The Ascension of the Imperium IC (All Tech, TG for interest)

[TheMandate]

Sol 233
Between Mars and Earth
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Linse Fleet
Dreadnought 'HMS Indefatigable'
Flag Bridge

A number of the officers in compartment fell silent in shock at the missile numbers coming for them even the holo display of the main bridge fell silent save for the sensor officer calling out the incoming threat. Admiral Linse for his part was unsurprised by the number of missiles, the estimates had actually been higher if he was honest, given the orders to get back to their duties the other senior officers aboard were also unsurprised or just better at dealing with it. The swarm closed with the fleet blinking red icons showing the scale of the problem, those weapons found themselves meeting walls of point-defence fire, AMM Salvos and anti-missile bombs. Given the sudden pulling force to the side the helmsman had deigned to pull some pretty hard evasive manoeuvres though given that the icons on the display had begun to scatter the rest of the fleet had decided it would also be a good idea to evade. The display showed the missiles spiralling off after the Mandate ship but would very shortly show them being thoroughly outpaced by their targets.

“All ships transition to plan Theta 12” barked Linse shortly before he was almost knocked off of his feet by the sudden acceleration “Task Force Drake break formation now”. The Mandate warships had accelerated to 0.995c, not their fastest speed but the maximum advised combat speed. The fleet flowed around the Octavian formation pouring ever more fire into the Octavian vessels and launching half of their strikecraft to hold off the swarms of Octavian fighters. During the manoeuvre a pair of battleships and their escorts detached from the fleet to make for Earth sending shuttles streaming for the planet accompanied by the remaining half of the fleets squadrons.

“Sir, the 52nd Cruiser Squadron is requesting permission to fall back” called one of the officers below “they report having lost a pair of destroyers, three frigates and a light cruiser. Apparently HMS Endeavour is venting atmosphere”.

“Tell Captain Davidson that he still has more than half of his squadron and other squadrons have lost more ships” returned Linse pulling up the squadron in question on the smaller holographic display on his podium “remind him that his ship has also suffered little damage according to the reports. Let him know that if he continues to put his ship above the mission he will be removed from command”.


Sol 233
Between Mars and Earth
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Linse Fleet
Marine Shuttle 'BP-23'

Marine Captain Serhing Sirwan braced in his heavy powered armour despite knowing it was pointless as the shuttle shuddered from a near miss, anything that hit them would likely be strong enough to tear open the hull and in any such event such a hit would likely kill the occupants closest to the impact. Though from the quiet sobs and terrified prayers on the public voice net more than a few of his subordinates were terrified, not without reason in his opinion but most of them hadn't performed a real combat landing before and the first was always the hardest. The shuttle swung violently to the side and bucked harshly as the pilot did their level best to keep the little craft alive, a subtle but constant shudder followed the evasive manoeuvre letting Sirwan know the craft gunner had found a target for the defensive weapons mounted to the little craft.

"Eyes front" called Sirwan keying the helmets of his men to display their briefing "we have been charged with securing the Town of Morioh for use as a spacehead. With any luck we'll have a divisions worth of troops down there with us but our main concern is to be clearing the town of Octavian troops while the others get the perimeter. In particular my squad will secure the highlighted estate given the Octavians seem to be focusing on that part of town we have another two platoons assigned to help us clear this part of the town. The buildings highlighting for you now are your squads objectives, clear them of any Octavian resistance but don't kill the locals. If you have to stun them then do so but I want no avoidable casualties. The shuttles'll clear out the worst of the scrap metal on the way in and will remain on station for fire support, do not call it in if you could clear the position on your own and for the love of humanity remember to check the blast radius". The shuttle rocked as it hit atmosphere and began to scream its way through the atmosphere towards Morioh.


Sol 232
Outer system
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Osmani Contingent, Dragomech sub-division
Envoy vessel 'Enduring Light'

The sleek purple vessel slid gracefully through the gate accompanied by a pair of similar looking frigates which moved in perfect unison with the envoy vessel. Within the 200m long vessel inside a nearly silent bridge crewed by men and women interfaced directly with the ship Dragomech Erbey Taskiran studied the holographic displays before him. Taking careful note of the alert warships prowling the system the heavily augmented Dragomech lined what he was seeing up with what information he had on the Yamato Empire and failing to come up with a reason for the alert level he was seeing. No matter though, as a Dragomech envoy his purpose was to enter talks with this world to bring them into the glorious light of the Mandates twin suns.

"I require a channel to the planetary government" ordered Taskiran minimising the screens and turning to face the requisite camera.

"It is done honoured one" came the quiet voice of the comms technician "speak and they shall hear".

"Honoured Government of the Yamato Empire" began Taskiran "I am Dragomech envoy Erbey Taskiran. I have been sent by the glorious twin sins of the Mandate, the radiant Sultana Saadet and the most glorious Emperess Anastasia Romanov, open formal relations between your people and the mandate of Humanity. To this end I would like to meet with the divine Emperor Kujiro Yamato in order to best convey the wishes of our twin suns and help both our branches of humanity enter a new age of brotherhood and prosperity". With that he cut the transmission as the three ships steadily moved further into the system, the frigates weapons very obviously powered down to help show their peaceful intent.

[Hobbeebia]

Hobbeebian Imperial Unified Forces Hyperhellsion Class Frigate Hycianthia

It seemed like a tidal wave that rushed upon the galaxy not to long ago, and the resolve on the various star empires caught in its path was tested over and over again from the obvious threat of the Octivian invasions and from within.

Any change?" inquired one of the sensor officers as he approached the deep observation visualizer deck where other sensor operators walked around enhancing and withdrawing from various locations throughout the galaxy watching different engagements as they played out sometimes in victory and others in defeat.

Latest activity is near Sol 233 Mandate Forces has engaged Octavian forces and seemed to have adopted a CQC strategy. Other locations have interaction between space-faring species and primitives. It is likely these location, should they survive, will need rehabilitation to carefully integrate without experiencing complete societal collapse.

The Sensor Officer nodded, smacked his lips and waved his hand slightly and materialized a glass of red water and took a quick drink.

These materializer upgrades to the lattice array sure come in handy he said as he placed the glass down onto molecular deconstructor as the glass and its contains vanished in a flurry of white particles that evaporated into the ether. Should be consider sending a fleet to any of those locations? he asked as he took his seat at the head of the deck.

At this time I don't advise securing resources for such a task. replied the operator before closing out and walking off the deck. With a stretch of his arms and his wings he approached his workstation, which was currently bare before his desk and chair materialized as he sat down with complete faith the chair would be there. Honestly I'm not entirely sure why we are here either. We should be taking the fight to the rebels at Archons Hold not watching tier 3 civilizations fight their frivolous wars.

The Sensor Officer flashed a quick grin while listening to his subordinate ramble on. Be careful what you ask for. Besides we arent here to watch them fight their wars, we are here scanning for signs of the Scourge. The Octivians are reportedly mostly biosynthetic based much like DB Cells. If we detect some kind of similar activity we are to report back as soon as possible for a cleansing team to be assembled. Though I think at this point if there was going to be anything happen it would have happened already. For now just continue to monitor... and dont forget to scan for sudden decay radiation spikes...

[Imperial-Octavia]

Fort Liberty, Skyhooked

The fort's defenses were many, but there were far more drones. Despite the losses caused by the armor piercing rounds, rockets, and giant scorpion there were yet more drones moving to replace them. The losses among the Imperator class drones were more impactful as there weren't nearly as many, but they were dedicated to taking the Scorpion mech down. The MK3 drones would work on climbing past and breaking the second wall trying to once again overwhelm their defenses and get into the fort within.

Skyhooked

As the guerillas became braver and more advanced with their tactics they became more of a nuisance to the Octavians especially when they started using their own technology against them. The encirclement at Azure Beaches Five Star Resort was the last straw as drones went down in large numbers from the firepower of both sides. From Italy, thousands of Paramount's Chosen would be airdropped into Skyhooked sent for the sole purpose of crushing guerillas. Drone Fighters would scan the areas where guerillas were suspected to be and then the Chosen would flood into the area butchering anyone and anything they saw in the area mercilessly. Drone Fighters done scanning would move to Azure Beaches Five Star Resort to bomb the Skyhookian forces. The inter-contental artillery pieces located in Africa which had been focused on the now-decimated Russians would turn to Skyhooked bombarding locations such as Azure Beaches, Skyhooked City, New Sodom, and various port cities and airports soon followed by attacks by drone forces.

In the areas where Skyhookians would try and unite the people, they would find a large presence of Mechantors forcing the populations to assimlate. Vehicles, about the size of busses would be used to assimlate people in groups, herded inside like cattle until they left in robotic bodies where they would be hugged and treated like kings compared to their organic communities. In South America they would find that across the many nations that had fallen to Octavia easily like Chile, Columbia, Argentina, and Peru many of the children had already been assimilated by the Mechanators along with the oldest in the country, along with celebrities and other public figures to try and pressure others to williby come forward and assimlate themselves. In Brazil, a brutal guerilla war was occuring in the amazon as drones burned the rainforest to dust trying to drive them out. The Brazilian mainland had been lost and had already seen millions of their population assimilated especially among the poor. Some more feisty humans could be seen being dragged out of their houses by Mechanators with a few dents left in their shell by bullets or whatnot, those who did not stop struggling and allow themselves to be assimilated would be shot causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. Similar sights could be seen in China and South Korea with similar levels of death and destruction.

Skyhooked North Korea

The surprise naval bombardment was very effective leading to a general retreat from the city targeted as thousands of drones were destroyed. Despite this initial victory, the Squids would soon find Drone Fighters bombing them from overhead. The Chosen escorting Angelo would be damaged, but one would heave Angelo over his shoulder and run at a speed that would be more expected of a sports car, not an 8ft behemoth of metal while the rest of the 99 Chosen began to fight any who would try and stop Angelo. At the building where Cioccolata was he would feel a buzz in his ear and hear the gruff voice of a Chosen in his ear, "The Skyhookians are close to your location along with one of their leaders. Be sure to terminate them." The forces rushing Cioccolata's position would surely notice his flesh eating bacteria beginning to gnaw away at their flesh.

Morioh Japan

"Ah, yes of course I'll be willing to join you in your bedroom. I assume there are stand users in this household?" With that a boom would be heard somewhere outside seemingly the Mandate's drop-pods, "We should probably just ignore that, why don't you tell me about the stands here?"

Meanwhile Octavian drones in the town would begin hunting down the humans from The Mandate trying to surround the location of their drop and with their back-mounted motars tried to bombard them before they entered the town proper. Once they came inside the city the shelling would stop to prevent turning the mostly neutral citizens of the town against them. This now meant that the marines would be facing the drones who had now began entrenching themselves into the city after shooing away the civillains from the entrances to Morioh. Truly the battle for hearts and minds was just as real as the physical battle.

Above Earth Orbit

So these Mandate ships were fast...It would be no problem. Artillery ships would use their analytical learning AI to predict the most likely movements of the Mandate's ships using the previously seen movements taken by the craft made easier by the fact they were circling around the fleet. Broadsides and missiles from Battleships and main cannon shots from destroyers followed this pattern, predicting the most likely movements of the craft and firing. In order to stop the fire from becoming too much the ships began to consolidate themselves into a position where their shields would be able to multiply their strength at various points. A few craft had already been injured by the Mandate's ships. Drone Fighters who were barely outpaced by the craft fired their missiles which would be able to reach the craft while the lighter vessels assigned to harassment would remain in hot pursuit of the craft while firing their weaponry at any target which presented itself while on the outside of the circle the Mandate's craft had made.

Interstellar space

Chasing the warmind had proved rather useless with the traps and the inability to actually catch the Warmind, the chase was called off with the shells of destroyed ships carried off to be turned into new ships. Two of the Visoran ships were sent off to verify the destruction of the LA sensor arrays as the appearance of the warminds in Ridley's Rest had raised a few eyebrows as they hadn't been detected in the area. Those two ships would go system to system checking for any signs of an array and with their speed it shouldn't take them too long to sweep the whole of Octavian occupied territory. The final Visoran ship would make it's way to the Mid-rim defensive line being built along with the rest of the fleet pursuing the Warminds.

Operation System Error

A stealth vessel somewhere in the periphery of the Imperium would begin making connections among the internets of Sildoria and Bloodshade disguising itself as a domestic signal. Once inside, sentient AI bot farms would begin to populate the virtual infrastructure of these nations monitoring their activity and noting their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Within the course of a few hours the AI would launch their attack; the most viewed websites of these nations would be filled with a particularly nasty memetic causing an irrational rage in the viewer which would cause them to begin rampaging everywhere they went, surely causing some chaos among their ranks. Then the economic institutions of the nation's were tactics and though they were far more protected than the regular web (in Bloodshade's case they were on a completely different intranet) however a solution to this issue arrived in a massive phishing operation as everyone confirmed to work in the banks, stock markets, and what not would be sent e-mail (or their equivalent of it) messages which when opened would discreetly download sentient AI which would begin keylogging. Once they were able to gain access to their economic institutions they would wait as the email with the keylogging AI was sent up the chain of command automatically until reaching the highest levels of the organizations before they would find their control stripped and the banks and stock markets sent into chaos. Money dissapearing from accounts, interest rates going up and down sporadically, and who knows how many large business loans cancelled. A similar system was tried in government positions where if let in they would begin printing trillion upon trillions of their currency in order to cause hyper-inflation and would also try to cause some other chaos in the military by giving contradictory orders and most dangerously telling of civil wars starting in certain areas and to shoot ships and stations in that area on sight, though by this point it was suspected that the governments would be able to stop the AI chain after seeing what had happened to the banks.

This cyber attack was hoped to cause chaos among the situation and hopefully make Bloodshade drop out before they got too involved. The last thing Octavia needed was more enemies.

[Il Passione]

Coast of Venice
As Lisa Lisa’s body washed up on the shore, she slowly came to her senses as she awoke, a pain in her stomach and neck that initially burned but quickly fades away as she got up, propping herself up on a nearby rock as she rubbed her head, looking around the area after rubbing her eyes.

“..ugh...M-Messina? Polnareff?” Lisa Lisa called out, lookign to the shore as she looked at the smoldering island over in the distance, seeing a few ships go by as she hid behind the rocks for a moment before looking around, desperate to find a sign that they were alive. All she remembered was Messina’s voice crying out for something, though due to her unconscious state it was unintelligible.

She then stepped on something soft. To the sole of her shoe, it felt like some kind of polyester propped by a hard, cylindrical shape...


She looked down, before seeing a path of blood in the water, and on the rough, coarse sands laid Messina’s hat, and one of Polnareff’s earrings.

She fell down onto her knees, picking up the two items as she came up with many scenarios. Maybe there was just a struggle, and they lost the items? Yeah. There’s still hope they’re alive, right?

That was her idea of it, until a brief bisage came next to her before fating away after a second; the spirits of Messina and Polnareff. That’s when she finally new the truth; and with that, she burst into tears, sobbing as she cuddled onto Messina’s hat… that familiar yell was a Deep pass Overdrive: the same technique Caesar used to give his Hamon to Joseph when Wamuu had defeated him.

70 years she worked with Messina, and together they had been through incredibly tough times. From the emotional overwhelming they initially recieved when Loggins died at the hands of Esidisi, to the death of Caesar and when she initially thought Joseph had given his life to defeat Kars; her isolation to Air Supplena Island and her wish to not be involved in the affairs of DIO due to her lack of connection to the Joestar bloodline prevented her from being able to learn of Jotaro’s exploits until she met Polnareff, who had been on the journey alongside him in 1989 to Egypt, and lost many good friends and nearly her son. She even gave her security to protect him after the Boss targeted him for knowing his identity; and that paid off just then, with the alien forces having united with Passione’s stand users and completely destroying the island and slaughtering her soon-to-be graduated Hamon students.

Thinking about this now, this was all the fault of that Boss. A rage overcame her sadness quickly as she got up, a new kind of power forming near her in the form of a purple, feminine humanoid that had a body coated in a diamond checker pattern made of a slightly darker shade of purple that was prominent of the bottoms of its’ humanoid hands and feet, as well as thin spirals that were positioned on the bottoms of its’ cheeks, knees and buttocks. It possessed an ovaloid face with a pair of large, blank magenta eyes, a glowing, magenta arrow-shaped gem on its’ forehead, dark, thick lips on its’ mouth and flowing hair that reminded her alot of the Saparoja beetle scarf she wore and a ‘crown of thorns’ reminiscent of Joseph’s Hermit Purple, as well as a larger version of what appeared to be the Red Stone of Aja on its’ chest above the stand’s cleavage and a star-shaped mark on its’ neck not unlike that of the Joestars.

This was a stand… just like Polnareff’s Silver Chariot she had gotten to see and know for a while. She had put a hand on its shoulder, and while it should have felt like nothing, it was reminiscent of velvet, smelling a fair bit like a mixture of lavender and well-aged red wine.

“...Viva La Vida. That’ll be your name.” She said, before she saw a group of people behind her.

“Master Lisa Lisa?” A familiar voice called, as the main troupe had arrived before her, lead by the Jotaro Kujo she wanted to meet all those years… and Caesar? Stroheim!? But they… they should’ve been…

“Hm. I had no idea she was a stand user. Thought she was good a Hamon, mostly…” Jotaro sighed, looking in her hand at the items, one of them being Polnareff’s earrings, before inspecting them in some stoic expression. “This is one of Polnareff’s little broken heart earrings. He took good pride in ‘em…”

“He must’ve gone to Air Supplena Island and stayed there… but why didn’t he come back to us, or give us any kind of sign where he was staying?” Joseph asked.

Lisa Lisa’s face turned to one of sorrow, knowing what the reaction would be once she broke the news to them. “The island was raided… everyone died, including Polnareff.” She stated, a shocked reaction rising amongst most of the group, though Jotaro was initially stoic, until he looked down at the earring, his breathing growing heavy as he bit down on his lip, quivering as he curled that hand into a fist, struggling not to let his emotions escape.

“Woah… Mr. Kujo?” Okuyasu asked, slowly approaching him as he stopped himself, Jotaro looking back up as he regained control of himself. Joseph saw the expression on his face; it was the very same one he saw when he learned of Kakyoin’s death in the hands of DIO.

“There’s no time to grieve. We’re going to find the bastard who caused this madness, and I’m going to personally smash him to pieces.” Jotaro said, adjusting his cap as he got Lisa Lisa up.

“Well… prior to his death, Polnareff told me all he knew about this enemy. A boss of a powerful mafia that had control over the Italian government, with a stand that can erase time for all except himself.” Lisa Lisa stated, a rare bit of determination in her eyes. “And his name was… Diavolo, if I recall.”
“Diavolo? Sounds like some edgy loser to me.” Okuyasu said, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see how much of his ass kicking he’ll be able to skip past.”

---

Florence
Melone was a very peculiar character. He always approached his tasks with cold professionalism, he physically and retrospectively analyzed his future victims, looking them more like cattle than fellow human beings. This especially showed in a scenario where he could provide great benefit to the Octavian Empire and power in exchange for his stand’s abilities.


This, however, only occurred to him one day when he was observing the Octavion occupation through the front of the La Squadra Esecuzioni safehouse. A Mechanator was dragging a 20 something year old Italian woman through the streets as she kicked and screamed about the road. She had made the mistake of not evacuating as she was left drunk in a club and in the days to come she would be one of those organics that the Mechanators had to root out and assimilate, "Let go of me you metal bastard!"

The mechanator just looked back, turning his head a full 360 degrees "If you talk again, I will shoot you." The woman stopped struggling and broke down into soft sobs as the mechanator continued to drag her through the streets. This would be the time for Melone to intervene.

“Ah, momento!” Melone said, emerging as he closed the door behind him, inspecting the girl with a friendly glee. “Just, ah… just a moment. I’m having the foundations of a small idea. I mean, there’s more uses for an organic than simply assimilation, right? Let me just ask her a few questions.” He said with a professional tone and attitude.

The mechanator looked at Melone, "...I guess so? I guess you can have her."
He threw the woman at Melone's feet while pointing his laser rifle at her head. She looked at Melone and spat at him, "What do you want with me you tin-can supporting creep!"

He wiped the spit off with his fingers, raising an eyebrow and playing with the stringy bit of saliva before licking it up. “Nothing much. I’m just going to ask you something… maybe to help me along, you could give me some credentials? A birth certificate, driver’s license, online dating profile, whatever it is? It’d be far easier than just doing a survey.” Melone said, sitting on a chair and bobbing his foot. “Come on, now, there’s little time.”

The woman threw him her driver's license obviously frightened by his display with her spit. At this point she wondered if the robot was the preferable option, "T-There! Now get away from me you freak!" The mechanator looked on in equal measures disgusted and curious.

“That sample of saliva already told me alot about you, you know.” He said, pulling out what appeared to be a Windows 95 laptop. “I could have sworn I tasted B- blood type, and Jotaro is an O, meaning even if you wanted you, you couldn’t be able to transfuse blood… it was still warm as well, meaning there’s definitely a big, fiery will inside you that could have heated that… what that will would be is a mystery, however.” he then looked to the license. “Oooh! OH, DI MOLTO! You were born on July 10th, which makes you a Cancer. Jotaro is an Aquarius, and according to the recent horoscope, you two would be completely incompatible?” He then turned to her with an excited look. “You certainly look like you’ve been doing drugs. Have you done any drugs, or smoked? Those slight wrinkles on your skin definitely give that sign… Actually, lend me your foot! Immediately, posthaste!”

The woman was surprised that he was able to gain so much information by the taste of her spit and some slight wrinkles on her face. She was also surprised (mostly disgusted) that he `needed` her foot, "No you creep! Why would you need my foot. I'd never give your creepy ass m-AHHH!" The mechanator grabbed her foot and gave it to Melone, "Go on, do whatever you were planning to do, I'm curious now."

Melone licked his leps, his entire body shaking as he removed her shoe, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “Size 7… di molto bene. Jotaro was 6’5 according to the archives, and that should equate him to a shoe size of, say, 14…” His eyes widened. “It’s a shame you have smaller feet than him, but what does more than make up for it is the fact your size is an even number, while Jotaro is an odd number!” He said, laughing in joy before taking an incredibly deep sniff and embracing the foot. “And what’s even better is the number 7 is a prime number, meaning you’ll be even more stronger! This just gets better!”

“You know, if you’ve lived around the area of Naples, you must surely know my comrade Bruno Bucciarati. But did you know he studied an art in which you can tell someone’s emotional state by taste?” He said, before taking a long lick up the sole, briefly sucking her big toe and looking up at her with an aroused expression.
“Ooohh… good, definitely some element of fear, confusion… but alot of what I assume would be some kind of anger… think of it like a cordial… and if the texture is something to presume from, it’s that you definitely have been working along, perhaps doing some physical job moving objects about for long periods. Must be hard on you, but you work through it anyways.” He chuckled, lowering her foot. “Plus, I felt that your abductor hallucis is well built, and if I press on your third delectable toe, it resists better than the rest of your little toes. That’s good, because according to my studies in reflexology, it means you must be quite a strong-”

The woman began kicking her other leg about sporadically, "GET-AWAY-FROM-MY-FOOT!" She would continue to scream that as she struggled about the grasp of the mechanator who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

A kick managed to land on the side of Melone’s face, before he raised his hand before the Mechanator could react.

“Hold on… there…” He said, his nose bleeding as he still kept a collected, smiling expression. “...you… you hurt me? In my face? That’s… THAT’S WONDERFUL! I didn’t think you’d have the gall to resist my actions, or those of any Octavian, but your resolve shines brighter than the sun itself! Well done! You have proven yourself well!” He said, as his laptop sprouted arms and legs. “For my Babyface sh-”

“MELONE!” Ghiaccio yelled, storming over to him. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT!? YOU INTERRUPTED MY READING SESSION! GOD DAMNIT, WE ONLY HAVE SO MUCH FREE TIME!” He said, pulling him up by the collar before looking to the woman. “I’m sorry, signorina, but my friend’s just a pervert, that’s all.” He said, pulling him up as Melone dusted himself off.

“Aye… I apologise. I got a little bit excited, that’s all. I’ll be on my way…” He said, walking past the Mechanator and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Do lock her up for later. I have the foundations of an idea forming to serve the Imperium.” He requested, before walking away.

With Melone drawn away for a moment the woman's struggling only intensified as she was obviously happy about Ghiaccio rattling around Melone a little before that hope immediately left her face as he began to leave, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING DUMBASS! KICK HIS ASS PLEASE! PLEA-" the mechanator put his hand over her mouth muffling her screaming before looking curiously at Melone before doing as he was asked taking the woman to a holding area and informing every other mechanator that she was not to be assimilated as per Passione's orders. Something about a plan to help the Imperium. Though the mechanator had to wonder…What did that creep have to offer the Imperium?

---

Skyhooked North Korea

The surprise naval bombardment was very effective leading to a general retreat from the city targeted as thousands of drones were destroyed. Despite this initial victory, the Squids would soon find Drone Fighters bombing them from overhead. The Chosen escorting Angelo would be damaged, but one would heave Angelo over his shoulder and run at a speed that would be more expected of a sports car, not an 8ft behemoth of metal while the rest of the 99 Chosen began to fight any who would try and stop Angelo. At the building where Cioccolata was he would feel a buzz in his ear and hear the gruff voice of a Chosen in his ear, "The Skyhookians are close to your location along with one of their leaders. Be sure to terminate them." The forces rushing Cioccolata's position would surely notice his flesh eating bacteria beginning to gnaw away at their flesh.

Angelo would quickly find himself being carried over, his only weapon being a monkey wrench he found, as the Chosen escorting him would find themselves being assisted by his stand, Aqua Necklace.
"Alriiight! Just bring be a little closer to the big boys and make sure I'm hidden! It's not gonna be as fun if you turn them to Swiss Cheese before my Aqua Necklace can possess any of them! Trust me, get me closer to the action and hide me somewhere, and my stand will do the big work! Nothing can destroy my stand as its liquid form allows it complete invulnerability, and the only way they'll defeat me is if they find me themselves..." Angelo commanded.

---

"The Skyhookians are close to your location along with one of their leaders. Be sure to terminate them."

Cioccolata nodded, getting the message loud and clear. "Affirmative... though I'm sure they'll trip over their own shoelaces. Green Day surely can grow on them should they drop even the slightest bit lower, or fall over a bit. If not, my comrade Ojiro or Secco can slaughter them one-by-one... but I demand their leader to be alive." Cioccolata stated a grin forming over him until he heard a word from Sasasme.

"Oi, Cioccolata! There's somebody down 'ere! It's not coming from the staircase either, it's a civilian! A child-sized female, I'm bettin'" Sasame said as he stood over, Fun Fun Fun vibrating as a child's screams could be heard, along with the sound of cutlery shattering, Cioccolata seemingly beaming with joy.
"Secco, leave the camera to me. Go deliver the girl to me up here, then deal with the group in the floors beneath us if they make it... I'll relay briefly to Octavia that I want their leaders alive and in capture. In the meantime, let me just enjoy our new guest!" He ordered, Secco nodding as he dug down into the floor, grabbing the girl who had a small cut from a broken plate and throwing her into the ceiling where Cioccolata grabbed onto her before digging into the multiple other floors to find the enemy.
"Hello, little girl. That wound looks a little unsightly. Shall the doctor fix this?" He said, grinning as he gave Ojiro the camera. "Our usual cameraman is out tonight, so we'll just have you on the job. I hope you've studied film theory and can stomach the graphic details, because I want this to be intricate as possible. Improvise if you wish."

Morioh Japan

"Ah, yes of course I'll be willing to join you in your bedroom. I assume there are stand users in this household?" With that a boom would be heard somewhere outside seemingly the Mandate's drop-pods, "We should probably just ignore that, why don't you tell me about the stands here?"

Meanwhile Octavian drones in the town would begin hunting down the humans from The Mandate trying to surround the location of their drop and with their back-mounted motars tried to bombard them before they entered the town proper. Once they came inside the city the shelling would stop to prevent turning the mostly neutral citizens of the town against them. This now meant that the marines would be facing the drones who had now began entrenching themselves into the city after shooing away the civillains from the entrances to Morioh. Truly the battle for hearts and minds was just as real as the physical battle.

"Right..." He said, looking for a moment before escorting the machine into his bedroom.
"One thing you should know, a small secret, is that my entire family consists of stand users. You can ask each and every one of us, and hopefully they'll comply to show you how it works. There's also a number of notable faces... including the mangaka Rohan Kishibe. I was surprised to learn he was a stand user. Makes me wonder whatever other celebrities could have been stand users... But that is besides the point." He said, closing the door to his bedroom, where a cabinet of beetles preseved in silicon was on display, as well as a tank full of live beetles. "...Have you heard of the Locacaca fruit?

[TENNOHEIKA BANZAI NIHON]

Gokyo, Empire of Yamato
A few Weeks Ago

The Prime Minister was very concerned over the latest events across the planet and the galaxy. With the latest attempt on his and Animus-6's lives, he had been forced to take even more security measures. The nation was worried and he would have to address them.

He took to the podium. "Peoples of the Mighty Empire of Yamato! A time of crisis has occurred in our lands. Our great allies, the Octavians have come under attack, both abroad and in our very home. Our investigation has concluded this was a deliberate act by foreign operatives, possessing advanced weaponry. Our brave Imperial Guardsmen and Kenpeitai fought against them in this glorious struggle and were ultimately victorious in beating them back with numerous casualties. To implement more secure procedures, I have personally ordered in name of his holiness the Emperor that all foreign emissaries are to dock at the Gokyo Air Station and to be under full military escort. We have mobilized our great fleet to combat the threat that is upon us. War is upon us. Our fight to secure the divinity of the Emperor and the Orient in our last war proved victorious, and we shall be victorious yet again! The war against our attackers shall last 1,000 years so may his holiness live 10,000 years. Tenno Heika Banzai!"

With a roar, the people raised their arms into the air and yelled with him, TENNO HEIKA BANZAI!"

Already the fleet was in orbit, consisting of the battleship Musashi, 20 star destroyers, and 40 patrol ships.

Gokyo, Empire of Yamato

When message came from the envoy of the Mandate, they were immediately approved to be admitted to land at Gokyo Air Station. The fleet monitored them, watching, as on the ground troops were ordered to suit up into battle armor. The Prime Minister had been horribly embarrassed about how the guardsmen had been taken out while escorting the Octavian delegation, and was determined to ensure this one's security. It was a whole mess, he had offered his resignation to the Emperor who naturally declined while the commanding officers of the Imperial Guard had offered to commit seppuku to the Octavian who had also declined.

He wanted to make a good impression this time. He gave order to send up a message and also notify the Octavian ambassador for further guidance.

The transmission to the Mandate from the Emperor read, "The Empire of Yamato is honored for you to join us to open up formal relations between our empires. We request you land at Gokyo Air Station as to ensure your security. Our planet has been attacked once before lately by covert forces and wishes to avoid another unfortunate encounter. I will meet with you in the Imperial Place after you are welcomed in by your security detail and the Prime Minister."

[Guuj Xaat Kil]

Ridley's Rest proper
Sword-dreadnought thing

For some people, neutrality was not intervening in something, for the Confederacy, and for these individuals especially, neutrality was shooting both sides equally when they get in your way, and for the most part, that's what they did with the few stragglers that got too close. But things were about to get tense, exceptionally tense, with the turning of the mostly Zravvisk vs Octavian melee with Confederate spectators on the sides into a huge mess of ISO, Laniakean, Decepticon, Zravvisk, and even more Octavian troops duking it out on the bridge, as well as on their escape path, and if the cameras on their shuttle was anything to go by, even their mode of exit from this messy place.

"At least this information theft is going smoothly," thought the captain as he shielded the engineers from stray bullets or whatever's they're shooting, "Just a couple of minutes more and we outie, let's just hope for a smooth exit. The intensity of the situation made those few minutes an eternity, but it was finished in a couple minutes.

"And now we get out," he managed to loudly whisper to his men over all the noise, "Stuff in order, safety off, and check your corners. Let's go." But before they could do that, a rather large robot blocked the way, and rather unfortunately, it was looking directly at them with a cannon ready to shoot. This, was not an acceptable outcome of this little expedition, and so, Captain Hiram blasted it away with a single burst from his miniaturized autopulse laser.

What he didn't account for- or rather- ignored outright when miniaturizing the autopulse cannon into a carbine sized and roughshod variant, was the ungodly amount of noise it would create. And to the luck of the plucky Confederates, it happened in a brief but long enough lull in the noise, enough to make perceptive folks to go "what the hell was that".

And in a clutch moment for the CSS Intrepid's captain, he decided to add to the lull with his solution. Blowing a hole into the wall with his shield and into a corridor of sorts, and run for it like madmen. "Abandon any attempts at sneaking out of this one!" he yelled over the intercom of his suit, "We're booking it as fast and safely as we can, stealth be damned!" And so stealth was damned to the idea trashcan, and they blew up holes using Captain Hiram's shield in whatever wall, door, or obstacle that went in their way to a swifter passage to the engine room, going around any troops that they encountered to avoid getting bogged down. Sure, they were getting shot at every now and then, but always a small price to pay for salvation.

They would arrive at the engine room quickly as was planned, and now, they had to deal with the Zravvisk near their shuttle. Raising his hands as to quiet down his men, Captain Hiram then gave his autopulse carbine to another person as a show of trust, that there would be calm and collected talking today... Hopefully. Slowly approaching them, he activated a universal translator, "So... Hey there, presumably Zravvisk engineers..." he smoothly spoke in a disarming voice, "We'd like a snappy exit out of this place, and its going to be through that shuttle there." He quickly placed his hands together, "And so I'd suggest a... Hmm, a stance of non-interventionism, when we're trying to get out of here, what do you... Say?"

A cold sweat would suddenly occur to the captain, it felt as if something really, really bad had occurred.

And that's saying something with the air conditioning of his suit.

Ridley's Rest Hyperspace
CSS Intrepid

"I wonder what's happening out there," the monotonous voice of a maintenance officer broke the semi-silent environment of the bridge, "Damn, should've volunteered, lots of fun stuff most likely." He laid back on his swivel chair, spinning around a bit to break the boredom of waiting. He stopped after a few spins, quickly getting disoriented; there was a reason the man was placed in maintenance. Just as he recovered, another crew member entered, this time a comms officer holding a dataslate, and a facial expression that could be described as 'oh dear' the emotion. "Something happening?" The still seated maintenance officer piped up from behind a screen.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, lower being bad and higher being good..." the communications officer paused slightly, as to prepare the enunciation of what was coming next, "Its more or less a four out there. Captain and the volunteers got caught in a rapidly devolving fight in the bridge, and shot some big ass robot." He looked at the dataslate, a small grimace forming on his face, "Ooh, this isn't good, the shuttle is surrounded by those Zravvisk guys, and I'm sure its either a 50/50 in terms of conflict popping up out of this." The pair were deep in thought now, but were interrupted by the sound of some clumsy security officer slamming into an empty console. They would've returned to thinking if not for the click of a button meeting their ears.

"Uhm... Oh! Oh crap." Was all the security officer could say as he looked at the device fallen button-first into the floor. It was a mishmash of reds, greens, yellows, and the occasional blue, and a big, dull blue button. It was a machine that pulled in a person from the Morale, Entertainment, and Serendipity Squadron, or MESS for short, and as nearly everyone in the Confederacy in its entirety called it...

"Shitcurity at it again, the Clowns have been called now." a mixed of disappointment, anger, and fear was in the voice of the maintenance officer from earlier, "This was a one-way too, can't use it mechanisms to get back..." His voice trailed off as he looked at the machine's settings, and his eyes widened in apprehension as he looked back and forth between the communications officer, the security officer, and the machine. "Uh, the settings are on Localized Random, Big MESS, and Delayed Random Multiple..." he sat back on his seat with a sigh of resignation, "You guys do know what this means right?" It meant that veteran MESS operatives would appear in this galaxy every now and then, fully armed to the teeth.

"I swear I don't know what the hell high command was thinking with these "morale-boosting operatives"," the then seated comms officer complained with clenched eyes and a deep grimace, "I swear to god I'm gonna strangle whoever placed that there..." They then saw another officer eavesdropping on them running to tell the rest.

"Morale is going to tank the moment we encounter MESS ops." The security officer said with dread.

This Earth
Florence

Nothing of note occurred, and nobody new that was of interest was there. The only vaguely intriguing thing in that Italian city was some stereotypical-looking clown with a pair of metal briefcases with some blue lights on the side. But otherwise, not much of note occurred for now.

[Skyhooked]

Fort Liberty crumbling yet holding

The infamous Giant Scorpion, one of the awesomest units, ever made in Skyhooked, recieved another portion of punishment, yet lesser than the last time. Still, it's armor was like swiss cheese, and one of the servomotors was damaged, thus slightly reducing it's speed. The other damaged component was one of the coolant pipes, which started leaking. Due to that, tail plasma beam cannon fired at slower rate, so it wouldn't be overheated. Since there is no guarantee, that this machine wil survive another attack, it started to move at it's full possible speed closer to enemy positions, so when it's reactor core explodes, it will cause significant damage to enemies, who were in range of this petite nuke with scorpion's parts as shrapnel and it's leftover ammunition as more explosives.

Meanwhile, the second wall was breached in several places, but still fulfilled it's function. Besides, there was the main compound itself, built from finest thick rebar concrete. It's slightly tougher than walls, but with enough explosives it is entirely possible to breach it too. Besides, there were windows from which machine guns fired, and heavy metal doors. But what if hostile forces somehow find a tunnel through which, ammunition and supplies are delivered? This question slightly bothered fort's defenders. Sure, this corridor was heavily guarded, and had several chokepoints, but who anything can happen. And on top of this, between attacks, local personell, paying with heavy losses managed to retrieve the dual guns from downed Grinder tank and set it up on the middle tower. They test fired it right at the Imperator class drones, which harrassed the Scorpion. Too bad, it had very limited ammunition, and only one of the cannons could fire. Plus, it was too advanced to fix.

Skyhooked - The Commonwealth strikes back!

With enough MK3 and Imperator drones being downed and looted for their weapons, Skyhookedian people were finally able to at least slightly level the playing field, with smaller groups of regular drones turning from hunters to a very dangerous, yet still prey. With ammunition, taken from Imperator and MK3 drones and rapidly adapted Octavian guns, many would rearm and country slowly turning into schizotech nation. Plasma and laser guns, more advanced than those made and sold in Skyhooked by it's best arms dealers quickly found it's use in infantry, vehicles and even aircraft. With all this, they would go forth and spread out to make Paramount's chosen to spread out too in their attempts to flush the guerrilla fighters. The offroad pickup trucks, armed with Imperator class drone anti armor cannons, crudely adapted for primitive cars would periodically appear and fire at Paramount's chosen, and then quickly disperse just to gather again somewhere else, where the appearence of Drone fighter is reported. The guerrillas if being attacked by an elite mechanator, would attempt to concentrate fire from various weapons. Even guns and bullets can help, working as distraction factor. Kabanarian Rangers would use their high caliber sniper rifles to either attempt to hit weak spots or just cause multiple distractions for Chosen. Hopefully, the elite troops mumbers are limited.

Still, those elite troops caused much problems for Skyhooked, with Kropotkinsk, Foxstone castle and New Providence being captured by enemy, and Azure Beaches losing many it's defenders and being pushed back into defensive mode. All while guerrilla resistance becoming slightly weaker in several areas and Battle Bonded losing more than half of their lodges. Indeed, Paramount's Chosen were the finest, Octavia has to offer.

Military grade aircraft was becoming fewer and fewer in numbers, being slowly replaced with chimeras made from older fighters and sometimes even cropdusters combined with Octavian armor and weapons. Obviously, the cropduster planes would be only fit for close air support, but still... better than nothing. With airports and hopes for tourist season being reduced to ashes by intercontinental artillery, air forces would try to improvise and use any patch of road for landing. And sometimes even fields. Lower reliability for less predictibility.

Meanwhile, with Luxuria, Invidia, and Acedia districts of New Sodom being razed and the rest damaged, to the joy of some priests, and with Fullhouse, the capitol getting hit too it became obvious, that something should be done and ASAP, until all the Skyhooked is no more. After Fort Liberty and Technocrat clan pooling resources together, they managed to find the approximate location in Africa, from which enemy caused mess in Russia and now tries to end Skyhooked.

The response was pretty drastic - Skyhooked will use it's own intercontinental weaponery! The ICBMs, carrying either low-yield tactical nuke warheads or conventional and EMP ordnance. But wait, what if enemy can hit them? For preventing this kind of situation, a solution was offered. To take some AI cores of downed drone fighters, attach them to missiles tips and turn them on. Hopefully, enemy systems will register those missiles as their own fighter squadron, until it's too late. Soon after, the disguised ICBMs were fired at the locations of enemy artillery.

Warriors of the World uniting

Few and scattered survivors at the South Korea were rallied and thus, Skyhooked united Korea. Not much, but still everything that can help won't be overlooked. Whatever remained from several cities in China and whatever remained from Vladivostok was taken under the wing of Skyhooked, with survivors willing to fight being given better guns. Same would happen in South America. Skyhookers would attempt to rally locals and try to take on and steal as many Mechanator vehicles as they could, while rallying survivors for a fight with mechanators. Stolen ones would be studied. With the reports of most people being either assimilated or dead, in South America, Russia, South Korea and China, Shawn Bjornson felt a slight, yet deep horror. What if Skyhooked became the last bastion for humanity?

With more and more communities of survivors being brought into the fold, it was time to try and rally the USA or whatever remained from it. Hopefully, with all their giant defense budget and all those guns, they are still holding. With this goal, many warbands went from Skyhooked across the coast. To coordinate the efforts of survivors across the world, Skyhooked ever manages to find, it was decided to establish the Global Defense Counil.

What the heck is happeing in Korea?!

Yes, yes, and yes! The enemy assault was repelled by the mighty pirate fleet! However, this fleet encountered something far worse than a hangover - Drone fighters swarmed the ships like hornets, and did manage to sink several smaller ships already. They retaliteted, firing at Fighters, and thus diverting their efforts from the Chosen, who escorted Angelo for the special operation. Meanwhile, several Lambda squad members would succumb to a Cioccolata's flesh eating cursed bacteria. Some of them managed to use Green Refresher MK2 Stimpaks, both strong regenerative and antibacterial thingy, in time to avert the effects of the Cioccolata's bioweapon. To fight those effects, while bieng in range of the attack would possibly require to use those extensively. Casey James, despite being high on weed was wise enough not to rush and decided to wait and see, if Green Refreshers help. Just in case, he injected one of those himself and ordered to bring more of those medical assets to the area.

Casey James prepared himself to take his sledgehammer and smite whatever evil lurked there. As a paladin and leader of the Refreshment Cult.

[Pax Cybertronian]

---

“Do you…remember the Guild?” someone asked close to Bombrunner.

“Hm?“ he responded with. He sat back up. “That’s the, uh… group Scorponok worked with. Some, ah… mercenaries or some scrap like that. They helped train a group of Magicons for us. Was Warper transferred from Cymopolia to this galaxy?”

He received a shrug.

“Right, right,” he responded. “Just had an idea. If we can contact them, we can get them to send us, like, an infinite army of Golems or a protection clause instated for me or something. Only issue is – I don’t know how to get in contact with them. Maybe…”

Bombrunner barked some orders, resulting in the viewscreen activating and a call with Scorponok, who was still in charge of operations in Cymopolia for the moment, commencing shortly thereafter.

“Grand Admiral, is it?” he began. “I’ve heard that you’ve contacted the Guild.”

“Yes. What about them?”

“Well, I was thinking. Could you get us to access them somehow?”

Scorponok sighed. “Wait a few minutes.” Bombrunner leaned back and, after about a minute, Scorponok sent over a few contact information and miscellaneous links and whatnot. “Use this to contact the Guild. They should be helpful in the protection of the Octavians.” With a thankful nod, Bombrunner turned off communications and began to contact the Guild.

Code: Select all

”Greetings. This is Bombrunner of the Decepticon Empire. I have managed to contact you through Grand Admiral Scorponok of the same empire, who I believe you’ve affiliated yourselves with in Cymopolia, and it’s probably good to cover my bases first of all.”

He pulled out a medallion, appearing to have some magical properties.

“I got this artefact from an organic civilization I [i]personally[/i] annexed some time ago. This should provide sufficient payment, though I can provide other artefacts or resources if necessary. I’m sure, say, steel will be rare [i]somewhere[/i].”

He coughed and continued. “Now. I have a proposition or two – for now, at least.” He provided some footage of several battles throughout Octavian space involving Laniakean, ISO and UG vessels, amongst others. “We are allies with the Octavians. With this message, my proposal is this: would you be able to deal with these vessels somehow? I don’t mind if you, say, steal them or something – actually, if you do, please incapacitate it and let us try to reverse-engineer it – or destroy it or something, just deal with it, please. I myself am not…entirely certain, right now.

If you wish to contact me further, you can do it via viewscreen or face-to-face; I don’t mind.”

---

A Cybertronian-sized shuttle exited the Warren, arriving somewhere around Earth. It descended, preparing for its entrance into the atmosphere. Its occupant was one of the highest-ranking Decepticons in the Empire: Aerospace Commander Starscream.

Docking somewhere in Italy, he had detected signals from a comparatively smallish Decepticon spacecraft. Through reports sent to High Command via Necrom, he had worked out that these ‘Stands’ could be potentially useful to him. He was incensed by Megatron’s rule – his total immortality meant he was an invaluable asset to the Empire, one that they could not dare to lose. He was also proud of his reputation as one of the best fliers in the Empire, and he daren’t lose that status. Yet he still felt that he was destined to rule; his advocacy for guile and deception was superior, in his eyes, to Megatron’s more ‘brutish’ methods. Not only that, but Megatron tended to rough him up out of anger. Not that Starscream couldn’t fight back, but that was beside the point. Even some Decepticons dared to try to ridicule him! It was unfathomable. He did possess a modicum of care towards his Seeker brethren, but he still had the urge to shoot them.

Exiting the shuttle, Starscream transformed into his alt-mode – a sleek and stylish fighter – and headed off towards Necrom. Shortly after, he landed outside Necrom’s ship and saw the Magicon going to work. There were numerous cloning tubes within the frigate, and it appeared that Necrom was contacting people and providing experiments. Starscream received consistent reports yet he was concerned and irritated at their vagueness.

“You there! Magicon!” the Seeker barked.

“It’s Necr-urk!” Starscream lifted him up by the neck despite being around the same height.

“Tell me what’s been going on!” He looked to his subspace storage pocket. “Open your subspace storage pocket!” The Magicon sighed and, as Starscream dropped him down onto the floor, opened his pocket and pulled out a Stand Arrow. “I take it you’re after this?” The Seeker snatched it off him and had a look at it. He placed it within his own subspace storage pocket. “What else do you have? Actually… never mind.”

Necrom went to grab the Arrow back. “Piss off!” the Seeker barked. “Know your place!” Necrom sighed and lunged at him, muttering some Ancient Cybertronian incantations all the while. The red and blue Seeker dodged and pointed his Null-Rays on his arms at him, guessing that Necrom hadn’t managed to raise any of his anti-EMP mechanisms yet. Guessing correctly, he fired them, briefly shutting down the Decepticon. Taking advantage of this, Starscream then transformed into his alt-mode and flew off.

He knew about the Autobots and that there was something involving this “Dio Brando”. Regardless, he figured that it’d be best to go to America since that was where the Autobot City was originally located before the Autobots left Earth. Some time passed and he transformed back into his robot mode. He pulled out his Stand Arrow and looked in front of him. He appeared to be, if he guessed right, somewhere in the south-east of America. He grabbed the Arrow and, testing to see if it actually worked as Necrom presumed it would in his reports, stabbed himself with it. He felt something change, but he wasn’t sure what as of yet.

Regardless, he continued to fly around America. He’d probably need an army of sorts eventually. He could gather some of his Seekers and get some Vehicons – maybe he could even appeal to Shockwave’s logic? The Octavians were looking to be less likely to win and Starscream didn’t want to be on the losing side of a war, and he doubted that Shockwave wanted to either. The only issue would be that Shockwave currently seemed more intent on investigating this precursoral ship.

---

Meanwhile, Necrom got back up, rubbing his head. His vision was somewhat hazy, but he was coming to. Turning to the monitor, he decided on contacting DIO.

“We have a...small issue,” he began. “I didn’t expect him to be interested in Earth, but here we are. We have a problem with... ah... internal business, we’ll say, at times. Starscream, Aerospace Commander of the Decepticons, barged in, shot me and grabbed one of the Arrows.” He pointed to a wound and it was clear he was still recovering from some sort of EMP blast. “He was heading… eastish, I think. Somewhere in the Americas, probably somewhere in North America. I’ll go on the lookout as well, but it might be wise to also keep an eye out on him. I can send a dossier on him if you wish.”

DIO nodded, turning around as he seemed somewhat underdressed, wearing only his signature golden pants. “Thanks you for the kind heads up. He may be no problem to the likes of me, but there is no telling how powerful you Decepticons can be. If he gets a stand, then that’s an even bigger problem. Send a dossier, a warning, in fact. He was one of your agents, you should actively pursue him. I’m sure whoever your leader is should be fully aware of what kind of person Starscream could be.”

“I plan on hunting him down,” he responded. “To clarify something, Starscream is higher in rank than I am. Also, I should mention one thing in particular. He has an indestructible spark. As in, he’s immortal. You might be able to contain him, but I’d keep an eye on him. More info on his immortality should be in the dossier.”

“I, DIO, attained immortality as well. I know what such power can do to a man, and it truly is the most wonderful experience… though, I also have found indestructible items can still be trapped or sent elsewhere. I’ll inform one of my most trusted subordinates on this case.” DIO said.

“Thank you very much for that,” Necrom said. “After I’ve finished with contacting the necessary people, I’ll track down Starscream in America. Oh, and, do let me know if you find him.”

After finishing up business with DIO, Necrom moved onto Kars and relayed to him the same info about Starscream and the situation, as well as providing him with a dossier. Kars took in the information with great caution, advising his subordinates to look out for this Starscream.

After finishing with Kars, Necrom promptly moved onto the Paramount and the Octavian Imperium, relaying the same information to him and providing him with a dossier on Starscream. The Paramount received a message informing him that a Deception known as Starscream had recently stolen a stand arrow and began causing all sorts of havoc. He was also... Immortal. Were the Deceptions not already immortal? The Paramount would save that question for later but for now he would tell drones in North America to go look for this Transformer. He had his own stand to learn about…

“To clarify,” Necrom said. “We are immortal - we cannot die of old age, and the only way we can die is through piercing our spark. This does not work for Starscream - it appears that there’s no way of permanently killing him.”

"Ah, that's far more understandable. We'll be sure to find a way around this. Thank you Necrom, I'm sure you know about the Autobots in your area.”

“I do, yes, thanks. I’m still keeping an eye out for them, though I am now prioritizing Starscream,” he continued. He wanted to talk a bit more about the somewhat chaotic, as usual, political situation in the Decepticon Empire that, paradoxically, never seemed to be its downfall. Had they become complacent? Only time would tell. He had heard even Shockwave possibly possessed leadership ambitions - he had the credentials; he had been Decepticon leader in the past. This seemed to be the state of affairs as usual, and Necrom had come to expect it.

---

At Ridley’s Rest, the Decepticons continued to advance, firing on its opposition, and managing to destroy several ships all the way, taking advantage of the ships’ durability to absorb fire and trying to redirect it elsewhere. However, a planet-destroying blast seemed to be warped from the Sword, destroying an entire Worldsweeper in one go. They were somewhat perturbed by this sudden attack but, considering it to be a one-off, pushed forward regardless.

---

[Neo-Unified Nations]

Missing Squadron

---

Patrol Vessel 6221

It's a normal day, well, for GDI Space Force stormtroopers, that is, one patrol vessel, 5 space shuttles, and 1,500 Stormtroopers risking their lives in what may be the weirdest GDI experiment yet, with no knowledge of what is about to happen, they pray that it's not going to end with their erasement from existence.

Inside one of the Patrol Vessels, Hull Number 6221, was a....generic GDI Space Force Stormtrooper, along with his other comrades, waiting for Nagato

"So, this is the peak of Neo-United Nations Tech Development, collaboration with NUNNS Nagato, a battleship suited for space combat, why am I not surprised?" muttered GDISF Stormtrooper Captain Alexander Mihaly, this was one of the wackiest things he has done ever since he served the Neo-United Nations Global Defense Initiative, especially the Space Force, which was experimental.

"So, plan on going AWOL?" one Stormtrooper asked sarcastically, holding onto his G11K3, the Space Force had prided themselves on being a G11-only Branch, because caseless ammunition actually fared better than cased munitions in sub-orbit, at least, according to R&D, in truth Alexander had liked the M29 OICW, but, beggars can't be choosers.

He turned to the Stormtrooper and smirked, "Plan on defecting to Light Dusk?" he asked sarcastically, hoping to get a reaction out of him, the Stormtrooper feigned shock, "Why, I would never do such a thing!" he said in false shock and horror, Alexander smiled, it was fun being in the GDI, you could joke about the Supernatural and have six nearby squads agree on how the Supernatural and their allies are fuckers who just need to die.

"Well, fuck you then, that's what you get for asking me if I wanted to go AWOL." Alexander said, pointing at him for emphasis, the Stormtrooper chuckled then left, leaving Alexander to his own devices, he stared at the gunmetal gray walls for hours, before shaking his head, "I should stop staring at walls, it's really annoying, It's almost gotten my ass chewed back when I was a Private..." Alexander mumbled, soon after Alexander decided that it would be in his best interests to get some food.

He walked aimlessly in the Patrol Vessel, looking for the Mess Hall, he began to ponder as he walked, "Who created the Supernatural? Why are we fighting them aside from natural hatred? Why do we even consider genocide as the first option against them?" thoughts like that bombarded him, he paid no attention to them, only wandering aimlessly while searching for the hall.

Eventually, he came across the Mess Hall, grabbing some food and sitting at a table, his meal consisted of five slices of meat, rice, two slices of pizza, gravy, and five biscuits, he proceeded to eat the meat, savoring the taste, it was actually pretty tasty, all things considered, "I wonder, is the seasoning actually made of Angelic DNA?" he joked, the meat and its seasoning were very savory, with a salt-and-sugar feel to it, mixed with some sprinkles of chili

After finishing the slices of meat, he began to pour the gravy on his rice, after all, rice and gravy was a good combination, and he dug in, greedily eating the rice + gravy combination, then eating the biscuits after, he was satisfied, he stood up from his table and walked away.

"I wonder though, what's SF Command up to?" Alexander asked, walking away from the Mess Hall and into his Berth, or Bunk, even though it was a 'Patrol Vessel', it still had rooms in case a Stormtrooper needed to sleep, he found the Bunk area, then he took off his equipment, like the Radio, the Helmet, and the Vest, he also stored his G11K3, climbed onto one of the beds, and stared at the ceiling for quite some time, with stray thoughts distracting him once and a while.

"Yo, Alexander." one of the Stormtroopers in the bunk next to him said, "What is it?" Alexander asked, still staring at the ceiling and letting lots of stray thoughts distract him from his fellow Stormtroopers, "I've been wondering, what the hell is this 'Collaboration with Nagato' thing about anyway? Isn't Nagato the best warship we could field in space combat?" the Stormtrooper asked, Alexander sighed, "Apparently, it's testing some new FTL drive or something like that." he said, the Stormtrooper's ears perked up, "FTL Drive? I thought we didn't have those!" the Stormtrooper said, "Well, I did hear it from another Stormtrooper, who said something along the lines of 'It's not a true FTL drive, but something similar', alright?" Alexander said.

It's pretty weird when it came to NUN Tech Development, one branch would have an advanced Railgun while another didn't, even if the Military was heavily standardized and had to share equipment, the fact that the Space Force got an FTL drive makes it even worse, Alexander thought, he then switched his thoughts to another subject, this time, discussing Extrauniversal Anomalies, Alexander shivered, anything Extrauniversal and Extradimensional were often incomprehensible to the Neo-United Nations, that's why the GDI Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines tend to 'shoot first, burn bodies later' when it came to Extrauniversal threats, this was the case in Australia in 2009, where it became a battleground for Extrauniversal-summoned Dragons and other beasts against F-15F Eagles and F/A-18F Block IV Hornets.

Alexander decided it wasn't worth thinking about and decided to sleep.

---

NUNNS Nagato

Meanwhile, on the Neo-United Nations Naval Ship Nagato, Captain Mark Sheppard of the Intelligence Task Force simply stared at the emptiness of space, "Captain, we'll be rendezvousing with the Patrol Vessel." one of his subordinates told him, "ETA twenty-five Mikes." the subordinate finished, Sheppard nodded, "Dismissed."

Sheppard wondered why Humanity had developed so quickly, from horses to Main Battle Tanks, then comes Nagato, the cream and crop of the Neo-United Nations' prototype Space Force, he smiled, knowing how far Humanity had advanced ever since the Unification War, the Twenty-One Year War, and Operation Black Dawn, from M16s to M29 OICWs, then the G11, humanity has advanced greatly, soon it will become powerful.

"I wonder, is the Nonexistence Boundary Cannon still working?" Sheppard asked, curious to know whether or not the damn thing actually got a chance to fire, and it is a pain to take care of, especially its power source, the Nonexistence Boundary Manipulation Reactor.

"Yessir, the NBC's still shining and ready to fire!" one of the ITF grunts next to Sheppard said, "Though I have to admit, making sure that it doesn't collapse on us is a hard task." the grunt finished.

"As long as it isn't going to turn us all into Supernaturals, we should be fine." Sheppard said, but in his mind, he was smiling at the irony of his statement, Alpha-4 existed, comprised of ONLY Supernaturals, that's funny to note, fucking hell.

"I mean, then again, doesn't Alpha-" the ITF grunt was silenced by his seatmates, one of them saying "There is no Alpha-4, got that?", then chuckled, "Alright, A-4 doesn't exist." then Sheppard himself chuckled at that as well, there is no A-4, there will never be an A-4, and A-4 has never existed in the first place.

Sheppard sighed, he has always faithfully served the Neo-United Nations and will continue to do so, as it is the promise of Humanity, to exterminate anything that dares threaten it.

"Sir, we're about to Rendezvous with the P.V., ETA Eight Mikes." the subordinate from earlier notified Sheppard, who nodded, "Contact them, tell them we're about to begin this operation," Sheppard said, things were about to go interesting.

However, in another part of the ship, one of the screws for the Boundary Reactor fell off, causing another to fall off, the effects of this would be...unstable...at best.

---

Patrol Vessel 6221

The Captain of the Patrol Vessel simply stared at the walls of the command deck without a thought going on in his head, he was used to being empty-headed, staring at nothing for hours without end, it was the usual, stare at a wall, get your train of thought broken.

The Captain was broken out of his empty-headedness by one of his subordinates, "Sir, we're about to RV with Flagship Nagato in 8 Mikes." the subordinate said, the Captain nodded and dismissed him, he had been chosen to test out a new device, it was called the Boundary Reactor, right? Yeah, it was the Boundary Reactor, he didn't know all the specifics about it, but it was supposed to allow forces to move instantaneously from one point to another, and they were to begin testing with Flagship Nagato.

The Captain simply wondered what it would be like to jump from one place to another, the Boundary Reactor was supposed to do that, aye?

"Captain, we're about to RV with Flagship Nagato, estimated time is Four Mikes." one of his subordinates notified, "And they're opening up Communications." the Captain smiled, seems like this was going smoothly, "Open up Communications as well, I'm going to speak with Captain Sheppard." the Captain said, "Yes sir, patching it through now." the subordinate pushed a few buttons, and voila! Sheppard appeared on the screen in the middle of the command deck, he could see Sheppard smirking behind his face of professionalism, what a joy to test out the wonders of Space!

"Captain, I take it you've had no problems?" Sheppard said, the Captain nodded, "We've had no problems on the way, so we're fine." he said, "Are your forces ready?" Sheppard asked, the Captain gave him an affirmative, "We're ready to go, on your mark, Sheppard." the Captain said, "Let's begin!"

---

10 Minutes Later

Then, the testing began.

The Patrol Vessel linked up with the Flagship, both of them were near each other, and the crews of both vessels were waiting anxiously for this test to begin so they can go home after it's finished, especially on P.V.-6221, where a lot of the crew were talking with each other about their homeland, Russia, New Zealand, America, Ireland, the places they called home.

Then, the Flagship tested its Boundary Reactor by moving about 90 nautical miles away from P.V.-6221, P.V.-6221 then proceeded to test out its Boundary Reactor as well, moving 30 nautical miles away from Nagato, the test was a success, however, upon returning to Earth...things became a little...unstable, all thanks to the Boundary Reactor overheating...

---

NUNNS Nagato

The Sirens went off in Flagship Nagato, confusing several people on the bridge, but some of them went into wide-eyed terror when they realized the context between the Siren going off, however, Captain Sheppard didn't.

"What's going on?!" Captain Mark Sheppard asked, wondering why the Sirens went off, one of the subordinates, in a panic, blurted the situation out, "THERE'S A FIRE ON THE BOUNDARY REACTOR!" Sheppard's eyes went wide, SHIT! THE BOUNDARY REACTOR?!

"I WANT ALL TEAMS TO DEAL WITH THE FIRE! EQUIP YOURSELVES WITH EXTINGUISHERS AND FIGHT THE FIRE IN THE BOUNDARY REACTOR!" Sheppard yelled, at that moment most of the bridge rushed to the rack containing fire extinguishers and fireproof equipment, hurriedly putting the equipment.

Sheppard turned on communications to hear what's going on down there, however....he wasn't expecting to hear the most panicked reports he's ever heard, it sent a chill up his spine.

"THE FIRE'S SPREADING! RETREAT! GET ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT!"

"THE FIRE GOT CHARLIE! IT GOT CHARLIE!"

"IS SOMEONE THERE?! HELP! HELP! HELP ME! OH GO-" that one made Sheppard want to rip the radio apart, it scared him to no end.

"THE FIRE'S NOT STOPPING!"

Sheppard turned off the radio and rushed for the rack containing the fireproof equipment and fire extinguishers, he put on the equipment, consisting of a Nomex mask, a Nomex Glove, and an M40 Gas Mask, he grabbed a fire extinguisher, running to the site of the fire, which was on the lower deck, near the Boundary Reactor, he sprinted as fast as he could, hoping he wasn't too late to stop it.

He passed several Intelligence Task Force crewmen writhing in pain or treating burns, HOW BAD WAS THE FUCKING FIRE?! HOW BAD WAS IT TO THE POINT WHERE IT BURNED A LARGE AMOUNT OF THE FLAGSHIP'S CREW?! Sheppard kept on sprinting, praying silently that the Fire hadn't claimed a lot of crewmen.

Sheppard stumbled across the fire, he pulled the pin off the Fire Extinguisher and let loose, using the hose to guide the liquid to flush out the fire out, several crewmen arrived to assist him in this endeavor, firing off the liquid onto the fire, extinguishing it and making sure it wouldn't come back, "Thanks." Sheppard said, "What's the situation on other parts of the ship?" he asked, curious.

"We've stopped the fire from spreading on the other side, however, it's too hot on Ground Zero, we'll have to do a simultaneous assault, but we need some more extinguishers." one of the crewmen said, "We've lost twenty crewmen to the fire, and another sixty are injured." another said, Sheppard nodded, it was a clusterfuck.

"Do we wait for the others?" Sheppard asked, one of the crewmen shook his head, "They're already here." he said, several ITF grunts clad in black gear came up from behind, but Sheppard noticed the patch, well, he'll be damned, it's A-4!

"So, A-4, right?" Sheppard asked, one of the grunts nodded, "A-4, Aqua-type." Sheppard nodded, a Supernatural with the ability to control water, "Alright, let's do this!" the grunt said, taking off his gloves, he began to take out his canteen and pour it on the ground, then after emptying his canteen he proceeded to move his hands around, producing a wall of water using the puddle he made as a source, he made a few more, then charged at Ground Zero, the other Grunts did the same thing and created walls of water, using them to stop the fire from harming them, Sheppard and the other crewmen followed, holding fire extinguishers as they did so, taking out stray fires.

Then they reached Ground Zero's center, the overheating Boundary Reactor, and another A-4 team that pushed from the other side, they saw the Boundary Reactor bursting pipes at random, "Well, shit." Sheppard said, "Any Ideas on how to contain this?" he asked, one of the A-4 Agents spoke up, "How about we turn it off?" he said, approaching the Reactor's manual control panel, amazingly, he did turn it off.

"Nice going." Sheppard said.

Unfortunately, there was an error which didn't show up due to the Panel being scorched, while it did turn off something, it turned off the safety instead of the Reactor, which was about to release something...Extrauniversal...

---

Patrol Vessel 6221

The Captain of P.V.-6221 simply stared at the blank screen, he hadn't heard anything from Flagship Nagato since ten minutes ago, what the fuck is going on? "What the hell is going on over there?" he asked, curious, he stared at the motionless flagship, which didn't even turn its guns, why the hell was it not moving?

The Captain continued staring at the flagship before suddenly the lights on the Flagship went out, then it went out on his ship, frightened, the Captain flipped down his NVGs, which helped him see better, he heard the confused noises of a large amount of the crew on the command deck, "The hell?" one of his subordinates said, flipping down his NVGs, he was confused, what the fuck happened and what caused both the Flagship and P.V.-6221 to lose power, then suddenly, the Captain heard one of his subordinates scream, confused, he turned to the direction that the subordinate screamed at...and holy mother of God.

It was a...portal..thing..warp..gate..whatever, it was...STINGING TO HIS EYES! the Captain turned away, the...thing he stared at caused his eyes to sting, what the fuck?!

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"

"MY EYES! MY EYES!"

"IT STINGS! IT STINGS!"

The Captain tried to turn the power back on, all the while screaming in his head; IS IT AN EXTRADIMENSIONAL THREAT?! IS IT CAUSING INSANITY?!

The ship refused to move away from the...thing that caused the crew's eyes to sting, however, to his horror...he noted it was getting closer to the Vessel-

"Wait...no..." was all the Captain could say before he was violently pushed down by the ship being forcefully and violently pulled towards the...thing, "WE'RE GETTING CLOSER TO IT!" one of the crewmen finished it for him, as he was about to get up, the ship got yanked again, he fell into the wall and hitting his head, causing him to black out.

He never saw his ship disappear into the giant...portal...thing, but Nagato did.

---

NUNNS Nagato

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!" Sheppard yelled, after cleaning up the Boundary Reactor fire, he went to the bridge, however as he was about to open Communications with P.V.-6221, the power went out, and a lot of the crew had to use their NVGs, however they saw...the Extrauniversal gate, and they saw it yank P.V.-6221 away into an unknown realm.

"What caused it?" Sheppard asked, that was the million-dollar question, what the fuck caused it?

The Power came back to the ship, and Sheppard noticed something...the safety had been turned off, but not the reactor itself, wait...

"Hold on..." one of the crewmen said.

"Does this mean...."

"Holy..."

Sheppard nodded, that Extrauniversal Gate was opened by none other than the Boundary Reactor, which was supposed to tear open a hole into Nonexistence, however...then came the billion-dollar question...

"Where the fuck did it send P.V.-6221?"

Those words put the entire crew on alert, they did wonder, where the fuck did they go?

---

Patrol Vessel 6221

Alexander Mihaly was jolted out of his sleep, he woke up, almost hitting his head at the top of his bunk, however, he noticed that the temperature changed, normally it'd be cold due to air conditioning, but this one felt...dead, the temperature felt like one of a dead person, he moved his head to the bunk next to him and found the person he talked to earlier sleeping, however, he seemed a little too unresponsive.

"Hey, dude, wake up!" Mihaly yelled, he didn't budge, "Come on man, did you do something while I was sleeping?" he asked again, no budging, "Answer me, damn it!" he got off his bunk to try and slap his bunkmate, however as he was about to do so, he noticed that he wasn't...moving anything besides his chest.

"The fuck?" he asked, he checked for a pulse, he was breathing alright, but it seems he was knocked out cold, not naturally sleeping, he moved to another bunk, touching each one of them to get a response, but it seems nobody moved...at all, they didn't respond.

"How'd everyone but me get knocked out?" Mihaly asked, he went to the place where he stored his equipment and put them on, Vest first, Radio after, then Helmet, after that he grabbed his G11K3, he opened the door, but noticed that outside of the door was...dark, there wasn't any light source.

He turned on his night-vision goggles and walked outside of the door, still clutching the G11K3, somewhat scared by what the fuck's going on.

"Jesus Christ, where are we? Another universe?"

Oh, how he didn't know the truthfulness of his simple words.

---

Vast Emptiness, Extrauniversal Space

In the vast emptiness of this...alternate Space, a lone vessel and its signal stood out, P.V.-2661, its last words in its Native Space were also the first words uttered in this Extrauniversal Space.

'Tasukete, tasukete, tasukete, tasukete, tasukete, ta...su.....ke......teeee...'

[Eisenstern]

【♜】The Tower【♜】
【Guild Hall, Core Control】

"We've got everything set up, sir. Ready when you are."

Kresge turned his head to the aide who had just addressed him, still tapping his ironclad fingers on the chair's armrest.

"You've centered trading post accessibility around... Earth, was it? My, but how many of them choose to name their planet "Earth"."

"Yes. We've got a Bastion unit ready to rail its way into a stable orbit, so we can set up a network hub. The necessary sales personnel have also been notified, and are already on standby."

"Very good. I suppose it's time we proceed with the transmission, then."

"One moment - we've got an incoming hail, of sorts. Old channel, first opened in... Cymopolia."

"Hmm? Is it the morphing robots again?"

"It would appear so. They are requesting help with what appears to be an unspecified space hijacking."

"Another one? Well, I certainly admire their spirit. Route it through the usual channels - I've no need for personal involvement at present."

"Understood. In that case, everything is on standby."

The Guildmaster stood, making his way over to the wall-to-wall organ-esque apparatus. The brassbound microphone had already been unfolded - grasping it gently, he cleared his throat.

"To all interested parties - let it be known that the Wandering City of Eisenstern is hereby announcing its presence within this reality, and will open trading posts shortly. Goods of practically any purpose, function, and dimension of origin may be obtained, given the right price. Business may be conducted with any party, regardless of race, ideology or allegiance, provided no hostile intent is made manifest against the Tower or its operatives. Please monitor these frequencies for updates to trading post locations, availability, and potentially obtainable wares. I wish you all a pleasant day."

Tapping an engraved brass button, he let go of the device. Before long, the simple string of audio would be passed along to a transmitter array that had been preemptively jacked into a Rift Rail access point - all across the territories of practically every participant in the Octavian conflict, one-way apertures in space would disgorge duplicate signals. All travelling at merely the speed of light, and yet with so many functional origin points that the entire galaxy would be almost certain to at the very least pick up on the transmission within the hour.

Simultaneously, a patch of near-vacuum in low-Earth orbit was made vacuum no more - a dull-grey, fort-like construct now hung in the extraatmospheric void. Beyond the presence of a Bastion, nothing else seemed to have changed, for now - those more attuned to the byways that lay beyond the reach of realspace might have picked up on the creation of a channel, here or there. Proto-gateways and apertures to nowhere, ready for merely the reception of destinations and origin points. A framework for an unspecified thing, yet to be revealed. Within the rather unconventional interior of the Bastion itself, clerks and managers were already hard at work - assisted by freight golems and miscellaneous consultants, they were determined to bring the storefront-to-be into presentable shape before the first entrance was operational.

Finally, the Decepticons. The tired envoy assigned to reading through the transmission gave a somewhat bemused sigh, before tapping out a response.

To the relevant representatives of the Decepticon Empire,

Please specify the following:

• The exact allegiance, class and number of ships you wish to target within the parameters of this contract
• Internal plans or scan data of the vessels in question, if possible
• A summary of technological capabilities, ascertained or presumed, pertaining to the vessels in question
• The exact method of disabling/theft/hijacking/destruction you would prefer and/or wish for within the parameters of this contract
• The degree of assistance you require, as well as the degree of assistance/manpower/forces you yourself are willing to provide for the purpose of this contract
• The capabilities and parameters of the amulet you referred to
• The capabilities and parameters of any other items of arcane, cultural or technological significance you would be willing to provide as part of this contract, or subsequent contracts

Once these points have been verified and consolidated, further discussion into a potential contract may commence.

Sincerely,

Emissary Jubran

Duly-appointed representative of the Guild and City of Eisenstern

【㊏】Earth (Prime)【㊏】
【Hotel Moscow, Roanapur】

As Balalaika emerged, she seemed to possess a new air to her, one of a person who had just witnessed a destructive power that could end cities, it looked like. Granted, she seemed oddly happy since she wanted to use this power against the Boss to it’s fullest extent. But first, she had to notify the one who gifted her this new power of something. Looking at the card Vladimir left on her desk, she took it in her hand as it glowed white from her fingertips before bursting into flames.

A second or two later, there was a soft cough, only a meter or so behind her.

“Glad to see you’re in good health. And I see you’ve already picked up a trick or two.”

“You’re not blind. That’s cool, I guess… but yeah, I can’t thank you enough for this.” She said, smiling. “Infact, I think it’s, uh… a whole lot more than I expected.”

Twisse walked around to the front of the room, and turned to face Balalaika.

“What did you expect?”

“I dunno… probably something useless like a disguising stand or something that allows you to fly. It’s not gonna be a lot against something that does god-knows-what.” Balalaika sighed. “I could give you a demo at the docks if you want, bearing in mind I can’t use this ability here.”

“And yet you’re willing to go and use it outside, in full view of everyone? You must value your furniture quite highly.”

“Relax. It’s pretty barren. Besides, there’s not too many people around there, y’know. Last time I used this ability their skin peeled off and they ended up lookin’ like deep-fried demon cock jerky after a good 20 seconds.” Balalaika graphically stated as she headed outside towards the beach. “I’d suggest you stand a good 10 or so meters away unless your magic ass can survive a field of destruction. This isn’t a hostile thing either, as much as I wanna hug you, it’d reduce your lifespan by a few decades unless you’re immortal.”

Her companion followed suit.

“So you’ve become a walking microwave, then? Neat.”

“I guess you can call it that.” She said, heading to the end of the empty pier before revealing a figure behind her, radiating a sort of light green energy as its’ eyes flickered a visage of a radiation symbol, the entire being fully armoured and looking like something out of a post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG as it emitted quiet static and small blips and frequency of radio, looking at her in curiosity. It was safe to approach since she didn’t have the field active, but seemed to oddly smell of molten lead,

“His name is Energia. This bad son of a bitch is like a walking nuke, a little knight in shining plutonium armour. You can try touching him if you like getting cancer, I suppose, but other than the fact he’s kind of like if Iron Man sunbathed in Chernobyl, he’s an oddly adorable kind of guy.” She said, banging on its shoulder plate.

“Pfeh. When has a little radiation sickness bothered anyone?”

Walking up to the figure, Twisse gave it a light tap on where its nose would be.

“Boop.”

“Двадцать три, двадцать четыре.” was the radioactive stand’s response in a deep female voice obscured by low-quality radio noise, almost like one of those creepy numbers stations, completely stoic and robotic.

Balalaika giggled, patting it on the back. “I think it likes you.”

“I suppose that’s good. What can it actually do, though? I get that we’re going for the whole radiation theme, but I doubt you can afford to wait for your enemies to die of cancer.”

“I guess you’re right. That’s why I adopted some offensive capabilities, and a pretty good defensive one. You wanna stand back for this one, or are you gonna be my test subject?” She said, Balalaika having a confident look on her face.

“Eh, we can spar if you want. Depends on what it is you’re aiming to show off, really.”

“Alright. Just a quick sesh.” She said, before a small flash suddenly beheld as her stand and her irradiated a white glow, everything in a 10-metre radius suddenly being enveloped in a drastic, heating element. A crab scuttling along nearby would be caught in the energy and start convulsing as its’ stalked eyes exploded while it was being audibly cooked at an astonishing rate from the inside, while a stray flower instantly wilted and shriveled up into a black appendage. A fly that was bugging her would be incinerated, Balalaika catching the remains and watching them smolder.
“That’s only the start of it all.” Balalaika said, the stand suddenly conjuring a glowing light from its’ fingertips as it started growing and vibrating. “He can also play with the little particles floating in the air and make their atoms unstable, manipulating their elements and creating some kind of radioactive laser beam.” She said, before Energia suddenly pointed finger guns and fired an incredibly quick laser beam at Twisse’s hip.

There was an audible crackle as the beam struck the hip of Twisse’s cloak - radiating out from the impact-point, a wave of plasma washed over the cloth, before fading into the surrounding air. The fabric seemed to be entirely untouched thereafter. The Emissary cocked her head.

“It’s almost like a tiny star. I like its style. Any good in hand-to-hand? Pretty sure I remember seeing something about “punch ghosts”, whatever that’s meant to mean.”

“Oh, yeah… he’s got that down to dust too.” She said, running a few steps forward before the stand lunged out, quickly jabbing a white-glowing fist towards Twisse before unleashing a barrage of punches that would feel like a point-blank hand grenade. “URAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” It cried in what would sound hauntingly like the cry of Soviet soldiers charging for the Motherland as it let down a rain of punches with each impact sounding like an artillery shell exploding.

And yet most punches found only air, or merely an errant fold of cloth - Twisse herself appeared to never stand in the fists’ path, despite not seeming to actually move from one place to another. She was simply always wherever the fists were not. A punch or two connected with the ground, sending up sprays of sand.

Balalaika looked behind her before smirking as the stand put its hands apart at about 12 inches, a glowing mass conjuring in both hands as it grew. “The last thing I discovered Energia can do… well, I noted how good it was with atom work, so I did a bit of research and got a bit curious. What would happen if I collided a few atoms? I mean, this is only a small one so I don’t eradicate the whole damn city, but, y’know… good thing nobody is here at this hour.” She said, as suddenly the two balls of atoms sped towards each other at breakneck speeds and collided, causing what would be similar to a flashbang, except everything in about 30 meters was fried as if it was bacon brought to a white-hot blowtorch. Seagulls fell down around her as they were left blackened and charred with all their feathers incinerated, small fish near the shore turned on their sides and floated up, the wooden docks luckily didn’t suffer severe damage but notably their outer layer had turned to ash, the sand sparkled as more than a few grains had turned to glass, and the only other casualty was a screaming fisherman who seemed to be coated in fourth degree burns as he fell into the water. “Lemme guess, you kept your distance.”

Still standing only a few meters away from the stand, Twisse stretched her legs a little. The sand that had been under her feet was conspicuously uncharred, and free of fused glass spots.

“Nope. I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I had to run away from every explosion I came across. Granted, I feel as though that might have given me a bit of a tan, but hey - I was looking for a makeover anyhow.”

“Great, that certainly shows me you got balls. If you want a proper tan, we’ll have to go to some faraway dimension where nothing lives, I suppose, since it’s gonna be a year before anyone can go back to this spot without getting cancer or some shit. But other than that, I don’t have any fancy moves unless you count cooking irradiated food on his back and warming beds and couches as a power. If it weren’t for this whole ordeal with the boss, I’d probably make a killing during winter time heating people’s homes.” Balalaika said, puffing on a cigarette.

“See, you’re already thinking ahead. Stick it into a tank of water and bam - you can power a city. Anyway, this is a good outcome. But we should probably move onto actual business - after all, you’ve got a grudge to settle.”

“That’s right… that little gay stripper isn’t gonna fucking top me. He’s fucking with a literal dirty bomb.” She smiled, offering a pack of cigarettes. “Want one? It definitely gets me a bit cool now that I know I’m so radioactive that geiger counters break when I’m near them.”

“Nah. Thanks for the offer, though. Also, might want to tone down the radioactiveness. Not that I mind, but I feel as though having CBRN teams sent after you every time you go out for groceries isn’t a very helpful development. That aside, this is a bit of a toughie. See, we have no actual leads on who, or where, this Boss might be. All of his communications are done through either encrypted texts or via… I want to say “phone”, but we’re really not sure. He only ever “calls” one person, who acts as an intermediary for everyone else. Said calls are made with random household objects rather than a phone, and don’t actually generate any sort of signal that we can see or trace. On that topic - I should probably set up a more permanent form of contact. Can’t keep giving you cards to burn. Got your phone with you?”

She pulled out a flip phone, waving it around. “As always. Besides, I’m not constantly irradiated; I can control how much CDM I give out.” She said, sighing. “All I know is that he’s got more Stand Users where that came from, otherwise he wouldn’t have caught me in a bind in the first place… though the Octavians didn’t target me or my men for assimilation, and he got me to… Naples.” She said, taking a deep toke of her cigarette. “Naples. That’s where we’re gonna head off to. I’m gonna get my contacts… though I might give you an interesting task. Back in the motherland, there should be a few Russian mob families; the Marakovs, the Grovics, the Zaryanovas, the Yvetskys, and the Bellic family in Serbia. Contact them, and if they get pushy, tell them Balalaika sent you. They’ll know who I am. Tell them to try as hard as they can to fuck over whatever occupation gets here.”

“Ohoho. You’re giving me tasks? What a partnership this is. I’ll get someone on it, I suppose.”

Taking the proffered phone, she tapped its case with her index finger. With a subtle, crackling hum, it began to give off sparks - a tiny, glowing glyph had formed jus below the camera, vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared. Seemingly finished with the device, she handed it back.

“Since you’re likely to keep this on-hand, it makes quite a bit of sense to use as a means of contact. Not quite the traditional phone-call, though - all you need to do is have the thing with you, and just wish really hard. No, really. I’ll know.”

“Well, alright, sure thing.” Balalaika said, nodding as she stood back, her stand fading away. “I gotta book a flight soon, to Hong Kong. I know, Triad territory, but trust me… I’m gonna need all the help I can get.”

“As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into. Though I get the feeling that you do, at the very least. And my gut tends to be reliable, so I’ll stick to it. Oh, and I’ve got quite a few side-gigs planned along the way - I’ll find you if there’s any notable developments. Hope you have a nice vacation.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just getting a bit of sunlight… and giving it, too.” She said, walking away into the city.

Twisse made her way over to a shipping container on the pier. Unlatching its door, she stepped inside… or at the very least, stepped through the opening. One got the impression that where she actually ended up was quite a ways away from the interior of a metal crate. After the door clanged shut, the only sound left was the surf, and the crackling of the still-smouldering wood.

[The Zravvisk]

Mining Planet 122
The Dragua’s shields weathered the onslaught of fire that would have destroyed any other ship of the Armada. Inside it the lights were dim as almost all the power was being sent into either weapons or shields with only a little going to engines to keep the spinal mounted titian lances on target. Auxiliaries ran about with space suits since the life support was turned off for more power. The laser cannons lit up as they began to intercept incoming missiles along with nearby ships. Its AI, known as Eighteen, noticed the incoming enemy EW and began taking countermeasures for the Armada. The AI also notified the Lunastra’s AI, Luna, so she could begin her own counter EW attack on the cruisers. All the while it kept up the barrage of plasma, ions, and powerful lances.

Behind the Octavian fleet, the Flying Dutchman faded back into sight. The zravvisk had no idea how it did that as they were never able to find a cloaking device on it. Just behind an artillery ship, it fired its lances, plasma, disruptor, and ion batteries into the rear of the ship. Despite being uncrewed, the ship fight just as well as any other in the Armada.

Meanwhile in the middle of the Octavian fleet, the Lunastra was trading blows with the two dreadnoughts. Her shield was much tougher than what one would expect on a destroyer, being closer to what one would expect on a battlecruiser, so she could afford to take hits. She didn’t fire any plasma or ion shots, Chyrvalth knew that those had no chance of breaking though the dreadnoughts’ shields. Instead the power that would normally go to them were instead being routed to the disruptors busy punching holes through the dreadnoughts looking for their AI cores. The many torpedo tubes were also being reloaded for another devastating close-range launch. Bombers also launched, their bomb bays filled with torpedoes, flying to the edge of the shield to release their payloads. Scanners showed the Sword was the only hollow ship and was in teleporter range, but a bit more time was needed to locate the bridge.

The Auxiliary Fighter Corps were stuck in the whirling dogfight. Though they were vastly outnumbered, they did have an advantage in the super heavy bomber squadrons trailing behind with bomb bays filled with swarm missiles. Each bomber able to fire walls of hundreds of war heads once the fighters targeted the enemy for them. The commander of the Fighter Corps, Jor’kul, even took to the field with her personal squadron, turning the tide in hot spots as she proved very capable of out flying the drone fighters. As the approaching destroyers and mining ships got in range to provide laser cannon support it was quite clear the Fighter Corps wouldn’t give an inch. And while the fighters were proving a distraction, owl stealth bombers sped around the dog fight. While they had speed and stealth in spades, they were very limited in the ordnance they carried, only enough to cripple a critical point. They had to make their torpedoes count and the most obvious target were the main guns of the dreadnoughts to ease pressure on the Dragua.

The destroyers and mining ships took evasive action against the incoming shots and torpedoes. Their maneuverability and point defense allowed them to avoid most of the damage from torpedos. While they were also able to dodge many shots from the artillery ships, those that did hit shattered their shields and did serious hull damage. They returned fire on the frigates which soon found themselves stripped of their shields to the sheer amount of ion cannons on the mining ships. The battleship Hamerfall followed close behind them firing its forward mass drivers at the enemy. It had received a torpedo hit to its armored prow and rammed the frigate responsible, shattering it. It soon began turning slightly to meet any frigate thinking of interrupting its charge with a hail of broadside lance fire.

Ridley’s Rest
The Sword was turning and the station master felt his heart cheer at the fact that its threat to the station had ended. But it turned too late and another round was fired. The station master watched the round fly to the station, imagining how it would shatter the shield and pierce the armor. Then the Ancestors intervened and made the round disappear and then reappear in one of the new enemy ships. The station master could only look on in stunned silence at this no doubt holy intervention as the Sword continued to turn away.

The Dagger had fully disengaged from the Sword and the task force that was sent to deal with it. Flying underneath the battle, it uncloaked next to another Octavian ship on the flank of the fleet before gutting the ship with its heavy weapons. The Dagger hid behind the wreck of the ship letting it absorb incoming particle cannon fire while waiting for its heavy weapons to recharge. Soon it would recloak and repeat the process to more Octavian ships on the flank. Meanwhile, the fighters had reached the fleet with the bombers, the fighters focusing on keeping enough enemy fighters away from the bombers so that their turrets and heavy shielding could carry them and their ordnance to the enemy ships.

In the Sword the battle raged. The zravvisk were clearly superior in melee as their claws and tails sheared through the Chosen’ armor with ease and the doorways were chokepoints so that the zravvisk only had to deal with a few at a time. Still this was a battle of attrition, the occasional Chosen got in a hit and warriors get tired, but there seemed to be no end to the Chosen’s numbers. The fighting was so intense that the doorframes were starting to melt from all the plasma passing by them. The engineers stripping dead chosen for anything that help noticed their fusion cores were set up to blow with the force of a nuke. Using their experience with fusion reactors, the engineers began to reduce the yield of them so they’d make useful explosives. With timers attached, the modified cores were thrown into the Chosen infested hallways to clear them out and buy the zravvisk a few seconds to catch their breath. Of course, they were eyeballing it and not doing exact science, so some cores were too weak or too strong, either not clearing the hallway or having the concussive force blast into the zravvisk. There was also the matter of needing intact cores which were hard to come by in the vicious fighting.

In the engines room, the engineers were examining the shuttle for any heavy weapons to help keep the Octavians out when they heard the wall behind them blast open. They turned around ready to kill the incoming Octavians when they saw it was humans instead of the clankers. Their glares switched from the humans to the hole in the wall as they growled, not happy about the new path the chosen had to flank them. They did share a chuckle over the leader handing over his carbine, as if that small thing had a chance of hurting them. The senior engineer stepped forward, towering over the soldiers, after listening to their leader and spoke, “It is clear that you’re not friends of their Octavians, else you wouldn’t have needed to make that large hole to enter the ship.” He gestured to the large hole in the back of the engine room and continued. “But I do wonder why you’re here, likely not to help us as a few of our warriors noticed you and you didn’t make any attempts to help them fight. Have you been using our boarding and our shed blood as a distraction for whatever you’ve been doing? And you did make a new path for the Octavians to attack us when we’re already bogged and fighting with all we have. I’d say you owe us some things to make things fair, how about you?”

Back on the bridge, the captain noticed that she managed to dodge Tal’Talen’s punch by blind luck since she jumped away right after her fireball. She also noted that Tal’Talen did not seem to fear the plasma, sure it was a small fire ball, but most would be hesitant to charge through it. She also noticed the patch of melted skin coming right at her eyes and started to move her head. It only hit and stuck to her left eye, the heat not enough to burn her, but enough to glue it covering that eye. The captain fired a plasma beam at Talen and used the constant plasma to hide her swinging her rear towards Talen, into tail range. As soon as the plasma beam was over the spear point of her tail would dart out and try to impale Talen. She just hoped the use of only one eye wouldn’t throw off her aim too much.

Earth
A ship dropped out of ftl on the edge of the system. The smuggler was not happy about the battle taking part in the system. His employers wanted him to deliver this shipment before the Octavians got here in force and there was already a giant battle raging in the system. There were battleships for goodness sake! At least there didn’t seem to be too many ships near his destination. Grumbling, he set off towards his destination hoping both his ship’s not quite military grade stealth systems and the battle would keep him from being noticed.

He would skim the atmosphere and drop the cargo then before blasting afterburners and getting out of the system. Sure, he’d likely lose some pay for not handling the cargo with care, but he wasn’t going to land and risk his life anymore than he was already doing. Besides, he had grav chutes for times like this and those would keep the equipment from breaking too much. These Skyhookians either spent a lot of money or someone really hated the Octavians to send them this much equipment. Then if the rumors at his den were true and this cargo was from the zravvisk, it was likely the later. A handful of hover tanks, crates of infantry weapons and armor, rocket launchers, plasma beam cannons, anti-fighter swarm missiles, anti-ship torpedoes, missile launchers, heck there was even a disruptor tank in the cargo bay. Shame that the Skyhookians were likely doomed even with his cargo, but his job was to smuggle not think.

[Ignis States]

Mark raises an eyebrow as he looks at the weird masked figure thing in the Stormrider that claims to be 'an observer'. Right, he's heard this kind of shit multiple times from multiple people. Here's hoping it's sincere for once, though.
"An observer? As long as you don't try to mess with our fight, I don't care what you are or what you're here to do. So I'm cool with you being here."
With that, the Ausar goes back to just...waiting for the ship to get to Earth. He just wants to kick ass already, why are there so many distractions away from that?

[Il Passione]

New York City
With the United States military already on the edge due to the sudden Octavian invasion, there was a tension in the air as military, militias, national guard, riot and duty police and armed civilians alike took up arms to fight off the alien invasion on the West Coast. Many citizens tried to go on with their lives, but there were distinct tensions around.

An elusive figure, however, made its' way into the Central Park Zoo. Clad in a different uniform, that being a khaki suit with a brown, leather belt and a pith helmet with the words 'DIO' on it, Diego made his way through the crowd before making a tremendous leap as he reached an elephant exhibit. Zookeepers were quick on the scene, calling security to try and top him, but at tremendous speed he slashed at the elephant, causing it to scream in agony as it then started morphing in front of a frightened, traumatised crowd before it oddly transformed somehow into an old-fashioned Tyrannosaurus Rex, Diego climbing back up the enclosure and going into a brutal martial arts flurry, clawing and swiping at everyone in the area to transform them into dinosaurs themselves, sprouting a tail before rushing from exhibit to exhibit, slashing at animals and humans alike.

45 minutes later, police arrived at the scene and relayed fire upon Diego and his dinosaurs. Helicopters came into support, police used tasers and tear gas to no avail as Diego hopped from person to person and slashed them apart with his bare claws, even using his hands to cut and block volleys of bullets coming towards him. Civilians fled as occupying forces shot at the dinosaurs. Many of them started falling as anti-personell weaponry such as RPGs and 50-cailbre machine guns came into use, but they were no match for the sheer number of reptiles Diego had accumulated.

"We are at the scene of yet another peculiar incident from the other side of the world! Amongst the Octavian invasion, it seems that dinosaurs have been-" An Indian reporter said, narrowly dodging flying debris and suffering a cut on her cheek. "-have been running rampant in the city and have been attacking any passersby! WE URGE EVERYONE TO STAY LOW, AND KEEP C-" She was interrupted by Diego turning aroun into the camera's view and dashing towards them at breakneck speeds before tackling the reporter and gruesomely mauling her to death, biting down on her face and eating it off as he pointed to the cameraman.

"KEEP THAT FUCKING THING ON ME, AND KEEP IT ROLLING IF YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE! I, Diego Brando, shall relay a message to the world!" He said, ripping off the woman's faceless head with one hand and holding it to the camera. "YOU POOR BOTTOM-FEEDING SHITSCUM CALLED HUMANITY! THE MOMENT ADAM AND EVE TOOK THE APPLE AND RELAYED WHAT WOULD BECOME MANKIND'S RULE ON THE EARTH, YOU SIGNED THE CONTRACT OF FATE THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL EXPIRE IN A FIERY EXPLOSION! THIS IS YOUR EXPLOSION, AND YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT AWAIT THE INEVITABLE! THERE IS NOWHERE TO RUN NOW, SO ACCEPT YOUR FATE, AND-"

"Submit to me, DIO." The feed interrupted, hijacking television sets around the world and showing the shirtless figure of DIO. "Thank you, Diego. Now... you humans may find yourselves in a troubling situation. To the east, the Eurasian continent is run by my colleague Kars and his cohorts in order to purge humanity from its' mess. The Octavians are holding the world under occupation, and their enemies may do battle here soon and cause more destruction, but fear not... in the Americas, you will find one last point of salvation in me, DIO. While I may consider myself superior, I am no madman who wants to see every human infant be hung with piano wire and feasted on by my vampire kin. I desire you all under my foot, for you all to submit your lives to me in a cause far greater than you can imagine. Reject your religions, make your pilgrimages to Florida and give your spirit and loyalty to me in whatever way you deem fit. Suicide pacts, shrines, sacrifices and general worship shall be appreciatable. But beware; those who object shall be made an example of. My younger self has already deployed zombies in California to set his own name once more, but this horde will end once I know you truly submit your worthless lives to me... and to all Stand Users left, you may consider fighting for the Octavians, but during or after, you may also be willing to serve your Lord DIO one more time... wouldn't that be fun?"

Southern Venice
As the crew had made their way down from the city, the group seemed to be getting along well, Lisa Lisa seeming bemused at Joseph.
"So... you abandoned the art of Hamon just to grow up with Suzi Q?" Lisa Lisa said as Joseph sighed.
"Well, I can't just walk next to someone who'd look old enough to be my grandma looking like my hip, young self! As much as I miss it..." Joseph said, sighing as he shook his head. "...but that's enough for now. What matters is we hunt down DIO and the fuckers who are propping him up and end this charade once and for all."
"Amen to that." Jotaro said, his lip quivering as rage filled him. Polnareff was one of his best friends after all they went through, and all he wanted for the last 3 years was to bring him back alive... now he's caught up in all this nonsense with DIO, Kars and these newfound aliens.
Lisa Lisa was also in a similar scenario. She was meeting random, new people that she doesn't even know or trust, especially one who Jotaro claims was a son that Joseph cheated on his own wife to make, and the last words of Messina and the screams of her students trying to defend her fanatically would probably haunt her forever. And this stand of hers... it was quite unusual, to say the least.
La Squadra Bunker, Florence.

As Ghiaccio and Melone walked back in, the group seemed to give an odd look to the two, especially at Melone’s twisted expression of delight.
“Well, if it isn’t Milhouse and his best friend Quagmire. Lemme guess, Melone’s all happy because yyou let ‘im in another college dorm?” Formaggio asked with a smirk, throwing down a dirty magazine.

“Real fucking funny, Formaggio. The entire team’s laughing, but no… I caught Melone doing his usual job.” Ghiaccio said, shoving him and Melone laid back into a recliner, picking up a copy of Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin.


“Well, what do you expect? He was a convicted serial rapist before Polpo took him in.” Illuso stated. “Don’t act like you’re not surprised.”

“Thing is, buddy, the moment I saw him, he’d taken a prisoner being escorted by Octavian forced and was extrajudicially licking her feet…” Ghiaccio barely got out, shuddering in disgust as the team had produced all sorts of amusing reactions.

“Yo, what!? Melone, you have a foot fetish, man!?” Formaggio laughed loudly, collapsing onto the floor.

“If I’m honest, I was expecting it, but that doesn’t make him less degenerate.” Prosciutto noted, slamming a fist on his chest gently as if he was keeping something down.


"I mean SERIOUSLY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT FUCKING WIRE IN YOUR TANGERINE-SIZED BRAIN SNAPPED TO FIND A FOOT MORE APPLICABLE THAN SOMEONE'S LOOKS OR PERSONALITY, BUT YOU'RE SERIOUSLY FUCKED IN THE HEAD! I MEAN, FUCKING FEET OF ALL THINGS!? EVEN COCK AND BALL TORTURE MAKES MORE GOD DAMN SENSE!" Ghiaccio screamed at him as Melone shoved him off, looking up at them with some kind of disdain.

“Please. You simpletons wouldn’t know the first thing about my culture. Besides, I think it makes me rather unique.” Melone said, humming as he read a book.

“It makes you a filthy pile of dogshit in the world of sexual deviance. What, do you genuinely get off collecting foot fungus and toe gunk on your foot or cleaning out dirt from under people’s toenails? Or do you just sneak into our rooms at night just to get a midnight snack?” Illuso speeched, causing Prosciutto to become even more nauseous as Pesci desperately covered his ears.
“I’M NOT LISTENING ANYMORE! IT’S GROSS!” Pesci pleaded.

“Just shut up, all of you. Melone has a fetish, and that’s that. I already have enough to worry about, I don’t want to throw up and make my day worse.” Risotto commanded as everyone calmed down, Formaggio scoffing.

“Yeah, right. Bet that’s who Melone goes to when he was that sick fix…” Formaggio snickered as a fork flung into Formaggio’s arm, the boy grimacing as he removed it, before Ghiaccio looked outside with some confusion.

“Hey… look at this, will ya?” Ghiaccio said, staring out the window as Melone leaned in, Ghiaccio jerking back and pushing him slightly.

“HEY, GIVE ME SOME DISTANCE, BUNION BREATH!” Ghiaccio snapped, before continuing to stare.

‘That clown… he doesn’t look right.” Ghiaccio grimaced as Illuso jumped slightly, seeming somewhat frightened as Pesci yelped, cuddling up to Formaggio.

‘CLOWN!? WHAT CLOWN!?” Pesci said, Prosciutto picking him up by the collar and staring into his eyes.

‘There’s no clown, you damn mammoni. Ghiaccio is just fucking with us.” Prosciutto said, getting up along with Formaggio and looking out the window before reeling slightly.

“Eughhh… I never liked clowns. One blew bubbles into my eyes as a kid.” Formaggio said. “Can we kill it?”

“He doesn’t look like he’s doing any harm.” Ghiaccio said. “Let’s just see what this bastardo does.”
Skyhookedian North Korea

What the heck is happening in Korea!?

Yes, yes, and yes! The enemy assault was repelled by the mighty pirate fleet! However, this fleet encountered something far worse than a hangover - Drone fighters swarmed the ships like hornets, and did manage to sink several smaller ships already. They retaliteted, firing at Fighters, and thus diverting their efforts from the Chosen, who escorted Angelo for the special operation. Meanwhile, several Lambda squad members would succumb to a Cioccolata's flesh eating cursed bacteria. Some of them managed to use Green Refresher MK2 Stimpaks, both strong regenerative and antibacterial thingy, in time to avert the effects of the Cioccolata's bioweapon. To fight those effects, while bieng in range of the attack would possibly require to use those extensively. Casey James, despite being high on weed was wise enough not to rush and decided to wait and see, if Green Refreshers help. Just in case, he injected one of those himself and ordered to bring more of those medical assets to the area.

Casey James prepared himself to take his sledgehammer and smite whatever evil lurked there. As a paladin and leader of the Refreshment Cult.

Secco immediately dug down through the side of the thick walls, diving under the ground beneath them as he darted his way underneath Casey and got behind him, doing a midair split to kick both some of his teammates in the face and Casey in the back of the head before diving back down into the ground and briefly raising his hand to try and trip him over.
"OH YEAH, BABYYY! Just like master Cioccolata said, keep the leader-man alive so we can have fun! He looks a bit drugged up anyways, so he'll be easy pickings!" Secco said, swimming up inside the staircase and teasingly raising his head briefly to tease, only to duck down if Casey ran towards him and keep swimming up, breaking a bunch of nearby potted flowers on the ground for no reason, which festered with the contagious mold.

Somewhere else in Florence
Wamuu had briefly appeared from the sky into the olden city, approaching a large temple as he overlooked an orange piece of glass before tossing it aside as he put a hand on the ground.
"I remember when this city was in its' infancy under those silly Romans... their emperor had that Red Stone, if I recall... wonder where it went between then and the Joestars. But that's enough pondering... time to do what I was sent here for." He said before closing his eyes and wincing in pain as suddenly a fist appeared from the ground, breaking the mosiac floor with ease adn emerging with a dramatic jump before closing a fist and adjusting a crossbow on its' back, the mysterious hooded figure looking at its' hands before red eyes exposed themselves, Wamuu smiling in reassurance.

"May I ask the name of this mighty warrior I have resurrected to serve me and my Lord?" Wamuu said, the figure approaching him before removing his hood and exposing a pair of vampiric fangs with a smile.
"Ezio Auditore di Firenze." The figure replied.

[Skyhooked]

Skyhookedian Korea

A swift kick from Secco masterfully knocked out several Casey's teammates before they could even react, but only pushed Casey, without causing too much damage. He retalitated with a fast round strike with a hammer, only to miss his mark. With his reddish eyes, he saw Secco digging through obstacles like a mole on crack, and then saw his head, teasingly raised. Maybe some other time, Refreshment Cult's holy paladin would love to play whack-a-mole game, but this day, he wasn't in a mood for an arcade, and just took out his UZI and quickly sprayed at Secco's head, hopefully inflicting at least minimal damage. He didn't have lots of time to aim. After seeing a corpse of an infected squad member, who fell on the ground, he realized, that if he falls down, he would have to use another stimpack, otherwise starting to suffer from mold effects.

He changed his stance to a more stable one, and had fully prepared himself to react at anything suspicious. With a sledgehammer in one hand and gun in other, he stood ready for a duel. An apprentice to other Council member, he wasn't an easy prey.

[Imperial-Octavia]

Morioh, Japan

The mechanator searched through his databases looking for information on this Locacata fruit and lo and behold the Speedwagon Foundation held some information on the supernatural fruit, "Ah yes, the Locacata. The equivalent exchange can pretty nasty, but what would the Imperium have to do with them?"

Skyhooked

The drones flooded into the compound of Fort Liberty rushing every hallway and opening they could find even despite their immense numbers began to thin. The Imperator class drones were ripped to pieces by the Grinder class's salvaged gun and so a drone fighter moved to bomb the gun's emplacement as the Imperators focused on finally putting the Giant Scorpion down so they could move inside the fort to complete the fort's capture. Meanwhile the guerillas would find that the Chosen were particularly resilient to the salvaged Imperator guns and would also find that the Chosen were surprisingly fast as they would chase after the trucks and not only that, catch up to them and try to ram them off of the road and gun the drivers down. The ICBM's were a confusing matter for the Tactical Codex. Drone Fighters had not been ordered to move to the artillery and the Drone Fighters that had been deployed were stated as destroyed. As Drone Fighters came to investigate the destroyed drones they would find nuclear missiles instead of aircraft. With a few laser pulses the missiles were gone and radiation was falling into the Atlantic ocean. They would tell their Passione allied to stay out of the water.

Meanwhile in every territory the Skyhookians would begin to spread their influence and message of resistance they would find heavy resistance from the Mechanators and increased brutality against the natives. Drones would burn down homes and the families within. Water supplies would be posioned forcing people to assimlate unless they die from the assorted wastes put inside the water. Farm land would be burned by drones while grocery stores and food banks would destroyed. The message sent by these actions were clear. Surrender yourselves to the Imperium or you will be starved.

Japan
Mighty Yamoto Empire

Animus-6 had recovered from his fight with the mysterious attackers which had ambushed the envoy before and damaged his cruiser. He had scanned their
bodies and found nothing important though the news he would receive would raise a few questions. He found it very strange how after one advanced civillaization left the area in a attack, another would come for diplomacy. For now he would stay a room over from the ambassador using his X-ray vision to see through the wall all the while informing the Tactical Codex to bring more to it's fleet...

Ridley's Rest

The Visoran cubes quickly adapted to the incoming anti-matter by creating multiple anti-matter containment cells for every patch of anti-matter before they would spread to a dangerous degree before shunting them out back at the Warminds where they would function as normal anti-matter projectiles. Inside the cubes they would begin replacing the lost nanites as they noted the adaption necessary to avoid future damage from such an attack
The Visoran ships would barrage the Warminds with billions of microscopic bolts going at FTL speeds and they would move over the Warminds to the Octavian fleet using their ANSWR manipulation devices to swat away any attacks that may come their way from the warminds. On the inside of the Sword it was absolute chaos as usual at this point. The Chosen working their way to the Zravvisk would catch the harvested grenade cores and throw them back into the room though a few would detonate causing some severe damage to the Chosen. Many Chosen would grab the bodies of their recently felled brothers and use them as shields grabbing the Zravvisk tails and pulling them back to be beaten and thrown around in the crowds of ever charging Chosen. On the bridge Tal'Talen would be hit by the Captain's plasma beam as Tal'Talen thanked the heat dispersing alloy in her shell before narrowly dodging the tail stab leaving a wedge between part of Tal'Talen's body. The heat dispersion left her body mostly fine though the heat could be seen leaving her body as the area hit glee bright red. Tal'Talen began rushing her with astonishing speed delivering a sloppy bite to the neck of the Zravvisk puncturing the skin while also using her clawed hands to shank the captain in the stomach refusing to stop until the Zravvisk died or Talen reached the Captain's heart. Whichever came first.

Mining planet 112

The Lunastra would find itself battered by Dreadnought broadsides as a substantial number of Drone Fighters began to fire their anti-ship missiles at this ship while swarming the vessel punishing the ship for their agressive jump ahead of their support. The Artillery ships took some damage from Flying Dutchman while turning to try and shoot at the ship (taking care not to shoot each other). Clearly this ship would be an issue. Meanwhile H'Krell moved his Ion Cannon to shoot at the Battleship crashing through his Frigates while hundreds of missiles came crashing into the craft. After seeing what was happening in Tal'Talen's ship H'Krell would transfer bodies to his war form and also readied Chosen in every room of the Voidscreamer . When the Zravvisk came into his ship he would be ready...

Somewhere in Imperial Space

The simple question being asked by the local station was why a unidentified ship was asking for help in Japanese. The Yamoto Empire certainly wouldn't be capable of creating that and nothing on the Earth they were invading were capable of constructing such a craft. So who was it? Would an enemy nation employ such a trap? There was only one way to find out. A boarding craft with a squad of Chosen was sent over to the craft where it would drill into the unknown ship allowing 5 Chosen inside the craft. A message was sent to the distress signal, perhaps a little too late to avoid worry, but given out soon enough would read as follows.

Hello Distressed vessel. The Imperium of Octavia has decided to apply aid to your ship by dispatching a Chosen unit to evaluate the issue. Do not attack them. That is all

Work for the Guild

The Paramount had recently found his newfound arrow dissapearing from his hands. Perhaps it did that naturally, but he doubted it. He would have spent more time worrying about it if he wasn't contacting by an organization known as the guild. After searching his database they were the ones that were involved in...the Cymopolia debacle. At least they could aid them in some way. Sure they only moved the system, but if they were intervening here it was obvious they could aid in the war in some way.

Hello members of the Guild. You would know our nation from the incident in the Cymopolia galaxy involving an agent of ours known as Tk'Rantar. The Octavian Imperium would like to see if you could complete these services for us. Payment will be supplied.

-In a system named Ridley's Rest one of our vessels named The Sword of the Imperium is under attack and requires aid. If you could repair the craft via magical methods you will be repaid in a way deemed acceptable by the guild
-The shields must also be rejuvenated which will be paid in a manner deemed acceptable by the guild. If the shields were to be enhanced more payment will be increased.
-Aid in the boarding of the Sword of the Imperium is requested. Zravvisk and ISO assets are confirmed to be inside and the elimination of those assets will result in payment
-A boarding effort shall be mounted by the guild on ships held by the ISO about 40 in number. Capture will yeild a larger pay out, but destruction of the vessels is entirely allowed
- There is an ISO commander floating over Paraoon with a number of ships under his command. His name is unknown, but he is known to glass planets. His exact ship of residence is unknown. What the Imperium wants the guild to do is to capture this commander and bring him to us. Bonus payment will be provided for every member of the crew killed with proof and for any ships destroyed or captured.

If these tasks are possible it would be much appreciated if they could be undertaken by the guild. We are unsure of the exact capabilities of the guild so there is a link to Ocatvian comms for further negotiation of these terms.

[The Posthuman Coalition]

ＮＯＶＶＳ　ＨＶＭＡＮＩＴＡＥ

I. The Arrival

---

An Alternate Solar System

A lone vessel instantly appeared into space.

It's arrival did not herald a bright flash of light, nor a temporary dilation of spacetime. It simply appeared from nothingness.

The vessel did not move for a while, running diagnostics to check up on any internal and external damages after it made a successful jump into another reality, another Earth. After approximately 0.44 nanoseconds, the vessel moved into the black nothingness of space, setting it's course from the edge of the Kuiper Belt to Earth at 99.7% of the speed of light. The vessel gathered data on the Solar System and in extension, data from neighboring star systems hundreds of thousands of astronomical units away as it rapidly traversed through the Solar System, totally invisible to any foreign sensors.

The vessel was an inverted tetrahedron, the size of a golf ball, covered by an utterly black "skin" that was incapable of reflecting light. The "skins" of such vessels were harvested by peeling them from the distorted environment of black holes. Beneath the vessel's skin lay it's hull, composed of an extremely flat yet indestructible material harvested by femtomachines of two-dimensional Logic Engines. Yet it was not a vessel of war, but a mere exploratory ship that was also capable of transmitting diplomatic data for Novus Humanitae. And explored it did.

A fleet of spacefaring warships was encountered as the exploratory vessel approached space between Mars and Earth. It's size was indicative of a large engagement, one that is composed of several stellar polities residing in this alternate universe. It would not make contact with that fleet nor any other fleets for that matter until reaching the orbit of the alternate Moon. It orbited the Moon at 65% of the speed of light, and merely observed the raging battle occurring throughout Earth and by extension, the galaxy. Approximately, 45 nanoseconds within it's fourteenth revolution on the Moon, the vessel's AI made a decision.

It transmitted a rather harmless packet of data, completely untraceable save for Neohuman sensors, with the intent of initiating contact with it's surrounding warfleets. The packet contained queries and salutations perfectly translated into the languages of the belligerents. The queries may seem redundant, but it served a purpose of gleaning information based on the biases of the combatants for the sake of entertainment. Should the combatants be able to track the vessel and decide that it should be eliminated, the exploration vessel is not utterly defenseless despite it's indestructible nature. Their weapons would have to go through spatio-temporal shields before even touching the hull, and should the vessel decide to defend itself, it could simply either indiscriminately fire beams of spacetime wounds at the warships, or shatter the moon and throw its remains at them. That or the vessel could simply turn hostile approaching ships into processing data at a limited degree.

But for now, the vessel waits and observes, making its presence hidden save for a message.

[Skyhooked]

Skyhooked, still kicking

Drones in large numbers have flooded several hallways in the Fort Liberty through the holes and breaches and facility was under a threat of being compromised. However, the fort was too important to give away, and so, the hallways would be barricaded wherever this was possible and multiple chokepoints created and/or used against foes wherever this was possible. Luckily the enemy didn't manage to get into the secret tunnels. In the meantime, several anti-air defense systems of the fort fired at fighter drones. Many smaller missiles headed towards hostile aircraft, which attempted to strike at the salvaged Grinder's gun, which still fired at Imperator class drones.

In the meantime, after recieving a call for help from the Fort Liberty, several warbands rushed towards the fort, while giant scorpion after firing another several shots from tail and getting closer to enemy drones, had recieved it's lethal dose of Imperator class projectiles and collapsed. However, not without a surprise. It's reactor core and ammunition detonated, resulting in a large explosion, which damaged Fort Liberty structire, but hopefully destroyed many hostile drones too. Neon Suns, Capital minutemen, and Battle Bonded warriors, one warband each, came to break the siege of the fort, backed up with five warbands of men-at arms. Not too many, but if it all works, the remaining drones would be hopefully encircled and trapped in the Fort.

Yes, ICBM in sheep's clothing wasn't very effective tactic. Expensive weaponery wasted, and artillery still fired, razing one of the districts in Azure Beaches resort. Luckily, undetonated low yield warheads ended up sunk in a pretty deep spot of the ocean. Maybe some deep water specie would suffer, but at least enviornment damage was minimal. Still, this failure gave an important insight about Octavian forces. If the enemy sends forces to investigate the suspicious "walking dead" comrades, then, a fighter drone's AI core plus some rocket equals distraction. With this logic, several AI cores were attached to the older rockets and missiles, which would be fired in such a way, that they would hopefully lure drone fighters to fly over anti-air defenses in fortified areas or away from strategic locations. Such an improvised way to control enemy airforce. All while the leftover ICBMs were prepared to fire as soon as different tactic is invented.

Meanwhile, the guerrillas recieved a new shipment of weapons from an ally, which landed right on their heads! Not literally of course. Also, they came up with a new tactic. The Paramount's Chosen were resilient to Imperator class guns, however, being resilient doesn't mean being completely invulnerable. Thus, they decided to use delay tactic with light armor cars and technicals barely engaging them, and driving away as fast as possible, while Chosen get repeatedly ambushed and fired at. Not only that, but also Skyhookedian forces have finally learned, that advanced energy cores can be rigged to explode.

Remotely activated bombs made of several drone energy cores would be hidden near roads and openings, and whenever Paramount's Chosen would get near, a guerrilla with a detonator would explode them. Maybe this will help to wear down Chosen too. And with more advanced weapons from unknown smugglers fightng those would hopefully become even easier. Hover tanks and plasma cannons... not many but still a slight improvement. Especially, since number of guerrillas wasn't infinite.

But what about food and water? And expansion? With drones polluting water, burning food and killing people, gaining more manpower became a harder task, however, new opportunities appeared. A small pile of empty bright product packages disguised as badly hidden food stash would become an ideal bait for Octavian drones. Since Skyhookers also decided, that drones are not exactly experts in organic foods, they would also use spoiled food piles as a bait. With this, they hoped to force enemies to split and overextend, because if robots also tried to poison water and chase people, it would probably require spreading out, adn thus becoming more susceptible to ambushes.

Meanwhile, farmlands would become favorite places for harrassing and ambushing drones, while Octavian brutality didn't exactly motivate people to join them and instead only made them hate it stronger, all while some Skyhookers would loot and steal implants meant for assimilation wherever they could.

Still, by destroying essentials, the enemies have managed to slow the expansion of Global Defense Council especially in arid places, where those fighting against Octavia would have to extensively use water filtering techniques and technologies to mitigate water pollution.

Indeed, Octavian Empire is the strongest foe, Skyhooked ever faced.

[Il Passione]

Skyhookedian Korea

A swift kick from Secco masterfully knocked out several Casey's teammates before they could even react, but only pushed Casey, without causing too much damage. He retalitated with a fast round strike with a hammer, only to miss his mark. With his reddish eyes, he saw Secco digging through obstacles like a mole on crack, and then saw his head, teasingly raised. Maybe some other time, Refreshment Cult's holy paladin would love to play whack-a-mole game, but this day, he wasn't in a mood for an arcade, and just took out his UZI and quickly sprayed at Secco's head, hopefully inflicting at least minimal damage. He didn't have lots of time to aim. After seeing a corpse of an infected squad member, who fell on the ground, he realized, that if he falls down, he would have to use another stimpack, otherwise starting to suffer from mold effects.

He changed his stance to a more stable one, and had fully prepared himself to react at anything suspicious. With a sledgehammer in one hand and gun in other, he stood ready for a duel. An apprentice to other Council member, he wasn't an easy prey.

Secco's Oasis suit managed to close itself over his face in order to shield the bullets, still knocking him back and sending him back into the ground. Casey wasn't a pushover, that'd be for certain... even if he wasn't a Stand User.

He decided to test the mentality of this stoner anyways and dive into the ground, going behind a wardrobe which he kicked at Casey before jumping up into the ceiling, going into a corner and hiding himself in it while observing if Casey would be incapacitated, and if not, if he would either follow him upstairs or stand his ground.

Morioh, Japan

The mechanator searched through his databases looking for information on this Locacata fruit and lo and behold the Speedwagon Foundation held some information on the supernatural fruit, "Ah yes, the Locacata. The equivalent exchange can pretty nasty, but what would the Imperium have to do with them?"

"Well, there is a... certain breed of Locacaca being harvested in this very house, one that will have greater effects both positive and negative. Besides... there is also a particular case of the Rock Humans, a race which has no negative reprocussions from eating the Locacaca." Jobin stated.

"They know there's a new breed of Locacaca out there, and they know that the Higashikata family is a part of a conspiracy for it... they want this Locacaca so they can become a race more powerful than anything anyone could imagine. I only want to use my breed of Locacaca to save my family from a curse, a hereditary disease that has been decimating our family all the way back to my ancestors... " He said, before peeking out the bedroom door to see his family having a chat, looking to Tsurugi coughing as he played with Pico using LEGOs, and sighed in a mixture of gloom and fear.

"... and those are my only terms. To save my family, and to eradicate these Rock Humans. On turn, you may use us to further your own goals and you can modify the Locacaca to your own degree, perhaps even nullify its power of equivalent exchange to only positives. Any questions?" He said, turning around.

[The-International Space Organization]

Ridley's Rest

More forces had to be diverted from the actual combat at Ridley's Rest to the backlines to open fire on the warminds and the new ISO reinforcements. The Sword unable to quickly turn fired another planet shattering shell at Ridley's Rest before firing a large volley of missiles at the the Warminds behind them and yet another at the Liners on their side. The fighters were torn up by the disruptor missiles and with that they would begin moving back towards the fleet and focused on defense. A few more dreadnoughts would make their way over to the back to fire on the many threats now behind the lines of the Imperial fleet firing off their own missiles at the Liners.

On the inside of the Sword all that could be seen were awaken Chosen. Tactics were not a consideration anymore it was just the simple charging of what seemed to be innumerable numbers of Chosen firing and entering melee with Zravvisk and ISO elements. With the entire boarding force deployed inside the ship and any group that didn't have some major firepower behind them would find themselves overwhelmed.

Somewhere in the Aether, something was moving. Unknown and undetected it would begin to move itself inside a liner in physical space. With a few alterations in the information in the area, a moderate quantity of anti-matter would appear in the bridge of the craft quickly expanding in a massive explosion across the inside of the vessel. Then darting over to a warmind it fired off multiple strengthened space torpedoes in the Aether which soon found their way into a VES generator destroying it in a single volley. In response to the Warminds broadside, there was an attempt to suck it into the Aether, unfortunately the rift was only large enough to catch a single round before suddenly closing. The back of the shield wall barely was able to stay up with the absolute stream of lead, but a general overclocking would give the void testudo, a little more time if it would make any difference. The prototype had probably stretched it's luck with that one. Regardless The Aether swimmer's first action in this battle seemed to be generally effective, but for now it would shrink itself down to a microscopic size to make it easier to transfer it's information somewhere safer in the Aether, far, far away from here...

Kleon system

The skip shells did some major damage to Octavian fleets destroying hundreds of ships in each formation and the situation looked grim as the same could be seen all across Sector V. Combined with the additional firepower granted by the Sildorian station though reletively minor would have caused yet another retreat, but just in the nick of time 2 Visoran BAK-5s appeared behind the elephants and while one opened up with a general caster barrage the other would begin spawning strike craft who would utilize their caster arrays to work on tearing the elephant apart with the perfect counter to their armor. The remaining Octavian ships would split their focus between the station and the elephants with the remaining heavy firepower focusing on the Elephants while the faster and lighter ships would use their long range weaponry on the station. The same sight would be seen all across Sector V with more or less Octavian weaponry

Paraoon
Trade center

Yet another system was under siege by the hated Ark Royal, destroyer of the 14th fleet and glasser of the frontier, but this time this important trade hub had come prepared with many layers of shield generators. In the week that it took for it for the Ark Royal and her fleet to arrive a few hundred generators were produced and were able to survive the attack by the ISO fighters, but they knew that they would not be able to hold on when the true bombardment began. The Aether escape would have begun, but then signs of aid came. But what in the Octavian fleet could stand to what Greyson the Glasser had brought? What could The Paramount have created that could stand to the monster of the ISO? With a massive broadside of casters it was clear to the ships already there that this wasn't Octavia. The WK world ship of the Visoran had just opened fire on the ISO formation while letting loose millions of fighters onto them which would be complemented with millions more from the smaller BAK-5s in the area numbering about 5. There was also a large number of Octavian ships, around 700 mostly drawn from the large reserves of Octavian ships. These ships would also been carried with many more Octavian drone fighters to serve as cannon fodder for the Visoran ships. Truly this will be the end of Grayson the Glasser... Right?

---

BRIDGE OF THE ARK-ROYAL - OCTAVIAN SPACE - PAROON TRADE CENTER

---

"That's a big bastard..." A sensor officer murmued. "Ain't Octavian either. Matches the Slabs in movement profile." The Ark-Royal slammed into combat manuevers as the sensor officer called this out- Shields flaring to full, and reinforcement slamming into life.

"Just an easier target then, Sensors." Grayson called, as the Ark-Royal's heavy manueveirng thrusters roared. The agility of the Elephants like that of a ship a thousandth of their size, as the fighters began to rush back. Rushing into their docking slots, as crews rushed to replace armaments.

---

Of course, the ships couldn't dodge everything- And the sheer volume of inbound firepower meant the shields took rapid damage. Reinforcement modules straining to keep up, as some began to shut down. The shields on the Iowa flickering, even as the Arsenal Barge began to pump out missile after missile towards the inbound targets, it's shields faltering as hits began to scour it's surface.

And then the Bismarck and Yamato swung into Diamonds against the inbound fleet. Thrusters firing to swing them about to face the oncoming 'T' of the octavian fleet, as broadside bateries began to roar, the ships sliding into position. Guns hotloading as crews sat in gunnery stations, picking targets as fast as the guns could fire- CIWS slamming into life to intercept inbound fighters and munitions, other missiles launching out with payloads. Detonating against inbound shells to destroy them, leaving very little expect for the Caster fire to shake the ISO fleet.

---

Grayson nodded, as the Ark Royal's BFD drives spun up- Jumping it out of the line of fire, and to the security of the rear-line of the ISO fleet, followed within seconds by the Iowa, it's missile tubes still roaring. Bismarck and Yamato sticking to the frontline, all guns blazing.

"Gunnery, we've got skip-shells, correct?"

"Aye-Aye, captain. What are you planning?"

"Custom schematic. Get the gunnery crews to synthesize what I'm passing to them now."

"... Creative, captain."

"Thank you, I do try! Do we have a location for their shield generators, sensors?"

"Yes, captain. We'll be cutting it short, only using our 203s, but we should be able to hit everything in one broadside. Spread out wide, but as long as we're careful with how we place the Monarchs, we should shake 'em to bits anyway."

"Good! Gunnery, how soon can we be firing?"

"Fifteen seconds, captain."

"Good."

---

Fifteen seconds wasn't an exceedingly long time in space combat. About a quarter the distance needed for an ISO broadside to hit a target at proper combat ranges. The comm lines buzzed Grayson sent information on his plan out, seconds later the Bismarck sending out it's own message. 'Engaging Fallback Bravo.' The attention of the ISO fleet shot to the vanishing form of the Bismarck- Trailing a long line of H-fuel from a secondary valve as it swung, thrusters roaring as crews raced to engage it's BFD, quickly warping it out and away to safety. The Yamato flaring it's shields to full strength, as the Iowa's first missile barrage was finally in the last seconds of approach to the Octavian fleet- Seperating into hundreds of millions, and then billions upon billions of sub-cluster munitions. Raw over-whelming firepower matching up with the Bismarck's final broadside, and the Yamato's next roaring broadside as-well.

And then the Ark Royal's miniscule broadside, compared to the monstrous one of the Yamato atleast, erupted. 203MM guns spitting shells at the shielded planet below, as nano-seconds away from impacting, they 'leapt' forward. Simply dancing clean through the shield, and shedding the armored casing of the shell as it hit atmosphere, at varying distances- Some mere nanoseconds away from hitting as the missiles hidden in their interior spread wide. Others having a second ro to adjust, as missiles spread wide from these ones as-well-

The monstrous volley of 'Monarch' class missiles, made to shake the planet they were about to hit to pieces, then began to descend as the 203MM shells shredded themselves in atmosphere. Spreading pieces of debris travelling at very appreciable portions of C, towards the planet below...

---

"Grayson informing operations channel. In need of a Black-Ball intervention."

"Affirmative, Grayson. Inbound in thirty seconds.

---

RIDLEY'S REST - L1N-3R FORCE A / BOARDING SQUAD 18

---

The heavy guns on the two Tankettes chattered away as the main cannon focused on decimating the bulk of inbound forces, and the lighter guns began to chip away at anything else that survived. The shields on each tankette holding steady, the infantry behind each one also firing their own weapons at the inbound Chosen, working their way steadily towards the Zravvisk lines, at a steady pace. The two engineers working as they go to cause chaos in the ship's systems- Ripping open paneling in the wall to cut wires at random, and placing EMP charges directly within the vulnerable systems. Afterall- The best way to chip away at a ship, was from the inside out.

---

The LIN-3R squadrons launched a huge volley of counter missiles as the Octavian volley fired. Larger missiles launching dozens of sub-cluster munitions, each of which rushed ahead to intercept the inbound Octavian missiles. CIWS also firing at any Octavian missiles that had a chance of getting it through.

And then the fighters raced forward, taking advantage of the fact the Octavian fighters had fallen back to race forward, afterburners roaring. Anti-shipping missiles being primed and then launched at the Octavian escort fleet sorrounding the Dreadnought, fighters pulling off before they get in range of CIWS, or come close to hitting the shields.

The crew aboard the 'Tax-Day', the hit L1N-3R, quickly engaging damage control systems. The primary bridge knocked out, but the automated damage control systems barely managing to contain the explosion to the bridge and a few corridors around it, thankfully destroying very little actually key to the continued functioning of the L1N-3R...

---

"What just hit them?"

"Some kind of proto-MDV, captain! Anti-matter burst funneled through... Two dimensions? Already working on tracing the originator dimension. Should we depth charge it?"

"Later. We don't want to reveal that we know they're there, yet. Just put MDV countermeasures to full."

"Aye, aye, captain."

---

SUB-TASK FORCE 38 - SILDORIAN SECTOR V

---

The ISO ships recoiled as the Slabs began to appear- Commanders quickly retreating to their maximum ranges with flashes of Blunt-Force drives. Orders and panicked requests flying thick and fast across the data-net, as Talon weighed her options quickly... Pausing to check a list of assets in firing range, even as the captain of her vessel threw it into harsh maneuvers to dodge the inbound fire, the shield pods flaring to full reinforcement.

---

"Novum, you've got some AOPs. Are they available for support? My fleet would enjoy the reinforcing firepower."

"Ah, dear sister in arms, you only had to ask! Slaving the targetting software to your network now. Would you also like to me call upon Finity's End for more?"

"To reinforce you while I teach these slab ships what for? Yes."

"Transfer done. Teach those bastards what for, won't ya lass?"

"Two steps ahead of you, 'chap'."

---

In orbit of a dozen Ignisian planets, a hundred AOPs began to rotate, quickly cycling up barrels and hotloaders as crews rushed to combat stations- Info swarming in from the hundred ships all requesting firepower, as the BFDs in each shell began to spin up... And then the stations began to fire. Shells racing away as they were accelerated into void, and then into nothing-ness.

---

Suddenly, the space around the Visoran ships began to erupt, as shells appeared out of nowhere. Many of them literally within Visoran ships- Packing a punch measured well above what was needed to turn planets to shred, as they began to slam home...

---

OCTAVIAN SPACE - FRONTIER SECTOR

---

The void of space suddenly seemed to vibrate- Even though that seemed to defy the base laws of physics. Space beginning to heat up in a huge radius, as dozens of smaller patches of heat erupted around it. Octavian sensor operators were left with just enough time to wonder what was happening in orbit of a gas-giant, before the system seemed to detonate. A monstrous flash of light, and energy, leaping out from the heat-flashes, overwhelming sensors, frying any cameras looking directly at it, and any organic unlucky enough to be staring directly at the huge wave of energy would be rendered blind in an instant- Had a gas-giant just gone super-nova? Was this a new weapon of the enemies of the coalition...!?

When the after-images cleared, seeming minutes later a massive ship was left in the place of the largest heat blob- A few dozen smaller ships darting around the ship leading the formation. The huge, 638 kilometer long ship settling into an orbit around the gas-giant. It's escorts settling around it, as the massive ship began to lower scoops, sucking fuel up... And then it's communication arrays snapped into life. Searching out their opposite numbers- And then sending a clearly pre-recorded message

"This is the Greater Andromedan Union of Planets Dreadnought 'Abiding Justice', representing Andromedan interests in this backwater conflict. We are not here to aid you 'Octavians', nor are we here to harm you. We are simply here to remind the Organization it has eyes on it's back at all times. Any hostile action against this dreadnought, and it's escort fleet, will be responded to in kind."

And then the monstrous ship seemed to turn inwards, turning to the minor tasks that needed to be done after every jump. The escort fleet spreading out to also draw fuel from the gas-giant...

---

Office of Centralized Intelligence - [REDACTED] - [REDACTED]

---

"To all interested parties - let it be known that the Wandering City of Eisenstern is hereby announcing its presence within this reality, and will open trading posts shortly. Goods of practically any purpose, function, and dimension of origin may be obtained, given the right price. Business may be conducted with any party, regardless of race, ideology or allegiance, provided no hostile intent is made manifest against the Tower or its operatives. Please monitor these frequencies for updates to trading post locations, availability, and potentially obtainable wares. I wish you all a pleasant day."

Operative 'Iron-Horse' sighed as the message arrived. Turning to check the PDA just as an order set arrived, perfectly synced to a schedule no entity alive knew. The perfectly regular office cubicle shining in the light of mid-shift, as Iron-Horse turned to the message relay system. Propping the PDA up as he typed a response message out...

It is with the interest of the ISO I send this message out.

The ISO is willing to compensate the Wandering City and it's operatives for any Octavian Ship whose destruction can be directly traced to the Wandering City and or it's operatives. In further addition, the ISO is also offering compensation for the following operation:
The ISO has noted a large concentration of Octavian capital classification ships in reserve at these coordinates, and is willing to compensate the Wandering City and it's Guild Operatives involved in the mission for the destruction of the fleet anchorage at said coordinates, along with compensation for the destruction of the ships within said fleet anchorage. The exact mode of compensation can be worked out in follow up communications, but it is preferred if the payment is taken in the form of materials such as minerals, or refined minerals.

With a few more taps on the keyboard, Iron-Horse sent the message out, and turned back to other work...

[The Dominion of Mankind]

Deep Space

"All hands to the DECK" Captain Keith screamed over the intercom as klaxons blared and alarms flashed, washing everything in a sickly red colour.
The Dominion Frigate- Gi7CDW;rxDEn+z_IW071Wic&cWH4hbI5sq8VKy;0V>2^3, lurched and contorted as it was slurped through a wound in reality.
Barely a second later, the Frigate emerged into a random part of deepspace.


Keith sat comfortably strapped into his chair, in the cool and dimly lit Central Command Unit, flanked by a Lieutenant and the Chief Engineer.
"Damage report!" Keith queried to the AI.
Yes
Suddenly a report appeared in everyone's mind.
Structural integrity: 87%, All core systems are intact, moderate damage to armour plating, 32% of weapons systems are damaged or destroyed, shielding has recovered, repairs in progress.


"Ah what a relief. Now, let's cut to the chase, where the hell are we?" Keith queried.
Unknown
"Would it kill you to elaborate?"
No
"We're in uncharted space, we are cut off from the network, meaning no comms or energy" Lieutenant Bob stated.
"So that *thing* shoved us into a random reality then, absolutely great, I couldn't have asked for better!" Keith's expression hardened. "Now, if that's really true, how is the AI speaking to us? His gateway should've been closed"
Materialised
"Ah, so a portion of you is now physically with us? Well that's incredibly convenient, how did you know it was about to happen?"
I did
Keith cracked a sardonic smile. "Yes of course you did, you're always so keen to flex your intellect and reaction times in front of us lowly organics"


"Anyway, let's quit wasting time, print us a report of the sensor readings immediately, I want to know everything about where we are, don't miss a single angstrom"
"Repairs should be finished up in two more seconds" Bob interjected.
"Fantastic!" Keith rolled his eyes and began tapping his fingers impatiently.
Simultaneously, a full report of the sensor readings made its way into everyone's minds. Spacial geography, energy readings, anomalies, all of it was included
However, most disturbingly, the unknown energy signatures section was lit up like a Christmas tree for the first time in history.
Keith face took a grim turn as he studied it. "AI, what the hell is all of this?! Are we contending with xenos here? And why are they all congregated in one large galaxy??"
Xenos Confirmed
"If I might interject again, it's my thing you see, that galaxy is just barely on the cusp of our sensor range, we'll need to get closer for good old AI here to divine any more details"
Keith stopped to think for a brief few millseconds before responding. "Agreed, but first we need to find a band aid for our energy situation, we should build ourselves a small scale energy plant, maybe start replicating"
Low Profile Recommended
"What?!"
"To add to my interjections, I believe he's trying to say that attempting to Von Neumann our way out of this situation may result in us attracting unwanted attention" Bob sighed before continuing.
"With the vast quantity of unknowns in this universe, some of which may already have detected us, we should endeavour to not go full heg swarm until we know what we're dealing with"
"That's.... a very good point. Ok then, let's fold a couple thousand parsecs away to avoid any investigation of the presumably measurable space time anomaly we emerged from, and build a small scale energy plant to allow us to operate at full capacity and nothing more."
With that, the 300 millisecond long conversation was concluded and the Captain mentally pressed the "AI please jump to somewhere" button.


The Frigate rumbled slightly, briefly warping into itself and then vanished without a trace. The resulting journey through a formless void took several long seconds, though to the outside world, naught a nanosecond had passed.
At another random point in space time, the unperturbed view of the stars rippled slightly, before the dark red Frigate silently emerged.
Fold Complete
Keith proceeded to mentally press the "AI please build the thing we talked about" button, as we was rather tired of conversing with the thing.
Building. Small transumutation spheres glowed as they began constructing the energy farm, a moderately sized spherical thing with a ZPEL and some passive stealth capability.
Subatoms were meticulously arranged, piece by piece as the farm began to take form.
"Whilst we are waiting on that, let's review our weapons situation. Since we are dealing with unknowns here I suggest we dump our current warheads and fill all the tubes with a potent alpha strike combo, hmmmm yes some void, calamity and implosion torpedos. And toss in broken and implosion missiles."
"Good pick" stated the CE, who had been awfully silent the entire time, staring at his monitor intently.
Doing, three seconds
Construction complete
Well. That was a painful minute of waiting, I can see that our energy is now in wonderful excess, so let's go and scan some aliens. Park us under the galactic disk at the absolute maximum range for our slightly less long range sensors and make SURE none of them notice us"
"Excellent decision"
"I'm out of interjection space, looks like you've checkmated me this time. Let's go and make history!"
The Frigate folded again, this time making a slightly longer journey to the mysterious galaxy...

[The Auraverse]

|⬡|MAGNUS Computing Grid, Deep Foldspace|⬡|
|Near-Surface Aux-Processing Layer|

---

Within the outermost reaches of the Corde's twisted, fractalized mass, a network of sensing units was beginning to take shape from the usual mishmash of computation-clusters. Not sensors - at least, not according to the traditional definition of the word. They were still processing hubs, really - the only difference was a markedly higher specialization of purpose. Working internally, they went about the eldritch task of digital reconstruction - kneading together mirror-images of the realspace planes outside. The Corde was effectively blind by all conventional metrics, its deductions the sole product of its own internal algorithms - themselves bearing more complexity than the typical universe's noosphere. And yet even the most in-depth examination of these doppelganger-spaces would be hard-pressed to find even a single, miniscule deviation from the "original", all the way down to the sub-quantum and the purely conceptual, reflected perfectly in the shimmering web of un-mathematics. At this point, one had to wonder - was it truly realspace that the Corde sought to mirror? Or was the markedly more mundane world outside this azure-blue realm merely a reflection of MAGNUS' operations? Merely a dream... but there are many things a dream may become, given the right dreamer.

Little by little, the picture resolved itself. Everything was worked out top-down - on and on the scale shrunk. Galactic clusters, into galaxies, into planets and stars... by the time the lens had moseyed on over to the finer side of subatomic energospatial interactions, several potential points of interest had already been taken note of. And one such point had just popped into being just to the galactic south of the primary interest zone - although it might be prudent to note that "just" could mean quite a few things on the galactic scale.

A ship. Frigate? Corvette? Classifications blurred together. Somewhere, an incalculable volume of processing pseudomass would be assigned to the task of cataloguing and noting the connotations of each and every class-designator the vessel might potentially be assigned. Because it could be done, and because somewhere, somehow, it all fitted into the Work.

For more immediate purposes, a mass-designator unintelligible to anything but MAGNUS itself was assigned, and filed away for future reference.

Deploying sensors? At the very least, it would. It wasn't precognition - not exactly. But the dividing line between present and near-future, fine at the best of times, had to pass through the conceptual equivalent of a cheese grater to even get to the point in un-space the Corde now occupied. For simplicity's sake, it had already deployed them. After all, the information was in-hand.

Stimulus processed. Response assigned.

The aux-hub moved onto more prudent matters. Somewhere, a smattering or two of exotic particles had yet to be catalogued. Fire was being exchanged, comms were being established - one by one, the technically-unseeing eye took note of every detail.

There was still the future of a universe to process, and many more beyond.

|✧|Intergalactic Space|✧|
|Approximate Galactic South of Octavia|

---

The same old routine. A flash of vacuous blue, and a stark-white figure. Vaguely humanoid, heavily distended. Another Eidolon had made its way into realspace - where from, or whether it had even conventionally existed prior to popping into the intergalactic void, was unclear.

Of the Corde's responses, this must be said: while not particularly varied, they were certainly sufficient for the task at hand. For now, the Eidolon was a watcher - casting its eyeless stare towards the newly-materialized frigate. Later, it may serve as something else. The Corde probably knew - only time would actually tell.

[The Dominion of Mankind]

Deep Space- Below the Galactic Plane


Space once again gave way to the Dominion's technology, manifesting the frigate a sizeable number of parsecs below the central galactic plane.
Immediately the sensors got to work, probing, poking and prodding at every interesting thing in range, cataloguing every atom with a touch of extrapolation.
The AI would come to realize that the galaxy was positively abuzz with activity, it quickly got to work processing the data it received, utilising it's immense potential for parallelism, countless individual threads working in unison to convert it into consumable information.
Once the AI managed to distinguish and trace each energy signature to its source, it began probing for information, scanning them as deeply as possible, laying all of their secrets bare. It then looked for access points and vulnerabilities in the network equivalents of each faction to commence data mining.
First, public and poorly protected information was scraped en masse, then the AI set to work spoofing authentication, finding/creating backdoors and reversing encryption. All child's play for a (crippled) Dominion AI.
Non traditional and air-gapped systems took a little more work, the AI had to locate vulnerabilities in the structure of the hardware itself to remotely force backdoors into these systems. Not all of them were hacked due to the distance of the scan not providing enough detail.
Some systems would require the AI to be in short sensor range to properly comprehend them and for some especially secure parts, the AI wasn't 100% confident in its ability to infiltrate them without making its intrusion known, and decided the risk was unacceptable given the current situation.
Finally, the interesting parts were thrown into another report for the crew.

|⬡|MAGNUS Computing Grid, Deep Foldspace|⬡|
|Near-Surface Aux-Processing Layer|

---

Within the outermost reaches of the Corde's twisted, fractalized mass, a network of sensing units was beginning to take shape from the usual mishmash of computation-clusters. Not sensors - at least, not according to the traditional definition of the word. They were still processing hubs, really - the only difference was a markedly higher specialization of purpose. Working internally, they went about the eldritch task of digital reconstruction - kneading together mirror-images of the realspace planes outside. The Corde was effectively blind by all conventional metrics, its deductions the sole product of its own internal algorithms - themselves bearing more complexity than the typical universe's noosphere. And yet even the most in-depth examination of these doppelganger-spaces would be hard-pressed to find even a single, miniscule deviation from the "original", all the way down to the sub-quantum and the purely conceptual, reflected perfectly in the shimmering web of un-mathematics. At this point, one had to wonder - was it truly realspace that the Corde sought to mirror? Or was the markedly more mundane world outside this azure-blue realm merely a reflection of MAGNUS' operations? Merely a dream... but there are many things a dream may become, given the right dreamer.

Little by little, the picture resolved itself. Everything was worked out top-down - on and on the scale shrunk. Galactic clusters, into galaxies, into planets and stars... by the time the lens had moseyed on over to the finer side of subatomic energospatial interactions, several potential points of interest had already been taken note of. And one such point had just popped into being just to the galactic south of the primary interest zone - although it might be prudent to note that "just" could mean quite a few things on the galactic scale.

A ship. Frigate? Corvette? Classifications blurred together. Somewhere, an incalculable volume of processing pseudomass would be assigned to the task of cataloguing and noting the connotations of each and every class-designator the vessel might potentially be assigned. Because it could be done, and because somewhere, somehow, it all fitted into the Work.

For more immediate purposes, a mass-designator unintelligible to anything but MAGNUS itself was assigned, and filed away for future reference.

Deploying sensors? At the very least, it would. It wasn't precognition - not exactly. But the dividing line between present and near-future, fine at the best of times, had to pass through the conceptual equivalent of a cheese grater to even get to the point in un-space the Corde now occupied. For simplicity's sake, it had already deployed them. After all, the information was in-hand.

Stimulus processed. Response assigned.

The aux-hub moved onto more prudent matters. Somewhere, a smattering or two of exotic particles had yet to be catalogued. Fire was being exchanged, comms were being established - one by one, the technically-unseeing eye took note of every detail.

There was still the future of a universe to process, and many more beyond.

|✧|Intergalactic Space|✧|
|Approximate Galactic South of Octavia|

---

The same old routine. A flash of vacuous blue, and a stark-white figure. Vaguely humanoid, heavily distended. Another Eidolon had made its way into realspace - where from, or whether it had even conventionally existed prior to popping into the intergalactic void, was unclear.

Of the Corde's responses, this must be said: while not particularly varied, they were certainly sufficient for the task at hand. For now, the Eidolon was a watcher - casting its eyeless stare towards the newly-materialized frigate. Later, it may serve as something else. The Corde probably knew - only time would actually tell.

However, there was one oddity that was concerning the AI. A strange, humanoid esque figure was located within almost a light minute of the frigate.
Despite being in range of the full sensor suite, the AI just couldn't make sense of the aberration, it gave conflicting and strange readings and most certainly didn't seem to consist of baryonic matter.
The AI briefly toyed with the idea of attempting to detransmute it, just to see what would happen, but decided against the potentially dire act of aggression. No hostility or "attack" was perceived and the AI now lacked the processing power to perform a 1:1 simulation to attempt full de-constructive analysis.
Somewhat "frustrated" the AI opted to simply report the anomaly and await the Captain's decision.

Captain Keith, whose neurons had just started to fire, suddenly found himself bombarded with information. He took a moment to process it all before opening his mouth.
"Wow. Good work as always AI. I'm assuming this is the abridged version, but the amount of information here is staggering, clearly someone doesn't practice proper information security." Keith chuckled at his own jab, causing Bob to steal a disapproving glance before continuing.
"This is all a lot to take in. So from what I've gathered of a brief skim of this, a plug expy race of machine bastards have provoked a war on many fronts with all manner of space-faring human and alien nations, and gotten themselves a few machine based allies as well." Keith spat.
"Did you miss the part about MULTIPLE EARTHS?!" Bob practically yelled.
The CE decided to chip in as well. "Something is not right here, this many distinct polities, all with their own unique technologies and *other things* should not be in one galaxy together, duplicate planets existing just proves this is the result of some reality mishap."
Keith wiped imaginary sweat from his brow as he took in the implications. "Well, I'm at a little bit of a loss on what to do next, none of our training or protocol really prepares us for clusterfucks of this scale, and we now know that several potentially threatening polities exist in this galaxy and we should AVOID provoking them."
Bob lost his composure for once. "But we can't just stand idle and let the humans of this galaxy get butchered and assimilated by those tin can bastards!"
"But actually we can. Pragmatism is the core of our ideology is it not? Our own survival needs to be prioritised over the expendable lives of some unknown humans. The network needs to know about this as soon as possible and for that we need to live to tell the tale."
"Sorry but I'm with the CE on this one. We need to minimise our involvement here, this is an extremely volatile situation, filled with more unknowns than you can shake a neutronium stick at. We should focus on observation and learn more about the heavy hitters of this war."
Correct
Bob sat there with a resigned expression. "Fine, fine I understand. Sorry for my emotional outburst Captain."
Keith scratched his head. "Now... about that creepy statue we have practically in our face. From what I understood of your report AI, you can't analyse it can you? If that's the case we can't risk doing anything that it would perceive as "hostility" so just ignore it. I'm praying our CEF will unravel the damn thing if it tries anything funny"
"Inability to perform a full analysis is troubling... But I agree, let's not mess with things we don't understand and which don't seem to mean any harm, we have much more pressing matters to attend to" the CE said with a defeated expression.


But Keith, Bob and the CE would quickly learn that fate had other plans in store for them...
Before another word could be uttered, the ship suddenly lurched violently and pulled an absurd series of rolls and spins as it began to accelerate to hyper-relativistic speeds.
A brief flash lit up the space near them and a *dangerously high energy warning appeared in everyone's minds eye.
"What the fu-" Keith tried to stammer out before having his ears assaulted by a klaxon again.
RED ALERT. ENEMY ATTACK. TRAITOR DOMINION.
A sitrep was broadcast, detailing the attempted long range torpedo attack. The energy signature perfectly conformed to that of a Dominion warhead, in addition, a distinctly Dominion energy and mass signature was being detected, approximately three kilo parsecs below the galactic plane.


"What in the Void?! More Dominion here? And why are they folding bombs at us?" Keith blurted out.
"More pressingly, why are they now holding their fire? Throwing away the element of surprise like that is strange."
Enemy preparing
"Shit, keep us moving at max speed, if they start firing again we'll assume it's not some horrible mistake and you can go full offensive on them, got it?"
Analysis: Frigate Class
"So not just a traitor ship but the same type as us too?! Great, I love even odds!"


Hailing us
"Patch them through!" shouted Bob.
A brief burst of interference sounded as a photo-realistic hologram of an unnatural lanky figure, clad head to toe in elegant looking robes came to life in front of the Captain.
A deep and unnerving voice proceeded to fill the room. "Ahhhhhh, Captain Keith... you survived." His tone taking on a malicious edge. "How unfortunate. I apologise for that, our ship has a few unfortunate defects."
"WHO the fuck are you and why are you in that ship?!" Keith shouted in surprise.
"Why am I in my ship? What a pointless question. But humour you I shall. I am Pontiff Brobarious, I am now your commanding officer. Submit or die an insubordinate traitor." he coldly stated.
No
"Thanks for that AI, you said exactly what I was thinking!" Keith took a breath before continuing. "Look here pal, I don't know who the fuck you think you are but as far as I and the rest of this ship are aware, you are the traitor and an ugly inhuman bastard of one at that."
"I've never heard of a Pontiff before, so I suggest you turn yourself in peacefully and explain HOW you came to possess that ship or things will get very messy."
"Both of us fighting here would be counter-productive and attract lots of unwanted attention, I strongly advise against this Pontiff." the CE curtly stated.
"And there's still the matter of the humans that deserve saving. The absolute idiocy of blowing our cover just to kill each other is astounding to me, the Dominion is better than this!"
"Pontiff if I may. We have an unidentified "thing" tailing us at knife fight range, please consider NOT firing upon it as this may result in some regrettable consequences for all of us.

"I disagree, goodbye Captain" A click sounded as the hologram disappeared.
"Wow what a piece of work"
The CE sighed and Bob wore a worried expression.
ENEMY FIRING, RETURNING


Space was suddenly less empty. As the age old adage: "As long as there’s two people left on the planet, someone’s gonna want someone dead" came true once again.
Both vessels broke into a deadly dance, making sure to never close distance with each other as they gracefully evaded countless planet shattering and melting blasts. The intergalactic void was aglow with the stray detonations of countless munitions, promising only absolute death for anyone caught in them.
Keith's AI would find itself slowly being overwhelmed, its stunted processing capability holding back the accuracy of its predictive models, it knew that acting purely reactive was certain death. What it didn't understand was how the presumably equally damaged AI on the other vessel was able to outmatch it so substantially.
The AI decided on a risky course of action, it activated the folding drive, shunting the vessel into an empty supergiant star system, near the galactic core. The ship quickly circled around the star, managing to bait the huge encroaching swarm of missiles into destroying themselves, buying a millisecond of reprieve at best.
And right on cue, another batch of torpedoes folded right next to the vessel, the AI practically flinging the vessel backwards as the implosion warheads detonated, consuming the star system in an even brighter glow than the star.
However, the gamble had paid off slightly. The gap in missile coverage allowed the AI's own batch of broken missiles to get past the Pontiff's defences, detonating in reasonable proximity of his ship. Sadly the hits weren't direct enough and the damage was minimal.
Or so the AI thought, instead its move had been anticipated and its follow up salvo of shells bounced pathetically off the force shield, it seems the enemy was able to perfectly dodge every single one of the colossal explosions without even a scratch on their shields.
The AI was genuinely surprised, it didn't expect the enemy to be skilled enough to maneuver past all of the perfectly spaced explosions without taking any damage, it certainly didn't trust itself to be capable of such a precise feat in its current state.
The ship folded again, this time near the galactic core itself and as anticipated the Pontiff had begun firing upon them before they even arrived.
The AI frantically bobbed and weaved through the densely packed web of star systems, hoping to buy itself time. Stars and planets were torn asunder as a never-ending hail of tachyons and shells tore a flaming corridor through the galactic core, quickly catching up to the ship. Numerous projectiles washed off the force shield.
The enemy was just slightly *too* good at aiming.
The AI now had probable cause to believe the Pontiff had precognition and was feeding his AI future events to skew the battle in his favour. As the AI thought up a strategy it suffered a hit from a tachyon bolt for its troubles, shaking the ship up but thankfully not dropping the Hermes field.
"What's going on AI?" Keith mentally conversed
Enemy precognition bad
"Fuck that IS very bad, we should be evenly matched as it is, anything that could tip the balance, even slightly means we are screwed"
"As far as I know, precognition isn't universally accurate, sometimes it can be wrong. How about we deliberately throw them, pull a stupid move that would get us killed to make him second guess his premonition and then pull an even more stupid kamikaze move while he's acting defensive."
Noted

The AI pondered this, the plan was risky but failure was a statistical certainty with the advantage the Pontiff had. There was merit in the CE's suggestion, if the Pontiff AND his AI were convinced of the inaccuracy of the premonition, they could then use the brief confusion to fold next to them and unleash a barrage at knife fight range.
Normally kamikaze tactics would be suicide as approaching a ship that is on the offensive is incredibly difficult. However, with the over-reliance on the Pontiff's ability the likelihood of them ceasing their fire and folding randomly to avoid an unexpected barrage was acceptable.
The brief window where their drive is recharging and missiles are reloading is then the time to strike.
Of course, this relied on the Pontiff's AI not calling their bluff, but that was a calculated risk.


Brobarious watched the battle intensely, using his immense psychic might to speed up his cognition enough to perceive the battle as a lesser AI would.
He chuckled darkly to himself as he foresaw the enemy making a suicidal move, choosing to fold CLOSER to one of his missile swarms and right in sequence with the reload of his torpedo bays, more than a hundred torpedoes ready.
And then he realised that an AI would never make such a foolish move willingly and chalked it up to the irritating unreliability of precognition. His AI agreed with him and decided to take a break from firing and fold away immediately, anticipating an unexpected attack.
The look on his face as he then saw the premonition continue with a follow up kamikaze attack would have naught a millisecond to linger on his face before everything within a light second was swallowed up and removed at the conceptual level, the source of his own powers consuming him completely and utterly.


Keith's frigate just barely escaped the point blank torpedo attack, losing part of its superstructure in the process.
Enemy Eliminated
The Command Unit was in uproar.
"Wow, that was fucking crazy!" cheered Bob, half out of fear.
"Never should have come here."
"If we weren't in the middle of a serious situation I would suggest grabbing some drinks!" Keith boasted.
"I also get the sneaking suspicion we haven't seen the last of that bastard. Bob muttered as Keith and the CE shot him concerned glances.
"Good work AI, now let's get the void out of the dodge we just voided before someone comes to investigate aaaand then links it to all the huge explosions that just occurred in random core star systems..."
The ship folded again, reappearing at the galactic rim.
knoh...?
"Did anyone hear that honking noise??!"
"Take your meds." sighed Keith.
"Not funny." the CE flatly stated.

[The Auraverse]

|✧|Intergalactic Space|✧|
|Approximate Galactic South of Octavia|

---

The Eidolon sat, unmoving, even as the exchange of fire took place. Hypergiant-core temperatures buffeted its exterior, and yet the stark-white plating held firm. Here and there, hexagonal patches of blue light sprang up around its body-surface, siphoning off excess energy into the twisted depths of MAGNUS - after all, energy was potential matter, and matter was potential processing architecture. Waste not, want not. Certainly, the fireworks were noteworthy - some seemed to be analogous to Resonators in function, which in and of itself spoke of a not-insignificant technological basis behind whatever polity had originally conceived them. A shame, then, that the Eidolon wasn't really composed of anything one could term conventional matter. And thus, fireworks they remained.

It mirrored the combatants' jump near-perfectly - remaining in close proximity even as they made the transition to the galaxy's core systems, it remained well within the blast radius of many a munition. More data, more energy. More interest. Somewhere, a wholly nonexistent summary-counter that might have been labeled "curiosity" ticked incrementally higher.

A brief examination of the second vessel, before it seemed to vanish in yet another firestorm, suggested some form of noospheric guidance - relatively primitive, and likely organic in nature, but nevertheless notable. And it was this signature that cemented the Eidolon's discovery - that it had not, in fact, been blown to smithereens. A potential point of interest for later - regardless, hostilities had ended, and the primary tracking target had hopped on over to the galactic rim. With another flash of winding blue, the nominally-motionless watcher followed suit. It seemed as though it would prove somewhat more strenuous to shake off than the Pontiff.

[Gladian Imperium]

Ridley's Rest

The Antimatter and microscopic bolts did little against the shields of the charging Warminds, and as the Slabs warped back over to the Octavian Fleet, the two damaged vessels seemingly vanished, jumping into the repair bays of One Jump Away in order to have their rear armor segments repaired. Meanwhile, the other four Warminds continued firing at the Octavian and Decepticon Fleets when they received a Subspace Communique from OJA. It was a plan, and one that could work. Spontaneously, massive flashes of light erupted across the Octavian Fleet as VES Warheads were detonated-while potentially not close enough to directly damage hostile vessels, the energy from the explosion would potentially be enough to down shields or fry unshielded vessels, hopefully forcing some to retreat for repairs. Any ships that would begin retreating, would be the recipient of a small, potentially unnoticeable FTL signature, almost as if something warped onboard the retreating vessels.

[TheMandate]

Sol 233
Between Earth and Mars
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Linse Fleet
Dreadnought 'HMS Indefatigable'
Flag Bridge

The Dreadnought bucked to the side yet again to avoid the fire from the Octavian Artillery ships as the holoplot showed the Octavian fleet gathering together in a defensive circle. Admiral Linse studied the displays for a moment barely acknowledging the icons representing shield impacts instead focused more on the Octavian formation getting tighter and tighter together. His eyes flicked briefly to the ships over Earth still disgorging yet more marines onto the surface, they would be out of the main engagement for some time but such was the plan. Linse flicked a document from his podium terminal onto the screens of the officers below him, the document taking priority for the terminals it was sent to.

"All ships are to focus fire on those artillery cruisers and immediately shift to phase 2" called Linse watching as the icons on the display responded immediately to the anticipated command. As one the ships engaging the Octavian fleet broke for Earth keeping their prows facing the Octavian force saturating the space between both forces with torpedoes, missiles, plasma and 0.6c railgun fire even seeming to come in at an increased rate.


Earth 233
Japan
Morioh

The Marine shuttles swept low over the Octavian forces firing their plasma and railgun turrets in controlled bursts into the Octavian troops taking care to avoid hitting the local population and to minimize collateral damage though Octavian cover was still being removed. The shuttles used their shields to cover the infantry as they dismounted mortar shells detonating harmlessly on shields intended to survive worse, the shuttles repaying each shell with a smart missile tasked with finding the mortar even if it was relocated. Half of the shuttles would race back into orbit for more troops after dropping their troops off, the majority of these troops were wearing standard Mandate combat armours and wielding a mix of plasma and rail rifles. The rest of the troops came off in heavy powered armour wielding what would be a heavy AT plasma canon for a normal marine, heavy assault shield modules projecting broad one-way shields keeping the lighter troops safe from Octavian fire but allowing them to keep firing. The marines advanced carefully following their heavily armed and armoured colleagues firing at any Octavian troops they could identify and supressing those in cover.

Captain Sirwan jumped from the front ramp of his hovering shuttle as the last of the 32 marines that had ridden the shuttle down to the planet. 32 marines In heavy powered armour wielding weapons far too heavy for a normal marine assembled at the front of the Higashikata manor, their shuttle hovering protectively behind them keeping any closing Octavians back with its heavy weapons and its sensors highlighting the mechanetor inside the property for the assembled marines. Sirwan was far from pleased by the sight and tongued the helmet control to activate his suits speakers on high volume. “Octavian clanker” bellowed Sirwan, his enhanced voice booming across the manors grounds “your terrorising of this city is over. The Mandate of Humanity will not allow you to kill these people in the name of ‘uploading’ them”. The way Sirwan spoke made it clear what he thought of Octavian uploading “whatever false promises you’ve given to these people we know you’ll break as soon as you’re done with them. People of Morioh, on the honour of the Mandate of Humanity I swear to you that once these cowardly and malfunctioning machines are driven from this city we will match or double whatever these machines promised you. Help your fellow man drive them from the city unless of course you want them to kill you and put a copy of your memories into one of their bodies. Now then machine, stop using those people as cover and face your fate like the sentient being you claim to be”. With his speech finished Sirwan tongued the switch to cut the speakers and signalled his men to disperse and keep their aim on the Mechanetor in the manor.


Sol 232
Approaching Earth
Grand Fleet Expeditionary Force Osmani Contingent
Dragomech sub-division
Envoy vessel 'Enduring Light'

The ship landed with a great deal of grace leaving its escorts high above under the watchful eyes of the local navy. Inside five men stood in the lower airlock waiting for the doors to open, in the centre of the group stood Taskiran in a fine purple suit with his clearly artificial eyes little more than black pools with data streaming past at an impossible rate. Around him, still as statues, stood four heavily armoured janissaries each one silently running checks on their systems and communicating with their peers in the Osmani battle language and ensuring that the sensors on their shoulders elegantly curving towards their heads were properly accounting for every particle in the compartment around them. Each of the heavily armoured men bore very obvious signs of cybernetic augmentation from their visibly artificial legs to the fact that both arms bore clearly artificial elbow joints, not to mention that the right arm of each Janissary was a plasma cannon. Of course, this also doesn't account for their internal augmentations allowing them to survive in any environment, identify any threat and survive far more than a normal human. All things that to most Mandate citizens would leave questions over just how little of them was still human but to the Osmani they are symbols of duty, sacrifice and survival.

"Sergeant" said Taskiran feeling the ship touch down "you will ride in the vehicle with me, faceplate off". A nod from the man ahead to his right was the only response given, their place was after all not to question but to obey. The door opened, a ramp extending down and as one the four Janissaries registered the Dragomechs movements and marched in perfect time not one nanosecond off time. Reaching the bottom of the ramp Taskiran bowed to the man his implants told him was the Prime Minister of the Yamato Empire as the Sergeant removed his blank facemask revealing the pitiless face beneath, artificial eyes scanning constantly for threats. "Prime Minister Fujikawa, it is a most distinct honour to make your acquaintance on this most auspicious day" said Taskiran rising from the bow "I am Dragomech-Ambassador Erbey Taskiran, representative of the twin suns of the Mandate. The Divine Imperator Anastasia Romanov and the eternally radiant Sultana Saadet. Given that you mentioned an attack perhaps we had best get on the move. The Sergeant here would be best in the vehicle with me if that is acceptable, the others will be fine running alongside at whatever pace you set for them".