Jim through some pain. He might have been revealed to be human but it seemed like no one knows exactly how he transformed and that means the omnitrix is still a secret.

[Rostavykhan]

Dead Man's Party

"You argue that we have no evidence that the man we killed was an enemy, but I beg to differ!", Katya said, her eyes sparkling. She ignored Polly's knocking her aim off, although she did lower her pistol. "Our businessman friend over here called the valet "Sloth" without much hesitation. He and this woman were awaiting you and your friend when you broke out of the maintenance room, the the man I shot was the one to close you in and attempt to distract you. Now, in case you forgot, we're supposed to be the only ones with knowledge of who the architects of this trap are, and though the boy here spilled the beans for them here..."

She quickly glanced Marcus's way, but quickly continued.

"Although he blew our cover, he did not say who it was that we were after. They seemed to know that on their own! They referred to that man by his codename, and they didn't seem to hesitate at all to attempt to gain the upper hand when we revealed ourselves. I'll take that as a very safe bet that they are the criminals that we're looking for."

Her rant over, Katya craned her head back to look Ammy, Issun, and Ganon's way. "You heard them address that man as Sloth prior to the explosion as well, did you not?"

While Katya argued with the group, Miria climbed to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her, while she stayed near Ammy and Ganon for support until she could move properly again. "This was my fault.", She mumbled, shaking her head. She felt sick; while everyone around her argued and bickered, and wondered what to do next, she'd been replaying the events leading up to the explosion in her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more that she realized that perhaps, in some way, it was her fault. She felt guilty over the dead valet, even if she wasn't the one who pulled the trigger.

She didn't have the time to mourn, however, even if she did feel bad. There were more pressing matters at hand. Her eyes darted toward Katya, then Mnemosyne, and Marcus and Polly. "I, uh...you know what, never mind. Um...wait."

She approached Polly, and poked at her wounded arm. "Need this?", She asked, holding up her own right arm, already tugging at her arm wraps. "I can bandage you and Marcus up, stop some of the bleeding."

[Naval Monte]

Shadows of the Empire

"Hey make sure to leave room for me." September weakly uttered. Hex looked over to see that the nanites and healing potions injected into the woman manage to wake her up. "Don't talk now you idiot. You need to conserve whatever strength you have left for healing." those words made September chuckle. "Aww I never knew you cared about me that much Hexi." the reaver rolled her eyes behind her mask at the other woman's words.

Hex heeded the sergeant's words along with those of Valerian and Avarice's. As she took the gun away from Ben as she walked away from him and went to a soldier near by. "Who allowed this kid to be here?" The soldiers took the question as an order due to the demanding tone. "It was Commander Archer ma'am. He figured that using a shapeshifter who had different powers can be useful in dealing with the terrorists. We didn't know that he was a minor or that he would sabotage our mission this severely." the soldiers told the Reaver as each one hoped the explanation would be enough to save them from the repercussions of this mistake.

"I'm going to have a word with your commander after this. For now I want you all to keep the boy in this room until he is healed. After that cuff him and take him to one of our gunships so he can stand for a tribunal for what he has done. Depending on what the ruling some people here may get the ass kicking they want." the soldiers complied with the order as they shouted "yes ma'am" as they moved to Ben to fulfill their order, awaiting for his recovery so he would be apprehended.

Hex was going to walk out of the room when she stopped to turn to another group of soldiers in the room. "Remove that watch of his. That thing has the same symbol that he had as a mothman. It is most likely connected to his strange powers and I want it removed if such a connection exist." she told them in a hush tone so the teenager won't overhear her. The soldiers nodded and walked over to the others. As Hex walked out of the room she began to get into contact with Archer. However before she can get the commander she got another call, this one from Sato.

The Reaver accepted the call and soon heard the director and leader of the AEGIS division in this universe speak. "How are things going on in the temple Hex? From what I'm seeing we almost rounded up all of the terrorists save for the ones in your location." the reaver sighed as she recounted the screw up in the council chamber. "Damn it, this isn't going to look good on us to our new allies." Sato cursed. The Reaver's enhanced hearing can pick up Sato muttering how she was glad she decided to call Hex privately so no one in the cruiser can hear her. "Our gate is most likely set up in our new base. We can have Archer moved in and give him a private trial for his role in this incident back in our world and say that the boy interfered with our mission." Hex suggested.

"Doesn't change the fact he can simply tell them that one of our own allowed him to assist us. The only way to prevent him to tell the others that if we place a geas on him." When Sato heard Hex suggest on doing that the woman was silent as she thought on whether to force such a spell on Ben. "Question the boy first. Ask him what he will do if faced with the possibly of being in court for his actions and depending on his questions place the geass if he intends to drag us down with him." the reaver didn't object to the order. "Understood. Should I leave the temple?" Sato deny the order. "You will get a new suit after this mission is over. For now I need you to stay to end this mission much more quickly."

Hex saw her AR visors activating to show the layout of the temple. "The final holdout for these terrorists seem to be either at the hanger or they are all heading to the archives. We already got a team in the archives setting up defenses to prevent the enemy from taking it back. I want you to help them as your camouflage system is damaged. We're going to let our new friends deal with the ones in the hanger. We'll have a few of our troops follow them so we can get a good luck on how well they operate."

The Reaver complied with the order and began to head to the archives while in the room a soldier approached the sergeant and told him along with Valerian and Avarice what the director told them from their message about the archive and hanger. From the door more soldiers came in with medical stretchers to begin carrying off both the living and dead.

[Parcia]

Shadows of the Empire

The Sargent let a sigh of relief out when she lowered the gun and repaired to start screaming at the kid when he was approached by an Allied soldier. "The Hanger...Alright, We'll fallow you then." Putting his helmet back on, he called over his Internal Coms. "Right, form up. St. Augustine, you there?"


Helen Answered back. "Live and here, We have local airspace locked off, though Law enforcement has taken over, we are open for fire support." He paused, taking a Moment to stud the Map. "Right, See if you can move to cover the Hanger entrance with the RAMPART guns, we might need to lock down the hanger."

[Naval Monte]

Shadow of the Empire

The soldiers began to run down the halls. The group can hear the echoes of gun and blaster fire, follow by screaming. The final fight for the terrorists was reaching its final act and while they fought valiantly everyone knew how this was going to end. The real question was how many people would the victors loss at the end of this battle?

The group would see a large metal door before them. "This is the hanger." The soldiers took out flash bangs as they turned invisible. "Cover your eyes. We will give you some cover so they won't shot you guys immediately." the invisible soldier told the group. The soldiers went to the side for cover and as one soldier stood in front they would open the door.

The terrorists turn to look at the door and suspecting invisible soldiers were entering they aim their blasters and began to open fire at the entrance. The one soldier that stood to open the door manage to quickly get behind cover while throwing his flashbang along with a few others. The bombs would release a bright flash and while some terrorists were caught others manage to evade it by running for cover.

the invisible soldiers began to enter the hanger as they began to open fire at the terrorists that were exposed, their plastoid armors shattering as bullets effortlessly broke through. The other terrorists that were smart found the metal from the machines and broken starfighters to be useful as cover, a fact that AEGIS also found out.

The hanger was litter with the wreckage of destroyed jedi starfighters and machines. Most of the hanger doors were closed yet one of them was wide open. The soldiers suspect that the door was open for a getaway vehicle that the terrorists had. Regardless if such vehicle exists most soldiers made it up their mind to take out the terrorists by any means before any getaway flying machine can arrive to pick them up.

[Korhal IVV]

The Reunion of Two Legends

Shadows of the Empire

The shine of the blue sparks of hyperspace slipped past the windows of the Andromeda as the Solar Dragons retreated from the fiasco that was the battle of Hosnian Prime. The Solar Dragons have lost a rather moderate number of starfighters and two frigates so far, with the losses being minimal thanks in no small part to the conservative tactics of Grand Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who never allowed a single ship of his fleet to come too close into the sights of the enemy Star Destroyers, as he was well aware of what they were capable of, as his Haeresi Warlocks have done a very food job at siphoning off every bit of useful information from the enemy TIE pilots that they captured in the battle on Zakuul. Imperial Star Destroyers and Resurgent Star Destroyers were the ones he was most wary of, as they were available in large enough numbers, unlike Star Dreadnoughts.

As the fleet slipped away from the horrible failure of the Hosnian System, they would detect another fleet incoming. That fleet seemed to be following the Andromeda; the unknown ships were fixated on the Andromeda’s energy signature, which was especially unique in the electromagnetic spectrum unique thanks in no small part to being powered by a legitimate Westorosian made dimensional wave motion engine. As they were still in FTL, they could not really make out who it was. Still, Yi sought to unravel the mystery.

The Admiral placed a hand on the control console of his command throne, pushing several buttons as he intended to issue another command to the whole fleet. “All ships, put power to shields. We have no idea who is following us, but I do not wish to fire first. We are dropping in the edge of the Coruscant System. Be wary.”

And so it went. The Terran Fleet dropped out of hyperspace in the edge of the Coruscant System, with their eyes fixated on the signatures of the ships that were following them. There were at least 85 of them, with 72 of them being small and weak compared to others, twelve of which were at least cruiser class and the last one was probably a battleship or a Star Dreadnought.

They didn’t have to wait long to find out.

As the Solar Dragons dropped out of hyperspace, Ahijah and his Watchers closely followed them, tracking their movements with the hypersensitive sensor arrays of some of the Koenigsberg Class Corvettes. The Judean looked intently at the screen that depicted the movements of the Andromeda and its companions, before...

“Commander, the universal propulsion drives are overheating!”, the engineering officer shouted out of nowhere as the Solar Defender began to shudder. “Core is going critical!”

Ahijah immediately reacted. “Jettison them! We do not intend to explode when we are so near!”

“But... we can’t go back if we do that!”

“We can’t return if we are too dead to return. Do it!”, Ahijah ordered with authority. “We can always build new drives. We have the blueprints aboard.”

“Okay, sir. Jettisoning drives.”, the engineering officer said.

All 85 ships shed their multiverse engines into hyperspace in the nick of time, as when they did so, the engines melted under their own heat and weight before exploding; the spatial disruption caused by this vomited the Watchers out of hyperspace right near the Solar Dragons. The ships were violently thrown out like ragdolls, but the AIs of the ships went to work as they stabilized the ships with secondary thrusters.

“Is that you?

Coruscant

The Terran war machines and droids fought on, driving out terrorists from the immediate vicinity of the Coruscant Museum with unholy litanies of cursed chain gun fire and the fell swoops of their superheated chainswords. Leading them was Draech, who smashed through the attacksrs with utter ferocity and cold blooded fire and fury as his blade cut another enemy from head to groin, his two halves falling flat to the ground as the heat of the ghostblade cauterized the flesh as soon as it was cut. They formed a perimeter around the museum, defending everyone inside it as they cut down every hostile they saw.

Meanwhile, the frigate launched several gunships out of its hangars, which would then proceed to aid in cleanup as well.

[Skylus]

Dead Man's Party

"You argue that we have no evidence that the man we killed was an enemy, but I beg to differ!", Katya said, her eyes sparkling. She ignored Polly's knocking her aim off, although she did lower her pistol. "Our businessman friend over here called the valet "Sloth" without much hesitation. He and this woman were awaiting you and your friend when you broke out of the maintenance room, the the man I shot was the one to close you in and attempt to distract you. Now, in case you forgot, we're supposed to be the only ones with knowledge of who the architects of this trap are, and though the boy here spilled the beans for them here..."

She quickly glanced Marcus's way, but quickly continued.

"Although he blew our cover, he did not say who it was that we were after. They seemed to know that on their own! They referred to that man by his codename, and they didn't seem to hesitate at all to attempt to gain the upper hand when we revealed ourselves. I'll take that as a very safe bet that they are the criminals that we're looking for."

Her rant over, Katya craned her head back to look Ammy, Issun, and Ganon's way. "You heard them address that man as Sloth prior to the explosion as well, did you not?"

While Katya argued with the group, Miria climbed to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her, while she stayed near Ammy and Ganon for support until she could move properly again. "This was my fault.", She mumbled, shaking her head. She felt sick; while everyone around her argued and bickered, and wondered what to do next, she'd been replaying the events leading up to the explosion in her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more that she realized that perhaps, in some way, it was her fault. She felt guilty over the dead valet, even if she wasn't the one who pulled the trigger.

She didn't have the time to mourn, however, even if she did feel bad. There were more pressing matters at hand. Her eyes darted toward Katya, then Mnemosyne, and Marcus and Polly. "I, uh...you know what, never mind. Um...wait."

She approached Polly, and poked at her wounded arm. "Need this?", She asked, holding up her own right arm, already tugging at her arm wraps. "I can bandage you and Marcus up, stop some of the bleeding."

Ganon, Ammy, and Issun
Dead Man's Party

Ganon nodded while Ammy and Issun walked over to Polly and offered the woman the Healing Medicine they had picked up in Sei-An City.
"Yes, I do remember those two calling the now dead man that name. At least we know who is somewhat responsible for this. However, I am concerned about the rest of you. You seem to lash out at everyone, even if they are trying to help you. Maybe I was somewhat the cause of this...I do regret my actions, I sincerely do apologize, you may accept it, or not, that is up to you."

The Demon King picked up his Trident and looked down towards Katya.
"Where should we go next?"

[Menschenfleisch]

Dead Man's Party | Avenoir and Mnemosyne

Both Marcus and Polly shook their heads, relatively fit for combat. Mark knew that of all the people assembled here, he and Mnemosyne were perhaps the least useful. He had no outstanding physical attributes or training of any kind. Polly had effortlessly disarmed him just a few minutes ago, and seemed to be perfectly fine with the effects of the explosion. He, on the other hand, could hardly stand without getting pins and needles through both his legs, and an incessant whine in his ears. Permanent tinnitus or no, he couldn't contribute meaningfully to any of their battles. For now, he had to remain relevant only on the intellectual side of things. Planning, theorising, keeping the group together. Mnemosyne was a little less willing to admit to her being out of her depth, choosing to stand with the rest alongside Polly, stealing looks at the group's 'big guns', so to speak. Ganon, Ammy, and of course the literal firearms that two members of the group kept on them at all times... for some reason.

Seriously, did exploring other universes really require a gun? Surely, half the threatening things you'd find would be bulletproof. If she'd voiced that thought, the explorer would've retorted with; "Well, what about the other fifty percent?" of course neither of them said anything, creating a very visually monotonous scene. And you guys think that text is inferior to film. Look at this! Lazy exposition, delivered like any other line. God damn, I am a genius... Ahem;

"To be frank, dealing with the bodies is our top priority. They'll be back for their dead, and definitely the living, whether they're the sins' allies or not. We can probably take this to one of the guest rooms. These walls are soundproof for... unsavory reasons, I assume."
"Actually, I have an alternative," Polly interjected. "If we hand them over to the receptionist and the staff, we can be fairly certain that they'll be guarded. Even if impersonation runs rampant, it'll be near impossible to, say, fool an apparent' co worker', if they know what to look for. We should be emphasising our differences to find out which in-groups and out-groups can be trusted, and which can't be confirmed."
"Come to think of it, we should probably come up with a code word, in case they put us under duress, or try to act like us. Any volunteers? I'm down for anything."
"Marcus is a dumb nob."
"... I think I'd like to hear the rest of the room, please."

[Naval Monte]

Tokyo-3

The inhabitants of city known simply Tokyo-3 would think the day they were having was an ordinary day, and in most cases it would have been as such. But in another universe factors were leading to this day of normality to be shattered and for the fate of not only the city and NERV to change but the whole universe of which the two reside in. In another universe, within a secretive mountain facility, an aging general was overseeing the ring shape device known as a Janus gate as the device stood at the end of a large hanger, the machine covering the automatic armoured doors.

Standing behind a window made of transparent aluminum the bald and old general looked as the arrowhead shaped drones were undergoing their last check up by technicians and engineers before they were sent through the gate. "What is the status report on all of the drones?" the man asked as he took a sip on his coffee. The black liquid now tasted like actual coffee as suppose to the cold and repulsive tar-like substance they were forced to drink as a substitute. The new coffee machine was proving to be a good investment as now having true and proper coffee improved morale in Site-93 after the previous incidents related to the Janus Program.

"All drones are reporting green sir. The camera and sensor systems are functional. ECM and weapon systems are functional. VI and artificial neural computer systems are all functional." the technicians behind the computers reported. "So far so good." Now he hoped that when the mission starts it would remain that way. Hammond looked at his analog wrist watch. "We have twenty minutes before we are to start gentlemen. Make sure you all use this time wisely to find any possible errors that might spring up to ruin this mission for us." he said through the mic attached to his head set as he gave the message to the teams in the hangers.

The teams all gave him various gestures to let Hammond know that they all got his message as they kept checking on the drones and fine tuning them. After minutes pass the teams would begin to leave the hanger as the drones were done with their check up. Hammond would check on his watch. "Nine minutes. Looks like we're starting this mission early. Active the gate now." the various officers within the room all comply with the order as they all typed down the commands to open the gate on their keyboard.

Hammond heard alarms going off to alert everyone in the facility the Janus gate was activating. The lights would grow dim save for the red lights of the alarm system as a miniature black hole would appear in the center of the gate. The black hole would slow expand until it fully covered the empty space that was the center of the ring. "Launch the first drone." Hammond ordered, his stony expression remain as he was use to seeing the black hole that was the rift.

The drone would begin to speed off rapidly and just as it was taking off it would enter the black hole. From the monitors that Hammond and several researchers were looking on they would see nothing as the camera of the drone was not operating yet, a common occurrence once it was in the rift. But once it exit the rift the camera would spring to life as the drone was now flying over a mountainside with many trees. "Atmospheric readings seem to be similar to Earth." One researcher noted at the data the drone was sending back through a laser beam transmission back to the rift. As the drone kept moving away from the rift another drone would take off to enter the rift to join the other.

The first drone would continue on with it's path until it's sensors would pick up radio-wave transmission as well as spike of electromagnetic radiation, the same spike indicative of large metropolitan settlement. As it flew over a mountain the drone's camera would pick up Tokyo-3. Back in the facility the researchers saw the city. "Just as we thought. This is another Earth variant." one of the researchers noted as they command the drone to fly closer to the city. More drones were now flying around in the new universe. Each drone would fly close to fire off a laser beam encoded with data they have gathered on the world they were in and the closet one to the rift sending the data back. A few more drones would be following the first so the first drone can beam the data it has to the others, that way the data won't be lost should it fall.

[Rostavykhan]

Dead Man's Party


When Marcus suggested a safe word, Miria piped back up, eager to take her mind off of the scene. "Safe word? Safeword safeword safeword...mmmmmm.....santra. Santra! Santra, uh...", She seemed to stumble over the word, visibly confused and fumbling with her fingers. "Santra...o-oranges. It means orange.", She said, quickly returning to her rythmic clapping. "Like the fruit. That's good, right?"

"A safeword?", Katya piped up, rubbing her chin. "Hmm...it is a decent idea. I'm not sure if anyone will be impersonated, but it's not a preposterous suggestion either. Alright then.", She said, nodding.

Suddenly, down the hall, the sound of distant footsteps was growing closer. Wex and the woman twitched, slowly waking up, although their movement halted once more when Katya jabbed her pistol at them again, hissing for them to stay put. "It seems we'll have company.", She said, cursing. "I suppose we can hand them over to the hotel staff.", She told Polly. "As much as I would like to interrogate them. Perhaps we should bring it up with the front desk again? I have my credentials on me, so we should have an excuse.", She said, more annoyed by the predicament than worried or frightened. It was almost like them having killed a man and damaged a building was a minor inconvenience to her. Then again, if her previous actions and the contents of her car were any indication, she was probably still hopped up on her meds, if not just insane.

Miria piped up again, still clapping. "No! What if they escape! We need to be more vigilant! Incompetence got us here to begin with!", She cried, almost gritting her teeth. "I slipped up and it ended up making everything go south! What if you put these people in the wrong hands, and they escape, or tell their buddies? We need to be thorough!"

[The Palmetto]

Shadows of the Empire
Cheelit

Cheelit never had a reputation for being a great planet, regardless of your definition of a “great planet.” It was located in the farthest edges of the outer rim, not too far from the Unexplored Regions themselves. That in and of itself made most of its populace poor and uneducated, with horrible infrastructure for its inhabitants. There was a unique form of parasitic worm, which had spread across the galaxy and harmed livestock. Not doing it any better were its native inhabitants, with the sentient J’feh, mysterious cephalopods in hovering globes. Despite being a minority, they were quite influential, and worked with a variety of lowlifes, including the slavers which had set up shop.

Under the leadership of Queen Natsen, a group of Zygerrian slavers had managed to lay low from the Republic and later Empire, and grow their slave empire in the Outer Rim. The Empire, with its more lax policies towards slavery, was fine with ignoring them. Some Imperial officials in the outer rim would even buy slaves from the Zygerrians, getting more favorable prices than people who couldn’t threaten to send a warship to glass their base of operations. The chaos caused by the Galactic Civil War allowed their operations to expand further, occasionally even raiding more isolated Imperial Worlds, until ultimately losing most of their market due to the New Republic banning slavery and punishing slavers.

Being pushed to the Outer Rim, they had continuously lost station after station as the various factions in the Outer Rim. By the time of the FO attack on the New Republic, they were limited mostly to one fortified planet: Cheelit. With the assistance of the J’feh, they had set about enslaving most of the population. Falsely believing their confederated government of system was too weak to organize a full reprisal, the forces of Cheelit had attempted a slave raid on the VCIS-held planet of Trenwyth. They were proven horribly wrong, with the local militia holding them off before most of the slaver’s forces there were destroyed by the professional armed forces. Several interrogated survivors revealed their location on Cheelit, and the VCIS had quickly reached a consensus to retaliate.

The expeditionary forces of the VCIS jumped out of hyperspace, landing not too far from the planet’s orbit. For such a matter, the Separatist flagship The Last Stand had arrived in the Cheetlit system. The ship was well over 2,000 meters long, and carried millions of battle droids and hundreds of droid starfighters. It was run by some of the best tacticians in the Outer Rim, who used upgraded Tactical Droids as aides. The massive ship carried not only a fearsome crew but a fearsome reputation, having preyed on numerous fleets across the Outer Rim. The Providence-class dreadnought was escorted by two destroyers and 12 frigates, which would prove more than enough to deal with the slaver fleet.

“Prepare my ship,” General PS-T0 said, prompting a cascade of “Roger, Roger”s from the droids accompanying him. The tall droid, a modified EG-5 Jedi Hunter, stood above his comrades of all kinds as he rushed towards starfighter. He preferred to fight his own battles while in space, and certainly was skilled enough to do so. He had decades of experience, and didn’t need to worry about g-force or oxygen like his opponents. This made his ship, The Spirit of Raxus, a Rogue-class starfighter, easy to modify to avoid the needs of organics while adding improved shields, missiles, and cloaking.

Four BX-series Commando droids would join the Droid General in their own Rogue-class starfighters, and the five blew off into the ongoing battle. Following Pisto’s lead, hundreds of vulture droids and droid tri-fighters deployed, giving the appearance of a massive swarm of insects. Their sheer numbers created a barrage of blaster fire that destroyed a few unprepared fighters, and they began to hone in on the largest destroyer being used by the slavers. With the support from the fighters, dozens of Hyena-bombers managed to strike at the enemy fleet. The leading destroyer was crippled almost instantly, and ending up violently exploding as debris fell towards the atmosphere.

Several more hours of bombing runs and fierce dog fighting, and the orbit of Cheelit was covered in the remains of the slaver fleet. With air superiority secured, thousands of droid carriers descended across the planet. The planet was mostly underpopulated, and small settlements came under occupation with ease. The real quest was to secure Nadashk, the center of slaving operations on the planet. A force of 500,000 battle droids surrounded the fortified city, and began to push inwards.

Thanks to uncontested air support allowing for Hyena-bombers to decimate the fortifications, the outer city fell quickly. A slave uprising was encouraged by the Separatist forces, and large chunks of the city had been liberated by local forces. As Pisto walked down the streets of Nadashk with his guards, he noticed dozens of mutilated Zygerrian corpses being tossed around and defiled. One of the humans from the civilian government, to be in charge of the interim government, confronted Pisto on it.

“Are you sure we should be let these lynchings continue? I know they were slavers, but it would be more human to put them on trial,” the man interjected.

“Being involved in the business of slavery forfeits you of your rights by default. They knew very well what could happen to them when they began their careers, and I’d say they’re getting what they deserve. We can not do everything for the locals, they must establish confidence in their own power of self-governance,” Pisto replied, stopping to converse with the man. Pisto was not going to be overly hostile to the man, but the rivalry between the army and civilian government for influence flared up most in cases like these, and Pisto was determined not to “lose”, regardless of what was being disputed.

“Even if it means mob violence? They’re tearing them from limb to limb! We are here to help the locals free themselves and establish a democratic government, not thrust this planet into chaos,” The civilian governor told him. If Pisto’s appearance wasn’t frightening enough, the droid’s lack of mercy for people he deemed “undesireable” was.

“You forget that the VCIS was born of revolution. Let me guess, you’re from one of Vassek’s megacities? Raised in one of the largest apartments to a rich family who coddled him? Your stable society was built on the back of revolutionaries, and I was there when it happened. The beloved “Grandfather” of our Confederacy was a violent revolutionary, and that spirit still lives on, even if the government’s begun to put frail, whiny liberals such as yourself into positions of power. I knew that it was a mistake to stop handpicking revolutionaries for the government, don’t make me rethink my decision,” Pisto replied furiously, giving the man a death stare. The governor stopped talking, and simply walked off to avoid conversing further with the violent droid.

“Nerf-herding liberals, I swear to Grievous,” Pisto said, letting out a mechanical sigh as he and his guards continued towards the center of the city. Due to the violence in the streets, the enemy forces were rapidly retreating into the core of the city, fittingly named The Castle. It was a massive tower, and had shielding and turrets surrounding it. What protected it most, however, were the presence of numerous hostages inside the facility. Because of this, Pisto would be going inside alone to deal with this slaver scum himself.

“The gunship will blow a hole just a few holes down from where the hostages are, and you four will enter the building. Cause some chaos and draw some of their forces, while I sneak around to where their leader is. Don’t try to save the hostages, that’s my job. Understood?” Pisto asked his commando droids, as an HMP droid gunship landed beside the quintet of droids.

“Roger roger,” they replied in unison, walking onto the top of the ship and magnetizing to its top along with their leader. While not intended, early Separatist tacticians discovered that the flat top of the HMP allowed droids to magnetize to its surface and use its top as a carrier. The rack below could carry almost a dozen droids, but it was easier to deploy a small fireteam from the top. Once the droid got past the shield simply by moving slowly and using a simple cloaking device, it rushed to the side of the building and blew a massive hole, in which the five droids snuck in. The gunship was blown up by a turret on its way to escape, but the mission was still going as planned.

As Pisto cut a hole into the floor above them and snuck off, the four commando droids activated their personal shields and opened fire on the first guards they saw. Caught off guard and unable to penetrate their shields, they were quickly gunned down. One of the droids picked up a comlink and imitated one of the guard’s voices, while gesturing for the other droids to mimic a fight going on in the background.

“There’s -agh- there’s too many of them! Over a dozen, maybe more!” The droid, mimicking a guard. Meanwhile, the other droids fired off their blasters and kept repeatedly beating up the corpses. Every now and again, they’d mimic an organic yelp of pain. They might’ve enjoyed this a bit too much.

“They’re not going for the hostages, they do not- they don’t care! I overheard them, they’re going for the main reactor! Get as many troops down there as possible, and- AGHHHH,” The droid gave off a dying scream, and shot the comlink. The commandos stopped their improv acting and continued on, creating as much chaos as possible while Pisto dealt with the hostages.

Pisto had managed to sneak his way through the building, killing a few guards and hiding their corpses as he went. Eventually, he reached the top of the building. It was the place of residence for Queen Natser, the leader of these slavers and a self-proclaimed royal. The colored glass ceiling was covered in armor to protect from bombardment, and the numerous hostages were crowded in the middle, guarded by several slavers with energy whips and blasters. Amongst all of the priceless artifacts and works of arts, Pisto managed to sneak onto the top of the ceiling and decided to copy an old trick.

Before the guards could even notice what was happening, the droid dropped the ceiling with his lightsabers spinning. The rapidly spinning blades beheaded several guards once he hit the floor, and Pisto threw his sabers at the guards not in his vicinity. With the energy blade not having weight, they flew off easily, and several guards lie mutilated on the floor. Before the droid could receive his sabers, however, a guard, having lost both his arm and his firearm, lashed at Pisto with his energy whip. It shocked the droid’s arm, who responded in turn by grabbing the fleshy organic’s remaining hand and swiveling it like a lightsaber, painfully removing it. Pisto proceeded to viciously maul him with his claws, before retrieving his lightsabers and confronting the last guard.

The last guard was different, however. While still a Zygerrian, he was large and muscular even for his own species. His clothing was, in contrast to the style commonly seen, less ornate and more pragmatic. Most unique of all was the double bladed lightsaber on their hip, which they hadn’t even bothered to activate.

“You aren’t going to thank me? The name’s Vakem Ret, so you can give the full honors” The guard said with a sinister chuckle.

“For what? Giving me another lightsaber to add to my collection?” Pisto replied, igniting his sabers and spinning them to try and intimidate his opponent.

“For letting you get your lightsabers, and kill those guards. Unlike your cold, mechanical race, the Zygerrians are a race of honor and fairness, and I have been granted the power of the Force to use progress the tradition of my people. You may beat us here, but our ancestors will always smile down upon us,” Ret replied, igniting the two sides of his saber.

“I’m not here to debate philosophy, I’m here to put your queen’s head on a stick and mount on the tallest building I can find. Your honor is meaningless and your traditions are plagued with degeneracy. I am going to rebuild your nation and its way of life from the ground up, even if it makes your disgusting ancestors weep from their graves,” Pisto said, lunging at his opponent.
Ret blocked the attack, using the Force to hold the droid’s lightsabers back. The Zygerrian moved his blade down, using the other side to slash at Pisto. The droid’s right shoulder pad was almost entirely torn off, but he was mostly intact. Pisto slashed at him several times, each attack being blocked the two sides of Ret’s saber. Pisto ended up simply using his lightsabers like Grievous before him, swiveling them until they became an unstoppable meat grinder. Having never faced this tactic before, Ret stepped back as Pisto approached him, and took a defensive stance. Pisto rushed towards him, and making a risky move deactivated his lightsabers then reactivated them while his hands still spun. Before the furry force user’s lightsaber could do anything but scrape the droid’s chest armor, his hands were amputated and his lightsaber fell to the floor.

Ret fell to his knees, and as Pisto picked up the Zygerrian lightsaber, the force user prepared for death.
“You aren’t going to die yet, I have use for you. Your queen, on the other hand, is the first step in the cultural genocide of your planet. Sweet dreams, furry scum,” Pisto bragged, before punching him hard enough to knock him out. Bloodied and mutilated, the furry scum limply fell to the floor.

After the hostages were rescued and the Queen secured, Pisto’s commando droids actually managed to live up to their improv story and shut off the generator. The Castle was taken quickly, and on its steps, Queen Natser was executed and her corpse paraded around by the locals. The surviving elite, along with high level military personnel and collaborators, were forcibly deported to the icy world of Sibir as forced labor. A civilian government was established, and the resulting elections saw a pro-VCIS government officially join the Confederacy. Pisto and his forces ended the occupation and handed over the job of protecting Cheelit to the locals. The Droid General finished up his most recent campaign with two prizes: a lightsaber, and the force user attached.

Vassek’s Moon

Pisto, having been repaired and wearing a snazzy new cape sewed by local Cheelitian women, returned home to the moon of Vassek. It served as the capital and base of operations for the VCIS Droid Army, fittingly orbiting Vassek, the civilian capital. The planet was by no means devoid of organic life, however, and just on top of what was once the lair of Grievous was the public part of the Droid Army’s base of operations. Not too many important things happened here, and it acted largely as a museum to help bridge the gap between the civilian and mechanical military of the VCIS. It contained numerous artifacts from the history of the CIS and its successor the VCIS. One of Admiral Trench’s uniforms and a cane stood off to the side, with a replica of the Soulless One, Grievous’s starfighter, in the center. The iconic “Hall of Heroes” contained statues of figures from major leaders of the CIS like Count Dooku to Outer Rim revolutionaries who helped shaped the modern VCIS.

Pisto’s ship arrived in Grievous’s old ship storage, the massive doors opening and closing for him. Oftentimes he would take the long way, going through the public zone to meet with civilians then head down by using a guarded elevator, but this was different. He hopped out of his ship, then gave his cape to one of the droids, who neatly folded it and took it to be cleaned. Pisto walked to the back of his ship and opened the compartment door, grabbing a heavily drugged Ret and dragging him out.

“Guards! Escort him to Grievous’s Chambers!” Pisto ordered, giving the half conscious Zygerrian to two robed Magnaguards. The two droids silently obeyed, and carried the body to Grievous’s Chambers as Pisto lead them to the room. They would arrive in a well lit room, its walls covered in dozens of lightsabers and Kaleesh artifacts. Pisto gently took a Kaleesh robe from the walls, not unlike those of his bodyguards, and put it on.

“In your name, another one of your foes has been slain. Though he left the Order long ago, the fact remains that I killed a former Jedi. I hope this brings joy to you, my Lord,” Pisto said, putting Ret’s saber on the wall of Grievous’s collection. Pisto had made it his goal to acquire as many lightsabers as possible to continue Grievous’s habit of collecting them, and though most of the newer additions had been bought, Ret marked the first one to come from a force user that had been defeated in battle. Pisto viewed the Jedi as manipulative, self-righteous cultists, but would never kill one without cause. As he admired Grievous’s collection, it did not seem he cared that Grievous did.

At the end of the hallway was a well adorned, durasteel casket, with its insides perfectly revealed. Inside of it was nothing order that the corpse of General Grievous. The gaping hole opened up by Obi-wan had been closed, but the scorch marks from his untimely death remained. His fiery death scorched what little organic pieces the cyborg had left, giving his remains a hollow look. The body had been stored on Utapau, along with various other Grievous-related things ranging from his ship, to some of his old body guards, and even the parts of his body removed by Geonosians to make way for his “upgrades”. Following the collapse of the Empire, the VCIS managed to acquire the storehouse’s contents and move them here, even giving Grievous a proper burial.

His body had remained down here, however, for more peculiar purposes. Decades without memory wipes gave Pisto free will and a complex personality of his own, but he was still driven by his original orders: Serve the Droid Army, serve General Grievous, and preserve the CIS at all costs. Ultimately, Pisto could not accept Grievous’s death, and read into Kaleesh mythology to try and revive him. Grievous was a deity on Kalee for his actions, and after consulting with a Kaleesh Priest, Pisto was lead to believe that as Grievous was once given new life by the blood of Sifo-Dyas, that he could be reborn a second time with the blood of another force user.

Ret was put into a sealed pod connected to General Grievous’s casket, and as the door slammed he seemed to regain consciousness. He began to bang on the door with his arm stumps and scream for help as dozens of needles stuck deep into his flesh. The two Magnaguards gently rose Grievous’s body from the casket and connected it to several tubes attached to the pod. Pisto pressed a button on Ret’s pod, and needles sank even deeper into the Zygerrian’s flesh, rapidly sucking up his blood. He began to cry and scream, threatening to kill Pisto before being reduced to tears as he weakly begged for his life. Pisto watched without emotion, seeing Ret as a bad man whose death would help him achieve his goals. Ret died due to bloodless, and his blood began to course through Grievous’s armor. The blood began to pour out from the armor’s cracks and holes, but ultimately, the corpse was simply stained. Pisto ordered the Magnaguards to put the body down, and he then opened Ret’s pod.

“You weren’t good enough, it seems. Burn the corpse and dispose of the ashes,” Pisto ordered the Magnaguards, who quickly complied. Pisto retreated to his private quarters, and let out a mechanical sigh. He felt as if his devotion was as hollow as Grievous’s corpse, not being strong enough to truly bring him back. But...why was he trying to revive him? Pisto was a hostile opponent towards traditional religion and other things unfounded in science, why would he believe that the Kaleesh religion would do anything to help? Grievous might not even approve of the VCIS, not to mention that-

Pisto’s mind seem to automatically blank itself, and he forgot what he was thinking. Something about the late General Grievous, he remembered. Before he could look into those thoughts, however, he received a message from an informant. A terror attack had occurred on Coruscant, and Hosnian Prime was under attack by what seemed to be Imperials. Knowing that the end of the New Republic would mean the Imperials would come for him next, and hoping to gain their favor for any new negotiations, he immediately authorized an expeditionary force and rushed to his starfighter. A Droid General never rests for too long.

Coruscant

The VCIS expeditionary force jumped out of hyperspace just over Coruscant, being lead by its flagship, The Last Stand. It was escorted by two destroyers and 12 frigates, with thousands of droid starfighters helping to guard the fleet. The starfighters stayed deployed, however, hoping to avoid looking aggressive. Pisto looked outside of the starboard window of The Last Stand, and remembered the first time he looked over Coruscant. He was once involved in sieging it, but now he was here to help protect it.

“This is General PS-T0, Droid General of the Vassek Confederacy of Independent Systems. I am currently commanding the VCIS Expeditionary Forces to assist you in fighting the forces threatening the galaxy. We have come to assist you in your endeavor, not to engage in warfare with the New Republic. I, along with my body guards, would like to come down there. Do you understand?”

[Petrokovia]

Shadows of the Empire

IMPDO Central Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, Earth-A

Five business suit-clad men sat around a large, round table in a well lit office room, itself circular. IMPDO's grand council scanned over several pieces of paperwork, including military reports, maps, and the paperwork filed for the newest members of the MUDP, the New Republic and Hyrulius.

"It seems Pepper has finally secured Corneria, but the planet had to be put under martial law for the time being." one of the councilmen stated. "Now that emergency powers are in effect, should we not do the same?"

Another councilman shook his head.
"No, we shouldn't push our authority too quickly. If the time comes where it is necessary to push Venom back, we may revisit it."

A third member looked at a large map of the world, which showed large swaths of the world occupied by Venom.
"That time may be around the corner. In just ten hours, Venom has already claimed around a quarter of Earth's land..."

"Much of that is thanks to several nations taking Venom's offer." the fourth man spoke. "Though it remains to be seen if Venom will keep their word."

"I suppose it is time to address what remains of the United Nations." the fifth spoke, standing from his chair.

The five men walked briskly out of the room, entering a large auditorium, the room filled with the leaders of 120 nations, including a number of governments-in-exile. The entire room droned with the sound of the leaders muttering among each other, and over the span of a few minutes, the dull roar faded to silence. Among the front of the crowd, next to the American and Russian delegation as well as Ms. Grey from AEGIS, stood a cart with a monitor on it, projection the likeness of General Pepper; the dog stood in the command center of his flagship, and the small window the screen provided was enough to see that the ship was rather worse for wear.

One of the councilmen from IMPDO stepped forward to a podium, speaking into the microphone. Behind him, a large screen projected footage taken of the Venomian occupation zones. Blurry, low resolution photos showed the Venomian forces-overwhelmingly made up of bipedal apes and anthropomorphic lizards-staffing huge tent cities, where they brought humans in by the truck-full.

"As our compatriots in AEGIS have guessed, Venom is most likely attempting to transform the political sphere of the MUDP by conquering and 're-educating' each planet's inhabitants. From the few pictures we were able to obtain, they have already begun erecting camps, separating children from adults and holding them in separate detention centers. We do not yet know how they intend to brainwash our population, but we would assume that it would be a long term goal, over the course of several generations."

Pepper sniffed the air, a confused look on his face.
"Re-education?" he wondered aloud. "Venom's strategies have certainly changed a lot in the past decade."

The councilman gestured to Pepper.
"I believe you have some much needed good news for us, General?"

Pepper nodded, as his monitor was wheeled to the front of the auditorium. He cleared his throat.
"23 minutes ago, we were able to force the Venomian fleet around Corneria to retreat, inflicting heavy casualties. However, in doing so we sustained heavy losses, and had to redistribute the fleets orbiting most worlds to key locations, leaving several planets defended by ground bases alone. My goal is to solidify control over key planets, before planet hopping to retake lost territory. I will be sending a fleet to Earth-A to help you."

---

Capital City, Venom

A dozen various apes sat around a large round table in a rather poorly lit room. The lights, whose installations seemed nearly three hundred years old, gave a warm but ominous glow over the room.

A silverback gorilla shifted several papers in front of him around, having finished reading a report.
"We have conquered half of the Lylat system, and are set to conquer Earth-A, Terapoma, Fortuna, and Kew in a matter of days. This first attack went without a hitch, and now we're on even grounds with Corneria's might overall."

Dash Bowman, a lightly built monkey with white head hair, was the next to speak. He turned to the gorilla, smiling.
"Great news, General. Very soon, we'll be in a position to sue for peace, and leave all of this behind us."

The silverback continued reading the report, catching something with a disturbed look.
"Wait... It says that the 'mother-child separation' operation is in full swing. I wasn't told of this..."

The ape turned to Dash, with a confused stare. Dash mirrored the look, turning to the rest of the council.
"Separating children?"

One of the council members, an orangutan, nodded.
"Yes, you said that we needed to reeducate the masses in order to solidify our new empire. Children and adults must be reeducated in different ways."

Dash shook his head, as his blood turned hot with anger, confusion, and panic.
"This whole thing was to put Venom on equal footing. I was talking about providing our side of the story, not building detention camps! The goal isn't to conquer Corneria, the goal is to force them to renegotiate the treaty from ten years ago!"

The gorilla chimed in.
"The army's orders were temporary occupation zones, and to upload our own records and accounts to their networks. If we offered a helping hand to the less fortunate and the oppressed nations of Earth-A, and showed our ability to match or even supersede Corneria's might in Lylat, it would force a discussion. We weren't ever supposed to separate families!"

A chameleon across the table slid a single piece of paper across the table, which stopped just in front of the simian general. It was the paperwork for the order to separate the children of Earth-A from their parents, with a large "Marshal Horace Gallus" signed on a line at the bottom.

The ape looked at this piece of paper, staring at his own signature.
But... I didn't sign this...

He turned to President Bowman, his eyes pleading.
I can't even argue the point! It's clear what is happening... If I go against the council, I might be...

The orangutan turned to face Bowman, as well.
"The council voted on this issue, and we have already decided the course for the war. I am sorry President, but your original plan is too soft for Venom to thrive. We have unanimously agreed to bring the entire Lylat system and the MUDP under Venomian control."

Dash stared daggers at the rest of the council.
"This is a grave mistake! They'll never go for it! Negotiations are the only way to-"

The orangutan raised a hand.
"We have the council's decision. You must enact it."

Dash remained silent, fists clenched. Despite his rage, his entire body felt like lead, his heart sinking. The primate turned and walked out of the room.

Music

He made his way though the underground complex within Venom, past dilapidated buildings, markets, and lots, all meant to emulate the style of construction one would expect of an old surface city as well as possible underground. The area was completely devoid of anyone but the council, having been cleared out for "security reasons" about two years ago, when Venom met the Scarlet Fleet and the Supreme Council began planning for war with Corneria.

Eventually, Dash reached an old elevator, whose shaft extended all the way up through the shadowy roof of the city, several hundred meters above. The monkey stepped inside, the elevator creaking under his weight. He pressed a button, and the car went upwards, slowly. He looked down on the empty city. For a moment, he could swear he saw a flash of a wondrous, life-filled city, the lights bright, illuminating various electric cars and pedestrians as they bustled about. A support column from the elevator shaft broke the man's view of the city, and his vision returned to normal.

The city was a ghost town, devoid of all life outside of the capital building. The streets had begun to crack, paper and broken glass littered the city, buildings with broken windows and no lights, flickering street lamps. This was the once great underground metropolis of Venom.

As he rode the car upwards, Dash pulled out a small metal tin, and flipped the top of it open. He took out two small pills, and placed them in his mouth, swallowing. He placed the tin away, just as the car passed the roof of the city. The elevator passed several thick, metal bulkheads, before arriving at the planet's surface.

Dash stepped out of the elevator, onto dry, crunchy dirt. Venom was barely lit, despite being the closest planet to Lylat, the system's star. The atmosphere was a swirling combination of gasses, colored sickly shades of green and brown. While to the public, he blamed Corneria for Venom's state, in reality, this was just propaganda to rile up the planet's residents; centuries of government mismanagement had ruined the once prosperous world. A world with climates, landscapes, and air much like Corneria's own. Fields of green turned to dried, dusty dirt, sand, and ash. Lakes of clear water had become pits of black sludge.

But this air... When the primate breathed, is was thick and viscous, almost like his lungs filled with fluid. A once oxygen and nitrogen rich atmosphere taken over by massive, endless clouds of carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur dioxide.

Dash looked out to the horizon, where the clouds' colors eventually blended into a pale yellow. Undoubtedly, somewhere on the other side of the smog was a life-giving star. Dash felt compelled to move towards it.

Eventually, he gave in, and took a step forward. The dust around him kicked up, swirled up to the skies, and diffused. A faint image of the face of Andross, looking downward to his grandson with tired, knowing eyes.
"...I am proud of you and all you've accomplished, my grandson... But I worry about you."

Dash looked up to the clouds, seeing the face of his deceased grandfather.
"A-Andross! I... What should I do? Do we really have to destroy Corneria for the Venomians to prosper?"

There was a pause.

Music

Andross sighed, the winds of Venom carrying the weight of his regret.
"Dash, if you were to flip a coin, would you choose heads, or tails?"

Dash looked at his grandfather with confusion.
"...I guess... heads?" he blinked. "Why?"

Andross nodded slightly.
"You never even considered the coin landing on its side... You see, Lylat is divided between two narratives, neither being the entire truth. When I arrived on Venom during my exile, I was much like you. An idealist, but naive. I had made several mistakes in life, which led to my ostracization by Corneria, but was still too blinded by rage and hubris to recognize my own faults in the matter. I was more willing to take Venom's side of history as my own, and forget my life on Corneria."

Andross turned his gaze upward, to the clouds.
"I do admire Cornerian society, as well as their form of democracy. For them, it works well, due to their high level of education. At first, I believed in the narrative that Corneria was oppressing Venom, and there is some truth to this, especially in the past. I wanted to believe that it would be as simple as conquering Corneria. 'Make a large drone army, overwhelm them, lead the society to a new future,' that was the goal. But seeing this war unfold, I now know that this is not the right path."

Dash opened his arms, and Andross looked back to his grandson.
"The plan was to get equal footing, and sue for peace! I never wanted to destroy Corneria, just get them to listen!"

Andross nodded.
"I understand, but you must be warned; Venomian politics has become increasingly corrupted over the centuries. It is rife with backstabbing and coups, self-interest, propaganda, and anti-intellectualism among the lower classes. It is a society that can not be changed through winning a war, or through example alone. And it is a system that will work against you at every turn."

There was a moment of silence, as Andross's spirit narrowed his eyes.
"This Supreme Council has only existed for the ten years since the end of the Lylatian Civil War, having cropped up immediately after my demise. This may be a stab in the dark, but they have already taken to deciding things without you even present for the meetings, have they not?"

Dash cast his gaze to the dry, lifeless dirt.
"They have."

The wind around the area seemed to kick up slightly, as a mist of rain fell. Dash could feel tiny droplets of water blow against his face, calming his emotions and clearing his mind. He looked up to the large, translucent face of Andross; his expression seemed heavy, the dark circles under his eyes more prominent.
"You are a fine, brave, intelligent young man, and the rightful leader of Venom. You may not have the planet's resources, but you do have the hearts and minds of the people, as well as my wisdom. You know what must be done."

Dash locked eyes with his grandfather's spirit, nodding with determination.
"Yes, grandfather... I will set things right."

Andross closed his eyes, and his spirit began fading away with the blowing dust.
"I cannot express how proud I am of you, young David. I love you."

As the young monkey watched his grandfather fade away, the slight mist let up, leaving behind only strong winds. President Bowman turned his gaze to the horizon, as the bright yellow gasses faded back to the dark green and brown of the night sky.

---

Salvadora III, Hosnian Prime

Venomian Fleet Admiral Viktor Sodsran watched as the New Republic fleet retreated from Hosnian orbit. As the ships fled, he smiled haughtily.
This war may go over much more easily than I thought... he mused to himself.

There is trouble. A deep, low voice filled with worry called out to Viktor, in his mind.

Viktor's expression became confused.
What is it?

The Council is corrupt. We must take action.

Viktor's eyes darted across the bridge, as if checking the door.
That would be treason!

You forget who you are talking to.

Viktor let out a sigh.
You're right... What needs to be done?

Continue with the original war plan. Even if the Council gives new orders, follow them in line with President Bowman's outline in mind. If the two should conflict, ignore the Council.

Viktor visibly nodded.
Fine. I take it he's safe?

Yes. Thank you. I'll leave you to your work.

Viktor smiled softly.
Take care, brother.

The simian admiral snapped back into reality, as the command center of the Salvadora III erupted into action. He looked forward, and saw a truly mind-boggling sight.

The stark white star destroyer in the middle of the fight has turned into a far more massive glowing vaguely-shaped bird with several sets of wings, from which auroras extended. The bird proceeded to fight against the fleet, keeping a hole open in the Venomian formation long enough for the opposing fleet to escape.

Viktor's brow furrowed.
"Charge the superlaser. I want that thing destroyed!"

---

MUS Kongou, Hosnian Prime

Tadayoshi watched through the windows of the bridge, as a polygonal bird of light opened a path for the losing allied fleet to escape. As it fought the Venomian and First Order ships, a mysterious voice came over Kongou's PA system, speaking through static.

"I will create an opening for you and your people to go through."

Tadayoshi looked over to Terrell, who shrugged.
"Um..."
"I don't know. It's an unauthorized signal, and can't be traced. It's as if it's coming from everywhere around the ship."

Kongou looked at the strange polygonal bird as it fought, a mix of confusion and intrigue pervading her face. Another message came over the speakers.

"You're like me?"

Kongou sat up straight, feeling shock and apprehension crawl down her back, which gave way to curiosity.
"We should let them know to find us. Maybe they could help with the war effort."

Tadayoshi glanced over to Kongou, nodding.
"Good call."

Kongou smiled, before turning her attention back to the strange bird.

"Detecting large energy readings from the Salvadora III." Terrell called out, hiding his nervousness. "Looks like they're charging their superlaser."

"How long until our fleet can jump?" Tadayoshi inquired.

"Six minutes." Terrell responded, fidgeting slightly as he watched the timer count down.

Tadayoshi looked at the touchscreen connected to his chair, which displayed the Salvadora III, its heat signature, and various statistics regarding it.
"Scan for the center of the energy spike's location, and designate it as our next target."

Tadayoshi then turned to Kongou, Maya, and Hyuuga.
"If you all combine your processing power, you can control a higher degeneracy and increase the output of the super graviton cannon, right?"

"Yep!" Maya blurted out, excitedly.

Tadayoshi nodded, turning back to Terrell.
"Send a message to Hawking's Revenge to help cover us during the charging sequence, and to Mir II to keep Zordan busy."

Terrell nodded, and Tadayoshi's gaze turned to the Salvadora III.
"Charge the super graviton cannon!"

Music

As the Hawking's Revenge and its shuttles made a three dimensional perimeter to protect Kongou, the Fog fast battleship's hull split in half horizontally down its length. In the complete silence of space, the two hulls cleanly separated, floating several meters from each other. Half a dozen large metal half-rings unfolded and asumed positions along the inside of the hull, a handful of circular graviton focusing disks floating in the center of the graviton cannon's "barrel." The whole assembly sparked with a dark purple electricity, as a shadowy sphere began forming in the middle of the open ship.

"Terrell, can we establish radio contact with the..." Tadayoshi paused; what exactly was the giant polygonal creature helping them? "Uh, light creature?"

"I can't get any communications lock, so I'm not sure." Terrell typed away at his keyboard as he spoke, running through all types of long-distance communication.

Tadayoshi thought for a moment.
"Okay, then turn one of our searchlights to them, and send this message in morse code..."

A large floodlight on Kongou's port side swiveled to face the light creature, blinking on and off rhythmically.
It will take time for our jump drives to be operational, but we do not require an opening to pass through. Focus on defense for now. If you are capable of making a hyperlight jump, please rendezvous at any New Republic planet; they can redirect you to our new location.

"Hopefully they'll understand that." Tadayoshi muttered.

"Maximum degeneracy reached." Chase called out.

As the Salvadora III moved in place to track its prey, even the massive thrusters of the Venomian superweapon were futile in changing the ship's location. Held in place by a massive gravity well, the hunter became the hunted. The massive black orb in the middle of Kongou's hull sent out copious amounts of purple lightning, as the ship struggled to contain the energy.

"Fire!"

The black sphere in Kongou's separated hull instantly fired a massive combined beam of light, particles, and gravitons, which tore through the Salvadora III's shields and punched clean through its armor. The triangular ship was pushed off-kilter, spinning as its reactor exploded, sparking fires throughout the ship.

Tadayoshi looked to his screen, and brought up a video feed of the engine room. Inside, Muffet and Ty were both working tirelessly to manage the ship's output.
"How much more can you guys get out of them?"

"It's fucking two thousand degrees in here, cut us some slack!" Ty shouted.

Muffet rolled her eyes.
"We can keep normal operations up no problem, but the SGC can't be fired for a while."

Tadayoshi looked out through the bridge window, watching as the Salvadora III's damage already seemed to fade, as if the ship had a healing factor.
"Understood. Put them at 103 percent until after the jump."

He then turned to Chase.
"Focus all of our energy on the shields."

"30 seconds until the FTL is spooled." Hyuuga called out.

"All ships, recover fighters. Combat landings."

The man stopped to think to himself for just a moment, suppressing a smile.
I always wanted to say that. Too bad it means we've lost...

---

Hangar Bay, Coruscant

As the Cornerian soldiers advanced on the terrorists, shields drawn, the First Order sympathizers continued to fight, slowly pulling back towards the door they had used to break in. There were two loud booms that reverberated around the hangar, as Doug soot on the other side of the terrorists, holding a flintlock pistol with a still-steaming barrel.

Between being pinned down and the thunderous, gory mess that was the flintlock, the remaining few terrorists stopped shooting, surrendering.

"Drop your weapons, and move to the wall." one of the Cornerians commanded. "Hands interlocked behind your head, feet spread half a meter apart. Do not speak, and do not move."

The group complied, and one of the trio of Cornerians deactivated his shield, gathering several pairs of handcuffs to restrain the prisoners of war. The commander of the Cornerian marine detachment briskly walked up to the rest of the group.
"Good work. Let's get the prisoners to the brig."

The dog commander cocked his head down and to the side slightly, listening to someone in his earpiece. His expression turned grim, before he turned back to the others.
"I've just been informed that there's been a botched hostage situation at the Jedi Temple, a landmark of sorts. They have a central databank there that could be at risk. We should get a move on."

---

Orbit, Coruscant

Without warning, Mir II and Hawking's Revenge blinked into existence in high orbit, followed almost immediately by Kongou, who hailed the New Republic fleet.
"Kongou Actual to New Republic Fleet Command, we've returned. Mission failed." Tadayoshi spoke, hiding a mix of grief and anger from his voice. "Requesting a meeting to be held involving the high command of all fleets, to form a unified strategy."

---

Kozhva, Russian Federation, Earth-A

As AEGIS General Rico arrived with several gunships, mechs, walkers, and power armor-clad infantry, Commander Vasily greeted the man with a firm handshake.
"It is a pleasure to see your arrival!" the man gave a slight smile.

As AEGIS vehicles and men left the city's gates, the Venomian tanks fell back several hundred meters, keeping their formation surrounding the entrance. One tank led a group of dozens of personnel carriers around the wall, blasting a hole in the wall with its laser.

Immediately, dozens of Venomian IFVs poured into the city. On each road, they advanced a short way in from the wall, and turned to the side to block the road and create a barrier to protect the infantry. Hundreds of anthropomorphic primates and reptiles in rather simplistically-designed dark green combat uniforms rushed out of the IFVs, the armor of the vehicles protecting the invaders from attacks from ground level.

As the Venomian infantry rushed towards buildings to clear soldiers or resistance fighters, the IFVs took aim at nearby AEGIS walkers and lightly armored Russian fighting vehicles, firing magnetically contained plasma from their cannons.

---

Pacific Ocean, Earth-A
Music

The seas were calm, gentle waves rolling by an American carrier strike group stationed not too far off of the Californian coast. Having been forced to keep closer to shore by Venomian patrols, the rather large strike group was the genesis of America's new Advanced Fleet Program; consisting of one aircraft carrier, one cruiser, seven destroyers, two attack submarines, and a handful of supply ships and the carrier's fighter compliment, the entire strike group was modified with a "plug-and-play" system Corneria made over the prior two years, to give the ships more power generation, faster computer processing, electronic countermeasures, shielding, and for the carrier and cruisers, even limited capacity for gravity diffusion.

The strike group was making their rounds on a coastal patrol, when the seas became inexplicably choppy. Gentle rolling waves were churned, as the sky quickly darkened.

There was an ear-splitting boom as a number of Fog ships jumped into the atmosphere several meters above the water and about a mile away from the American fleet, having come directly from Earth-F. Consisting of one battleship, three heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, six destroyers, three corvettes, and four submarines, the fleet of bright red ships appeared all at once with perfect timing and fell into the water, their Klein fields vaporizing small amounts of water as the sea made contact with their hulls.

The flagship, Scharnhorst, broke rank and moved ahead of the group, the glowing white tribal marks on her hull cutting through the fog surrounding the fleet. Her mental model was nowhere to be found on the main deck; unusual for a Fog ship.

The Scarlet Fleet detachment behind her launched hundreds of corrosive missiles, many being intercepted by American CIWS, and the rest by the shields of the upgraded fleet; Within a matter of seconds, the sky was filled with over a thousand massive black spheres, crackling with energy for brief moments before shrinking into nothing and disappearing.

In the middle of this, Scharnhorst's hull split open, quickly revealing a super graviton cannon. As the parts floated into position, the ocean underneath the firing axis parted to the horizon in both directions, forming massive hexagonal walls all the way to the sea floor.

Before the American fleet could evade, they were trapped by the gravitational well. As the SGC finished charging, Scharnhorst pitched her bow up slightly, firing the beam just above the helpless ships.

---

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base Aircraft Upgrade Yard, Tucson, Arizona, Earth-A

The two American soldiers watched as a massive Cornerian transport ship, almost a full kilometer long, appeared several hundred meters into the atmosphere. The strangely streamlined flying brick lowered itself slowly through the air, massive hydraulic legs extending from underneath. As the two held their arms in front of their faces to block dust kicked up by the wind, the Cornerian scientist simply stood, watching nonchalantly as the ship landed. The tiger brushed a bit of dust off of the front of his military uniform, walking forward towards the ship.

The American colonel stayed back for a moment; For some reason, his eyes made their way to the scientist's striped tail, which was threaded through a special hole in the back of his pants, near the top. It swished slowly with a mind of its own. It was surreal, seeing a bunch of anthropomorphic animals fighting in a war alongside them; It contrasted the realities of the war, but somehow still felt natural, real.
They're an odd bunch, for sure... the man thought, mulling the situation over in his mind. But they seem to have a good mindset.

The large bay door near the stern of the ship lowered, and several Cornerians in engineering uniforms began wheeling large metal crates down the ramp. Soldiers with clipboards directed the unloading teams, checking off that the cargo had been unloaded safely. A higher-ranking officer-a female secretary bird-soon walked down the ramp, greeting the scientist.

"Wouldn't you rather wear a labcoat, Dr. Aachalendra?" the bird teased flirtatiously.

The Bengal tiger laughed heartily.
"Ah, but I make machines of war, Captain Kamaria. The dress uniform is much more fitting."

"It does suit your figure." she winked, stepping forward to greet the Americans.

After working out technical details, the Colonel glanced over to the Flying Fortress, as a team of engineers began unbolting the engines.
"So, how long will it take to upgrade the planes, would you say?"

"'Bout an hour for each." Aachalendra spoke.

The colonel blinked, doing a double take.
"Wait, only an hour?"

The tiger nodded, amused by the American's skepticism.
"Cornerian military technology is mostly designed to be as easy to maintain as possible. After all, when you have millions of spaceships, you don't want to have to spend hours on each one, just to get a few minutes of flight out of them. This made it really easy to design a system that just needed to be bolted onto existing airframes, like yours."

"Wait, so Corneria already knew that this war would break out?" the Colonel let some amount of stress show.

"In a way." the scientist nodded casually.

"We're pacifists, but we aren't naive." Kamaria interjected. "We didn't know when or how they would attack, but Venom's constant vitriol made it pretty obvious that they wanted to make a move at some point. We knew if they attacked your world, the only way to repel them would be either to update your technology by sharing our own, or to invade Earth ourselves."

"...And Pepper figured the latter wouldn't blow over so hot." Aachalendra chuckled. "Though, there would only be a small window where sharing our tech would actually turn the tide. Originally, we didn't plan on Venom having such a strong force, but I think their alliance with the First Order actually works in our favor."

"How so?" asked the Colonel, intrigued.

"You see, the Lylat system is just one of many advanced systems in our galaxy; the most advanced in many regards, in fact." the tiger explained. "But intergalactic politics never really solidified, so most systems just kind of keep to themselves. Crossing deep space is really difficult, you know."

He paused for a brief second, shifting his body weight slightly.
"Our FTL tech is instantaneous, but expensive, and there's always a small risk of jumping into places where you'd... rather not end up."

"Like a star?" asked the Colonel.

"Precisely." Aachalendra nodded. "The further you have to jump, the more risk there is, since it's more difficult to get an exact bearing for celestial bodies with the navicomputer. Even with Orbital gates, travel between systems is very limited. However..."

He shifted his weight again, back to his previous foot.
"Despite the lower output of most weaponry and shields in the universe the First Order comes from, and the negative sides of their FTL, their hyperspace system is remarkably safe. They essentially find permanently safe routes through an alternate dimension; during war, it can be both a blessing and a curse. Safe travel, at the expense of predictability. Apparently, Andross wanted to create something similar, but wasn't able to do it before the end of the war. "

"So, what does this have to do with why Venom's alliance benefits us?" the Colonel spoke quickly, nodding his head slightly.

Aachalendra raised a hand to calm the man down.
"Hey, I was just about to get to that." he almost rolled his eyes. "The safety of hyperspace lanes has allowed politics to truly reach an intergalactic level in the universe the First Order is from. This means that the conflict in their universe will cover much more territory, and many more worlds. Venom can only focus on the Lylat system and individual worlds for so long. Eventually, they'll have to send more of their ships to fight the New Republic, thinning the herd a bit. Earth is in a battle for survival, but Corneria, having pushed Venom out of their orbit, is essentially just playing a waiting game. It's their best bet."

"So, we just have to hope the New Republic is strong enough to survive the First Order, and the Venomian fleet in their galaxy." the Colonel understood.

Just as Aachalendra was about to say "precisely" again, there was a loud crack, and an oppressive gust of wind, as two Fog light cruisers appeared; modified from the Nagara class, the Nagara-Two Auxiliary Graviton Cannon ships floated in mid air, facing the horizon to the Southwest. They appeared more like submarines at this point than traditional maritime cruisers, their dorsal hulls being almost perfectly symmetrical with their ventral side.

"What the-?" Aachalendra blurted out. "Wait, Matsuura and... Ishikari?" he read the names painted in small letters at their bows.

"They're two of the defectors from the Fleet of Fog. They're on IMPDO's registry." Kamaria explained.

The avian looked at the floating ships with curiosity.
Why are they here?

Suddenly, the two ships' hulls opened in four sections, almost like a flower. From each ship, a massive focusing ring unfolded and took shape in the middle, braced by the four bow sections. They began charging their graviton cannons simultaneously, firing several seconds into the charging sequence.

The graviton beams cut through the atmosphere and ripped the ground beneath them as they passed, eventually meeting the Scharnhorst's beam and colliding. A massive black sphere was formed in the center, which imploded, before sending several shockwaves through the atmosphere.

"What was that?" asked the Colonel, flustered. "Why did they...?"

Kamaria squinted her eyes with thought, before pulling back her sleeve to check her watch.

The second hand had stopped moving.

She showed her watch to Aachalandra, whose eyes widened in shock.

"I've got to check something..." he said, running onto the transport ship.

Several minutes seemed to pass, before he came back, jogging with what looked like a very large, bulky tablet with a tiny satellite dish and a long antenna protruding from the top. Reading the screen, he looked confused.
"Well, spacetime in the area has been thrown out of sync, probably from the graviton cannons." he stated, worried. "It should return to normal, but this means that there's at least a Fog heavy cruiser somewhere off your coast in that direction."

The tiger pointed towards where the two Nagara-Twos were facing.
"The Scarlet Fleet probably sent ships to blockade the United States. Just getting the transport ship past the Venomian blockade was risky, the est we can really do transporting these planes wholesale to most of the world is your navy.'

The Colonel furrowed his brow.
"We've only got one carrier strike group capable of taking on Fog ships, and even that's at a disadvantage."

Aachalendra looked towards the Flying Fortress, as the Cornerian engineers hurried back to work.
"Looks like we'll have to help you fix that."

---

Fortuna, the Lylat System

The Great Fox appeared in the middle of dark space, a small, twinkling blue-green dot ahead of them.

"General Pepper, we're in position."

An anthropomorphic red fox with green eyes stood confidently at the bridge of the mothership, speaking to a large communications screen showing General Pepper; the hound seemed slightly distracted, on account of focusing on a strategy meeting while simultaneously giving Star Fox their mission.
"Right. You are to rendezvous with Cornerian ground forces on Fortuna. From there, you will infiltrate a base that Venom has constructed; the Venomians have constructed a tachyonic hyperlight transportation center on their base, similar to our Orbital Gate. Our intelligence network believes the purpose of this facility is as a testing grounds for a new method of deploying occupational forces and networking planets."

A short bullfrog, Slippy Toad, raised his hand, but spoke without waiting to be called on.
"Wouldn't the Cherenkov radiation kill off the surrounding forests? The desertification would make dust bowls, which would interfere with particle transfer."

General Pepper nodded.
"Yes, and their solution to this is to put a massive shield around their base, capable of stopping slow-moving matter. This means that you will have to tunnel into the base underground."

"Oh Wonderful" called out a very sarcastic blue pheasant.

"Oh, diggin' ain't that bad, Falco." Peppy reassured, his Southern accent giving a naturally friendly tone to his voice.

General Pepper glanced off screen for a moment, before turning back to Star Fox.
"The commanding officer at our base will give you the rest of the details. but I have to go now."

Fox McCloud nodded, giving the General a salute.
"We won't let you down, General."

Pepper gave a nod and returned the salute.
"Good Luck."

With that, Pepper's communications channel closed.

There was a sigh from the back of the room; A blue vixen leaned forward onto the railing of a raised platform at the rear of the bridge, playing with the cuff of her flight jacket.
"How are we going to make it past Venom's fleet?" Krystal asked, speaking in a soft British accent. "We could just jump there with our arwings, but Falco's FTL was damaged when we were at Corneria, and my left dorsal g-diffuser has a hole in it."

"Yeah, both of those are cause Slip got separated." Falco side-eyed the short frog, who cast his eyes down, dejected.

"Sorry..."

Fox patted Slippy on the back.
"Hey, it was a chaotic mess out there. There was so much debris out there that Corneria will probably still be cleaning it up in ten years."

"We could try sneaking through in our arwings, engines off." Falco offered. "We'd look like space junk on their VelPos."

Peppy put a hand to his chin, frowning skeptically.
"Eh, they've got swarms of fighters and drones with optics. VelPos wouldn't give us away, but an ape's eyeball will."

Fox thought for a moment.
"What if we placed our ships in a chunk of debris, and cast it towards the planet? Something just large enough to hold all our fighters would burn up on reentry, and we could plot a course near the Cornerian base, so that we can turn our engines on mid-fall without being detected by Venomian patrols."

Peppy nodded reluctantly.
"Sounds risky, but it could work. Now, e just need a chunk of debris."

Krystal's posture straightened slightly, as she had an idea.
"Oh, we could use one of the old shipping containers in the main cargo hold." she smiled. "We can use an explosive detonation behind it to cast it off."

Peppy nodded with a confident, determined smile, as the plan came together.
"Okay everyone, let's roll!"

[Wysten]

Shadow of the Empire
Hosnian Prime
Dren and Pupper

The Wolf Guard woke wide eyed as he felt the all too familiar sound of war. Men crying out in pain after a mortal blaster wound only to be drowned out by the nearby explosion of a grenade and rifle fire. His Fenrisian Wolf Deathjaw was already on it's four feet sniffing the area and looking at the oddly suited troops with snarling contempt. Dren rapidly stood up as he drew his bolter and power sword looking around at the sorry lot around him.

Around the space marine of Holy Imperium of Man lay the burning and crumbling remains of what were once gleaming spires of steel. The former symbols of galactic prosperity and wealth that the New Republic gave the planet was now being blown away by rockets and plasma bolts, their remains being melted into molten slag from the intense heat of the flames and plasma.

Dren would see the bodies of both soldiers and civilians. The civilians were obvious from their clothing but the soldiers had conflicting uniforms. One one side he found soldiers wearing uniforms that were noted for their minimalist and practical designs; favoring cheap and simple designs that would make them both sustainable and quick to mass produce along with making the uniforms both efficient and easy to repair and maintain.

The other side wore uniforms that also favored a similar doctrine of minimalism and practicality, yet while the other faction had a few deviation to show ranks and units that the soldiers belong to, as indicated by the coloured stripes on their uniforms and patches showing until logos, these soldiers wore uniforms that were identical to the most minute details. Yet he can spot one clear difference between the two forces besides colors. One faction favored visors that while it protects the face of the individual wearing them still allows one to see who it is behind the visor, the other wore a full blown mask that was design to not only hide the identity of the individual but give the sense that they aren’t even human.

Dren would even see other soldiers whose armor was white as snow, broken up be patches of black that was the body glove underneath the plastoid armor plates. Like the other soldiers they too wore helmets that hide the face of the soldier. Dren would hear a loud shriek from above and looking at the source he would see two Tie fighters chasing down a V-Wing. The speeder tried to evade the Ties but the green bolts fired from the Ion propelled crafts struck their targets and the speeder would begin to spew out smoke and fire as it span uncontrollably down to the ground.

Dren would hear more blaster fire and explosives going off throughout the city. The space marine would feel as though he was in any ordinary battlefield from back just with new armies wearing different uniforms, not an unusual site for the massive army branches of the Imperium. But as he looked at the civilians he would see a sight most blasphemous, xenos! The aliens were lying on the ground dead alongside with humans, worse still they wore the same civilian looking clothing as the humans. This confusing sight for the Adeptus Astartes and one to ponder deeply on, when he was in relative safety. As it stand while he was observing the battlefield before him a detachment of New Republic soldiers, aided T4-B Heavy Tank, was moving to his position. The space marine would have heard the noise of the heavy tracked warmachine long before he saw it’s dual guns and large caterpillar tracks emerge from out of the corner with a group of the visor troops.

The soldiers saw the Adeptus Astartes standing there. The tall man made them weary, especially since his armor bore some uncanny resemblance storm troopers. One of the soldiers stepped forward, a Zabrak. “Who are you? Are you a bounty hunter or mercenary?” The soldier was hoping this man was not with the First Order. The soldiers behind him, while not aiming their blasters at Dren, were still ready to react should he become hostile, the barrels of the tanks guns moved towards the space marine’s direction, ready to fire at either him or any enemy vehicle that finds them.

Dren turned his incense holders and purity seals flew in the wind as he just stared at them. Behind the cold helmet sat a face contorted in pure contempt of the the alien before him. This mutant has the stones to ask one of the Allfather's Chosen of who he is. The Space Marine's Power Sword nicknamed “Longclaw” crackled to life as it's destructive energy danced along the blade. Within a couple of seconds the Space Wolf lunged forward and the blade cut the poor fighter in half as Deathjaw followed his master's lead and leaping on another fighter clamping it's massive jaws on the soldier and with a quick pull tore the fighter's neck off to the base of the spine. The Space Marine meanwhile pulled his bolter and let out a single burst of fire from the gun turning their midsection into smoking and gaping holes. soldiers shouted in fear as they recoil away from the sudden and gruesome attack.

“This maniac is going down!” a human woman shouted as the soldiers raised their blasters and began to open fire on Dren. The tank was charging it’s main guns to open fire at Dren. While the tank was made to fight against armoured vehicles the driver and gunners were confident that they would easily obliterate the strange man in the suit of armor and his strange pet.

Dren saw the tank and it's exposed glass cockpit. Turning around he steadied the bolter on the glass canopy and held down the trigger as six bolter rounds ran through it and tore the driver and crew apart as a single bolter shell hit the ammunition storage and the tank went up in a blue flame. The Space Marine quickly reloaded his Bolter and focused on the troopers as he stood still as blaster rounds harmlessly bounced off his ceramite armor leaving only burn and surface level cuts. The Space Marine let off another burst towards the rebels as Deathjaw started to tear apart the Republican troops that survived the tank explosion.

The explosion killed most caught in it. One was consumed by the flames and was either cooked alive or was torn to pieces by the burning sharpnel. Others were sent flying by the shockwave and either sustained serious injuries from it or were killed by it and the sharpnel. Most that survived were to injured to get up and as such were easy prey for Deathjaw as the canine tore at them apart, their screams of pain and horror being drown out by the battle. Yet before he can celebrate his victory he would see more New Republic troops arriving and upon seeing what has happened to their comrades the soldiers began to open fire at the space marine. One trooper took out a shoulder mounted rocket launcher and launch the rocket within at Dren.

The Space Wolf sidestepped the rocket as it flew by quickly sending a single bolt round into the trooper before slowly walking forward firing on the troopers with superhuman precision and coldness. His bolter fired round after round into the troops tearing them to shreds. One unfortunate trooper had his head blown clean off by the 75 cal round sailed through her skull. Deathjaw meanwhile started to take cover as more blaster rounds sailed near him. The massive human then broke into a sprint and put away his bolter towards the final group of Republican troops. With the first one he leapt and sliced him in half with power swords sending blood and clothing everywhere before grabbing another one's arm and tearing it off before sliding his power blade into the trooper's heart. Throwing the arm away he pulled his Bolter out and firing on the final three troopers tearing them to shreds.

As the battle between him and the soldiers raged on he would see five more troops arriving in riding AT-RTs. The small walkers charged forward as they fired blaster bolts at him. From the otherside he would see more soldiers rushing forward and another group of soldiers also coming down from another street. As the soldiers and walkers fired the space marine would find a Multi-Altitude Assault Transport craft flying to his location, the ship firing missiles at him.

Dren looked at the small mechs and was reminded of the Imperial Sentinels and remembered one flaw they too suffered. Charging forward with his power sword the Wolf Guard cut straight through the joints of the first walker before firing off a single bolt round killing the driver of the second one. Hearing the transport fire off his rockets he quickly rolled away as the rockets landed all around him sending dirt and metal everywhere for a couple of seconds. Taking advantage of the improvised smoke screen the space marine switched the visor mode of his helmet to thermal. Looking up he saw the transport faintly outlined in green with an almost bright red near it's engines. Raising his Bolter again he fired off a single three round burst into one of the engines. The bolt rounds struck true as they tore the engine apart and the entire top right section of the craft exploded sending the craft tumbling into a nearby building.

Switching to the final three walkers Dren cut the legs of the first one with his power sword sending sparks everywhere as the blade deconstructed the metal on the atomic level. Quickly raising his bolter again he raked the side of the next AT-RT killing the driver and hitting the mortar dropping the walker in a plume of smoke and flame. The final walker was easy prey as a single bolt round decapitated the driver. Turning around to face the two squads of Republican troopers he gave a simple hand wave to Deathjaw who charged forward bringing one trooper down while the rest were gunned down by the Space Marine with body parts and gore covering the ground around them as they fell.

Reloading his Bolter the Space Wolf put it away as he raised Longclaw and surged forward. Before they could react one trooper took a ceramite fist to the face caving in his skull and killing him instantly, another trooper was quickly cut down as the power sword cleaved her in half sending blood onto the marine's armor. Dren then stopped and slowly turned around to the final group of troopers and planting his blade into the ground. A single line came from the helmet as he looked down upon them, “Drop your arms and run. Tell your heretical leaders what happened here before I give you all the Allfather's wrath.” The voice was calm and cold towards the small band of troops.

The soldiers all looked at the tall armoured man, fear was etched to their faces. As he gave them the option to be spared most ran but they refused to listen to his demands on dropping their weapons. The Space Wolf didn't do much on them dropping their weapons and sheathed his power sword and holstered his Bolter. Kneeling down he gave a short prayer to the God-Emperor and Leman before standing back up.

The space marine would see an Imperial Dropship Transport Gunship flying close to his location and just as he thinks it would attack him he saw it beginning to land down. He would see people wearing the white armors that he saw before one stormtrooper wearing chronium armor and a cape leading the group. When she was close to Dren she look at the carnage he caused. “What grievances you have against the a New Republic?” Dren can hear from her tone that she wasn’t to shaken up by the massacre he committed nor she cared for the soldiers that were killed. “Depending on what you have against the Republic I believe you might find yourselves some like minded individuals who will help you to survive in this universe.” Dren merely put a hand on he handle of his power sword. “These heretics affiliate themselves with xenos and seem to defend them, offending the Allfather and Russ.” His voice sounded machine like through the vox as Deathjaw walked up slowly growling at them.

The woman didn’t seem to phased by his words. “I see. I think you qualify for the job I have for you.” the woman told Dren. “How would you feel on joining a war against the government that is willing to fraternize with xenos and overthrew a legitimate government just so they can rule the galaxy as tyrants?” the woman explained. “We can use a man such as you to helps us liberate worlds from the New Republic and restore true order and security to the galaxy.” Dren nodded “If this galaxy has not seen the light of the Allfather and Russ than they shall see.” His voice boomed as he drew his sword and planted it into the ground. “You have my blade and bolter for now and until the end of this war.”

Just like how the woman couldn’t see Dren’s face the space marine couldn’t see the expression the woman was giving him once he agreed to work with them. “Good.” she said, in a voice as monotone as a machine. “We have begun our strike at the senatorial complex in the planet. If we take that building we would take over the communication array of the planet and a key administrative and military facility.” she turn her back to Dren. “I’m sure this mission won’t be too much for you.” she began to walk to the transport ship.The Space Marine followed the stormtrooper into the small ship as his wolf followed. Standing in the ship he looked around at the other troopers. “Your troops seem well equipped, are they trained though? I've seen forge world regiments break when attacked by PDF.” If the woman was offended she did not let it be known when she spoke. “They were bred for war the moment they were born. My soldiers are more than ready for this attack.” as the ship flew by the ruined city the woman would soon ask. “You are not from around here. We have another ally who isn’t from this universe. Tell me, where are you from and who are you?” she would ask him. The other stormtroopers looked at him as they awaited for him to explain his backstory.

“I am Dren of the Vilka Frenryka born on the world of Fenris in the Allfather’s Holy Imperium. I was like most of my people, we fought both men and beast to survive in that frigid heaven until in one battle I was blessed to be taken to the Aett after killing another tribe’s force of 50 men. There I suffered the same trial my brothers and relatives have for ten millennia and became one of Russ’s chosen.” The Space Marine paused before saying something lower in volume, “That was nearly seven centuries ago.” Looking down at the woman again he spoke, “After that I fought with my pack for centuries fighting almost everything the enemies of the Imperium could throw at us until that fateful day a couple centuries ago.” He paused a bit before looking outside at the ruined city. “We got back after a particular hard fought battle with an Ork assault or WAAAAAGH. There I saved my company of marines by fighting the Warboss in a duel and after minutes of hard fighting I finally ran my his own knife through his skull saving not only my company but the planet from falling to the greenskins. After that the High King Logan Grimnar himself came to the ship and named me apart of the Wolf Guard.” His voice carried a sense of pride at the mention of Logan. “After that I have fought with him for the next century until now.” Dren finally finished his story as he pulled out his bolter seeing in the distance the all too familiar sight of AA turrets firing into the sky. “Bring this ship higher up, I have a plan.” He said quickly bolstering his Bolter and checking to make sure his gear was secure on his suit of ceramite armor.

The storm troopers looking at each other was the only clue go them reacting to some of the more outlandish aspects of his story. Yet none said anything as the AA gun was more important. The ship moved up after the woman gave her orders to do so. “so what is your plan?” the woman asked. Dren walked a few steps over and slid open the transport door with ease as he steadied himself with the air rushing out. “I do hope your troops have jump packs.” He said before telling Deathjaw to stay in the ship, the wolf whimpered a bit but obeyed and stepped back to the other side of the ship. Dren then backed up a bit and knelt taking his sword and laying it across his knee muttering praises to Russ and the Allfather wishing to either live or die a glorious death. Standing back up again he holstered the blade and looked towards the troopers. “I'll take the AA gun, the rest of you shall keep the heretics from sending reinforcements and making my job harder.” He said his voice booming.

The stormtroopers only responded by putting on their packs. “We will buy you time to destroy the AA guns. But we will still send in a team to assist you to ensure your mission is successful and to destroy them quickly. Right now that building and a few others stand in our way from fully taking over the world.” the woman said. “Captain Phasma, our ship is about to enter the range of the guns.” the woman now known as Captain Phasma turn to the comm unit on her forearm. “Pilot open the side doors and land the craft now.” the pilot agreed with the order and the troops saw the side doors of the transport open in mid flight. The storm troopers ran towards the doors and while running on the doors active their packs as they jumped off. Once Dren follow them off the transport the doors would begin to close as the craft turn to hide behind a nearby building as it began to go down.

Once it went down Phasma and the remaining soldiers within exited the vehicle and ran off to join both the other stormtroopers and soldiers on fighting for the senate building. The other stormtroopers with Dren moved forward, leading him to the nearest AA gun as they open fire on any Republic soldier they spot as they made their way to the guns.

The Space Marine took a simple step forward and began to plummet towards the planet. He didn't care much for the jump packs and knew his armor and body could take the impact. Seeing the ground move closer and closer he adjusted so that his pauldron would hit the ground first and absorbing a majority of the impact. Bracing himself for the impact the Space Wolf crashed into the ground and tearing up some of the brick and paint surrounding Dren in a haze of red dust.

As the stormtroopers went to the gun an anti-infantry turret was stopping them. Most of the soldiers hid behind rubble as plasma bolts hit their makeshift shield. Once the turret stopped firing two stormtroopers with rocket launchers fired off their rockets and destroyed the turret, killing the operators within the turret and the soldiers nearby. The group rushed forward and as they were getting close to the gun they stopped when they saw two AAC-2 hovertanks blocking their way along with a squad of soldiers.

The group can hear the missiles of similar tanks going off and hitting other targets close by, it seems that these were the defenders that remain at their post to intercept any other enemy forces that tried to attack from another direction. Dren slowly walked forward with his Bolter and Longfang ready he waved the troops off as he charged the two tanks, raising his bolter and in a quick pull of the trigger reduced the squad of troops into corpses in little under a couple of seconds before focusing on the tanks. Picking up the pace he turned his bolter and fired into the glass cockpits and killed the crew inside before turning towards the other one. Raising his Power Sword he jumped forward and rammed the blade into the glass cutting it with ease as he raised his bolter firing into the gunner's seat and killing him. Without a second of hesitation Dren started towards the AA gun.

With the soldiers and tanks taken care off the stormtroopers followed Dren. As the group got closer to the gun the stormtroopers began to open fire on the soldiers who still clung to the gun. As the gun fight erupt within the facility a few soldiers got orders to pull back in response. As the fight continue a few troopers dodged blaster fire as they tried to get close to the gun to set up charges. One soldier was struck by a blaster and went down but the others kept going. A few more fell but other storm troopers close by took their place as they took the charges and continue their mission. Dren would see that one stormtrooper still had his charges on him and none of the others manage to grab it. He has the chance to fulfill that trooper’s mission if he wants too.

The Wolf Guard walked up and grabbed the charges and calmly called out to the troopers, “Get to cover, I'll handle the charges.” Dren then started to plant them on the gun seemingly undisturbed by the blasters and plasma bouncing off his armor. Arming the charges he picked up the detonator and ran back to the troopers, “Come along guardsmen you don't want to be here when these explosives send this gun to the warp.” He said in a happier tone before firing off his bolter to help provide covering fire for the troopers to fall back.

The stormtroopers had no idea what he meant by the warp and most looked at him with a degree of envy as they saw the bolts bounce off his armor. But none let those two stop them from running away with their lives as they knew that now they have to leave. As Dren fired back the stormtroopers also return fired as a few engineers from the enemy tried to deactivate the charges planted on the gun.

The group would eventually reach a safe distance and one trooper told Dren to press the button now. The Space Marine promptly took it out and slammed the button almost crushing it in his ceramite hand. Once the switch was activated the space marine and stormtroopers would see a large fireball erupt from the AA gun, follow by several more as the structure blows up into a million flaming pieces. Any one caught in it was either torn and cooked alive by the explosions or was killed by the shock wave and shrapnel. Regardless the fighters and bombers took advantage of the opening as they flew by with gunships to aid in the ground assault.

The stormtroopers soon heard from their comm units to reach for the senatorial building, that the defenses have broken and that they have one last defense before they enter the building. The stormtroopers told Dren the news and lead him to the building. As they fought through the city Dren would see the metal building with a large hole with smoke spewing out of it. He would see blaster bolts coming from every window as the First Order fought with troops, walkers, and hover vehicles.

The Lone Wolf Guard jogged along easily keeping pace with the stormtroopers as the battle raged around them. Seeing the massive building Dren ran towards the hole in the wall firing his Bolter into the windows surrounding it.

The rocket powered slugs tore through the transparsteel windows as the soldiers who could have been hit all got small cuts from the shattered glass. The soldiers began to rain down blaster bolts at Dren as some threw thermal detonators at him. Rocket launchers and snipers were also aim at him. On the other sides of the building the First Order used heavy weapons and vehicles to try and blow holes into the defenses to send in more troops to take over the building.

Dren quickly rolled away as the grenades and rockets landed around him. The sniper rounds flew overhead and the few that did land were simply deflected by the ceremite. Throwing a smoke grenade out sending a small cloud covering the hole in the wall. Switching to Thermal he fired his bolter shredding the troopers firing on him sending blood everywhere in the large room. Holstering his bolter he pulled out his bolt pistol and power sword and walked into the room slowly scanning the ruins of what seemed to be a lobby area.


The lobby was in ruins as pillars lay in a shatter pieces and large chunks of the ceiling were on the floor. Many dead soldiers also lay on the floor, both from the soldiers and guards of the building and terrorists and soldiers who were Dren’s new allies. From the covers Dren would see more blaster bolts hitting his armor as defenders were firing at him and his allies who were also using the debris in the room for cover. One soldier threw a thermal detonator at the space marine, the spherical object bouncing on the floor before rolling towards him. The machine was flashing brightly as it was releasing a shrill ringing noise.

The Marine's reflexes kicked in and he tumbled away as the grenade went off pelting his armor with dust and bits of the stone floor. In what seemed a blink of an eye Dren raised his bolt pistol and fired taking the head off of the poor trooper before striding forward. His bolt pistol gave single barks of fire as it tore through the Republican troopers on the ground floor.

As more troopers fell the survivors began to flee. Should Dren follow them he would find more troops either staying to fight or all or flee from him. Dren would see them all fleeing into one specific room and should he follow them to the room he would see the circular barrel of a large minigun be pointed at him. The machine would spin a spray of plasma fire would exit from the weapon.

Behind the large minigun is a Bontha wearing an exoskeleton power suit that made the alien as tall as Dren himself. The arms and legs were partially covered by metal plates and while his head was exposed the torso and groins were covered. The xeno would stop firing the gun. “I don’t know who you are human but you will play for spilling my men’s blood.” The Bontha snarled as two robotic arms emerge from the back, each holding missile launchers that fired the small rockets at the space marine.

Dren let some of the plasma bolts hit him though quickly dove into an office section his armor somewhat ok as the entire room was filled with dust once the rockets hit the doorway. Quickly standing up he raised his sword the Wolf Guard looked around and saw the power armored figure and charged forward he crashed through the wall between him and the xeno. Using the dust as cover he thrusted forward with his sword towards it's chest.

The helmet of the Bontha had many sensors for him to detect enemy units, one of them was infrared. While Dren believed that the dust cloud would make him invisible in truth his own heat signature along with his suits and weapons gave away his position. The Bontha raised his forearm and a series of pylons came out and once the pylons were fully assembled they would project an energy field that would stop the power sword, the shield mixing both ray and particle shielding technology. This sort of technology was still something that the exosuit can produce as the generators would be bulking on most infantry units to wear and both took too much energy, the power generator of the suit partially solved the energy conundrum. The shields can’t be active all of them time but when off it would give the twin shield generators time to recharge.

The Bontha would pull out a blade hidden beneath his hands and lunge at Dren, straight to his heart. The Wolf Guard was somewhat surprised at the shield generator but saw his opening with the oncoming knife and grabbed the xeno's arm, planting his feet the Space Marine then effortlessly began to twist the Bontha's arm in an effort to break it. The sound of tendons and metal slowly breaking and snaping filled the room as Dren grabbed his Bolt Pistol and fired at the head of the Bothan.

The Bontha screamed in pain as he felt the metal of the suit piercing his arm and his bones straining and fracturing from the surprisingly strength of the space marine. When the broken pieces of metal piece through the flesh and broken bones the Bontha was howling in agony. He did not realize that Dren took out his gun and fired it.

Yet the space marine would be in for another shock as the bolt was deflected by another energy shield that protected the bontha from the bullet. The Bontha would punch Dren and the blow would send the marine flying away. As he slide on the floor he would fire more missiles at the space marine as he take out a large blaster rifle and begin to open fire at it on drone. He would deploy twin saucer shape droids and the two droids would fire blaster bolts and micro missiles at Dren while they follow him.

The Space Marine gave a slight grunt at the hit but quickly steadied himself. Firing his bolt pistol at the two droids with ease he barely dodged the rockets and let the blasters hit his armor. After this Dren broke into a sprint and slammed into the Bonthan with his full 800 lbs of armor and body and stabbing forward again with his power sword.

As the human slammed the mammalian alien the backup shields would active to make the blade bounce off it, yet the Bontha knew that the shield would not last long if this continues. The suit made the alien maintain his stance as he aim the flamethrower located on his forearm and unleash a stream of fire and a flaming sludge at Dren. The Bontha would move backwards as the stream kept firing off.

“I need back up now!” The alien called out to his comm unit, knowing that if this fight continues he will loss. The robotic arms firing off their final rockets as they dropped the missle launchers as they pick up twin machine rifles and began to fire off a barrage of blaster bolts at Dren.

Dren muttered a curse under his breath as he remembered how fragile the Tau battlesuits were to physical damage and snarled in annoyance as he charged again slicing off the barrel of the blaster and began to slash and fire into the shield trying to overload it.

The Bontha would see his shield flicker with each slash and bolt making contact. The alien would try to dodge some attacks and while successful with some the larger frame made it hard for him to dodge every attack. The Bontha would see the shield beginning to flicker and seeing that the Bontha would dodge a slash from Dren as he kept firing off more blaster bolts away as he tried to move backwards away from the space marine. The look of fear on his face made it clear that his shield was now gone.

The wall behind the Bontha would explode as a LAAT gunship bearing the colors of the New Republic would reveal itself. The gunship would begin to fire bolts and missiles at Dren to protect the Bontha.

“Oh for Allfather's sake.” Muttered Dren as he rolled away from the missiles as he was again covered in debris. Pulling out his Bolter he quickly aimed it at the exposed cockpit and fired before switching to the Xeno burning an entire magazine towards it before throwing a single frag grenade.

The gunship would hover in place even with the death of the pilot but as the body finally slide down the ship would move towards the room. The Bontha would run to the left as the gunship began to scrap against the ground, heading towards Dren. The Bontha took a few hits but the exosuit took most of the damages. The Bontha would keep on firing blaster bolts at Dren as he ran, one bolt even hitting the frag grenade.

Dren charged forward throwing away his sword and ripped the blaster out of the Bontha's hand before using one hand to slam the xeno into the ground with a bone shattering CRACK. Before lifting him up again and slamming him back down keeping the Xeno there as he started to pummel it's face with his ceremite coated fist.

The Bontha would lift one arm over to block the fists from Dren has he struggle to break free, trying his best to kick the space marine but feeling to reach him. The Bontha’s face was bruised and bleeding. His eyes were sullen almost shut and he had trouble breathing from his broken nose, blood covering his nostrils. The Bontha spat out some broken teeth and blood at Dren as he tried in vain to break free.

Dren barely took note of the blood as he slowly placed a ceremite upon the Xeno's face and pressed down crushing bone and brain alike as he spoke some simple words, “By the will of the Allfather suffer not the Alien to live.” The Space Marine finally slammed his boot down completely crushing the Bonthan's head.

The struggles of the Bontha would get weaker and weaker with each beating. Once a piece of the alien’s skull pierces the brain the Bontha jerked and stopped moving save for the jerks it made as Dren continue to beat on the dying corpse. The corpse still jerked with each blow on it’s breaking head. Eventually the skull would break inward and Dren would be beating the brain of the Bontha into an organic paste.

The Space Marine stood up and walked through the war scarred building. Picking up his power sword and knelt planting the sword into the ground he muttered a prayer, “Praise and thanks be to the Allfather and Russ who have guided my blade and bolter and protected me from the enemies of Man.”

Dren would see from the hall that the dropships from the First Order and Imperial Remnant were landing. He saw soldiers from the two armies surrounding the building as surviving soldiers were marched in a line with their hands behind their heads. It was clear to Dren that this battle was won by the First Order. Their victory was better symbolized by the flag of the New Republic being shot at by blaster bolts. The burning flags being lowered down so the flag of the First Order can rise in its place.

[Nagakawa]

Yuzawa 湯沢
Niigata Prefecture, Japan
新潟県
日本国

16 December, 2019
令和元年 12月16日

The small, quiet town of Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture, while rather unassuming, held the distinction of having the highest snowfall in Japan, outside of Hokkaido. On the night of 16 December, it certainly lived up to its reputation, as blankets of snow coated every open space and pelts of white powder assailed the earth from the heavens.

From the convenience store came 24-year-old Yūichirō Terasaka, a corpulent, greasy man who looked at least ten years older than he actually was, partly because of his horrid complexion and partly because of his receding hairline, which contrasted sharply with the thick, oily bush further up on his crown. Lugging two large plastic bags full of bottles of hydrogen peroxide, the man charged back to his house at the bottom of the hill on which the convenience store was perched, at a speed rather surprising for a man of his level of physical fitness, puffs of steam spewing out of his cracked lips like billows from a train smokestack.

It was, in fact, the first time he had left his house in 37 months. For reasons myriad and complicated, he had stopped working and cut off contact with the few friends he had, withdrawing to the dark confines of the one-room apartment in which he lived alone. Surviving entirely on a steady stream of erroneously-supplied pension money meant for his grandmother who had died six years ago, Yūichirō Terasaka slept sixteen hours a day, eating a single meal consisting of four packets of Chikin Ramen whenever he woke up, just to sustain himself while playing pirated pornographic games. As the months went by, he could feel himself slowly slipping away, trapped within the abyss of his own perverted, malnourished psyche, until at the absolute brink, on the night of 9 January 2019, he cried out to God for respite from his miserable existence, and the sky, as if answering his prayer in some vague fashion, sent Tomoharu Ikeda crashing down into the snow on the roof.

“Terasaka, you little shit, the hell are you doing?!” Terasaka could still remember the old landlord roaring, that dark night. He’d gone up to investigate, but instead of finding a magic MacGuffin of some sort, he was greeted by a young man roughly two or three years younger than he, dressed in smouldering robes tattered and torn, his face coated in soot and his hair frizzy and fried.

The young man’s name wasn’t actually Tomoharu Ikeda, but that was what he came to call himself, so as to fit in better with the world he had somehow brought himself into. He came to know the fat loner who lived in the floor below him, finding that they could converse easily despite it being a foreign world unlike any he had seen before.

But as Yrjo Yomon knew, deep down, this wasn’t his home. And he had to go back. Somehow.

“Hey Yuu, you got the hydrogen peroxide?”

Terasaka came crashing through his apartment’s front door, leaving the bottles at the doorstep.

“I never realised how nice it is to go outside”, he mused, half to himself and half to the young man who had been secretly cohabiting his cluttered apartment for almost a year.

“That’s nice”, said Yrjo bluntly, taking the bottles of peroxide into Terasaka’s bedroom. In the middle, where there had once been piles of cum-stained anime figurines and manga volumes with greasy pages, an empty space had been cleared, and into the parquet had been carved a unicursal hexagram within a circle of ideographs. “Maybe you could do that more often when I’m gone.”

Terasaka gazed quietly as Yrjo lifted the first bottle of hydrogen peroxide and, chanting some silent alchemical prayer, emptied its contents into the centre of the circle. Dressed in an oversized T-shirt tucked into a pair of oversized sweat pants (both of which belonged to Terasaka prior to Yrjo’s borrowing them to replace his ruined clothes), the mystic ritual and the ornate sword hanging by his waist were a huge incongruity to the rather sloppy looking boy pouring what was essentially cleaning water over the ground.

“Since this is directly below the exact spot that I crashed into in January”, he murmured, “there should still be a residual magic vein somewhere here. It shouldn’t have worn off just yet...”

To use magic in the way Yrjo had been taught was to learn how to access the magic veins. It was rather like setting an IV; one first had to puncture the vein, with a physical needle or anchor (in Yrjo’s case, either his fingers or his sword); then the catheter would be inserted (a mental connection, in the case of magic), and then, just as the needle is pulled out of the cannula, leaving only the straw behind in the vein, so would a practitioner of Inarian magic disconnect his physical anchor from the magic vein, leaving only a metaphysical connection to the stream of magic that would, thus, allow for the free manipulation of whatever energy there was coursing through the vein.

For one year, Yrjo could not find a single vein in the world he had come into. Until, that is, he looked at the very spot into which he had crashed.

“Stand back”, he commanded Terasaka, as he closed his eyes, raised two fingers into the air with his palm close to his face, and with one final quiet prayer, penetrated that elusive invisible river coursing from the roof into a circle around the symbol he had carved into the floor. The ground began to shake, and in the distance, one could hear the angry grunts of the landlord as he came upstairs to see what the commotion was.

Terasaka could see, amidst the blinding colours that soon grew from the circle in the ground, the universe rush past him. In a single moment, he was brought back to the first moment that he remembered; the beautiful smell of freshly-cooked katsudon, complementing the elegant red rays of sunlight that lilted through the windows into his humble home, and the motionless, ashen body of his mother lying on the kitchen floor, her hand still gripping her chest in throbbing discomfort. He remembered the night that he, having pleasured himself for the fifth time that day, factory-resetted his phone and then sat in front of his computer, where he was to spend the next three and a half years of his life. He remembered that strange night eleven months ago, as he, blood vessels clogged with an analgesic goo of nicotine and codeine, cried for salvation, and was instead granted Yrjo Yomon te-Yoba, hurtled down from some mirror dimension in a ball of fire and peals of suppressed thunder.

It had all become clear. The universe, that is. And Terasaka, tears welling up in his eyes, looked upon his only friend of almost one year, as Yrjo raised his hands and grimaced like an impassioned conductor, casting more and more of that invisible magic upon the rainbow circle.

“Have a safe trip home, Yrjo.”

And then everything went white.

White, and yet not quite, for even as the walls of his house dissolved into ash and revealed empty white space, Yūichirō Terasaka could see, standing just a metre or two away from him, the figure of Yrjo, curiously nosing about the blank white room. The young man turned round, and seeing Terasaka, crumpled his face into one of confusion.

“Yuu? What are you doing here?”

As the words left Yrjo’s mouth, the vast white collapsed in on itself just as Terasaka’s apartment had done so just a few seconds ago, and both of the young men were hurled down from the empty heavens and cast unto a green grass patch.

...

L-Fel
San Francisco

For a moment, Yrjo sat upon the grass, dazed and blank. Then he climbed to his feet, looked around him, and then collapsed to the ground, burying his face in his hands.

“Damn it!” he roared in tears, barely able to contain his sobs. “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

Terasaka looked on in silence, just as dazed as Yrjo, but well aware of what had just happened. Groggily, Yrjo climbed to his feet, turning to look at Terasaka.

“I still can’t feel any magic veins here. That must mean... no...”

And then he screamed again, the base, carnal scream of a baby aware of his having been abandoned by his mother. Terasaka silently and forlornly looked on, at a complete loss for words.

“Yrjo...”

“Shut up!”

That moment, from the corner of his eye, Yrjo caught sight of what appeared to be a large ray of sorts, coming out of nowhere and snaking round the buildings, finally making a graceful landing in an empty space just a few paces away from them. From far, he could make out two or so human-looking figures, climbing off the ray and conversing with each other indistinctly.

“This year just keeps getting weirder and weirder”, said Terasaka to himself sheepishly, not even greatly shocked by the fact that the giant manta ray had suddenly disappeared. Yrjo, staring off into the distance, remained catatonically silent, even as his greasy, oversized friend slowly inches towards the two people near them.

[The Palmetto]

L-Fel

San Francisco

Aestus had been so engulfed by his surroundings that he had almost entirely tuned his companions conversation out of his hearing. Bright beacons of light from the sprawling towers of San Fran. filled the mind of the armored giant. Massive structures with foreign architecture, unseen by the Lesser God, completely bamboozled the ancient thing. The pissy smell of the streets hardly took away from the experience. For an entity who was billions of years old and was used to all sorts of things from the weird to the majestic, this was truly a magical experience. For several moments, he just stood there blankly, before snapping back to normal.

Aestus had realized that the women he was with were conversing, and that the nut had turned into a man. That nut never ceased to amaze Aestus, seeing as they swapped gender and form almost every day. He seemed to quickly adapt to take on any form he wanted or needed, and in this case, that was a man in some sort of bizarre attire. He had some suspicions about them, but he thought that not only was Cass useful, they were trustworthy.

“I’m not quite sure that’ll work on its own, unless Cass goes alone with Alemayahu. Jules and I would stick out like anemones, especially myself unless we can find a coat big enough,” Aestus chuckled. He thought the plan had some merit, but he did find it a bit funny. He was used to just going into a building and smashing everything around him.

“Why don’t we just charge straight in and- hold on, who are you two?” Aestus asked, the massive armored figure glancing at the two figures walking towards his group. One of them looked relatively fit and in shape, but the other looked like the average right wing weeaboo who ranted about degeneracy while masturbating to cartoons. Not that Aestus knew what any of that was, or that this man cared about politics beyond the legal status of waifus.

Iowa

Irwin just stood dumbfounded. Not only was here in a completely different world, but he was also assisting a historical King and his thick thighed Prussian bodyguard in their travels here. Now, out of nowhere, some British guy was talking about the mission, some sort of team, gave Ackermann orders, and worse of all called Irwin a convict. He would’ve said something to the man in response, but he just gave up on trying to understand his surroundings and sighed.

“If that’s what this tommy pom says we have to do, that’s what we have to do, mate. Let’s ead’ on back to the ospital’ and see what’s going on there, yeah?” Irwin replied to Ackermann.

[Prusselanden]

San Fran
"I guess you and Jules would need to stay behind. Besides, if Jules recognizes anyone there and has a bad reaction, it wouldn't be good for the case." Alemayahu nodded at Aestus's suggestion. "Very well, I guess, Cass....ius, you're coming with me-" Before she could finish her sentence, Alemayahu looked over to see Terasaka coming to them.

"Hello sir, are you in need of assistance?" Alemayahu asked the sleazy looking man approaching them. Jules was equally curious but cautiously stuck close to Aestus. Alemayahu's main concern was that he had seen the ray and was going to question the group about it. And how were they going to explain a giant ray coming from the sky with a giant suit of armor dude?

"I-is your friend ok?" Jules noticed Yrjo looking catatonic and still, as if paralyzed. "He isn't going to have a seizure isn't he?"

Iowa
"...Ja, I guess." Ackermann turned to Irwin. "Come on." she slowly started to walk back to the hospital. There's not much to see in Carlisle-everything around it is cornfields and such.

When they arrived back at the hospital, Ackermann entered Fred's room and sat next to him. "Newton's taken over the assignment" She explained to the king. "All I have to do is stay here, I guess."

"Oh, no need to worry Ackermann!" Fred grinned. "You're a little late, I say, there were some ladies who brought the most adorable therapy dogs to see me! Absolutely delightful!"

"I'm sure they are..." Ackermann smiled halfheartedly.

[Nagakawa]

L-Fel
San Francisco

“He.. well...” Terasaka began awkwardly, but was rather short for words. “It’s hard to explain.”

At the sound of Terasaka’s explanation, Yrjo stood back up, looking up at the sky and running his fingers through his dark-purplish hair. The sunlight in his face reflected a deep frustration in his eyes as he turned around and faced Jules, Alemayahu, and the others standing around in the open space.

“You lot don’t happen to be Ruthiemians or Noatans, am I right to say?” he inquired rhetorically, in his usual verbose manner. “Then again, why do I even ask. It’s not like I managed to get back to ...”

For a moment, he fell silent again, the hand that was once resting on his chin falling to his side as he turned again to the side, squatting down and looking vacantly into the distant cityscape. Terasaka, still at a loss for words, stood awkwardly at one side, scratching his oily scalp and nervously shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to another, his sad, deep-set eyes darting back and forth between his young otherworldly mage friend and the strange people who had landed on the giant ray.

“Can we trust them?” Terasaka finally blurted out, realising only later that it wasn’t, perhaps, the most tactful of questions to be asking in front of strangers.

“I reckon there’s not much else we can do”, Yrjo replied blankly, facing Jules. “Madam, I’m trying to get somewhere. Would you be willing to help me out if I help you with something first?”

“Something?” The clueless Terasaka scratched his head.

“Anything you may need help with”, Yrjo continued, a streak of desperation evident in his otherwise deadpan, military tone. “My name is Yrjo Yomon te-Yoba. I come from the Kingdom of Inaria. Could we, perhaps, strike a deal?”

Terasaka was about to object, until he realised that Yrjo hadn’t actually revealed anything of critical, debilitating importance.

[Menschenfleisch]

Dead Man's Party | Avenoir and Mnemosyne

"No time to talk, we need to get them out of here," Marcus hissed. He grabbed Wex while Nem took the woman, bundling them onto their shoulders. "If anyone spots us, we're dead." "That's not going to happen." Polly kicked shrapnel and dust over the floor, covering up the spots where the bodies had been. She took the valet's shirt off and wrapped it around the wound in his head, careful not to get any blood on herself. A quick glance told her that of the group, she and Marcus were the most obviously incriminated individuals. They were both covered in injuries and splinters. It wouldn't take a detective to realise that they'd been there when the blast had occurred. "Someone take the corpse. I'm staying behind. Mark, if anyone asks, tell them you were near the explosion, and didn't see the source, nor anyone near you. When the blast occurred, you started running. Everyone else, play as dumb as you can. I'll meet up with you later." she pawned off her shirtless package, and her gun, to another member of the group and began lathering her own blood about her body, painting her face with ash and dust. "C'mon, we need to get out of sight. Polly, slow them down. We'll be back for you." "Good. I'll rendezvous with you in Katya's room or the foyer. Get going, now!"

Marcus and Mnemosyne half dragged, half carried their packages away from the scene of the crime while Polly knelt in the haze and lay down, closing her eyes. She had to play the part of the scared tourist, the mishap-prone fortuneless prole. If anything, this would be a good way to lay off any suspicions. There were, after all, very few trustworthy witnesses to speak of. "God, I hope this works."

L-Fel | Cassia

"Strangers numbering two, approach me if you dare." he leered closer, patches of peanut-textured skin sinking into his body and reverting to a more natural, palatable colour. "You two are strong and weak, thin and fat, night and day, and you know what the sum and product of opposites makes: less or none." he flicked out his hand, wearing the skin of some middle aged African American, with a little black stubble above his lip and hipster glasses dangling from his nose. Was he wearing cologne, or was that smell his pitch black hair dye? "Oi, mate. Pleased te meet youse lads. Say, what're you doin' in this parta tha country? Ye don't look loike tha locals."

He shook his head, momentarily taking the appearance of a kingfisher bird as he tried to assert his consciousness. "I-I'm sorry, sometimes the Aussies like messing with me. Thank god it wasn't the serial killers, though." he waved his hand, taking on the mannerisms of a rather excitable adolescent Russian in the body of an American venture capitalist. "So! You two are very, very confused. I can understand that. I'm a mixture of afterlife and psychopomp, by the way. Carrier of souls after death. I've got all the good parts of about two billion people, and... well, also their bad parts. Right! Anyway, my name's Cass. And to answer your question, no; I haven't been a Ruthieman or Noatan yet. Haven't even met 'em! Or I might have, and their spirit escaped. That's alright, though!" he cocked his fingers at them, winking and clicking his heels. "Yrjo! Gotta say, haven't found anyone by that name in almost three decades! Inaria? Sounds lovely. Now, before we talk business, d'you want a biscuit?" deadpan silence. "Well, okay, I don't actually have a biscuit, so you two can keep talking. What's this deal you're on about? Maybe I can help! I'm all about helping people. It usually drags me into a really protracted war against a rival faction, which is always fun!"

[Naval Monte]

Shadows of the Empire

IMPDO Central Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, Earth-A

"I knew that some nations would fall but the amount that have is rather staggering." Ms. Gray thought as she looked around the auditorium as the leaders spoke with each other. The woman sat next to the American and Russian delegate but while they talked with each other and others Gray stay silent. The woman saw a few leaders turn their gaze on her but when she looked at them they looked away, they had a feeling she was not going to speak now.

The woman looked up from her seat as a councilman from IMPDO stepped forward to a podium. The man would show photos of not only what their enemy looked like, a bunch of bipedal apes and anthropomorphic lizards, but the camps they have arranged. The woman frown as her hunch was proven correct, the enemy was planning on brainwashing the population and the next generation to be loyal to them. "It's as I fear." she muttered as she began to tap her foot on the floor, a nervous tick of hers.

As they explained the state of these camps Ms. Gray would feel her phone vibrating. She would take it out and would see the message that came in.

"Was your hunch on Venom's plans for this world correct?"

The woman typed down a simple response, yes.

"Looks like we will have to go Operation Vector. We will send you the files on it. Make sure to only share the files with these individuals. We aren't sure if some of the delegates and nations that are still in our side aren't spies working for Venom."

Ms. Gray typed down her compliance with the orders and saw the doc files that told her about Operation Vector. The woman heard what Pepper had to say about what occurred on his end and after she was done reading through the files and sharing what she heard from the canine general on the Cornerian front of the war. Once she was done sharing what she heard she walked over to the front of the auditorium once Pepper was done speaking.

Once she was looking at the various delegates she would pushed up her glasses and address all of them.

"No doubt as some of you are aware we recently sent a Mobile Specialized Teams to assist with the Kozhva, Siberia. The teams are being lead by General Rico of MST MI-19, codenamed the "Fullmetal Jacket"; a MST who is known for their heavy use of powered exoskeletons and mechanized walkers in their operations. Right now they are fighting with another MST known as "Cossack's Winter" who is specialized in sub and arctic operations, along with MST "Moon Dust" who specializes in aerospace missions and whose name shares with a program that they are heavily connected with. More MSTs will arrive to assist with your war to liberate your world from Venomian incursion. As we speak they are fighting off the invasion force in Siberia and while I feel confident in their success that is sadly not the only matter I wish to discuss about."

The large screen from before turn on and unlike before showed a monochromatic video. The video seem to have come from a satellite as they saw the moon. However as the recording kept on going they saw large shapes emerging from behind the moon. The video would zoom in close to the objects and as the video quality was enhanced they would see the shapes of both Venom and what was most likely First Order ships leaving dark side of the moon and heading towards what was increasingly becoming Earth.

However as the fleet plot along with their course a bright flash would appear and the video would distort into a colorful mess of pixels and static for a few minutes before returning back to normal, the invasion fleet that was planning on attacking the Earth was now gone with no trace of them ever being on the solar system.

"This video recording is the only evidence that showed that both the First Order and Venom attempted to invade my Earth, which from your reports I find you refer to as Earth-E. So far we have no proper explanation as to what the light was but many of us suspect that a local demi-deity that lingers on our planet might have sensed the presence of the fleet and intercepted them. Why this entity choose to attack them we can't say for the time being, however this incident may discourage further invasion attempts from the two forces. Right now we are preparing refugee camps for your people if you wish to send them away from your world during this war."

she told the leaders as photos of prefabricated, modular designed, buildings are being constructed in a remote site. "As of now the people of my world aren't yet aware of this war and both we and the various world governments wish to keep it as such. A few video copies are surfacing on the internet but we are doing our best to discredit the video as a hoax. In no time people would be too busy arguing with each other on the authenticity of the video that once the next latest fad appears they would forget about it and we can bury the videos into obscurity." she gave a smile at the idea as she brushed away a lock of her hair.

"Other anomalous groups however manage to figure out the video and most agree to keep the existence of the war a secret for now, but a few are attempting to expose the truth to the public but we have support on shutting down their attempts. However this whole incident and the reveal of the The Multiversal Union for Defense and Prosperity's existence has caused an uproar back at home with the other organizations. In Fact the United Nations in our world was not only furious that we kept it a secret from them but that we were given the offer to join as oppose to them. But I feel you all made the right decision choosing offering us the membership to join the Union as oppose to them, they would have simply mired the union with their inefficiency and incompetence." the woman said, making no attempt to hide her distaste for the UN of her world.

"As of now the other anomalous groups have not said much on whether they wish to join or not but we think they are debating on the matter, just as we are debating on whether they should join the Union. In the meantime our facility for this world is still being constructed and after it is done we can send in more reinforcements through the Janus Gate. Also our first batch of spaceships will be finished soon, once they are done we may assist both Coreniera and Earth-A to the best of our limited ability in space warfare."

---

Hosnian Prime

"Hyperdrives are ready!" Rallus heard one officer shout. "Engage now!" the Mon Calamari ordered and no sooner has the words left his mouth did he see the stars before him rush past his ship as he enter the swirling blue vortex that was hyperspace. As the New Republic fleet fled the First Order kept attacking the bird in a vain attempt to destroy it before it can escape.

When the crew of the Kongou began to send a morse code to the bird to let it know that they are going to flee and to focus on defense. The bird seem to understand as it moved away from defending the Kongou to turning its attention to the enemy fleet. It brought out a swarm of the squids of light around it that began to act as shields for the bird.

The bird saw the Kongou damage the lead Venom battleship and her departure the bird spread it's wings. The aurora began to warp spacetime around the bird until a rift appeared behind it. With a flap of its ethereal wings the bird enter the rift, the tear closing once it did so as the hail of neverending blaster bolts flew by to strike on the planet.

"Damn it! That monster manage to get away." The admiral shouted. While the idea that such a monstrous thing exists and is against the First Order the admiral looked at Hosnian Prime and couldn't help but to smile. "Send in more troops down in the ground. I want every last ounce of resistance in the planet crushed." The officers complied with the orders.

As more landing crafts began to head towards the planet to begin their occupation back in the senatorial building Captain Phasma and a few stormtroopers enter the room where Dren was. The group saw the dead Bontha and the exosuit. "That is an interesting machine that alien is using. We will have our scientists study so we can develop our own variants." Phasma look up at Dren. "You have my thanks for giving is a new weapon to use against the New Republic and for aiding us on taking over the planet." She told him.

"My superior wishes to speak to you. Assuming if things go well between you two you may aid us further in taking more worlds from the New Republic." Phasma turn her back. "Follow me." She told him as he began to walk out of the room and zoom the building to find a landing shuttle that would take her to a Resurgence floating above the planet.

---

Coruscant

As the VCIS expeditionary fleet appeared on Coruscant they would see Mon Calamari Cruisers moving in go intercept them along with a small fleet compose of Nebula-Class Star Destroyers and Endurance-Class Fleet Carriers, both fleets having smaller frigates, corvettes, and light cruisers with them.

Pisto would see the aging Home One from his bridge, the ship that acted as the space borne, mobile base for the New Republic back when it was the Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic, or known as fo most in the galaxy the Rebel Alliance.

The silence would be broken when the voice of Ackbar would come through. "This is Supreme Commander Ackbar of the New Republic Navy. I thought the last holdout from the Confederacy of Independent Systems dissolved sometime before the Galactic Cold War? Why do you wish to aid us in fighting against the First Order?" The supreme commander asked, maintaining an authoritative tone yet from his voice there was no hint that he would become hostile to PS-T0's fleet. Hopefully it will remain that way.

The conservation would have a brief interruption as the fleet from Hosnian Prime return, more so new ships from the Terran appearing in system. The Mon Calamari would be surprise when saw a rift open and the polygonal bird of light appear. "Tadayoshi what is that thing that followed you and Admiral Yi did you order reinforcements? The alien asked. Ackbar would hear about the mission on Hosnian Prime. The Mon Calamari would frown. "I was hoping you would give me good news Tadayoshi, because Hosnian Prime wasn't the only world attacked." The supreme commander told the fleet.

"Once we are certain that the terrorist menace has been cleared on Coruscant we will take you to the Fortessa. Mon Mothma and the others are hiding in there." Ackbar looked at the VCIS fleet. "I'm sure our new guests probably heard of it." Ackbar look down at his computer and he can see that the jedi temple seems to be the last area with signs of conflict. Just like the Corniera his intelligence officers uncovered that a hostage situation failed in there.

"That group with the slugthrowers and cloak gunships went there did they not? How do you think they manage to fail at something like that Tadayoshi?" Ackar rubbed his forehead as he can feel a headache coming. No doubt the other group will try to come up with some excuse for their failure. Depending on what happen he might be lenient on them, but only if what occur was beyond their control.

The Kongou and Home One would both hear static coming from their radios before it cleared up and they heard a woman's voice coming through. “This is Carmen of AEGIS Mobile Specialized Team MJ-05, “Moon Dust”. I'm residing within the command cabin of Anomaly-620, or as most of us call it the “Waxing Scribe”. Weird name I know. I know we said that we lack spaceships and in truth we do; of the variety we made ourselves. We have a few spaceships contained but various reasons we are very reluctant to use them in the manner that we just did with the Waxing Scribe. But we felt that we need to join in and this old gal is tough enough to take a beating and come back in one piece.”

The crew within the Kongou may feel some relief that they now know where the bird came from but there was one mystery that was lingering. Who was the other woman that spoke to them?

---

Kozhva, Russian Federation, Earth-A

Rico barely felt his body shake when he landed on the ground; the anti gravity anomlies in his suit and the padding helping to cushion his body. The man walked up to Commander Vasily and while he didn't take off his helmet he did accept the handshake. "Likewise commander. Sorry we didn't bring in any tanks to bostler your numbers but they wouldn't have worked as well in the city. Besides you find that what we brought in is good enough."

As the IFVs fired off plasma from their guns the Goliath mecha suits sent out some of their rockets to take the shot. The rockets flew forward and once the orb of ionized gas hit it, the two would be destroy as a flash of light would erupt where the two previously existed. With the plasma dealt with another barrage of rockets would be sent out from the mechs.

The rockets would scream it from the launchers located on their shoulders and when they hit the armoured vechile the mechanized unit exploded, heated shrapnel flying everywhere from the now flaming wreck. "Any Goliaths near tanks stay close and guard them with your lives. Anyone else not near tanks should make themselves look more like tempting target to lure the furries away from the Russians. Once they get close give them hell." Rico's second in command told the other Goliath pilots as the mechs deployed recon drones to scout the area before the walkers and tanks can move on.

From the air Morrigan gunship flew around the battlefield unseen thanks to the Wraith Stealth System. The only time they became visible was when they attacked and by than both infantry and IFVs were having bullets fired from gatling guns, twin side machine guns, and missiles coming down on them to launch proper counterattacks. The gunships would perform strafing attacks on different columns. Appearing a brief moment during their attacks only to pull back so they can disappear before the enemy.

Along with its stealth capabilities Venom troops would find that the speed and maneuverability of the craft was an issue and in an ironic twist the electronic countermeasure systems of the gunship gave them trouble; their rockets either being fooled by simple ECMs like chaff and flares to more sophisticated systems like suppressors and jammers that would fool the tracking systems of the missiles to increase the Morrigan's chances of survival.

However even with these advantages the pilots of the crafts knew not to be careless. The Morrigans themselves are like flying IFVs and as such there are limits to how much the armor of the gunships can take. More importantly they couldn't risk staying in long conflicts as the pilots fear that the soldiers would try to target the fans in the wings of the gunships. The engines were also a concern as well.

As the gunships rain down their fury and the mecha suits fought with the tanks to deal with the IFVs. Some of the mecha suits who were not close to any Russian units would activate their Banshee Emitters; anomalous devices that would produce a audio-visual cognitohazard from the sounds produced by the mech suits. Those who heard the sounds would feel immense fear. Most would be either to scare as to either freeze on the spot or to flee, some would even loss control of their bowels due to their fear. Yet some enemies responded to fear by going into a crazed berserker state and attack wildly at the source of their fears.

From the Goliaths they would use kinetic projectiles fired from either conventional chemical propellant weapons systems or use electrokinetic weapons. Others favored more beam based weaponry such as lasers, plasma, and charged particle beams. A few even uses microwaves and sonic based weapons against the enemy.

Some of the power armor soldiers would do the same as the Morrigans. They would engage their cloak and ambush several Venomian soldiers and open fire on them, engaging their cloaked and leaving quickly before anymore soldiers can gather to their spot. Snipers would shot at the soldiers and those with gauss rifles would aim at the IFVs to try and take out the vehicles and kill the soldiers within them.

Power armor troopers with their gauss rifles, rocket launchers, and explosives would also be targetting the IFVs, using the same tactics as those exclusively targeting soldiers. Some of them would also break into buildings to assist Russian soldiers and resistance fighters within the buildings.

One such building would have one power armor trooper breaking through the hallway window thanks to her jump pack giving her the much needed boost when she jumped off the roof of one building to enter this one. The trooper would begin to search through the hallway to find any enemies within the building.

---

Venom Detention Camp, Earth-A

"The things I do for humanity I swear." the redhead woman thought as the shawl she had around her covered most of her body, her gloved hands pulling on the shawl as she gave a look of fear like most in the truck. Though unlike most people hers was just a convincing act.

"If I was told ahead of time that I was going to act as a prisoner I would have rejected the offer to take a part of this mission." the woman thought. While she was tall and was built like an athlete the woman was not in fact a soldier. Indeed, the woman known as Agent Lilith belonged to MST AC-07 or known more commonly by their codename, "Black Hand". The Black Hand specializes in espionage, infiltration, sabotage, demolition, and assassination. Some have joked that they are the evil twin to Archer's Marauder's Daggers and in many respects Lilith will admit that they are the shadow to that MST.

"A shame they will be busy to help us or better they take this job over my group." the redhead thought as she took out a pack of gum, removing the warper and plopping the sugary treat in her mouth and began to chew on it. The truck hit a bump on the round and as the vehicle shake Lilith tried to move away from one person who almost fell on top of her but the man caught himself before he fell on her, apologizing as he did so.

"It's okay mate." she told him before resuming back to chewing her gum. The woman was glad she didn't touch him because the last thing she needs was being distracted by visions of his past and his feelings while in a mission. Being an empath was hard sometimes. All though her being an esper was one of the reasons she manage to rise through the ranks as quickly and be in the Black Hand, so there were perks.

With this mission her psionic abilities will be used as Operation Vector needs her MST to not only gain information on the conditions of the camps and what is happening to the prisoners but also any useful tactical data that would aid in the liberation of the people trapped in the camps. Lilith was glad that she won't be entirely alone in the camp she was going to but they would need to maintain as little contact with each other to evade suspicion.

When the truck stopped the esper saw bipedal apes and anthropomorphic reptiles ordering the people to get out of the truck. Lilith moved with little fuss even though she still kept her act of being afraid. As the ape shouted at them to move into the camps Lilith followed along with the other people. When she was close to the gate she moved to the side and took out her gum. When she was at the entrance she placed the gum at the gate and applied some pressure to make it stick before moving into the camp.

The white gum while very much a normal piece of gum was still made by AEGIS and it was made because within the gum were micro capsules containing nanites that would begin to spread out from the gum once released. The nanoscale robots would begin to move away from the gum so most of them won't be taken to the trash like the gum, however such action would only make them spread more throughout the camp. The nanites began to record both visual and audio data of the entrance. Throughout the camp other agents within also began to release nanites in different areas to gather as much data as they could.

Of course the nanites weren't the only tools they had, as they have more exotic methods. But the nanites were the first steps into their long term operation. The other members of the Black Hand MST were in remote sites design to gather ever broadcast and messages their teams within the camps would send so they can report their findings back to the MUPD. Most of these teams were in vehicles with special equipment to help them catch the messages so they can stay on the move while they have found a few spots that were both hidden and remote to help them hide away from the enemy.

Now in the camp Lilith looked around and saw that there were no children in site. "Of course they had to make our future rescue operations difficult." she thought as she was being forced to keep on walking to no doubt was a re-education facility in the camp. Right now the forces of Earth were ensure how they were attempting to brainwashing process so this was their chance to figure out how they were doing it. Depending on the method AEGIS may have a way of not only countering the process to those captured by Venom but even how to reverse it once they free the prisoners.

---

Universal Expeditionary Settlement-232, Anomalous Reality#6874, Planet: Jericho

The rotating spacestation over the Titaian planet known as Jericho was busy as ever. Shuttles and drones flew in and out of the station, dropping both supplies and personnel that were on the planet while sending down more machines and equipment down to the planet along with the few personnel that volunteer to go down to the planet. The robots send out of the station were making repairs to fix the minor damage caused by space dust that collided with it.

The few personnel on the planet were of course AEGIS personnel being along with some Cornerian to oversee the automatic factories and AI run computer hubs. The team from Corneria wishing to see for themselves the mostly autonomous facilities and the folks from AEGIS wanting to make some checkup on the systems to ensure everything was running smoothly. But as the engineer looked at the new design plans for some of the proposed ships he couldn't help but to think that they might have sent the additional personnel to make sure no one tried to steal any data in those facilities.

Scott has been living with these people enough to gauge how they think on some levels. The people in AEGIS were an odd bunch. They can switch to being brutally blunt to being slippery at a moment notice, a trait further exasperated by their paranoia. Granted from the few files they have on them this paranoia is a byproduct of their world which reads like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream... perhaps their worst nightmare? Regardless he know understands why when they made the deal with General Pepper they stressed on them being able to decide which technologies and research files is shared, if he was forced to live in their world he would be as paranoid and cynical as them.

Being in this station he wasn't too surprise with the frugality shown as they can't afford to leave as much waste. However it seems from the few personal he talked with this frugality does extend out of the station as AEGIS prioritizes efficiency quite heavily; not only do they make sure all resources are being used to the best of their ability and everything they make to be both reliable and to work efficiently, but they will recycle what they have until it is truly broken beyond repair, often prolonging an item they have or giving it new life. This particular mindset was something the canine engineer was glad to see as they would need that if they wish to travel space.

Yet being reminded that they do have mecha suits in their inventory he may have to resend the frugal aspect of their character, at least by some levels. Maybe change it to thrifty? Regardless, while he isn't a psychologist he has picked up enough from these people to pick some shared traits, but of course individually everyone is very much different and some seem to contrast greatly with what he has concluded on them.

As that thought came to Scott he would hear the door from the room open, his nose picking up the scent of coffee. "So you were here? I take it the redesigns are complete." the researcher who has become fast friends with the engineer said as he came in with two mugs. "Yep. When we told your people that civilian model G-Diffusers were available and were cheap and simple to produce they pretty much went at them like a crack fiend desperately clawing out for the latest fix. Because of those the ships had be redesigned from their original shape and well the new ones honestly look even stranger than the first ones." Scott mention as he covered the blueprints of the battleship with ones for the carrier or mothership as the blueprints call it.

"I have to agree with you there. I use to work with rockets and even I think those designs are odd, even though I helped out with the designing process." doctor Marco told the canine as he brought the mug to him and the research went to take a chair to sit next to Scott. "I swear some of the younger members of the research staff are letting their imaginations get the better of them now that we are making spaceships a reality." the researcher said in a joking manner, eliciting a chuckle from Scott before he took a gulp from his mug.

"By that as it may the designs aren't entirely impractical, they can still work well in their intended roles. Though they still run into the same issue that they would be delayed due to our shipyards not being made to create ships like them. But for the most part certain parts of the designs from the old ships still remain." he pointed at the layout.

"The skyscraper-like interior is still there which after careful consideration would aid with the compartmentalization you all want with the various decks, a smart move as that can allow you to seal off each section of a ship in the event of a breach. The fact you all still wish to keep standardization and modularity with these ships also aid us in constructing them and maintaining them. The frontal engines and overrigged turrets are still odd but I'm getting use to those elements."

When the researcher put down his mug he would say. "The augmented crew might actually stay as well, I know the heavy use of autonomous systems and AI assistance is staying. However we still aren't sure if anymore technology from the Lylat system will be added into our ships." Scott shrugged. "I don't see why we shouldn't. We are allies after all and sharing technology is something we both agreed to. However I still can't understand why your leaders chose to go down this route instead of us just making copies of our own ships?"

The researcher folded his arms as he placed on leg over the other, swiveling left to right as he look up the ceiling. "I have a few ideas but one of them is most likely that we want to test our technology in space warfare. Most likely they felt that having the ships being our own design would make the testing much better than us just using the body of one of your ships but with some of our tech. I know there were concerns that if we used your ships designs than Venom might exploit weaknesses they know well on those ships, heck those were the same concerns on why we didn't want to use your computer systems once we figured out how much they engage in cyber and electronic warfare."

Scott snorted. "The first reason I can understand but the others are shite if you ask me." the researcher shrugged. "Hey I'm just a researcher, not a bureaucrat or politician. They felt strongly about those and everyone in the spaceship team had to work with what constraints the higher ups placed on us." the researcher placed his hands behind his head as he rocked back and forth on his seat. "Besides our naval doctrines would most likely differ greatly considering our technology and our mission purpose for those ships." Those words Scott didn't disagree with as he can tell from the blueprints and information on the ships that whatever naval doctrine they were making would be different from Cornerias.

"You guys can still get advice from us you know? You can use your ships however you like but you are still new to space-based warfare and my people have had centuries of experience. Even if how we do things will be radically different it can't hurt to know what methods and strategies we develop, who knows maybe they would work for you guys." the researcher thought of it and nodded. "I will send in a recommendation to do so once I have the time."

The two looked over at the designs within the room as the shipyards were working on making them a reality. Shuttles left the station to bring in fabricated parts to aid in the construction of the new ships.

[The Palmetto]

L-Fel

San Francisco

Aestus took a moment to think about the situation. While at the university, he had looked at a map of the world, and noticed no country called Inaria. Not too many kingdoms either, which had please the revolutionary deity. Aestus knew that the Inaria were a kind of marine invertebrate, but he obviously wasn’t talking about that. Clearly these two men had come from some other universe, like Aestus and Cass both had. It seemed obvious to him that they were looking to try and get back to their original home.

“I’m Aestus, Lesser God of Marine Life. I came from Himeros, in the world of Physis, but I ended up here due to some sort of portal,” Aestus replied to the two men in a more casual tone. Realizing they weren’t a threat, his stance relaxed quite a bit. Seeing as he was a massive, 7ft tall figure hidden armor and carrying a massive axe, he didn’t necessarily have the most friendly of appearances.

“Sorry to say, but I am not sure if we can help you. Right now we’re trying to investigate a morally deprived group calling themselves L-Fel, but i think it might be dangerous. Ale, could you explain this to them? I’m not too sure on the specifics of what you want to do here, to be honest,” Aestus said, his empty helmet looking back at Ale.

Iowa

“With all this going on, I think I could use a therapy dog,” Irwin chuckled, sitting across the bed from Ackermann. He was feeling a bit better now that he was back in the hospital, frankly, he didn’t mind this too much in the instances where he felt safe. He felt safe in a jungle, even inside this cozy hospital room, but he wasn’t such a fan of the city. Back home, it was associated with extensive surveillance and police beating protestors in the streets. In fact, periods of isolation were why Irwin wanted to be a biologist. Away from the prying eyes of the government, just alone in the wild.

“So, could you tell me more about what’s up with all this, including who that bloody pom pom was? I know you talked about it a bit earlier, but I’d appreciate some further depth,” Irwin added. There wasn’t much else to do other than sleep and talk, and with all this on his mind, he’d rather talk. Besides, these people weren’t too bad.

---

Shadows of the Empire

Coruscant

Pisto noticed the fleet intercepting his, and gazed at them with a small feeling of awe. He’d been in his own corner of the galaxy for the last few decades, having rarely seen the Rebels or New Republic around until the Battle of Endor, which was worryingly close to VCIS space. He’d never even seen ships as advanced as the Nebula before, which completely surprised the Clone Wars-era droid. But, even seeing something as simple as Home One gave the old droid a similar feeling. Such a small, outdated ship had influenced the galaxy so much, and though on a much smaller scale, his own fleet had done the same for the inhabitants of the VCIS. It was a symbol of fighting even when the odds were stacked against you, a symbol Pisto could get behind.

“The fact that you haven’t heard of us means we’ve being doing a good job, I’d say. After this ship’s original admiral died during the Battle of Coruscant, I took command. I wasn’t connected to the control signal that shut off the CIS’s armies, and managed to reactivate my ship and numerous others, to form a sizeable remnant fleet. With the unfortunate news of Grievous’s death and the fall of Raxus, I attempted to lead my fleet to the Western Reaches to regroup with the other holdouts there. The Imperials caught us, and most of our fleet was destroyed, with only a few managing to escape. Ultimately, we set up base in Vassek and a few other Outer Rim planets, and helped to prop up a civilian government with the help of my good friend San’kura. We managed to keep our independence, and have been laying low until now,” Pisto told Ackbar solemnly.

“Telling you the history of my people makes me feel remorse for what has happened, but their deaths weren’t for nothing. We did not survive despite their loss, we survived because of it. We have fought not just for our survival, but for what is right in the galaxy. The Imperials are xenophobic, genocidal monsters who ravaged our kin, and we can not allow them to retake control of the galaxy. We can’t offer you much, we're just a bunch of Outer Rim hillbillies trying to make a living. But the galaxy is our home too, and I will help you fight the Imperial menace whether I have a dreadnought or a rusty nail.” Pisto continued on. He felt pride and anger all at once, and this reflected in his small speech.

[Nagakawa]

L-Fel
San Francisco

“Hopefully we won’t be fighting any rival factions”, said Yrjo, glancing about as he spoke. “You see, my faction is trying to remain neutral, while two other factions are killing each other and trying to get us to join one side. That’s more or less the gist of it.”

“Tomo”, Terasaka interjected, using Yrjo’s nickname, “don’t you think it’s risky to reveal so much?”

Yrjo smiled wryly at Terasaka, almost as if the desperation in his voice earlier had all been but an act.

“In life, you sometimes have to take a few risks.”

Terasaka glanced about awkwardly.

“As I was saying”, Yrjo continued, brushing the subject off casually, “my country aims to remain neutral. If you agree to help us, I can assure you that you won’t have to do much other than serve as a deterrent.”

Yrjo turned to Aestus, apparently unfazed by his physically imposing stature.

“I’m willing to help you out”, he said. “Danger or otherwise.”

L-Fel
Singapore

Through the lush green streets ran a figure clad in a deep maroon yukata, pursued by three shadowy figures all aiming pole-like devices at their prey.

The once bustling, almost overcrowded city-state of Singapore had, for numerous reasons, become largely empty, save for the occasional foreign scavenger looking to pocket some riches for himself. In the absence of human activity, the famous well-groomed greenery had taken over, growing and growing until at last, the “garden city” had become more like a “city in a garden”.

What made it interesting was the abundance of naturally-occurring portals springing up sporadically all across the place, swallowing things up and sending them flying to other parts of the world.

It was through these portals that the pursuers and the pursued had come, cutting sharply through the jungle and hopping from place to place with the agility of panthers.

One of the shadowy men fired from his pole, the green-tipped dart barely missing its target, but tearing a string off of the target’s conical hat, causing it to fall off and reveal the dashing face of a girl around 22 to 23 years of age. In response to the near-missed shot, the girl in the maroon yukata reached into the fold of her tunic, pulled out a thin, needle-like projectile, and flicked it backwards, hitting one of the black-clad pursuers in the eye.

The remaining two continued to pursue the girl, trying in vain to lay their crosshairs on her. Their pole-like guns remained deadly still, even as they pounced after the highly nimble target, sunlight flickering and glinting off the black surfaces of their weapons.

“The Marina...”

Soon, they emerged from the jungle and came onto the bridge, where the looming figure of the Marina Bay Sands rose high above the bay, three colossal pillars propping up a latter-day Noah’s Ark raised high above the foliage. As she came out into the open of the bridge, the girl stopped dead in her tracks, reached for her waist, and drew, in the blink of an eye, her wakizashi, slashing through the jugular vein and carotid artery of a second pursuer.

When the quivering body crashed onto the ground, blood squirting from the gash in its neck, the girl in the maroon yukata flicked the blood off the wakizashi and turned to face the final pursuer, only to find that his head had been blown clean off by a 7.62mm round. The headless corpse teetered about, before collapsing onto the highway road.

The girl stood up, sheathed her blade, and looked up at the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands, tapping the earpiece concealed behind her ear, hidden by her black hair.

“Wailing Soul to Trump Card, Wailing Soul to Trump Card, all three Reapers have been neutralised. Your support is appreciated.”

The man on the other end of the line, the sniper, chuckled.

“Heh... believe me, you’re just like your mother. Chieko Namikawa.”

“Shut the fuck up”, the girl replied. “Why are there Reapers in Singapore?”

“They know that I’m meeting with Dempsey later”, said the man on the other end. “We’re gonna have a yuuuge mess if they get their way. We’re gonna have to get our deal fast.”

The girl kicked one of the bodies.

“Get LXS to meet us at the meeting point we agreed on”, the man added. “We’ll get our beautiful deal and then we’re gonna pull out real fast.”

[Demincia]

Secrets of the Raven

ARCHON

Breakfast. Man, he'd forgotten that he needed to eat. Kyle's eyes lingered on the counter, an array of ingredients laid out in pristine rows, a passive aggressive reminder from the house to get some nutrition inside himself. He pondered the idea for a while. Did he really need to eat? His primary combat avatars would be robotic, after all. Ah well. Surely, a well rounded morning meal couldn't hurt. It was six, half an hour before dawn, and omelettes were about to be made. While the rest of the household dozed (some more than others) he set about readying the others' first meals. The thought that they might also be their last ones didn't even occur to him.
Honestly, he was surprised at how edible most of the stuff was. Rather than the silicon chips and scarab eggs he'd expected, the majority of what the house provided was perfectly regular human food. Better than that, maybe. Then again, he shouldn't have been surprised. The household had never known inhabitants besides those of hominid habits. The stains around this place had long since degraded into organic dust, and all the natural consequences of cooking were absent; no oil splashes or burnt pans to be seen. So, in lieu of figuring out Liz's favorite dish himself, he asked the house directly. "Cleaning fluid?" a cupboard creaked quite insistently. "No, as in, what does Elizabeth want to eat? Not what you want to eat." the window blinds flapped with an ambiguous ambivalence toward his request. Even so, despite the lack of renumeration for its services, the mansion provided. A pile of fridge magnets fell out of the uppermost cupboard, sequentially spelling out what it believed to be the most fitting meal for the day.
Smoked salmon with chopped chives and... you know what? Fuck this. You don't seriously want to read this, do you? I mean, you've got things to do. Precious time that you could be using to better yourself, or help others. Every second you sit here could be a second donated to dead kids in Africa! I'm going to save you the hassle, okay? Smoked salmon, lots of spices, eggs benedict lightly poached, hand-made pork sausages, baked muttom chops, waffles and maple syrup. Done. Fucking... I don't even know. Who am I even helping by doing this? Myself? Do I just shit words onto a page because I'm bored or because it's a coping mechanism? I hated my parents. My whole despicable, neurotic family. I knew terrible people, and I knew them at their best. I saw supposed terrors reveal their innermost insecurities to me, the most unabashedly idiotic person to have ever lived. I watched a man shrivel up like a dying grape on a hospital bed from across an ocean because his parents wouldn't pay for their gay son's cancer treatments. I saw a girl who deserved the world fall into obscurity and depression because she was so nice, so clever that she dedicated her whole life to letting others climb over her. She was nice, apologetic and sincere, because her parents were narcissistic bastards who forced her to be the pretty girl, or pay the consequences. Why do I try? Why am I still here? Do I put Jackie and Kyle through these things because they're subconscious allegories for what I've seen? Do I do it because I want to be like them? I don't know! This is so sad. Alexa, can we get a despacito?
Kyle sat himself down with a fork, the house cleaning itself up behind him. Sure, it could've prepared the meal itself, but why would it when such a nice human was willing to do so for it? He appreciated the sentient locus, really. It was always cooperative, always understanding. God, how insane was that? Getting more attached to a place of brick and mortar than a person of real flesh and blood. Soon, by tomorrow at the latest, Jackie would be back, and they'd be heading home again. He picked up a piece of fish in his fork and let it simmer on his tongue. It was... it was just like the one Gwen used to make. How had he...? this whole meal, it was his past. Eggs, exactly as burnt as they'd been on the morning of his fourteenth birthday. Waffles, like the ones he and Jack had snuck out to buy on one cold September night on the day before Christmas. They were younger, then. Still not at the top of the group, nowhere near the top of the world. This whole meal, it wasn't... it hadn't ever been for Elizabeth. It was him, trying to find his past. He hadn't seen it coming, either; and that thought terrified him. "Slimy bastard." he slid the whole plate onto the ground, watching it shatter on the boards. "Clean up the mess yourself. I'm going for a walk", he said to nobody in particular.

Madi was still standing there, looking out over the grassland when she heard the double doors open and close, then footsteps.
Kyle walked past her, down the steps, then continued to walk forwards.

The Witch hesitated a second, then started after him, eventually catching up to Kyle.
"Hey. Can we talk? I just....Can't shake this feeling that whatever happens today, it's going to change everything. And I really don't know if that's bad or good. Do you have something planned that hopefully won't kill us?"

Air. Cold, frigid. Winter of 2015, temperate zone. French-German border, on the run from UN peacekeeping forces. Him, Jack, Hanna. Sitting in a tree, drinking stolen sodas. He shook his head. "Look, Madison, I..." sigh, slump, stop. "I don't feel like talking. What's this about a plan, anyway? There's no plan. Just you, in there, fighting. People don't like it when I give them orders." he pulled his collar up, and rubbed his hands together. Warmth between his palms, calloused and burnt. Like fish scales. Like those barramundi from- "Whatever you think you're here to do, whatever you think I am, toss that out the window. Because I know who you are. I've known hundreds of you. Naive people looking to do good, thinking that whatever they path they choose is always the lesser evil." he looked at her with those dead, grey eyes. "The only one who succeeded was Sterling. The man who made me, and the man I spent two decades hunting. Hating. Deconstructing, and destroying." he flipped two pounds into her hand. "Buy yourself a smoothie. Get lost."

Madi's hand closed around the two metal coins. Two pounds. Muggle coins, somewhat useless to magic people but to Muggleborns they were one of the only things that could bridge both the non-magic and magic communities.
She desummoned the axe and flipped the two coins into the air and caught them with her right hand.
"I'm not exactly that hungry. Nerves, you know."

Madi was silent for a bit, then kicked at the grass and looked up at Kyle.
"You've changed. Honestly I'm not that sure if I feel comfortable around you. As far as I can tell, you're kinda insane. I know you don't want to give me a plan, but I'd like to know what to expect once we get in there. Anything you can tell me is better than nothing."

He would've scoffed at her comment, if he weren't so gripped by the cloud in his head. Memories, so many fucking intrusive thoughts. He was usually in control, so what was this? Battle nerves? Nostalgia? Legitimate insanity? The last few days of worrying and stress were finally catching up to him, he thought. This was it, wasn't it? His body was preparing him to break himself saving Jackie, or at the very least, trying to do so. He saw this as a final sort of confrontation, too; because the only thing that really stood between him and figuring out a solution to their predicament was Andarta herself. Once he had her back, he could talk to AEGIS, find someone who could help. Going home without Jacquelyn was simply not going to happen. And so, to keep himself from thinking his brain to death, he began to solve math equations. Pi, to the seven hundred and twenty second millionth digit. He simulated the life of a man from gestation to adulthood, sequenced his own genome a few times over. His eyes looked between the house's walls and went to the laboratory once again, where a live feed of a thousand different cameras were blinking. He was queueing up actions, in a way. Pre-solving equations so that when he had to do something tricky, most of the math was already solved. "Changed? We barely know each other. As for comfort, well, I never needed that luxury." he audibly groaned at the latter half of her comment, a billion rehashed arguments surfacing again.
"Insane. People love to use that word to describe me, Jackie, all the rest of the children. Maybe growing up in a lab, and being engineered to be soldiers in a madman's war had something to do with it. Maybe killing tens of thousands of people, watching the life fade from each of them personally, made me a little numb to death, which despite happening around three times a second, people still consider to be a harrowing and meaningful event. Stop trying to fix me and start thinking about your next move, yeah? I'm tired of self-appointed psychologists trying to break me down." Diana tried it, Elizabeth tried it, Sterling tried it, Andarta tried it: they all had things to say. They all had real, true things to say, and not one of them made an impact. "As for what you can expect? Beats me. A lot of gunmen, a lot of strange tech, relative to your limited experience. Honestly all the goons in the world would still be small cheese compared to the big guns. Arawn Reavers, they like to call themselves."
"They're strong, they're fast, they can break through concrete walls with their shoulders. They can shoot wasps out of the sky from ten thousand feet, and smell what you ate for breakfast three weeks after the fact. We're alike, I guess. Engineered creatures designed by a weapon maker's mind, not a biologist's. I guess we'll find out whose maker was the smarter one today."

Madi stayed silent as Kyle started talking. And kept talking. her eyes widened when Kyle said that he had been some sort of lab experiment but didn't say anything to it.
Finally, the man stopped talking and it was silent for a while.
"....I guess you don't want my help then. That's fine, I guess I'll just have to find my own way back home...If there's even a home to go back to...."

Madi kicked at the ground again, the summoned the axe and suddenly threw it away from her in the direction they had walked from. The axe spun around like a boomerang and madi watched it for a while.
"I survived everything that's happened so far, I think I can survive this as well. "

She held out a hand and the axe came back to slam into er waiting hand and she tightened her grip on the handle/hilt before lowering the axe to her side.
"I guess I'm joining you after all."

He was in no mood to laugh today. That derision he'd shown before, that hatred and apathy that he'd displayed to Diana and Andarta, were parts of his facade. And it was not an unconscious outward expression, no. It was his intention. He never allowed anyone to establish who he was, never allowed anyone to know him for what he was. He never showed vulnerability, even at his weakest. He had an image for every face, a mask for every person. Except... with Jack. "I truly don't want your help, Madi. I know you think that you're going through the toughest time of your life. I know you are suffering a profound and unearned pain. I know that you're searching for something, anything to give you hope, because without a finite goal to work towards, you simply can't feel anything inside." he looked at her, no longer frowning or sneering. He was merely... there. Expressionless. He allowed her to accept his words however she wanted. "You think you are strong. Undefeatable and tested, because all the things you've been through have felt like mammoth tasks. I know all that, and I know that I was, and still am, like that." he walked down the house's front steps, and paced down a half-trodden dirt path. "But there is always a deeper well, a more dangerous setting. Don't get caught up in your head, thinking you've been through it all. If you have time to catch your breath, if you have time to think, if you have time to do anything other than spend every waking moment keeping yourself alive - if you have even the tiniest margin of error, with which you may express anything besides pure survivalistic instinct, then you are not at your limit."
"Go home, Goodwill. The people you're facing have truly greater conviction than you. They have vaster experiences, unimaginable determination. In a battle of wills alone, they would break you, Elizabeth, Alex, without a thought. That is not an insult, that is the truth."
He hastily tucked his hands into his pockets, fists clenched.
"I need to do this alone. It's my battle, and it's my responsibility. It always has been. I am grateful for your assistance, and I understand that I might be stronger with you, but I do not think I could allow myself to grasp victory at the expense of my allies. Not unless they understand the risks of the game they play. Not unless they know that I would give them up in a heartbeat just to have my goals fulfilled. Not unless they know that none of this - none of the anger, none of the hate, none of the friendship, none of the cooperation, is personal."
He paused at the edge of the Ashwoods' pond, the clearing still surrounded by felled logs and shrapnel.
"Come along if you think you're weak. If you think you're going to die, and if you think you're not strong enough. Fight with me if you expect to die, if you desire victory and nothing else; not even your life."
He took in one deep, wracked breath.
"You are not special. When you march to war, you leave everything at the door. You take nothing but your body, and your goals."
Sideways glance. Locked eyes.
"I hope you can understand how Andarta got here - and I hope you understand what I have made her return to being."
He dissolved like sand, the swarm filtering away in the wind.
"A hero." he mouthed, before his body finally crumbled.

Madi said nothing as Kyle started to talk to her.
She started to feel something, some sort of emotion, but she held it in check, it was enough being told all of this, let alone actually having to react to it.
At the end of the speech, Kyle locked eyes with her, then turned to dust and was gone.

It was silent, for a time, madi had no idea how much time had passed or if anyone was going to come looking for her, but she didn't care.
She was sitting at the edge of the pond, looking down at its' surface, when the emotion returned.
She placed what it was.

Rage.
Utter, helpless rage.
She didn't ask for any of this to happen to her. Didn't ask for her life to be torn to pieces due to the whole Czernobog incident or everything that had taken place so far on this alternate version of Earth, didn't ask for all of the deaths and suffering she had caused, didn't ask for any of it.
But yet, here she was, in a clearing, in the middle of nowhere, all by herself.

The rage grew, and continued to grow until she knew she couldn't contain it anymore.
She went bear, her vision went red and her mind went blank.

This was... unacceptable. This man, this arrogant bastard, insane and driven to the brink by his desire to see the world bend to him and his delusions of this perfect, problemless relationship with an unstable radioactive weapon, it just... Polly. Just like her. Angry, hateful, spiteful, disgusting. Like Umbridge, like Czernobog. Loners, with no desire to see the world be better. People who thought the world could only ever be a zero sum game! The answers were in front of them: they could be happy without hurting others. And they were smart enough to know! So why were they still like this? Embittered, cold, revolting? It was a fault of their minds. It was a fundamental sickness, a condition that elevated the psychopathic, the xenophobic, the unworthy; and trod upon the dreams of the good. These thoughts were a bolt of lightning, a thunderclap. In one single moment of unbridled contempt, she found herself twisted into something different, something alien and confused. Something powerful, with mandibles of layered enamel, and claws dark as ebony. Fur, matted and thick, skin as tough and hidey as leather. Madison grew into a towering ursine behemoth, a gross animal with a snarl that pierced the earth and took hold of its listeners' hearts.
Swipe. Slash. The feeling of impact, of momentum, of movement. This feeling, this primal desire. Hack, cut, break. Wooden bones snapped and bled amber blood. Everything was so weak now. Everything was so light compared to before. How could men live without this, in a world where they were so weak? Clash, shatter, kill. Leaves, twigs, branches, mud, blood, soil, blood. Keep going, keep going! The clearing parted, the grass was crushed by paws of greatest pressure. It was fury, it was animalistic, carnal rage. It was rampage, and it was unending. A bottomless pit from which she drew up all her insecurities and frustrations, and used them like bombs against the world.

ARCHON B

"So is this what it all boils down to?" The Brigadier flicked a spot of dust off its blade, a single variable entering the sum equation. Kyle's mind raced, whirring and bleeding as it figured out every angle, every single atom that could be pulled to his advantage. The two were calculators, peering into the future and trying to find some weakness. It was an open field, a concrete plane with water above and to the sides, pressing down as the ocean tried to wrap its drowning fingers about them. The dome above them buckled, held together only by a constant overwhelming stress. All his machines were gone, all his machinations had been tossed aside or wasted. Now, all that remained was this gestalt and its legion. He pivoted on one foot, jamming the stock beneath his shoulder. he clicked his tongue, shifted his fingers ever so slightly. In return, it drew a thin line in the soil. There was a perfect silence here, isolated from the world outside. Every factor and variable, accounted for. Stable. Only changing when the actors moved their own parts in their perfect synchronicity.

"Four hundred and thirty seven soldiers. People whose stories you cut short." The Brigadier took one single step closer. Barely an inch, but a distance nonetheless. "I felt it. I felt them being torn out of me." it put a clenched fist over his heart, fist finding black plate. "What gives you the right? Who put you in charge?!" it projected a fine line across the room. A single, perfectly honed soundwave, built to break apart flesh as it passed through the medium. Kyle fired once by instinct, bullet disrupting the formation enough that it decomposed and became precisely what it originally was; waves of air. It pointed the tip of its weapon at him, a gesture that could not be ignored. "I have seen the future of this world. I have watched tens of billions of people screaming, to me, for help. All of humanity's mercies and curses, lost to the callous progression of entropy." it stopped, and he saw something begin to break. A quantum sliver, beneath subtlety and certainty. The gap closed as quickly as it formed but for that instant, there had been a dent in its armor. "Andarta can save this world! All its trillions, she can redeem them. I was created to serve and to protect, and I will not allow one man to deny my creators that kindness!"

It lowered its head ever so slightly, chin drooping by the breadth of a hair. "Kim was a wife. She was a friend. She was a mother! Who are you to choose one girl over such humanity?" it paced forward incautiously, a billion possibilities opening up in Kyle's mind at once. He struck not with bullets, but with words. "I choose my world over yours, Brigadier." one shot. One single crack, so small that no eyes could see, was struck. One blow, one problem solved, amongst the myriad within the conundrum. The round ricocheted like an errant buzzard, embedding itself in the crown of the dome. A drop of water, flanked by grains of shattered glass, began to fall.
100%.

Adrenaline, and the aftershock. All things are possible. All outcomes, no matter how absurd, have a path to them. Find it! A septillion simultaneous equations, all to find one answerable variable. The Brigadier's foot left the ground, and its body began to shift, too fast for any human eye to respond to. Kyle rubbed a single flake from his thumb, and the improbable occurred. Because nothing, no matter how strange, is impossible. Seven hundred spears of wind accelerated in an instant to just under the speed of light, a volley of pinpoint accurate missiles, each one with the force to shatter a city. One stroke of the finger, one single effortless motion, was all it took to convince them that they weren't really here. No, no. they were actually in the heart of the sun! And so, that's where they went. The two figures were less moving and more warping reality now; for there are infinite subtleties, infinite inputs, and infinite outputs. Smile for the camera, won't you? Things are about to get bright.
90%.

A bundle of nitrogen atoms get together and decide to fuse, by what must seem like sheer dumb chance. This sparks a chain reaction, and soon the whole room is filled to the brim with nuclear fire. It was obscenely easy to compel them to do it. Really, it took the equivalent of an atomic headpat to get the process going. Yet, not a single one of those exploding particles decided to head Kyle's way: nor The Brigadier's. They formed a wall of heat, a straight plank of burning starstuff grows between them, splitting the ocean like some biblical figure whose name you might recall. Kyle leapt through the haze, no longer sending signals to his muscles. No; with all the math he'd done, with all the things he'd calculated in advance, with all the reserve banks of knowledge in his mind, muscles were simply too inefficient. Instead, he made reality move him. Space folded into blanket creases, shortening the distance between the two combatants before his hand came up to flick the Brigadier's helmet. At such a distance, possibilities became certainties. There were only a few ways to release that energy, and one of them happened to be the instantaneous transmutation of the target's armor, and everything within, into sulfuric acid. But just before it died, the gestalt formed its own formula. Not a moment after Kyle's attack landed, another series of coincidences reverted the change entirely. Only this time, its hands were in a different place.
80%.

Yes, he had a knife in him. No, that didn't matter. Kyle's abdomen simply split into pieces, the atoms taking a picosecond break before returning to where they were supposed to be. No real damage had been done. After all, the blade had not disrupted anything that actually constituted him. The weapon first folded into a singularity the size of a neutrino, and then released all that pent up nuclear energy at once. Then hiroshimas went off, and their heat 'happened' to filter into the water around them as soon as it was created, the seas bubbling gently as their surfaces were blasted away by a buffeting wind of steam.

Vacuum shock. All the air, just gone. Everything, excluding a little dome around himself while he maintained with his mind. The constant effort took a great deal of finesse, discovering and rediscovering ways to keep it from all escaping. Thin lines of the atmosphere remained around The Brigadier, arranged in some explosive lattice. They burst outward to fill in the void, creating an explosive lift underneath its armor. A shoulder guard was torn off, scratches and lacerations taking root all across its body. Even the tiniest puncture would disprove its existence. If Kyle saw what was inside that suit, even for a moment, and managed to observe Schrodinger's mental construct, he could dispel this manifestation of The Corps once and for all. Because all around him, he could see people dying. Reavers, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, corridor to corridor, burning trails through hundreds and thousands of his allies.

"This isn't right! You can't doom the world for the sake of your friend!" it shouted, the metals in the water around them dissociating and merging, creating batteries of artillery and guns. A wave of truth swept over the sea currents, turning all their bullets to marshmallow fudge. "Jacquelyn is the only world I need; she's the person that my home needs!" they were not speaking, they were conveying. Both could read the other's mind when they stopped encrypting their thoughts. Kyle's was aflutter with attempts to keep his breath, and The Brigadier's were muddied by the confusion of its subordinate consciousnesses. The ocean bed swirled and thickened, sand glistening as exotic compounds rose from the reconfiguring atoms, the energetic release of each fissile reaction and each fusion going to good use, firing thunderbolts at the many-minded. A ghastly machine, constructed from reconfigured particles alone, stood up, its shadow blotting out the weedy phosphorescent light of the undersea. It fired one shot and fell apart; just as its design entailed. That projectile, that wall of deadly lead, was like a moving wall. For all The Brigadiers' thoughts and efforts, it simply could not find a way to avoid it. So, instead, it decided to counter with its own blast; a gravitational aberration, instantaneously compressing the assault into a space the size of a thumbtack.
25%

Now, all pretenses were gone. The skies bucked and heaved whilst rain clouds gathered, spraying a beam of molten gold at Kyle. A mountain rose up in response, a graphene prism: made to do more using less. A grain of sand accelerated until it could punch through moons, and began to whiz around like a RC helicopter. It was stopped soon enough by a mental response, mathematically cancelling out every 'command' given to the orb of matter. They were programmers at the top of their game, playing with the source code of reality. A train crashed up against a road barricade formed of neutronium and steel. Two oxmium spikes, as tall as great boughed trees, smashed into the earth with a calamitous aplomb. Through the dust and haze they fought a proxy war through reality. Utter stalemate.
0%.
Believability, shattered.
The Brigadier froze. It stopped, unable to suspend disbelief any further.
Kyle's brain, too, came to a halt. Everything around them, everything that they'd previously been enduring and maintaining through force of will alone, reasserted itself.

Suddenly, the slice taken out of the ocean was filled in once more. Suddenly, the dome, which had been in the process of shattering ever since the beginning of the battle a few nanoseconds ago, broke apart. Finally, the water came down, and lingered above him, his head now solely dedicated to the task of keeping himself from being crushed. He approached the empty suit of armor, wondering what he might find beneath. "I never knew what you were, Brigadier. at first I thought your genesis would be found in a lab, or a ritual." he peeled back layers of velcro and leather, fingers gliding over the outside of its body. "Later on, I thought you were some psionic imprint formed by the collective unity of The Corps. A group whose bodies and mindsets were so alike, that it was only natural that they'd link together like this." he laid his hands on the cracked faceplate, fingers just beneath the joint. "But now, I understand."

He took off the mask, and clenched his fists. His fingers met his palms, and he couldn't quite remember what he'd been so worried about before. But even without that memory, he knew what he was going to say.
"You were the embodiment of their unity. A link created by the screams of a dying humanity. A carriage for all the hopes and regrets of an obliterated civilisation, made to inhabit what they saw as the image of their hope."
He drew a pistol, and turned toward a door which had not been there before.
"The Arawn Corps was imaginary. It always was. That's why you had endless reserves, endless resources. It was an entire race's last hurrah. All their minds, all their voices, speaking at once. In unison, to express one thing."
He pushed it open, and stepped into the light.
"Rest assured, Arawn. Your sacrifices were not in vain. Only, it might not be your world that they'll save."

---

- Wait, what?
Trees.
leaves, broken branches
.....Right
Madi had been in a forest, she had become a bear....
How long ago had that been? Where was she now?
The bear found herself sitting on the forest floor, staring at nothing, but her gaze moved upwards to the sky.
How had she gotten here?
Where was the manor?
So many questions....
Madi picked a random direction and started walking.
-
Something up ahead. Stones. Ancient stones. Magic. Dormant, but it was there.
As the bear got closer the stones were revealed to be a circle of stones, thirteen outer stones.
She stopped, hesitating.
Could it be?
Had she found a Time-Stone set?
Out here?
Madi surged upwards and returned to normal a few seconds later, then stepped onto a flat faced stone and walked to the inner circle of stones.
Yeah. Yeah, it was a Time-Stone set. But this one was dormant.
Madi stood there a while, wondering what to do, then an idea came to her.
She took out the crystal and it began to glow.
The stones had been dark, but now they were glowing blue, very very softly, but if you knew what to look for you could tell that they were starting to become active. There was a very quiet hum, but yet as the crystal started to glow brighter, the hum got louder and the blue glow began to to brighten.
Then a massive wave of ancient magical energy surged outwards and Madi's vision went white

Madi would at first see blurry, colored, blobs when her sight returned to her. But as her sight began to return to her the young witch would see that she was in a city, or the ruins of one. She stood upon a crumbling road as ruined buildings and derelict vehicles surround her. She would get the impression that the city felt familiar ri her but she wasn't sure why? Should she explore the city she would see that some if the destroyed vehicles were not civilian in nature, as military vehicles ranging from main battle tanks, armoured vehicles, self propelled guns, TOW artillery pieces, and even attack helicopters and jet fighters were found un the ruins.

The damage done to the building even suggested that a terrible battle occured yet some of the damages were to great for muggle weapons to have done them, could magic have caused it? Should Madi look up she would see that the sky was cloudy and while it look like it would rain she felt a strange sense of relief that it was normal.
As she kept going she would find a large square with tents set up in the middle and lines of people coming from all sides. "Stay in line everyone. Anyone caught cutting or slowing everyone down will be removed. If you're caught stealing not only are you removed from the area but you leave with nothing." A soldier shouted as he and many others watch over the huddled, dirty, males of people step forward in the lines.

The people wore either torn and stained casual clothing or full on rags. Seeing what they carried many held different types of food items and bottles of water. Others walked out with medical and hygienic products, others left with clothing and blankets. A few left with flashlights and matches. As she got closer to the line she would hear a commotion coming from one if the tables. "Oi I saw that you thief! You think you can get away with that shite on my watch?"
She would see a soldier grab an old, bearded, man wearing a long but dirty and tattered blanket on his shoulders and pulled him away from the table. She would see a star sticker on the blanket. "Please sir my family is starving. We need more food." He pleaded, his pleas fell on deaf ears. "Everyone is given the same amount of food and other materials allotted to them by parliament. No exceptions. You are luck your kind is getting anything. You people deserve to suffer far worse for what you have caused."

The old man seem to be close to tears but ultimately said nothing as he returned the loaf of bread and strawberries he tried to steal before walking away, he was shouted out by the people who blame his kind for the terrible stare they are all in, some even wishing death on him, his family and his kind. As the man walked away the soldiers resumed their vigil.
Madi would see drones flying overhead monitoring the area, a few breaking off go follow the old man as an armored car from the site left. The soldiers repeated the same warning.

Something was off here.
Madi felt dread at what she was slowly coming to realize, but she needed more evidence, more proof. A man being turned away because of "his kind" could have meant anything....right?
Right?

The Witch picked her way through the wreckage, noting signs of both magical and Muggle weapon usage everywhere. But why? Madi stopped dead in the middle of the road.
Had the Act of Secrecy been broken? And if it had....
No. No, don't think that. Just find your family first, make sure they're okay, then you can panic.
Madi started walking again and noticed the drones flying over head, they seemed to be following the man that had been caught stealing, and madi decided to also follow him. in secret.

For the next several minutes, Madi hid behind various objects scattered up and down the road, eventually she dared to end up right next to him.
"Hi. I've been out of town for a while and I'm wondering what's going on."
The man didn't seem to hear her or want to talk, but Madi kept on talking anyway.
"If it has been broken, why haven't the other Councils done anything?"
Then Madi tripped over something and landed on her stomach and chest in front of the man; she yelled at him to stop walking but then the man walked through her.
It felt as if an icy cold wind coursed through her body for a few moments and madi simply gazed in the retreating man's direction, very confused.
She then looked down and her jaw dropped.
She was see through. Like a ghost.
But...No, that wasn't possible. And yet.....
Madi glanced down at the rain puddle, then ran a hand through it. No response, no ripples, nothing. Although the water was very cold.
How did this happen? Wait, there was a magical wave of energy from the.....Shit.
The Witch got to her feet and looked back towards the ruins, then turned around in a circle.
It caused a spirit and body separation. But how advanced is it....I need to follow that guy and see where he goes.

The man said nothing as he kept walking, he neither can see nor hear Madison. She would see him walking into the shamble shack made from random junk strewn together. When she looked through the broken window she can see him meeting with an old lady also wearing dirty clothing and having a star sticker on her chest area of her clothing.

The man told her everything that happened and as the man cried because he failed to bring more food the old woman comforted him. Madi would see children and a young woman who were also wearing dirty clothing and star stickers, they appeared very thin and sickly. The kids rushed to the old man who was their grandfather and gave him hug, their concern looks matched the tone of their voices when they asked what was wrong and why he was crying.

The old man tried to smile and reassure his grandkinds and he brought out food for them, the kids appreciating the offer. The old man turn to the woman who was most likely his daughter and tried to give her food but she refused, wanting him and her mother to eat. Madi would see the two arguing on who deserves the food more as the children and grandmother watched on, wanting to stop them but unsure how.
Madi would see that the drones were now flying above the shack and in a few minutes would hear the sound of a car rushing and tire screeching. The family also heard the sounds and the adults looked horrified. She would see them rushing their the house to pack a few items before rushing out the door.

Madi would see the same armored car, more of a van, speeding after the fleeing family, the drones in hot pursuit. The family would see an armored truck suddenly come from the other block and park in front of them, men in black fatigues and riot gear coming out from the back door. The family made a turn to the near by alleyway and tried to flee but one of the children fell. The mother turned and cried out but her father forced her to keep going forward as one of the soldiers grabbed the child and was carrying the struggling wizard to the truck.

Should Madi follow she would find that more cars and trucks would reveal themselves and eventually they would surround the family. The soldiers drew out their guns and aimed it at the family. "You all we will either come with us quietly now or we will use force. If you choose to turn yourselves in you will forget about you trying to evade arrest.
The old man asked why they are doing this, one soldier replied with. "Sir you are in the possession of a contraband weapon. You are under arrest for the unlawful use of such item and you and your family will be taken into a containment facility until in such times that both you and your family have been determined to not be a threat to either yourselves or anyone else. Follow my a twenty year prison sentence for breaking the law."

The old man took out his wand and appear to be chanting a spell but his daughter grabbed his wrist to stop him, telling him that there was nothing he can do against the muggles. His wife also began to try and convince him not to fight and even his remaining grandniece. Eventually he admitted defeat and walked over to the soldier to hand over his wand.
The soldier took the wand and right in front of the old man snapped the wooden magical instrument in two, dropping the two pieces on the ground. The soldier would than hit the old man with the butt of his rifle and before the old man can reacted was punched to the ground. His family cried out in shock and horror as the soldier and four others surround him and began to stomp and kick him.

They began to run towards the soldiers to stop them but would be intercepted by other soldiers who grabbed them and began to carry them off, the three screaming out for the old man as the soldiers continue to beat him.

Madi watched the whole incident a from few feet away, she felt her heart skip a beat when she saw the old wand get broken
-
She was back in that chair, in chains, the man stood in front of her, told the room of her crimes, then the wand snapped and fell to the tiled floor
-
The Muggles were slowly killing the old Wizard.

madi took a step forwards and summoned her magic, the flames roaring to life as she didn't even think - she merely fired magic bolts.

Except they did nothing. They passed through the men and off into the distance.

Madi hesitated, then started to use more powerful spells - Fiendfyre, Bombardo- nothing worked.

Eventually Madi realized that there was nothing she could do to save this man and she desummoned her magic, turned around, and walked away.

The soldiers would stop beating on the old man. Madi would hear him let out an agonize moan as he tried to reach out for his family as they were taken from him. One soldier lift his foot and brought it down on the old man's foot and on the ground, grinding the sools of his boot on his hand.

"You bloody wizards make me sick. You all thought you were superior to us all. Ruling over us in the shadows like rats, believing yourselves to be gods in human form. But look at you know. Now your lower than animals." The soldier spat out as he kicked the man in the mouth, knocking out a few teeth.

The soldiers would cuff the old man and dragged him to a separate armoured truck and they would depart from the city to wherever they hold wizards and witches that break the laws of the UK. Leaving Madi alone in the streets as the rain began to pour down on the ruins of London.

After some time of standing there, Madi decided to go to her house and see what was going on.

It took some time, but she eventually reached the house and stopped just outside the front gate.
Her grandmother was sitting in a battered rocking chair, looking out over what remained of London, when her gaze fell upon Madi.
The old woman sat up, her mouth hanging open, then she quickly got up, darted down the steps and hugged Madi.
And madi could acutally interact with her.
"You're alive! Thank the four founders, you're alive!"